Cuba-US: Elections that don´t bear comparison

Por Mireya Castaneda
Tomado de Prensa Latina
April 4, 2005

Just a few days away from municipal elections in Cuba (April 17), there are reasons for attempting to find an equation to parallel the electoral process in general on the island and that of the United States.

For example, one of them would be that these are the first after the Bush administration announcement of the so-called report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

As the above-mentioned plan, an overtly annexationist project signed by President George W. Bush in May 2004, proclaims in its Title 3, the establishment of democratic institutions, respect for human rights, a state of law and justice and national reconciliation.

The concrete measures of this section include: with the help of the United States, creating and strengthening a democratic electoral system for the drafting and reform of electoral laws and the training of electoral officials in matters of registering voters, keeping electoral censuses and in voting procedures.

To sum up, at the stroke of a pen to eliminate existing electoral law on the island because it totally differs from the US electoral process and because, as Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban Parliament, emphasized, it differs in terms of what they call democracy.

The first step is to draw up an equation and set about clearing away incognitos in search of a final equality.

There could be many variables, but just let"s take the selection of candidates and the cost of political campaigns.

I have to warn you that it"s an impossible equation. In fact cost and political campaigning are already terms that do not fit in with the Cuban process, while in the United States the elevated cost of political campaigns is in itself a widely argued issue.

For example, the Center for Responsive Politics, a US non-governmental organization, estimates that money in play in the 2004 campaign was more than $3.9 billion, of which $1.2 billion was directly spent on the presidential battle.

Another investigation, from the Center for Public Integrity, revealed that the same companies financed the campaigns of Bush and John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, in 2004. Four companies are on the list of the 10 principal donors to both candidates: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS Ag. Inc. and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Apparently, they believed that either of the two candidates would be beneficial to their interests.

Of course, all those campaign funds came at a very high price, explained Charles Lewis, the executive director of CPI, an independent non-party organization and among the most outstanding in investigations into money and politics.

He says it is about naming the price of power in the US commercial democracy where one pays for playing, but where both of the 2004 presidential candidates offered political favors to the principal contributors to their campaigns.

In his recent book, The Buying of the President, Lewis argues that the US electoral system has broken down as, in fact, the big businesses interests select the candidates of both national parties. The real powers that exist in this country are not found on any voting slip, and are not accountable to anyone.

The CPI report notes that the investment is nothing in comparison with the billion-dollar cascades coming out of legislation.

Moreover, he affirms, the powerful corporations back the election of candidates who are already wealthy. In the case of the aspiring presidential candidates of last year, Bush and Kerry and their vice presidents, Dick Cheney and John Edwards are all millionaires.

Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, have a $747-million fortune, of which $14.8 million corresponds to the candidate. Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney and his life Lynn Cheney possess private wealth to the tune of $111.2 million. Edwards has a fortune of $44.6 million and that of Bush stands at $18.9 million.

All that data, the selection of candidates and their personal fortunes, the centers of power, of commercial democracy and the campaign funding are other aspects of the impossibility of the comparison.

In Cuba things are different

The upcoming municipal elections, which have been organized every two years since 1976, are scheduled for April 17 and, in cases where it is necessary, a second round takes place on April 24.

In order to arrive at the act of voting (secret and non-obligatory)) the electoral process was initiated in January and its most important stage has just concluded (February 24- March 24): the assemblies to nominate candidates for delegates. It is a highly participative process.

A total of 41,606 neighborhood assemblies took place in which more than 84% of the eligible population (from 16 years of age) participated; in other words, more than eight million Cubans.

In those assemblies it was the neighbors who nominated (with their hand raised), and who seek in their candidates not the wealthiest or most powerful, but those with more virtue, merit, knowledge and capability.

On March 27 what one should call the electoral campaign got underway, but in Cuba this simply means posting photos and biographies of the 32,640 candidates nominated (80% educated to intermediate and higher levels, 28% women, 23% young people aged 16-35).
Another difference: the delegates who are elected fulfill their services to the community without receiving any salary whatsoever and without abandoning their professions and occupations.

Roberto Díaz Sotolongo, minister of justice and president of the National Electoral Commission, has stated that the nomination of candidates is one of the elements that makes the Cuban democratic system unique in the world.

Returning to Title 3 of the Plan Bush, let us consider the proposal of another electoral census. The intention of that alternative was explained by Ricardo Alarcón. "The text states that it is necessary to draw up a completely new electoral register and one that follows the US model.

They would impose here by force voluntary self-enrollment, a system identical to that functioning in the United States and whose insufficiencies have been highlighted in the press and by civil rights and intellectuals organizations, all of which detail the regulations and restrictions currently being suffered by millions of citizens of that country, in order to be recognized as voters."

Registration on the island is currently de jure, public and universal for anyone who has reached 16 years of age, without discrimination based on politics, ethnicity, religion or gender, and to appear on the roll is a right.

An equation between elections in the United States and Cuba? Impossible.

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A visit to Bush culture

By Saul Landau
Taken from Progreso Weekly
April 5, 2005

After walking through the parking lot of Hummers, SUVs and pick-up trucks with gun racks and NRA insignia and confederate flag bumper stickers, my friend and I paid $8 each to get into the Gun Show at the Paso Robles Fairgrounds. The sign also assured interested parties that Children Under 13 Get In Free. Once inside, a middle aged woman in a cowboy hat stamped my hand robustly.

A concentration camp number? I asked my not so amused friend.

Don’t take too good of a shower, heh heh, and y’all kin git back in tomorrow. Hey, bring yer missus or yer girlfriend.

She reassured us that the seemingly indelible number imprinted on the backs of our hands would indeed wash away. I didn’t recognize her accent as belonging to any part of California. But it did sound like most of the people I heard inside the massive tomblike structure with display tables lined up and down the aisles: Deep and rural South. Most of the people looked serious and downright intense. One man wearing a confederate hat and sporting a three day growth carried a tiny boy, presumably his son, who seemed to have more teeth than his father.

My friend, a lawyer who handles disability and workers compensation claims, and I split up. As he browsed the gun collections, I engaged with a woman selling dietary supplements and offering a free test to determine my level of anti-oxidants. The woman, attaching my hand to some sci-fi machine that emitted a purple light, told me that she ordinarily marketed her super fabulous vitamins at state fairs, but that the gun show crowd had proven exceptionally interested in her product.

She whispered that she had little interest in guns, but that the gun lovers seemed excited about living longer and staying healthy. As the machine supposedly offered a number that showed that my skin had an average number of anti-oxidants, but that by taking some supplement I would gain thousands more and obviously live forever, I noticed two kids under 13 picking up rifles and pretending to shoot me. I would have done the same at that age. But my father never thought to bring me to a gun show. He didn’t even own or think about owning a gun.

I eavesdropped on shoppers and browsers, who held intricate conversations with the sellers involving questions of precision about guns, cartridges, replacement parts, velocity of projectiles and other subjects about which I knew little or nothing.

Next to a toy model of an AK 47, at which the seller was advertising slings for holding such guns, since California outlawed the sale of such weapons, I noticed a long table displaying Nazi flags, SS insignia and a series of books by former SS officers. I read a few paragraphs about the highlights of their losing campaigns in Russia and their successful occupations of several other countries. One book dismissed allegations of the so-called Holocaust. The author, a captain, claimed he spent his proud years in the service as a chauffer. The others, I supposed, had served as cooks and valets. The books, with elegantly laid out back and white photos, were printed in Spain, during the late Franco years.

In Reinhard Heydrich, The Biography Vol. 1, the authors (names not printed) assembled a unique collection of photographs that bring to life this biography of Hitler’s probable heir apparent. In the book, the man who I had known as a child as the Butcher of Prague, was called an extraordinary man who rose to become second to Himmler within the SS, controlling the entire Security Service.

I admired the ambiguity of the prose. Labeled as the author of the Final Solution to the Jewish question, Heydrich is branded by some as a 20th Century Machiavellian. Others in admiration of his intelligence, sporting and musical talents have bestowed upon him the icon of a Renaissance man. What a career he could have had if the Czech resistance hadn’t assassinated him! The book price, $49.95, was ten dollars less than the book next to it, Stories of Waffen-SS Combat Heroes.

On one table, I spotted a frayed T-shirt, it had a dirt line around the inside of the neck – with a photo of Timothy McVeigh. We won’t Forgot You. I wanted to ask the vendor about the ambiguous message, but he seemed too engaged in making a sale for an expensive antique shotgun, so I moved on.

Tables displayed 19th Century rifles and six shooters, twentieth century Glocks, 45s and Lugers, some with laser-sights attached. Each weapon was chained so that the customer could pick it up, feel it and dry shoot it without being able to walk away with the deadly merchandise. Some tables had displays of killing knives and sharpened machetes, a few had bows and arrows, which combined with all the guns and bullets inside the tent could kill lots of people and defenseless animals, of course.

My friend and I saw no blacks, Mexicans or other obvious urban type Jews in the crowd. As we left, gun-free and knifeless, we saw a ubiquitous US OUT OF UN, UN OUT OF US poster. A couple of pro-life bumper stickers were pasted on one of the gun tables. I felt we had had an alien experience, an hour of contact with one of the constituencies of George W. Bush.

We didn’t see an apparently new sticker, placed only on the front bumper of your Hummer that says Run Hillary Run.

Later that day we found Santa Margarita Lake, paid a fee to enter the state-run preserve and hiked up a small mountain overlooking the pristine body of water. Here, about 220 miles northwest of Los Angeles, we watched hawks and vultures carve out their air turf. Below us, outboard motorboats with fishermen dotted the blue water. They had parked their campers along the lake shore. Some fisherman stood on piers and cast their lines.

After we descended, we met a fisherman wearing a work sucks, I’m going fishing T-shirt. He told us that the state had stocked the lake with crappie, largemouth, striped bass, and catfish.

We passed a sign that told fisherman not to swim in the lake or allow body parts to touch the water. I think they use it for reservoir water he said, even before I asked my question. Why can people run outboard motors, but not have their own body parts touch the water?

These days you don’t know what folks will bring on their bodies to a nice lake like this, he said, without smiling.

We watched him load cases of Coors beer onto his small boat, called SS Beer Can. I wished him luck with his fishing.

Back in Paso Robles, where vineyards and wine tasting rooms proliferate, along with the yuppie clientele that fills them, we discussed the cultural chasm that separated the liberal, urbane people who sipped wine and ate gourmet food and read the New York Review of Books from those whose lives seemed to revolve around fishing, hunting and thinking about protecting themselves with weapons from their fellow humans.

The working class needs protection, my friend says. Those people are my clients. They’re the ones who get screwed by big corporations who now don’t have to pay workers compensation or disability claims. The corporations skimp on health and safety and then hire big shot lawyers to screw the inured workers out of their just claims. The Republicans cut workers comp and a few Democrats join them. But members of the screwed class vote for Bush and identify with him. So self-destructive!

Yes, I think. And since the Democrats won’t protect them, they turn to super vitamins and guns for protection.

A Mexican American woman appears with a coffee pot. She speaks unaccented English as she asks if we want refills. Are we ready to order? She shouts, “huevos over easy con sausage” to the cook in the kitchen.

I leave a large tip and ask her in Spanish if she voted for Bush.

She shakes her head definitively no, as if I must be crazy.

How many different Americans can one ingest in the course of a short vacation in Paso Robles California? I suppose the job of winning the presidency lies in the ability of wily manipulator to calculate how many of diverse and zany cultures inside the country have to come together or be bought to get the most votes by any mean necessary, of course. U.S. Democracy at work and keep your gun handy to protect yourself!

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