Angel Santiesteban, Translator: Regina Anavy
Cuban Television puts forth, in its horrible primetime schedule, another
program of manipulated news coming from Telesur, with a Venezuelan
ideologue-manipulator-agent-"journalist," Walter Martinez, who has
forgotten ethics and the first rule for a reporter: to report news
without adding his personal opinion, which in all cases is linked to an
ideology that he represents and that pays him, and therefore has a
particular interest (like a pirate without a hook he appears every night
on Cuban screens sniffing the rear ends of Chávez and Castro).
I would have to ask how much is the monetary gain in this matter, and
the advertising benefit received by the president of his country, to
lend his face and impudence to defend a socialism that, be it either
from the 20th or the 21st century, is the same scam. Like a virus, it
ruins the economy of our nations, and if Venezuelans want to be sure, go
for a ride around the island, but not by those hospital-hotels that make
it easier for their treatments, which I have nothing against, let alone
healing a human being from any country, but the mass-media function for
which they later are used. Let them go out on the streets, visit homes,
hospitals almost in ruins, without doctors, medicine or surgical tools, etc.
To make matters worse for the Cuban people, in trying to educate us
across generations like automatons, remember that there are dozens of
programs that daily accommodate the official news chosen for political
censorship, with the exact narration for all media information, and
which are repeated as a torture for the rest of our existence. With two
hours a day, deploying the best technology and the highest production
costs, the inadvertent Roundtable show, which goes about building a
militarized anti-logic, attacking everything that smacks of capitalism,
its star attraction being the United States, then the right-wing
presidents. Before it was Aznar, now Sarkozy and Berlusconi, among so
many, while defending the Latin American Presidents who have allied
themselves with Chávez.
To this we must add the three newscasts, the kings of media
disinformation, who also go about justifying the international disasters
of their ideological peers. The ineptitude and excesses of the abysmal
administration of the Castro brothers of the weak national economy for
half a century. The constant radio news. The famous Radio Reloj, which
from minute to minute puts out the most incredible and unjustifiably
manipulated news. The written press: read six pages of one and you've
read all the rest. The daily Rebel Youth, which is no more than the
journal of the oldies in rebellion who are in power. The publication of
Workers, which is nothing other than the voice of betrayal of the Cuban
working class in the service of the tyrannical masters.
Throw in the printed organ of the Communist Party of Cuba (the only
party), the mother of all news, which picks and chooses what the people
of Cuba should know. The magazine Bohemia, that not in the worst moments
of past dictatorships was submissive or official. The provincial papers
governed and monitored by the regional Communist parties. The digital
news bulletins, also like parrots, copying what is accepted at the
request of political superiors.
It's as if they put speakers in our ears and shouted at us again and
again what we should think, memorize and perform, and, as an exercise in
boredom, start counting from 1 to 53, the years of dictatorship, to
corroborate the emptiness that lights up that space. And last but not
least, this Mr. Official Walter Martínez appears, and with each image,
chosen also for its censorship, he gives us pre-processed news,
underestimating the intelligence of viewers, and all this does is
guarantee that we have the worst news program, not even the "Democratic"
Republic of North Korea has a worst one.
There is a reporter who is not silent for a minute, with a know-it-all
air of God Almighty, who will hang posters, use nicknames, with the
constant irony of always rowing toward the benefit of Chavez' and
Castro's shore. In the past he would come to Cuba to record an interview
with Fidel Castro, which was nothing more than an ode to the old
Comandante, a chorus of criticism of his political enemies, a suck-up to
the great leader. The only thing this man has achieved, is that in Cuba
we have silent movies again. The viewers, with the volume at the
minimum, guarantee the elimination of the interruption of his submissive
voice so they can enjoy the images that the Cuban government censors of
the national news. What he doesn't know, or perhaps does and doesn't
mind, is that his program is also reviewed and edited before being
aired, so that after censorship, there is another more refined Cuba
where he at times appears to be too much of a "journalist "and becomes a
spokesperson at the service of the enemy. Not even he, an official voice
for both countries, has emerged unscathed from the arrogant and
extremist ideology of Fidel.
And as usual, the mouthpiece Walter Martinez, when he comes to the end
of his journalistic farce, says "You may turn off the camera, Mr.
Director," and he removes himself. The camera, before going dark, takes
in his image, and with the gallantry of the frustrated official he
wished he had been, he walks down the aisle to get closer to the screen
as a symbol of the nightmare and the danger it represents, and then with
greater impudence and cynicism makes a military salute to the camera
that reaffirms what we already know, which is that he is at the service
of the military in Venezuela and Cuba.
One day, I'm sure very soon, Mr. Walter, you will lose the benefits with
which you have been bought and hopefully won't find yourself on the
roster that hands out paychecks for spies.
Translated by Regina Anavy
November 23 2011
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