Foreign Correspondent: Police Lessons From Cuba

Accountability by Nancy Ohanian

Contrary to the image of brutal and repressive communists, police in Cuba offer an instructive example for activists in the United States.

-by Reese Erlich

A group of muscular cops carrying semi-automatic pistols and batons slowly move through the crowd at the end of an outdoor salsa concert. My friends and I have a bottle of rum, and I think for sure the cops will confiscate it, and maybe even arrest us.

Instead, the cops motion for us to drink up, and we quickly comply. They confiscate the glass bottle so it can’t be broken and used as a weapon.

This incident took place in Havana some years ago, and it tells a lot about what constitutes good policing. The cops were interested in preventing crime, not compounding it.

Contrary to the image of brutal and repressive communists, police in Cuba offer an instructive example for activists in the United States. Police live in the cities they patrol. They generally treat citizens with respect. As I documented in my book Dateline Havana, police beatings of criminals are rare and police murders are nonexistent. Cuba has one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America.

The ongoing protests for Black lives in the United States have forced an unprecedented national debate about the role of policing. Should police departments be defunded and that money be diverted to help poor communities? Should the police be abolished altogether?

Cuba has wrestled with policing issues since the 1959 revolution. The government, while certainly having its share of failures, has created a system of community-police interaction that reduces crime without reliance on brute force.

Crime fighting in Cuba begins with a social safety net, which provides every Cuban with free education, free health care, and subsidized cultural events. Cuba doesn’t suffer from the scourges of homelessness and cartel-instigated drug addiction, despite traffickers’ regular attempts to smuggle drugs into Cuba from Florida.

The socialist economy means Cuba doesn’t have extremes of wealth and poverty. I’ve visited the homes of high-ranking government officials who live in middle-income neighborhoods. I have met police officers who lived in a modest apartment complex in the same neighborhood they patrolled.

Cuba uses community pressure to discourage crime. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) were originally set up in the early 1960s to root out U.S.-backed counter revolutionaries. Nowadays, the CDRs promote public health and act as neighborhood watch groups.

Humberto Carillo Ramirez, a national CDR leader, told me in a radio documentary that local residents often know who the criminals are.

“If a family isn’t sending their kids to school or if a young person isn’t working and is getting into trouble . . . we meet with them,” he says. “We live on [their] block . . . We explain why it’s bad for the country and we also explain the severe legal consequences for them.”

When residents are convicted of crimes, CDR members visit them in jail. “We want to . . . reincorporate them in society after they get out,” Carillo says.

In the early 1990s. Cuba faced a massive economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union and intensified by U.S. efforts to overthrow the government. Cubans faced severe shortages of gasoline, food, and electricity. Starting in 1996, the nation saw a sharp increase in home burglaries and street assaults; there was even an attempted armored car robbery.

By U.S. standards, crime in Cuba remained light, but it was more than Cubans were willing to accept. In 1999, the government passed a law that doubled some prison sentences. Judges also allowed fewer prisoners out on parole. Police were stationed on every corner in the tourist areas. The crackdown resulted in a 20 percent drop in crime, Supreme Court Justice Jorge Bodes Torres told me in an interview at the time.

He attributes the success to “law and order” measures and community organizing. “The majority of people are involved in fighting crime,” he says. “That’s the most important factor.”

Cuban political dissidents sharply disagree. They claim that police routinely beat and imprison government opponents. However, as I’ve documented, many of these dissidents are funded by Washington and regularly spread fake news, so their claims of systematic brutality lack credibility.

Some Cubans do have legitimate complaints. I’ve interviewed dozens of young Afro-Cuban men who have been stopped and questioned by police because they are Black.

Pablo Michel, a young Afro Cuban, tells me he was detained by police several times in the tourist areas of Havana. On one occasion, he drove two white women tourists to the Havana airport. Police stopped and questioned Michel, suspecting he was running an illegal taxi service. He says white Cubans taking foreigners to the airport “don’t have the same problems.”

Michel and others I interviewed say that police don’t conduct violent searches, and they don’t beat or shoot suspects. Nevertheless, too many police stereotype dark-skinned Cubans as thieves and hustlers, he says.

Late last year, the Cuban government announced a major anti-racism campaign. Officials plan to identify specific areas of discrimination, initiate a public debate, and educate the public.

“This is a real step forward, after we have fought for so many years,” Deyni Terri, founder of the Racial Unity Alliance in Havana, told Reuters last November. “It’s a good start.”

Obviously, institutions developed in Cuba can’t simply be transferred wholesale to the United States. But we can learn from the concept of community involvement, says Max Rameau, an organizer with the Washington, D.C.-based grassroots group Pan-African Community Action, who has studied Cuban police practices.

“We need different community entities for different tasks that are responsible for safety and wellbeing of the neighborhood,” he tells me in a phone interview. For instance, U.S. community groups can resolve mental health issues and family disputes without involving police.

But Rameau does not support getting rid of police altogether.

If a white supremacist attacks a Black church, as happened in South Carolina in 2015, he says, “We want to make sure our community safety team can respond. In any society with different classes, you will have police. But we should have control over them.”

The U.S. debate about policing has shifted distinctly leftward. After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, politicians called for police to wear body cameras. Today, after the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis City Council has voted to dismantle the police force, although it’s still hashing out the specifics.

Anti-police-brutality groups have developed a variety of plans to decentralize police departments into community forces, governed by civilian boards.

For the first time in recent history, people of all backgrounds in the United States are seriously discussing how to fundamentally change the police forces. Cuba’s experiences should be part of that discussion.

Foreign Correspondent-- How Cuba Is Succeeding In The Fight Against COVID

-by Reese Erlich

One morning along a street with cracked sidewalks and houses with fading paint, Dr. Liz Caballero and two medical students stopped at every door in that part of Havana’s Vedado district. During normal times, these neighborhood doctors practice preventative medicine. Now, they participate in a full-blown campaign against the COVID 19 pandemic.

