"The Most Serious, Systematic Revolutionary of Modern Times"

The Babalú Radio Hour sans Val this week gave Henry Gómez twice the responsibility to say foolish and idiotic things, and he did not disappoint. There was fodder there this week for several posts and the difficulty for me was deciding on which of so many gaffes to focus. Of course, I could have highlighted all of them if I wanted to, but Henry is merely the prop that I use to educate others. Some of his assertions are so esoteric and sui generis that I am sure that they never occurred to any sensible person before. To correct Henry just for the sake of correcting Henry is no public service, except to increase the amount of laughter in this world, and perhaps that, too, is a commendable goal.

This one was a close call. Could any other Cuban (or Hispanic) in the country seriously consider voting for Newt Gingrich for president besides Henry, who says that he has narrowed his list to Gingrich and Fred Thompson? A close call indeed. In the end I decided that it was highly unlikely that any other Cuban (even the staunchest Republican) would lend his support to Newt Gingrich unless he knew absolutely nothing about him. This, I hope, is the case with Henry, who apparently doesn't know (or care) that Gingrich was the previous generation's Tom Tancredo. Except that Gingrich was never a joke. He was deadly earnest in his xenophobia and 100% successful in implementing "reforms" aimed at destroying this country's Hispanic population. It is doubtful or, rather, impossible that Tancredo will ever become Speaker of the House, let alone president. Gingrich did and as master of Congress orquestrated the re-introduction of chattel slavery in the U.S. and made Hispanics the bondsmen.

Since Cuban-Americans reflexively remove themselves from any equation involving Hispanics (we are white, don't you know?), it is important to point out that Cuban exiles were not exempted from Newt's 1994 "Contract With America" (more accurately described as the "Contract On America.") In fact, Newt Gingrich is second only to Fidel Castro in the number of deaths of Cubans for which he is directly responsible. Ten years ago, thanks to provisions in Newt's "Contract On America" which denied social security and Medicaid benefits to legal residents, elderly Cuban exiles who were not U.S. citizens were committing suicide in Miami on a daily basis rather than face the prospect of homelessness and an ignonimous death on the streets. Dozens are known to have tried and nationally the figure may be in the hundreds since no one really cares to find out what kills the elderly.

Since the time of Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America," I stopped supporting the Republican Party (but could never bring myself to support the Democrats). As originally presented to the American public, Newt's "Contract" would have barred illegal immigrants from receiving welfare benefits. On the basis of that pledge Republicans gained a majority in Congress for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. It was only after the Republicans had captured Congress that Newt revealed his real xenophobic agenda, which encompassed, of course, not only illegal but legal immigrants.

Legal immigrants, who did things "the right way," obeyed immigration laws, paid taxes and were part of the social contract, had the safety net pulled out from under them. Although they were still required to pay income taxes, social security taxes, Medicaid taxes, unemployment insurance taxes — in sum, all taxes — they were not allowed to participate in, or benefit from, the various social programs to which they contributed, but obliged to work to support those same benefits for Newt's parents and Clinton's.

In other words, the Republicans turned all immigrants, legal or not, into non-persons (not even 3/5ths people). And still this was not enough. Now they want to denaturalize the immigrants' U.S.-born children so that they can prevent them from receiving school lunch, or, indeed, bar them from school altogether. The Republican hatred of Hispanics does not exempt children, but targets children specifically. After all, it is a demographic war.

Gingrich has done his best to contribute to that demographic war (the other kind of war he simply dodges) by asking his cancer-stricken (and barren) wife for a divorce on her deathbed so that he could marry his girlfriend, and then, while excoriating Clinton for his infidelities, engaged in adulteries of his own, which he now admits. He must have decided, at some point, that copulation was not the way to win the demographic war and concentrated his efforts instead on making blacks second-class citizens and Hispanics national pariahs.

What Newt Gingrich did to blacks was almost as odious as his campaign of terror against Hispanics. He is the man who pioneered the "harrassment brigades" (sounds familiar?) which "challenge" and turn away tens of thousands of African-American voters from the polls as a means to neutralize the black vote.

Having given up the hope (if he ever entertained it) that blacks or Hispanics would ever flock to the Republican party, Gingrich invented a policy of "containment" whose object is to disenfranchise them. Cuban-Americans got caught up in his web, because, although a majority are Republicans, it was impossible to exclude them from the punitive sanctions implemented against all Hispanics.

So this is the man that Henry Gómez wants to be the next president of the United States, a man who defines himself, incidentally, as "the most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times;" or, as I would define him, the no less catastrophic photographic negative of fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter. Who would have guessed it?