Mediaboss Marketing

GET there before it changes, is the message churned out in just about every travel article written in the past decade or so about Cuba.

After many of the sanctions against Americas near neighbour were lifted, there was a fear there would soon be a McDonalds and a Starbucks on every corner of this flamboyant tropical paradise.

Fortunately, this hasnt happened and there is only one set of golden arches on the 600-mile island at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base.

The Caribbeans biggest island is still under Communist rule and just because departed leader Fidel Castros brother Raul has relaxed things a little since 2008, its uniqueness is still there.

GETTY

The Caribbeans biggest island is still under Communist rule

Cubas grand capital city of Havana is home to more than two million people and 60,000 pristine classic American cars.

Shiny Buicks, Chevrolets, Plymouths and Corvettes all from the 1950s and 60s are everywhere, and theyre worth an extraordinary amount of money.

No parts for them are manufactured nowadays so the resourceful islanders fashion spares themselves, welding anything together, even household objects, to keep these prize possessions in top nick.

GETTY

The cars are all part of the attraction of Havana and there are many specialist tours which cruise the city streets in these now iconic automobiles.

Alternatively, take a leisurely stroll around the traffic-free plazas, the crumbling old suburbs and gaze up at the shells of former architectural riches youll feel an instant connection with the past.

For a real taste of the city, restaurants such as Paladar Los Mercaderes in Old Havana serve succulent meats and seafood in exotically-spiced sauces to the sounds of live Cuban music. La Guarida, which means the refuge or hideout, is set on the third floor of a faded mansion in Havana Centro.

Head up the marble stairs, edge past the white linens drying on washing lines and youll find cool customers sipping cocktails and ordering tacos, octopus and spicy dishes, as well as the Cuban favourite of rice and beans. If you fancy moving on to somewhere with a little more heat, Tropicana Cabaret is a carnival of camp set in a forest packed with palms, cedar and mango trees.

NC

Singers and dancers wearing sequinned two-pieces, feather plumed head-dresses and dripping in jewels, burst on the stage shaking their stuff to sexy rhythms. Unless youre damn good at hiding, they will have you up on stage to join in with the show before youve finished your first mojito!

If youre going all-out, Havana-style, bed down at the luxury Hotel Parque Central, one of the fi nest colonial-style hotels in the Caribbean. It has a rooftop pool, a spa and fitness suite, live Cuban music shows, three restaurants and five bars.

Most Brits visiting Cuba combine a trip to the city with time chilling on its beautiful beaches. Two hours east of Havana on a 15-mile sliver of land is the classic Caribbean-style resort of Varadero. At the end of this stretch is the five-star Iberostar Varadero hotel, built in a mock colonial style on a white sandy beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The all-inclusive resort has three pools, a swim-up bar, spa, shopping and three themed restaurants plus a nightclub.

Travel belfies are spreading across Instagram.

1 / 13

We took a catamaran cruise to the uninhabited island of Cayo Blanco for a beach buffet and swim in the crystal waters. Evening brought a riot of cocktails and salsa lessons at nearby Mansion Xanadu, a four-star golf resort overlooking Varadero beach.

The next morning we took a self-drive aqua ray boat trip through the mangroves then out to sea.

Easy to handle, these boats are a super-cool way to beat the Caribbean heat and explore the island. For something more unusual, we headed to La Coincidencia, a vast organic farm and sculpture park in the Matanzas province west of Varadero, owned by Hector Correa.

GETTY

His sons busy themselves creating decorative terracotta pottery and plates, which keep the farm going during tough economic times.

But, as Hector reminded us, the pottery and artistic creations are just business the farming is the art. He prised open one of his beehives, handed me a straw and invited me to drink honey straight from the pods in the hive.

Thankfully, the thousands of bees ready to kamikaze were a species called Mayan bees which are stingless. They were just a bit angry I was raiding their home!

See the original post here:
Cuba capital Havana is full of charm after decades of communism - Daily Star

It's clear that for anything resembling socialism to succeed, movements like Occupy and Podemos, electoral challengers like Bernie Sanders, sympathetic elected officials and an anti-capitalist party alongside a left movement, all need to be in the mix. (Photo:Waywuwei / Flickr)

Anti-capitalism needs a viable political party. Whether it's a big one, like the Democratic Party -- which Bernie Sanders' supporters are hoping to influence and dreaming, perhaps, of taking over -- or a robust third party that's openly socialist, it's clear that without a party that operates in conjunction with left movements, it will be difficult to achieve goals like Medicare for All, free higher education, student loan forgiveness, environmental and climate protection, and substantially shrinking the military and the vast prison system. Something on the order of Mlenchon's "France Unsubjugated" movement, which is solidly anti-capitalist, rejects the centrist austerity consensus and won a substantial portion of the national vote in the recent primary, would be up to the task.

That is precisely what several essays inRethinking Revolution: Socialist Register 2017advocate. Edited by Leo Panitch and Greg Albo, with 19 essays by different authors, two -- by Jodi Dean and August Nimtz -- attempt to resuscitate the idea of a vanguard party.Socialist Register 2017marks the centennial of the 1917 Russian revolution and so tries to draw lessons from it, a key one being a vanguard party. Though other essays in the book throw cold water on that idea, Nimtz's view is worth noting: Marx's writings on "independent electoral power and armed organization" of working people, memorized by Lenin, helped usher in the first-time-ever successful workers' revolution. Perhaps the problem here is with the term "vanguard," very popular back in 1917 but in 2017, not so much. Just a party, not necessarily a vanguard party, but just a party would do, as one of several elements necessary for socialism.

Indeed, these essays argue not only for a party, but also for other sources of power. It's pretty clear fromRethinking Revolutionthat for anything resembling socialism to succeed, movements like Occupy and Podemos, electoral challengers like Bernie Sanders, sympathetic elected officials and an anti-capitalist partyalongsidea left movement, all need to be in the mix.

These essays span a wide range of political developments, including eco-socialism in South Africa, the welcome rise of left Laborite Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, the heritage of Eurocommunism, how climate change will drive political uprisings, socialism in South America, the legacy of the Chinese revolution, the pitfalls of identity politics and much more, all linked together by the theme of how to bring about socialism. Of course, socialism has and will come about differently in different places, and one of this volume's aims is to articulate those differences and the distinct challenges socialism faces in various parts of the world.

"It doesn't take much imagination to associate climate change with revolution," writes Andreas Malm about the Middle East in his essay on revolution in a warming world. He mentions that the US military has long viewed climate change as a security threat, especially in the global South, envisioning "a century of permanent counterinsurgency in hot slums sliding into the sea." As global warming leads to famines and water shortages, people will revolt -- indeed, in the last century, famine had more than a little to do with propelling the Bolsheviks to power and then leading to disaster: "the scarcities seemed to allow for no other general course of action than a food supply dictatorship. Here the seeds of Stalinist counterrevolution were sown." That could well be what we are in for with climate change: famine, revolution and counterrevolution. If so, and if climate change is an inevitable corollary of capitalism, then anti-capitalism should land quickly on any thinking person's agenda; there is no time to wait for what Malm calls "the dawdling bourgeoisie." He also critiques the notion of the Anthropocene epoch, which implies that all of humanity is somehow responsible for climate change, when in fact it's wealthy Western countries that have left by far the biggest carbon footprint -- one that affects all people. "There are no jobs on a dead planet," he concludes.

David Schwartzman's essay on eco-catastrophism concurs, naming the two major threats to civilization: nuclear war and catastrophic climate change. "Only transnational class struggle on a scale not witnessed in human history has any chance of preventing catastrophic climate change," he writes. That struggle would be greatly assisted by coordination among various functioning anti-capitalist parties in different countries.

Besides nuclear war and catastrophic climate change, a third threat looms for humanity, if socialism does not succeed -- a threat not discussed in this volume: fascism. A fascist candidate recently made it all the way to the French election, while governments in the US, UK, Hungary, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and elsewhere have all lurched so far to the right that it would not take much to morph from reactionary to fascist. Meanwhile, centrist austerity will not only fail to counter fascism, but will create enough misery to fuel it: We have seen this happen many times in various countries since the 1920s. Where socialists have failed to organize, fascists have teamed up with capitalists to scorch the planet and dispossess billions, resorting quickly to the military. We saw this in the 1966 mass murder of leftists in Sukarno's Indonesia and in the South American dictatorships of the 1960s and '70s. Today, we are witnessing the murderous war on drugs in President Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines or, still nascent, in the anti-immigrant policy agenda of Trump's United States. In these precarious times, socialists and anti-capitalists everywhere have their work cut out for them.

One place with bright prospects in this respect is South Africa, whose workers are, according to an essay by Patrick Bond inRethinking Revolution,"the world's most militant." Bond's article, "South Africa's Next Revolt: Eco-socialist Opportunities," lists "red-green (socialist-environmentalist) victories since the fall of apartheid in 1994: access to free HIV/AIDS medicines, the partial decommodification of municipal water and electricity services and workplace health and safety class action lawsuits." But on the downside, "neoliberalism has dug itself deep into social and environmental management since 1994." And there have been terrible defeats: South Africa's powerful and militant National Union of Mineworkers led a wildcat strike in 2012, in which 34 workers were massacred by police, basically on the orders of a former union leader turned government official.

Unlike South Africa, Bolivia pretty much alreadyissocialist. In Robert Cavooris's essay, he expounds upon the history of Bolivian neoliberalism and austerity and how it led to Evo Morales's victory and the success of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Cavooris argues that the rejection of neoliberalism throughout South America paved the way for outsiders to assume political control. Despite limited wage increases, he observes, the pink-tide states all put in place "popular welfare programs and worker subsidies." Unfortunately, as we have witnessed in recent years, without accompanying structural economic changes, for instance the nationalization of banks, these popular programs cannot hold off discontent, when, say, a worldwide slump in commodity prices (think oil in Venezuela) batters the country. The pink tide is not pink enough, according to Cavooris, who highlights "the distinction between a revolutionary transformation of the state and a doomed reformism." He writes that if "neoliberalism is thought abstractly as the dominance of the market over the state, then the presumed solution would be the wielding of state power to restore the balance."

For the troubles besetting the left and recently-left South American states, Cavooris prescribes "more power to the communes in Venezuela, more land for the landless movements in Brazil, more space for the self-management of unions in Bolivia and for the 'taken' factories in Argentina." Unfortunately, counterrevolution has already brewed in Brazil and Argentina. However, if an immensely popular left-wing leader like Lula makes a comeback in Brazil and if right-wing president Macri's penchant for privatizing and austerity stirs revolt in Argentina, things could change quickly.

In his essay on Venezuela, Steve Striffler argues that socialists must use electoral politics, despite ferocious counterattacks. "Attempts to change the structure, operation and even personnel of the state, while simultaneously confronting capital and putting key sectors of industry, finance and commerce under social control/ownership produces the fiercest opposition. This is precisely why, both Chavez and Morales recognized, the process must be accompanied by the creation of alternative organs, institutions and spaces of working class power." Striffler observes that this is an exhausting struggle, but a necessary one: The creation of a welfare state is not enough. "The power of capital must be broken," he writes. If not, the business elites will find a way to undermine socialism -- as they are currently doing in Venezuela and have done in Brazil and Argentina.

A salient difficulty besetting Venezuela and sabotaging its socialism is scarcity. "The opposition still possessed the capacity to seriously disrupt the economy," Striffler writes, adding that it was able to "generate political instability and undermine support for the government." Striffler observes that in a liberal democracy moving toward socialism, this will almost always be the case. Elites will fight back bitterly and not hesitate to reduce the country to poverty to further their aims, as has happened in Venezuela. "There is perhaps no better expression of this," Striffler writes about Venezuela, "than the periodic efforts by the business class to create a scarcity of consumer goods by reducing production, selling in alternative markets, limiting imports, or simply hoarding supplies, in effect promoting economic turmoil in order to foment political instability."

This has been going on in Venezuela for some time. Indeed, the recent lessons of socialism in South America couldn't be starker: While social welfare programs that provide housing, medicine, school and even cash payments to poor and working people are popular, in and of themselves they do not complete socialism's task. Capitalism must be confronted and restructured out of the picture, or it will come roaring back, dispossessing multitudes and roasting the planet, more destructive and chaotic than ever, and it will tear humanity's house right down to the ground.

Continued here:
On the Road From Anti-Capitalism to Socialism, We Need a Political Party - Truth-Out

We need only to revisit the 2016 presidential election to confirm many millennials preferred Sen. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, to free market capitalists. Did they get the full picture of what a socialist society looks like? What they heard loud and clear were the words free," fair" and equal." Is there something in the way America has nurtured our children that lends toward an attitude of entitlement?

Americas foundation of a free society is built on the engagement of all society in the economy, initiative, entrepreneurship and personal responsibility. In socialist societies, the elite make the rules for the masses, thus stripping away individual freedoms. Senator Sanders promoted free health care, free education, and relief from college loan payback, which encourages an attitude of irresponsibility and loss of initiative.

What Sanders did not talk about is what socialism looks like in actuality. Cuba, for example, is no longer a classic socialist society because it wasnt working; recently it turned toward a mixed economy with some elements of capitalism. Socialism fails because it cannot financially support all the social programs for the masses. Prior to recent reforms, Cubans were denied private property rights. With socialism comes scarcity of commodities and greater poverty. Poor human rights records permeate many socialist countries.

Sir Winston Churchill, former prime minister of Great Britain, fought socialism within his country for 50 years. He understood it took away individual freedoms and would not lead to prosperity for the populous. Churchill revered Americas constitutional governance. Thus far, socialism has yet to yield prosperity for the masses.

I think some of what has attracted young millennials to socialism is the idea of equal distribution of wealth; the wealth gap in the world offends their sense of fairness. Perhaps the shrinking job market and burgeoning student loans have created a level of hopelessness that has led millennials to Bernie Sanders and socialism. Experience teaches that blessings given without working for them are valued less than those using the sweat of our brow. In a socialist society there is no benefit to the individual to invest greater effort, greater excellence, or innovation, so incentive is lost. This is not a path to personal prosperity. Is this a world you want to live in?

Ben Sasse, senator from Nebraska, has written a book that may give clues as to why millennials are susceptible to socialism. He questions the current culture of parenting in his book, "The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance." The book discusses the dangers of delaying adulthood into the late 20s.

Sasse writes: Lowering expectations, cushioning all blows and tolerating aimlessness not only hurts them, it also deprives their neighbors, who desperately need their engagement."

In my experience, delaying adulthood encourages dependency, idleness, prevents growth of resiliency, initiative, self-confidence and the mental toughness necessary to successfully navigate adulthood. Millennials have grown up surrounded by bubble wrap, participation trophies" and safe places free from an opinion they disagree with.

Today's accepted norm is remedial classes for college freshmen to prepare students for college-level study. Sasse found that about one-third of college freshmen do not return as sophomores. When do they learn to navigate challenging situations which are always a part of life?

Overprotective parenting, or helicopter parenting," has led to 30 percent of teenagers reporting feeling sad or depressed (American Psychological Associations 2014 Stress in America survey). Christian Smith, sociologist from Notre Dame, reported the prevailing feelings of young adults are personal struggle, confusion, anxiety, hurt, frustration, and grief ("Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood," 2011). This kind of parenting coddles kids and gives them the impression they are the center of the universe, to their detriment.

Coddled youth are primed for an ideology that removes any responsibility for their circumstances. Experience taught me that free things are devalued, so why promote that expectation? Some millennials want fairness in all aspects of life. All people are flawed and treat people unfairly at times. If we practiced the godly principle of treating others better than ourselves, the results in society may yield more fairness.

Sasse promotes the idea of building five character traits: 1) Give youth more exposure to intergenerational experiences and break away from the tyranny of their peers. 2) Develop a work ethic. 3) Embrace limited consumption, dont overindulge in meaningless luxury. 4) Travel to learn about other cultures - discover what subsistence means. 5) Learn to read great literature.

Perhaps it is time to rethink our parenting styles.

Linda Holub, of Dakota Dunes, S.D., has lived in the Sioux City metro area for more than 40 years. She and her husband, Dave, have four adult children. A certified life coach professional with a master of arts degree from Liberty University in Human Services, Counseling: Life Coaching, Holub is co-chair of the Siouxland Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

More here:
THE REGULARS: Why are many millennials attracted to socialism? - Sioux City Journal

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more resembles feudalism than social democracy.

The new consensus is being pushed by, among others, hedge-fund-billionaire-turned-green-patriarch Tom Steyer (photo above). The financier now insists that, to reverse our worsening inequality, we must double down on environmental and land-use regulation, and make up for it by boosting subsidies for the struggling poor and middle class. This new progressive synthesis promises not upward mobility and independence, but rather the prospect of turning most Californians into either tax slaves or dependent serfs.

Californias progressive regime of severe land-use controls has helped to make the state among the most unaffordable in the nation, driving homeownership rates to the lowest levels since the 1940s. It has also spurred a steady hegira of middle-aged, middle-class families the kind of tax-burdened people Gov. Jerry Brown now denounces as freeloaders from the state. They may have access to smartphones and virtual reality, but the increasingly propertyless masses seem destined to live in the kind of cramped conditions that their parents and grandparents had escaped decades earlier.

A green peoples republic?

There is some irony in a new kind of socialism blessed by some of the worlds richest people. The new policy framework is driven, in large part, by a desire to assume world leadership on climate-related issues. The biggest losers will be manufacturing, energy and homebuilding workers, who will see their jobs headed to other states and countries.

Under the new socialism, expect more controls over the agribusiness sector, notably the cattle industry, Californias original boom industry, which will be punished for its cows flatulence. Limits on building in the periphery of cities also threaten future growth in construction employment, once the new regulations are fully in place.

Sadly, these steps dont actually do anything for the climate, given the states already low carbon footprint and the fact that the people and firms driven out of the state tend to simply expand their carbon footprints elsewhere in their new homes. But effectiveness is not the motivation here. Instead, combating climate change has become an opportunity for Brown, Steyer and the Sacramento bureaucracy to perform a passion play, where they preen as saviors of the planet, with the unlikable President Donald Trump playing his role as the devil incarnate. In following with this line of reasoning, Bay Area officials and environmental activists are even proposing a campaign to promote meatless meals. Its Gaia meets Lent.

A different kind of socialism

The oligarchs of the Bay Area have a problem: They must square their progressive worldview with their enormous wealth. They certainly are not socialists in the traditional sense. They see their riches not as a result of class advantages, but rather as reflective of their meritocratic superiority. As former TechCrunch reporter Gregory Ferenstein has observed, they embrace massive inequality as both a given and a logical outcome of the new economy.

The nerd estate is definitely not stupid, and like rulers everywhere, they worry about a revolt of the masses, and even the unionization of their companies. Their gambit is to expand the welfare state to keep the hoi polloi in line. Many, including Mark Zuckerberg, now favor an income stipend that could prevent mass homelessness and malnutrition.

How socialism morphs into feudalism

Unlike its failed predecessor, this new, greener socialism seeks not to weaken, but rather to preserve, the emerging class structure. Brown and his acolytes have slowed upward mobility by environment restrictions that have cramped home production of all kinds, particularly the building of moderate-cost single-family homes on the periphery. All of this, at a time when millennials nationwide, contrary to the assertion of Browns smart growth allies, are beginning to buy cars, homes and move to the suburbs.

In contrast, many in Sacramento appear to have disdain for expanding the California dream of property ownership. The states planners are creating policies that will ultimately lead to the effective socialization of the regulated housing market, as more people are unable to afford housing without subsidies. Increasingly, these efforts are being imposed with little or no public input by increasingly opaque regional agencies.

To these burdens, there are now growing calls for a single-payer health care system which, in principle, is not a terrible idea, but it will include the undocumented, essentially inviting the poor to bring their sick relatives here. The state Senate passed the bill without identifying a funding source to pay the estimated $400 billion annual cost, leading even former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to describe it as snake oil. It may be more like hemlock for Californias middle-income earners, who, even with the cost of private health care removed, would have to fork over an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion a year in new taxes to pay for it.

In the end, we are witnessing the continuation of an evolving class war, pitting the oligarchs and their political allies against the states diminished middle and working classes. It might work politically, as the California electorate itself becomes more dependent on government largesse, but its hard to see how the state makes ends meet in the longer run without confiscating the billions now held by the ruling tech oligarchs.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center forOpportunity Urbanism. His newest book,The Human City: Urbanism for the rest of us, was published in April by Agate. He is also author ofThe New Class Conflict,The City: A Global History, andThe Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.Prepped for City Watch by Linda Abrams.

Originally posted here:
California's Descent to Socialism or How the 'Nerd Estate' Controls the Rest of Us - City Watch

Back row from left, Voncille Harris, Tavonna Harris Askew, Tamika Harris, and front row, Chandler Askew and Kennedy Askew attend the tea party. (Submitted photo)

By Desiree Williams

In honor of National Cancer Survivors Day on June 4, Donna Blackmon hosted a tea party at Serenity in Zionsville to benefit her philanthropic efforts through the Power in Purple campaign to fight cancer.

Throughout May and June, 20 women are participating in the American Cancer Societys Power in Purple campaign to raise funds for and awareness of the resources offered from the ACS for cancer patients and families.

Blackmon manages communications and marketing strategies in the Indianapolis Suburban Region for the Womens, Obstetrics, Pediatrics and Cancer service lines at IU Health. Although she heard about the Power in Purple campaign opportunity through her contacts at work, she was motivated to participate for personal reasons. Blackmons mother died of lung cancer in 2013.

Just working with the service line I work with and working with the ACS and learning about all of the great programs they offer, its one of those things I wish wed known a little bit more about at the time, she said. So, thats kind of been my driving force is to make sure others are aware of all the resources that they offer.

Each candidate has a target goal of $2,500, and the ACS wants to raise $52,500 by the end of the campaign. Candidates must also wear purple every day during the month of June to raise awareness.

The overall goal would be to erase the pain and suffering of cancer for future generations, which is part of the reason why I hosted the tea party at Serenity, Blackmon said.

She chose to use a Mommy & Me theme to include her two young daughters and their friends. The event included a photo booth, an etiquette lesson from owner Karin Glass, games, crafts, food and tea.

It was so cute, Blackmon said. It just turned out so very well.

Blackmon is still working to reach her fundraising goal before the campaigns closing ceremony in July.

View original post here:
Tea party benefits American Cancer Society's Power in Purple campaign - Current in Zionsville