Argentina's President Elect is not Hillary

So sorry for the lack of postin' of late, I'm getting married!!! Check the extensive archives at random for fun in the meantime, or catch me over at Phil Peters' Cuban Triangle. I've been sucked in...

For now, I'll share 2 letters to the editor I recently wrote to the LA Times - calling them out for their misinformation on Cuba and the other arguing against the notion that Argetina's President-elect Fernandez de Kirchner would be close to Hillary Clinton and therefore "good for the US."

They printed 2 other great pro-Cuba letters, so I can't complain they didn't print mine (they did use the word hypocrisy in their subtitle though...

Re: "Madama President." Oct 26

Mrs. Fernandez de Kirchner will be elected in
Argentina by a wide margin because she represents
successful opposition to the very neo-liberal economic
policies both the LA Times and Hillary Clinton
champions. Therefore, she will not likely see eye to
eye with (President elect?) Clinton on these
contentious issues. To assume so based on her sex is
demeaning to both women.

Allegiance to the Washington concensus has been
rejected by the people in almost every Latin American
country. For three years, the top three growing
countries in the region have been Venezuela, Cuba and
Argentina, an inconvenient fact that few Americans
know.



Re: "A New Course for Cuba Policy." Oct 26

I applaud the Times for pointing out the hypocrisy and
futility that defines US policy on Cuba. However, it
is wrong to assume that more information will kill the
resilliant Revolution. The Cuban people are well
informed about the world and know exactly what many
people think about it's human rights violations.
Cubans routinely hear these attacks directly,
including Bush's speech, which was printed and shown
in its entirety. Cuba prints these attacks because so
much rings false to Cubans ears.

Case in point is Bush's (and the Times) assumption
that Cuban authorities view the Internet as a
"existential threat." In fact the opposite is true,
evidenced by current training of 2 million Cubans in
IT at computer clubs. Internet cafes provide 100%
access (for a fee), as do many workplaces. In a recent
poll, 35% of Cubans said they are online. The lack of
universal free internet access (their goal) on the
island is a direct result of the embargo, which means
the Cubans must rely on a slow, expensive satellite
connection, rather than a US controlled fiber optics
cable 12 miles away. Universal free access would
simply render the system too slow to be useful,
therefore some prioritization is required. If the US
really wanted to call Castro's bluff, Bush should have
offered up the optics line.



Photos from the recent Heavy Metal "Rockero" festival in Holguin.