[Marxism] Different responses to Cuban developments

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Recently the 
issue rarely discussed in the U.S. is getting more attention than 
it has since Elian Gonzalez - U.S.-Cuba relations, is getting some 
more time on the public's agenda.

Micheal Moore's SiCKO has generated more discussion about Cuba than 
we've seen in a long time. The graduation of the first eight U.S. 
students from the Latin American Medical School in Havana has 
generated a further round of positive publicity. At the same time, 
farmers in Alabama, as they have in other parts of the country, 
are making money and looking to make more money through expanded 
business opportunities with Cuba. What's needed is to lighten up 
all of the restrictions on business and travel. 

At the same time, Washington is cranking up the pressure on Cuba, 
by refusing to complete the processing of all 20,000 Cubans who 
the U.S. is committed to accepting this year. In the context of 
the Cuban Adjustment Act, this even further increases the pressure 
on those who really want to leave Cuba to do so illegally. They 
know that they are welcomed into the United States. We've even 
seen a man who left Cuba TWENTY YEARS AGO, and who moved to 
Venezuela, coming to the U.S. under the Cuban Adjustment Act, 
and bringing his Venezuelan wife and their children who were 
born in Venezuela to the United States as well. 

And the Wall Street Journal continues its shrill condemnations 
of the Cuban revolution and its leaders, as we see in today's 
commentary. Cuba's not on the top of the agenda of the people 
of the United States as a whole, but it is getting some more 
discussion than in a long time. These are good signs. What
O'Grady's column reflects now is a kind of desperation among 
supporters of the blockade. Some of what O'Grady writes is 
nothing but her bizarre wishful thinking, though it's really 
not aimed at Cuba, but at throwing sand in the eyes of readers 
in the United States. There must be an awful lot of money being 
made by people who are fighting to keep the blockade in place.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California


===========================================================================
U.S. Med Students Study For Free In Cuba
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/69653

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA ADVERTISER EDITORIAL: 
"Keep Pushing State Trade with Cuba"

"Yet U.S. officials cling to the ludicrous positions that
the embargo will force changes in Cuban policy and easing
it will not improve the lot of the average Cuban, only that
of those in power there. Can they really believe that those
25 million utility poles only brought services to the
powerful, or that those tens of thousands of Alabama
chickens only graced the tables of the influential?"

(note also the term "trade" not merely "sales"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/69658

ALABAMA FARMERS WANT TO EXPORT MORE TO CUBA:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/69656

WSJ on Cuban migrant smugglers (2007)
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1403.html  

U.S. TIGHTENS INTERNATIONAL TRADE SANCTIONS AGAINST CUBA
http://pr-gb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3999&Itemid=9

=====================================================================

THE AMERICAS
Cuban Tremors
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

July 30, 2007; Page A12
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Cuba is not an island known for earthquakes, but "temporary" dictator
Raúl Castro's speech to the nation last Thursday provides the
clearest evidence yet that the tectonic plates underpinning the
political status quo are shifting and perhaps even colliding.

Even the best Cuba experts who follow its politics closely caution
against making predictions. But what seems evident from Raúl's
language is that the government can no longer ignore the enormous
suffering caused by a deteriorating economy. This crisis, together
with the loss of Fidel Castro's charismatic political leadership, 
has left the regime in uncharted waters and perhaps even fearful.

Thursday's event was the annual celebration of the July 26 Movement,
which commemorates the first armed assault on the Batista
dictatorship by rebels in 1953. Normally Fidel gives this speech, but
he hasn't been seen in public in about a year -- though he has been
videotaped -- and there is speculation that the absences are due
largely to a decline in his mental capacity. Whatever the truth,
Raúl, who hasn't a shred of his older brother's charisma, has had to
pick up the slack in public appearances before an increasingly
dissatisfied population. At the same time he has had to run the
secretive totalitarian machine, which may be beginning to experience
its own internal strife.

In many ways the speech, delivered in the east-central city of
Camagüey, was standard-fare Castrista rambling about the glories of
the Revolution and the need to defend it forever, the ugliness and
injustices of the "empire" (the U.S.) and its embargo, and the
wonders of El Maximo Lider and socialism. But on matters of the
economy Raúl seemed to break ranks and signal that he knows things
cannot go on the way they are. A less sympathetic view is that the
speech was crafted to calm down a population at the breaking point
due to privation.

As he has done before, Raúl complained about the low productivity of
the Cuban worker and tried hard to stir national pride toward
improving the record. Yet there were moments when he seemed to be
acknowledging that the system doesn't work. "We are duty-bound," he
proclaimed, "to question everything we do as we strive to materialize
our will more and more perfectly, to change concepts and methods
which were appropriate at one point but have been surpassed by life
itself." In other words, which were surpassed by reality.

He also recognized the problem of low wages, linking them to low
productivity. He noted that the average Cuban salary, less than $20 
a month, is "clearly insufficient to meet all the needs, so that it
practically ceased to fulfill the socialist principle that each
contribute according to his abilities and receive according to his
work." Whether intentional or not, that reference to Marx is not
quite right. The father of communism called for each to receive
according to his "need" while Raúl suggests it should be according to
his input. He also contemplated "incentives" for producers. Somebody
is wandering off the reservation.

It is not insignificant that he said that Cuba has "not yet come out
of the Special Period." That term was supposed to apply to
"temporary" adjustments in policy designed in 1992 to help the
country overcome the hardship caused by the end of Soviet financing.
This included inviting foreign investment, allowing the operation of
farmers' markets and some small businesses and the legalization of
the U.S. dollar. It is widely agreed that Raúl and his friends in the
military championed these changes while Fidel went along grudgingly.
Fidel Castro subsequently withdrew many of those privileges, and more
than 16 years later the dire economic circumstances continue. Even
Venezuelan financing to the tune of $1 billion-$2 billion a year has
not reversed the decline.

This is why Raúl's references to foreign investment on Thursday are
intriguing. "We are currently studying the possibility of securing
more foreign investment, of the kind that can provide us with
capital, technology or markets," he told the nation. This is a clear
reference to the China model of economic liberalization, which Raúl
has long advocated for Cuba.

None of this is to suggest that Fidel's little brother, known 
for his ruthlessness, dreams of a freer Cuba. As the regime's most
bloodthirsty enforcer, he has been at the forefront of a renewed wave
of repression -- some say orchestrated in anticipation of Fidel's
passing -- that began in March-April 2003 with a nationwide crackdown
on dissidents. Seventy-five of those arrested were handed sentences
averaging more than 20 years; state security attacks on government
critics have since escalated, according to the Cuban Directorio in
Miami, which tracks such incidents.

But the man is desperate. He cannot put the whole island in jail, and
with food and milk shortages growing, it may become increasingly
difficult to keep the lid on things. As Armando Valladares, a former
political prisoner who spent 22 years in Castro gulags told me in an
interview last month, terror as a way to control people has its
limits. In Mr. Valladares's view, the Cuban people are very near if
not over that limit, suggesting that even a small spark could ignite
a massive rebellion -- not unlike what happened in Romania.
Directorio says that the number and size of public acts of dissent
have been rising every year despite the brutality of Raúl's goons.
Last month 70 people marched in Camagüey in an unprecedented display
of support for a political prisoner.

Raúl is also facing his legacy within the military. Having carried
out Fidel's dirty work, such as the execution of popular 
Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, he's garnered a lot of enemies over the years. 
If rumors of rumblings in the barracks are true, he could be the
counterrevolution's first victim. To avoid that fate, he has to get
the economy going, and he now seems to be pinning his hopes on a new
U.S. administration that might end the embargo. On Thursday he
repeated Cuba's "willingness to discuss on equal footing" its
"dispute with the U.S."

Lifting the embargo might give Raúl some breathing room, but he can't
do much until big brother passes. "The problem for Raúl is that Fidel
won't die," says Ernesto Betancourt who represented the July 26
Movement in Washington in 1957 and 1958 and probably understands the
regime as well or better than any Cuban exile. "He might want to make
changes but Fidel won't allow them." Ironically, once Fidel is no
longer around to hold together the depraved and nihilistic regime,
Raúl's chances of survival may be even grimmer.


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