Article points to Gabeira's framing as a militant of the dictatorship.

247 - An article published in Red PortalThe article, linked to the PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil), highlights what it calls "Fernando Gabeira's secret," referring to the period when he was an activist against the military dictatorship. The text shows that Gabeira, contrary to what he recounted in his book "What is this, comrade?" - the first about the kidnapping of American ambassador Charles Elbrick - did not actually participate in the action. The article satirizes the "modern politician" in the former congressman and also criticizes the article he published yesterday in Estadão, in which he states that "a left in government could not fully commit itself to Cuba and Venezuela" (read here).

Read below: 

Fernando Gabeira's secret and Globo's attack on Cuba.

Fernando Gabeira is a master of personal marketing. Even though his participation in the famous kidnapping of Ambassador Charles Elbrick was only "circumstantial and secondary" (see the video at the end of the last note on this topic), he wrote a book upon returning from exile, "What is this, comrade?", where he greatly exaggerates his involvement to capitalize on the mystique of being a "guerrilla fighter," something he never actually was.

In 1979, he attracted attention for walking around in crocheted swim trunks on Ipanema beach. In 1986, when the Workers' Party (PT) was a novelty attracting a youth new to democracy, Gabeira ran for governor of Rio de Janeiro under the PT banner. He left the PT to found the Green Party (PV), taking advantage of the peak of the "ecological" discourse. He left the PV in 2002 and returned to the PT, where he stayed for only a year, enough time to be elected federal deputy on the wave that fueled Lula's victory, abandon the party that elected him, and return to the PV, taking the mandate with him, of course. And then? The anxious reader will ask. He left the PV again. During this legislature, Gabeira used (in 2004) R$ 20 to hire his wife's company to provide services in his office. He also gave his daughter airfare, paid for with public money, for her to surf abroad. When the fact came to light, he candidly admitted "not having reflected on the ethical dilemma."

Gabeira, a modern guy

Gabeira considers that socialism "was a failure". In 2010, he supported José Serra for president. But he always maintained around himself the aura of a "modern" person, a defender of a "new politics". However, he confuses the public with the private and enters and leaves parties, as we have seen, like any other old shrewd politician in parliament. In an article published this Friday (10), in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, entitled "Bye Bye Dilma", the columnist, who now harbors a visceral hatred for the PT, states that "a left in government could not commit itself deeply to Cuba and Venezuela. Even if it admired both models, which is a high degree of myopia (...) a left in government should refrain from taking capitalism to another system, but rather, take the best advantage of its potentialities".

Gabeira and Bolsonaro

Arguments like these, probably even better worded, can be found in any rabid anti-communist who sees in Dilma's government a conspiracy of Bolivarianism that would be leading Brazil towards 21st-century socialism (if only). Ask Gabeira what the objective was of those who fought against the dictatorship. The answer he has given dozens of times defines everything: according to him, the resistance wanted to "replace one dictatorship with another." This is the same answer Bolsonaro would give. Gabeira's authoritarian facet, which brings him even closer to Bolsonaro, is revealed in this excerpt from the article: "There is no room for a monocratic left that confuses its ideas with the national interest." In other words, a left that intends to engage in electoral competition in order to, upon reaching power through the vote, implement the ideas it defends and that the people eventually elected, must be ousted ("there is no room," he says). According to Gabeira, then, only one just idea can exist (neoliberalism), and the dispute would only revolve around names to manage what already exists in an eternal and immutable way. Elections would then be a grand charade, and power would be autocratic.

Gabeira, the secret revealed

In truth, Gabeira's secret is revealed. No matter how much he tries to disguise it, he gives himself away with his own words: far from being "modern" and even further from representing a "new politics," Gabeira today is nothing more than a bitter and reactionary man. If he lives another ten years – and we hope he lives much longer – perhaps he will even defend absolute monarchy. Some may consider Gabeira a traitor, after all, he was once on the left. I disagree. I prefer Voltaire's definition: "He who reveals the secrets of others is considered a traitor; he who reveals his own secrets is considered an imbecile."

 

Globo attacks Cuba with lies, Barreto attacks Globo by speaking some truths.

Recently, the reputable World Bank revealed in a September 2014 report that Cuba is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean that has a high-quality education system. In the field of public health, it goes without saying that Cuba is a world reference, and Cuban doctors work on missions in no less than 60 countries. Cuban citizens have the highest life expectancy in the region and one of the highest in the world. Today, the infant mortality rate in Cuba is 5 per thousand; a performance superior to that of the USA, according to the UN, and well above the Latin American average. TV Globo needs to justify how all this is possible in the mendacious scenario it created about Cuba, this Friday (10), on the Bom Dia Brasil program, which dedicated several minutes to a report intended to slander and lie about the Cuban revolution. Those who don't know the reality of Cuba and still fall for Globo's nonsense, think that everyone in Cuba is starving, except for a lucky few whose relatives emigrated and send money there, including the Cuban doctors who work in the "Mais Médicos" program. Antonio Barreto de Souza is president of the José Martí-Bahia Association, a member of the national board of the Brazilian Center for Solidarity with Peoples and the Struggle for Peace (Cebrapaz), and refutes these lies in an exclusive text for Notas Vermelhas.

Down with Globo, long live Cuba!

By Antonio Barreto

I was in Cuba in 1994 and 1996, during the toughest period the heroic island faced in its economy, with the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia suspended all trade relations with the country, especially the exchange of oil for sugar. I spent eight days there in 1994 and 15 days in 1996, participating in the International Congress of Solidarity with Cuba in 1994 and the International Congress against Neoliberalism in 1996. Even during this period, when the Cuban GDP plummeted by more than 40%, the Cuban people did not go hungry, nor did we see people sleeping on the streets or begging. The socialist regime knew how to distribute what it produced so that all Cubans had at least the basics of food, and in the fields of health and education there was no regression during this period. Since then, even with the maintenance and even tightening of the blockade imposed by the US, the economy has been improving, the tourism industry has been growing, currently reaching 3 million per year, with a forecast of 5 million in 2015.

I went to Cuba again in November 2013. I traveled by bus from Havana to Guantanamo, in the far east. I saw a reality radically different from what Globo portrays. I spoke with several people, especially young people. The Cuban economy undoubtedly needs to recover a lot and has a long way to go to improve, but there is also no famine in Cuba. This lie is part of a systematic media campaign against the socialist country.

The "More Doctors" program is a success. Of the 14 Cuban doctors who are here, only 40 have quit.

Cuba will experience a new era with the end of the blockade, with more development. Cuba will soon be even better, giving a lesson in solidarity to peoples on all continents.

Globo Network, aligned with and subservient to the interests of US imperialism—an imperialism that has imposed an economic, financial, and commercial blockade on Cuba for over half a century, resulting in losses exceeding US$1 trillion—blatantly lied once again on Bom Dia Brasil.

Bad faith and ideological dispute, at a time when Cuba is close to a political and diplomatic victory with the beginning of the process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries, on an equal footing. This Friday (10), John Kerry and Bruno Rodrigues, foreign ministers of the US and Cuba, met to discuss the rapprochement and later Presidents Obama and Raul Castro will meet during the OAS Summit in Panama to also address the issue. The sons of the old fox Roberto Marinho do not accept what is happening positively for Cuba and for all Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Down with Globo, the network of lies every day! Long live Cuba and the transition to socialism being implemented by its people!