Today Pinar del Río, Isla de la Juventud, Artemisa, Mayabeque and Havana have suffered from the devastating passage of a hurricane, with Pinar being the most affected region.

I have not seen publications in support of the people who have now lost their homes, their property and more in just 6 hours. Nor have I seen the free concerts of those who coincidentally were next to the town on 11J. There have been exceptions: the renowned singer-songwriter Raúl Paz went to Pinar to sing to the people about him in the middle of the blackout, helped by a small power plant.

Another one who joined the aid work and concrete actions was Kcho together with his brigade, Marta Machado, also Raúl Torres, and many troubadours from various regions of the country. But even in other harsh recent events such as the fire at the Matanzas tanker base, for example, similar actions were carried out by the artist Michel Mirabal, the singer-songwriter Nelson Valdés Viera, theater projects for children, the AHS, troubadours from Santa Clara, Santiago and more.

But I’m still waiting for the mega free concerts and statements on networks from those who have been on the side of the people since such symbolic dates as 11J. It is worth wondering how within hours of that date they were already setting positions; however it has been more than a week of Ian and they still haven’t written or said anything.

Or is there a town for some things and not for others?

My respects in public for these great Cuban artists and for those who are now preparing to leave for Pinar del Río

(By: Oni Acosta Llerena)

And it is that Europeans seem unwilling to pay for the geopolitical decisions of their leaders.

More than 32,000 Austrian citizens marched against rising prices for fuel, electricity and food.

Meanwhile, the French and Italians also spoke out against the negative effect of the restrictions.

(With information from RT)

Without the prosecutor presenting a single piece of evidence, the right planned to get rid of the indomitable popular leader, fend off her plans to plunder natural resources –lithium in the first place– and dismantle the political, social and cultural rights won during the Kirchner governments. Plans, it should be underlined, that are of the greatest interest to the United States, as has been more than demonstrated, but was once again made clear in the recent interventionist statement by Marc Stanley, that country’s ambassador in Buenos Aires.

The most important characteristic of leaders of Cristina’s stature is that of making large collective subjects feel represented by them. When it comes to Argentina, this phenomenon is necessarily and inevitably colored by Peronism, the political identity that –with its marked contradictions– has given way to national progress towards the goals of social justice, democracy, national sovereignty and Latin American and Caribbean unity. It is easy to understand, therefore, that since the first government of Juan Domingo Perón, the main political objective of the Buenos Aires oligarchy and US imperialism has been the elimination of Peronism, especially in its aspects closest to popular desires. To achieve this today, Cristina’s political ban is a fundamental step. What did not cross the minds of the designers of the judicial-media execution against her is the enormous popular solidarity that it would unleash in her favor.

The attack against Cristina stimulated spontaneous mobilizations throughout the country, even in provinces such as Córdova and Rosario, without Peronist lineage. Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires, the self-convened gathered at the corner of Uruguay and Juncal streets, where the building where the vice president resides stands. As Stella Calloni stated when reviewing the unexpected popular overflow (La Jornada, Mundo section, 8/29), although it may seem so, people have not forgotten the achievements of the 12 years of Néstor and Cristina’s government.

But then came the second and serious error from the macrista field. Faced with the energetic but joyful and peaceful reaction of solidarity towards Cristina from young people, the elderly, workers and residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods, the right-wing government of the city of Buenos Aires found no other response than repression, using its police force. In an illegal action, they fenced off the aforementioned corner at dawn from Friday to Saturday and surrounded it with a shock police group, supported by hydrant trucks, and then attacked the mobilized with sticks, water jets and mustard gas grenades. Which in turn caused the indignation of those gathered there to increase and new groups to come. In a provocative attitude, plainclothes policemen took photos of the attendees, another illegal act, and harassed, pushed and insulted legislators and officials of the governing Front of All who had been present.

It was probably their presence and the pressure exerted by the federal government that prevented the incident from escalating further. The fact of the dump trucks with stones found by the protesters already used by the macrismo to arm provocateurs when it occupied the Casa Rosada is not minor. In this situation, it transpired that former President Macri and the president of the PRO (party of the former right-wing president), Patricia Bullrich, censured the capital’s head of government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, for not having been tougher against the protesters.

