Tidbits and Announcements - May 16, 2012

* Re: Don't Return to a Grim Chapter of Our History (Jeff 
  Singer)
* Re: No Country for Rich Men (Stan Nadel)
* The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize
* Contemporary LGBT rights in Cuba with Mariela Castro
May 29 at 7:00 - New York Public Library

==========

* Re: Don't Return to a Grim Chapter of Our History

Tom Hayden correctly observes ("don't Return to a Grim
Chapter of Our History", 5/8/12) that new U.S. troops in
Honduras remind Latin Americans of the long and bloody
history of U.S. colonialism.  He is in error, however, when
he praises the so-called "Good Neighbor" policy of the
Roosevelt Administration.  Supporting the iron heels of
Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Somoza (Nicaragua), Vincent
(Haiti), Carias (Honduras), Ubico (Guatemala) and similar
Latin American dictators could hardly be equated with being
a good neighbor, although Roosevelt's policies certainly
were good for American corporations.

U.S. colonialism and neocolonialism are thoroughly
bipartisan endeavors, and have never experienced a "golden
age", Rooseveltian or otherwise.  To assert anything else is
to replace history liberally with fantasy (or is that "with
liberal fantasy").

Jeff Singer, 
University of Maryland 

==========

* Re: No Country for Rich Men

There is a point here but Pizzigati and the Financial Times
don't seem to understand what is really going on when they
call these super rich transients "stateless."  Stateless
people can't just travel from country to country-- even
billionaires need to have a passport.  Just because they
have renounced their US citizenship doesn't mean they are
stateless, they have acquired (bought) another citizenship
from a low tax haven and are not stateless.

Stan Nadel

==========

* The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize

The winner of the 2011 Daniel Singer Millennium Prize of
$2,500 - answering the question, "In some Western countries,
right-wing populism has been able to channel much of the
anger caused by the financial crisis and its effect. Why has
the Left been marginalized? How can this be overcome?" - is
Richard Swift of Toronto, for "Preparing the Ground." Swift
is a former co-editor of The New Internationalist.

The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation annually
recognizes an original essay that helps further socialist
ideas in the tradition of Daniel Singer. Please see our
Statement of Principles.

The 2012 prize will be awarded for the best essay, of no
more than 5,000 words, exploring the question: "From Tahrir
and Syntagma Squares to the Indignados and the `99%'
movement, 2011 saw people in the streets challenging the
monopoly of political, economic and financial power by elite
minorities. What, if anything, is new about these movements
and can they fundamentally change the status quo?"

Essays may be submitted in English, Spanish or French and
will be judged by an international panel of distinguished
scholars and activists. The winner will be announced in
December 2012.

Submissions must be received no later than Wednesday, August
1, 2012. Essays can be mailed to:

The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation
P.O. Box 2371
El Cerrito, CA 94530

Essays can also be e-mailed.
[log in to unmask]

Winners' Roster  http://www.danielsinger.org/winners.html

==========

* Contemporary LGBT rights in Cuba with Mariela Castro
May 29 at 7:00 - New York Public Library

Tuesday, May 29, 2012,
7 - 8:30 p.m.

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Wachenheim Trustees Room
New York Public Library
42nd Street (at Fifth Avenue) New York, NY 10018

Fully accessible to wheelchairs
First come, first served -
Seating is limited and will be first come first served.
Initial funding of the LGBT Initiative provided by Time
Warner Inc.

In 2010 the Cuban government began providing sex
reassignment surgery free of charge as part of their
universal healthcare. This was the result of several years
of work by the Cuban National Center for Sex Education under
the leadership of Mariela Castro Espín, niece of Fidel
Castro and daughter of current Cuban president Raúl Castro.
The current developments in LGBT rights in Cuba are
remarkable given the discrimination suffered by gays,
lesbians, and transgender people in Cuba in the 20th
century, as well as comparison with current LGBT movements
in the U.S. and abroad. Please join us on  Tuesday May 29th
at 7pm in the Trustees Room of the New York Public Library
's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building as Mariela Castro Espín
and Rea Carey, Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force, discuss the current international context of LGBT
rights, including issues of sexual identity and orientation
in contemporary Cuba.

Mariela Castro Espín is the director of the Cuban National
Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). She was President of the
Cuban Society for the Multidisciplinary Study of Sexuality
(SOCUMES) from 2000 to 2010. She is president of the Cuban
Multidisciplinary Centre for the Study of Sexuality,
president of the National Commission for Treatment of
Disturbances of Gender Identity, member of the Direct Action
Group for Preventing, Confronting, and Combatting AIDS, and
an executive member of the World Association for Sexual
Health (WAS). She is also the director of the journal
Sexología y Sociedad, a magazine of Sexology edited by her
own National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). She is the
author of 9 books, published in Cuba and abroad, among them
Transexuality in Cuba (Havana, CENESEX Publishing House,
2008). In 2009 she was awarded with the Public Service Award
from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
(SSSS), and in 2012 she received the Eureka Award for
Academic Excellence, given by the World Council of
University Academy (COMAU).She is married with 3 children.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force, is one of the most prominent leaders in
the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
rights movement. Carey, who came to the Task Force in 2004
as deputy executive director, has served as executive
director since 2008. Through her leadership, Carey has
advanced a vision of fairness and justice for LGBT people
and their families that is broad, inclusive and unabashedly
progressive. Prior to her work with the Task Force, Carey
worked extensively in HIV/AIDS prevention and in the LGBT
community as one of the co-founders of Gay Men and Lesbians
Opposing Violence and the founding executive director of the
National Youth Advocacy Coalition. She has also served as an
advisor to major donors and foundations, and has served on
the advisory boards for such wide-ranging publications as
Teen People magazine and the Georgetown University Journal
of Gender and the Law. She serves on the Advisory Board of
theLGBTQ Policy Journal, of Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government

Visit our website at  www.UnaCuba.org

==========

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate