The Marketing of Yoani Sánchez: Translation as invention

Machetera and Manuel Talens - español

“There are no accidents.” – Sigmund Freud

As one might have expected, Bloomberg and Reuters dutifully shaded their reports on the recent visit to Cuba of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff with mentions of the Yoani Sánchez Twitter campaign to pressure Rousseff to intercede on Sánchez’s behalf and persuade the Cuban government to grant her an exit visa to attend a propaganda event in Brazil.

That’s not so surprising.  Sánchez is an egomaniac, for sure, insisting that anyone should care in the first place, when her compatriots Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez O’Connor have been denied entry visas by the United States for more than a decade to visit their husbands (Rene González Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, two of the Cuban Five) unjustly imprisoned in the U.S.  - but if all she has to do is tweet and the press come running, judging the tweet as equal in value to Rousseff’s criticisms of the U.S. gulag at Guantánamo, well, that’s not really her fault – it’s just part of a marketing plan that counts on press complicity.

Ted Henken rolls snake eyes

Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Long story short.  Ted Henken, the quite white chair of the Black and Hispanic Studies department at Baruch College who calls himself “El Yuma” and writes a blog under the same title, recently returned from a trip to Cuba where he had gone to interview bloggers of all persuasions, but most especially his close personal friend, “La Yoa,” (Yoani Sánchez) whose cherished interview he saved for last.

Hillary Clinton & Harley Lappin: two people who can stop the torture of Gerardo Hernández now

This picture matches the description of the "hole" where Gerardo Hernández is being held

For Over A Week Gerardo Hernández Nordelo Has Been Held In The Hole At Victorville Prison Without Committing Any Infraction

Waiting for Posada Carriles to die

Telesur (Caracas) – José Pertierra: “The United States would prefer to see Posada Carriles dead rather than extradite him.” – español

Translation: Machetera

José Pertierra, the lawyer representing Venezuela in the case of the extradition petition for the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, says that the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a biological solution for the case.  The solution is to prolong the trial, because “the more time that passes, the more probable it is that he’ll die and do away with the extradition case.”

“That’s why, at every opportunity, the prosecution asks for a delay, because the solution they’re seeking is a biological solution; they’d rather see him dead than extradited.  It’s not that they want to kill him, but they know that he’s an elderly man and the more time that passes, the more probable it is that he’ll die and do away with the extradition case,” he said in an interview granted to teleSUR.

A letter from Adriana to Gerardo

From Letters of Love and Hope

A letter from Gerardo to Adriana

From Letters of Love and Hope

The Bird and the Prisoner, read by Danny Glover

President Obama can you hear the Cuban Five a little better now?

The “Cuban Five” on America’s Rooftop

By Atilio Boron

Translation: Machetera

On January 10^th, three young Argentinean climbers from Neuquén province reached the summit of Aconcagua, the highest mountain on the American continent, with an elevation of 22,831 feet above sea level.  This extraordinary feat, accomplished by Santiago Vega, a radio and television journalist, Aldo Bonavitta, a bank clerk, and Alcides Bonavitta, a social activist, had a political objective as clear as it was noble: expressing the solidarity of the Argentinean people with the cause of the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters, held by the empire in its prisons for eleven years, under conditions that are not even applied to the worst serial criminals in that country.  Moreover, they were condemned in an absolutely flawed trial that makes their incarceration an affront to due process and the rule of law.  The Cuban intelligence agents Ramon Labanino, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were unjustly and illegally imprisoned for investigating terrorist activities in Miami’s Cuban community and their case constitutes an emphatic denial of the so-called war on terrorism that Washington claims to be waging.