[Marxism] NPR: In Cuba, Hurricane Ivan as Political Lesson

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(If someone can get us a transcript of this NPR
report it would be great to share with readers.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(This National Public Radio report gives us a pretty good
idea of how effectively Cuba organized itself to prepare
for the hurricane. It gives us an excellent idea why there
was no loss of life. Cuban society, the Cuban Revolution,
took full responsibility for the care of the Cuban people
in the face of the forces of nature. The NPR reporter,
cynical to the core, lards the report over with political
hostility toward the Cuban Revolution, and its hands-on
Commander-in-Chief.

(NPR's "National Security correspondent" just cannot even
COMPREHEND the way ordinary people could have confidence
that the revolution would carry its job: protecting human
life above all. Their confidence in the Cuban revolution
isn't mystically-based. These ordinary Cubans know from
past experience just what NPR disdains: This is THEIR
REVOLUTION. IT BELONGS TO THE CUBAN PEOPLE.

(Ultimately, this four-and-a-half minute report speaks for
itself. It doesn't mention the obvious reality that sixty
people died in the Caribbean and forty in the United States,
but not one life was lost in Revolutionary Cuba. NOT ONE.

(Rather than seeing the glass half empty, or more, as some
would, I think we'd be better off see how much of Cuba's
reality shown through this, inspite of the reporter's
intentions. On one level this is similar, though slicker
than what the MIAMI HERALD tried to do and which scholar
Nelson Valdes so effectively critiqued. Read that here:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/nlv-09-18-2004.html

(The final words of the Cuba/Castro-hating MIAMI HERALD
are worth re-quoting: Castro, who repeatedly compared
his government's preparations for Ivan to the island's
long-standing preparations for a possible war with the
United States, said it was more than luck. ''We've been
preparing for this for 45 years,'' he told state television.

(Don't you wonder what the people in Florida or other
places, where the government took NO responsibility for
public evacuation, where scores were killed and where
society ("the government") takes ZERO responsibility for
the reconstruction later, must think when they hear
reports like these? They must think: "We SHOULDN'T be
allowed to go there and see how the Cubans did that!"

(Take the four minutes and listen to what comes through!)
==========================================================

In Cuba, Hurricane Ivan as Political Lesson
Morning Edition audio

Sept. 20, 2004

The Communist Party in Cuba is parlaying its preparations
for Hurricane Ivan into an opportunity to drive home a
political lesson. At a time when many individuals are
looking for economic help, a hurricane allows the party to
demonstrate the importance of acting collectively and
deferring to party authority. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3926733

MY LETTER TO NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
morning@xxxxxxx

Dear Morning Edition -

Thanks very much for Tom Gjelton's report today on Cuba's
preparations for Hurricane Charley. Not a single life was
lost on the island where society, or what we might call
"the government" took full responsibility for preparations
and evacuations.

I wonder what NPR listeners in Florida or elsewhere must
have thought when they listened to Gjelton's story after
the government here did nothing but tell them to flee, and
provided no assistance for those who chose to do so!

Those who lost loved ones in particular must have been
strengthened in their conviction that people from the
United States shouldn't be permitted to go to Cuba to see
just how the Cubans managed to accomplish these things.

Right?

Sincerely yours,


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
Listening to KPPC Pasadena




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