Sean Penn: “our new white expert on ‘all things Haitian’”

Medals like this carry hidden weight. Don't wear swimming!!!

When the July issue of Vanity Fair floated across my desk containing a loving portrait of Sean Penn written by his close personal friend and travel companion, Douglas Brinkley, the accompanying pictures (Penn shoulder to shoulder with U.S. Army Lt. General Ken Keen, Assistant Alison Thompson eschewing World War I nurse’s costume for flower child attire adorned with adorable young Haitians, young white NGO’ers earnestly peering at their shiny Mac Powerbooks) made me wonder.  Are they already filming the movie of themselves?  I mean, as Brinkley points out, the set has been dressed, right?

“…a white, 60-by-20-foot wedding tent from the Dominican Republic…a crude roof over a patchwork of wooden floorboards, which he helped cobble together by hand…two rusty blade fans whirring to keep things cool…a single bulb – its lampshade fashioned from Chef Boyardee boxes – illuminating a long wooden table of bird-dropping white.  A forlorn bookshelf held a collection of dog-eared U.N.-regulation guides, accordian files, and browning bananas.  Down the length of one wall ran a corkboard lined with maps from the U.S. geological Survey: an army cartographer had handsomely re-christened one, changing the name from Pétionville to Pennville.  A calico cat named Guadalupe wandered among a collection of stethoscopes, tool kits, syringes, morphine, a photocopy machine – and a stash of Greek wine and Jack Daniel’s – giving the quarters the patina of M*A*S*H, with a touch of Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

Ezili Dantò, of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), has done a masterful job of deconstructing the motivations and the actors behind Penn’s Bosnian/U.S.American NGO, JP/HRO. Dantò is fair, above all, giving Penn credit where credit is due, and calling out the rest of the nonsense by its proper name.  See Sean Penn and Wyclef Jean: Hollywood, Hip Hop and Haiti, excerpt below:

We’ve gone into cartoon land. The sideshow eclipses the living, breathing, suffering Haiti people enduring over 6-nightmarish years of US/US occupation and slaughters and NGO pillage never covered by the mainstream media. The election carnival is just beginning and has reduced, for the moment, the worst disaster in recorded human history to what actor Sean Penn has to say about hip hop rapper Wyclef Jean’s run to sit at the crumbled National Palace in Haiti! Elections under occupation? Neither are saying – krik, not a word, about that!

The CIA beckons and the media answer the call

Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] role in combating the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission.

- CIA Red Cell Special Memorandum, March 11, 2010

Ernesto Hernández Busto, rest in peace

For awhile there I lost track of Ernesto Hernández Busto, but it seems that I’m not the only one.  After his appearance in Texas at the George W. Bush Institute, where apparently W mentioned his invited guests one by one but passed EHB over (worried perhaps about team loyalty?), the bleating from Barcelona suddenly ceased.  Now we know why.  EHB closed his blog, “until further notice.”  Who is Machetera going to kick around now?

Zoé Valdés, the ex-Cuban-wannabe-Parisian with the penchant for posting quarter century old photos of herself (age is kinder to some than others) isn’t half as tempting a target.  Also, the fact that she’s turned her blog into some kind of aggregator where she posts nonsense about 90 times a day means that it’s work to read it now, instead of Machetera’s guilty pleasure.  Honestly, where do these people find the time?  Oh, I forget, they’re paid.

Well, here’s a good piece on EHB’s disappearance anyway:

Ernesto Hernández Bushto and the General Strike – español

Ernesto Pérez Castillo

Translation: Machetera

Ernesto Hernández Bushto is a rascal, but a willing one.  For mysterious and unexplained reasons he closed his blog –www.penultimosdias.com – some days ago and in the meantime has gone about teasing El País, promising them lemonade while delivering water, in the form of a new article (The Limits of Cyber-Dissidence) which is nothing more than a self-referential link to his own speech some months back in the auditorium of the Bush Institute.

EHB is on the far left and that is not a wax figure in the middle

The devil wore white: Luis Posada Carriles and Ladies in White go out on a limb in Miami with Gloria Estefan

Posada Carriles at yesterday's march in Miami (March 25, 2010) Photo: Reuters

Posada Carriles and the Ladies in White, “Friends Forever” - español

By José Pertierra

Translation: Machetera

Only in Miami. Despite the seventy-three outstanding first-degree murder charges against him related to the mid-air explosion of a Cubana Airlines passenger jet, Luis Posada Carriles has not been extradited to Venezuela nor has he been indicted in the United States for these crimes.  He wanders unleashed and un-vaccinated along Calle Ocho in Miami, marching alongside Gloria Estefan in support of the so-called Ladies in White.

His support of the “ladies” ought not to surprise us.  There is an important link between Posada and these “ladies.”  The link is called Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriña.  It’s a well established fact, admitted even by the “ladies” themselves that their organization receives $1,500 a month from Rescate Jurídico [Legal Rescue] in Miami.  Posada and the “ladies” share the same godfather.

The president of Rescate Jurídico is no more and no less than Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriña.  An extremely close friend and Luis Posada Carriles’ financial sponsor, Alvarez was the person who brought Posada to the United States on his boat, the Santrina, according to documents from the U.S. District Attorney’s office.  A few weeks later, he organized the famous and shameful press conference for Posada Carriles who had up until that point been “hidden” in Miami.  Alvarez is also the same person who got one of his people to place two bombs in the Tropicana nightclub in Havana.  This conversation was recorded and exposed on Cuban television.

It’s evident that the terrorist history of this sinister person did not stop the “ladies” from involving themselves in this game and receiving money salted with Cuban blood.  In the United States, receiving money from a terrorist organization is a felony that carries a harsh punishment.  I suppose the same is true in Cuba.  Nevertheless, until now, the only sanction that these “ladies” have received is repudiation from Cubans in the street.  The Cuban government has shown itself to be extremely tolerant, even providing police protection.

Here’s a suggestion for Posada Carriles.  If he really wants to march in support of Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriña’s “ladies,” he ought to go to Havana to do it.  As Calle 13 would say, “I dare you!”

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the international network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the author and translator are cited.

Posada Carriles at yesterday's march in Miami (March 25, 2010) Photo: Reuters

Posada Carriles at yesterday's march in Miami (March 25, 2010) Photo: Reuters

Empire’s blogger

The Empire’s Blogger

By Stella Calloni for CubaDebate – Español: La “bloguera” del imperio

Translated and edited by Machetera

During the most recent years and now too, like a cursed inheritance, the White House image has begun to deteriorate further – if such a thing were possible – around the world; as it resorts to the use of crude and unsustainable people in brutal coups d’etat such as that of the putschist Roberto Micheletti in Honduras, and employing other people in the same way, for deadly or silly operettas directed toward the same end, masked as “humanitarian” actions.

Although on the one hand, it played at fake “negotiations” in order to gain time in Honduras, a country occupied by the U.S. military through its bases and troops, when it comes to actions against Cuba or Venezuela and other countries, the U.S. has used such discredited people that its strategy ends up boomeranging.

Washington’s over-acting is evident when it comes to Cuba, through the support that President Barack Obama gave to Yoani Sánchez, a woman whose name was until now absolutely unknown, and who acts just like those who seek quick money and recognition by helping the CIA in its work to destroy the Cuban revolution no matter what.

Defending the Cuban Revolution

Dialogue, Debate, Confrontation.  Toward a Delimitation of Boundaries – Español

By Enrique Ubieta Gómez for La Isla Deconocida

Translation: Machetera

I believe in ideas, in revolutionary reason.  I support the Cuban Revolution from a reasoned perspective, from an argumentative perspective.  I am convinced that it is possible to discuss and analyze every success and every failure of these 50 years, and that on balance, the revolutionary process will always come out favorably. I don’t shirk from debate.