It should not be surprising then that, as Cristina suggested, it was Bullrich herself who, when the 2001 crisis broke out, suggested to President De la Rúa that he declare a state of siege, which – I add – led to the murder of 39 protesters. As an attendee at the last luncheon of the PRO leaders (Macri’s party) confided to Page 12, Bullrich called for repression, corchazos with rubber bullets and recalled: “As I did during our government.”

Beyond the presidential ambitions and competition to be the toughest of Macri, Larreta and Bullrich, his words should not be taken lightly. The Argentine situation has become hopeful, yes. But the elections are more than a year away. Victory with IMF adjustment will not be easy, even if measures are taken to protect the most vulnerable. It is essential to preserve and strengthen Peronist unity and combativeness driven by popular affection for Cristina and her leadership.

(Taken from La Jornada)

No defense of humanity is worth much if it is only an illusion – without territory, simply “good intentions.” Territories are not only geography, they are history and have “sense,” tastes and smells… generated by the class struggle that inhabits all social relations and all emotional and symbolic planes. Human rights cannot be invoked in isolation from the territory under consideration and the semantic tensions of the “natives.” Where everything is corruption, humiliation and contempt for the peoples, the discourse of human rights is simply parlor talk or bureaucratic deception – despite the historical significance and value of the Charter of Human Rights as a tool to oppose the fascist Nazi project lying in wait at the time of its birth on December 10, 1948.

Wherever the aberrations and deprivations imposed by the national bourgeoisie bear down on native peoples, wherever fierce police, military and ideological harassment of the indigenous and peasant population is used to usurp their land, their identity and dignity… talk of human rights is paradoxically only enemy propaganda and bourgeois ideology. Territory weighs on meaning. Where workers are victims of triple extortion by employers, tax collectors and unions, where salaries weigh down on them like an alienating coffin, in which life goes by and time is consumed, in exchange for paltry wages and obscene inflation, to speak of human rights is simply grotesque, if it does not offer real instruments of concrete transformation, instead of escapist illusions. It is reality that determines awareness of human rights. Semantics in crisis.

Let us not succumb to the idealistic temptations of a Declaration of Human Rights without its “feet on the ground” and the semantics of reality. Because there is no return from ridicule. It is useless to build temples or give sermons, with pretentious fanaticism, about rights that mean nothing or which, in any case, reflect someone else’s thinking and serve as enemy ideology to defeat our hopes, struggles and programs of revolutionary transformation.

And it is essential that the entire Declaration of Human Rights be reviewed from a perspective and scrutiny that challenges the individualistic character of rights, contrasting it with their inescapable social and by definition political character. It is an obligatory debate, a pending historical subject, with decades passing in search of territorial semiotic consonance, that is, geosemiotics, in which the critical power of human rights in territories is made visible and the need for a revolutionary humanist Charter becomes apparent, one capable of revolutionizing humanism. Under these conditions, it is essential that all analyses of the issue include, in detail, the universe of semantic repercussions of any postulate which assumes to serve all human beings, address all their historical problems and the urgent need for transformative praxis.

In this context, geosemiotics means the theoretical-practical effort to characterize the complex, diverse and dynamic network of dialectical meaning, the general laws of its development, in each territory. The complex, and not infrequently interconnected, network of meanings with which the daily class behavior of peoples is organized, its philosophical foundations and its moral and ethical expressions. With the basic assumption that all action is preceded by a series of notions about reality, and what an idea implies for the future, geosemiotics is rooted in the need to also locally characterize the modes of production of meaning and the relations of production of meaning, in the concrete conditions in which they develop. This is not an esoteric effort making semiotics, and its role as an instrument in combatting the ideology of the dominant class, even more incomprehensible. On the contrary, it is a question of enriching the instruments of action, of scientific praxis, to facilitate their impact on the concrete realities of peoples.

All necessary tasks in the daily struggle for the emancipation of meaning have, in the Charter of Human Rights, a challenge of critical urgency that is the responsibility of all who, in a multidisciplinary fashion, presume to contribute to orienting emancipatory struggles in opposition to humanism in dogmatic, mechanistic or schematic forms, struggles directed toward resolving not only the human problems of our time but also the idea of a right separated from the critical principle of social justice.

