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The words NOT in quotation marks below were written by Fidel Castro Ruz, and appear in the current, English edition of Granma International:
Our era is characterized by an unprecedented fact: the threat to human survival imposed on the world by imperialism.
The painful reality should not come as a surprise to anybody. We have seen it coming at an accelerated pace in recent decades, at a rate difficult to imagine.
Does this mean that Obama is responsible for or the promoter of that threat? No. It simply demonstrates that he is ignoring reality and neither wants to nor would be able to overcome it. Or rather, he is dreaming of the unreal in an unreal world.
Che and Fidel at the Havana Airport (12.1959)
Although the U.S. writer Gay Talese, one of the principal representatives of the new journalism in America, affirmed on May 5, 2010 according to a European news agency that Barack Obama embodies the finest history of the United States in the last century, the fact, if it is a fact, can in no way alter the objective reality of human destiny.
Events are happening - like the ecological disaster that has just occurred in the Gulf of Mexico - which demonstrate how little governments can do against those who control capital; those who, in both the United States and Europe, via the economy of our globalized planet, are the ones who decide the destiny of peoples. Take as one example measures coming from the U.S. Congress itself, published in the most influential media of that country and Europe, just as they have been circulated on Internet, without altering one word.
"Radio and TV Martà blatantly lie while
broadcasting unfounded information," states a report by the U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, which recommends that both stations be
permanently moved from Miami and relocated in Washington and be fully
integrated into the propaganda framework of Voice of America (VOA).
"Besides deceiving the public" both broadcasting stations use offensive and incendiary language, which discredits them.
"(And) after 18 years, Radio and TV Martà have failed to make any discernable inroads into Cuban society or to influence the Cuban government."
The report, which was circulated Monday, May 3, recommends that the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) become part of the Voice Of America, the official propaganda radio of the U.S. government.
"Problems with adherence to traditional journalistic standards, miniscule audience size, Cuban government jamming, and allegations of cronyism have dogged the program since its creation,'" recognized the committee, headed by Democrat John Kerry.
"The committee recommends urgently removing both stations from Miami, (and it) highlights the need to hire personnel in a more balanced way to produce a depoliticized and professional product."
In the report, Kerry makes reference to Alberto Mascaró, the nephew of Pedro Roig's wife - Roig was hired as the director of VOA Latin America thanks to his relative.
The document reports in detail how, in February 2007, Mascaro, "along with a relative of a member of Congress" (who was not named), pleaded guilty in the Federal Court to receiving $112,000 in illegal kickbacks from an OCB contractor. The former OCB employee was sentenced to 27 months in jail and fined $5,000 after being found guilty for taking as much as 50% of all monies paid by TV Martà for the production of television programming by Vendor Perfect Image.
And recently an article by professors Paul Drain and Michele Barry at StanfordUniversity (California), translated on the Rebelión website, states:
