TV Marti is spreading freedom to Cuba! Yippee! It just doesn't apply to employees...

[cynatnite]

Half a dozen current and former Marti journalists, as well as several experts who support the Marti mission, expressed concern to The Associated Press about the quality of the current programming and complained of a top-down management style that swiftly punishes dissenters. All refused to speak on the record because they said they feared losing their jobs or other retribution.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070730/ap_on_re_us/anti_castro_broadcasting

[Captain Angry]

1. $10 Million to fly a plane around, and beam stuff at an island.

If somebody did that to us, there would be a crater whereever the plane was based.

[cynatnite]

2. And it doesn't work for shit either n/t

[Captain Angry]

3. That just means they need to double the budget and get a submarine or something.

You know that funding will be attached to a "Don't beat children" funding bill. Nobody could vote against it, and a new sub will be on the way to Cuba.

[1932]

6. And the Carlysle group probably has just the submarine for them.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Another Repugnican Patronage Operation

The signal Radio Marti doesn't even get into most of Cuba anymore...not that many people would listen other than for comical value. TV Marti was is an even bigger joke...transmitting from a balloon on a channel that is already in use in Havana and barely viewable anywhere on the island. For years this has been the haven of right wing Repugnican Cubans...a little patronage shop like FEMA and the DOJ...full of political operatives living off a nice paycheck at our expense.

[Judi Lynn]

5. It's a financial black hole: over $30,000,000 per year to fund both Radio & TV Marti.

It's programmed, directed by Cuban Americans, staffed by Cuban Americans, and paid by helpless ordinary U.S. taxpayers who have no say in it whatsoever.

Consider this example of what happened to a Democratic Congressman from Colorado, David Skaggs, who attempted to alter financing of Radio/TV Marti:

Dealing from principle --- ex-Representative Skaggs

However, in 1993, former Representative David Skaggs (D-CO), in an attempt to trim unnecessary budgetary spending targeted for the Martis, was able to convince his House brethren to block funding for the two operations --- a measure which did not meet the same success in the Senate, where it was inevitably defeated. Skaggs paid a high price for his bold move, and came under withering fire from anti-Havana hardliners. Marti’s congressional supporters, led by none other than treasury plunderer Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart responded with a stark warning that revenge would be exacted on those who might threaten the continuation of the Marti operation, making an example of Skaggs by attempting to slash federal funding for projects in his home district. However, Skaggs refused to give up the fight, and he continued his campaign against the project, in particular its television component, until he retired in 1998. Skaggs admitted, "You know that if you kick the Cuba issue, you're going to have a bad day.” As a result of his personal experience, the Miami New Times reported in a November 12, 1998 article that Skaggs bitterly expressed outrage at the “corruption of United States policy that is inherent in our Cuba policy,” explaining, “by corruption I mean the untoward influence of a relatively small segment of the population in Florida and the money that small segment of the population brings to bear, and how it distorts the policy choices this government makes.”
(snip/)

Approximately 1/2 way down the page at
http://cubajournal.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html



Diaz-Balart, back row, with his younger, "more" "handsome" brother Mario Diaz-Balart
who was in the Florida House of Representatives and was active in deciding to create
a whole new slate of electors in the event Al Gore won the state election through the recount.

Diaz-Balart made good his threats: he got the Cuban American National Foundation to sponsor a series of advertisements in Colorado newspapers trumpeting the fact that the projects David Skaggs was trying to get for Colorado had been blown out of the water. Really screwed him over.

[cynatnite]

7. Damn...that's harsh...

thanks for the info. Saving.

[Judi Lynn]

8. More information available at this link:

7/1/93 After having funds for Radio and TV Marti deleted in a closed mark-up session, the House Appropriations Committee restores funds for Radio Marti but not TV Marti (CAC, 6/22/93; CM, 6/25/93; MH, 6/25/93). Rep. Diaz-Balart succeeds in cutting $23 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in an effort to repay Rep. David Skaggs (D-CO) for cutting $17.5 million from Radio and TV Marti. Rep. Skaggs complains, "I was greatly disturbed and saddened that the normal business of this House was subject to these retributive tactics. This is an example of how difficult it is to pull the plug on a program, even one as ineffective as this one." Skaggs believes the programs are unnecessary because Cubans are able to view commercial broadcasts from Florida. (MH, 7/3/93) Another Cuban American Member of Congress, first-term Representative Robert Menendez (D-NJ), tells the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he intends to monitor projects in the districts of Members who are "obviously on a mission" to oppose the "peaceful diplomacy" programs of Radio and TV Marti: "It could be anyone...For every action, there's a reaction." (CAC, 7/23/92; RC, 7/5/93)
(snip)

7/2/93 Following the conflict between Rep. Skaggs, who cut TV and Radio Marti funding, and Rep. Diaz-Balart, who cut funding for Boulder-based federal programs, CANF sends out a press release announcing "Opposition to Cuba initiative costs Boulder rep pet project," sending Colorado papers to press with news of the Boulder-Miami feud. (MH, 10/13/93)
(snip/...)

Excerpts found a little beyond 1/2 down the page at:
http://www.cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0146b.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The original post on Rep. David Skaggs was excerpted from this article I just found, which contains more information on TV/Radio Martis, if I'm not mistaken.
http://www.coha.org/2006/03/29/radio-and-tv-marti-washington-guns-after-castro-at-any-cost/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I might add that the fathers of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen both have been invited to do programs at Radio Marti, before he died. I'm sure the people of Cuba love to hear the stories about how wonderful Cuba was before the revolution for wealthy Spanish descended people to be thrilling!

Diaz-Balart's father, Rafael, was a Senator, and a Cabinet member of Fulgencio Batista, the blood, dirty U.S.-supported dictator.

He was educated at Princeton. He got a law degree in Cuba. His sister, Mirta, was the wife of Fidel Castro.

The 3rd son, Jose's Wikipedia:

José Díaz-Balart is the co-anchor of Telemundo Network’s “Cada día” morning program. Díaz-Balart is also the Network’s National Director of Public Affairs, as well as the Anchor and Managing Editor of “Enfoque”, Telemundo’s public affairs program.
(snip)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Diaz-Balart

Here he is, second from the right, while his two sweet Congressladdies are on the leftside of the photo.

[Judi Lynn]

9. There's a big mistake in the article: it says you need a dish to pick up Miami tv stations in Cuba.

Wrong.

People who have been to Cuba have indicated those stations come in just fine with a good antenna. It's not that far away.

Try taking a good portable tv with you, driving 100 miles away from your house, if you live in a city of any size, then see if you can pick up the stations from home. Unless you've gone over a mountain, you will no doubt be able to pick up those stations.

Posters at D.U. have sat in the living rooms of friends and family in Cuba and have watched Miami tv without a dish.

Some people have dishes, anyway. One DU'er helped some friends of his install one. I read his comments about it years ago, on another message board.

Don't believe everything you read, and start keeping your ears open, and start trying to remember what you've heard and read as you go along, until you arrive at an overview. Eventually you'll see the truth of the matter about what you've been told about Cuba and Cubans.

On edit:

The fact that you CAN pick up American tv and radio stations in Cuba without cable or satellite is precisely why it's so strange that the Cuban-Americans claim this is the only way Cubans can find out the truth about anything! You'd think they all lived underground in caves, for chrissakes.

That fact was pointed out this year by a Congressman on the floor of the House of Representatives. I've got the article somewhere in my files. I will post it again if I run across it.

[JDPriestly]

10. What I can't understand

is why don't they just do what the west did with regard to Eastern Europe. Why don't they just encourage free trade and the free exchange of ideas going both directions and let the stronger culture, the more attractive lifestyle win in a free market of ideas. I don't understand why no one has been able to persuade the Cubans that the policy that worked to ease up the political restrictions in Eastern Europe could also ease up the political restrictions in Cuba.

The current American policy is counterproductive. Cultural and economic exchange should be encouraged. Just broadcasting propaganda won't change anything. What a waste.