Dr. Caballero knocked on a door and asked if anyone in the house had a fever or other COVID 19 symptoms. The resident replied everyone was fine.

“My son and wife are doctors and they disinfect before entering the house,” she said. “We all have surgical face masks. Even my boy has one.”

Community health workers are assisted by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the country’s neighborhood watch organizations, and by the Women’s Federation. The government requires everyone to wear face masks outside. So many Cubans make their own.

Cuba faces shortages of testing equipment and some medications. People wait in long lines for chicken and toilet paper. But what the island lacks in material resources, it makes up for with a sophisticated public health system.

Public health authorities use classic anti-epidemic techniques to identify those infected, quarantine and treat them, and then trace all their contacts. See this short video from the Havana-based Belly of the Beast:





So far, government efforts have severely restricted the pandemic’s spread since it was first discovered among foreign tourists on March 11. As of May 22, out of a population of 11 million, Cuba had 1,916 COVID cases and only 81 deaths. The Cuban infection rate is .71 people per 100,000 inhabitants. The U.S. rate is 29, about 40 times higher.

Victor Wallis, a political science professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, attributed Cuba’s success to its socialist medical system.

“Cuba’s enormous investment in the health sector rather than the military is a new kind of priority,” he told me. “It focuses on human well being.”

Hugs and kisses

Cuba initiated a massive social distancing campaign, but Dr. Caballero admitted that enforcement can be hard in a Latin culture used to hugs and kisses on each cheek when greeting friends.

“Sometimes it is difficult to stop shaking hands,” she said. “But right now Cubans have internalized that the most important thing is social distancing.”

Here’s Dr. Caballero in a Belly of the Beast video:





Unlike the U.S., said Dr. Caballero, all medical care is free in Cuba, including dentistry, eye care and mental health services.

In Cuba, “people go to the doctor as soon as possible,” she said. “Sometimes in other countries they don’t go early because they don’t have health insurance; they don’t have money to pay.”

Cuba’s socialist medical system is different from anything politicians propose in the U.S. Even with the most progressive plans in the U.S., such as Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All, the government would act as an insurance company to pay private doctors and hospitals.

In Cuba, the state runs the entire medical system from medical schools, to neighborhood doctors, to local clinics and hospitals.

After the 1959 Cuban revolution, Afro Cubans and people from working-class backgrounds were able to attend medical schools for the first time.

Starting with their first med school class, doctors are educated to serve the people, not seek fame and wealth. Education is completely free, and upon graduation, doctors must practice for three years in underserved communities and rural areas.

Cuba has among the world’s highest doctor/patient ratios. And Cubans have a higher life expectancy than in the U.S.

Today, Cuba has sent 30,000 doctors to treat people mostly in poor countries. Today, 2,000 doctors and nurses are fighting COVID 19 in 23 countries from Mexico to Italy.

See what these doctors and nurses say about US government criticism of their work in this short Belly of the Beast video:





Starting in the 1970s, Cuba built from scratch a sophisticated biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Cuba has developed a number of internationally recognized pharmaceuticals.

Cuban scientists are currently conducting joint research into a lung cancer drug with the Roswell Cancer Center in Buffalo. Doctors in Cuba and China are using a Cuban interferon drug to treat COVID 19.

Serious problems

Cuba’s health care system has plenty of problems, however. Isis Allen, a 60-year-old journalist, stood in line outside a pharmacy in her Havana neighborhood. Her mother needs medicine for circulatory problems. Sometimes the pharmacy has the drugs, sometimes not.

“You can spend a day waiting in line at a pharmacy,” she said.

Her mother’s medicine must be imported from overseas. Even when Cuba makes the drugs in Havana, the health ministry has a hard time getting the raw materials.

Allen attributed shortages to the U.S. trade embargo, known in Cuba as the blockade. She called the unilateral blockade “an embarrassment for the United States, a powerful country that is making this island, with such a hard-working and dedicated people, suffer so much.”

Food and medicine are supposed to be exempt from trade restrictions under the official terms of the embargo, which the U.S. first imposed on Cuba in 1962. However, many companies–even those outside the U.S.–fear prosecution in U.S. courts and won’t trade with Cuba.

Swiss medical equipment corporations refused to sell Cuba ventilators in late April. A few weeks earlier, China tried to send Cuba surgical masks, gloves, ventilators and other medical supplies. But Avianca, the Colombian-based airline originally contracted to make the delivery, cancelled the flight, fearing US sanctions.

In another case the Swiss NGO MediCuba found that its bank wouldn’t transfer money to pay for shipping medicine to Cuba. The bank eventually agreed to the funds transfer. But in another incident, the bank of a pharmaceutical supplier refused MediCuba’s payments because the medicine would be shipped to Cuba.

Since it inception the U.S. embargo has cost the island almost a trillion dollars in economic damage, according to José Ramón Cabañas, Cuba’s ambassador to the U.S. But it has failed politically. “Some people think they finally can defeat the Cuban Revolution. It won’t happen.”

The U.S. blockade isn’t the only source of Cuba’s problems, however. Cuba gets most of its hard currency from tourism and remittances from citizens living abroad. The Cuban government closed the country to tourism in March and has not indicated when it might resume. So Cuba lacks hard currency to purchase food, petroleum and many other products.

For over a decade, the government has promoted economic reforms. The state continues to control major industries, while encouraging the growth of small, private businesses. Even before the current crisis, however, Cuba saw a growing currency black market and hoarding of scarce consumer products.

As I wrote after a January trip to Cuba, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel had planned to raise state worker salaries and encourage provincial self sufficiency in food production. The growing world recession has made economic reforms all the more difficult.

To hug again

Despite these serious problems, the Cuban government has organized an impressive anti-pandemic campaign. The island’s heath care system is built on solidarity not profit, according to Professor Wallis.

