Tell the world: Cuban independent journalist Calixto Martinez remains behind bars
Please tell the story of Cuban independent journalist and political prisoner Calixto Martinez before it's too late
That most of my journalistic colleagues have never heard of Cuban independent journalist Calixto Ramon Martinez Arias is disappointing.
After all, he is one of our own, doing work most of us believe is essential for a free society -- even if Cuba isn't -- so well and so dilligently, that on Sept. 16 it earned him a dark, cramped, decrepit spot in the Castro gulag.
If anyone should speak out on Martinez's behalf, shouldn't it be his fellow journalists, most of whom like to brag about how in their jobs, they get to act on behalf of the downtrodden and to speak truth to power.
The silence, however, is not suprising.
Because that is how most the world, including most in the medi, treats -- or better put, forgets -- those Cubans, like Martinez, with the courage to put at risk what little freedom they enjoy, to demand and work for a better nation.
The reasons for this indifference and ignorance are many. Among them, are lingering romantic notions about the Castro dictatorship, that it is some sort of David standing up to the Goliath yanquis, and that all Cuba needs is for the United States to change how it acts towards Havana.
This indifference and ignorance is at the root of much of the journalistic malpractice when it comes to Cuba.
And because of it, Calixto Martinez, who as of today has been on hunger strike for 23 days, may die in their silence.
Continue reading HERE.
“Speak truth to power.” MSM types love that shit, and it IS shit because they only mean it selectively, when power is Republican, conservative or “right-wing.” Otherwise, crickets, spin, distortion, half-truths or outright falsehoods. I still remember that asshole at the Miami Herald, Mr. Chihuahua, filling his mouth with that phrase—as if. Well, this poor guy Martinez had better not count on media types in the free world doing much for him, if anything, because he’s against a power they’ve been enabling for over half a century. Hypocritical frauds, and insufferably smug to boot.