Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Fidel Castro celebrates 90th birthday, criticises Obama in public letter [View all]Judi Lynn
(160,813 posts)U.S. Aggression & Propaganda Against Cuba
Why the unrelieved U.S. antagonism toward Cuba?
by Michael Parenti
Z magazine, September 2004
. . .
Double Standard "Democracy"
U.S. policymakers have long condemned Cuba for its controlled press. The Cubans, we are told, are subjected to a totalitarian indoctrination and do not enjoy the diverse and open discourse that is said to be found in the "free and independent" U.S. media. In fact, the average Cuban has more access to Western news sources than the average U.S. citizen has to Cuban sources. The same was true of the former Soviet Union. In 1985 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pointed out that U.S. television programs, movies, books, music, and magazines were in relative abundance in the USSR compared to the almost nonexistent supply of Soviet films and publications in the United States. He offered to stop jamming Voice of America broadcasts to his country if Washington would allow normal frequency transmission of Radio Moscow to the U.S., an offer the U.S. government declined.
Likewise, Cuba is bombarded with U.S. broadcasting, including Voice of America, regular Spanish-language stations from Miami, and a U.S. -sponsored propaganda station called "Radio Marti." Havana has asked that Cuba be allowed a frequency for Cuban use in the United States, something Washington has refused to do. In response to those who attack the lack of dissent in the Cuban media, Fidel Castro has promised to open up the Cuban press to all opponents of the Revolution on the day he saw U.S. Communists enjoying regular access to the U.S. major media. Needless to say, U.S. rulers have never taken up the offer.
Cuba has also been condemned for not allowing its people to flee the island. That so many want to leave Cuba is treated as proof that Cuban socialism is a harshly repressive system, rather than that the U.S. embargo has made life difficult in Cuba. That so many millions more want to leave capitalist countries like Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, El Salvador, Philippines, South Korea, Macedonia, and others too numerous to list is never treated as grounds for questioning the free-market system that inflicts such misery on the Third World.
In accordance with an agreement between Havana and Washington, the Cuban government allowed people to leave for the United States if they had a U. S. visa. Washington had agreed to issue 20,000 visas a year, but granted few, preferring to incite illegal departures and reap the propaganda value. Cubans who fled illegally on small crafts or hijacked vessels and planes were hailed as heroes who had risked their lives to flee Castro's tyranny and were granted asylum in the U.S. When Havana announced it would let anyone leave who wanted to, the Clinton administration reverted to a closed door policy, fearing an immigration tide. Now policymakers voiced concerns that the escape of too many disgruntled refugees would help Castro stay in power by easing tensions within Cuban society. Cuba is condemned for not allowing its citizens to leave and then for allowing them to leave.
More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/US_Aggression_Cuba.html