But I’ve also understood that the war against socialism, against the Revolution, is not a “scientific” or “academic” crusade for truth; that its adversaries are not theoreticians obsessed with proving that they are right (although some of them teach or are academic professionals), rather, they are individuals who for a variety of motives – personal history, ideological, or simply economic – desire its destruction.  I’ve proven that there is a network of transnational interests that play hard: they lie or mislead and they are betting that their (verisimilitude) version will come out the winner in the media “show;” that which takes over the mind of the spectators.  A network that chooses the exact words that should be used and repeats them in order to describe every subject and object, every event (regime rather than government, embargo rather than blockade, Castro rather than Fidel or Raúl, as the people refer to them).  That people manufacture them, plant them, and that the media can close the doors and windows on any argument that reveals the trap.  That dialogue is for the deaf, because the objective is not who’s right, but who will maintain or take power.

The Cyber-Tragicomedy of Yoani Sánchez

Generation Y: The Cyber-Tragicomedy of Yoani Sánchez – Español

By Ana R. for CubAlMater

Translation: Machetera

Today my distinguished Communications College, located at G Street, between 21st and 23rd St., was witness to a singular event: the attempt by Reinaldo Escobar, Yoani Sánchez’s husband, to put on a show, and the response given him by the people who found him on that corner in the city center.

When I came out of classes, I saw a multitude of people.  Cameras, photographers, live entertainment by the University Students’ Federation, ordinary Cubans, revolutionary slogans, Reinaldo fleeing along G Street, helped by two young men: I saw it all.  What a shame I didn’t have a camera to take photos!  For this reason, I’m linking to the following pages in which some of the images have been published:

Reinaldo Escobar’s insatiable hunger for attention

When Reinaldo Escobar made the announcement that he’d challenge Cuban state security to a weaponless duel to avenge the indignities he and his wife claimed (without the slightest proof) had been visited upon her, the announcement was dutifully broadcast by the foreign media in Havana.  It seemed to me to be a rather pitiful display and I imagined Reinaldo waiting alone at a street corner, attended by no-one else but the foreign reporters he had summoned.  But there were two things I failed to take into account: 1) Reinaldo’s not that smart, and 2) had I been in Havana I would have known that there was something off about his selection of time and location, since apparently the airwaves were full of announcements about the book fair being sponsored by the Young Communists Union for that same time, same location.  Of course this was not mentioned in a single one of the reports announcing the “duel.”

Sharp wits in Spanish Congress set for debate on mercenary blogger, Yoani Sánchez

Tejero Molina addresses the Spanish Congress, 1981

The U.S. Government and the World’s Great Media Empires Are Using “Mercenary Bloggers” in Their Offensive Against Cuba – Español

By J.P. for La República

Translation: Machetera

The world’s great media empires have undertaken a merciless offensive against the Cuban revolution, offering spectacular coverage to any kind of mercenary blogger movement such as that of Yoani Sánchez or her husband, who receive a spectacular amount of money for the articles they write against the Cuban government and against a supposed censorship that appears rather insignificant in the light of the wide coverage they obtain worldwide.

Last week it was Yoani who issued a denunciation for having been attacked by Cuban agents, but not only was she unable to show any kind of proof of the attack, the doctors who attended her, who were interviewed by La República, did not find any evidence of any kind of aggression.  Later, it would be her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, who would denounce being hit and attacked by a crowd who reacted to his attempted provocation, with shouts in favor of the Cuban revolution.  However, Escobar did not suffer even a scratch from this supposedly “uncontrolled mob.”

Marketing war heats up among Cuba’s “dissidents”

Operation Marketing

Esteban N. Martínez for CubaDebate – (Español): Operación Marketing

Translation: Machetera

The interview President Barack Obama granted the “blogger” Yoani Sánchez is the culmination of a project I feel like calling Operation Marketing; aimed as it is at the promotion and visibility of a new counter-revolutionary figure in Cuba, in the face of the worn out and battered “dissidence,” fighting like a pack of wolves with fangs bared in search of their prey…money.

The promotion of Yoani Sánchez began some time ago, when Grupo PRISA granted her the Ortega y Gasset prize and another publication put her on their list of the “World’s  (100) Most Influential People,” although in her country she was completely unknown.