The hateful tyranny imposed on world
Fidel Castro
Our times are characterized by an unprecedented event: the threat to
the survival of the human species imposed on the world by imperialism.
The painful reality should not come as a surprise to anyone. It could be
seen rapidly advancing in the past few decades, at such a pace as it is
hard to imagine.
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Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico shows how little the governments
can do against those in control of capital. AFP |
Does it mean that Obama is the promoter of this threat or that he is
responsible for it? No, it simply shows that he ignores reality and that
he neither wants to go beyond it nor could he. He’d rather dream of
unreal things in an unreal world. As a brilliant poet puts it: Ideas
with no words; words with no meaning.
Even though American author Gay Talese, who’s considered one of the
main representatives of the new journalism, assured on May 5 as reported
by a European press agency that Barack Obama embodies the best of the US
history in the past century, an opinion that could be partly shared,
that does not change the objective reality of human fate.
Such developments as the recent environmental disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico show how little the governments can do against those in control
of capital. These are the ones who, both in the United States and in
Europe, through the economy of our globalized planet decide the fate of
the people. Let’s take as an example the measures taken by the US
Congress itself, and published by the mainstream media from that country
and from Europe, as they have been disseminated via Internet, word for
word.
Radio and TV Marti lie in their broadcasts of baseless information,
admits a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee report recommending that
both stations are definitely transferred from Miami to Washington to be
fully integrated to the Voice of America propaganda machinery.
In addition to deceiving its audience both stations use an offensive
and inflammatory language that disqualifies them.
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Fidel Castro |
After 18 years, Radio and TV Marti have failed to make sensitive
inroads in the Cuban society or to influence the Cuban Government.
The report made public this Monday recommends merging the Office of
Cuba Broadcasts (OCB) with the Voice of America, the official US
Government propaganda radio station.
Problems associated with disrespect for traditional journalistic
rules, a minimum audience, radio interference by the Cuban Government
and allegations of nepotism and cronyism have plagued the program from
the beginning, concedes the Committee chaired by Democratic Senator John
Kerry. The Committee recommends to urgently taking the two stations out
of Miami underlining the necessity to balance the hiring of personnel to
turn out a non-politicized and professional product, the senators say.
The Kerry report makes reference to Alberto Mascaro, a nephew of the
wife of Pedro Roig, Director General of Radio and TV Marti, who was
hired thanks to his family connection and appointed director of the
Latin American services of the Voice of America.
The document offers a detailed account of how on February 2007, the
former director of the TV Marti programming, alongside a relative who is
a member of Congress, has confessed to a federal court having received
nearly $112,000 in illegal commissions from an OCB contractor. The
former OCB employee was sentenced to 27 months in jail and a $5,000 fine
for stashing 50 percent of all the money paid by TV Marti for the
production of programs by the Perfect Image firm.
This is as far the article goes that is signed by Jean Guy Allard and
published by the Telesur web site.
Another article by US professors Paul Drain and Michele Barry from
the Stanford University (California) and reproduced in the Rebelion web
site goes as follows:
The US blockade on Cuba proclaimed after Fidel Castro’s revolution
ousted Batista’s regime is 50 years old this 2010. Its stated objective
has been to help the Cuban people to attain democracy but a US Senate
report from 2009 concluded that the unilateral blockade on Cuba has
failed.
Despite the blockade, Cuba has achieved better healthcare results
than most Latin American countries and comparable with those of most of
the developed nations. Cuba’s average life expectancy is the highest
(78.6 years) and it also has the highest density of medical doctors per
capita 59 doctors to 10,000 people—, and the lowest mortality rate for
children under one year of age (5.0 per 1,000 live births) and infant
mortality (7.0 per 1,000 live births) among the 33 countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Advanced healthcare system
In 2006, the Cuban Government allocated about $355 per capita for
healthcare. The annual healthcare cost assigned to an American citizen
that same year was $6,714. Cuba also assigned less funds to healthcare
than most of the European countries. But, the low costs of healthcare do
not explain Cuba’s successes which could be attributed to a greater
emphasis on prevention and primary care that the island has been
cultivating during the American commercial blockade.
Cuba has one of the most advanced primary care systems of the world.
The education of its population in disease prevention and healthcare
promotion has made the Cubans less dependent from medical products to
keep the population healthy. The opposite happens in the United States
which depends highly on medical provisions and technologies to keep its
population healthy but at very high economic costs.
To be continued |