Thus, initiatives to revolutionize humanism and confront the semantic framework of human rights with a political framework of social justice – yet to be constructed – assume new meaning. It is clear that where all human hardship is exacerbated and locked in dead ends, the very notion of the human, the very idea of justice, lose meaning. In any case, this is the dream of the ideology of the ruling class, to strip us of every notion and every humanist practice that could provide concrete direction, whether in the field of philosophy or at the sites where immediate praxis is most urgently needed. The sense of the meaningless.

To revolutionize the Charter of Human Rights is no longer a utopian idea, at a time when the pandemic has laid bare the bourgeois cruelty that hoards vaccines to the tune of the market and capitalist cruelty. To revolutionize humanism implies producing tools that consistently present the face of our astonished peoples who watch, with despair and rage, the postponement of their right to vaccines; who watch the delay of their right to education, to nutrition, to work, to housing and to emancipated culture. The right to “live by living and not surviving” in the immoral conditions in which one “lives” under capitalism. To revolutionize the humanism of human rights implies fighting philanthropic illusionism with a program of concrete action against class-divided societies where the inhumanity of the dominant mode of production and alienating relations of production reign, with all their meanings. Their ways and means.

(Taken from Granma)

This is why the Ministry of Communications established Resolution 141/2020 outlining general guidelines to make this process viable within Central State Administration bodies and agencies, the Central Bank of Cuba, the General Customs of the Republic, the Institute of Physical Planning and the National Statistics and Information Office, which include a schedule that began in 2020 and must be completed by 2024.

According to the document, the migration involves operating systems of technological nodes, servers and private data centers supporting computer systems, as well as personal desktop and laptop computers, all of which are connected to the Internet.

On the other hand, each one of the above mentioned organizations and institutions must prepare their own migration schedules in order to guarantee completion of the process by December 2024, and are obliged to establish contractual relationships with developers and other entities, to ensure technical advisory services and training of their personnel.

(Taken from Granma)

“Thanks to intellectuals of the entire world who add prestige with their signatures to our long, determined struggle against the blockade. The redh, founded during other threatening days for Cuba, understands very well the seriousness of the siege the empire has imposed on us.”

With these words, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez tweeted his gratitude to members of the In Defense of Humanity Network (redh) who signed a message demanding an end to the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba.

Released on May Day, the communiqué appealed to lovers of peace, justice and international law to denounce the unprecedented aggressiveness of the blockade in place for over 60 years.

Included among the signatories are former Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, José (Pepe) Mujica, Evo Morales Ayma and Fernando Lugo Méndez; well-respected figures like Noam Chomsky, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Elena Poniatowska, Danny Glover, Ignacio Ramonet, Adán Chávez Frías, David Choquehuanca, Hebe De Bonafini, Frei Betto, Atilio A. Borón and Stella Calloni, as well as organizations and institutions adding their voices in opposition to the cruel policy, reinforced by the Trump administration with more than 240 additional measures, despite the hardships posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The text describes the blockade as genocidal and a crime against humanity, according to the Geneva Convention of 1948 and the Rome ruling of the International Criminal Court, emphasizing its economic and social impact on the Cuban people and calling on all to fulfill their ethical duty to denounce this injustice and demand that the principles of peace, international law, multilateralism, and mutual respect prevail, as the only way to guarantee the survival of the human species on the planet.

(Taken from Granma)

Directors of Cuba’s Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries Enterprise Group (BioCubaFarma) denounced the impact on their research and production of the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed on Cuba by the U.S. government.

They reported that the criminal policy specifically affects the industry’s ability to acquire raw materials, spare parts and supplies to guarantee medicines for the National Health System, and limits the progress of research projects.

The directors noted that the cost of inputs needed to manufacture candidate anti-COVID vaccines has increased. They must now be purchased through third countries, since usual suppliers have declined to continue doing business with Cuba for fear of U.S. reprisals.

The industry is affected every year in terms of research, manufacturing and marketing of its products, and academic and scientific exchange is limited. The Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, for example, reported to Prensa Latina that, despite interest, it has not been able to export to the United States the medication Heberprot-p, the only treatment of its kind in the world for diabetic foot ulcers.

(Taken from Granma)

Twitter’s news feed did not stop. Facebook played live videos, one after another. Before the restless eyes of those following everything related to Cuba posted on social networks, this Saturday and Sunday, it was impossible not to notice that something was afoot.

From distant China and Australia to nearby lands across the Americas, photos began to circulate of people, some Cuban and many other nationalities, comparing the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of the island to a virus, one that is as harmful and in need of elimination as SARS-COV-2.

This coming June 23, once again, representatives of Cuba’s revolutionary diplomacy will submit to the United Nations the draft resolution calling for an end to this genocidal policy. That is why, this weekend, the world came out to give its firm support to our longstanding demand that the U.S. government lift the blockade.

First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who is an active leader on Twitter, joined the global demands on this platform.

The President noted the dozens, hundreds of people, who launched “Bridges of love” in more than 50 cities on several continents, and those of Santa Clara and Las Tunas in Cuba, “demanding the same thing in all languages,” he wrote.

Seconds later, in another tweet, he compared the global protest to an “unstoppable wave” in the midst of a global epidemic.

“#EliminateTheBlockade is demanded everywhere. Today there are thousands, tomorrow it will be millions, and one day it will be all of humanity. There is no crime that lasts 100 years, nor a sovereign people that accepts submission,” Díaz-Canel stated.
Photo: Yaciel Peña

The first worldwide caravan against the blockade of Cuba took place the weekend of March 27 -28. At that time, solidarity organizations and Cuban residents abroad on the five continents, in cars, on motorcycles and bicycles, expressed their opposition to this brutal U.S. policy and held virtual and physical meetings to explain the impact of the blockade and the more than 240 sanctions adopted by the Trump administration, not one of which has been rescinded by Joe Biden.

Now, one month later, new countries joined the initiative, with Cuba, once again, in the lead.

Villa Clara and Las Tunas were both sites of caravans against the blockade.

On bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, skateboards and light vehicles, among others, many young people could be seen, who, in this way, also expressed their gratitude to the nations that joined the worldwide mega caravan.

In Havana, a beautiful regatta and a giant mural were two of the most notable initiatives that saluted global activism. A bevy of small boats emerged on the Havana waterfront to extend a bridge of solidarity,

Europe, once again, was among the most active regions of the world, judging by the number of actions and messages published.

Many joined the mobilization in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Serbia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey and the German cities of Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Munich, Bremen, Bielefeld, Hamburg, Schwerte, Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig and Stuttgart.

The website Siempre con Cuba, devoted to solidarity with Cuba, reported actions in Africa, where residents in Burkina Faso, Gambia, Botswana, South Africa, Nigeria, Namibia, Benin, Tunisia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Angola sent messages of support to the Cuban struggle for sovereignty.

Activities were also carried out in Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Belize, Panama, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Uruguay, Argentina, and other American nations.
Photo: Facebook

THE MEGACARAVAN, ALSO IN THE UNITED STATES

The blockade was also denounced in 13 states and 21 cities in the United States, Lianys Torres Rivera, head of the Cuban Mission in the United States, reported on her Twitter account.

Cuban citizens residing there, and locals in solidarity, demanded the resumption of consular procedures; the elimination of the measures imposed by Trump; and the removal of Cuba from the State Department’s list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism.

(Taken from Granma)

Artists, when they are genuine and their projects are based on popular expression, do not easily succumb to the interests of third parties who often start out disguised as authentic, to later be exposed as vile posers.

Conducting a quick review of renowned names in universal art, we will notice that the most honorable have always acted in a principled manner, paying a significant political – and economic – price in their careers, but able to sleep with a clear conscience and peace of mind. Reading classics like Shakespeare and Goethe is enough to understand much of the wickedness that permeates the human psyche which these authors only portray in the shadows of some of their works, the inherent evil of those who, like Faust, sell their souls to the devil.

But we could ask ourselves just how expensive doing so can be, or not, and why some have preferred to choose the path of no return, knowing that like Goethe’s unfortunate character, they will never again be able to look back.

On the ever-changing battlefield of virtual warfare or cultural hyperconfrontation, to which we find ourselves obliged to respond, several individuals have achieved Pyrrhic victories and celebrate among their kind. But, to be honest, the taste of success is short-lived, since even if their deeds are considered accomplishments, they do not escape the aforementioned descriptor.

The empire devotes millions of dollars on attempts to make our culture invisible, and music is a top priority. Is not this industry one of the most profitable in recent years? Is it not one they depend on to keep us mesmerized like zombies?

Thus, the creation of negative values, the denial of talent and constant attacks on strong musical expressions have been – and are – key elements of the neoliberal strategy focused on destroying anything that smells of Revolution. A society created and sustained by pseudo musical values, in which rapacious consumption and the appropriation of codes of violence are increasingly profitable, is what they want to impose on those of us who resist the cultural hegemony created in laboratories and foundations with interventionist goals.

Unfortunately, some succumb to the unbridled song of sirens, while others -most – cover their ears like the wise Ulysses, not deceived like 21st century fools. They do not care to live for crumbs, for visas or legal residence, for small change to perform in low-rent venues.

What they get in return for this honorable position is a miserable media campaign to discredit them, internet lynchings and the dramatic hysteria of the sell-outs – some of whom go so far as to join calls for an invasion of Cuba, as if this were not an act of treason, annexationism and genocide. Some have exchanged giant stages for a dive bar where they waste away singing 45 minutes, for an audience of 150. These few are, no doubt, the Fausts and Macbeths of our times, the same demons that inspired Goethe and Shakespeare, who would not hesitate to murder those they once considered family.

(Taken from Granma)

Police in Louisville are again the target of protests. Photo: Reuters.

Two police officers have been wounded by bullets in Louisville during the demonstrations within hours of the exoneration of the three officers who led to the shooting death of Breonna Taylor , 26, a health worker , six months ago. In the early morning hours of March 13, the young black woman was at her home in this Kentucky city, sleeping with her 27-year-old boyfriend Kenner Walker when investigators broke in.

The court resolution caused the protests to spread to other cities in the United States, especially New York, Washington, Atlanta or Chicago. The name of Breonna Taylor has been one of the most chanted on the streets of the United States since in May, following the death in police custody of the African American George Floyd, the agitation against uniformed brutality and racism spread.

Robert Schroeder, interim chief of the Louisville metropolitan police, explained on Wednesday night that a person was arrested for opening fire on the uniformed men. The two wounded were part of the units sent to dissolve a group of concentrates in the central zone. Eyewitnesses indicated that the shooting occurred after the uniformed officers fired pepper spray and rubber bullets. Many protesters carried weapons, something totally allowed in Kentucky.

Protest in Chicago after learning the news of the Breonna Taylor case. Photo: EFE.

By the time of Schroeder’s appearance, a while after the curfew came into effect at 9:00 p.m., the vast majority of the protesters had withdrawn, while the police maintained a great show of force.

They were not caught off guard because Mayor Greg Fischer, aware of the imminence of the decision, already ordered on Tuesday that the deployment be made and federal buildings protected.

Indignation, anger, tears and the feeling that blacks cannot even sleep peacefully at home erupted as soon as the exoneration of the three white officers – Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly and Detectives Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankinson – was released. for Taylor’s death.

There were some fires, clashes between protesters and police throughout the afternoon and early evening, and at least 50 were arrested.

Breonna Taylor’s name has been remembered again in several US cities such as Oakland. Photo: EFE.

As a kind of mockery, the grand jury indicted Detective Hankinson three counts of reckless negligence. But because of the projectiles that ended up in the apartment next to that of the deceased, who received six hits.

“There is no evidence that Hankinson’s bullets hit Taylor,” noted Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron. Cameron indicated that, from the tests, “Matingly and Cosgrove responded justifiably to protect themselves” once Taylor opened fire.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Taylor family, called the decision “outrageous and scandalous.” “A national disgrace,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, which fights for the rights of non-whites. “The justice system has failed Breonna and everyone,” he tweeted.

The attorney general argued that the death of this young woman, turned into an injection of vindictive energy for the Black Lives Matter movement, is a tragedy, although not a crime. “We want the truth or the truth that satisfies our narrative,” he said.

He explained that his office was limited to collecting evidence for the Grand Jury to decide. “The justice of the mob is not justice,” stressed Cameron, a Republican, in language that echoed President Trump’s rhetoric in stigmatizing those who protest against racism. At the press conference, Cameron despised “celebrities, activists or influencers who have never set foot in this state and who tell us what to do.”

In his appearance before the press on Wednesday, Donald Trump only read a passage of what Cameron had previously said. No personal consideration, not a word of comfort to the Taylor family.

(With information from La Vanguardia )