Blogger Yoani Sánchez arrives in Miami

[Mika]

Blogger Yoani Sánchez arrives in Miami
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/28/3312117/yoani-sanchez-arrives-in-miami.html

She wasted no time in sending out a stream of Tweets after her arrival in Miami. Among them:

• “Since I arrived at the airport, I’ve encountered Cubans everywhere. What emotion.’’

Sánchez begins the day Monday with a meeting with The Miami Herald editorial board. From there she’ll head to Miami Dade College’s Freedom Tower where she’ll receive the MDC Presidential Medal for championing human rights and take part in a public conversation with Miami Herald Editorial Page Editor Myriam Marquez. The conversation will be live-streamed on the college website. All 800 tickets to the event have already been distributed.

From there she’ll head to Florida International University for an evening reception and public event.

She also plans some private meetings and will appear at a Tweet Up at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday. She’ll be discussing technology, innovation and social change at the event organized by the Knight Foundation and Roots of Hope. The public will be able to send her questions by tweeting them to #askyoani. Free tickets are available at askyoani.com

[Judi Lynn]

1. I remember someone published a cable from the U.S. Interest Section to someone in the US,

saying the "dissidents" they'd been supporting for ages in Cuba were getting to be a bunch of old guys and no one really seemed to pay much attention to them any more.

I wonder if hearing that was like an icy hand gripping their hearts, anyway. I have wondered since then if they haven't cut back paying the old timers for their work for them, since they don't think they are "relative" any longer.

I can't believe there are many real Cubans who pay much attention to this one, either, although it appears in the U.S. someone is going to the trouble of wringing every bit of propaganda value they can get from her while the getting is good.

[flamingdem]

2. Yoani arrived in Miami fresh from a meeting with

Otto Reich, Frank Calzone, Marco Rubio and a host of other right wing cretins. I wonder if she knows much about US politics?

[joshcryer]

4. She's probably aware, but needs someone to pay her way.

Question is when she returns to Cuba what is going to happen to her for accepting money used on her trip? She probably won't come back with a suitcase full of money, but she definitely is getting her trip paid for by suspect sources. I think the Cuban government is OK with it for now because when she returns they'll use it against her to discredit her (like they did with the USAID money that ... paid for her hotel last time she came). Cuban state media should have ammo for a decade against her after this tour (pictures of her next to, shaking hands with, or otherwise in the presence of right wingers).

But what can you do.

[flamingdem]

7. do you remember or have a link about the usaid money

being paid for her trip last time? thanks

[joshcryer]

9. My mistake, I was thinking of Oswaldo Paya.

When he went to a university to speak he got going around money, which is clearly horrible (nevermind Castro's daughter did a US tour and her way was paid, etc).

[joshcryer]

5. Do you have a link to that cable?

Most of the dissident bloggers are young. Operation Cyber-Mambi was specifically targeting youthful Cubans because access to information tends to be a youthful thing, as we can see with the Arab Spring and OWS.

[Mika]

6. Yes, but the younger politically active Cubans (in Cuba) ...

... all know who Otto Reich, Frank Calzone, Marco Rubio, la Loba, & the Diaz blowhard brothers are. Yoani rubbing elbows with those cretins will go over like a turd in the punchbowl.

[flamingdem]

8. I wish it got more play, it was only reported in Spanish on blogs that I saw

but her meeting with Rubio and Menendez was everywhere.. supposedly Menendez being a Dem makes everything okay dokay..

I hope that US Latinos are cynical about her, she does have a large following among exiles and those who left the island

[joshcryer]

11. They already lament that as activists they don't have much support on the left.

So they are aware of it and it's clear that they're being shunned because they're slandered as counter revolutionaries.

I think people like Eliecer Avila scare the status quo which is why they're slandered as such.

(No reasonable person could listen to Eliecer Avila's criticisms; which aired on Cuban state TV, btw, as anything but revolutionary language.)

[flamingdem]

12. I just heard a funny commentary about Eliecer

He's not even known in the tiny town he hails from and now he's threatening to form a political party.. the guy is a nut why does he think they'd care about him? These dissidents are about collecting money nothing much more.

[joshcryer]

14. Where did you hear that?

Why would an "unknown" be allowed prime time viewing on Cuban state TV?

[flamingdem]

15. What prime time viewing? The time he spoke with Alarcon?

These bloggers and dissidents have no base and no power, they only enjoy the money for their trips and payment from the US, Czech, usaid and a few other sources. They preach to the choir and some naive people who think they matter, but they don't matter in Cuba and most Cubans haven't heard of them.

[joshcryer]

23. Well, I shouldn't give the false impression that I think they matter.

I don't think that they matter that much, I think that the technology they're utilizing is what matters, and it's only a matter of time before more Cubans have access to it.

[flamingdem]

26. Have to agree, the story is more about the use of technology

and in this case how one can become a cause celebre and not even be known in ones home town or be able to rally a diaspora.

[joshcryer]

10. I have no doubt it'll be on state media.

And it'll be interesting to see what happens when Eliecer Avila returns and forms a political party in Cuba as well as how the Cuban government reacts to Yoani opening an media outlet.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Oh, no. I just pulled it out of my ass. By the way, I said "dissidents," not "dissident bloggers."

From everything I've seen so far, the "dissidents" who've been sucking up the lion's share of money forked over to them from the non-consulted U.S. taxpayers have been doing business and calling it "dissent" for years and years.

[joshcryer]

19. Not sure if you're serious.

[Judi Lynn]

21. Here's a DU post regarding that cable:

Cable Shows Nations Going Easy on Cuba
By MARK LANDLER
Published: December 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — Cuba is getting a free pass on its human rights abuses from many of the world’s leading democracies, with visitors from Canada, Australia, Switzerland and the European Union failing to criticize the Castro regime or meet with dissidents while on the island, according to a confidential diplomatic cable sent to the State Department from Havana.

The cable, transmitted in November 2009 and signed by Jonathan D. Farrar, the top American diplomat in Cuba, hinted that there were economic motives behind the accommodating approach. But if so, the cable concluded that these countries were not getting much of a payoff.

The rewards for acquiescing to Cuban sensitivities, it said, are “risible: pomp-full dinners and meetings, and for the most pliant, a photo-op with one of the Castro brothers.”

The cable added, “In terms of substance or economic benefits they fare little better than those who stand up to” the government.

And yet, in a cable sent six months earlier, the United States Interest Section in Havana also lamented that the Cuban dissidents supported by Washington for decades were old, out of touch and so split by internecine squabbles that the United States should look elsewhere for future leaders.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/world/americas/18wikileaks-cuba.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&

[Judi Lynn]

22. Link to the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x30681

[joshcryer]

24. Thanks, that clears it up. It's dissidents Washington supports.

Not the bloggers and other dissidents who don't get direct material support from Washington (they might, but not in a way that would be traceable).

[joshcryer]

3. She's been touring the world.

I do find it interesting that her arrival in Miami is notable.

She was followed by protesters in Brazil.

I doubt she'll have significant protesters in Miami though, it should be rather well orchestrated.

[flamingdem]

17. I will add that she really is a phenomenon and it's quite a media show going on

however she doensn't have a base in Cuba and it's all for show since she's not a serious political player, just a celeb.

[joshcryer]

20. She claims she doesn't want to be a political player.

[Peace Patriot]

13. "She also plans some private meetings...". Kaching!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$....

[flamingdem]

16. ha ha ha! Payment time. So far the usaid funding hasn't been cut much

and why else did she meet with all those pro embargo politicians, why did she start saying that now she thinks the embargo shouldn't be lifted without this and that and a loooong debate. the longer the debate the more ch ching! $$$

[joshcryer]

25. Rubio had to have told her to say that.

Which is preposterous since she has been against the embargo all this time. What a truly foolish thing of her to say.

I wonder what she got for changing her tune.

(Let's be realistic, it's not cash in hand, but it could be material support with the news website she wants to set up.)

[flamingdem]

27. She saw the light after meeting with Rubio and Menendez

The cha ching for her new digital newspaper is controlled by interests in the US gusano community.