By Ike Nahem
WHO IS AFRAID OF WHOM?
This article in the Wall Street Journal is a signal that Washington under Biden is bound and compelled to follow what Raul Castro once called a 2-tier strategic and tactical course toward the unchanged policy goal of subverting, defeating, and overturning the Cuban Revolution which means the current revolutionary government led by Miguel Diaz Canel. Unlike Trump’s “one-tier” policies of only “sticks” and no “carrots,” Biden may, hopefully, ease up on or reverse some of the Trump and Co. Executive Orders in order to politically strengthen — as they see it — their policy of subversion and regime change.
Washington always tries — even under Trump although more surreally perhaps — to cover its anti-Cuba, anti-socialist/communist, pro-capitalist, pro-landlord programs and policies against Cuba, and in Latin America as a whole, with knee-jerk boilerplate about “freedom” “democracy” “human rights” and so on. The are continually recruiting, financing, training, and unleashing cadre from outside (the Cuban diaspora is large, with political and financial resources and a political base in Miami) and inside Cuba. They are continuously hatching new schemes as soon as Cuban intelligence and Intelligence exposes and breaks up the old ones. Non-stop. 24/7.
Many of these subversive schemes involve non-revolutionary or anti-revolutionary artists and musicians who like everyone else in Cuba, are living in a ever-more grindingly difficult economic-material day-to-day existence under the stepped-up Yankee blockade. Which is precisely the conditions that Washington exploits. The conditions they manufacture and organize.
Policy or tactical retreats are nothing new in the course of the now-60 year-old history of stepped-up or stepped-down US aggression against Cuba. Biden seems more of “Tier-2” man in principle. This of course upsets the right wing forces emboldened under Trump who want ZERO concessions to be the permanent policy, whatever the political consequences.
And here is the rub: Biden and the US and Canadian capitalist media will certainly try to exploit this situation with the “San Isidro” group to gain some “moral high ground.” The moral high ground that revolutionary Cuba already has! Because of the blockade and how Cuba fights it and Cuba’s socialist internationalism.
The political context Biden confronts includes world public opinion and the upcoming UN vote; the current political backlash in Latin America against the neoliberal and reactionary governmental ascension that is now descending, e.g. Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, where Cuba’s diplomatic position is strengthening across the Americas; and the worldwide respect ✊🏽 and love 💕 for Cuban medical internationalism and example in this pandemic and capitalist horror show.
Whatever legitimate grievances these artists and musicians might have, nothing inside Cuba regarding democratic rights, political and “cultural” space for so-called “dissidents” can be looked at objectively outside the context of the continued policy of the US government of extraterritorial sanctions, subversion, and regime change — with constant bellicose posturing and the on-again/off-again encouragement of terrorism and subversion.
If Washington wants more space inside Cuba for its handful of anti-revolutionary or even just disillusioned or politically indifferent individuals they are able to manipulate and label “dissidents” (and I defend the right for the disillusioned and cynical to freely express themselves in principle) then the only path to that is to end the blockade! End all travel restrictions between US and Cuban artists! Allow Cuban artists and musicians to perform and record in the US! Let Cuban scientists and doctors and educators and trade unionists and Afro-Cubans and feminists and LGBT leaders all collaborate with their peers in Cuba!
Who is Afraid of Whom?
US Hands Off Cuba!
Read article below from the Wall Street Journal
Cuban Leadership Confronts a Rare Dissident Movement
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