[van-discuss] free the Cuban 5 (housing 2)

Mon Jun 2 03:41:21 PDT 2003

Friends,

Sorry I didn't report on the Cuba links provided by a contributor.

>> Here's one that shouldn't sully your mouse's cursor:
>> http://www.blacklightonline.com/cubanow.html

The above author, Walter Lippmann, is a personal friend of mine and a 
fine objective (and critical) friend of Cuba. I am certain he would 
not disagree with my (and Margorie's) evaluations of the housing 
situation in Cuba. And I am equally certain the Cubans would not 
either.

>> An interesting site on Cuban neologisms of the periodo especial:
>> http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagbv002.html

The above author, Beatriz Varela, is a darling of the ultra-right 
wing Cuba American terrorist gang in Florida advanced and bankrolled 
by the CIA and the White House. Her spin on the term "palestino" is 
simply garbage. In Cuba the term is rarely used and when so in the 
sense of a person seeking a home in the context of a generalized 
housing shortage resulting from the U.S. blockade. In the Cuban 
context it is a comment against the empire not the Cuban system or 
government. It reflects a sense of political acumen, irony and humor, 
not a "protest" or "solidarity" statement, but a comment on fact -- 
like we face here without the possibility of adequate employment. She 
gets big kudos and paid well by the empire to pen such ditties and 
nonsense. Cubans stand in complete sympathy with the Palestinians. 
They understand Palestinians are to be exterminated by the 
ethnic-cleansing bullets of Zionist policy. Cubans also understand 
they themselves suffer under the blockade of the empire and its only 
friend in voting against lifting the blockade in the U.N. (Israel) -- 
not their elected government which resolutely fights both wrongs  -- 
by mandate of 98% of voting Cubans 16 years and older.

Manuel David Orrio, Cooperativa de Periodistas Independientes 
(http://198.62.75.1/www2/fcf/tobeho.html ) his gang is on the payroll 
of the CIA. Radicals have nothing in common with his ilk. Enough said 
I hope.

http://64.21.33.164/CNews/y00/nov00/03e1.htm is CubaNet and gets tens 
of thousands of dollars per year from the White House to dispense a 
line that promotes a "regime change" in Cuba. We all now know what 
that means I hope.

There's a whole lot of ways to look at the situation in Cuba. My 
perspective is not shaped by false, fabricated and U.S. government 
paid-for reports by people living well in the U.S. with Cuban 
surnames and origins. My perspective is shaped by my family and many 
friends on the island who are not without healthy criticism support 
its stupendous accomplishments.

The campaign against Cuba is led and paid for by the same U.S. 
interests that are making genocide on the Third and underdeveloped 
world (for lack of betters terms, majority non-white nations might be 
more appropriate).

Cuba is not the enemy. Cuba has stood consistently for 44 years with 
the most oppressed hardest working people everywhere. Cuba has 
demonstrated without exception its untiring allegiance to all who are 
like us and aspire to equality, with all the sufferers, hungry, 
homeless and wretched -- those who regenerate capital at the expense 
of their own fulfillment.

Please be careful not to get sucked into the orbit of the propaganda 
machine controlled by the Washington controlled media. It will divide 
then kill us all. In these times it is important to heed the call of 
the Cubans in their campaign for the "battle of ideas" advancing a 
"better world is possible" through a collective commonwealth, and the 
island's call for a united "anti-fascist bloc" against the 
imperialist designs of Washington and London.

Yours in friendship and solidarity,

Marcel Hatch
Cuba Education Collective

At 18:36 -0700 6/1/03, Marjorie Brown wrote:
>Sheesh Geordie, watch your communication style.  If we want to get all
>holier than thou about revolutionary credentials and revolutionary lives
>let's talk about the way men flame debates on lists and why women
>therefore rarely take part in them.
>
>If you have something to say about my post, go nuts - but can the cheap
>shots.  Do you think you will convince me of anything that way? And do you
>think the left will convince anyone else if that's how we communicate?
>
>Regarding your post, no, I do not think there is no homelessness in Cuba -
>and I certainly don't suggest that I do.  But I do have an issue with
>using the Miami Cuban exile community's propaganda.  Yes, I did read all 3
>articles.  The first 2 are exile propaganda and the 3rd is, as you so
>aptly describe, the observations of a tourist.
>
>My reference to "methodology" has nothing to do with your post - but with
>a post that came after holding up your links as some sort of scientific
>proof of homelessness in Cuba.  Yes, you have provided some anecdotal
>sources of homelessness (kind of like the Fraser Institute's research on
>how unions interfere with the economy in BC), and for what that's worth,
>fine.
>
>I think you are probably quite accurate in describing it as a problem
>(which it always is) that may be less than the problem in industrial
>countries, but a problem nonetheless.  Let's just lay-off the Batista
>emigre community mouthpieces when we look for comment on it though, ok?
>
>Marjorie
>
>
>
>
>> (My apologies for any inconvenience caused by two replies to the same
>> post.)
>>
>> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 01:12:42PM -0700, Marjorie Brown wrote:
>>> Yes, and a few more clicks will demonstrate that the first story is from
>>> the "Free Cuba Foundation" espousing "Free Markets, Permanent Values,
>>> Limited Government".
>>
>> Telling, isn't it, that the left is largely silent on this issue.  And
>> what's your point about the "first link"?  This proves something other
>> than your cleverness?  Did you actually read the articles?
>>
>> Here's one that shouldn't sully your mouse's cursor:
>> http://www.blacklightonline.com/cubanow.html
>>
>> An interesting site on Cuban neologisms of the periodo especial:
>> http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagbv002.html
>> The relevant portion excerpted:
>> "In the province of Havana, people address a person from another province
>> as palestino (palestine). This new gentile form was explained to me as
>> the crowded way people from other areas have to live when they first
>> come to Havana."
>>
>> (Hmm.  I smell smoke.)
>>
>>> I'm sure they have a completely objective, scientifically based
>>> methodology for their comments on homelessness.
>>
>> It's called using your eyes and common sense.  None of the articles
>> bothered with your precious scientific methodology - they were all
>> anecdotal.  You would know this if you had read the articles before
>> commenting on them.  (Another research method that is not scientific:
>> parroting government press releases.  Or is sauce for the goose no
>> longer sauce for the gander?)
>>
>> (I'm reminded here of the late-era USSR intelligentsia phrase "right
>> wing", referring of course to the Soviet government and its apologists.
>> I feel that in this context and with that meaning, this phrase applies
>> to anyone who says Cuba has no native homeless population.)
>>
>> A tourist making such claims about homelessness is demonstrating
>> naivete if not foolishness.  Any government making such claims is
>> being dishonest.  Shame on the Cuban government.  Why do they fear
>> widespread awareness of their beautiful country's social problems?
>>
>> My bullshit detector goes off real fucking loud when I hear superlatives.
>> As one who has often found himself to be homeless I get angry when I hear
>> supposed fellow travellers denying the existence of the homeless.
>> (Reminds me of trying to get a welfare cheque from the god damned NDP.  At
>> least the god damned Liberals are up front with their war on the poor.)
>>
>> I believe that Cuba's homeless problem is probably much less severe
>> than that found in much of the rest of the world.  However as they say
>> over at the IWW (and the ILWU for that matter) "An injury to one is an
>> injury to all."  The Cuban government's preposterous claims add insult
>> to that injury.
>>
>> We're talking about peoples lives here.  Have you no respect?
>>
>> In solidarity with the "Palestinos" and other homeless Cubans,
>>
>> Geordie.
>>
>>
>>> > On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 08:57:52PM -0700, waldern at sfu.ca wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Housing
>>> >> is affordable; there is no homelessness and most people own
>>> >> a home. When they do rent housing they pay 10% of their
>>> >> income.
>>> >
>>> > Two weeks in Cuba and you state definitively that there is no
>>> > homelessness there?  What was the methodology of your research?
>>> >
>>> > A cursory search of the web indicates there is plenty of
>>> > homelessness in Cuba.
>>> >
>>> > Unfortunately the Left is in denial of this.
>>> >
>>> > A few links:
>>> >
>>> >  "To be Homeless in Havana" Manuel David Orrio, Cooperativa
>>> >  de Periodistas Independientes
>>> >  http://198.62.75.1/www2/fcf/tobeho.html
>>> >
>>> >  "Why doesn't the government help the homeless?"
>>> >  http://64.21.33.164/CNews/y00/nov00/03e1.htm
>>> >
>>> >  "CUBA Now" by Walter Lippmann
>>> >  http://www.blacklightonline.com/cubanow.html
>>> >
>>> > The word "palestino" is a good search term for finding
>>> > info re. Cuban homelessness.
>>> >
>>> > Geordie.
>>
>
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