“Cuban policies correspond to ancient medical precepts but have been ignored by U.S. capitalism,” he said. “Treat people because they’re human beings in need. It’s their national policy.”

On a neighborhood level Dr. Caballero is optimistic about beating the pandemic. Cubans will return to normal lives, she said.

“When all this passes, we will hug again,” she said. “We will return to what we have always done.”



Reese Erlich has reported from Cuba since 1968 and is author of the book Dateline Havana: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Future of Cuba. Research for this article came from the Havana-based media outlet Belly of the Beast.

Cuba Is Better Than Trump

The U.S. is probably handling the pandemic worse than any country in the world. And by the U.S., I mean Donald J. Trump. Watch Chris Martenson's podcast from yesterday, above. As I've been saying for two months, Trump has managed to make every wrong decision at every junction of this pandemic.

Jacobin's Ben Burgis took a look at how Cuba is riding circles around Trump. Cuba-- you know, the country that conservatives, from Trump to Biden, have used to revile Bernie with, as a totalitarian hellhole. It happens to be a totalitarian hellhole with a far better response to the pandemic than the U.S. response-- "from sending doctors to other countries to pioneering anti-viral treatments to converting factories into mask-making machines-- is putting other countries, even rich countries, to shame."

Last week, the MS Braemar, a transatlantic cruise ship carrying 682 passengers from the United Kingdom, found itself momentarily stranded. Five of the cruise’s passengers had tested positive for the coronavirus. Several dozen more passengers and crew members were in isolation after exhibiting flu-like symptoms. The ship had been rebuffed from several ports of entry throughout the Caribbean. According to sources in the British government who spoke to CNN, the UK then reached out to both the United States and Cuba “to find a suitable port for the Braemar.”

Which country took them in? If you’ve paid attention to the Trump administration’s xenophobic rhetoric about “the Chinese virus” and its obsession with keeping foreign nationals out of the country, and you know anything about Cuba’s tradition of sending doctors to help with humanitarian crises all around the world, you should be able to guess the answer.

The Braemar docked in the Cuban port of Mariel last Wednesday. Passengers who were healthy enough to travel to their home countries were transported to the airport in Havana. Those who were too sick to fly were offered treatment at Cuban hospitals-- even though there had only been ten confirmed cases in the whole country, and allowing patients from the cruise ship to stay threatened to increase the number.

Cuba Mobilizes Against the Virus

Despite, being a poor country that often experiences shortages-- a product of both the economy’s structural flaws and the effects of sixty years of economic embargo by its largest natural trading partner-- Cuba was better positioned than most to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

The country combines a completely socialized medical system that guarantees health care to all with impressive biotech innovations. A Cuban antiviral drug (Interferon Alfa-2B) has been used to combat the coronavirus both inside the country and in China. Cuba also boasts 8.2 doctors per capita-- well over three times the rate in the United States (2.6) or South Korea (2.4), almost five times as many as China (1.8), and nearly twice as many as Italy (4.1).

On top of its impressive medical system, Cuba has a far better track record of protecting its citizens from emergencies than other poor nations-- and even some rich ones. Their “comprehensive, all-hands-on-deck” hurricane-preparedness system, for example, is a marvel, and the numbers speak for themselves. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew killed dozens of Americans and hundreds of Haitians. Not a single Cuban died. Fleeing residents were even able to bring their household pets with them-- veterinarians were stationed at the evacuation centers.

The coronavirus will be a harder challenge than a hurricane, but Cuba has been applying the same “all-hands-on-deck” spirit to prepare. Tourism has been shut down (a particularly painful sacrifice, given the industry’s importance to Cuba’s beleaguered economy). And the nationalized health care industry has not only made sure that thousands of civilian hospitals are at the ready for coronavirus patients, but that several military hospitals are open for civilian use as well.

Masks: A Tale of Two Countries

In the United States, the surgeon general and other authorities tried to conserve face masks for medical professionals by telling the public that the masks “wouldn’t help.” The problem, as Dr Zeynep Tufekci argued in a recent New York Times op-ed, is that the idea that doctors and nurses needed the masks undermined the claim that they would be ineffective. Authorities correctly pointed out that masks would be useless (or even do more harm than good) if not used correctly, but as Tufekci notes, this messaging never really made sense. Why not launch an aggressive educational campaign to promote the dos and don’ts of proper mask usage rather than telling people they’d never be able to figure it out?

Many people also wash their hands wrong, but we don’t respond to that by telling them not to bother. Instead, we provide instructions; we post signs in bathrooms; we help people sing songs that time their hand-washing. Telling people they can’t possibly figure out how to wear a mask properly isn’t a winning message. Besides, when you tell people that something works only if done right, they think they will be the person who does it right, even if everyone else doesn’t.

The predictable result of all of this is that, after weeks of “don’t buy masks, they won’t work for you” messaging, so many have been purchased that you can’t find a mask for sale anywhere in the United States outside of a few on Amazon for absurdly gouged prices.

In Cuba, on the other hand, nationalized factories that normally churn out school uniforms and other non-medical items have been repurposed to dramatically increase the supply of masks.

Cuban Doctors Abroad

The same humanitarian and internationalist spirit that led Cuba to allow the Braemar to dock has also led the tiny country to send doctors to assist Haiti after that nation’s devastating 2010 earthquake, fight Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and, most recently, help Italy’s overwhelmed health system amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Cuba offered to send similar assistance to the United States after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, but was predictably rebuffed by the Bush administration.)

Even outside of temporary emergencies, Cuba has long dispatched doctors to work in poor countries with shortages of medical care. In Brazil, Cuban doctors were warmly welcomed for years by the ruling Workers’ Party. That began to change with the ascendance of far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro. When he assumed office, Bolsonaro expelled most of the Cuban doctors from the country, insisting that they were in Brazil not to heal the sick but “to create guerrilla cells and indoctrinate people.”

As recently as two weeks ago, Bolsonaro was calling the idea that the coronavirus posed a serious threat to public health  a “fantasy.” Now that reality has set in, he’s begging the Cuban doctors to come back.

Embracing Complexity About Cuba

Last month, Bernie Sanders was red-baited and slandered by both Republicans and establishment Democrats for acknowledging the real accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution. It didn’t seem to matter to these critics that Sanders started and ended his comments by calling the Cuban government “authoritarian” and condemning it for keeping political prisoners. Instead, they seemed to judge his comments by what I called the “Narnia Standard.” Rather than frankly discussing both the positive and negative aspects of Cuban society, the island state is treated as if it lacks any redeeming features-- like Narnia before Aslan, where it was “always winter and never Christmas.”

Democratic socialists value free speech, press freedom, multiparty elections, and workplace democracy. We can and should criticize Cuba’s model of social organization for its deficits. But Cuba’s admirably humane and solidaristic approach to the coronavirus should humble those who insist on talking about the island nation as if it were some unending nightmare.

Foreign Correspondent: Who’s At Fault For Cuba’s Economic Problems?

The U.S. embargo, unsupported by any country in the world, harms the nation’s ordinary working people.

Innovative chef Alexix Alvarez; photo by Sandra Vasquez

-by Reese Erlich

HAVANA— Chef Alexis Alvarez was in panic mode. He was preparing a gourmet meal for visitors from the United States when the electricity went out. He mostly cooks with natural gas and charcoal, but those won’t power his blender full of organic kale.

So Alexis found a very Cuban solution. He slipped the blender into an old sack, walked over to the nearby hospital that had electricity, plugged in the blender, ran it for 10 seconds, and then left. Presto: a healthy and tasty iced drink.

Despite the electricity crisis and periodic water shut offs in his town of San Jose, 20 miles southeast of Havana, Alexis managed to produce a delicious meal of seafood soup, eggplant lasagna, fried fish, and roast pork.

Alexis is one of a growing number of food entrepreneurs reinventing Cuban cuisine and expanding the private sector, precisely the kind of person U.S. policy is supposed to benefit.

But he blames the electricity shortages on the 58-year-old U.S. embargo. Last year, for example, the Trump Administration sanctioned Cypriot and Panamanian tankers bringing oil to Cuba’s power plants, which, in turn, cause electricity blackouts.

The U.S. embargo on Cuba, unilaterally imposed in 1962, isn’t supported by any country in the world. For the past 28 years, the U.N. General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to oppose the embargo.

Alexis also faults Cuban authorities for the periodic shortages of consumer goods, ranging from canned tomatoes to toilet paper. Trucks with enough fuel can’t seem to consistently pick up the goods and deliver them to the right stores.

“It’s bad administration,” he tells me.

But for Alexis and every other Cuban I interviewed, the ultimate villain is Donald Trump.

Cuban economic problems

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Cuba was cut off from its main trading partners and Soviet economic subsidies. From 1989-93, the Cuban GDP plunged by 35 percent. By comparison, at the nadir of the U.S. Great Recession in 2007-09, the economy shrank by 4.2 percent.

Over the past 30 years, Cuba instituted a series of policies that try to balance socialism with market reforms. The Cuban government continues to control major industries, maintains free health care and education, and promotes high-quality, subsidized cultural events.

But it also eliminated no-show government jobs and encouraged employment at small businesses such as restaurants and bed and breakfast lodging. Today, the government provides 68 percent of jobs and the private sector 32 percent.

The Cuban economy experienced a relative boom after President Barack Obama regularized diplomatic relations in 2015. U.S. travelers flooded into Cuba, giving a boost to hotels, restaurants, and the entire tourism industry. As recently as 2018, I saw fifty tour buses lined up in Havana to receive U.S. cruise ship passengers.

Relaxation of the embargo also led to U.S.-Cuba cooperation in developing pharmaceutical drugs. For example, New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital conducted successful human trials for a Cuban lung cancer vaccine.

Trump reverses progress

But by 2019, Trump reversed many of Obama’s administrative changes. He banned U.S. residents from staying in Cuban government hotels, eating in state restaurants, or utilizing government tourism agencies.

Nevertheless, 257,000 people from the United States visited Cuba in the first four months of 2019, excluding cruise ship passengers. Travel remains legal to Cuba if visitors stay at privately owned B&Bs, eat at privately owned restaurants, and follow certain other U.S. regulations.

But Trump continues to squeeze the Cuban economy by threatening European banks and corporations doing business with Cuba. For example, Trump has allowed Cuban Americans whose property was nationalized after they fled Cuba in the early 1960s to sue European companies now doing business in those buildings.

Break ties with Venezuela?

The Trump Administration also wants to stop Cuba’s support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro. Cuba provides doctors as well as military advisors to Venezuela, and Venezuela ships oil to Cuban refineries. Trump’s policies are aimed at breaking Cuba’s solidarity with Venezuela, says a U.S. reporter based in Havana.

Such pressure “has never worked before,” the reporter tells me, “and it’s not likely to work now. The embargo hits ordinary Cubans-- not the government.”

Canadians and Europeans continue to visit Cuba. But the drop in U.S. tourism since the middle of last year means less hard currency to buy foreign goods. Sanctions against third country tankers reduced oil shipments, increased prices at the pump and led to shortages of transport to get food into the cities.

Last July, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel announced plans to raise state worker salaries, eliminate the dual currency system and encourage provincial self sufficiency in food production. The plans are a work in progress, and their effectiveness remains to be seen.

But one thing is for sure. The U.S. embargo hurts ordinary Cubans while failing to change Cuban government policy. Cuba’s best hope for economic improvement depends on regime change in Washington, D.C., this November.

Does Cuba Censor The Internet? Think Again

Despite US rules that have made phones and connections expensive, many Cubans have free access to global media-- like these farmers in rural Cuba. Photo by Reese Erlich

by Reese Erlich

HAVANA — A group of Cubans stared intently at the screens of their smart phones here in Old Havana, checking emails and Googling news stories. They and millions of other Cubans got access to Internet upgrades last month that defy the image of Cuba as a totalitarian state whose citizens face Internet censorship.

Cubans can now subscribe to monthly plans providing roaming internet connections for as little as $7 a month. Others access the Internet from wifi hotspots for even less.

The Cuban government blocks access to the US propaganda station TV Marti and the sites of pro-US bloggers, but doesn’t block US media such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and even the ultra conservative Spanish edition of the Miami Herald. Twitter, Facebook and phone apps such as IMO are also easily accessible.

“There’s virtually no internet censorship in Cuba,” a US journalist based in Havana told me during a recent trip.

While Cuba has vastly improved internet connectivity over the past 15 years, usage remains well behind that of the US or even other Latin American countries. About 40% of Cubans have Internet access compared to 61% projected for the rest of Latin America in 2019.

All smart phones must be imported and remain expensive for the average Cuban, who earns about $30/month. I saw older model Samsung phones costing $60 at one Havana store. A monthly plan providing 1 gig of broadband with roaming costs $10.

Conservatives in the US argue that the high cost of connectivity serves as de facto censorship. The high Internet cost is allegedly part of a Cuban government plot to keep Cubans unaware of the benefits of US-style democracy.

As usual, US critics omit any context for Cuba’s problems, nor do they acknowledge internet progress.

The real Internet story

When I first began reporting on the issue in the early 1990s, the US claimed Cuba was intentionally making connectivity difficult and expensive in order to keep Cubans isolated from developments in the rest of the world. In those days connecting to the Internet meant paying $12 an hour at a tourist hotel. Later, Cubans could use a computer at a local post office at the rate of $5 an hour for an extremely slow connection.

Cuban government officials told me that the high costs resulted from the US embargo, the unilateral US policy that prohibits most business dealings between the US and Cuba. The US government stopped US phone companies from laying new cables from Florida to Cuba, forcing the island to rely on far more expensive satellite connections.

Juan Fernández, a professor at the University of Information Science and advisor to Communications Ministry on Internet issues, told me during a previous trip that US companies control a lot of the computer hardware used for modern Internet connections.

“The US is very close and could sell everything very cheap,” he said. “Yes, we can buy it in Asia, but it’s more expensive.”

Internet access improved after 2012 when Venezuela laid a new fiber-optic cable to Cuba. More Cubans were then able to use home dial-up connections along with wifi hotspots in parks, cyber cafes and other public spaces. Students at the University of Havana and other colleges have free, but slow, wifi access.

Cuban officials have legitimate concerns about US efforts to use technology to undermine the government.

“Cuba isn’t a normal country,” said Fernandez. “We face great pressure, practically an economic war, from the most powerful country in the world. Every day the US tries to make our system disappear. For 50 years the US has been trying regime change in Cuba.”

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, the US government agency in charge of propaganda broadcasts to Cuba, has admitted to promoting mobile phone apps aimed at disrupting Cuba. It distributed free smartphones loaded with programs called ZunZeneo and Piramedio. The apps allowed users to quickly communicate with one another, which the US hoped would foment discontent with the government.

During a previous reporting trip, I interviewed Nestor Garcia, a former Cuban diplomat at the UN.

“My students started getting text messages on their cell phones with news reports about demonstrations that never happened,” Garcia said. “The US is trying to create a climate to protest against the Cuban government.”

In 2009 the Cuban government arrested Alan Gross, a USAID contractor, for distributing satellite phones aimed at establishing wifi hotspots to be used by Cuba’s small Jewish community. He was convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years. He was released in 2014 when the US and Cuba established full diplomatic relations under President Obama.

So far US government attempts to use the Internet have failed to undermine the Cuban system. Cubans are certainly unhappy with their economic conditions. A drop in US tourism and severe economic problems in Venezuela have contributed to a shrinking economy. Cubans currently face shortages of flour and powdered milk.

But that doesn’t mean Cubans are planning a Twitter revolution. In addition to internet access, many buy the “Paquete” (Packet), a weekly download of massive amounts of news and entertainment. A customer brings a thumb drive to a Paquete distributor, pays as little as 50 cents and can get the latest foreign newspapers, magazines, TV shows, movies, and even US propaganda broadcasts.

But the most frequently downloaded choices, according to many Cubans I interviewed, are soap operas.

Sorry, It Isn't Only Slimy Republicans Who Sell Their Votes To Corporate PACs

Bankster by Nancy Ohanian

I admit, I was one of the people complaining that Congressional Progressive Caucus members didn't spend enough time and energy raising money-- which had a lot to do with why Pelosi didn't take them seriously and wound up helping the New Dems take over the caucus. Now DCCC recruitment ignores progressives and stocks the House Democratic caucus up with Blue Dogs and New Dems. I may have pushed them too much. Now some of them are turning into corporate whores.

One top CPC staffer reminded me that CPC members "didn't raise money and didn't pay dues" and that that was why none of them ever got beyond DCCC regional vice chair.

Things have changed according to a story that Ryan Grim did this week for The Intercept that a pissed off member of the CPC sent me.

In April, the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced that it was going to be drawing a line: Its political action committee would no longer accept corporate campaign donations.

“If we are going to end the influence of corporations and special interests in government, we have to start by not relying on their support,” said caucus co-chair Mark Pocan (D-WI). “Only by being fully independent of their financial influence can we prioritize people over corporations.”

The development was largely ignored by the press, but for those who heard about it, the move raised an immediate question: Wait, the Congressional Progressive Caucus was taking corporate money?

Yes, it was. And not only did the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC accept corporate contributions until recently, but also, almost all of its 78 members-- including Pocan-- still take corporate money individually, even as their caucus shuns it. Just four caucus members who will be returning to the House next session have pledged to decline corporate funds: Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Ro Khanna (D-CA); Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI); and David Cicilline (D-RI).

That number, however, is about to balloon to as many as 40 or more, as a wave of successful progressive insurgents-- including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jahana Hayes, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar-- are poised to join the House of Representatives.

The new push to go cold turkey on corporate cash is creating tension within the caucus, as progressive members take offense at the implication that their votes might be influenced by big money. “People feel like you’re saying that they are bought and sold-- and some are, but many aren’t,” Jayapal told The Intercept. “It’s not like everybody who takes corporate PAC money is bad or only does what the corporations want... But that’s not what this is about. It’s about re-establishing trust with voters, changing the system, working from multiple angles.”

But while the voting records of Congressional Progressive Caucus members are better on democracy reform issues compared with those outside the caucus, that might be setting the bar too low. Aaron Scherb, the legislative affairs director for the watchdog group Common Cause, told The Intercept that 17 of the 28 members of Congress who earned perfect scores on his organization’s “Democracy Scorecard“ are in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But there are 78 representatives in the caucus, meaning that nearly 4 in 5 caucus members actually failed to earn a perfect score.

“So,” Jayapal explained, “I try to say to people, ‘Look, this is the system that we’ve had, it just doesn’t need to be the system that we always have. So it’s not bad that you’re doing it, because that is what has been the case.’ [I] try to not make it about shaming and blaming, but about, ‘Okay, we’re trying to fix this.’”

While Jayapal is trying to coax her colleagues with carrots, the ballot box is acting as a stick. In September, Rep. Michael Capuano, a longtime progressive from Massachusetts, was bested in a primary contest by his opponent, Ayanna Pressley, who made Capuano’s acceptance of corporate money a key campaign issue.

An analysis by The Intercept of the 2017-18 campaign cycle reveals that the vast majority of CPC members are similarly vulnerable, taking not just money from union and advocacy group PACs, but significant sums of corporate PAC cash as well. Not coincidentally, given the reliance on big money, hardly any members of the CPC rely on small individual donors.

Grim wrote that "the movement to get money out of politics has fueled a massive, rapid, and poorly understood sea change-- one that’s come to a head in the 2018 cycle. According to End Citizens United, a campaign finance reform political action committee, 208 candidates took the “no corporate PACs” pledge this cycle. Of those candidates, 124 won their primaries, including big names like Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat challenging Ted Cruz’s Senate seat, and Ocasio-Cortez, the insurgent candidate from New York City who ousted Joe Crowley, one of the top Democrats in Congress. (End Citizens United endorsed Crowley in the primary, despite his long record of taking corporate contributions, not expecting him to face a real challenge.)"

First of all, Grim should be aware that End Citizens United doesn't have a long record doing anything, other than tricking grassroots contributors into giving them money for DCCC and DSCC candidates. They are just another DCCC/DSCC cutout group, manned by ex-staffers from both those organizations. They don't do anything except that. And of course they endorsed Crowley. It would be a political earthquake if they ever under any circumstances didn't support an establishment crook like him. Their DNA would explode.

Second, there are plenty of candidates who took the "no PAC money" because they knew they wouldn't get any anyway. We'll see how long they stick to that once they get into Congress. One who did-- and who was a major part of Grim's piece-- has been financed by local developers, even worse than PACs. Many Democrats take monet indirectly from the sleaziest PACs of all as long as it's cleaned and laundered through the worst scumbags in Congress. Rationale: I'm not really taking PAC money if I get it from Steny Hoyer (see no evil... etc) or, worse, if I get money from payday lenders, sugar barons or private prisons through Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Want to see how that workers to destroy the Democratic Party innards. This is from 2008, when Wasserman Schultz flew out of her sewer to destroy Obama's opening to Cuba, first a little background:

When Democrats gained control of Congress, in 2006, hopes were high that Cuba travel and trade restrictions would be eased by a party historically opposed to a so-called hard line on Cuba. But the Democratic-led House turned out to be as tough on Cuba as the Republicans has been when they ran the joint. 66 House Democrats-- including 20 members of the freshman class-- voted against a farm bill amendment offered by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) that would have made it easier for U.S. farmers to sell agricultural goods to Cuba.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, working with the GOP, was instrumental in winning Democratic votes against the Rangel amendment. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) told the Miami Herald that Wasserman Schultz was "a tiger" on the Rangel vote, while Antonio Zamora of the U.S.-Cuba Legal Forum described her as a key party in building Democratic opposition.

"I was about as active as you could be," said Wasserman Schultz, a deputy chief whip for Democrats. Wasserman Schultz’s position on Cuba put her at odds with some Democratic leaders, but she said she had no worries that this might affect her if she seeks a higher leadership position in the future. Hoyer and Clyburn voted against the amendment as well. 52 of the 66 Democrats who voted against Rangel’s amendment had received one or more contributions from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC since the beginning of the 2007-2008 cycle. It has given $56,000 to 22 Democratic freshmen in 2008, and 17 of those freshmen voted against Rangel’s amendment. The votes of the freshmen was a concern to those who believe the current U.S. policy on Cuba is ineffective.

Wasserman Schultz's PAC had laundered nearly a quarter million dollars from sleazy special interests for Democrats running for re-election and election in the House. Between the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and her own shady Democrats Win Seats PAC this is how much loot Wasserman Schultz was able to direct to Democratic freshmen willing to sell her their votes, even from congressmen representing agricultural districts where this amendment would have had widespread support. The first amount comes from the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and the second came directly from the filthy Wasserman Schultz PAC:

• Jason Altmire (PA-04) $8,000 + $5,000
• Mike Arcuri (NY-24) $4,000 + $2,000
• Bruce Braley (IA-01) $5,000
• Chris Carney (PA-10) $7,000 + $7,500
• Kathy Castor (FL-11) $2,000
• Joe Donnelly (IN-02) $3,000 + $5,000
• Brad Ellsworth (IN-08) $3,000 + $3,000
• Gabby Giffords (AZ-08) $5,000 + $5,000
• Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) $8,000 + $4,000
• Phil Hare (IL-17) $9,000 + $1,000
• Ron Klein (FL-22) $10,000 + $4,000
• Tim Mahoney (FL-16) $10,000 + $7,500
• Harry Mitchell (AZ-05) 0 + $4,000
• Patrick Murphy (PA-08) $6,000 + $4,000
• Joe Sestak (PA-07) $1,000 + $2,000
• Heath Shuler (NC-11) $7,000 + $5,000
• Albio Sires (NJ-13) $10,000
•Zach Space (OH-18) $7,000 +$4,000

That's how it's done; all of those members-- two of whom are now crooked Senators instead of crooked Reps-- can pss a lie detector test claiming they never sold their vote for corrupt cash from the sugar industry that wanted to kill the amendment. And they didn't; they took the money from their colleague Debby and had "no idea" who gave it to her. By the way, one of the Senate's worst Wall Street shills, Kirsten Gillibrand, who took corporate PAC money for her entire career (you can see she got $12,000 from Debbie for that vote) and has taken an astronomical $9,658,479 from Wall Street, is now hoping to get on a national ticket and says she is no longer going to take corporate PAC contributions-- "an easier decision," wrote Grim, "since corporate PACs aren’t likely to weigh in on presidential primaries anyway."

[W]hile elected officials-- especially self-identified progressive ones-- recognize the need to publicly back efforts to get money out of politics, incumbents will privately complain among themselves about the growing pressure to turn away long-standing donors, and big donors at that.

“Some of the most progressive members of the CPC will say their corporate contributions have never affected their votes, but they need to take trade association dollars or corporate PAC money because they represent poor districts that they don’t think has a donor base to make up for it,” said one Democratic House strategist.

“I’ve heard this particularly with folks of color,” said Jayapal, “that they have very minimal sources to get money from, and they traditionally haven’t been part of the overall [fundraising] system. But I think the beauty of getting corporate money out of politics is, it actually opens it up to everybody. In many ways, it’s a democratizing factor for traditionally marginalized communities.” Jayapal acknowledges that she thinks “it can take time to transition into that.”

This year’s primary upsets are beginning to change the political calculus, but longtime incumbents haven’t typically felt pressure to reject corporate PAC money. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., came to Congress as an insurgent herself, beating a nine-term Democratic incumbent in 1992. Now, she says, she would “love to get to the point” where she doesn’t have to accept corporate money, but her energies have been largely focused on Puerto Rico. “Since I didn’t have a primary,” she added, “I am not paying attention to that.”

Without electoral pressure, incumbents like Velázquez have had little incentive to spend the energy to create a small-dollar fundraising base, or even one that can subsist on big money from individuals without corporate PACs. Privately, members of Congress also argue that it is unrealistic to expect all of them to be able to attract the kind of small-dollar support for which Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and O’Rourke are famous.

“The way I would put it is, there’s a consensus that candidates ought to be raising their money from small donors, but it’s also the case that only a subset of candidates really click with small donors,” said Mark Schmitt, a former congressional aide and current political reform director at New America. “There’s only one Beto, and he gets attacked because his money pours in from out of state. There’s just some candidates who that’s never going to happen for, and they could be perfectly good progressive candidates, but not the attractive, charismatic type that might fuel small-dollar backing.”

And even O’Rourke has acknowledged that some degree of his ability to raise money relies on the intense disdain for his opponent, Cruz-- a dynamic that also benefited Randy Bryce in his race against Paul Ryan. When Ryan retired, Bryce’s fundraising dropped significantly.

Some candidates who don’t share the superstar appeal of Sanders or O’Rourke argue that rejecting corporate cash could be tantamount to unilateral disarmament against Republicans in the general. “You would not want corporate PAC money used to destroy you in a general election, so it’s really going to depend on the landscape of each district,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) when asked if he would pledge not to take corporate PAC money.

Nasim Thompson, the communications director for Justice Democrats, has little patience for these types of excuses. “Those small-dollar donations are a reflection of grassroots support on the ground. And it’s not easy work, it’s very hard work, but it’s what we should expect of our electeds,” said Thompson. She adds that it’s the candidates who are not doing that hard work that are “compromising the entire system.”

Jayapal put it like this: “You don’t have to be an organizer; you don’t have to go out and make inspiring speeches. You just have to be authentic and show that you really care about the people that you represent and ordinary people, and that you want to take on the system of corruption in politics, and I think anybody can do that,” she said. “It is inspiring just to take the step.”

Although corporate PAC contributions have been the focus of the national political conversation, corporate PAC money, it turns out, amounts to a relative drop in the bucket of the large-dollar donations sloshing around American politics. “I sometimes ask people, ‘Well, how much do you get?’ And often, it’s a fairly small number,” said Jayapal.

In 2016, for example, just 6 percent of the $6.5 billion spent on the presidential election came from corporate PACs-- two-thirds of which went to Republicans. The vast majority of money flowing into elections comes from wealthy individual donors. Even Congressional Progressive Caucus members who have sworn off corporate PAC money, like Khanna and Jared Polis (who is currently running for Colorado governor), rely predominantly on individual donations from the rich. Gabbard, too, has a broad national base of donors, and gets a boost from wealthy American Hindus eager to support the first Hindu in office. Tlaib and Abdul El Sayed, both of whom took the pledge, similarly benefited from high-dollar donations from Muslim communities nationwide.

Corporate PACs are more likely to support incumbents than primary challengers, which is good news for insurgents, who can run on the politically popular message of opposing corporate PAC money while also recognizing that they were unlikely to be beneficiaries of those dollars to begin with.

Still, advocates for campaign finance reform say the level of upfront, personal sacrifice isn’t really the point, because candidates who pledge to take no money from corporate PACs are communicating a greater level of commitment to reform than their opponents. Pledges also make it harder for them to walk back their commitments later on, when, as incumbents, they’re more likely to feel pressure to draw a greater share of their funding from corporate PACs. Pressley, who fundraised from corporate PACs while she was a member of the Boston City Council, pledged in September to continue refusing corporate PAC money into the general election, and also once she’s in Congress.

“There’s no such thing as a pristine or incorruptible human being going into Congress, so part of our role is to continue that accountability for all members, including for Justice Democrats themselves,” said Thompson. “We need to make sure that drift doesn’t happen, and Justice Democrats aren’t immune to those pressures.”

...“If you’ve been in politics for more than five minutes, you get tangled up in the money-- everyone knows that,” [Maryland Rep. John] Sarbanes told The Intercept. “The real question is: What are we going to do about it? If we get back the gavel in November, we will want to move quickly on this reform agenda.”

Reese Erlich Was Just Back In Havana-- Reporting On The "Sonic Attacks" On Diplomats Science Fiction

-by Reese Erlich

The mainstream media stories were straight out of a science fiction movie. Somebody in Cuba was aiming a super sophisticated "sonic weapon" at US diplomats here in Havana, causing them to experience hearing loss, dizziness, nausea, severe headaches and even brain damage similar to a concussion.

From December 2016 through February 2017, according to the Trump administration, 22 American diplomats heard strange sounds in their homes and hotel rooms. They suffered a variety of debilitating symptoms.

Trump administration sources told CNN, "The device was so sophisticated, it was outside the range of audible sound. And it was so damaging, that one US diplomat now needs to use a hearing aid."

President Trump blamed the Cuban government for the attacks. "I do believe Cuba’s responsible," he said at a Rose Garden press conference. "I do believe that."

Other administration officials blamed the Russians or rogue elements in the Cuban government.

I went back to Cuba a year later to find out what happened to the sonic weapon story. Turns out the US has produced no evidence that an attack took place, let alone one directed by the Cuban government. The FBI made four visits to Cuba and could find no indications of an attack, according to conservative Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who visited Havana this month.

"This whole thing is bullshit," one mainstream reporter living in Havana told me.

But the bullshit had serious consequences. Last September, the US used the incident to expel 15 Cuban diplomats from their Washington Embassy and withdrew half the staff from the US Embassy in Havana.

All the US consular staff were evacuated except for one person handling emergency visas. Cubans must now travel to US consulates in Colombia or Mexico to apply for visas, costing them thousands of dollars on top of the existing stiff processing fees.

The Trump administration issued warnings that US visitors to Cuba won’t be safe in a hotel where the alleged attacks took place. To date no tourists have reported coming under sonic weapon attack.

The Cuban government interviewed 300 people living near the homes of US diplomats along with workers at the Hotel Capri where the attacks allegedly took place. Not one person heard the noises claimed by the diplomats nor did they suffer any of the symptoms.

Independent scientists noted that a sonic weapon that caused hearing loss, if it even existed, would have to be mounted on a truck in front of the diplomat’s house.

Sonic waves can’t cause a concussion, according to Jürgen Altmann, a physicist at the Technische Universität Dortmund in Germany. Altmann told the New York Times “I know of no acoustic effect that can cause concussion symptoms. Sound going through the air cannot shake your head.

The sonic weapon theory proved so ridiculous that the administration has quietly stopped citing it. The US now speculates that some virus or other medical attack may have been responsible.

So what’s really going on? The medical ailments may be rooted in psychosomatic illness. One person can experience symptoms, and in the pressure cooker environment faced by some diplomats, could attribute the problems to an attack. Others then attribute different, unexplained symptoms to a similar attack.

I contacted my old friend Dr. Wendel Brunner, the former public health director of Contra Costa County, who has experience in the field.

"Maybe it is some other, perfectly normal illness, infection, or contamination that is compounded by anxiety of staff being in a tense situation in Cuba," he told me.

The diplomats’ physical symptoms may be real, he noted, but fear and anxiety may have led to attributing all kinds of symptoms to a non-existent attack.

"I am sure lots of visitors to Cuba have dizziness, headaches, etc., but we don’t hear about it because they don’t work in the Embassy."

"It seems all too convenient that the Embassy is under mysterious ‘attack’ at a time when the Trump administration wants to disrupt relations with Cuba," Dr. Brunner added.

So what’s really going on?

The Cuban government certainly has no motivation to debilitate US diplomats. The alleged attacks began in December 2016 just as the US and Cuba were rushing to solidify their newly established relations that benefited the Cuban economy.

The Russians, who the US has speculated were potential attackers, have absolutely no reason to wreck US-Cuban relations. Besides, no third party could engage in such attacks on foreign diplomats without the knowledge of the tightly controlled Cuban intelligence agencies.

Right-wing Cuban Americans in Florida and New Jersey would certainly benefit from disrupting US-Cuban relations. They opposed President Obama’s openings to Cuba and pressured Trump to scale back US visits to the island.

"There is an anti-Cuban mafia in Miami, and we are victims of their dirty work that involve certain people very close to the governing circles of the United States," said Col. Ramiro Ramírez, the Cuban official responsible for security of diplomats.

But to date the Cubans have offered no evidence that the right-wingers were responsible. So for now, we have to await more evidence before the cause of the illnesses might be explained.

The Trump administration has declined to make any of the victims available for press interviews nor have their medical records been evaluated by independent sources.

But one thing is certain. US visitors to Cuba are in no danger of being zapped by sonic weapons in their hotel rooms. Come on down and see for yourself.