The Nightly Tally

Total Comments for the Last 10 Posts

RCAB = 634

Babalú = 39

Commenters are the committed readers. Their interest is real and substantial, not casual and transitory. Commenters are the bulwark of every blog, the mainstay, the cornerstone. Without them there would be no feedback , and without feedback the posts would be static. Most visitors to almost all blogs stumble there by accident, or are dropped there by Google. They stay only long enough to ascertain whether the information contained there might be useful in writing a school paper or settling a question. Chances are that whether they found the blog useful or no they will never return there, because the motivation that brought them there in the first place has lapsed and it is of no interest to them in any other context. Perhaps 95% of googlers fall into this opportunistic category. Those readers, incidentally, constitute most of Babalú's readers. This is easily discernable by the paucity of comments left there: passersby usually have very little to say. Babalú is a dying blog petrified in its morbidity while RCAB is instinct with life and activity, a living and vibrant organism.

What distinguishes one blog from the other?

First and foremost, freedom.

Those with a genuine interest in Cuba, who visit Cuba-themed blogs to nurture that interest and share their own views, can have their say here but not at Babalú.

So long as Babalú continues to censor and blackball these readers, our target audience, they will continue to boycott it.

Barack Obama Refuses to Denounce Rev. Wright

In his "Speech on Race" (which he now always calls his "Philadelphia Speech"), Barack Obama said that he would no more disown Rev. Jeremiah Wright than he would disown his 85-year-old white grandmother, and then proceeded to denounce his grandmother as a bigot comparable to Wright, which both diminishes Wright's bigotry by a mile and elevates his grandmother's exponentially. After all, his poor grandmother's only "sin" is that she is afraid of black youths who follow her from the supermarket. I think if white youths were following her home she would probably be afraid too. But no matter, grandma can sleep save tonight. The grandson that she raised when his parents abandoned him did not disown her yesterday. Nor did Obama disown Reverend Wright.

Once again, Barack Obama has denounced Wright's comments, but not the man. In fact, he makes this distinction clear himself: "I've already denounced [Wright's] comments that had appeared in previous sermons." Denounced the comments, that is, not the sermons, much less the reverend. In fact, when Obama delivered his Speech on Race, in Philadelphia, he admits that he "gave [Wright] the benefit of the doubt." So, as late as a month ago, Obama admits that he still "had doubts" that Wright's comments were "divisive and destructive." It is only now that Wright has challenged his own honesty and suggested that any criticisms which Obama has made of him were motivated solely by political expediency does Obama feel compelled to label Wrights comments as "destructive." "Destructive" to whom? Well, to Obama.

Even now, after Wright's most recent remarks, Obama feels the compulsion to praise him: "He's done enormous good in the church, he's built a wonderful congregation." That was at the start of his "denunciation." At the end he had this to say: "I continue to believe that Rev. Wright has been a leader of the South Side [of Chicago]. I think that the church he built is outstanding. I think he has preached in the past some wonderful sermons. He provided, you know, valuable contributions to my family."

Denunciation should be made of firmer stuff.

Obama is even willing to admit the possibility that Wright may have acted without malice in his "performance." Although he acknowledges that "there has been great damage," Obama stills believes that "it may have been unintentional on his part."

In other words, the man may be personally blameless. Still.

Then who's to blame?

The media (well, that's refreshing, at least).

Why?

Because they aired (or "triggered," as he puts it) "the initial round of sound bites" which were "a simplification of who [Wright] was, a caricature of who he was..." Well, it is true that a mere sound bite cannot convey the whole of Wright's perverse world view. But is that the same as "caricaturing" him. With his own words? Obviously, in Obama's opinion, Wright was a man done wrong by the media until the day when he actually questioned Obama's veracity. On that day, Obama says, Wright "caricatured himself." Still, though, Obama says that "made [him] angry, but also made [him] sad." Like a disappointed but still dutiful son, Obama blames Wright "for not showing enough concern for [him]." It is that anguish, more than anything else, that was on display in Obama's speech yesterday. How could Wright have done such a thing to him?

Obama claims not to have known about Wright's allegation that the U.S. government created AIDS to destroy the black community (gay men, too perhaps?) and other "divisive and destructive comments" which the reverend has made over the years. Obama has known Wright personally for 20 years and sat in the pew of his church for 15. He even used the title of one of Wright's sermons as the title for his own autobiography. Hard to think of a greater homage to one's mentor, pastor and surrogate father than to use the title of one of his sermons to define his own life and mission, though, now, Obama claims that Wright "does not speak for him." He obviously spoke to him and for him in the past when no one was challenging Wright's remarks or using them against him (Obama).

The Promise of Barack Obama

Nothing about Barack Obama is unmoderated. It is not surprising, therefore, that he has declined Hillary Clinton's challenge to debate in an unmoderated (and unscripted) format. Obama fears less to be perceived as a coward than to be exposed as a sham. There is no difference between Al Sharpton and Barack Obama except that Sharpton has been knocked-about and nearly killed for his opportunism whereas Obama has reaped prize after unearned prize.

Obama is an armchair revolutionary who harbors all the hates and resentments of those on the front lines of the racial divide but has been immured all his life from the effects of racism. His entire career thus far (such as it is) has been built on exploiting the exploited, siphoning their suffering to run his political juggernaut. One might say that in this he is no different from any other liberal of our times. No different, let us say, from Hillary Clinton.

But there is a difference: the next phase of his career will be spent exploiting the "exploiters," that is, those who favor his mother's side of the family. It is thus that he affirms his own "victimhood" and validates his own identity. It worked, on a smaller canvas, for his mentor and surrogate father figure, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who, incidentally, despite the mock African garb, is practically white, or, more precisely, black by choice.

Not even Obama's 85-year old white grandmother, who raised him after both his father and mother abandoned him, is exempt from his anger at whites, which is no different from Wright's except that Obama conceals it in meaningless rhetoric while Wright uses all his rhetorical tropes to highlight it. Still, in his speech on race, Obama publicly chastised his own grandmother as a bigot while asserting that he can still love his grandmother even if she is one; the implication being, of course, that he can love and forgive all whites for being bigots and terribly wronging him and his people. Yet, if Obama can regard his own white grandmother as a racist and publicly chastise her as such before the world — a woman who has given the most absolute proof that she is in fact not one — how must he feel about other whites who did not raise him?

For Obama as for Wright racism is the "original sin" of white Americans. Nothing can wash that "sin" out except, perhaps, an infusion of black blood. It appears to have done the trick for Obama himself, who on his mother's side is related to Jefferson Davis.

Quite apart from Obama's socialism, which Hillary shares to a lesser extent, and his inexperience, which Hillary also shares but which, in her case, is supplemented by her husband's (ominous) experience, the biggest difference between Obama and Clinton is that as president Hillary would not pick at the scars of racism until they become new festering wounds.

It is ironic that many Americans both black and white mistakingly believe that the election of Obama will signify the final reckoning with their history and the purification of the American ideal. In fact, the long settled questions of the American Civil War will be revisited and unsettled, and the real progress that has been made since will be threatened if not undone, if Barack Obama is elected president. Obama is the black George Wallace, only smarter and a better actor and hence even more dangerous.

Barack Obama: The Future Is the Past

The Truth About Barack Obama Finally Revealed

Joe Papp's Cuban Odyssey

The temptation was really great to title this post "Romeo and Yuliet," but I disdain the facile (cursi in Spanish), even if, as in this case, it's a pretty good snapshot of reality. Like the characters' in Shakepeare's play, Joe Papp and Yuliet Rodríguez's story is simple though not on that account less poignant: an American young man falls in love with a Cuban girl; but their love is thwarted not by their parents but by the "Father of All Cubans," who is not in the least adverse to allowing the sale of "his" children to old depraved men like himself in order to promote tourism to his floating plantation, but not in the least open to allowing love to run its normal course when it involves one of his slaves and an "abolitionist devil" from up North. Yes, Fidel Castro can be quite possessive about certain slaves, especially his most prized ones, the athletes who compete for his greater glory and represent in themselves his most successful experiment in social engineering.

Cuban athletes are champions. Fidel's cows never were. Cows were always his passion, not people. He would have preferred to create a "New Cow" than a "New Man." But the only "new cow" that he ever managed to bioengineer, the immortal Ubre Blanca, was barren. The "New Man" was the consolation prize. The exemplars of these "New Men" and "New Women" are his stable of athletes. Yuliet Rodríguez was one, Cuba's 12-time cycling champion. She was not expected to fall in love with a young American cyclist and want to leave Castro's "Socialist Paradise," but she did.

Joe and Yuliet met at a cycling event in Havana in 2001. They pursued their courtship in a dozen countries, wherever Yuliet travelled abroad to represent Cuba at acycling meets. Everywhere that she went she tried to defect without much success, or, rather, with tragic results. From Russia, she tried to make it to Italy, where Joe lay injured in hospital after a bicycle crash. On a flight to Mexico, she was stopped in Spain and offered the option of returning to Cuba or being sent to Venezuela. In Venezuela, she went into hiding. Joe and Yuliet had already married in 2004 but it did not avail Yuliet much with U.S. authorities, who did nothing to expedite the visa of an American citizen's wife. Fearing that Yuliet would soon be captured and deported to Cuba, Joe spent his last dime trying to get her smuggled to the U.S. from Venezuela. He went to Kennedy Airport to wait for her but she never appeared. Only later did he learn that she had been apprehended by Venezuelan authorities and summarily deported to Cuba, where, of course, she immediately became persona non grata, without even the miserable stipend that she had received as an athlete from the regime.

Yuliet was pregnant and close to giving birth. Joe sent several thousand dollars to Cuba so that she would have money to subsist and be able to pay for the delivery, or, to be more precise, so that she could bribe the doctors so that her baby wouldn't be aborted without her knowledge, as is routinely the case in Cuba with difficult deliveries, as hers promised to be. The money was stolen by the person who was entrusted to take it to Cuba. Yuliet literally spent her final trimester in a state of near starvation. The baby -- this little American citizen, Joe Papp Jr. -- was born prematurely by Caesarian section in Havana. Miraculously (because there is a God who does not always turn his back on the innocent), the baby survived. Yuliet is still waiting to be reunited with her husband and Joe Sr. to meet his son.

Needless to say, Joe's experiences with the Castro regime have given him a perspective on it that no other American enjoys and few Cuban exiles. And he has not remained quiet. Perhaps because he's an American and can't easily be silenced. He has done everything in his power to publicize his Yuliet's plight. Others may perhaps have advised caution, as this case might have been easier to "solve" without publicity. But I think Joe was right. The only protection that Yuliet enjoys is that she is the wife of a U.S. citizen and his son that he is an American citizen. To make that fact known as widely as possible is Joe's only defense against the kidnappers of his wife and son. In this he has been greatly assisted by the fact that he is a gifted writer and his own best advocate. He has chosen, however, to be something more: an advocate for the freedom of the entire Cuban people. His identification with our cause and passion for Cuba is such that he reminds me of Henry Reeve. Those acquainted with Reeve's history know that it is impossible to praise Papp more.

His blog I also recommend in the highest terms. It is there where you can discover for yourself his love for Cuba and the Cuban people and the vast resources of his intellect and his heart. Some day, perhaps, he will hang up his bicycle and give a workout to his hands on the keyboard as strenuous as he is wont to give his legs on the peddles.

I know that there are some who think I don't like Americans, but really it is the "Ugly American" that I dislike. The "Ugly American" is not the prototypical American by any means. Sadly, Cuba has suffered greatly and suffers still by the actions of a few "Ugly Americans." Joe and other Americans like him compensate for their crimes and represent a more hopeful epoch in Cuban-American relations which will dawn once Cuba is free.

Read more about Yuliet in Joe's blog, Pappillon:

http://joepapp.blogspot.com/search?q=Yuliet

Notable & Naive: No, Monica, We Are All "Cuban Nationals"

"Some of the artists [at the exhibit] are exiles, others are nationals." -- Monica, "Unbroken Ties: Dialogues in Cuban Art," Babalú, April 25, 2008

Babalú's youngest contributing writer, Monica, is always a source of amusement. Young people never draw my anger. I am glad that they have any interest in Cuba, let alone devote any part of their lives to her behalf. What if they do use the spurious names that Castro has given to Cuba's provinces? The fact that Cuba is a tabula rasa to them, at best known second-hand, covers a lot of territory, or, rather, excuses any number of errors that they might commit in an honest effort to understand our country. Cuba is, of course, their country, too.

The Constitution of 1940, still Cuba's only de jure fundamental law, grants the children of Cuban parents citizenship, and those children, having claimed Cuban citizenship, can pass it on to their foreign-born children, and so, unto all future generations born in exile. Which is to say, that not only the children of Cubans are Cubans, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren to the last generation are Cubans too. This should be a comfort to all of us: Fidel Castro has not been able to rob us of our nationality nor our descendents of their patrimony (or matrimony, since under the 1940 Constitution the children of Cuban mothers born outside the national territory enjoy the same citizenship rights as the children of Cuban fathers, which was a rare concession for those patriarchal times).

That much said, and in the spirit of instruction rather than chastisement, let me say that Monica has made the biggest "boo boo" in Babalú's history (as Henry once dubbed his own monumental gaffes). There is no distinction between Cuban exiles and Cuban nationals. Cuban exiles are Cuban nationals no less than Cubans who reside on the island. If the art exhibit which Monica reviews has as its object to highlight the "unbroken ties" that bind us, then that is the firmest tie of all: our shared nationality.

I oppose alike Cubans in exile that do not regard Cubans on the island as "real Cubans" and Cubans on the island that refuse to see exiled Cubans as "real Cubans."

We are one people. Any deviation from that concept is treason.

Jaime Cardinal Ortega: The "Dorian Gray" of Cuba

From the Catholic News Agency:

Church in Cuba Hopes for Greater Government Cooperation, says Cardinal Ortega

Havana, Apr 23, 2008 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- The Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, said relations between the Church and the Communist government have improved in recent times, but the hope is that there will be more openness with regards to access to the media and education.

In an interview with the magazine Temas, Cardinal Rivera [sic] said the country is living “a very special” moment, as “a period of much reflection and debate (about life in Cuba) has begun and is very noticeable in the people, and sometimes in the electronic media, although not always.” “This is an interesting moment and we are looking on with hope,” he said.

Cardinal Ortega said the good relations with the government “could improve with greater openness for the Church.” He specifically referred to the media and noted that while the bishops do have access to local radio stations, in the future they hope to have a program that is broadcast on a more regular basis, whether weekly or monthly.

He also expressed hope that the Church’s publications could be circulated throughout the country in accord with established law.

Regarding education, Cardinal Ortega admitted that there is less of a chance of the Church gaining greater control over the administration of Catholic schools than for the Church to have greater access to the media.

The cardinal said that requests by the bishops today are given greater consideration than before, such as “requests for missionaries or religious to come to Cuba for pastoral work, which are obtained today with relative ease.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12440


Cardinal Jaime Ortega, archbishop of Havana, is rarely mentioned in the Catholic press in the U.S. Of course, there is very little reason to mention him and many reasons to ignore him. We were surprised, then, when the Catholic News Agency devoted a few brief paragraphs to the indescript prelate.

The title really says it all: the Cardinal expects greater "government" cooperation. That makes him the active agent when he has never been the active agent. It is not the Castro regime which will offer greater cooperation to the Cardinal, but the Cuban Church which will become even more cooperative with the regime. Perpetual capitulation is its normal mode. The concept of a church militant is completely alien to it. The Cuban Church is, rather, a church complicitous. As such it fears the future more than it fears the present. It is completely accommodated to the present. The future, when it will called to account for its betrayal of the Cuban people, and when the magnitude of that betrayal becomes known in all its horrific dimensions, is something that hierarchs like Cardinal Ortega should like to postpone as long as they can, indefinitely if possible. That is, atheistic communism is preferable to them than democracy and freedom of religion. In the shadow of tyranny, the Cardinal can continue to live his hedonistic lifestyle. Exposed to the light of a free press and not protected by the mechanism of tyranny, he would wither like the portrait of Dorian Grey.

The first thing to notice in the article is that the reporter immediately forgets the Cuban Cardinal's name. He refers to him as "Rivera." This, as we have already explained, is entirely understandable. I wish it were as easy for me to forget his name. The official history of the Universal Church will certainly have no place in it for him and even the annals of the Cuban Church will try to ignore him. But, of course, such attempts to erase history will be in vain while there are still millions of witnesses to it.

So this is an "interesting moment" and the Cardinal is looking forward "with hope (read horror)" to future developments. As regards the Church, it is "better relations with the government [sic]" which holds the key to "greater openness for the Church." Not freedom for the Cuban people, God forbid, but more space for the Church to preach resignation to tyranny to the Cuban people.

Specifically, the Cardinal wants greater access to the media. Not to seem ungrateful, he points out that "the bishops do have access to local radio stations" (that is, they can be invited to appear on the propaganda shows); but this is not enough for Ortega, "in the future [he] hopes to have a program that is broadcast on a more regular basis, whether weekly or monthly." Isn't that just precious! On a "more or less regular basis" and "whether weekly or monthly." 12 days out of the 365 would satisfy this very-easy-to-please cardinal. Before the Revolution, the Catholic Church owned its own radio station in Cuba, one of the island's most powerful (closed and confiscated by Castro). Now, it would be content with 30 (censored) minutes every month.

And forget about the return of Catholic education to Cuba. Such an idea is thoroughly alien to the Cardinal, as alien, indeed, as it it to the regime. Incidentally, the Catholic News Agency does not know, and certainly got no inkling from the Cardinal's interview, that there are presently no Catholic schools in Cuba. In fact, can Cardinal Ortega actually be obscuring that fact himself when he is quoted as "admitt[ing] that there is less of a chance of the Church gaining greater control over the administration of Catholic schools than for the Church to have greater access to the media." What "Catholic schools?" Empirically, the Cardinal's statement is true, however. The Cuban Church does indeed have a lesser possibility of regaining "administration" over its confiscated schools than it does of getting a monthly 30-minutes on state-controlled radio.

Notable & Hypocritical: Two Birds of a Feather that Don't Fly Together

"Here's Charles Rangel saying it's unconstitutional for the President and the State Department to list[en] to Cuban-Americans. This is what pisses me off about these disingenuous jerks. They are pissed simply because we use the institutions of democracy, namely the vote, to influence policy. If that's crime, then we are guilty. -- Henry "Economist" Gómez, "Joe García's Fundraising Buddy," Babalu, April 23, 2008


The "institutions of democracy?"

How about the forms of democracy?

When are those going to be honored at Babalú?

I can think of no better illustration of the hypocrisy, unctuousness, bullying, absolutism and visceral disdain for not only the practice of democracy but for the lives and future of those who are not free than Congressman Charlie Rangel. His desire that Cubans should always starve under Communism and Babalú's desire that Cubans should be starved out of Communism exhibit the same contempt for the Cuban people.

Rangel sees Cubans as the guinea pigs in his Marxist utopia; and the Babalunians as rats in a Pavlovian maze that can be trained by holding out and withholding grains of food. Both presuppose that Cubans exist solely for the purpose of being agents for their worst intentions.

In fact, in the moral universe, there is no difference between Rangelians and Babalunians.

What Now, Babalú?

I once thought the death of Babalú, though an inevitable consequence of its own self-destructive policies and the unrestrained egotism of its principals, was nonetheless to be regretted. I would have preferred its reformation to its decimation; but though I have worked mightily to expose its structural defects in order that the building might be repaired and saved, the Babalunians have responded only by gutting it till nothing remains but the fascade.

In the beginning, when Val did not have George and Henry to feed his megalomania, Babalú was not the blog that it is today. That is, it was not the fascist counterpart of its reputed nemesis. Its fascism is not ideological, of course, but consists of adapting the methods of totalitarianism for its own uses and purposes. As such it is on a continuum with Communism, Naziiism and all other coersive systems of control over the minds and actions of man. To this has been added, as Babalú's own peculiar contribution, the same kind of vulgarity that one finds in Communist Cuba's chancletera aristocracy.

Given the fact that it refuses to change but every day becomes more anti-democratic, given also the great discredit that it has brought on all Cuban exiles, and the greater harm that it has done to our cause, I believe the time has passed to talk of reforming it. The only solution is for Babalú to fall by its own weight. It appears that it is already close to collapse. It cannot come soon enough to suit us.

Notable & Sadistic: Val Says, "Let Them Eat Goldfish"

"Give a man a fish, and you will quench his hunger. Teach a man — or in this case — allow a man to fish and he will never go hungry again." — Val Prieto, "Guarantees" (comment), Babalú, April 22, 2008

Give a man a rope and he may hang himself; teach him how to make rope and he will surely hang himself.

This particular chesnut is the darling of Val's eye. He has used this trite expression dozens of times when he wants to suggest that charity precludes self-reliance. Of course, to be self-reliant you must first be free. A regime that circumcribes your field of action and condemns and punishes individualism is not the ideal climate in which to "learn to fish." In Cuba, it is illegal for Cubans to fish in boats. They can hang a line from the Malecón and catch fish not much bigger than goldfish, which, incidentally, many do. I hardly think that teaching a man to subsist on goldfish is doing him any favor. Yet that is precisely what Val wants the already starving Cuban people to learn.

In the same thread, Henry "Economist" Gómez is convinced that if remittances are cut off abruptly Cubans will develop a distaste for goldfish and will overthrow the regime in 6 months. So that's the answer! After nearly 50 years of tyranny, the answer are goldfish! Why, of course! Only an economist like Henry could have figure that one out. Force feed the Cuban people goldfish for 6 months and they will break their shackles without the need of saws or other implements. Well, not quite break; perhaps slide out of them. After that they need only find guns, tanks and bombs and their deliverance will be complete. Or failing that, Cubans will be so wafer-thin that they will be impervious to Castro's guns, tanks, and bombs.

And what about the children?

Will they be double-starved for six months too?

Val's valuable lesson and Henry's "Six-Month Plan" could hardly work if an exception were made for them. Supposedly parents will become more desperate and liable to act if their children are starving too.

The Rarest Thing Happened Today: A Debate Broke Out at Babalú

A debate has broken out at Babalú. Those acquainted with that echo chamber will be surprised if not floored. It may explain things if we point out that the debate is between Val and Marc Másferrer. If it were someone other than Marc who raised an objection to Val's condemnation of remittances, his comment would have been deleted pro forma and the dissenter summarily banned. But because it is Marc, who by rights should enjoy Val's respect and gratitude, Babalú's editor-in-chief has consented to reply to him in a civil fashion.

Val is upset because he think that Castro's goons in Cuba are receiving remittances from their Miami relatives who may or not know about their activities. It is entirely possible that such amoral men would represent themselves as enemies of the regime in order to obtain the largesse of their families in Miami. It is entirely possible also that many Miami families may send money to their relatives in Cuba even if they know or suspect that they are complicit with the Castro regime in the subjugation of the Cuban people. What is not true, however, or even remotely possible, is that a majority of those receiving remittances in Cuba are Castro's goons, which is what Val is implying.

Of course, in Val's way of thinking, any Cuban who is not being beaten up in the streets like the "Ladies in White" must be a Castro goon or a coward. The obstinate refusal of Cubans on the island to shed their blood in rivers so that they can provide Val with a red carpet for his return to Cuba once that blood is congealed causes poor Val to be greatly disillusioned with his countrymen for failing to live up to his own heroic example. Has he not had to contend with coconuts and dead chickens on his lawn? Has he not received mysterious anonymous phone calls and supposed death threats from other bloggers? Have not Gloria and Emilio snubbed him despite his relentless ass-kissing? Truly Val knows the meaning of suffering. Too bad that the Cuban people don't, because if they did, according to Val Prieto, they would have already risen against the tyrant.

Val does not mention his famous pressure cooker. I have berated him about it so many times that he has obviously rethought the metaphors that he employs to condemn the Cuban people. Val and Henry's "Pressure Cooker" Theory holds that if you double-starve the Cuban people and make life even more miserable for them, they will have no choice but to rise up against Castro, that is, self-implode. An island bereft of Castro and the Cuban people is their fondest hope, or, as I once put it, the cherry on their brazo gitano.

Then there is this:

"If some creep grabbed your wife and a gun point told you "give me money or Ill shoot her." and you gave him money and he told you "give me more money or Ill shoot her." and you gave him more money and he once again tells you "give me money or ill shoot her." Where does it end? What impetus does that creep have to free your wife, given that each and every time he asks you for money you give it to him?"

I pity Val's poor wife who in this example stands for the long-suffering Cuban people. Can you imagine! Val would refuse to give the "creep" holding his wife at gunpoint more money because he (the "creep") is too greedy. Better a dead spouse than to be "fleeced" by such a lowlife. It's a matter of principle. His wife's brains splattered on the street are preferable to succumbing to blackmail or emptying out his bank account.

I pity his wife. I pity the Cuban people if their fate were ever in Val's hands. Thank God it never will be.


POSTSCRIPT:

In an unusual but welcome display of autonomy, Fantomas has also challenged Val on his assertion that Cuban exiles support Castro's henchmen with their remittances. Since Fantomas once said that he could not "afford" to be booted from Babalú, this was a risky move on his part. We are glad that Fantomas finally took a stand at Babalú, and hope, for his sake, that it not be his last stand.

Is Babulú Dead Again?

Is Babalú dead?

I have asked that question before regarding its lack of comments. But now the matter is much more grave. It appears that no one is writing posts at Babalú anymore.

We are used to posts there that have no comments hitched to them. Babalú, after all, is the blog with more contributing editors than commenters.

But have its editors now also quit Babalú in disgust over its increasing irrelevance and unorthodoxy?

Has Babalú's "magnificent cadre of writers," as George Moneo alluded to his fellow contributors on the day he was ousted from their ranks, now refusing to march in lockstep with their generalissimos?

There are 16 of them altogether. Most editorial boards at major newspapers don't have 16 members. There are almost no blogs that do.

Yet between them they managed to put up just 7 post this weekend (2 posts consisting only of pictures without words and the other 5 each under 50 words).

Granted, week-ends are slow at most blogs but few blogs completely shut shop over week-ends.
The writing is on the wall. Or, rather, it is not.


POSTSCRIPT:

Business as usual at Babalú today (that is, practically none), but that didn't stop the dyspeptic Val from booting miramiradePalmira and erasing the comment which got her booted. Longtime commenter JackW presumed that it was he who was booted because Val's eloquent edict of eviction ("Comment deleted and asshole banned by el que más mea) followed JackW's comment. Yes, there appears to be a general panic among Babalú's commenters resembling "The Reign of Terror." And so Val, long-discredited as a censor and now a snitch, continues to preside at Babalú with the same arbitrariness in its decline as in its heyday. The fishbowl may be less populated but the shark's teeth are just as sharp.

Round 8 With Henry (He Says "¡No más!")

Vic:

That is a good obervation and worth pondering: "One thing is being anti-castro and another anti-communist."

Manuel A. Tellechea's last comment at Babalu blog, implying that while the Estefans are anti-castro, they are not anti-communist on March 29, 2007.

I'll state for the record, once and for all, that I was opposed to Elian being returned to Cuba. And the person who can verify that fact is Alex, formerly of SotP and currently of Miami and Beyond. We worked together for several years including the period of time in which Elian was in the United States.

If your readers want to continue believing the opposite, then that's their problem. Nobody is going to know better than me how I felt. You chose to mischaracterize statements I made about it, I suppose because it helped you in your little crusade against Babalu. But if this really were a fight, your tactics would be considered an illegal low blow and you'd be disqualified. You are not honorable, you're making stuff up as you go along. For over a year I rarely stopped by here. And almost every time I did I came away laughing because of the story lines you invented about me. The only one that didn't make me laugh was that one about Elian.

Anyway, Manuel I've had fun sparring with you but now am bored with it, so it's time to bid you adieu.

4/21/2008 12:18 AM


Henry:

OK. Let's see. I was complimenting Vic, one of your long-gone commenters whom you and Val regularly beat up before he disappeared, for making an astute observation and one which many people are unaware of, namely, that it is possible to be anti-Castro but not anti-Communist. I do not say whether Gloria or Emilio Estefan are one or the other; it is Val (and you now) who assume that they are not "anti-Communists." Of course, not being an "anti-Communist" does not imply being a Communist, either. The whole of liberaldom from the 1950s to the 1990s were stridently "anti anti-Communist" but not themselves in favor of making the U.S. a Communist state. All this, of course, flies over your heads and it is no use explaining it to you.

Val did not boot me from Babalú for calling Gloria a "Communist," which I never did; but for complimenting Vic for an astute observation. Nobody, of course, is allowed to compliment on Babalú anyone whom you abuse, isolate and eventually discard after playing your "cat and mouse game" with them. The poor guy even came to RCAB to apologize for saying something that got me kicked off Babalú! As I explained to Vic, he had done nothing wrong in expressing his opinion; nor I in praising him for the acuteness of his observation.

What you don't say, however, is that Val laid down a "fatwa" at Babalú threatening to boot the next person who said anything critical about the Estefans. Apparently, I was that person. Except, of course, that I had made my comment praising Vic's observation minutes before he laid down his "fatwa." When this was pointed out to him, Val immediately "unbooted me" (can't have the appearance of looking unfair though being unfair is actually acceptable to him). Of course, it was already too late. No one with any sense of honor could have continued to comment at Babalú. Honor entailed on one the duty of fighting such practices and the dictatorial mindset which is behind them. And there you have your example: it is possible to be anti-Castro while at the same time embracing Communist practices such censorship, purges and proscriptions. Val and you prove that every day.

I have heard enormities in my day, but your assertion that you rarely read this blog must be the biggest of them all. Is anyone here so gullible as to believe you? Every time I write even one word about you (and I have written many) the phone starts ringing for you and it would take a bigger man than you to resist the temptation of seeing what I wrote about you. Of course, you don't need to be tempted. Even if you had made a resolution not to read RCAB, that resolution, as so many others, wouldn't make it past New Year's Day.

As for Elián, it has been shown to my satisfaction (and your eternal shame) that you were in favor of his return to Cuba. When Alex stated in a comment (long after I had made my initial assertion last year) that in your conversations with him you held the opposite opinion, I did not call him a liar but accepted what he said as his personal experience with you. There is someone else, however, who heard you loudly take the father's (i.e. Fidel's) side. Your disdain for Elenita (amply chroniched here) and your adamant refusal to say even one word on her behalf confirms me in my belief you want every body to remain and be rendered in your precious "pressure-cooker" even the babies. Needless to say, this causes me to regard you as nothing less than a monster, worse even than Val, who actually expressed 10 words of support for her.

The fact that you do not consider me "honorable" is a compliment. I desire nothing more than to be disdained by men such as you.

Of course, I am laughing at your assertion that you are tired of sparring with me and are bidding me "adieu." I bet everybody else is laughing, too. Frankly, you should ignore me as these excursions into "enemy territory" are sapping you of all your energy and you have all but given up posting at Babalú. Remember that there is still much knowledge that remains to be extracted from the chronicles of "Nostradamus" Dorshner in Tropic Magazine 20 years ago.

We'll see if you've said your last "¡No más!"

Raúl Is Taking the Rice Out of the Mouths of Cubans

Raúl Castro has just made the first fundamental change since he officially assumed his new investiture as Communist Cuba's fourth unelected "president." He has slashed, indeed, almost eliminated, Cuba's imports of grice (gravel with rice) from North Vietnam. Has he decided that Cubans are more deserving of a higher grade of rice than that which the North Vietnamese feed to their pigs? No, there is nothing that Raúl won't feed to the Cuban people from maggots to offal to carrion. The reason for halting Cuba's rice purchases is that the price of rice has risen on the international market from $223 in 2002 to $855 per ton today, which means that it is time to tighten the belts of all expendable Cubans, that is, the 95% of the population who do not belong to the military, state security or the military-industrial complex (their rice is imported from the Carolinas by special license from the U.S. government).

Rice, for those who know nothing about Cuba, is the mainstay of the Cuban diet, the foundation of every meal however elaborate or simple. Before the Revolution, Cuban consumption of rice rivalled that of any Oriental country and a significant amount was locally produced. The rest was imported from China. Cuba was once its best customer in the Americas and its biggest importer of the highest quality Chinese rice in the world.

That all changed with the advent of Castro. He picked the wrong side in the Sino-Russo rivalry of the 1960s and rice soon banished from the Cuban table and was replaced by a a mix of crushed spaghetti and rice.

Eventually, rice was reintroduced to Cuba, but it was like no rice that Cubans had ever seen before much less eaten. Bits or remnants of rice, mixed liberally with dirt, gravel, maggots and other insects, as well as various growing fungii. The rice literally had to be picked grain by fractured grain from the detritus. Grandmothers were often assigned the task and would spend hours at it before the week's ration of one pound of grice yielded half that much in rice, an abused and barely palatable rice.

Even this has now been deemed too great a luxury for the Cuban people since a ton of rice costs the same now as an ounce of gold. Even the low-quality rice that Cuba buys from North Korea is prohibitively priced. It is a lot more profitable for the Castro brothers to stash those ounces of bullion in Switzerland while the Cuban people make do with promises of cellphones, computers, airplanes and other pipe dreams.

The fabled Chinese rice cookers, the first kitchen appliance made available to Cubans in more than 45 years, which Fidel personally hawked with much fanfare on Cuban television as the "world of tomorrow," have been decommissioned and retired like their erstwhile spokesman (if the propaganda is to be believed).

In what is surely no relief to the Cuban people, the regime has announced that it will produce its own "consumable rice." That pretty much answers the question of what it is that's being produced in Cuba now. Of course, the prospects are not good because of "decapitalization, plague and drought," as has already been announced. Still, the experiment will be made. The greatest irony, however, is that if the experiment actually succeeds in producing "consumable" rice, the Cuban people will see none of it.

Round 7 With Henry

"There he goes again." — Ronald Reagan

Manuel,

My position on comments is that the communists and other jerks have plenty of forums where their words are accepted as facts. I do not need to provide them with another. I am the type of person that likes to get the last word in on his own blog. Since I do have a life outside of blogging, I do not wish to engage in ongoing debates with braindead retards like Rick, Paul Benavides, Matt Glesne or John Longfellow. It's my prerogative as the blogger.

No shirt
No shoes
No service

How many times have you seen those words at public accommodations like restaurants? Even though they are public, the owner has a right to enforce a code of conduct among his GUESTS.

You do not have "right" to comment on anyone's blog nor do you have a "right" to have your comments preserved in perpetuity. Perhaps a class in constitutional law is what the doctor ordered for you. Or maybe some anti-psychotic medications.

I never denied that you praised me. All it shows is that when you were denied your "right" to call Gloria Estefan a communist at Babalu, because she made a boneheaded decision, that you snapped.

As for your super secret source on my feelings about Elian at the time of the tragedy, either he/she is lying or you are. But the odds are about 99-1 that you are the one that's lying and that your source if you have one is one of your imaginary friends like Vana.

I am glad that my presence on your blog has helped make you the king of the most commented Cuban-American blogs. Anything to help out an old friend, even if he continues to spread hurtful lies about me. Yes hurtful, because my feelings about Elian were the exact opposite of what you have portrayed. At first I was outraged that you posted those lies. But now I am thankful because it confirmed for me, and revealed to others, that you are not just a great writer, but also a petty little man who lashes out when he is not allowed to control every situation to his satisfaction.

Very well,

carry on.

4/19/2008 9:35 PM


Henry:

If it were just Rick, Paul Benavides, Matt Glesne or John Longfellow, it would be bad enough. What does the deletion of their comments suggest about you? That you are unable to refute their arguments. If a man slaps you the answer is not to turn your back on him. You may believe yourself to be his superior and maybe you are. But you don't prove that by refusing to engage him, much less censoring him and handing a victory to him by default.

But, of course, it's not just Rick, Paul Benavides, Matt Glesne or John Longfellow. You know it and everybody knows. It's also fellow Cuban exiles who have the temerity to disagree with you. Not the Ana Menéndez's, Lesniks or Arucas, because they ignore you as beneath them just as you ignore the Ricks, Glesnes, Benavides' or Longfellows. No, you delete the "little guys" who respectfully differ from you or say anything that you find politically incorrect. Moreover, you threaten, insult and ridicule them before deleting or banning them. It is the "Babalú Way" as everybody knows. You know, of course, that I try to save all your deletions, or, as I call them, your orphaned comments. If you wish I can reproduce a slew of them to demontrate that it is not just notorious Stalinists who end up in your trash bin but Cubans neither better nor worse than you and deserving all of being heard.

As for myself, I never called Gloria Estefan "a Communist" on Babalú or anywhere else. I challenge you to find such a comment. What she and her husband Emilio are is not "Communists" but the equivalent of war profiteers who traffic in the suffering of the Cuban people. That is putting it politely. Others on Babalú have referred to her as a "traitor" subsequent to Emilio's snub of Val. As always, whether you or Val regard people as "good" or "bad" largely depends on their reaction to you. I am sure that if Emilio were to make good his lunch invitation to Val or even phone him again that his opinion of Gloria and him would be quickly revised for the better.

My "super secret" source is free to make himself/herself known to you. I am not. I am, of course, too honorable to betray my source so you can dash off another of your insult-laced anathemas. But, of course, you remember perfectly well what you said about Elián then and were adamant enough in your opinion that he should be returned to Cuba as to leave a permanent impression on somebody else's mind. Next time don't be so loud.

As for the rest of your remarks, your capacity for demeaning yourself is limitless. The odd thing is that you consider me an "old friend," that is, an ex-friend, when I have always been a friend to you. But, apparently, a year's worth of thoughtful lessons in democracy and fair play have come to naught. Others would be discouraged and give up on you; certainly everybody else has. But I shall persist nevertheless. Perhaps some day you will again find yourself on the side of the angels and I can again praise you as I once did. Such, at least, is my sincere hope. Your now constant presence on RCAB shows me that you still want my approval (for whatever reason). I would be pleased to bestow it for any reason that might merit it.

Thank-you for the "great writer" compliment. At least it's not the green monster that motivates you as it does so many others.

The Vatican's Unholy Alliance With the Castro Regime Has Its Roots In Pederasty

In his autobiography Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas recounts that then-Monsignor Jaime Ortega was "always surrounded by the prettiest altar boys," which, of course, is code for, well, an idiot would know what it's code for. Arenas, who had known Ortega since the days when both were inmates of the UMAP concentration camps, where homosexuals were sent for "orientational reprogramming" by Castro, was certainly in a position to opine about Ortega's "peccadillos." Apparently, the "reprogramming" didn't work for either Arenas or Ortega.

Prelates like Ortega, now cardinal-archbishop of Havana and primate of Cuba, are a hellsent bonanza for Communist regimes. Blackmailing them is, literally, child's play. The regime secretly videotapes their predations, sometimes clandestinely furnishing the victims. Then the predators are confronted with a choice: exposure or compliance. Needless to say what is the universal preference. It little matters to them whether they are soldiers of Christ or soldiers of the regime. In fact they can be both with no real or perceived conflicts of interest, such is the malleability of evil.

The personal debt which these wayward clerics owe to the regime is also an obligation upon the Vatican and the basis for its secret concordat with Communist Cuba. The pope and his surrogates praise the Castro regime and conjoin the faithful to remain its faithful slaves (this has been the historic mission of the Catholic Church anyway). Castro, in exchange for the Church's support, silences any and all sexual abuse complaints against the local clergy. The Church's coffers will never be depleted by billion dollar settlements to its victims in Cuba and its "prestige" will remain intact because Communist Cuba's official media will never air (and have never aired) its scandals, that is, so long as Ortega and his accomplices do not violate that concordat by challenging the Communist regime in any way.

But these cretins go the distance in their own protection. Not only don't they challenge the regime, but they exculpate, defend and even bless its leaders.

The Nightly Tally

Total Comments for the Last 10 Posts

RCAB = 582

Babalú = 35

Round 6 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Yes, I understood your position even if I don't share it. Perhaps because I am by nature a polemicist, I actually enjoy battling Castro spies, agents provocateur and all-around jerks. It's fun. As far as I know, there are only two of these creeps on the web: John Longfellow (who has dozens of aliases) and leftside. John is a standing joke and knows it (indeed cultivates that persona). Leftside is a committed Stalinist. It's our fault, however, if we let them drive us crazy.

Manuel A. Tellechea in email to me (September 14, 2006). The email was response to a message I sent him explaining why I moderate comments. My email was specifically about Herald Watch but described my thoughts about comment moderation in general.

Henry:

I wrote a long post in reaction to your thread announcing Diaz's resignation. I note that you have published the short post about Omar Claro, but not the longer post about Diaz's resignation. Actually, that post was also about you, since I made a long comparison between you and Diaz (i.e. as representing the two sides of the Cuban character: those who love and build (you) and those who hate and destroy (Diaz). It would be a sensible loss if that post disappeared.

Regards,

Manuel

Manuel Tellechea suggesting that I remove one of his comments from Herald Watch on October 3, 2006.

In the end this all about whether or not I have the freedom to govern the blogs I participate in or not. Manuel seems to think that someone elected him the pope of the bloggers and thus everyone must operate their blogs the way he would like them to.

And when you don't...

Well that's when he starts telling lies about you.

Manuel Tellechea continues to say on this blog that I desired the return of Elian. He bases this on a post a made in which I reflected on whether or not there was a deeper purpose for what happened to Elian. Such a reflection is one of a person looking for the silver lining in a cloud. An honest reading by a reasonable person would indicate that my feelings about Elian being returned home were those of someone who was deeply saddened.

But Manuel, the self appointed king of all bloggers, in his demented thinking saw it as an opportunity to attack me. He knows the truth. But he ignores it because it gives him greater pleasure to attack me than to tell the truth. That's how he runs a "democratic" version of a blog.

Very well.

Carry on.

4/18/2008 7:42 PM


Henry:

I guess that quoting private e-mails from me is something that I should expect from you. They do nothing but confirm what I have already said: that I once held you in high esteem for your role in unmasking the great wrong done to the Martí Moonlighters and even collaborated directly with you in that endeavor, which is a fact that I have not disclosed before not wishing to take any glory from you. You could have quoted also at length the praise that I lavished on you at that time. It would have done much to illustrate the fact that I have never had any personal animus towards you but encouraged you in every way possible when I believed you to be acting on behalf of our countrymen in this or any other matter.

Are you suggesting that I was only right when I praised you and always wrong when I criticized you? I should think that my past praise only lends credence my present criticism.

In the first e-mail that you quote I had protested the deletion of John Longfellow's and Leftside's comments from Herald Watch. Although I thought John to be a creep then (which he was then) and Leftside to be a Stalinist (which he was then and still is) I nevertheless stood up for their right not to have their comments deleted, confident that I could always refute their arguments; you were not so sure, apparently, that you could.

In the other e-mail I did not ask you to remove a comment of mine from Herald Watch but to publish it. But even if I had requested you to remove it that is not quite the same thing as, say, removing a comment of yours from this blog without your knowledge and against your wishes (which is your own wonted conduct on all your blogs). My words are mine as yours are yours. While I may dispose of my own words as I wish, I am not free -- and neither are you -- to dispose of somebody else's. In a broader context, you can't steal from yourself; you can only steal from others.

I suppose that I could follow your example and publish your private e-mails to me, which, of course, I have also preserved. But that would be to do as scoundrels do and I live at a higher altitude.

I will tell you, however, that my knowledge of your support for Elián's return to Cuba was not based on any hypothetical of yours. It was communicated to me in an e-mail by someone who knew you at the time. I cannot give you any further details since I promised confidentiality to that individual, but there is no doubt that what that person says with a wealth of details cannot be anything but the truth. Moreover, I know for a fact that you maintained then and maintain now personal relations with that person.

I have also been forwarded private e-mails from Val to a third party where he says things about Cubans on the island that were I to reveal them here would discredit Val and Babalú forever (more even than they are already discredited). But, of course, I will not publish them either because I honor confidences and trust enough in my abilities not to have to resort to underhanded means to prove my contentions.

Shielding Pedophiles and Defending Communists, the Pope's Mission in America

Pope Benedict XVI is busy lamenting the predations of his priests on innocent children after allowing as John Paul's doctrinal enforcer their crimes to be concealed and unpunished for 20 years. Even today the most notorious of the episcopal enablers, Bernard Cardinal Law, former Archbishop of Boston, is in residence at the Vatican, protected from the legal consequences of his actions. Rafzinger's successor as papal lacquey, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, has been entrusted by the now pope with a mission as sordid and anti-Christian, namely, the "pacification" of the Cuban people, whose cries for freedom, democracy and justice he transmutes as calls for the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and elimination of human rights sanctions on the regime.

I do not know what the reaction of the Cuban people will be to Castro's accomplices in the Vatican and the Cuban hierarchy once freedom is restored to the island. I hope, at least, that they will remember them as enemies of (their) freedom and human rights. They could do no less.

I do know what Cuban exiles should do. What we should have done years ago when John Paul II visited Miami and went out of his way to show his contempt for Cuban exiles, who stood, in respect to Communism, no differently from him and should have been embraced by him as natural allies. Instead, he visited Vizcaya but refused to set foot in the shrine to Our Lady of Charity, Patroness of Cuba, which Cuban exiles had erected there. As fate would have it, John Paul passed within 10 ft. of it but did not even cross himself (he had other things to do with his hands, such as grasp Castro's). This is the pope who publicly expressed his admiration for "Che" Guevara in Cuba; praised Castro's "social achievements" at the public reception for Communist Cuba's new ambassador to the Holy See; and had a hand in liberating all the Western countries from Communism (Catholic and non-Catholic) except Cuba.

Only recently Cardinal Bertone confirmed that the slight had been intentional on John Paul's part since ignoring Cuban exiles (Castro's victims, too) is the official Vatican policy.

Our answer to that policy should be: to ignore them too. This is what Cuban Catholics should have done then and should still do. NOT A CENT. Not one cent more to the enablers and apologists of Fidel Castro's regime. That's what will hurt these putrid men because that is all they care about.

Martí said that "Christianity died at the hands of Catholicism." Fortunately, not all of Christianity. But every last trace of it has been extinguished at the Vatican.

New Kultur Commissar Joins CAP

That great exponent of Cuban culture, Val Prieto, has joined Cuban-American Pundits, the internet's new review of Cuban culture. This is interesting on many counts, not least of which because George Moneo, whom Val unceremoniously ousted from Babalú for diversionism, recently took residence at CAP as well.

This keeps getting better.

Round 5 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Wow, I'm really flattered to see that I'm so important so that a mere mention of my name generates so many comments. And I'm happy that I could help Manuel in that regard since he measures his blog by the number of comments rather than the number of readers. I have to hand it to him, it takes a lot of time to post all those comments.

But I came to correct another lie, or rather another misperception by Manuel.

The photo that I use on my blogger profile is not my high school photograph. The photo in question was a "head shot" taken by my employer in about 1998. Since I worked at an ad agency that was also a PR firm, I was required to have such a photo taken. I graduated high school in 1987.

I have used that photo simply because I like it. I was thinner then. And younger too.

But for Manuel I will update it. I'm sure he'd like to have a better idea of what I look like now in case we were ever to run into each other. Too bad he won't return the favor.
4/18/2008 1:01 AM


Henry Louis Gomez said...

Here you go. I figure that if one Gomez generates 160 comments then four should generate well over 600.
4/18/2008 1:12 AM


Henry:

Glad to have been able to help you grow up, as has always been my goal. After a decade (or more than a quarter of your life), it was time to change the photo. With it, I hope, will come a new (if older) Henry whose family obligations make him more conscious of the suffering children of our country [I mean Cuba], which trumps all else and should be the principal concern of us all.

Our mutual friend and scourge fantomas is right: If I had not replaced this thread ["Round Four"] with the one honoring the Bay of Pigs veterans, it would surely have surpassed 400 comments.

Because, of course, you are a vastly interesting person, Henry. Wasn't I the first to realize that and haven't I made you an internet icon because of it? Gratitude would require some acknowledgment on your part. Your fame, certainly, was not derived from your appearance on Jamaican radio.

An upholder of truth as yourself should have the basic honesty to admit it: everybody mentions RCAB to you these days, it is the purest wellspring of your celebrity. I am reliably informed that it sends you into a rage every time that it happens, and I am sorry that you are now in a constant state of vexation because of it.

But fame is not an easy thing to bear. You may want to ask for pointers from your classmate and Belén's second-most famous graduate, Perez Hilton.

I am touched by your request for a photograph. E-mail me your address (you still have my e-mail, don't you?) and I shall be pleased to send you an autographed one with generous sentiments that you will always treasure. All that I ask is that you not lend it to Val because I wouldn't want it to end up on some altar with a thousand pins stuck in it.


NOTE:

Henry's new and old Blogger photos may be seen at:

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/2008/04/round-4-with-henry.html

The Bay of Pigs: The "Fiasco" that Wasn't a Fiasco

No man can do more than his duty and no man should ever be content to do less." — José Martí

Today marks the 47th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, that proverbial "fiasco" that has co-opted that word, since "fiasco" is never used anymore except in referring to the Bay of Pigs or to any other venture that is compared to it. But what exactly is a "fiasco?" The word which dates from the 1850s is used to refer to a complete failure. It is derived from the Italian fare fiasco, which literally means to "make a bottle," that is, to execute a maneuver that completely cuts off the enemy and prevents his retreat. Something similar to a "bottleneck," which is now used in another context. Of course, Castro did not win at the Bay of Pigs because of his enlightened strategy, transmitted from the safety of his bunker. He won by default because the U.S. did not live up to its commitments to the freedom fighters. If anything, it was Kennedy himself who masterfully executed the fiasco by instructing American ships not to re-supply the freedom fighters (who literally ran out of ammunition) and Americans fighter planes not to facilitate their landing or engage the Castroite planes that reigned terror on them unchallenged. There is, of course, a better word to describe Cuba's greatest national tragedy (greater in its impact even than Marti's death). That word is not "fiasco" but betrayal. The difference between a "fiasco" and a "betrayal" is that betrayal implies a betrayer and fiasco no agent at all. John F. Kennedy said that "victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan." In fact, Kennedy was the father of this particular "orphan." How odd seems his amazement that no else else would claim its parentage! Or perhaps not so odd: the biggest lesson that his Nazi-sympathizer of a father taught all his boys was how to evade personal responsibility for their actions. It was in Cuba that the Kennedys made their fortune running rum during Prohibition and it was in Cuba that Joe's son proved that if daddy's business had passed into his hands he would have run it into the ground literally, for JFK had absolutely no idea of what it would take to make a successful landing in Cuba.

The Bay of Pigs was certainly the most ill-calculated amphibious invasion in history, the more so because it was executed by a country that had supposedly mastered this kind of warfare 15 years earlier in the Pacific theatre during World War II. In that conflict, it had taken 100,000 American troops and billions of tons of materiel to capture the miscroscopic Japanese-occupied island of Tarawa. Just 15 years later, President Kennedy proposed to capture Cuba, an island 6000 times the size of Tarawa, with just 1453 men and a few tons of equipment! That, of course, would have been possible only as a prelude to a fullscale U.S. invasion.

When recruits were first sought among the Cuban exile community, the U.S. government received enough applications to field ten battalions. Instead, it arbitrarily limited the invasion force to just 1400 men when 14,000 would still have been only one-tenth of Castro's army. Cuba's would-be liberators were chosen by a strict criteria. Adherents of General Batista were excluded. The Administration made sure that the Brigade represented a broad slice of Cuban society -- i.e. so many laborers to so many professionals, so many blacks to so many whites, so many from the east of the island and so many from the west, etc. If one-tenth of the attention paid to the demographics of the invasion force had been paid to the logistics of the invasion, Cubans might be celebrating today the 47th anniversary of their deliverance from Communism. But appearances were always more important to Kennedy than results, as his civil rights record, for example, also bears out.

The rebel army was trained by the CIA in Nicaragua under the auspices of Anastasio Somoza fils, the other president involved in this invasion, the one who didn't betray us (and who 20 years later would be borne to his grave on the shoulders of veterans of the Brigade 2506, a victim of Castro's vengeance and of another gutless American president). Somoza had much in common with Kennedy: both owed their presidencies to their respective fathers and both assumed office through electoral fraud. The difference was that the Latin American dictator was a man of his word and his U.S. counterpart was not.

The Brigade 2506 were conveyed to Cuba on U.S. ships and abandoned to their fate there. The spontaneous uprising that was supposed to be sparked by the invasion never materialized. It was not that the Cuban people did not support their would-be liberators but that Castro was better informed about the invasion plans than the resistance in Cuba, which was repeatedly misled and lied to by the Americans. Reports in The New York Times and other American newspapers gave Castro all the warning he needed to round up every man who might have lent his support to the invasion. Because the prisons were already full Castro confined them in sports stadiums which were wired with dinamite and would have been blown-up if the freedom fighters had gained the advantage.

For three glory filled days — the first time that Cubans had engaged in actual combat since 1898 — the courageous men of the Brigade 2506 struggled against impossible odds to achieve a goal that was clearly beyond even the super-human tenacity they displayed in the pursuit of it. The freedom fighters managed to inflict 30 times the casualties they sustained, but tenacity will only carry you so far: tenacity cannot take the place of guns — of which they had far too few; tenacity cannot compensate for the element of surprise, which was lost when plans for the invasion were leaked to The New York Times; and, finally, tenacity cannot rise from the ground to the skies.

Kennedy had promised the exiles that "the skies would be yours." It turns out that what Kennedy actually meant was that their path to heaven would be unobstructed by American fighter planes. The vital aircover that the freedom fighters had been promised was withdrawn at the last moment to avoid the appearance of American participation in this American enterprise. The freedom fighters were left to the mercy of air strikes flown by Russian and Czech pilots. American ships, which were so close to the action that they could actually witness the massacre, begged their superiors to be allowed to re-supply the Cubans or evacuate the survivors. But Kennedy would not allow it. Unable to hold back his tears, the American fleet commander could do no more than wire his apologies to the freedom fighters.

Kennedy had a clear choice. He could go ahead with the invasion and do everything in his power to assure its success. Or he could scrap all plans for an invasion of Cuba. He chose, instead, to launch the invasion while denying it every opportunity for success. What he hoped to gain thereby is anybody's guess. What he in fact achieved was a victory for Castro.

But victory cannot vindicate the tyrant nor defeat vilify the freedom fighters. The victors shall celebrate this day, for so it is in human affairs: in victory, even cowards boast. Those who survived this defeat shall also commemorate this day, for to forget is to disavow the past and there is nothing in the past of which they should be ashamed, unlike both their enemies and their allies.

Glory to the heroes and martyrs of the Bay of Pigs and peace to their manly and generous souls!
April 17, 2007

Also of interest:

Arthur M. Schlesinger: The Devil in Mr. Kennedy

Round 4 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

I ban who I want to ban, write what I want to write, don't write what I don't want to write and don't accept comments that I don't want to accept. If that's running the blog, then I suppose I run the blog to the same extent all the others run the blog.

But you are the one that made the offer (which sounds a lot like blackmail or "blogmail") to me. Even if I had 100% decision making power over the policies at Babalu I would not accept your offer in a million years.

So have fun with your little fabrications and your petty games. I don't find them interesting in the slightest.

I have a client in Wayne. Next time I fly into Newark maybe I'll drop by and we can discuss this face to face.
4/16/2008 1:05 AM


Henry:

Wow, talk about giving yourself away. Yet another admission that you are an anti-democratic power-crazed blog-bully. Feel free to continue to confirm here those "lies" and "distortions" of mine.

I reject your assertion that all of Babalú's editors do as you do. Some no doubt do, but they are in the minority. For the most part, your "magnificent cadre of writers" are either content or resigned to letting you do it for them.

I suppose that anyone who suggests to you that you should democratize Babalú, that is, return it to days when Val did not have your nefarious influence or "special assistance," is a "blogmailer" just as someone else who counsels you to remain the petty tyrant that you are and to continue to infest everything that you touch, is your benefactor.

The biggest lie that you have told in this exchange is: "So have fun with your little fabrications and your petty games. I don't find them interesting in the slightest." Whom do you think you are fooling, Henry? Not anybody here. Not even yourself.

What possible business could take you to Newark? I haven't set foot there since before the riots of 1968. Well, I won't speculate as to your private meanderings as they do not interest me. It is only your public statements that concern me. As for any threat, real or implied in your statement, it is too risible to even consider.

You are always welcome to visit me, Henry. I'll try my best to recognize you from your high school picture with that rather distinctive bluish-green background. I don't believe that anyone except you posts his picture (high school or later) with his comments.

Round 3 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Manuel,

Taking one sentence out of the context of the hundreds of sentences I've written about raul and his so-called reforms is dishonest and that's why even your greek chorus is taking you task.

I never implied that raul has no responsibility in Cuban tragedy, but rather I was highlighting the fact that even among murderous communists with faulty ideas that fidel was in a class of his own when it came to making capricious and arbitrary rules.

That's not an endorsement, except in the mind of a man who has lost touch with reality, if he ever was in touch with it to begin with.

In judging whether my statement was an endorsement of raul's "reforms" or a simple statement of truth the reader should ask himself this question:

If he were alive and conscious, would fidel have ever allowed even these cosmetic changes that are being passed off as reform?

I believe the answer is no.
4/15/2008 9:44 PM


Henry:

Forgive me if I cannot attend to each and every sentence that you write at Babalú. I think, however, that I have dissected quite a few, certainly a representative sample and then some. It appears that you are not happy with the particular sentence that I chose this time. I would remind you, however, that I did not write it. You wrote it and should stand by it, not try to hide behind "the hundreds of other sentences that [you] have written about Raúl." If you believe, as I now suspect, that this particular sentence does you no credit, then delete it. God knows you have no difficulty deleting hundreds of sentences from others.

I have no Greek chorus, Henry; nor do I want one. If I did, I could follow your prescription for obtaining one, which consists of deleting all comments (and even entire threads) which differ from Babalú's official position or banning any commenter whose opinions consistently depart from your party line. Such artificial consensus, achieved with long knives and at the price of decency and honor, is of no interest to me. I think it would only interest someone as yourself who likes to reshape reality to conform to his interests.

You ask:

"If he were alive and conscious, would fidel have ever allowed even these cosmetic changes that are being passed off as reform?"

My answer: Yes.

Fidel Castro would do anything to insure the permanence of power in the Castro family and his own warped legacy. Certainly anything that is merely cosmetic.


Henry Louis Gomez said...

The idea that you don't read every word I write is laughable. You've dedicated what, half a dozen posts to me in the last week alone (before the last three)? No, you know exactly how I feel about raul castro but chose to distort what I wrote because your personal obsession has pushed you to the point where you can't even levy and honest criticism anymore.

The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. -Mark Twain
4/16/2008 12:58 AM


Henry:

I didn't say that I don't read every word you write (except for the Dorshner delusion). I do read your every word just as you read every word I write about you here and even keep count of how many posts I write about you every week as some kind of running tally of your importance (yet another confirmation of my "lies" and "distortions"). However, as I have already stated, I cannot annotate every sentence you write. I am not a rabbi and you are not the Talmud. Yes, naturally, I must be selective, and, naturally, I select your most outrageous comments to highlight. I have never claimed otherwise. On the rare occasions when you have said something out of character that I consider noteworthy or even praiseworthy, I will mark it, too.

There is no glory, Henry, in critiquing your writings. It really is a case of "He Stoops to Conquer." I can't even have the satisfaction that you will benefit by my exertions. Even if I were Mark Twain, this would be an unpleasant but necessary task.

Round 2 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

So if I submit to you and run the blog the way you want it to be run you will stop distorting what I write and making up lies about me out of whole cloth?

Yes, that's very democratic.

No, thank you.
4/15/2008 9:47 PM


Henry:

So, Henry, you are the one running the blog now (or should I say running down the blog?). Thank-you for confirming another of my "lies" and "distortions." I'm sure that if you keep coming here you will eventually confirm every word I ever said about you.

Your rejection of democracy does not surprise me either. You have rejected it already so many times before. Continue, then, to run Babalú as bully and autocrat. I doubt that you could run it any other way.

As for "submit[ing]" to me, what chance is there of that when you won't even submit to your own best interests or Babalú's?

A Visit From Henry to RCAB (Round 1)

[The following comment was left by Henry Gómez in the previous thread. It is his first at RCAB (at least the first published under his own name). My answer will follow in short order. I wonder what would happen if I tried to publish my answer as a comment at Bababú? What a silly question. — MAT]

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Hey Manuel,

Let me ask you a serious question. What did I ever do to you to deserve for you to tell the most vile lies about me?

Is it because I didn't defend you when Val banned you from commenting at Babalu?

Or is it that I didn't care when you told me you were starting this blog?

Or perhaps it's the fact that I have completely ignored you except for the one time I called you a liar for, well, for lying?

I really want to know.

Are you really that insecure that the only way you feel good is by tearing someone else down?

Just curious.
4/15/2008 1:05 AM



Hello, Henry:

How can I be guilty of telling "the most vile lies" about you when all I do is simply quote your words, as I did in this [the previous] post. Let me suggest that it is you who write in haste and do not fully consider what it is that you are saying. In many cases I suspect (or hope) that it is the opposite of what you really mean. Of course, I can only deconstruct your words, not your intentions.

I have no personal animus towards you. I do not consider you an enemy. None of the reasons that you cite have influenced me against you in the least. I will confess that your refusal to say even one word on behalf of Elenita after I practically begged you did color my thinking about you and changed for the worse the good opinion that I had formed of you during the Martí Moonlighter Affaire, when my praise embarrassed you as my censure now seems to hurt you.

I never thought for one moment that anything I wrote about you re Babalú caused you hurt. Why would I? Your placid silence confirmed me in the opposite belief. I thought that it all just rolled off you and I admired you for that. At least you did not make a fool of yourself by trying to engage me, as did Val Prieto. In fact, you have on more than one occasion written about how personally flattering it is to you to have a blog (or several blogs, as you put it) dedicated to your writings (this is an exaggeration) and how it proves that you must have something important to say. So, excuse me, Henry, if I did not see your hurt feelings behind the smokescreen that you set up to conceal them.

On the one ocassion that you did address me directly on Cuban-American Pundits (never Babalú) you referred to me as "Jerkey" or "Jerkey boy," or some such infantile title, which, rather than annoy me, verified to me that you took my criticism in the right spirit (the spirit in which it was intended) and understood my humor even if you could not match it. Then, also, there were the blogs parodying RCAB which you and other Babalunians started to convey the impression that you took my blog as a "big joke." Well, apparently it was never a "joke" to you. Painful truths are rarely funny.

It is not you but your views that I often find objectionable and it is your views that I attack. Not on Babalú, of course, because no voices of dissent are allowed there as you have made quite clear on numerous occasions with less humility than you have shown in your comment.

Let me tell you a little secret: If Babalú stopped doing to others what it did to me — if it actually adopted for itself the democracy that it claims to want for Cuba — I would devote this blog to my thinking on Cuba exclusively and not to refuting yours. But so long as you continue to delete comments and whole threads because you want to limit or stifle debate, so long as you hold yourself and your other editors as above criticism, and so long as you continue to ban commenters because their political opinions don't jive with yours, there will be a need for a blog like mine to call you to account each and every time.

So here's my offer to you: Stop and I will stop.

Breaking News!!! Henry Louis Gómez Endorses Raúl Castro's "Reforms"

"I betcha [Fidel] didn't predict that he'd be shitting out of his side into a plastic bag. Or that his ever faithful little brother wouldn't even wait for him to achieve room temperature to start undoing some of the mess he created with capricious and arbitrary policies. — Henry "Economist" Gómez, "Castro Was Nostradamus," Babalú, April 14, 2008


In "Castro Was Nostradamus" Henry ridicules Hugo Chávez and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni for hailing Fidel Castro as a soothsayer for supposedly predicting the fall of the dollar and the rise in the price of oil. Of course, it doubtful that either Chávez or Museveni traded their dollars for euros or increased the production of oil in their respective countries on the strength of Castro's recommendation. In fact, it is doubtful that Castro himself followed or profitted from his own hunches even if he remembered them from one day to the next. Most likely, he never made those predictions or they were pulled from a tangle of meaningless verbiage that could have pointed in any direction. Chávez and Museveni are obviously trying to flatter the sapient vegetable. Henry, of course, will have none of it. He knows that John Dorshner, not Fidel Castro, is the reincarnated Nostradamus and has devoted a 9-part series to analyzing his predictions in Tropic magazine 20 years ago. The fact that Dorshner's predictions were completely overlooked until Henry discovered and publicized them on Babalú and continue yet to be ignored by everybody despite Henry's best efforts only confirms in his mind the Biblical injunction that no prophet is honored in his own land (nor a prophet's voluntary publicist).

Surely that holds true for Castro also whose hopeful forecasts about Cuba's future have proved astoundingly wrong while his warnings of forthcoming locusts have all invariably come to past. Henry is more optimistic about Raúl's powers of divination. If you believe Henry, Raúl was the suppressed voice of reason who cried out in the desert for 49 years "Toasters, Toasters" while Big Brother countered in louder tones "Not One Amp More!" According to Henry, now that Fidel's own voice is feeble, Raúl is finally free to bestow "consumer freedoms" on the Cuban people. Forget about political liberties and all that bourgeois stuff. It is electrical appliances that Cubans want and Raúl will provide (well, not exactly provide but allow them to gawk at and perhaps even heft).

I don't see how this entails "undoing some of the mess that Fidel [and Raúl, Henry, don't forget Raúl] created." The mess remains untouched and pretty much untouchable since any substantial change might cause it to shift and bury those who created it. The "changes" Raúl has introduced are literally window dressing. The drab revolutionary showcase now has a few novelties which it did not before. The people will stand and stare and then move on, as when the first Christmas tree in 37 years was displayed on the eve of Pope John Paul II's visit. Nothing will change for the better in their bleak lives. If anything they will merely confirm just how bleak their lives are. This is no exception to the regime's "capricious and arbitrary policies" and will change nothing except what it was intended to change in the first place — Raúl's image. Not in Cuba where he is too well-known a quantity for a crash makeover; but abroad, where Little Brother has only begun to come from behind Big Brother's shadow. It will be a while yet before foreigners (and Henry) discover what Cubans have long known — that Fidel and Raúl are a distinction without a difference.

Notable & Almost Quotable: Helping Henry Make Sense

"They are all people [Ana Menéndez, Aruca, Lesnick, Aruca and Rangel] that hate the exile community and are openly embracing [Joe] Garcia, not because he's a fidelista (he's not) but because the change these people seek is not in Cuban policies that make Cuba a failed police state but instead a change to American policy that doesn't recognize the legitimacy of a government that killed scores of our countrymen and imprisoned scores more." -- Henry "Economist" Gómez, "Barnyard Wisdom," Babalú, April 13, 2008

What's wrong with this statement?

Doctrinally, nothing; we all know what Henry means to say even if he does not quite say it, or says it badly.

First of all, no Cuban patriot should ever refer disparagingly to Cuba when it is Castro that he means. The two are not interchangeable. On the contrary, they are antithetical. If he is going to attack "Cuba" it must be qualified as "Communist Cuba" which is the antithesis of the real Cuba, or, to make it simpler for Henry, the "unCuba."

Moreover, Communist Cuba is not a "failed police state." It is an eminently successful police state. In fact, it is successful at being a police state and nothing else.

It is at the end that Henry's sentence collapses completely, as so many of his sentences do. It is his attempt at an antithesis that dooms it because Castro's repressive policies and U.S. foreign policy are not in any sense equals, much less the same thing. You can compare and contrast U.S. foreign policy and Castroite foreign policy. You can compare and contrast Castro's repression of the Cuban people to American complicity in their repression. But you can't compare the policies of a police state to policies (or even politics) of a democratic state. To obscure, or, perhaps, in a failed attempt to clarify matters the "Conductor" loads the antithesis with too much rhetorical baggage (the "scores" of dead) and derails it at the end.

We are still puzzled by his statement that "the [Cuban] government [sic] killed scores of our countrymen and imprisoned scores more." Does Henry know what a "score" is? It's just 20 people. Of course, one could say that Castro has killed "5,000 score" of our countrymen, but isn't that a bit contrived and self-defeating when the "100,000" he uses elsewhere is far more direct and powerful?

It is possible, of course, that when Henry wrote "our countrymen" he did not mean Cubans but Americans, who are, after all, his countrymen because he was born in this country. In that case he would be correct. Castro has indeed killed scores and imprisoned scores more of his American countrymen. Here, again, we hope that he is not implying that these incarcerations and deaths are more to be lamented than the myriads of Cuban dead. Of course, this is exactly what U.S. courts ruled when they handed the relatives of the handful of U.S. citizens killed by Castro $200 million per head from the frozen assets of the Cuban Republic in U.S. banks while refusing to compensate with even one cent Castro's Cuban victims.

Finally, Henry refers to the Castro regime as a "government" which bestows a legitimacy on it that it does not deserve. Let others who accept it as legitimate call it a "government." Free Cubans never should without calling attention to that absurdity (with "so-called government" or "government [sic]" as above). Otherwise it should always be "the regime," "the dictatorship," "the tyranny," or any other appellation that attests to its illegitimacy. That Henry should use "government" to describe the Cuban dictatorship is particularly ironic because he is condemning those who bestow legitimacy on it (like Charlie Rangel or Ana Menéndez).


POSTSCRIPT:

We've just noticed something about this post that we had overlooked before. The "Conductor" is no more. Henry Gómez has discarded the moniker that he used since he began blogging and now signs his posts at Babalú by his baptisimal name: "Henry Louis Gómez." (Sounds so very Bourbon). It seems "Conductor" had acquired a rather bitter taste in Val's mouth after Henry tried to wrest control of Babalú from its august editor-in-chief. So the "Conductor" has made his last run on Babalú. Henry could, of course, have adopted a less dictatorial title. "Maestro," perhaps? A "maestro" is also a conductor, of a different kind. Henry, however, is content to be his unpretentious self for now.

Henry can call himself whatever he wants; but we shall continue to refer to him as "Henry 'Economist' Gómez," a name which was bestowed on him when he revealed, to the astonishment of all and sundry, that he majored in economics at college. We shall keep "Economist" because it is a token of the respect we have always accorded him.

Of Toasters and Cubans

What is rarer and more precious than a toaster in Cuba?

An iron.

Toasters are the hope of futurity. By 2010, it is said that Cubans will be allowed to purchase toasters for the first time in 50 years.

No one has even speculated when the prohibition against irons will be lifted.

It is likely that most Cubans will have lived and died without ever being afforded the right to buy an iron.

Why is this?

Does Raúl fear that Cubans will use them to bash the heads of those who have prevented them from owning toasters and irons for 50 years (a very practical use for them given the scarcity of bread and clothing apparel on the island).

No, not quite.

Raúl's "Consumer Freedoms" encompass everything that Cubans could not possibly afford to buy without the dollars sent to them by their relatives in Miami. Since milking them is the regime's principal source of revenue, the prices carry mark-ups that would make the robber barons blush.

The idea, of course, is to put higher-end consumer items (such as computers) outside the reach of the great majority of Cubans while maximizing the profits on those actually sold. Hence the number of these items purchased by Cubans will remain low while the profits made on their sale by Castro & Co. remain high.

These consumer items are being made available in a reverse scale of affordability. Few seem to recall that the first "consumer freedom" granted to Cubans by Raúl was the right to own airplanes.

Why would anyone take a raft to sea when he has the right to buy an airplane? Mind you, buy an airplane, not fly it out of the country.

Cuba is a country where people with an average income of $15.00 per month can buy airplanes (if they save for 10 trillion years) but cannot buy an airplane ticket unless authorized by the government [sic].

Oh land of wonders!

But let us return again to the Almighty Toaster. In any other country, it would be the "humble toaster" but Cuba is not like any other country.

Why is the toaster a dream deferred for Cubans? Or the iron an impossible dream?

Why are toaster and iron more subversive than computer or cellphone?

Because computers and cellphones are a pipe dream for 90 percent of Cubans.

Toasters and irons, while not affordable (nothing is "affordable" in Communist Cuba where usury is a state monopoly) are still infinitely more affordable — or will be, presumably, if they are ever sold in Cuba — than airplanes or even DVD players.

More Cubans would be able to buy them hypothetically. They might even manage to do so without assistance from their Miami relatives if they save and do without for 2 or 3 years. Perhaps 5.

But wouldn't that be a good thing for the government [sic]?

If the people can be pacified with toasters and irons (which is all that 95% could even remotely afford), why dangle computers and cellphones before their eyes?

First, because it's not done for their benefit.

It's strictly for exterior consumption, so to speak.

Domestic consumption is another matter.

The reason that the regime doesn't want Cubans to own toasters or irons is its fear that they might be able to manage those purchases even on their miserable salaries.

And why are toasters and irons so "subversive?"

Very simple.

If every Cuban family owned a toaster or an iron, the regime would face the greatest crisis in its history and might even be toppled overnight.

Why?

The electrical grid can't handle it.

It's that simple.

All those millions of toasters and irons would plunge the country into darkness.

If they could get electricity restored, it would happen again immediately.

And then again.

It would be better than a general strike. All government [sic] offices, all state industries, all arms of the regime would be paralyzed and the regime itself would be at the mercy of the people.

For 50 years it's been the the regime that regularly shuts off the lights at certain unannounced times to conserve electricity (that is, so the antediluvian electrical grid won't suddenly collapse).

Imagine if that power were in the hands of the people!

If they could immovilize the regime with their toasters and irons!

The Revolution of the Toaster.

The Iron Revolution that would end Cuba's revival of the "unenlightened" 18th century.

That is why the Castro regime will never legalize toasters or irons.

It is quite content to open "museums of technology" all over the island where the Cuban people can gawk at consumers items which they could theoretically buy but won't be able to afford so long as the Castro brothers are in power.

The Death and Rebirth of "Cuban-American Pundits"

Imagine occupying somebody else's house as a tenant and deciding one day, out of the blue, that you didn't like the house or that it didn't suit your needs, and that, consequently, you were going to seal all the windows and doors with concrete blocks and put up a sign on the lawn that reads: "Condemned." This is exactly what Henry Gómez did to Cuban American Pundits. He shut down the blog without consulting its owner and founder, John Roche.

Imagine now Roche's surprise, and Henry's, too, when John unshuttered his house, removed the "Condemned" sign and changed the locks, effectively reclaiming what was his and shutting out the presumptuous former tenant. This is in fact what John did by changing the blog's password.

John's reclaiming of his property sent Henry into a panic. I cannot improve on his own description of his distress:

"[O]ne day I received an email notification that a comment was awaiting moderation [at CAP]. I clicked on the link to approve it but something was wrong, I couldn’t sign in. When I looked into the problem I noticed that I was no longer an administrator. Someone had changed my privileges. It was late at night and I was worried. Had my account been hacked? I sent an email to John Roche, the original Cuban-American Pundit, asking him if he altered the settings. I hardly slept that night. The next morning I was relieved to find an email from John, with whom I had not communicated with in months, telling me that, in fact, he had made the change. I was surprised to learn that despite the fact that he hadn’t posted anything for a long time that he had been lurking and knew about my decision to close Cuban-American Pundits."

Wow. This guy is beyond shameless. Henry actually portrays John as a thief-in-the-night who was "lurking" around his own property and had the effrontery to reclaim something which had always belonged to him as "the original Cuban-American Pundit," and which Henry, not John, had shut down of his initiative without even bothering to consult the blog's owner.

It seems that the good fathers at Belen2 were a little remiss in teaching Henry about the "private" in private property. They made that same little mistake some 50 years earlier with Fidel.

John Roche and Henry have come to an understanding. Cuban-American Pundits will not be shut down, after all. John, Henry and Sr. Cohiba will continue as editors of the resurrected blog, and they will be joined by -- George Moneo! Yes, George, too, is being resurrected, or, rather, rehabilitated a la Communist fashion. CAP is his Elba, or Siberia. He is going to have to work his way back to Babalú's "magnificent cadre of writers," that is, if he can purge those diversionist tendencies which got him kicked off in the first place. Of course, he cannot be trusted to write about politics anymore. So CAP has been turned into a culture blog expressly for him. We would attend to his first contribution in that line but, as I am sure nobody read it but myself and I know already what's wrong with it, what would be the use of preparing an antidote when the poison has not been tasted?

Last year, I reviewed Cuban-American Pundits, whose history is one of the most complicated and controversial in Cuban-American blog history. Even I couldn't sort it out to my entire satisfaction. I considered trying again last week when Henry closed the blog after its last active contributor, Sr Cohiba, moved on to Babalú with the expressed mission of saving it from all the ill-will Henry had fostered for this Republican blog in Republican circles with his visceral hate for John McCain and infatuation with Barack Obama's relative youth, looks, oratory and personality. In his valedictory post at CAP, which was perfect agitprop, Henry even failed to mention that Killcastro and Charlie Bravo were also original CAP members. (Don't look for their posts; they were long ago expunged). One can delete or alter documents and photographs. One cannot, however, airbrush history. Although the picture was altered when it was used on the reverse of the Cuban $1.00 note, Huber Matos is still on that tank with Fidel. There are still people alive who saw him on it and the original photograph still survives.

The most remarkable feature of CAP's "third incarnation" is also highly Stalinist in conception. It is CAP's new "Comments Policy." It is remarkable, first, because CAP has no comments to speak of. In fact, this prolix policy contains more words than were posted over the last year at Cuban-American Pundits. It would be more correct to describe it as an apologia for Babalú's unwritten comments policy. It states that no criticism of the editors or their friends will be published there and that the editors will always have the last word in every argument, as if comment "moderation" did not already stack the odds in favor of the house. [We are proud to have been the first to define so-called "moderation" as preemptive censorship long ago].

We will devote its own post to CAP's Stalinist "Comments Policy," where Henry openly acknowledges and defends every abuse practiced by Babalú on its commenters.

POSTSCRIPT:

Three proud Babalunian caciques (Henry, Ziva & Sr Cohiba) have congratulated George Leonidas Moneo on his debut at Cuban-American Pundits. Not so the Grand Semí Val Prieto. Not just because he is an enemy to "culture." But because he's an enemy to George Moneo.

The End of the Story

"That fat SOB," the old man with the Cuban flag on his lapel thought. "He would have killed me if he had the chance; probably had to rush home to barbecue that pack of cigarettes on his teeth. Of course, the mineral water that he also bought is going to do him a lot of good. Burn your lungs by 50 and then marinade them in mineral water! That's the answer! I swear, I don't know what's wrong with these niños canosos. In such a hurry always to get nowhere fast. No patience for life; no consideration for their elders who paved the way for them in this country, slowly, very slowly, because there was no royal way then.

"Now, those two fresh-faced kids tending the counter, one of whom is certainly Cuban, are the hope of the future, as the Apostle said. Yes, everything is a joke to them now and they care about nothing but themselves. It is that stage of life but they will soon outgrow it (unlike that bitongo who is trapped in perpetual adolescense). But, of course, we raised them that way, sheltered them from our realities, did everything in our power to hide our anguish and make their lives as happy and comfortable as we could. What else could we have done? And now this SOB sneers at me when I pick up a copy of El Diario Las Américas while he lugs his Miami Herald. He must think I am trapped in a time warp; maybe I am, but those were better times peopled by better men. I feel sorry for him, though. So much anger and misdirected rage should have a more constructive outlet than trying to run down old men."

Notable & Quotable: The Root of the Problem

"The nation of Babalunia indeed is more important to the Babalunians than a free Cuba." — Vana

The Nightly Tally

Total Comments for the Last 10 Posts

RCAB = 387

Babalú = 30


What is the meaning of comments?

Comments mean that readers are actively engaged with the blog that they are visiting, not unfamiliar or disconnected; that they feel welcome and know that their opinions matter; that they do not fear being browbeaten, deleted or banned because they withhold their approval or dare to dissent; and, above all else, that they know they are part of a community which is democratic and open to all currents of opinion. This is what all blogs should aspire to be and especially Cuban-American blogs which must be consistent in their opposition to censorship and other undemocratic practices in order to attack our enemies from a superior advantage rather than on their execrable level.

The Chivato and the Procurer

Phil Peters said on his blog today that he is not a CIA agent, contrary to what Henry had implied on Babalú. Of course, if Peters were a CIA agent one would hardly expect him to put his his livelihood in jeopardy by admitting it. Still, this was one of the luckiest days in Henry's life. He was busy backtracking on his privileged information when Peters left him off the hook. Still, the intent to harm Peters was there as unconcealed as Val Prieto's attempt on Killcastro's life. Of course, the latter was immeasurably worse because Peters does not have family in Cuba that could become hostages as Killcastro's did. The worse that could happen to Peters is that a lot of contacts at the highest levels of the Cuban government [sic] would fail to return his calls, or, in the worst case scenario, that he would be barred from travelling to Communist Cuba. That would have a catastrophic effect on both his public and his private life, granted, but he wouldn't have had his skull cracked as Killcastro's wife's brother-in-law did nor would he be imprisoned as Killcastro's cousin was. Still, the consequences of these acts, though important in determining their severity, do not speak to motive, and in both cases the motive was the same -- to disrupt their lives for the worse by making potentially-dangerous information about them public that neither does desired should be made public. That takes a long breath to say. In Spanish, it is so much easier: both Val & Henry are guilty of chivatería.

Phil Peters, if anyone ever doubted it, is a capitalist. We now have it on his own authority. He is, in fact, a capitalist of the old school. He has the same serene perspective on the exploitation of man by man that the robber barons of old did, except he is not one of them. He is merely their publicist, also in the 19th-century connotation, which combined both lobbyist and procurer. To put it in a simple but forceful way, Peters is a capitalist pimp. U.S. companies pay him money to introduce them to future business opportunities in Cuba and to do whatever lies in his power, through the Lexington Institute and his blog, to hasten the day when Cuba's captive workforce will be enlisted in the service of American corporations. Cubans, who have no labor laws to protect them and are hostages of a regime that actively encourages their exploitation, are ideal subjects for predatory capitalism, which, of course, is on the same continuum as Communism (which is always predatory).

With the monies it receives as "donations" from U.S. corporations interested in doing dusiness with Cuba's Communist overlords, the Lexington Institute underwrites and Peters himself conducts junkets for U.S. congressmen who want to "do Cuba," bringing them to places of interest there such as churches and soybean factories, according to him. The congressmen, after returning from the island, take their places as proud fighters against the embargo and for re-establishing relations with the Communist regime so that all Americans, not just themselves, may enjoy the privilege of visiting Baptist churches and soybean processing factories in Cuba.

Peters is also involved, in a strictly private capacity, in negotiating the return of stolen properties to their American owners through proxies. Since the thieves, Castro and his henchmen, are unwilling to turn these over to the corporate heirs of the original owners, Peters arranges marriages of convenience between the Cuban regime and their foreign subsidiaries. One hand washes the other hand and both hands are squeezing the collective neck of the Cuban people.

That is what Mr. Peters does, or, rather, what he facilitates. To be sure he does so with as much charm and commiseration as anyone could bring to such a task.

Babalú's "Magnificent Cadres" Are In Disarray As Yet Another Dissenter Breaks Ranks

Its latest recruit "Cigar Mike" Pancier has joined the underground resistance to Babalú at Babalú. He made a very direct hit at Henry "Economist" Gómez this morning when he blasted Babalú's "idiot front" and its "regular postings from abysmally ignorant dolts who have no clue about the law or economics." Pancier should have added politics too, but that would have focused attention too directly on Henry, self-proclaimed "political animal since the age of 5," whose campaign against John McCain and idealization of Barack Obama nearly destroyed the Republican blog. In fact, "Cigar Mike," an unconditional supporter of McCain, has been drafted to do damage control at Babalú, where, thankfully, we shall never again see another anti-McCain post from the "political animal."

It is interesting, though, that Pancier should have mentioned specifically "the law" as one of the areas where the "dolt's" ignorance is particularly refulgent; for yesterday Henry proved it by outing a CIA agent, which is a federal crime punishable by ten years' imprisonment. No doubt there were frantic consultations with Pancier on this subject yesterday, although we do not believe that this is his area of expertise.

Still, it must be a comfort to Val & Henry to have a lawyer on board, though it is unlikely that they will consult him before they leap without looking into legal minefields.


POSTSCRIPT:

The seams are splitting in all directions at Babalú. Now it is Henry and Reinier "Gusano" Potts who are trading barbs about the presidential race:

Ready to switch parties yet Reinier?
Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez at April 9, 2008 09:51 AM

Ready to vote for McCain, Henry?
Posted by: Gusano at April 9, 2008 09:54 AM

I'm ready to vote for Lincoln Diaz-Balart for congress and donate to him and Mario and Ileana.
Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez at April 9, 2008 10:00 AM

I'll take that as a no then, Mr. Gomez. Can't wait for the Obama-Castro-Chavez summit in Key Biscayne in 2010. Maybe Joe [García] can play translator.
Posted by: Gusano at April 9, 2008 11:45 AM

No rebuttal from "Mr. Gómez." What explanation can there be for betraying two countries at once? And it is a Democrat (Gusano) who takes the Republican Henry to task for it.

Also of interest is the fact that Lincoln & Mario Díaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen endorsed McCain before he had even won a primary; no, before even the first primary was held. The only one who beat them to McCain's door to endorse him was McCain's own mother.

Whether he knows it or not, Henry is supporting McCain by supporting Florida's Cuban-American Republican congressional delegation. I doubt very much that they would want his support, however, if they knew of the enormities he has said about John McCain on Babalú. That's "Cigar Mike's" job -- to make everybody forget.

Question of the Day

Doesn't Henry know that outing a current or former CIA agent is now a federal crime?

The Two Things that Threaten to Destroy Babalú Sooner Than Later

No Open Discussion: Val and the senior Babalú editors micromanage every aspect of Babalú. They are not content merely to post their opinions and have their readers react to them. They feel the urge to manipulate the comment threads so that they reflect the opinions stated in the posts. A great deal of time and effort is spent tailoring other people's opinions to match their own. This is done by banning pro forma anyone who expresses an opinion contrary to theirs, or simply deleting the opinion if they feel munificent that day, with an accompanying rebuke threatening future expulsion. For a time they even doled out "suspensions" to its commenters for sundry offenses such as not being sufficiently obeisant to its editors, which is certainly understandable from the manner in which they are treated.

When, for whatever reason, a thread managed to "get away from them" and they lost control over its content, their solution was to delete the post and offending thread, that is, flush it down the memory hole. This happened only last week to Henry Gómez's "Squashing the Losers" post and its accompanying thread, where Henry tried to justify Killcastro's recent outing by Val Prieto on his own blog. Except that even Babalú's approved commenters would have none of it and challenged Henry continually on it till he said "No Más" and made the thread, and, he hoped, the controversy disappear. That post (which I have saved) was significant because in it Henry revealed in exasperation what many had long suspected: No. 1 and No. 2 not only must approve the opinions of commenters before these are inserted in Babalú, but also the posts of its contributing editors, who have only so much independence as Val & Henry choose to grant them.

The end result of all this cutting and trimming was to create a perfectly predictable blog, where everybody marched in lockstep, both posters and commenters. This is what George Moneo described, perhaps sarcastically, as "Babalú's magnificent cadres." Only yesterday, Babalú's new ideologist, rsnlk, wrote what could be called the "Babalú Creed" which codified, sanctified, enshrined all these practices into a "philosophy of conformity" that owes much to George Orwell's 1984 and to every Communist, Fascist or National Socialist programme ever devised to degrade the dignity of man and magnify the importance of the State. A Babalú contributing writer, the only professional journalist on its staff, dissented with the official ideology, as we desperately hoped against hope that someone would. It was a discussion that only Val Prieto felt safe to join. The discussion ended abruptly and without resolution. The thread has a kind of stunted appearance which suggests that others may have tried to join in the discussion but were turned away. I suppose that it is out of respect for Marc Másferrer, whose focus on political prisoners is the most laudable thing about Babalú, that his remarks have not been deleted, though don't exactly hold your breath. They have now proclaimed it: there is no room at Babalú for non-conformists. If Val's instincts are right, he has very few of those on staff.

Let us hope that Val is wrong about Babalu's contributing writers and that at least some of them will join Marc's protest. My message to the other 15 contributing writers: An audience of 2000-3000 readers a day, or even an audience of 100 million, is not worth selling you conscience and integrity for. The only culpable slaves are those who wear their chains as a talisman.

No Transparency: There has never been any transparency at Babalú. Personal revelations by its editor-in-chief, yes. Plenty of those, from Val's various ailments, depressions and even questions of personal toilet (i.e. shaving his legs) to his continuing "This New House" series dedicated to the Prieto manse, his other work in progress. But none of that is transparency, rather, it is curtain which Val's hangs to conceal the absolute lack of candor or forthrightness on Babalú. A prime example of this was disappearance -- indeed, the airbrushing -- of George Moneo, which remains to be explained by George the good soldier or anybody else at Babalú. Everybody is used to the banning of commenters at Babalú; it is the reason there are virtually none left there. But the banning of a contributing editor, with seniority over everybody except the blog owner, requires an explanation that was never proferred. It's part of their "not airing dirty linen" policy. But, of course, sometimes it is necessary to wash and air the dirty laundry. Keeping it stacked up in a smelly pile is not the answer. Light and air is.

Hopefully, Val will realize this before it's too late or the other Babalú contributors who have approved or tolerated his actions in the past will finally call him to task for sabotaging in a thousand ways their project and compromising their own integrity in the process of destroying his.

Notable & Regimented: A Lament for Lost Conformity

"It is no more disheartening than to see the world of blogs devoted to Cuba where there is often too little exchange of ideas and too much clash of personalities, where one-upmanship often takes the place of enlightenment, where some prefer to assert their own superiority rather than instruct their more information challenged confreres. It is a world rife with mine fields, where the most innocent of comments or even lack of commentary can start a verbal conflagration. Who needs it?" — RSNLK, "The Anguish of a Cuban-American Blogger," Ninety Miles Away... In Another Country, April 5, 2008 [reprinted in Babalú, April 7].

Who needs it?

We all do, especially Cubans on the island. It's called democracy. A messy piece of work, but indispensable for the growth of man and survival of civilization. An echo chamber is not democracy. A Greek chorus is not democracy. The synchronized march of cadres is not democracy. Open discussion and dissent, the unhampered clash of opinions and personalities, the right of you to be you and of me to be me, that is democracy.

And democracy is what can save us, not conformity.


POSTSCRIPT:

This has been long in coming and is a most welcome development at Babalú: a call for renewed conformity brings instead a plea for diversity from Marc R. Másferrer, which all contributors to Babalú would be wise to heed if they wish not to be mistaken for the very thing they decry. Unity is a cohesion of wills, not a melding of minds. When debate threatens unity then unity never really existed. In fact, without debate, real unity is impossible:

Well said, I guess, but I'm not sure anyone cares with the "anguish" we CA bloggers might or might not feel as we do our thing. If it's so hard, just do something else. To whine in public like this is just a wasteful self-indulgence and does nothing to serve our cause.

I don't begrudge your sentiment, but don't lose perspective. Whatever anguish or discomfort or frustration you are feeling is nothing — absolutely nothing — like that felt by people, i.e. Cubans on the island, suffering each day because of the dictatorship. Making the story about us, the bloggers, does nothing to help them, the Cuban people.

We really have no right to complain.
Posted by: Marc R. Masferrer at April 7, 2008 02:29 PM

I disagree, Marc. While you are correct in stating that our lives as compared to those Cubans on the island are vastly different and much, much easier, the frustrations we feel are just as real. the pain we feel is just as real. And, I can tell you from my own personal experience that when one of your own - a fellow Cuban exile - states in no uncertain terms that he or she wishes you to be dead, the pain is twofold.

So youll forgive that, in a blog with 7704 posts primarily highlighting the injustcies that Cubans in Cuba live with on a daily basis, that one post is written to express how we on the fortunate side of the Gulfstream sometimes feel.
Posted by: Val Prieto at April 7, 2008 03:15 PM

Val — I am not denying the pain and frustration are not as real. I have felt plenty of it. But so what? I deal with it and get back to what's really important.

I don't think that's why readers come here or any other Cuban blog. Our "anguish" may help inspire our work, I just don't think people don't want to read about how or why we are torn up personally. I just think it is distracting and as I said above, a bit self-indulgent.
Posted by: Marc R. Masferrer at April 7, 2008 04:15 PM

Val - As for the threats that were made against you, I don't think people come here to read about that either. That's even more reason to not engage with folks who would do something so vile.
Posted by: Marc R. Masferrer at April 7, 2008 04:17 PM

The very last thing I intended was to create diviseness here, nor did I intend it as bellyaching. If that is the way it comes across, I failed in my original intent which was in a roundabout way to plead for more civility among ourselves and a reminder to keep our eyes on the prize.
Posted by: rsnlk at April 7, 2008 04:40 PM

Civility is fine and in fact, preferred, as long as it is not confused with unquestioned conformity. These are difficult issues we deal with, and there is not always unanimity, nor should there be. Revel in the back and forth, for in the end it makes the debate and its conclusions, stronger.
Posted by: Marc R. Masferrer at April 7, 2008 04:52 PM

Good News: Castro Is Nearer to Death

Our friends at Killcastro have the latest on Fidel's medical condition. Things don't look good for the old bugger (no, that's his brother Raúl). The Shit is finally winning. It would have had a much easier time in any other man, but Fidel's capacity to process shit is legendary. But not anymore.

Read about it at:

http://killkasstro.blogspot.com/

Henry Is "Just a Man," He Says

I think that I may have started more than one post with the exclamation, "I don't believe that Babalú can sink any lower" and yet they always manage to raise the stakes on stupid. Well, this time I don't believe that they can top themselves and I mean it as never before: Henry is now writing fake e-mails to himself which he answers on Babalú in lieu of comments because these have dried up for good. He gives himself away by inserting too many errata in his fictional e-mail just to make sure that he hasn't made his invented opponent too smart. One would think that with so many real opponents as Henry thinks he has that he would have no necessity of inventing new ones. Phil Peters is right there. Why doesn't he tackle him directly without inventing a foolish conduit to him? Really, Peters is an easy mark. Henry doesn't need banderilleros. That much said, the odd thing is that Henry's refutation of faux Henry is actually rather good and en passant he connects a few good ones to Phil's glass jaw. It may be that Henry has at last found a worthy opponent -- in Henry. This exercise in shadowboxing is the best thing that Henry has written in eons. [We are still waiting for Parts VIII and IX of "Nostradamus" Dorschner, which is the worst].

Of course, whether good or bad Henry can't avoid having a couple of "those moments" which add the real value to his writings. He tells us, apropos of nothing, that he was "educated by some of the good fathers that educated Fidel." He means at Belén2. Now this is hardly a ringing (self-)endorsement. Could those "good men" have hit on the same formula twice? I hope not. He tells us that he majored in Economics from UF, which is something else that most people would keep quiet, if only to avoid being renamed "Henry 'Economist' Gómez." All this, I think, is intended to show that he is as smart (or at least as academically-linked) as Peters or even that illiterate "señor Madrid" who supposedly sent him the e-mail extolling Peters. Really, all this is unnecessary. I will gladly concede that Henry is every bit as smart as Peters (and much less dangerous).

At the end comes this, which everybody knows is not directed at the mythical "señor Madrid:"

"[O]n a Sunday afternoon he felt that I was important enough to refute. If what I say is so misguided then why is it so important to correct me? I'm just a man. Why does it seem that there are more and more people out there who think it's important to dissect my every word? Whatever the reason it's flattering to know that an "ignorant" person whose "brain doesn't work well" like me needs to be refuted."

Oh, brother.

[Forgive this interlude: that "I'm just a man" line has me paralyzed again with laughter and I need a moment to recover].

Ok.

[No, I was wrong. One second more].

Alright.

Henry thinks that the fact that he is refuted by others (including and principally me) means that what he says must be important and hence he himself must be important, too. That's one way to look at it, although it's like claiming that you are a great humorist because you keep falling on a banana peel.

For the record, Henry is not an idiot. Or leastwise, not an absolute idiot. An absolute idiot would be absolutely no fun to refute. In fact, only a bully would bother to refute an absolute idiot. Most people are content to let him take his knocks in life without adding to his misery.

No, Henry is not an idiot. He is something much worse. He is a menace. His efforts to be relevant make him a menace. He is enamoured of his own "good ideas" but is unable to see the natural consequences of his ideas. The example that I offered on Sunday is perhaps the best: his effort to "draft" Oscar Biscet to run against Castro for president of Cuba. Yes, that would be wonderful, except that Cuba is not a democracy and Biscet is not a sacrificial lamb. Instead of just presenting this idea, however, Henry actually launched Biscet's campaign on Babalú and offered himself as his campaign manager. All without consulting Biscet. Only the frantic pleas of Biscet's anguished wife caused him to desist before he got the great man killed.

There, in a nutshell, is the problem with Henry: he thinks big but not long.

A good thinker doesn't just need "big ideas" but also the prevision to see them through to their logical conclusion.

That is the faculty that Henry badly lacks.

Henry Baits Me About Gandhi and Gets Hooked

"God forbid that anyone compare Biscet to Ghandi [sic]. The loons will be jumping all over that one. -- Henry "Economist Gómez, "Prisoner of Conscience vs. Political Prisoner" (comment), Babalú, April 6, 2008

The "loons," you say, Henry?

You mean the people who actually know Gandhi's real history (besides knowing how to correctly spell his name)?

The Gandhi who was a self-professed friend and admirer of Hitler, who wrote to him that he "didn't think he was as bad as the British say?"

The Gandhi who advised Jews literally to "jump off a cliff," that is, commit collective suicide, rather than allow the Nazis to slaughter them, and, by so doing, "give the world an example of moral greatness?"

That Gandhi?

The real Gandhi, not the movie Gandhi?

No doubt Gandhi's advice to Biscet and other Cubans would be to "walk off a cliff," too.

Come to think of it, Henry is Oscar Biscet's "Gandhi." Henry almost got Biscet killed last year when he unilaterally declared himself Biscet's campaign manager and announced Biscet's candidacy for the presidency of Cuba. The problem is that he had not bothered to consult Biscet about it. Biscet's wife had to beg Henry to desist because he was going to get her husband killed.

[Note to Henry: Never bait me, little boy, because it is you who will get hooked].

Pillaging the Frozen Assets of the Cuban People

They are not the "frozen assets" of the "Cuban government." There is no such entity at present as a "Cuban government." There is only a criminal enterprise known as the Castro regime. It was prevented from accessing the assets of the Republic of Cuba in U.S. banks — that is, the assets of the Cuban people — for 49 years. But most of that money, protected from Castro for decades, is now gone nonetheless because U.S. courts decided, against all principles of international law, to award these assets to isolated American citizens. Cuban victims of Castro were excluded but U.S. citizens were allowed to sue and be compensated from the frozen (but thawing) assets of the Cuban people for the wrongful deaths of their relatives at Castro's hands. These funds could have been used as seed money to reconstruct Cuba or to settle Cuba's debt to the U.S. for the properties and businesses confiscated by Castro (the only "legacy"that Castro will leave to his people along with a $20 billion foreign debt). Instead, the Republic of Cuba's sole remaining liquid assets are being awarded in $200 million chunks to a select group of Castro's victims. This money is available only to U.S. citizens, a decided, indeed, infinitesimal minority, when compared to Cubans who have been victimized by Castro and are excluded from seeking compensation for their losses.

The latest recipients of this largesse is the family of Rafael del Pino, who happened to hold American citizenship at the time of his incarceration by Castro. Previous beneficiaries have included the family of an American pilot killed at the Bay of Pigs; the family of a CIA agent executed by Castro; the families of three of the four murdered "Brothers to the Rescue;" and the jilted wife of a Cuban spy, who was awarded $26 million for her "emotional suffering." Although we sympathize with the pain of all these families (even with the jilted wife) we cannot understand why they are being compensated when millions of actual living victims of Castro are not. That is comparable to excluding Jewish survivors of The Holocaust from compensation but compensating Hitler's non-Jewish victims.

The injustice of it is mind boggling. The daughter of the CIA pilot killed in the line of duty, who should have sued the U.S. government for abandoning him at the Bay of Pigs and not the Cuban people, has been compensated for his death but the actual living victims of the Bay of Pigs, who were also betrayed by the U.S. government and are now elderly and abandoned, are denied access to the hundreds of millions so lavishly bestowed on the American pilot's daughter. Three of the four murdered "Brothers to the Rescue" pilots were U.S. citizens, which was fortunate for their families, because they received hundreds of millions in compensation from the Cuban people's frozen assets. The fourth victim was not a U.S. citizen but a recent refugee so his survivors got nothing. We might add that the other 3 families offered the mother of Pablo Morales a few thousand dollars of the hundreds of millions which they received. Pablo's mother, a true heir of Mariana Grajales de Maceo, refused their shameful limosna (pittance). One of the compensated families has even used the money they were awarded to produce a documentary attacking not Castro but the "Brothers to the Rescue" organization!

Why didn't Castro's American victims sue Fidel instead of the Cuban people? His personal fortune (stolen from the Cuban people) is much larger than the frozen assets of the Cuban people. Because it is difficult to track down Castro's money and very easy to pillage the frozen assets of the Cuban people.

As I have asked previously: Should this money be dispersed in $100 million chunks to the descendents of isolated U.S. victims? Castro's Cuban victims — of which there are millions — have never received one cent of compensation for their suffering. Why, then, should all the monies available to a Free Cuba be expended in compensating the families of victims who happened to hold U.S. citizenship? Is an American life worth $200 million and a Cuban life nothing? Apparently, in the view of the U.S. courts and the American government.

Does Cuba Have the Government It Deserves?

Anon1970 said...

"Do pueblos get the governments that they deserve?"
4/05/2008 3:19 PM


Manuel A. Tellechea said...

I can only speak as to Cuba:

Cuba does not have the government it deserves but the government that the U.S. thought Cuba deserved.

Today as in 1959.

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/2008/04/killcastros-family-is-safe-for-now.html

Quo Babalú?

I've made this comparison before but never did the scales tip in RCAB's favor as far as they do today. The last 10 posts here at RCAB have garnered a total of 249 comments. The last ten at Babalú just 33. How is this possible since Babalú is supposedly the "powerhouse" among English-language Cuban-American blogs? There are several possible explanations:

1). Babalú has alienated most of its commenters with its censorship and bannings.

2). Babalú in effect gets more comments than these but Val & Henry only post the ones that agree with or do not challenge their positions.

3). Most visitors to Babalú are googlers whose only interest in Cuba is as a subjet for a school paper. Because they know nothing about Cuba in the first place they would not be expected to join discussions about it.

None of these explanation excludes the other. In fact, I suspect that they all account in part for the fact there are practically no comments hitched to the posts in the ghost town that Babalú has become.

Notable & Optimistic: Cubans Have "Substantial Disposable Income"

"Over time, these measures [instituted by Raúl Castro] will erode the myth that no Cubans have substantial disposable hard currency income." -- Phil Peters, "'Prohibitions" Biting the Dust," The Cuban Triangle, April 1, 2008

What the ever optimistic Phil Peters calls the "disposable" income of Cubans on the island is actually the disposable income of Cubans outside the island, whose remittances to their relatives will allow them to buy those hitherto prohibited "luxury" items which Raúl and his coterie of military-industrial robber barons will sell them at mark-ups of 100-5000%

This is like taking a homeless man from the Bowery (if there are any of those anymore), setting him down on Fifth Avenue with two-bits to his name and telling him that the world is his oyster.
What would his only choice be?

To beg.

The only difference is that George W. Bush won't come at the end of the day to cheat him of his quarters.

This interesting thread continues on The Cuban Triangle with more observations from Peters and me and even a cameo appearance from Longfellow at his most original, arguing that Cubans on the island are much prettier than those ugly exiles. Peters' reaction is the definition of "nonplussed."

While you're visiting the blog , please take note of the beautiful photographs of historic places in Cuba. Peters never takes pictures of the ruins. But, as I said, he is a great optimist.


POSTSCRIPT:

Answer to Phil Peters:

There is some pleasure to be derived from looking at Buckingham Palace even if one does not have the remotest chance of ever living there. I suppose a Cuban feels a comparable sensation when he gazes on a cellphone at the museum where it is kept. Because it is truly a museum and not a store. People go there to look at the future which is somebody else's past. To look and not touch.

This is not enough. It is not even anything at all. "Let them eat cake" is all that these measures (which you mercifully refrain from calling "reforms") amount to.

But those as you, Phil, who have awaited so patiently and long for even the dimmest most transitory flicker of anything, cannot help seeing in this mirage the dawning of a new age when it is no more than a sanctioned revival of an old instinct: the desire to consume, as natural and necessary as any other desire but repressed in Cuba for nearly a half-century.

But consumerism is not enough to break the chains of tyranny as we have seen in China. There, where luxuries are no longer unthinkable, their enjoyment has been conditioned on the acceptance of tyranny.

Even if this Consumer Age were as real in Cuba as it is in China, the assumption should be that it would usher-in no era of freedom but stregthen the repression by making tyranny self-sustaining or even profitable.

http://cubantriangle.blogspot.com/2008/04/canned-prohibitions-assessment.html

Killcastro's Family Is Safe (For Now)

Good news from Killcastro on his family's fate. In Cuba even a broken skull is good news when that is as far as injustice goes.

A great weight has been lifted from Killcastro's mind. Val Prieto should also feel extremely grateful that the evil he wreaked has been circumscribed.

Killcastro quotes what a Spanish priest once told him: "Only the prayers that we say on behalf of others are ever answered." I also believe that is true.

http://killkasstro.blogspot.com/

"See No 'Che' Evil, Hear No 'Che' Evil"

One of Henry "Economist" Gómez's latest innovations is the Babalú Carte Blanche. Don't insult Cubans without it. Here's how it works: Say anything that you want about Cuba, Castro or "Che," however offensive or flippant, imply anything that you want about Cuban-Americans, however unflattering and unfair, and you will still get a pass from Val & Co if you also link to Babalú and Henry's internet store at CAP.

Miami New Times is the first publication to acquire such a license from Babalú, which entitles them to perpetuate the "Che"myth while berating Cuban exiles for not embracing it. You see, that's another sign of our supposed intolerance. There was, apparently, no attempt on the part of Val or Henry to enlighten the New Times reporter about "Che" Guevara, and, if they tried, they failed miserably.

The reporter, Chuck Strouse, went to the Dadeland Mall, in Kendall, to sell a hidden cache of "Che" tee-shirts and gage the reaction of passersby. Now, one can't just set up shop at a mall, every sq. inch of which is rented or owned by somebody else. You can no more do business at a mall than break into somebody's house and set up a cot. New Times sent its reporter to break the law. Funny that Henry, such a good capitalist as he is, didn't notice or object.

The villain of the story is not "Che" but the mall security guard — or "rent-a-cop," as Strouse calls him — who did his duty and escorted the peddler from the mall. More evidence of Cuban-American intolerance.

Strouse had much difficulty in acknowledging the reason that Cubans, old and young, despise "Che" Guevara. To wit, he was a psychotic serial killer. But not to Strouse. He describes him as a "special prosecutor" responsible for the deaths of "scads of counterrevolutionaries." He was not the "special prosecutor" but the chief executionist. And his victims are counted by the thousands, not by the "scads" (what the hell is a "scad," anyway?). Finally, he wasn't killing just "counterrevolutionaries" but revolutionaries as well. He was killing anyone and everyone that might challenge his master's authority.

Does Henry mention any of this in the post that he dedicated to the New Times article? Not a word. Has his well-known animus towards the "Butcher of the Cabaña" disappeared? No, I don't think so. It's just that business is business and politics is politics. I'm sure that if other facilitators of the "Che" myth, such as the Estefans, had extended their patronage to them, Val and Henry would also now be publicizing their efforts however tainted by their association with Santana. But the Esfefans did not pay tribute and were dismissed as traitors. The New Times reporter interviewed Val & Henry, quoted them, linked their websites and Henry's internet store (even pushing Henry's own "Che" tee-shirts), and received in turn a link from Babalú and nary a word of criticism.

So that's how it works!

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/birth-of-rcab-its-foundational.html

Drinking at Our Springs and Detoxifying from Babalú

This is what hundreds of Babalú's readers have done this week courtesy of Henry "Economist" Gómez. I don't know how good an advertising man he is for others, but he's a damn good one for RCAB. In the now deleted "Squashing the Losers" post , he could not resist mentioning "Tellechea" in one of the comments, although he knows he shouldn't and has labored mightily to control the impulse. Once in a while, however, he becomes blinded by anger and commits Babalú's cardinal sin.

He did so again on Sunday. One might suppose there is no harm in that. God knows I mention them enough. However, I have no compulsion to conceal Babalú's lies; they, on the other hand, have a very great interest in concealing RCAB's inconvenient truths. It is really remarkable to what lengths they have gone to malign and isolate us. We are impeded from disclosing the facts because they would implicate those who communicated them to us. But, rest assured, the fight that I carry out in the open they execute in the shadows. I would be in the dark about it myself if they inspired in their adjuncts private rather than public fealty. The latter is a only a mask which is cracking to pieces. One day even they will be able to see through it. But I am in no hurry to hasten that day.

Whenever Babalú alludes to me in any way, the gates open and the RCAB is flooded with refugees from Babalunia. I know it because their IPS's are new to me and because of their reading habits. They will decamp here for hours and devour 30, 40 or 50 posts at once and return the next day and do likewise, trying to catch up on what they've missed, reliving past visits to Babalú but with a new and unexpected twist. For them, it is like seeing the other side of the Babalú tapestry for the first time, the side that is concealed from them, where the mold and fungus grow unnoticed and unchecked.

On Sunday, March 30 the RCAB received a record 988 hits. Not all were from denizens of Babalunia, of course. But given the fact that this figure was twice as many as we have previously received on any prior day, it is a fair assumption that the increase was in part due to Henry's inadvertent citation of my name. Once a reader googles "Tellechea" and "Babalú" the game is up. And many did precisely that.

So, thank-you, Henry, if you were my mole at Babalú you could not have served RCAB's interests better than you did on Sunday.

Potts and Kettles Are Both Prieto

I have a new appreciation for Reinier "Gusano" Potts. Character assassination, like murder, is one of the fine arts. So DeQuincey thought and so "Gusano" proves (the Babalunian who reads the NYRB will appreciate that). I have never to my recollection, however, singled him out before for praise or censure. Now I shall do both.

When Val outed Killcastro on Killcastro's own blog, he literally called out his name. Gusano does not. He neither uses Killcastro's moniker or his real name, or his baby or his nickname. He doesn't mention him at all. Yet, in all respects, his attack is as savage and calculated; and, of course, as craven as Val's Prieto's. With one difference: it flies over a lot of people's heads because it does not have the clarity of a stabbing at midday which Val's effort does. Still it's muted but telling references are there for anyone who cares to think.

"Gusano," ostensibly, praises Yoani Sánchez's courage for blogging under her own name in Cuba and excoriates himself as a coward for blogging anonymously for many years from the safety of the U.S. Frankly, I was surprised. Not at the fact that he once belonged to the Tribe of the Anonymi but because I thought that no real person could be named "Reinier Potts." That had to be his pseudonym. But since he attests that "Reinier Pott" is his real name I have to take him at his word.

Because Reinier Potts now chooses to blog under his own name does not mean that bloggers who don't are cowards. Can't he understand that there are perfectly legitimate reasons for blogging anonymously which have nothing to do with whether someone is a coward or not? In fact, I should think that it would take a great deal of humility, not cowardice, to blog anonymously and forgo the tribute of one's own words. I know that I would not be able to send my words into the world as orphans and I can only imagine that one who does must do so under a very great compunction which overrides even self-love or pride. Only the love of others could compel such a renunciation.

Every man has the right to expose his own life as he sees fit. No man has the right to expose the life of another. Killcastro blogged under a pseudonym to protect his family in Cuba. It is his right and his duty so to do. And, ultimately, it is his choice. No one has the right to second guess him or to overrule his decision. Since he bears the responsibility he should also set the boundaries. It is not Val Prieto's right or anybody's right to supercede Killcastro's judgment, much less to threaten his life or his family's by making a disclosure which it is not theirs to make.

Whether Reinier Potts has contempt for Anonymous bloggers is immaterial. What matters is whether he would do what Val did. That question, of course, he evades as Val did his responsibility. An attack on "anonymous bloggers" (with one specifically in mind), accomplished from behind Yoani's skirts, is so much easier. This is exactly what Val himself did when he hid behind Ziva's to justify his terrorist attack on Killcastro. Both are alike despicable for it.

Potts Calling the Kettle Black

Coming Up:

"The Slimiest Blogger In the World"

Someone from Babalú is taken to the woodshed and it's not Val or Henry.

Stay tuned.

Bringing Ice to India: Or, Is a Novelty a "Reform?"

When ice was first introduced to India in the 19th century it created a sensation. Huge blocks of ice were harvested from frozen rivers in Maine and transported in insulated hulls to India and other Southern climes (including Cuba). Cubans, especially those who were removed only a generation or two from Spain, had some recollection or at least had heard of ice. Indians had not. For Cubans it was a wonder that this "precious luxury might be preserved by careful husbandry until the season when its coolness was the most grateful." Indians would have had no difficulty believing that ice came from the moon. Indeed, whatever ice had ever landed in India did fall from the heavens.

Everybody in India wanted to see ice. Touch it. But none save the British or the majarahs could afford to buy it. Nearly 200 years later, there are still parts of India unacquainted with ice.

Was the introduction of ice to India a "reform?" Did it end the British Raj or bring Indians one day closer to freedom and self-determination? No, on the contrary, it made the lives of their oppressors more comfortable. They, after all, were used to ice. Nevertheless, ice in India was certainly a novelty worth noting.

Killcastro Tells the Inside Story of His Outing

Do not miss our first "Guest Post," written expressly for the Review of Cuban-American Blogs by our friend Killcastro:

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/killcastro-speaks-to-rcab.html

The Villa Valentina

I certainly hope that Smart Buy Kitchen gave Val equal value for the promotion they received on Babalú. We shudder to think what other commercials will find their way to the "[kitchen] island on the internet" as Val's house improves and expands in the future.

The noble cause is now a brand new kitchen.

Tomorrow it may be a new Florida room.

And the next day a new pool.

I hope that Cuban freedom will be able to keep pace with the improvements to Val's house; for then we are sure to get there soon.


POSTSCRIPT:

Since we are on the subject of Val's kitchen, we must acknowledge the remarkable feat accomplished by a Babalú commenter gringotico who was able to introduce the following comment under its censorship radar. Although we do not accept his suggestion that there is some kind of moral equivalence between victim (Killcastro) and victimizer (Val), we find his comments re Val to be very well-founded:

"Hey val, So nice that you have a new kitchen. Too bad our friends in Cuba don't have that option.

Well have not been around for a few months and just by chance went to killcastro and saw how there is now a big wrangle between you guys.

Is it true that you outed killcastro and gave the Kubans his name so that they could go and screw over his family?

And how is Henry the fuckhead? Is your GOP candidate winning fuckhead?

Don't suppose that you will let this post hang out for long.

Used to be a supporter but now I see for sure that when Cuba is free it will be all of you fighting it out for control just like the Shiites versus the others in Iraq.

Too bad that you can't work together but I guess knowing the Latin mentality that it will be a cluster fuck

Good luck to all.

Will check back in a few months and see how much more you dumbfucks have disintegrated.

So the question is dump this message like Raúl would do or let it hang and come back and fuck with me?

I'm hoping you have learned some freedoms here in our USA and leave this out there so all the rabid mafia can comment.

Don't worry i can handle it.

I love Cuba and want my friends there to be free.

Hopefully when they are they are also free of all you wannabe control fucks.

They hate you all and will never accept you when freedom finally comes. Face it.

They will kill you when they get the chance.

Sorry but just my opinion.
Posted by: gringotico at April 1, 2008 08:06 PM

At 2:47 AM: "A Call For You. He Says His Name Is 'Val'"

We are reliably informed that Val, who claimed to be oblivious to the outroar surrounding his outing of Killcastro because he was installing his new kitchen tiles this weekend, was actually personally phoning every Cuban blogger, Babalú satellite or not, presenting his "side" and dumping on our friend Killcastro. If he didn't phone you, Val doesn't have your number (or maybe he does). Val was a bit surprised when every blogger he called brought up my name. Can't do worse to Val than mention me, although for a long time now everybody who has anything to say about his blog does. Babalunian crew, if you want to see your leader squirm, mention my name to him. Often.

Their Worst Enemy: Babalú's Self-Inflicted Defeat

It was a unique moment in the history of Babalú and it is unlikely that we shall ever see a repetition. It was their intention not to address Val Prieto's outing of Killcastro on Babalú. They could not find the words to address it publicly. Among themselves, in the e-mails that passed between them this weekend -- hundreds of them -- they had no difficulty gloating about what Val had done and mocking Killcastro's pain. It is a pain and anguish that most of them do not empathize with because their families are here not on the island, and though they must have heard of conditions in Cuba, few, if any, have actually experienced on their own flesh the full weight of totalitarianism. We know that Val and Henry do not identify with or even understand the real plight of the Cuban people, who have been held hostage for nearly 50 years by a criminal enterprise abetted by the superpower(s). Their partiality to the sole remaining superpower blinds them in many regards (as it once did the 19th century annexationists) to the real nature of Castro's tyranny and they are more liable to blame the Cuban people for enduring it than Castro for perpetrating it or the U.S. for sanctioning it.

Val's frequent references to rendering the Cuban people in a pressure cooker or his incitements to a bloodbath shows that he regards them as an obstacle to his plans for Cuba. If only they would oblige him by disappearing -- all of them, except, perhaps, some trophee dissidents -- Val and others like him could realize their vision of Cuba as another Puerto Rico, at best, or an island-wide Guantánamo base. Only if you first understand that can you then understand Val's act of outing Killcastro and the reaction of the other Babalunians to it. Killcastro's family means nothing to them, just more sheep to be led to the general slaughter. Their blasé attitude to their fate, the fact that they can even joke and laugh about it, leaves no doubt as to their depraved indifference to human life. In a word, their inhumanity.

Henry's cartoon, "Squashing the Losers," was their collective reply to their blogger critics. But they got a big surprise. For the first time in months, one of their posts caught fire. A surge of commenters -- and God knows how many more whose comments were deleted -- made known to them the revulsion which Val's actions inspired in them. Henry was literally cornered and could hardly defend himself. In the end he was sputtering obscenities and making ridiculous charges like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We have seen him like this many times before but never so besieged. And then, pro forma, the "Squashing the Losers" post was gone, deleted as many of their posts that just didn't "go right."

We have, of course, preserved a copy.

We shall analyze it in future posts point by point.

This post that, perhaps, would have passed quietly into Babalú's archives will, instead, be kept alive here.

Their efforts to suppress the truth through censorship will doubly damn them

I have always said that Val & Co. are their own worst enemies.

Val Plays the Fool to Hide the Villain

There are many ways to evade guilt. One is to embrace it not as a reality but as a hyperbole. This is what Val has done. It was impossible for him to deny his actions or to take back his words. These were so toxic that even Val feared to handle them again. A better mind would have found it difficult to maneuver this minefield. Val was literally paralyzed for 4 days, unable to move in one direction or the other. He tells us that he was so occupied picking the tile for his kitchen floor that his own name did not ring in his ears though it was on everybody's lips (if not on their blogs). Nobody at Babalú knew what to do. Some told him to ignore the accusation. Others advised him not to ignore it. And others, very few, were actually disturbed by Val's conduct but in the supercharged atmosphere of their deliberations they chose to maintain a discreet silence for fear the many would turn on them at a time when a scapegoat was severely wanted.

When Henry announced last night in a deleted post that Val would be answering his accusers next morning even he did not know what shape Val's long-awaited answer would take. Who would have supposed, even Henry, that Val would be so cold-hearted as to mock -- yes, mock -- Killcastro's anguish and his family's danger. What he did not do, however, was deny that he was a chivato (government snitch). In fact, he did not even dare to use that word or address his specific actions on Killcastro's blog. Instead, he chose to present himself as a Castroite James Bond, which no mortal on earth could ever imagine him to be. Even as Fu Manchu Val would be a hard sell.

By making fun of his own incompetance, (mis)casting himself as a double-nought spy, of all things, Val hoped to defray the real imputations against him. Not, of course, that he is a trained spy and international playboy, but, rather, that he is a warped and vindictive man who saw the opportunity to destroy someone who cast a long shadow over him and took it.