Analyzing the meaning of the day, Reinier Duardo pointed to the re-election of Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio and Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, as signs that a deepening of hate speech and tightening of the blockade is coming.

There, Trump’s legacy remains particularly alive, while a woman like Nancy Pelosi – who welcomed Juan Guaidó and enthusiastically applauded him in Congress – is accused of being a leftist and they try to kill her. This confirms what has been said more than once from Cuba: it is up to us to break the blockade, because the newly elected officials and their lobbyists will do everything to make it worse. The neighbor’s policy continues to steer the extreme right, at least in its area closest to Cuba.

Bárbara Betancourt agrees with this criterion, who points to the signs of the show prior to the moment of the vote, feverish by the euphoria of the haters, the threatening speech against those who dissent and the call to support DeSantis, one of the most ineffective politicians in the United States. States, governor of a failed state, as proven during the pandemic and more recently before, during and after Hurricane Ian. Worse yet: DeSantis is a presidential candidate, as Trump was before he became president, and many believed that it would be impossible. It is dramatically true and it is not good for anyone, except for his followers who already know what size of hate they wear.

In the midst of this republican euphoria, AméricaTV broadcasts a piece of news that the presenters describe as unusual: a Cuban steals a fishing boat from his work to go to Cuba, because “he is tired of living in the United States…”. Stranded in North American waters, he asks for help and they have arrested him.

Although emigration in the opposite direction is common, there are not so few who, after having emigrated, cannot bear to live in the United States and try to return as best they can. The detail of interest is that he steals the boat. Why? Suppose he didn’t have the money to pay for a ticket, or perhaps he thought that if the Miami media praises those who steal ships in Cuba, they will get equal treatment for their journey.

What is really known about the last person who stole a small plane to leave Cuba is that he must be repatriated and that the plane will be returned. Cuba has denounced many times over the years what happens when emigration is stimulated with economic suffocation measures and legal roads become more expensive or closed. Just another reason to thoroughly reassess the immigration issue and the policies that have fueled these practices for so long.
In conclusion, it is very important that the agreements are resumed and the United States does its part. Like Cuba.

(By: Arleen Rodríguez Derivet/Cubadebate)

Well chosen musical greeting to the Day of Cuban Culture. And also the celebration of the date by artists and intellectuals, who did not go to a theater to celebrate themselves. They walk through the towns of Pinar del Río where Ian’s winds took away the roofs and the souls of many people.

Reinier Duardo accompanied his greeting to the Cuban artists and intellectuals, with a praise for that work of love for the people that embodies with deeds, the ideas of the recent message to the colleagues of the world, which has already accumulated more than one thousand one hundred adhesions and that has annoyed the haters.

He reminded the analyst how much they have done to separate the artists from the revolutionary project. And, they have managed to buy several, but, in the midst of the difficult situation that Cuba is experiencing, here are the big ones, what is worth and shines with its own light. And they are defending the Revolution with their art and with their signature.

At her time, Bárbara Betancourt meant that there are not only writers and artists. In fact, the message was made public by intellectuals in the broadest concept of the term: relevant educators and scientists from all specialties. A very brief, but very forceful message, which recognizes the enormous sacrifices imposed on us by shortages and blackouts, which even speaks of mistakes, but ratifies the defense of the nation. She also goes against the haters and the haters and quoted:

“We condemn hate speech, defamation, distortions of our reality, and we hope that truthful information reaches those who follow events with good will and honestly care about this country. With our contribution, school activities begin, the tireless struggle of science, life in the communities is revived, cultural programming available to all is restarted and the truth of Cuba is defended”.

In a certain way, the declaration includes the courageous position of Cuban emigrants such as those from Puentes de amor or the NEMO movement, who against all odds, against attacks of all kinds, are fighting within the United States to fully lift the blockade. In a direct half-hour the night before, Carlos Lazo reacted emotionally to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez’s announcement that the United States had donated 2 million USD and 100 firefighting suits, of which 43 arrived. His reaction provoked a strong debate in the networks, of many people outraged by the squalid aid from the country that has imposed a blockade on us that already costs us more than a million million and is capable of giving more than 3 billion million in one stroke just for weapons, destined to sustain the war in Ukraine.

