FIDEL REFUTES FORBES "I call on them to prove that I have one single dollar!" PRESIDENT Fidel Castro has challenged and called on Bush, the CIA, the 33 U.S. intelligence agencies, the thousands of banks in the world and the "servants" of Forbes magazine, which claims that Fidel has a fortune of $900 million, to prove that he has even one dollar in an overseas account. Forbes: libel at the service of the empire
Que la actuación en Cuba de Audioslave, reconocida agrupación norteamericana de rock, haya determinado la creación de más de 349 mil sitios web sobre el tema, semejante cifra representa el especial significado de dicha visita tanto para nuestro país como para la propia banda.
Quizás los antecedentes de este concierto tienen lugar en el Havana Jam de 1978, encuentro de músicos norteamericanos y cubanos en el escenario del Teatro Karl Marx con la participación de las más diversas tendencias de la música contemporánea como el pop rock de Billy Joel, las baladas de Rita Coolidge o la experimental fusión de una agrupación fuera de serie como Weather Report. Curiosamente, después de casi 10 años, también en este mismo escenario, se presenta el espectáculo Music Bridges, en donde figuras como Joan Osborne, Bonnie Raitt y Peter Frampton se unen a músicos cubanos, pero en esta ocasión para componer canciones en conjunto e interpretarlas en un concierto.
También nuestro público ha disfrutado de la actuación de populares conjuntos británicos en Europa como Manic Street Preachers, Asian Dub Foundation y recientemente el tecladista Rick Wakeman, destacado cultor del rock progresivo quien se presentó con su grupo N.E.R.E tanto en el Teatro Karl Marx como en la Tribuna Antimperialista José Martí, esta última plaza en donde también se presentaría a solo días de la partida de Wakeman, la agrupación Audioslave. Por lo tanto, de acuerdo con este breve resumen, Audioslave se convierte en la primera agrupación norteamericana de rock que actúa en un escenario de nuestro país al aire libre, en particular en un lugar tan especial para los cubanos como la Tribuna.
Invitado por el Instituto Cubano de la Música, Audioslave no tuvo una adecuada difusión previa a su actuación porque aunque autorizado por el Departamento del Tesoro de los EE.UU., la propia agrupación solicitó mantener discreción en torno a dicha visita hasta prácticamente a solo minutos de aterrizar en La Habana y evitar así posibles contratiempos con los sectores más reaccionarios en la vecina nación norteña.
Sin embargo, los admiradores cubanos de Audioslave siempre estuvieron al tanto de su esperado concierto en la noche del 6 de mayo al lado del Malecón habanero. leer mas y ver mas fotos!!!....
Responses to PBS Airing of Cuba-bashing film on Fidel
----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Lee Wald" To: <pres@kqed.org> Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 6:36 PM Subject: What happened to KQED????
Office of the President KQED
Dear KQED,
There was a time when KQED was a beacon of sunshine in an otherwise drab or threatening world. Contributing to KQED was a moral obligation, because it was the only way to guarantee the quality and diversity -- and independence -- of programming we couldn't find anywhere else. In the early 1970s, I produced my first video, with the help of Daniel del Solar, via KQED's program to assist various communities of the Bay Area learn to do video production. With your airing of that hatchet-job on Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, however, I feel as though the final nail has been put in the coffin of what was once truly representative public television. It seems that Big Government, now in the name of George W. Bush and cronies, calls all the shots, and PBS just rolls over and actually airs shoddy, transparent rightwing propaganda pieces it would never have even considered a couple of decades ago. What good does it do for all of us who once pitched in our nickels and dimes to keep public radio and tv public, if the money from the big corporations and big government so clearly outspends and outranks us? At the very least, if PBS wanted to have a debate about the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro, it could have selected from a wide range of materials available on those subjects -- most of them better and more balanced than what you chose to present -- and organized a series. In fact, why don't you do that now? You could put on Estela Bravo's and Oliver Stone's films of Fidel; the new film by Bernie Dwyer, "Mission Against Terror", and a number of other films that would give viewers a very different picture than the one you aired last night. Could you suggest this to PBS nationally and in any event consider it for the Bay Area? As a teacher, I would love to urge my students to watch such a series. It would at least make up for the very bad taste you have left us with from last night's showing, and help restore a little of the belief we once had that the public actually had a channel free from corporate bias.
Sincerely,
Karen Lee Wald teacher, San Jose, California
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From: "Art Heitzer"
As a an attorney active with the Cuba Subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild, which has organized the defense of our right to travel, to Cuba in particular, I am also concerned by the American Experience documentary on Fidel Castro, especially for those who have not been allowed to experience Cuba directly. It is a gross distortion to constantly project Cuba as being one man, all decisions made by one man, including all accomplishments and failures. Actually an insult to the 11 million, incredibly creative, inventive, talented and educated, who strive to accomplish something positive in this world and in Cuba in the face of great difficulties.
But to say that not only is Castro responsible for all that happens in Cuba, but that he personally ran Nicaragua's indigenous Sandinista revolution from Cuba is both insulting and preposterous. Sounds like the "domino theory" all over again, and completely unhistorical.
The portrayal of the treatment of dissidents and the police state was quite unbalanced, and relied on literal crackpots such as Armando Valladares (if you were in the same room with him as I was, even for as little as 30 min., I think you would agree) as unchallenged authorities, giving anecdotal stories that are incredible on their face. E.g., that Castro personally ordered a prisoner to die of thirst -- lasting 57 days??? And are we supposed to believe that Valladares has a direct line to Castro's chain of command?
Some balance is much needed. Condoleeza Rice in her confirmation hearing listed Cuba at the head of the "Outposts of Tyranny." Maybe you could negotiate to let U.S. people see the so-far-"banned in the USA" Oliver Stone film on Castro from 2003 titled "Comandante." The CBC showed it, with his sequel "Looking for Fidel," while Canada's leading paper, the Globe and Mail, front-paged the fact that in the USA we are not allowed to see it. It is insulting for us to be treated like children, and can be very dangerous for us and the Cuban people as well.
Thank you for your kind consideration
Art Heitzer, Chair, National Lawyers Guild's Cuba Subcommittee aheitzer@igc.org Law Offices of Arthur Heitzer 633 W. Wisconsin Ave Suite 1410 Milwaukee, WI 53203 414-273-1040, ext. 12; fax 414-273-4859
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