Cuba dissidents Hector Maseda and Angel Moya released

[dipsydoodle]

The two men - Hector Maseda and Angel Moya - were also demanding full pardons and the release of other prisoners who are ill.

>

But since last week, four including Mr Maseda and Mr Moya, have now been allowed to return home.

Mr Maseda, 68, is a journalist and former nuclear engineer who founded the banned Liberal Democratic Party.

He is the husband of Laura Pollan, the leader of the Ladies in White group that has been campaigning for the release of all political prisoners.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12441483

husband of Laura Pollan.........Miami funded.

[joshcryer]

1. Something I'm seeing on blogs is that "dissidents" are encouraged to be exiled...

...because once you go into exile you become almost immediately shunned (Miami exiles are really considered the lowest of the low). So those "dissidents" who stay are courageous indeed.

[flamingdem]

10. You need to spend several hundred hours reading before opining on the dissidents

Cuba is not Egypt.

The dissidents are for the most part getting funding from the US Government.

If not, they know they can sooner or later.

[joshcryer]

12. The "dissidents" are in double quotes because they're not really "dissidents."

The language they use is not Miami-inspired. The language they use is pro-Cuba, pro-democracy, anti-authoritarianism. They have very little to do with the Maimi despots, and indeed, the whole way of doing things the Maimi way is outdated and irrelevant.

It used to be you sit in a coffee shop or someones home and conspire against the Cuban government, wistfully wishing you had the power to do anything relevant (if the exiled Cubans were relevant they would've achieved something a long long time ago).

Now you just write about how you are pissed off about your situation in Cuba and post it online. Then someone else does it. And someone else. Eventually you will have the level of the Egyptian uprising. It's called mass consciousness.

But yes, you're absolutely right, until Cuba has more than a stifled access to the internet, this won't happen, which is why the Cuban government is not going to change their access policies.

[joshcryer]

2. Net recommendation: 0 votes (Your vote: +1)

Why is this post worthy of unrec?

[dipsydoodle]

5. It happens and as a general rule we know who does so.

Don't worry about it - the rest of us don't. :)

btw - do please stick around here in the Latin Forum.

:hi:

[joshcryer]

6. I am going to, I've been fascinated by the blogs, and I'm trying to improve my spanish. :)

It's a win win.

[joshcryer]

3. I wonder if this has to do with the violent arrest of Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera.

I'm not sure of the timing of the events.

[joshcryer]

4. Video of a presser after his release:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlLHZ8GsPsw

He's happy to be free.

[flamingdem]

7. Hint: you will not understand Cuba until you spend a couple of years there nt

[joshcryer]

8. I'm afraid I'm too outspoken to be able to live there.

:(

[flamingdem]

9. Maybe the cure for that is to listen rather than opine?

It's easy to project one's values and opinions before walking in someone's shoes.

Until you've lived as Cubans do and understand what their choices are and what they have been historically you will make incorrect assumptions.

Did you know for instance that one reason they don't rise up like the Egyptians is that they hate the Miami Cubans and the power they would surely impose directly or indirectly WAY more than Raul.

Also, they don't want their cities to be full of crime and gangs like Mexico, Haiti, Central America etc.

[joshcryer]

11. Did you not see my first post in this thread?

The assumptions I make are based on the handfuls of Cuban blogs that exist. They do not necessarily represent the people as a whole, because these are people who know someone who knows someone who can take a USB stick and post the posts online (most of the bloggers do not have internet connections themselves). I am not aligned with the "Miami Cubans," nor am I a "capitalist." I think

Don't expect the Cubans not to rise up like the Egyptians. They have been utterly repressed for a half a century (indeed, the very creation of Cuba was done at the repression of thousands, not limited to right wingers, but also the anarchists). Once they have widespread access to the internet things will change dramatically, which is why Cuba isn't changing their tune with regards to the repressive nature they plan to keep the Cuban internet under.

There's a reason the Cuban government is giving out thousands of licenses for people to have their own businesses, they're finding that their position is untenable. Likely they're going to slowly try to transition to a more free market economy over time, in order to save face for their century of oppression (and of course take credit for their achievement in the end).

If not, they will collapse similarly to the dictatorial regimes before them.

[dipsydoodle]

13. Off topic

Since you like documentaries here's the new link to our UK site which lists, with video links, many of our BBC and Channel 4 etc TV documentaries we've had here in the UK over the years. Some of the group titles in the left hand menu are a bit misleading - its worth rooting around the whole lot in time. Other documentaries are added as time goes by. http://www.thedossier.info/

And on a different subject if you like all types of Latin then check these out :

Ska Cubano Live at the Nobel Peace Prize http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISKzBoIjls8

The singer is Natty Bo who amongst other things is London DJ. For the past 12 years or so he's also had a Ska band , The Top Cats , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ETTxkzbbM the alto player is his ex-wife Magumi / Miss Magoo who is Japanese. She had an odd habit of dumpimg the alto and launching herself off stage to dance if she saw me to the scream of Richard/Lichard :). About 8 or 9 years ago Natty , who I've known on an off since 1995 , went over to Cuba to record and melded Ska with Cuban music - hence Ska Cubano.

and Kirstie MacColl who died so tragically. I think this was recorded in Cuba too.
In These Shoes? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJajw2mp3OA&feature=related

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

14. What a buncha material you've loaded into your post, Dipsydoodle!

Immediately seized your Dossier to save for futher study. Have never seen this until your post. It looks imminently useful.

Appreciated your introduction to Natty Bo/Ska Cubano. It's no small honor to be chosen for an invitation to the Nobel Prize festivities. They are so polished. Great idea putting an el Che beret on one of the musicians who just happens to look like the guy! Does Magumi still work with the band AFTER their divorce? She is a tremendous musician, performer. Never have seen anyone operate a sax behind his/her back. Astounding.

It is good to hear more of their songs, as well. So unusual.

Thanks for the information on Kirsty MacColl. Had no idea this had happened to her. Unbelievable.
She didn't really catch any breaks, whatsoever.

Listened to her song, read her bio., learned U.S. singer Bette Midler also did that song, but, of course, Kirstie's version is the better one, by far.

You hit the ground running with this post! Thank you for a lot of new things to think about, Dipsydoodle. So interesting.

[dipsydoodle]

15. Check her Dad , Ewan , dad out sometime too

In 1932 the British counterintelligence service, MI5, began a file on MacColl, after the local police told them that the singer was a "a communist with very extreme views" who needed "special attention".<2> For a time the Special Branch kept a watch on the Manchester home that he shared with his wife Joan Littlewood. MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs to be rejected by the BBC, and prevented the employment of Littlewood as a BBC children's programme presenter.
>
In 1956, MacColl caused a scandal when he fell in love with twenty-one-year-old Peggy Seeger, who had come to England to transcribe the music for Alan Lomax's anthology, Folk Songs of North America (published in 1961). At the time MacColl, who was twenty years older than Peggy, was still married to his second wife, the dancer Jean Newlove (b. 1923), the mother of two of his children, Hamish (b. 1950) and Kirsty (1959–2000).

Many of MacColl's best-known songs were written for the theatre. For example, he wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" very quickly at the request of Peggy Seeger, who needed it for use in a play she was appearing in. He taught it to her by long-distance telephone, while she was on tour in the United States (from which MacColl had been barred because of his Communist past). This song became a #1 hit in 1972 when covered by Roberta Flack and won MacColl a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, while Flack received a Grammy Award for Record of the Year.<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_MacColl

Most people know Kirstie from this with The Pogues : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwHyuraau4Q

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

16. Whoa! He wrote THAT song! His daughter should have recorded it!

It was THE song for Roberta Flack. I remember exactly where I was the first time ever I heard that song! It was that distinctive. Not too many songs can be so intense you even remember hearing them the first time.

Did not know about his history. His wife, Jean Newlove was very successful in her profession, as well, according to one of her bios I scanned. Here's a photo of him with Peggy:


Looks as if he stayed with her a long, LONG time. Wierd he married Jean Newlove and left her to stay a very long time with the next one. Odd.

Kirstie had an illustrious set of parents. I recognized her ex-husband in a google image search for her as a guy who sang with her when she did a song with the Talking Heads. Everyone of them all connected to music.
This tells us you've had a very interesting group of people in the U.K. all this time, and that you're all not Benny Hill!!!! :nuke:

It's a shame our right-wing influenced politics actually banned Ewan MacColl from travelling here because they felt he didn't come up to the high standards set, in their eyes, here already by the Ku Klux Klan! Sad.