This episode contrasts with the quick and generous reaction of Mexico, Venezuela and other friendly countries, which both in the Matanzas accident and now due to the damage caused by Hurricane Ian, extended their hands and their help to Cuba. Given this generosity, the blockade stands out more with its charge of abuse against an entire people. The Cuban Foreign Minister summed it up masterfully: “The blockade is the permanent pandemic, the constant hurricane.”

A very novel approach that, precisely from that very small but unexpected donation, makes more visible, shows with facts, the criminal extent of the damage caused by the blockade.

A synthetic and exact explanation of what it means to keep on the list of sponsors of terrorism those of us who are, several times, victims of terrorism. A transparent exhibition that dismantled manipulations, like the one they use so much on the North American products that our stores sell. The issue is not only from whom they are bought, it is what they are bought with, if we do not have fresh credits, if the financial persecution is surgical, hitting where it most affects the Cuban economy.

The presentation of the blockade report is thus part of the best tradition of Cuban diplomacy. The truth told without offense, without bombast. A blockade of more than 60 years was exposed in a few minutes with the essential arguments. Compared to the two million of the donation, the gross numbers of everything that the North American government has taken from us and harms us, acquires its genocidal dimension in a more exact way.

It had to be said and it was said on a day of such significance, since Perucho Figueredo wrote on the back of his horse the Hymn of Bayamo, our Marsellesa, our Bayamesa, the song of Cuban culture that is a school of creativity and beauty in the resistance, with the unquestionable verse that even today marks our collective fate: To die for the country is to live.

(By: Arleen Rodríguez Derivet)

The voices of the three audios are similar. Will it be the same COVID biologist? asked Barbara Betancourt, recently released from rest forced by dengue fever aggravated by numerous cormobilities and chose to tell her experiences as a patient, highlighting the way in which the early warning and protection system works for people that distinguish the work of MINSAP, in a strategy that already includes television ads during prime time.

If anything has been transparently monitored in the country, it is epidemiological issues. Every day a meeting of the working groups created to deal with COVID, which have remained activated (one for the epidemic and another for experts) in the face of the growth in dengue cases, for example. In Cuba, many resources and medicines may be and are lacking, but information and primary care are guaranteed. But to be up-to-date, you really have to search for and contrast the information in the Cuban public media.

A last alarmist audio, not related to health, but to the state of mind of the population, served as the closing of the analysis.

Created as soon as the country’s presidency and the directors of MINEM reported how they had decided to face the problem of energy generation, there the elements that seek to give credibility to the hoax, make the lie seem like the truth, are heard again. It is an old but very functional technique, even more so in the stormy sea of ​​the internet, where anything goes and almost everything is believed. By identifying the voice as that of someone expert, giving apparently real locations, a degree of credibility is obtained in which to support the main message: “don’t believe what you have been told. There is no solution”.

In reality, we live in hard times of uncertainty and the objectivity of the problems, specifically the blackout, create the conditions for anyone to believe in anything. But there is a job, a serious, consecrated and professional job, that expects and deserves trust.

I have seen some post in the last few hours, stating that the changes in the direction of the UNE and the MINEM will solve everything at a stroke. Beware of over-enthusiasm. The official notes on the changes are clear in terms of recognizing the merits of the substituted teammates and those that those who assume these tasks will have to face. We should not expect miracles. Perhaps we should wait for a change in strategy, tactics, innovations.

The pressures under which you have worked so far have an impact on the valued colleagues who will take on other tasks. But we must not forget that the problem is not only Cuban. Many other countries, without a blockade and with unfenced finances, are also suffering from energy crises.

As was said when announcing the changes, work continues under tension, but the purpose of overcoming the current deficits as soon as possible remains. There is no exact date yet. There is a commitment. And the few resources available based on those efforts.

(By: Arleen Rodríguez Derivet/Cubadebate)