Don't Give Me Moore Crap

Yes, I am going to see "Sicko". No, I haven't yet.

I have seen some clips from the film of a Cuban hospital that made my blood boil.

Supposedly, Moore went to Cuba and took with him some aid workers who were injured and supposedly asked the Cuban government to give them "the same care they give their own Cuban citizens [....] No more, no less. And that's what they did."

Yea. Great. And that proves what exactly?

I know I need to see the whole film first to see what this hospital looked like. But still, this sounds way too fishy for me because I know people, family members, friends, I have twenty-six years of listening to Cuban family and friends talking about Cuba, I know what's going on over there. I hear it every day. Things are not better over there than they are here.

Also, I saw a clip of Moore boasting about the price of medicine. How it was loads cheaper in Cuba than in the states. Yea. I bet they are. With Moore's salary, his American dollars, and his American citizenship anything is available to him. The same is not true for the people that live there.

I wonder why in the time I worked in Walgreens I saw so many people buying medicine! food! clothes! to send back to their relatives in Cuba. There are companies that specialize in sending packages to Cuba! Ummm...why the demand if Cubans have it so good over there? If what Moore is saying is true about the low costs of medicine why don't Cubans buy in bulk and send to their relatives here in the states, in Miami? Hmmm???

I'm sorry...but watching people that have absolutely no ties to Cuba talking about Cubans or the country or its politics like they know what the fuck they are talking about pisses the shit right out of me. They don't give a damn about the people in Cuba. Moore probably didn't leave the touristic part of Cuba to visit where the people live. He probably didn't realize that only the "clean" part of Cuba is reserved for the tourists, not if you actually live there. No, I don't think he noticed, he was probably too busy giving a shit about himself and the American's he took over there to make a stupid point. He should have grabbed a few random Cubans off the street and asked the hospitals to give THEM care.

Here is a link to Humberto Fontova's article about "Sicko". It's a good read, well worth the time.

Cuban dissident Luis Garcia Perez freed after 17 years

Here is the article from Taipei Times (original source here).

AP, HAVANA
Wednesday, Apr 25, 2007, Page 7

Cuban dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who wrote a book about prison conditions on the island while behind bars, was freed after serving his full 17-year sentence, human-rights groups said.

Garcia Perez, widely known as "Antunez," was released on Sunday, the opposition human-rights group Bitacora Cubana said on Monday.

He was arrested for enemy propaganda and attempted sabotage in 1990. Pope John Paul II petitioned for his early release before his historic visit in 1998. Cuba freed 14 others as a goodwill gesture tied to the pope's visit, but left Garcia Perez in prison.

PRISON JOURNAL

While serving out his sentence he wrote Boitel Lives, a book about prison conditions that was published outside Cuba.

The book is named after Pedro Luis Boitel who died in 1972 in a Cuban prison after 53 days on hunger strike.

The Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, a which represents anti-Castro exiles, congratulated Garcia Perez for his "consistency of principles."

While Garcia Perez got out, two other dissidents have been imprisoned this month after secret trials, according to a Havana-based rights group.

NEW TRIALS

A lawyer, Rolando Jimenez Posada, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for painting graffiti and distributing pamphlets with an anti-government message.

He was tried over the weekend without a defense attorney or family members present, and convicted of disrespect for authority and revealing state secrets, said Elizardo Sanchez, a spokesman for the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

Officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday about these cases.

Sanchez said Jimenez Posada was brought to Havana for the trial from Isla de la Juventud, where he has been jailed since his arrest in early 2003. It was unclear if the time already spent in jail would count toward the 12-year sentence.

According to Sanchez, Jimenez Posada's relatives say his request to represent himself in court was denied and that after he protested, he was not allowed to attend his own trial.

The rights commission also criticized the proceedings against journalist Oscar Sanchez Madan, who wrote about dissident groups and the hardships of island life.

He was arrested April 13 and tried in secret that day, the commission said. Found guilty of "social dangerousness," he was sentenced to four years in jail.

Seven Cuban dissidents freed

HAVANA - The Cuban government has released seven dissidents from prison, including a 42-year-old man who had been behind bars for 17 years, dissident sources said on Tuesday.

Six dissidents were released Tuesday after spending two years in prison for “public disorder,” ”posing a danger” and “insolence,” the sources said.

Their release came two days after another prominent dissident, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, 42, was freed after spending 17 years and 37 days in prison on charges of “verbal enemy propaganda,” ”attempted sabotage” and failing to respect Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Perez, known as Antunez, was arrested for speaking out against Castro, who leads the Americas’ only one-party communist regime, on March 15, 1990.

Dissidents did not see the prisoners’ release as a goodwill gesture from the government, saying recent summary and secretive trials show that the government repression persists.

“We don’t see anything special in this,” Elizardo Sanchez, who leads the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told AFP.

“We are happy for (Perez’s) release, but he is coming into the streets of a country under a government that doesn’t respect any civil, political and economic rights,” Sanchez said.

“He has come out only to be exposed to an atmosphere of intolerance and political persecution,” he said.

While Cuba insists it hold no political prisoners, dissidents say almost 300 are behind bars.

Sanchez also announced the releases of Manuel Perez Soria, 55; Lazaro Alonso Roman, 32; and Emilio Leyva, 42.

Another dissident group, the outlawed National Coordinator for Past and Current Political Prisoners, said three other dissidents were released: Duylian Ramirez, Elio Chavez and Jose Diaz Silva. There ages were not immediately given.

One of the newly freed dissidents reiterated his opposition to Castro’s regime.

“I am an opponent of this government and my life is fully dedicated to this, because I am on the right side,” Perez Soria told AFP. “This country is screaming for economic, political and social changes.”

Original Link: Khaleej Times Online

Petition to Protest Gloria Estefan's new CD: 90 Millas

Apparently, Gloria Estefan is collaborating with Carlos Santana for her new CD. During the 2005 Oscars Santana appeared wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, a very trendy fashion statement for uneducated and uncultured Americans. As a result, many Cuban Americans, the majority of Estefan's fan base, may be outraged by her decision to collaborate with a communist sympathizer.

In order to spread the news about this please visit the link below to read more about and sign the petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/05201902/petition.html

What's all this about?

I need to voice some pent-up frustrations about Cuba, Cubans, Cuban-Americans, Castro, and injustice.

I can't believe that in America, a country so focused on justice, the concept of justice itself vanishes from discourses about Cuba. Within a system of justice, justice is ignored in order to perpetuate the status quo, in order to mystify the public of the atrocities that occur 90 miles from Key West, and in order to vanquish the voices of those who dare to notice and speak out.

I thought that the next best thing to getting an aneurism because of people's idiocy on this subject is to write about my feelings. So, I'll post articles, blogs, videos, things my friends write, and things that I have written over the years. At the very least, I hope that one or two people will stumble across my blog and be educated, and have the opportunity to voice their opinions about the subject.