[Marxism] NYT: From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rockerâs Protest Reverberates

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Each day we live, we make choices. To get out of bed, or to go
back to sleep. Newspaper editors to the same thing, and today
we're getting a useful object lesson in journalistic decision-
making from the New York Times. It's quite an object lesson.
Here we see the choices made under a system which likes to
proudly describe itself as having "freedom of the press".

In recent days the island of Cuba, referred to by its literary
designation, "the pearl of the Antilles", survived an assault 
of an all-to-familiar type, Hurricane Gustav. Much power was
knocked out, homes destroyed, agricultural lands were damaged.

Not one single life was lost amidst all of the devastation and,
an arm of workers and volunteers began to struggle so that the
population in the hardest-hit areas was fed, clothed, given a
place to sleep, had electric power, and the schools opened on
time as quickly as that could be arranged.

When we compare that with what we saw happening in New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina, and after Gustav proceeded to the US
and New Orleans after pummeling Cuba, you'd think that a few
words of praise might be found for revolutionary Cuba's quick
capacity for the restoration of public services to meet their
people's individual and social need. You would be wrong, to
be under any such misapprehension. 

Cuban society is a complex one, with numerous problems and
challenges, as any visitor there with any familiarity knows.
Under nearly fifty years of unrelenting pressure from the US
blockade, and having made some of its own errors as well, the
Cuba Revolution still lives, sometimes it seems as by magic.

The NEW YORK TIMES finds all of this of no interest, providing
an entirely different focus for its "Saturday Profile" today.

This presumably flattering portrait of a cranky opponent of the
Cuban Revolution, filled with quotes, noticeably lacks any kind
of dateline. He seems to be what in the United States of America
is often referred to as a "shit-disturber", someone out to make 
trouble by any means:  "As a logo for their group, they use a 
Soviet hammer and sickle transformed into a pornographic image."

By the activities described here, we have an individual and an
admiring chorus of foreign admirers, who hope to create some kind
of public incident, some trouble, some provocation, some anything.

Based on the quotations from him which are given to readers here,
he seems to be quite successful in making a name for himself in
the world outside of Cuba. A potty-mouthed individual, had been
convicted on a drug charge, who married while in prison to use
conjugal visitation rights, he's recently become the darling of a
veritable army of Cuba-haters around the world. This can easily
fund a career, and you should read this material all the way to
the end, as it tells us about the priorities of this newspaper.

Gorki makes an interesting contrast with the last Cuban group
of dissidents, the "Ladies in White", those quietly respectable
mothers, girlfriends and spouses who used to march single-file
to and from a Catholic church on Sundays. The "Ladies in White" 
have recently split, and now the Cuban dissidence presents its
image to the world in this basically nihilistic manner.

In Gorki, Washington and the media stands up to salute. THIS is 
what they would use demonstrate as a role model for the kind of
"freedom" they want to bring to Cuba? Evidently yes it is.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
================================================================

THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 6, 2008
The Saturday Profile
From the Cuban Underground, a Punk Rockerâs Protest Reverberates
By MARC LACEY

SOME people march to protest their government. Gorki Luis Ãguila Carrasco, 
the lead singer of a Cuban punk rock group called Porno para Ricardo 
(âPorn for Ricardoâ), vents his discontent by gyrating at a microphone, 
clutching an electric guitar and spewing out some of the most off-color, 
ear-splitting lyrics around.

Amid the string of expletives that he bellows in his underground concerts 
in and around Havana are bold criticisms of Fidel and RaÃl Castro, the past 
and present leaders of the island. So outspoken has he become that the 
authorities recently charged him with âsocial dangerousnessâ and hauled 
him off to jail.

FULL: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/americas/06gorki.html

=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu