{"id":158741,"date":"2020-04-20T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T11:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=158741"},"modified":"2020-04-20T07:14:13","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T06:14:13","slug":"cuba-under-media-attack-for-sending-doctors-not-bombs-to-help-covid-19-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/04\/cuba-under-media-attack-for-sending-doctors-not-bombs-to-help-covid-19-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba Under Media Attack for Sending Doctors, Not Bombs, to Help COVID-19 Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

14 Apr 2020 – <\/em>As coronavirus ravages the world, Cuba has exhibited disproportionate heroism, deploying medical personnel to at least 14 countries<\/a> thus far to battle the pandemic\u2014including to Italy, which has been particularly devastated. The response is in keeping with Cuba\u2019s decades-long tradition of \u201cdoctors, not bombs<\/a>,\u201d which has seen the tiny island nation dispatch tens of thousands of medics across the globe to combat everything from Ebola<\/a> to more mundane diseases like malaria<\/a> and tuberculosis<\/a>. The Cuban approach stands in marked contrast to the modus operandi of the global superpower and Cuba\u2019s primary antagonist, the United States, a country with an established predilection for bombing rather than saving<\/a> people.<\/p>\n

Cuba\u2019s coronavirus performance is a welcome bit of uplifting news in an otherwise mostly dismal international panorama. Lest anyone start feeling too inspired by the idea of humanity, however, sectors of the US corporate media are dutifully standing by to burst the bubble.<\/p>\n

\"Bloomberg:<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/strong> (3\/23\/20<\/a>) suggests that allowing Cuban doctors to fight Covid-19 \u201cwill just empower repression at home.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A March Bloomberg<\/b> opinion article (3\/23\/20<\/a>) headlined \u201cCoronavirus Could Give Cuba\u2019s Flying Doctors New Wings,\u201d for example, came equipped with the following caveat in the subheadline: \u201cBut allowing Havana to exploit the virus for hard currency will just empower repression at home.\u201d The text of the article, by Mac Margolis<\/a>, contained few easily detectable illustrations of domestic \u201crepression,\u201d aside from allegedly insufficient Cuban government efforts on behalf of a \u201cconsumer economy\u201d and \u201cemerging private sector\u201d\u2014which certainly sounds less repressive than, I don\u2019t know, the US police habit of fatally shooting<\/a> black people.<\/p>\n

Margolis also stressed that, in Cuba, Covid-19 is \u201canything but an equal opportunity affliction,\u201d and that \u201ccompa\u00f1eros<\/i> with connections or access to dollars have a far better shot at securing medication and loading up on groceries during a lockdown.\u201d Never mind that Cuban compa\u00f1eros<\/i> would have better access to basic necessities in general had the island not been at the mercy of a sadistic US embargo<\/a> for the past 60 years, or that severe socioeconomic inequality<\/a> is overall a defining hallmark of US capitalism\u2014as illustrated by reports<\/a> that low-income communities of color in the States are being hardest hit by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

The Bloomberg<\/b> article is accompanied by a photograph of Cuban doctors wielding Cuban flags, with the caption: \u201cNice flags, but how about a bigger paycheck?\u201d And while bigger paychecks are obviously less imperative in societies\u2014like Cuba\u2019s\u2014where the essentials of survival are provided free of charge, a more pertinent question in the time of global pandemic might be how the US spends trillions of dollars<\/a> on wars and still generates news reports like \u201cUninsured Americans Could Be Facing Nearly $75,000 in Medical Bills if Hospitalized for Coronavirus\u201d (CNBC<\/b>, 4\/1\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Miami<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald<\/strong>\u2018s Fabiola Santiago (3\/27\/20<\/a>) suggests that being confined to one\u2019s home 24 hours a day is what everyday life in Cuba and Venezuela is like.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Plenty of other media outlets have meanwhile exploited the current pandemic to disseminate frank anti-Cuban propaganda. Over at the Miami Herald<\/b> (3\/27\/20<\/a>), Cuban exile Fabiola Santiago informs us that \u201cAmericans, in the midst of\u00a0food and supply shortages<\/a>\u00a0and limitations on personal freedoms, are getting a taste of what it\u2019s like in Cuba and Venezuela\u2014without coronavirus.\u201d Santiago seems to be under the misapprehension that US citizens ordinarily never face food shortages<\/a> or limits on freedom<\/a>\u2013but at least now she won\u2019t be alone in her \u201conly-in-Miami form of PTSD, the growing up in Cuba kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional moaning is on display at PanAm Post<\/b> (3\/30\/20<\/a>), where Mamela Fiallo Flor\u2014cofounder of the Cuban Libertarian Party\u2014suggests that calling Covid-19 the \u201cChinese virus<\/a>\u201d serves to \u201cdissociate\u2026it from the main culprit: the Communist Party.\u201d The upshot: We should call it the \u201cCommunist virus\u201d and recognize its nefarious impact on Cuba, as well, which \u201cadvertises itself as a medical power when, in fact, the shortage of hospital staff on the island is a direct consequence of the use of doctors for propaganda purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certain mainstream publications have evidently not yet gotten the memo, as a recent Reuters<\/b> article (3\/22\/20<\/a>) emphasizes that Cuba \u201chas one of the highest ratios worldwide of physicians per capita even when excluding those doctors abroad, and its medical brigades for disaster relief continue to earn Havana goodwill worldwide.\u201d The piece was published on the New York Times<\/b> website (though no longer available<\/a> there), showing that even the decidedly anti-progressive US newspaper of record, it seems, is susceptible to the Communist virus.<\/p>\n

\"WSJ:<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/strong>\u2018s Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady (3\/22\/20<\/a>) mocks Cuba for \u201cclaiming that Havana is stepping up to help the world in a time of crisis.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/b> (3\/22\/20<\/a>), on the other hand, remains true to principle. An intervention titled \u201cRepression in the Time of Coronavirus\u201d\u2014by Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady, Journal<\/b> columnist and editorial board member\u2014begins with a typical jab at the oh-so-radical Democrats in the US:<\/p>\n

Given the credibility that President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden lent to Cuban propaganda while they were in office, I half-expected to see them enjoying spring break in [Cuba\u2019s] Varadero Beach last week.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the same O\u2019Grady who once insinuated (Wall Street Journal<\/b>, 11\/1\/09<\/a>) that the very Obama administration that backed the 2009 right-wing coup<\/a> against Honduras\u2019 Manuel Zelaya was itself too pro-left for comfort, and that the US ambassador to Honduras should therefore be relocated to a diplomatic post in Cuba.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Grady (5\/29\/10<\/a>) also swooned over \u201cThe Man Who Saved Colombia\u201d from narco-trafficking and other evils\u2014i.e., former President \u00c1lvaro Uribe, the man who not only appeared on a US Defense Intelligence Agency list<\/a> of \u201cthe more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels,\u201d but also presided over the notorious \u201cfalse positives\u201d scandal<\/a>, which saw the Colombian army massacre some 10,000 civilians between 2002-10, passing them off as guerrilla combatants in order to justify continued US aid.<\/p>\n

Another Latin American \u201csavior\u201d endorsed by O\u2019Grady (10\/28\/18<\/a>) was Brazil\u2019s President Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>, whom she placed \u201con the side of reform\u201d\u2014representing an \u201copportunity to advance liberty and prosperity\u201d\u2014despite being \u201clabeled a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a fascist, an advocate of torture and an aspiring dictator.\u201d (O\u2019Grady presents this list as though it\u2019s self-evidently absurd, but it\u2019s actually a pretty good summary of who Bolsonaro is; see FAIR.org<\/b>, 10\/31\/18<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

With so many heroes in our midst, who needs Cuba and its coronavirus-era claims that\u2014as O\u2019Grady scoffed\u2014\u201cit makes magic in its pharmaceutical labs\u201d? O\u2019Grady\u2019s derision was not shared by Yale University Press<\/b>, which on March 12 published a blog post<\/a> by University of Glasgow lecturer and author Helen Yaffe, who discusses Cuba\u2019s historically impressive advances in biotechnology, \u201cdespite the US blockade obstructing access to technologies, equipment, materials, finance and even knowledge exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that the Cuban anti-viral drug Interferon Alpha 2b was among those initially chosen to contain coronavirus in China, Yaffe recalls that interferon was instrumental in addressing Cuba\u2019s dengue epidemic of 1981, which \u201caffected 340,000 Cubans with 11,000 new cases diagnosed every day at its peak.\u201d Cuba, Yaffe writes, \u201csuspected the CIA of releasing the virus\u201d\u2014and, while the US naturally denies such allegations, pretty much anything is possible from the country that tried to kill Fidel Castro<\/a> in no fewer than 638 ways, including via brightly painted exploding mollusks.<\/p>\n

In her anti-Cuban coronavirus \u201crepression\u201d piece, O\u2019Grady noted that Cuba has \u201calready been denounced for treating its medical workers like chattel when it sends them abroad to earn money for the regime and indoctrinate populations.\u201d Anyone requiring a footnote on this claim need look no further than O\u2019Grady\u2019s own article (11\/9\/14<\/a>), headlined \u201cCuba\u2019s Slave Trade in Doctors\u201d\u2014which also argued that \u201cmaking medical professionals an export product is provoking a doctor shortage in Cuba [and] exacerbating widespread privation in healthcare.\u201d (Take that, New York Times<\/b>!)<\/p>\n

In her 2014 expos\u00e9, O\u2019Grady cast the Cuban doctor \u201cslave trade\u201d as \u201cbig business, which if it weren\u2019t being carried out by gangster Marxists would surely offend journalists\u201d\u2014as if\u00a0 US journalists who mainly work for advertiser-supported outlets owned by multinational corporations have a natural affinity for \u201cgangster Marxists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward six years to O\u2019Grady\u2019s rant against Cuba\u2019s coronavirus \u201cefforts to use the pandemic\u2026to create the illusion that it specializes in advanced medical care\u201d\u2014which, according to her professional assessment, is \u201ca sick joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as the US continues to thwart<\/a> effective and affordable medical care for humans at home and abroad\u2014and as neoliberalism and its media acolytes continue to dismantle all forms of human solidarity\u2014there are loads of sick jokes to go around.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Belen Fernandez is the author of<\/em> The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at<\/em> Jacobin Magazine<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Apr 2020 – As coronavirus ravages the world, Cuba has exhibited disproportionate heroism, deploying medical personnel to at least 14 countries thus far to battle the pandemic. It is a welcome bit of uplifting news in an otherwise mostly dismal international panorama. Lest anyone start feeling too inspired by the idea of humanity, however, sectors of the US corporate media are dutifully standing by to burst the bubble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":158742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[272,1829,1868,530,710,541,1864,1102,1447,517],"class_list":["post-158741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-cooperation","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-cuba","tag-health","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-pandemic","tag-public-health","tag-science-and-medicine","tag-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}