[Marxism] LUIS SEXTO: Bureaucracy In Cuba

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As Cuba enters the second year of Fidel's being on sick leave 
and reflection, confusion reins in many circles. In Miami, the 
exile militants don't know what to do. Shall they keep up the 
same-old, same-old blockade as ever? Should a new approach be 
attempted? Is the Commander-in-Chief alive or dead? None of
them has any real knowledge. 

Here in U.S. politics, an area where debate over the nature of
US Cuba policy has been relatively rare, some differences of 
opinion (not goals, of course) has begun. Discussion of such
matters is all to the good. Those of us who want normalized
relations with Cuba have to pick up every opportunity to be
strong and vocal about the need for freedom, first of all for
the people of the United States, to be free to visit Cuba if
they want to. Second, for the freedom of Cubans to visit the
the United States if THEY want to as well. Sgt. Carlos Lazo,
the Cuban-American National Guardsman who is a decorated Iraq
war veteran, reflects change in the Cuban-American community:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/71847 

In Cuba, supporters of the Revolution are beginning to respond 
to Raul Castro's call for discussion and debate. Some forceful 
voices have appeared in the Cuban media. Some supporters of the 
Revolution publish their documents on international websites. 
Opponents of the Revolution are trying to intervene as well. 
Their goal is to promote as much division and disunity as they 
possibly can among supporters of the Revolution, both inside 
the island and among Cuba's supporters, if they can do that.

Discussion and debate over Cuba's many problems is timely as
there are so many areas in the island's life where problems
exist and are in need of airing out and debate. I will soon
be returning to the island and am looking forward to hearing
and seeing how these things take place. The island is today
getting ready for elections across the island as nominations
are currently being made for candidacies. 

Luis Sexto, a long-time columnist for Juventud Rebelde is one
of those who's been leading the charge for debate. He posts
some of his material inside Cuba, some internationally:
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/columnists/2007-06-18/on-criticizing-cuba/ 
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/columnists/2007-08-17/today-s-times-require
-debate/ 

Below you'll find a recent one he posted internationally which
takes up some of Cuba's must intractable difficulties. These
essays publication in English on Cuban sites indicate to me a
desire to invite English-speaking readers to learn about the
issues Cubans are concerned about, and to participate through
the Internet in the discussion of such matters. Truly, we are
Living in interesting times, as Eric Hobswbawm once put it.
Luis Sexto takes up questions of the social basis of the 
Cuban bureaucracy.

One helpful contribution which we could make here to Cuba's
debates is to provide a model of serious discussion, focusing
on the issues in dispute, avoiding nasty personal vindictive
rhetoric, and so forth. The internet is an peculiar medium.
Most people who participate never meet one another in reality.
That's why snarky, bitchy and personalized styles prevent the
clarification of disputed matters. People become defensive
when they are addressed in a fear-driven, defensive manner.

It's not necessary to answer everything you don't agree with.
I try to pick and choose, and not to take up every issue to
strike my fancy. Sometimes it's better to say nothing.

When seeking fault, it's best to use a mirror, not a telescope,
as psychologist Lonnie Barbach, PhD. Pointedly expressed it.


Walter Lippmann, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/ 
==============================================================
Manuel Alberto Ramy: A Multi-Stage Rocket (excerpt)

The invitation, which encourages participants to freely express their
opinions and suggestions, opens an official space for the debate of
ideas.

In the July 26 speech, Castro announced structural changes and asked
Cubans to abandon old-fashioned concepts. While he did not specify
the structural changes, it is easy to assume that he meant the
economic sector, the operation of enterprises, production, and an
increase in productivity. All these factors are critical.

The extent of the changes -- which won't be spectacular, the acting
president said -- as well as the new developments that might ensue
are not yet in the public domain. However, I believe that the
measures have already been defined in some manner or other.

If my assessment is correct, the assemblies would be a prologue to
the changes; they would respond to indispensable needs and would
weigh on the implementation of the changes. The assemblies would not
be limited to a simple endorsement, even if the measures don't
immediately satisfy many of the expectations.

The first aspect that needs highlighting is that the debate over the
economy extends from the privacy of the homes to the conversations
among friends and coworkers to the academic and specialized world.
And it enters its rightful place: business enterprises and service
centers. 

FULL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/71826 
==============================================================

LUIS SEXTO: Bureaucracy In Cuba (excerpt)


Martí suspected that the bureaucracy, as a representative of the
interests of the people, might at one point jettison those interests
and take into account only its own, as a group or caste.

Today, the rigidity, paperwork, the inefficient management that the
dictionary attributes to bureaucracy has "mediocresized" and
decontextualized the prerogatives of the Cuban socialist state.

It has been a sort of Fairy Godmother in reverse: everything that
bureaucracy's magic wand touches becomes a caricature of the
socialist aspirations. It mistreats and upsets every creative
endeavor that Fidel Castro's revolution brought to Cuba.

In the words of the sharp-witted Giovanni Papini, bureaucracy -- when
turned into a mentality, an ideology -- holds the secret of a
"copropherous" alchemy, that is, it can turn gold into excrement.

In this, bureaucracy has become an unwitting or involuntary
accomplice of the U.S. blockade. Maybe, also unconsciously, it is to
bureaucracy's advantage that the blockade continue, as a guarantee of
bureaucracy's interferential and anarchic existence.

In Cuba, vox populi says, bureaucratic attitudes respond to each
solution with a problem; with a "no" to a "yes." And they dilute
every initiative with red tape and meetings. And they see reality
through their tinted glasses, or from their balconies, which are
usually in high towers away from the streets and the workshops. Or
through reports that are usually adulterated by those who do not wish
that truth be known.

I do not exaggerate. And if I say it here, in this leftist space, it
is because the Left needs to know about people's experiences, and
because I have often said it in my country's newspapers. Enough of
explanations -- if indeed the reader needs a justification for what
he is reading.  European socialism dissolved like Alka Seltzer in
water thanks to bureaucratic distortions. Distortions that forced
political discourse to hover in the air while the people's reality
became bogged down in the mud.

Let's not invent enemies. The principal causes of the extinction of
20th-Century socialism, the socialism that failed, were within it: 
a mentality (not to say a caste) was incubated that jettisoned the
predominance of the working class.

Who profited from the ruination of the Soviet Union? Who are the rich
in today's Russia? The bureaucrats, who -- long before Gorbachev,
Yeltsin and their ilk -- replaced the floor of the socialist state
with quicksand. The bureaucracy, of course, emerged from a society
that had been frozen by its vertical structures, to the detriment of
a horizontal, democratic structure.

This should be clear to us: where democracy is missing and centralism
expands, reducing the sides, bureaucracy prospers. With it, dogma and
corruption prosper, too.

Any project to renew and perfect socialism in Cuba will have to face
and quell the resistance of the bureaucracy -- not to mention the
opposition of the United States and its permanent war, and the
efforts of those people in our country who try to push Cuba into
capitalism, one way or another.

FULL:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1506.html


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism