Today, May 19th, marks the 113th anniversary of José Martí's death but never has he been more alive than today or more indispensable for our country's future. He is the reliquary of our country's aspirations for freedom and the agent of its regeneration now as then. Men live only a finite time on earth; but the greatest men transcend the days of man and become immortal because they embody in themselves and in their work timeless ideals which are forever relevant and vital. Such was Martí to our people and all the peoples of the Americas, indeed, to everyone anywhere who has ever bothered to acquaint himself with his life and writings. As Martí said, "I believe that man has a duty to do good even after death. Therefore, I write." If we had heeded his words and followed his example, we would have been spared the great calamity that befell us as a people. The last 50 years have only reinforced his central place in our national cosmology and the necessity of rebuilding our country along the lines that he laid out.
A popular song of the 1940s lamented that Martí should never have died because he alone could have returned dignity and probity to our national life. There is precisely where we erred as a people: the fatalism of believing that only a resurrected Martí, and not his teachings alive in all of us, could save us. Maybe these last 50 years were an unavoidable expiation for ever thinking that we had found a substitute for Martí in the vilest man that was ever born in our country. There is no substitute for Martí and we will forever err if we expect there to be one. Martí does not need a subtitute because he has never left us. It is our duty as individuals and as a nation to honor his memory by showing ourselves to be worthy of his legacy. The only way to do so is to assimilate and apply his teachings. Therein we will find also the way to our country's redemption.
Also of interest:
May 19, 1895: Death of José Martí at Dos Ríos
A Selection of Quotations by José Martí (Translated from the Spanish)
Monday, May 19, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Will Cuba Ever Be Free Again?
Will Cuba ever be free again?
Of course.
There is no doubt that she will be free someday.
Those for whom this assurance is enough, whose vision and faith is Mosaic, should stop reading here.
We have wandered in the desert somewhat longer than Moses did; or, rather, we have wandered away from the desert that has become our homeland in the hope of being able to return there in the fullness of time. That is the remarkable thing about time which we didn't need Einstein to explain to us: it is always expanding. Yet we ourselves are not. Those of us who have already expanded (and expended) fifty years in the hope of catching up with our country's destiny, returning to that desert and making it blossom again, as it once did, cannot cherish the hope of being gardeners there or even of witnessing its blossoming beyond the days of man. Time for us is definitely finite. The nearer we come to the horizon the less time there is left for us to meet it.
So the original question must be rephrased:
Will we live to see a free Cuba?
Is that hope still tenable?
Not for all of us, not even for most of us. Perhaps not even for any of us.
It really does depend on one's individual expectations, that is, how one chooses to define "free." The more you define freedom down, the closer your definition is to the present system (i.e. the negation of freedom), the closer you are to seeing that day. If consumer freedom suffices, then Cubans have already set out on the road to "freedom" with the Chinese model as their ultimate though unreachable goal. If new faces are all that is required, then there will be many new faces in the immediate future, and more importantly, the old familiar detestable faces of communism will all be gone soon if not the thing itself. If that is enough to meet your definition of freedom, then you are that much closer to the "freedom" you desire. If a re-built Cuba, with skycrapers as high as Shanghai's and state-corporativism (also known as fascism) in full-throttle thanks to a sympathetic U.S. president that will do for Cuba what Nixon did for China (except without prior conditions), then your dream of a "free" Cuba may be here as soon as November. If you believe that tyranny can evolve into something other and preferable to tyranny without guns and against the wishes of a regional hagemon which considers stability preferable to freedom in Cuba, then what are you doing here when the best perspective from which to witness that evolution is there?
If, however, you belong to the majority of Cuban exiles unwilling to make any accommodation with the evil that destroyed our country, or to tolerate a thriving tyranny more than an impoverished one, if progress means to you the fulfillment of man's thriving to be free rather the State's striving to be omnipotent, if you want the best for Cuba and not merely what others would settle for as good enough for our country, our wait has just begun.
[In Part II, we will discuss what is required now for Cuba to regain her freedom and for us to be able to see her free before we end our days].
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Notable & Quotable: Gay Marriage Debated At Babalú Apropos of Obama
"Can you [Sr Cohiba] look a gay man in the eye and say, 'You have no right to marry?'" -- thinwhiteduke, "If Obama Wins This Is What You'll Get from the Courts [comment]," Babalú, May 15, 2008
As that riposte indicates, Sr Cohiba, Babalú's resident legal expert, is now engaged in the most animated debate in ages at Babalú. About gay rights. Not in Cuba, but in California. It was not as the legal expert but the Obama-unmasker that Sr. Cohiba warned today that if Barack Obama is elected president he can be expected to pack the courts, and, especially, the Supreme Court, with liberal deconstructionists who might attempt to legislate immorality as their predecessors once attempted to legislate morality. His bone of contention, so to speak, is gay marriage, for which the California Supreme Court claims to have found sufficient sanction in the Constitution to overturn a public vote proscribing it.
Anything to defeat a socialist, I suppose, but aren't there a thousand worse things that an Obama Supreme Court could do than legalize gay marriage? Such as, for example, legalize "intergenerational sex" (otherwise known as child abuse) or partial birth abortion (otherwise known as murder)? Or, how about emptying America's prisons because the disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics confined there is deemed to be prima facie evidence of racial discrimination?
These are not farfetched schemes by any means but coda of the Democratic Party's lunatic fringe to which Barack Obama belongs. Except, of course, that the lunatic fringe is no longer marginalized with Obama as his party's likely standard bearer. The "fringe" is now the mainstream. They don't, of course, say that they favor the molestation of children, just the elimination or reduction of the age of consent; they don't identify themselves as "baby killers" but they do deny that it is wrong to murder a baby on an operating table because they don't recognize that the baby is a baby though they do recognize that the table is a table; and they don't call themselves advocates of "criminals' rights" but consider imprisoned minorities to be victims of the legal system rather than violators of the law.
Barack Obama is himself the leading exponent of partial birth abortion in the Democratic Party. He is the only senator to have ever voted for it, that is, to affirm the legality of killing babies that have already exited the birth canal (that is, been delivered) by stabbing them with a scalpel, bashing their heads or tearing off their limbs. He has even argued that this procedure might be justifiable to save the life of the mother. Let's see: a "terrible accident" has occurred and a baby has been born despite the best efforts of the abortionist to suction its brains out or turn it to mincemeat inside the womb. What to do? Well, Obama wouldn't want to compromise the mental health of a woman who consented to the murder of her child by presenting her with a living baby. Never that. God forbid! So he would allow the baby to be viciously murdered as it writhes and breathes on the operating table. Barack Obama stands at head of the 5 percent of Americans who are in favor of allowing this atrocity worthy of Mengele (though Mengele himself stopped short of it).
I have always framed the argument against Obama in terms of Cuba because that is the chief concern of this blog. But even if, God be merciful, the Castro regime disappears from the face of the earth tomorrow, it would still be the death of this country and the free world (including its youngest member) to entrust the presidency of the United States to Barack Obama. Imagine Obama's mentor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as president, or Wright's mentor Minister Louis Farrakhan: it is no different. Obama is the product of a particular mindset without the usual trappings that accompany and define it. The trappings are in themselves inconsequential except as markers of that mindset. Obama has rejected them but refused to embrace the markers or codewords of the opposition -- until Rev. Wright stepped into his campaign (as opposed to his life).
Now he wears his flag pin, salutes the flag, loves America and invokes God's blessing on this great nation. There is nothing that Obama is unwilling to do to secure the presidency: even counterfeit patriotism, which, from his perspective, is the ultimate public sin. Barack Obama's positions on virtually every social issue run counter to the beliefs of a vast majority of Americans, not excluding black and Hispanics, and, indeed, particularly blacks and Hispanics. African-Americans support him despite his views not because of them. So, in fact, do a majority of all his supporters, who have decided that electing a black president would be the final stage in purging racism from this country. The fact that they have chosen someone who exploits racial divisions for his own benefit and will enshrine race as the litmus test for all state policy does not seem to be as important to them as his pigmentation. The desideratum of having a black president outweighs all other considerations.
I do not think, however, that opponents of Obama will gain much by attacking his position on gay marriage, though this, too, is an idea rejected by most Americans (and particularly African-Americans). It's pretty certain that those who oppose it as a core issue are not supporting Obama. It is also unlikely that fighting Obama on that account will get someone who wasn't voting for McCain to change his mind. What will likely happen, what is in fact already happening to poor Cohiba, is to stir discontent without benefitting anyone (except maybe Obama). Why risk making enemies for McCain by exploiting an issue that may mean little or nothing to you but everything to someone else? And why do so when there are other issues like partial birth abortion that a majority of Americans can coalesce around without the issue being obscured by accusations of "homophobia" and the like? I don't know what the proponents of partial birth abortion would call McCain for opposing it. An "infancidephobe?" Not as catchy.
As that riposte indicates, Sr Cohiba, Babalú's resident legal expert, is now engaged in the most animated debate in ages at Babalú. About gay rights. Not in Cuba, but in California. It was not as the legal expert but the Obama-unmasker that Sr. Cohiba warned today that if Barack Obama is elected president he can be expected to pack the courts, and, especially, the Supreme Court, with liberal deconstructionists who might attempt to legislate immorality as their predecessors once attempted to legislate morality. His bone of contention, so to speak, is gay marriage, for which the California Supreme Court claims to have found sufficient sanction in the Constitution to overturn a public vote proscribing it.
Anything to defeat a socialist, I suppose, but aren't there a thousand worse things that an Obama Supreme Court could do than legalize gay marriage? Such as, for example, legalize "intergenerational sex" (otherwise known as child abuse) or partial birth abortion (otherwise known as murder)? Or, how about emptying America's prisons because the disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics confined there is deemed to be prima facie evidence of racial discrimination?
These are not farfetched schemes by any means but coda of the Democratic Party's lunatic fringe to which Barack Obama belongs. Except, of course, that the lunatic fringe is no longer marginalized with Obama as his party's likely standard bearer. The "fringe" is now the mainstream. They don't, of course, say that they favor the molestation of children, just the elimination or reduction of the age of consent; they don't identify themselves as "baby killers" but they do deny that it is wrong to murder a baby on an operating table because they don't recognize that the baby is a baby though they do recognize that the table is a table; and they don't call themselves advocates of "criminals' rights" but consider imprisoned minorities to be victims of the legal system rather than violators of the law.
Barack Obama is himself the leading exponent of partial birth abortion in the Democratic Party. He is the only senator to have ever voted for it, that is, to affirm the legality of killing babies that have already exited the birth canal (that is, been delivered) by stabbing them with a scalpel, bashing their heads or tearing off their limbs. He has even argued that this procedure might be justifiable to save the life of the mother. Let's see: a "terrible accident" has occurred and a baby has been born despite the best efforts of the abortionist to suction its brains out or turn it to mincemeat inside the womb. What to do? Well, Obama wouldn't want to compromise the mental health of a woman who consented to the murder of her child by presenting her with a living baby. Never that. God forbid! So he would allow the baby to be viciously murdered as it writhes and breathes on the operating table. Barack Obama stands at head of the 5 percent of Americans who are in favor of allowing this atrocity worthy of Mengele (though Mengele himself stopped short of it).
I have always framed the argument against Obama in terms of Cuba because that is the chief concern of this blog. But even if, God be merciful, the Castro regime disappears from the face of the earth tomorrow, it would still be the death of this country and the free world (including its youngest member) to entrust the presidency of the United States to Barack Obama. Imagine Obama's mentor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as president, or Wright's mentor Minister Louis Farrakhan: it is no different. Obama is the product of a particular mindset without the usual trappings that accompany and define it. The trappings are in themselves inconsequential except as markers of that mindset. Obama has rejected them but refused to embrace the markers or codewords of the opposition -- until Rev. Wright stepped into his campaign (as opposed to his life).
Now he wears his flag pin, salutes the flag, loves America and invokes God's blessing on this great nation. There is nothing that Obama is unwilling to do to secure the presidency: even counterfeit patriotism, which, from his perspective, is the ultimate public sin. Barack Obama's positions on virtually every social issue run counter to the beliefs of a vast majority of Americans, not excluding black and Hispanics, and, indeed, particularly blacks and Hispanics. African-Americans support him despite his views not because of them. So, in fact, do a majority of all his supporters, who have decided that electing a black president would be the final stage in purging racism from this country. The fact that they have chosen someone who exploits racial divisions for his own benefit and will enshrine race as the litmus test for all state policy does not seem to be as important to them as his pigmentation. The desideratum of having a black president outweighs all other considerations.
I do not think, however, that opponents of Obama will gain much by attacking his position on gay marriage, though this, too, is an idea rejected by most Americans (and particularly African-Americans). It's pretty certain that those who oppose it as a core issue are not supporting Obama. It is also unlikely that fighting Obama on that account will get someone who wasn't voting for McCain to change his mind. What will likely happen, what is in fact already happening to poor Cohiba, is to stir discontent without benefitting anyone (except maybe Obama). Why risk making enemies for McCain by exploiting an issue that may mean little or nothing to you but everything to someone else? And why do so when there are other issues like partial birth abortion that a majority of Americans can coalesce around without the issue being obscured by accusations of "homophobia" and the like? I don't know what the proponents of partial birth abortion would call McCain for opposing it. An "infancidephobe?" Not as catchy.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Bellman Never Rings Twice Except at Babalú
'Tis that time of year again when Val Prieto's fancy turns to thoughts of Fidel Castro's death, real or imaginary. Even now Babalu's Founding Editor and sometime bellman is furiously pulling at the ropes and soon there shall peel out a now-familiar knell announcing the glorious news of Fidel's death, again. If this were a sincere impulse on his part motivated by a genuine if uncontrollable urge to hurry the Grim Reaper along on his ineludible task, we might excuse or even applaud Val's enthusiasm. But we all know this instinct is strictly mercenary and manifests itself at periodic intervals, not spontaneously, but when it will do Babalú the most good. Ironically, though the rumor of Fidel's death has circulated more than any rumor in history, it still manages to gain traction every time it is trotted out. Val doesn't mind exploiting the hoary rumor even if it raises Bababú's stats at the expense of its diminishing credibility.
The last time Val killed Castro, back in August of last year, Babalú received 50,000 hits in one day and almost as many the next, which signifies a spike of 1000-2000 percent. The fallout from the hoax that time, when Babalú joined forces with PerezHilton to disseminate the bogus news, was the most severe to date and should have taught him a lesson. The patience and humor of most readers had long been exhausted. They didn't relish in the least being made fools of again, having their expectations raised for the expressed purpose of dashing them. Fidel's death is not merely an occasion for celebration. The joy is far from undiluted. At best, it is a mixed joy: the murderer will no longer kill, but he leaves a mountain of corpses in his wake which his minions will raise higher in his name before the house of horrors that he built crumbles in a heap to form his monument.
Val has perfected a way of insinuating Castro's death before announcing his hunch as a fact. Today we saw the first unequivocal step in that direction ("... And Then Something Went *POOF*... "). If precedent holds, Val will announce Fidel's death on Friday. Gusano was bold enough to poke fun at Babalú's weaver of tales while insinuating that the reason the regime has felt no compunction lately to prove that Castro is alive is because Val has not questioned it. The sycophants flatter Val even when they mock him. Perhaps they enjoy the spectacle of his self-humiliation. We would enjoy it, too, except that it plays with people's rawest emotions and plunges them into even greater despair by feeding false hopes to them when hope is all they have left to cling to.
The rumormongers do not profit as much as Castro does by their work. Such premature burials and untimely resurrections only contribute to the myth of Castro's invulnerability and reinforce the notion that he has cheated death too as he has all who have opposed him. The only thing that can prop Castro now is to represent him as dead. As a living man, he is all but finished. As a dead man, however, he is surprisingly spry and communicative.
I wonder sometimes if Fidel is Babalú's messiah because he keeps dying for their sins.
Also of interest:
Is Fidel Castro Dead? Babalú Again Has the (Wrong) Answer
The Pot Calls the Kettle Prieto
The last time Val killed Castro, back in August of last year, Babalú received 50,000 hits in one day and almost as many the next, which signifies a spike of 1000-2000 percent. The fallout from the hoax that time, when Babalú joined forces with PerezHilton to disseminate the bogus news, was the most severe to date and should have taught him a lesson. The patience and humor of most readers had long been exhausted. They didn't relish in the least being made fools of again, having their expectations raised for the expressed purpose of dashing them. Fidel's death is not merely an occasion for celebration. The joy is far from undiluted. At best, it is a mixed joy: the murderer will no longer kill, but he leaves a mountain of corpses in his wake which his minions will raise higher in his name before the house of horrors that he built crumbles in a heap to form his monument.
Val has perfected a way of insinuating Castro's death before announcing his hunch as a fact. Today we saw the first unequivocal step in that direction ("... And Then Something Went *POOF*... "). If precedent holds, Val will announce Fidel's death on Friday. Gusano was bold enough to poke fun at Babalú's weaver of tales while insinuating that the reason the regime has felt no compunction lately to prove that Castro is alive is because Val has not questioned it. The sycophants flatter Val even when they mock him. Perhaps they enjoy the spectacle of his self-humiliation. We would enjoy it, too, except that it plays with people's rawest emotions and plunges them into even greater despair by feeding false hopes to them when hope is all they have left to cling to.
The rumormongers do not profit as much as Castro does by their work. Such premature burials and untimely resurrections only contribute to the myth of Castro's invulnerability and reinforce the notion that he has cheated death too as he has all who have opposed him. The only thing that can prop Castro now is to represent him as dead. As a living man, he is all but finished. As a dead man, however, he is surprisingly spry and communicative.
I wonder sometimes if Fidel is Babalú's messiah because he keeps dying for their sins.
Also of interest:
Is Fidel Castro Dead? Babalú Again Has the (Wrong) Answer
The Pot Calls the Kettle Prieto
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ana Menéndez is Leaving Miami for Lebanon
Although there are very few things that RCAB and Babalú admire in common, there are a great many things that we hate in common. Near the top of that list, along with Lesnick, Aruca and Montiel-Davis, is Ana Menéndez, the transplanted Valley girl who discovered in her 30s that being Cuban — or the right (that is, left) sort of Cuban, anyway — could jump start a stalled writing career and make her the pin-up girl for every Cuban-hater in the universe. Her ignorance of all things Cuban and her contempt for all things Cuban were invaluable credentials in becoming a media expert on all things Cuban.
But she possessed something else which set her apart from the other "Cuban experts" anointed by The Miami Herald as representatives of a community which did not know them, and, worse, which they did not know: Ana Menéndez only consented to "pass" as Cuban if she could make it clear in each and every column that she was not a Cuban exile, but better, nobler and more sophisticated, an almost unique pattern of Cubanhood which had evolved in exile along the same lines as Castro's "New Man (Woman)" without the excuse of indoctrination or coercion.
She was such a perfect stooge of left-wing interests that the only way we could hope to rid ourselves of her was through promotion, and the gods have smiled upon us when they heaped on her more unearned honors and cushy sinecures. A Fulbright Fellowship — named after one of the Senate's most strident anti-Communists, architect of the Cuban trade embargo, relentless enemy of the Castro regime and reliable friend of Cuban exiles — has been awarded to this disciple of accommodation, apologist for the Castro regime and inveterate enemy of her exiled countrymen. The irony is so rich that it is almost lethal to consume it let alone savor it. I am sure that Fulbright himself would appreciate it.
Thanks to the agency of the old Cold Warrior this execrable woman is to be sent out of the country for one year, to Lebanon, of all places, the land of her ancient ancestors, where she will impart her wisdom on Cuba (which she has never seen) to that country's hapless university students. There is at least one valuable lesson which she can teach them: how Cuba, once the "Lebanon of the Caribbean," and Lebanon, once the "Cuba of the Middle East," shared a common fate which was consummated 50 years ago: both, once vibrant redoubts of civilization, are now wastelands; Lebanon, because of a civil war and numerous invasions; and Cuba, because one man, without dropping a single bomb, turned marble to dust.
The good news doesn't stop there, however. After her return from Lebanon, she will became an international correspondent, which means that she will spend most of her time out of the country, still writing for The Miami Herald but not about Miami anymore. This is the best possible news for all Cuban exiles, whom Menéndez will now have to go out of her way to malign. One Cuban, more than the others, will celebrate this fact: her own beleaguered father.
The only time that I was ever moved by anything that Ana Menéndez wrote was when she related the anguish and shame which her father felt because she was his daughter. How on one occasion, in particular, he stopped speaking to her because he interpreted her negative portrayal of our community as a rejection of her own parents. I felt sorry, of course, for him, not for her. And now I feel sorry for Lebanon, as if it didn't have troubles enough.
The royal palms sway carelessly today and the cedars of Lebanon shake with fear.
Also of interest:
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles (09/24/07)
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
RCAB is proud to announce that it will issue its first commemorative virtual lithograph (suitable for printing) to mark the migration to greener pastures of former Miami Herald columnist Ana Menéndez. Do not miss it. It is sure to become a virtual collector's item. Keep looking here and it shall soon appear and just as soon disappear (we don't want to glut the market).
But she possessed something else which set her apart from the other "Cuban experts" anointed by The Miami Herald as representatives of a community which did not know them, and, worse, which they did not know: Ana Menéndez only consented to "pass" as Cuban if she could make it clear in each and every column that she was not a Cuban exile, but better, nobler and more sophisticated, an almost unique pattern of Cubanhood which had evolved in exile along the same lines as Castro's "New Man (Woman)" without the excuse of indoctrination or coercion.
She was such a perfect stooge of left-wing interests that the only way we could hope to rid ourselves of her was through promotion, and the gods have smiled upon us when they heaped on her more unearned honors and cushy sinecures. A Fulbright Fellowship — named after one of the Senate's most strident anti-Communists, architect of the Cuban trade embargo, relentless enemy of the Castro regime and reliable friend of Cuban exiles — has been awarded to this disciple of accommodation, apologist for the Castro regime and inveterate enemy of her exiled countrymen. The irony is so rich that it is almost lethal to consume it let alone savor it. I am sure that Fulbright himself would appreciate it.
Thanks to the agency of the old Cold Warrior this execrable woman is to be sent out of the country for one year, to Lebanon, of all places, the land of her ancient ancestors, where she will impart her wisdom on Cuba (which she has never seen) to that country's hapless university students. There is at least one valuable lesson which she can teach them: how Cuba, once the "Lebanon of the Caribbean," and Lebanon, once the "Cuba of the Middle East," shared a common fate which was consummated 50 years ago: both, once vibrant redoubts of civilization, are now wastelands; Lebanon, because of a civil war and numerous invasions; and Cuba, because one man, without dropping a single bomb, turned marble to dust.
The good news doesn't stop there, however. After her return from Lebanon, she will became an international correspondent, which means that she will spend most of her time out of the country, still writing for The Miami Herald but not about Miami anymore. This is the best possible news for all Cuban exiles, whom Menéndez will now have to go out of her way to malign. One Cuban, more than the others, will celebrate this fact: her own beleaguered father.
The only time that I was ever moved by anything that Ana Menéndez wrote was when she related the anguish and shame which her father felt because she was his daughter. How on one occasion, in particular, he stopped speaking to her because he interpreted her negative portrayal of our community as a rejection of her own parents. I felt sorry, of course, for him, not for her. And now I feel sorry for Lebanon, as if it didn't have troubles enough.
The royal palms sway carelessly today and the cedars of Lebanon shake with fear.
Also of interest:
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles (09/24/07)
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
RCAB is proud to announce that it will issue its first commemorative virtual lithograph (suitable for printing) to mark the migration to greener pastures of former Miami Herald columnist Ana Menéndez. Do not miss it. It is sure to become a virtual collector's item. Keep looking here and it shall soon appear and just as soon disappear (we don't want to glut the market).
Sunday, May 11, 2008
A "New" Poem By José Martí Written for His Sister to Present to Their Mother "On Her Day"
A mi querida Madre en su día
¿Qué frases había que demostrarle pueda
La intensa emoción del alma mía
Hoy que ilumina de tu aurora el día
El llano tropical y la arboleda?
No pueda haber quien en ternura exceda
A la dulce expresión de mi alegria,
Y ruego a Dios que nunca ¡oh madre mía!
La nube del dolor hiera tu frente.
Que siempre pueda yo con alma ardiente
Apurar en tu alma inmaculada
Albas de luz y aromas del Oriente.
Tu hija: Ana Martí
To My Dear Mother on Her Day
What words are there that ever could convey
The deep emotion I feel in my heart
To see your halo illuminate the day,
And dawn, from tropic plain to woodland, start?
No joy more tender is there to exceed
The sweet expression of my happiness,
And I beseech God my prayer to heed
That sorrow's cloud your brow should never press
And I may always with a heart as ardent
Awaken in your own immaculate soul
The light of dawn and aromas of the Orient.
Your Daughter: Ana Martí
[Translated by Manuel A. Tellechea]
On this Mother's Day I am pleased to share with my readers this hitherto unknown poem whose authorship I have ascribed to José Martí, though it is signed by his sister Ana (Mariana Salustiana). The poem is dedicated to their mother Leonor Pérez on "su día," which was certainly her santo (Saint's Day) since neither birthdays nor Mother's Day were celebrated at the time. The poem dates from around 1866, when Martí would have been 13 and Ana 10. Since none of Martí's five sisters ever exhibited any literary inclinations or left any other poems or writings, it is not a farfetched conjecture that Martí wrote this poem for his sister to copy and present to their mother. The original, in my collection of martiana, is clearly in her handwriting, not Marti's. It also contains several neatly made corrections and additions from another hand, which we believe to be Martí's. Certainly the sophisticated style leaves no doubt as to Martí's authorship. The last line "Albas de luz y aromas del Oriente" is as characteristic of him as any line of poetry found in his writings. The precociousness of this composition, moreover, which not merely anticipates but suddenly explodes with the full bloom of Martí's genius, can leave no doubt as to our attribution.
In Seis Crónicas Inéditas de José Martí (Editorial Dos Ríos, 1997), which I had the honor to co-author with the eminent Cuban historian Carlos Ripoll, six unsigned articles by Martí were identified and translated (they had appeared originally in English in The New York Sun). These articles were later incorporated without our knowledge or consent, but, unexpectedly, with full acknowledgment to us, in volume 7 of the new "Edición Crítica" of Martí's Complete Works being currently published in Havana by the Centro de Estudios Martianos.
I consider this poem an even more important discovery than the six anonymous articles in The Sun, which, after all, were published 128 years ago in a well-known newspaper and would surely have been attributed to Martí by someone else some day, and, in any case, would never have been lost.
This poem, written on fragile tissue paper with embossed lacework borders, could have disappeared long ago and denied us this priceless example of Martí's juvenilia, of which there are very few surviving specimens. Among those is another adolescent poem dedicated to his mother as well as his earliest surviving letter, written at age 9, also written to her.
¿Qué frases había que demostrarle pueda
La intensa emoción del alma mía
Hoy que ilumina de tu aurora el día
El llano tropical y la arboleda?
No pueda haber quien en ternura exceda
A la dulce expresión de mi alegria,
Y ruego a Dios que nunca ¡oh madre mía!
La nube del dolor hiera tu frente.
Que siempre pueda yo con alma ardiente
Apurar en tu alma inmaculada
Albas de luz y aromas del Oriente.
Tu hija: Ana Martí
To My Dear Mother on Her Day
What words are there that ever could convey
The deep emotion I feel in my heart
To see your halo illuminate the day,
And dawn, from tropic plain to woodland, start?
No joy more tender is there to exceed
The sweet expression of my happiness,
And I beseech God my prayer to heed
That sorrow's cloud your brow should never press
And I may always with a heart as ardent
Awaken in your own immaculate soul
The light of dawn and aromas of the Orient.
Your Daughter: Ana Martí
[Translated by Manuel A. Tellechea]
On this Mother's Day I am pleased to share with my readers this hitherto unknown poem whose authorship I have ascribed to José Martí, though it is signed by his sister Ana (Mariana Salustiana). The poem is dedicated to their mother Leonor Pérez on "su día," which was certainly her santo (Saint's Day) since neither birthdays nor Mother's Day were celebrated at the time. The poem dates from around 1866, when Martí would have been 13 and Ana 10. Since none of Martí's five sisters ever exhibited any literary inclinations or left any other poems or writings, it is not a farfetched conjecture that Martí wrote this poem for his sister to copy and present to their mother. The original, in my collection of martiana, is clearly in her handwriting, not Marti's. It also contains several neatly made corrections and additions from another hand, which we believe to be Martí's. Certainly the sophisticated style leaves no doubt as to Martí's authorship. The last line "Albas de luz y aromas del Oriente" is as characteristic of him as any line of poetry found in his writings. The precociousness of this composition, moreover, which not merely anticipates but suddenly explodes with the full bloom of Martí's genius, can leave no doubt as to our attribution.
In Seis Crónicas Inéditas de José Martí (Editorial Dos Ríos, 1997), which I had the honor to co-author with the eminent Cuban historian Carlos Ripoll, six unsigned articles by Martí were identified and translated (they had appeared originally in English in The New York Sun). These articles were later incorporated without our knowledge or consent, but, unexpectedly, with full acknowledgment to us, in volume 7 of the new "Edición Crítica" of Martí's Complete Works being currently published in Havana by the Centro de Estudios Martianos.
I consider this poem an even more important discovery than the six anonymous articles in The Sun, which, after all, were published 128 years ago in a well-known newspaper and would surely have been attributed to Martí by someone else some day, and, in any case, would never have been lost.
This poem, written on fragile tissue paper with embossed lacework borders, could have disappeared long ago and denied us this priceless example of Martí's juvenilia, of which there are very few surviving specimens. Among those is another adolescent poem dedicated to his mother as well as his earliest surviving letter, written at age 9, also written to her.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Change at the Top at Babalú
Val Prieto is no longer Babalu's "editor-in-chief." He is now listed on its masthead as "Founding Editor." That title is usually accorded to the founder of a newspaper or magazine after he has retired, or, more commonly, expired.
It cannot be long before Val awards himself the title of "Augustus."
It cannot be long before Val awards himself the title of "Augustus."
Thursday, May 8, 2008
A Petition on Behalf of 220 Cuban Political Prisoners
I am going to endorse Val Prieto's appeal to all Cubans, regardless of parochial differences, to sign the petition calling for the release of Cuba's political prisoners which is being promoted by a coalition of human rights and civic organizations on the island, in exile and internationally, including Amnesty International, CANF, El Nuevo Herald, Freedom House, Las Damas en Blanco, Plantados and scores of other groups that do not always coalesce on the subject of Cuba. It is their objective to collect 1 million signatures in support of the petition. They could collect 100 million and it would not influence the Castro regime to cease being what it is and has always been -- the scourge of the Cuban people. I do not think that even those who are circulating the petition can have even the slightest hope that it will accomplish its stated end. What it will do, and what it has already done, is to unite disparate groups in common cause on behalf of Cuba, which is as important as obtaining the release of 220 Cuban political prisoners. So do sign the petition: it cannot do any harm and it has already done some good.
That much said, I would be less than honest if I did not point out that it is absolutely ridiculous, outrageous and inexcusable to claim that there are only 220 political prisoners in Castro's jails. That is like saying that there were only 660 inmates in Hitler's concentration camps (which, in fact, some Holocaust revisionists contend). In fact, most prisoners in Cuban jails are political prisoners because they have been convicted of "crimes" which are not penalized anywhere else but in Communist Cuba. It would be closer to the truth to say that every prisoner incarcerated by Castro is a political prisoner than to claim that only 220 are. Where there is no Rule of Law, there can be no justice. When the administration of what passes as "law" is in the hands of criminals and the State itself is a criminal enterprise, no man convicted under such a dispensation can be considered guilty and no sanction imposed on him legitimate. It is offensive to any concept of morality to claim that there could be one group of prisoners that received "justice" at the hands of a criminal State and another that did not.
Add three zeros to the end of "220" figure and you would be infinitely closer to the truth than without the three zeros. If the figure of "220" is all that these hundred-odd human rights groups could agree upon, then unity has been purchased at the price of historical accuracy, to put it as charitably as possible. Still, it is better to do something than to do nothing, to speak out than to remain silent. We do not always have the luxury of standing on principle when human lives are at stake. Sometimes the principle must be shunted aside in order to save the life. Better to save one drowning man from a shipwreck because one can than to let him drown because one cannot save the others.
So go ahead and sign the petition for the sake of the 220 and hope that by highlighting their plight you might be able to advance the cause of the other 220,000, or, indeed, 12 million:
http://www.peticioncuba.org/sign.php?l=en
That much said, I would be less than honest if I did not point out that it is absolutely ridiculous, outrageous and inexcusable to claim that there are only 220 political prisoners in Castro's jails. That is like saying that there were only 660 inmates in Hitler's concentration camps (which, in fact, some Holocaust revisionists contend). In fact, most prisoners in Cuban jails are political prisoners because they have been convicted of "crimes" which are not penalized anywhere else but in Communist Cuba. It would be closer to the truth to say that every prisoner incarcerated by Castro is a political prisoner than to claim that only 220 are. Where there is no Rule of Law, there can be no justice. When the administration of what passes as "law" is in the hands of criminals and the State itself is a criminal enterprise, no man convicted under such a dispensation can be considered guilty and no sanction imposed on him legitimate. It is offensive to any concept of morality to claim that there could be one group of prisoners that received "justice" at the hands of a criminal State and another that did not.
Add three zeros to the end of "220" figure and you would be infinitely closer to the truth than without the three zeros. If the figure of "220" is all that these hundred-odd human rights groups could agree upon, then unity has been purchased at the price of historical accuracy, to put it as charitably as possible. Still, it is better to do something than to do nothing, to speak out than to remain silent. We do not always have the luxury of standing on principle when human lives are at stake. Sometimes the principle must be shunted aside in order to save the life. Better to save one drowning man from a shipwreck because one can than to let him drown because one cannot save the others.
So go ahead and sign the petition for the sake of the 220 and hope that by highlighting their plight you might be able to advance the cause of the other 220,000, or, indeed, 12 million:
http://www.peticioncuba.org/sign.php?l=en
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The Rise and Fall of the United States: The Final Chapter?
The greatest charlatan in the history of American politics stands posed on the threshhold of the White House. Between Barack Obama and the end of American democracy stand Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hillary is as inexperienced and nearly as beholden to left-wing interests as Obama and she carries the worst imaginable baggage in the world (Bill). Still, she is so venal that it is doubtful she would ever topple the system that nurtured her. She would leave the presidency discredited, as did her husband; but the stronger for having survived her calamitous tenure. If Obama is elected, it is doubtful that the presidency as we know it will survive him. At least he will do everything in his power to make sure that it doesn't.
Obama differs, first and foremost, from Hillary in that he is a crackpot, while she is eminently practical and bereft of all illusions, cynical almost. By crackpot I mean, of course, that Obama is the spirit child of Jeremiah Wright. The reverend's skewered worldview is also Obama's, his belief that America is an agent of evil in the world that must be humbled is also shared by Obama, his willingness to appease America's enemies and his hostility to its allies, is also derived from Wright. Obama's politics revolve around Wright's teachings as the earth does around the sun. He has spent 20 years reflecting those beliefs before audiences receptive to them. Had Wright not exposed himself for what he was and left absolutely no room for maneuvering around him, Obama might even have selected him to offer the prayer at his inauguration.
Political platitudes, meaningless diatribes about indescript dreams a la Walt Disney, are the means Obama employs to conceal his real agenda. If he didn't believe that the American public would recoil at his thinking he would not endeavor camouflage it under popularist rhetoric which hints at everything but commits to nothing. If his message were safe for Americans to hear he would have no difficulty enunciating it. But the Wright debacle convinced Obama, or, rather, confirmed Obama in the belief, that the less Americans know about him and his associations, the better. Wright, of course, is not the worst of it. The reverend is merely a purveyor of hate, a divider, a despicable cheerleader of vicarious revolution, and, of course, Obama's mentor and spiritual guide. There are other longtime Obama supporters and sponsors to whom he is beholden not merely for ideas but for the means to advance rapidly in a career without acquiring any distinction in it. Thanks to them the senator with the least seniority and least distinguished record, who, in his 3 years in the Senate, has scrupulously avoided voting on any controversial issues while still managing to compile a 100% rating as a liberal, is going to be the nominee of the party whose last victory was obtained by running away from everything that the Democrats have stood for in the last 75 years.
That someone of his ideological purity, a socialist by any definition, has managed to challenge and nearly overthrow the political heir of that last victory, shows that the radicals within the Democratic party are taking it back with a vengeance. It is not that he they have co-opted Obama, but, rather, nurtured him from the first day of his political career. And, of course, we don't just mean just the limousine liberals, but the liberals behind the barricades, exemplified by the Weather Underground and other terrorist or quasi-terrortist organizations, soaked in Communist ideology, whose aim then and now is the overthrow of democracy in America and the imposition of a Castro-style dictatorship.
Obama's first act as president will be to redeem the debt which all radicals owe to Fidel Castro for fomenting unrest and supporting terrorism in this country for nearly 50 years. It is the mission of Barack Obama, one of the few things to which he has actually committed himself. His willingness to talk to Raúl Castro, or, even, to be drivelled upon by Fidel, is too great an obsession in him to be denied. By offering to negotiate with the Castro regime without prior conditions he has, in effect, not only validated every horror that Fidel Castro has perpetrated on the Cuban people in the last half-century but given the green light to any and all predations that Raúl might inflict on them between now and the time that Obama sits down to talk to him. As Obama exchanges pleasantries with Raúl, his henchmen could be torturing a political prisoner in the next room and it would make absolutely no difference to this moral apostate who asks nothing of tyrants but their hospitality.
Of course, Barack Obama is not yet president. There is one more hurdle that he must overcome. In the final battle against McCain, he will be seconded by the MSM, which have favored him in the race against Hillary but have not let their hand show until the very last days of the primary season. From the party conventions to the election, their bias will know no restraint and offer no apology. It would really be hopeless except for the fact that Obama's appeal is greatest in Democratic constituencies within predominantly Republican states. In the contest with Hillary he has lost all of the big states which he would have to carry in November in order to win the presidency. It is hard to imagine any coalition of states which he could assemble that would get him over the electoral vote hump. Obama will be a greater unifying force for Republicans than for Democrats (27% of whom affirm that they will not vote for Obama if he is their party's candidate). Bush's disastrous presidency and McCain's diluted conservative credentials will mean nothing when the prospect of an Obama presidency looms as the alternative.
Obama differs, first and foremost, from Hillary in that he is a crackpot, while she is eminently practical and bereft of all illusions, cynical almost. By crackpot I mean, of course, that Obama is the spirit child of Jeremiah Wright. The reverend's skewered worldview is also Obama's, his belief that America is an agent of evil in the world that must be humbled is also shared by Obama, his willingness to appease America's enemies and his hostility to its allies, is also derived from Wright. Obama's politics revolve around Wright's teachings as the earth does around the sun. He has spent 20 years reflecting those beliefs before audiences receptive to them. Had Wright not exposed himself for what he was and left absolutely no room for maneuvering around him, Obama might even have selected him to offer the prayer at his inauguration.
Political platitudes, meaningless diatribes about indescript dreams a la Walt Disney, are the means Obama employs to conceal his real agenda. If he didn't believe that the American public would recoil at his thinking he would not endeavor camouflage it under popularist rhetoric which hints at everything but commits to nothing. If his message were safe for Americans to hear he would have no difficulty enunciating it. But the Wright debacle convinced Obama, or, rather, confirmed Obama in the belief, that the less Americans know about him and his associations, the better. Wright, of course, is not the worst of it. The reverend is merely a purveyor of hate, a divider, a despicable cheerleader of vicarious revolution, and, of course, Obama's mentor and spiritual guide. There are other longtime Obama supporters and sponsors to whom he is beholden not merely for ideas but for the means to advance rapidly in a career without acquiring any distinction in it. Thanks to them the senator with the least seniority and least distinguished record, who, in his 3 years in the Senate, has scrupulously avoided voting on any controversial issues while still managing to compile a 100% rating as a liberal, is going to be the nominee of the party whose last victory was obtained by running away from everything that the Democrats have stood for in the last 75 years.
That someone of his ideological purity, a socialist by any definition, has managed to challenge and nearly overthrow the political heir of that last victory, shows that the radicals within the Democratic party are taking it back with a vengeance. It is not that he they have co-opted Obama, but, rather, nurtured him from the first day of his political career. And, of course, we don't just mean just the limousine liberals, but the liberals behind the barricades, exemplified by the Weather Underground and other terrorist or quasi-terrortist organizations, soaked in Communist ideology, whose aim then and now is the overthrow of democracy in America and the imposition of a Castro-style dictatorship.
Obama's first act as president will be to redeem the debt which all radicals owe to Fidel Castro for fomenting unrest and supporting terrorism in this country for nearly 50 years. It is the mission of Barack Obama, one of the few things to which he has actually committed himself. His willingness to talk to Raúl Castro, or, even, to be drivelled upon by Fidel, is too great an obsession in him to be denied. By offering to negotiate with the Castro regime without prior conditions he has, in effect, not only validated every horror that Fidel Castro has perpetrated on the Cuban people in the last half-century but given the green light to any and all predations that Raúl might inflict on them between now and the time that Obama sits down to talk to him. As Obama exchanges pleasantries with Raúl, his henchmen could be torturing a political prisoner in the next room and it would make absolutely no difference to this moral apostate who asks nothing of tyrants but their hospitality.
Of course, Barack Obama is not yet president. There is one more hurdle that he must overcome. In the final battle against McCain, he will be seconded by the MSM, which have favored him in the race against Hillary but have not let their hand show until the very last days of the primary season. From the party conventions to the election, their bias will know no restraint and offer no apology. It would really be hopeless except for the fact that Obama's appeal is greatest in Democratic constituencies within predominantly Republican states. In the contest with Hillary he has lost all of the big states which he would have to carry in November in order to win the presidency. It is hard to imagine any coalition of states which he could assemble that would get him over the electoral vote hump. Obama will be a greater unifying force for Republicans than for Democrats (27% of whom affirm that they will not vote for Obama if he is their party's candidate). Bush's disastrous presidency and McCain's diluted conservative credentials will mean nothing when the prospect of an Obama presidency looms as the alternative.
Prime Minister Offers Welfare to Jamaican Students in Cuba
"If you are Jamaicans studying here, we have a responsibility to all of you. Therefore, I intend to arrange that no matter what was the source of your scholarship, once you are here as Jamaican students, you are to be included in the programme of financial support that we offer." -- Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, while on a state visit to Cuba, May 4, 2008
No independent media is more pro-Castro than Jamaica's. It might be possible to say that its local media are even more pro-Castro than Communist Cuba's official media. The Cuban media, which is read worldwide through the internet, is somewhat constrained in its mendacity by that fact; but no one is monitoring Jamaica's media, and, therefore, there is no lie too big for them to report about Cuba. Nearly 50 years of such deceptive reportage has achieved near-unanimous support for the Castro regime among Jamaicans. Yet, there is this little thing that gives me hope, however. Jamaicans no longer flock to Cuba, as they did before 1959, in search of jobs and opportunities closed to them at home. In that respect Cuba was to Jamaica then what the U.S. is to Mexican migrants today. No longer. It is Cuba that is poor now and Jamaica that is (relatively) wealthy, thanks, no doubt, to the imposition of Communism in Cuba, which did more to spur Jamaica's development than any other factor in its history.
Obviously, Jamaicans do have some inkling of the truth beneath the hard veneer of respect for the traditional regional hagemon. Ironically, the couriers of the truth about Cuba are the Jamaican students sent there to study on scholarship. They live very close to the Cuban people, that is, they are not immured like Europeans from the misery of their existance but eat (or don't eat) at the same table.
The regime hopes these becados will be good-will ambassadors and staunch supporters of Cuban-Jamaican solidarity in the future, that is, when the degrees they acquired in Cuba secure them lucrative employment at home as doctors, engineers and government officials, something, incidentally, which the same degrees won't do for their Cuban counterparts unless they, too, leave Cuba.
In the meantime, however, the Jamaican students must survive their stay in Cuba and they have grown tired, it seems, of doing in Cuba as the Cubans do. The becados have used the occasion of Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding's ongoing three-day visit to Cuba to petition their government for more financial assistance. Those on scholarship who were sent there under an agreement with the Jamaican government and Castro regime are already receiving assistance, but those sponsored by Jamaica's former ruling party under an agreement with Cuba's Communist Party were not. The prime minister has promised that all Jamaican students in Cuba will henceforth be entititled to participate in his country's programme of financial support (i.e. welfare). He has also pledged to raise the annual stipend above the current U.S. $1200 per annum, which he called "inadequate."
Consider that the average Cuban earns $180 per year and Jamaican welfare in comparison seems almost princely. The Jamaican Gleaner, in reporting this news, was careful not to elaborate on it. Perhaps it hopes that Jamaicans will think that their government is only now providing for its students what Cuba has always furnished to theirs. A great deal of propaganda about Communist Cuba involves not only reproducing the official lies but withholding any information that would expose the lies. In this case, however, the facts speak for themselves. To live as Cubans do has now been deemed "inadequate" by Jamaica's own prime minister. Castro offers Jamaican students everything that Cubans students get, including meals and lodging. Yet not only is this "inadequate" for Jamaicans but US$1200 on top of that is also deemed "inadequate!"
There are several hundred thousand Cubans that are descendents of Jamaicans who arrived in Cuba before 1959, many of these sons and daughters of Jamaicans (and hence holding dual nationality). Prime Minister Golding will be meeting with representatives of Cuban-Jamaicans today. I hope he offers them the same generous assistance that he has extended to Jamaican students in Cuba.
Also of interest:
Cuban Ambassador Puts On Fashion Show In Jamaica to Mark "Cuba Day" There (Updated)
Notable & Cretinous: Cubans Have Enemies in Their Backyard, Too
No independent media is more pro-Castro than Jamaica's. It might be possible to say that its local media are even more pro-Castro than Communist Cuba's official media. The Cuban media, which is read worldwide through the internet, is somewhat constrained in its mendacity by that fact; but no one is monitoring Jamaica's media, and, therefore, there is no lie too big for them to report about Cuba. Nearly 50 years of such deceptive reportage has achieved near-unanimous support for the Castro regime among Jamaicans. Yet, there is this little thing that gives me hope, however. Jamaicans no longer flock to Cuba, as they did before 1959, in search of jobs and opportunities closed to them at home. In that respect Cuba was to Jamaica then what the U.S. is to Mexican migrants today. No longer. It is Cuba that is poor now and Jamaica that is (relatively) wealthy, thanks, no doubt, to the imposition of Communism in Cuba, which did more to spur Jamaica's development than any other factor in its history.
Obviously, Jamaicans do have some inkling of the truth beneath the hard veneer of respect for the traditional regional hagemon. Ironically, the couriers of the truth about Cuba are the Jamaican students sent there to study on scholarship. They live very close to the Cuban people, that is, they are not immured like Europeans from the misery of their existance but eat (or don't eat) at the same table.
The regime hopes these becados will be good-will ambassadors and staunch supporters of Cuban-Jamaican solidarity in the future, that is, when the degrees they acquired in Cuba secure them lucrative employment at home as doctors, engineers and government officials, something, incidentally, which the same degrees won't do for their Cuban counterparts unless they, too, leave Cuba.
In the meantime, however, the Jamaican students must survive their stay in Cuba and they have grown tired, it seems, of doing in Cuba as the Cubans do. The becados have used the occasion of Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding's ongoing three-day visit to Cuba to petition their government for more financial assistance. Those on scholarship who were sent there under an agreement with the Jamaican government and Castro regime are already receiving assistance, but those sponsored by Jamaica's former ruling party under an agreement with Cuba's Communist Party were not. The prime minister has promised that all Jamaican students in Cuba will henceforth be entititled to participate in his country's programme of financial support (i.e. welfare). He has also pledged to raise the annual stipend above the current U.S. $1200 per annum, which he called "inadequate."
Consider that the average Cuban earns $180 per year and Jamaican welfare in comparison seems almost princely. The Jamaican Gleaner, in reporting this news, was careful not to elaborate on it. Perhaps it hopes that Jamaicans will think that their government is only now providing for its students what Cuba has always furnished to theirs. A great deal of propaganda about Communist Cuba involves not only reproducing the official lies but withholding any information that would expose the lies. In this case, however, the facts speak for themselves. To live as Cubans do has now been deemed "inadequate" by Jamaica's own prime minister. Castro offers Jamaican students everything that Cubans students get, including meals and lodging. Yet not only is this "inadequate" for Jamaicans but US$1200 on top of that is also deemed "inadequate!"
There are several hundred thousand Cubans that are descendents of Jamaicans who arrived in Cuba before 1959, many of these sons and daughters of Jamaicans (and hence holding dual nationality). Prime Minister Golding will be meeting with representatives of Cuban-Jamaicans today. I hope he offers them the same generous assistance that he has extended to Jamaican students in Cuba.
Also of interest:
Cuban Ambassador Puts On Fashion Show In Jamaica to Mark "Cuba Day" There (Updated)
Notable & Cretinous: Cubans Have Enemies in Their Backyard, Too
Monday, May 5, 2008
Finally, the "Breakout Post" at Babalú! ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale!
Cinco de Mayo has proved to be a lucky day at Babalú and its denizens are celebrating in the spirit of the day by drinking themselves into a stupor. Finally, one of their posts has taken off and reached a new record of 18 comments. Granted, it has taken the efforts of half its contributing editors to reach that landmark number, and even then the 18 are only two comments more than Babalú's roster of contributors. But "let's not be small, let's not keep books."
The post ("Happy Cinco De Mayo Infidels") is not about Cuba. Nearly or remotely. It's all about the occasions for drinking which the different (inter)national holidays provide for Americans (St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, etc.). Cigar Mike — and now we have a better idea of why he chose that name — also mentions Bob Marley's birthday as an occasion for "smoking a spliff or drinking Red Stripe (although I think that beer taste like swill — sorry folks).
What can we say?
What is there left to say?
Is my own commentary even necessary anymore?
They have crossed the Rubicon of meaninglessness and have taken the beachhead of stupidity.
The post ("Happy Cinco De Mayo Infidels") is not about Cuba. Nearly or remotely. It's all about the occasions for drinking which the different (inter)national holidays provide for Americans (St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, etc.). Cigar Mike — and now we have a better idea of why he chose that name — also mentions Bob Marley's birthday as an occasion for "smoking a spliff or drinking Red Stripe (although I think that beer taste like swill — sorry folks).
What can we say?
What is there left to say?
Is my own commentary even necessary anymore?
They have crossed the Rubicon of meaninglessness and have taken the beachhead of stupidity.
No Food, No Freedom and No Sex Equals Freedom for Cubans, Says Val
Val informs us that there are eight guys at his house from three different companies trying to repair the damage that he did to his kitchen during his recent do-it-yourself-if-you-are-a-fool renovation ["Anecdotal Statistics," Babalú, May 5]. Most of them are recent arrivals from Cuba (for Val even the marielitos are arrivistes). As in the past when he has entertained other proletarians in his home, Val, having nothing else to do, took it upon himself to harass these men as they went about their work, grilling them like some political commissar about their lives in Cuba or prospects in this country, ready to throw them out of his house if anyone manifested some sign of diversionism. To the men themselves Val must have sounded like some little boy who thinks that the men in hard-hats in his house have been sent there to entertain him.
It has long been Val's contention that these recent arrivals are mutated Cubans, having a passing resemblance in the externals to the originals, but woefully deformed in their internal make-up. Val believes the Revolution has conditioned them to be without ambition, robbed them of all initiative and created the expectation that the State would do for them what they won't do for themselves, do it badly and incompletely, granted, and at a very high cost in human dignity and personal freedom, but, in the end, do it nonetheless. He is, therefore, beside himself to discover that despite his worst expectations Cubans raised on the island do have dreams that transcend the ration card and are willing to work 16-hour days to give their children a better life in this country. In short, he is shocked to discover that they are just like us, more, they are us.
So why is this so extraordinary to Val?
It is only the opportunity that the newcomers require; the ambition and initiative have always been there, despite the regime's efforts to crush individuality and stamp out self-sufficiency. But why would Val doubt it and be flabbergasted at the evidence of it? Does he believe that his parents and their generation discovered the work ethic when they arrived in this country, Val in tow, forty odd years ago? Ambition is an innate quality; it can be suffocated in man but can never be extinguished.
At least these latest Cuban handymen were not the great disappointment to him that another ambitious newcomer was last year. Imagine! This guy wanted to save his money so he could visit the island and see his parents, and, horror of horrors, get "laid right and left!" Since he didn't mention a spouse and supposing that he wasn't raping little girls, why the hell should it matter to Val if the guy gets laid from one end of the island to the other? It is not a crime (as yet) for Cubans to have consensual sex on the island. Should it be made a crime to turn up the valve on Val's proverbial pressure cooker? No food, no freedom and no sex, will that do the trick, Val? Will that make you feel better? Of course, Cubans shouldn't have sex because they need all their energy to throw themselves in front of tanks in order to pave the road so that Val himself may be able to return to Cuba some day, and, maybe, even have sex there, when that, of course, is no longer a "revolutionary activity."
The Cuban whom Val berated for wishing to visit and help his family on the island, and, btw, according to Val, for wanting to "get laid right and left" there, supposedly called Val a "gusano." This I doubt very much. Many other words would have been more appropriate. You are thinking of many right now.
It has long been Val's contention that these recent arrivals are mutated Cubans, having a passing resemblance in the externals to the originals, but woefully deformed in their internal make-up. Val believes the Revolution has conditioned them to be without ambition, robbed them of all initiative and created the expectation that the State would do for them what they won't do for themselves, do it badly and incompletely, granted, and at a very high cost in human dignity and personal freedom, but, in the end, do it nonetheless. He is, therefore, beside himself to discover that despite his worst expectations Cubans raised on the island do have dreams that transcend the ration card and are willing to work 16-hour days to give their children a better life in this country. In short, he is shocked to discover that they are just like us, more, they are us.
So why is this so extraordinary to Val?
It is only the opportunity that the newcomers require; the ambition and initiative have always been there, despite the regime's efforts to crush individuality and stamp out self-sufficiency. But why would Val doubt it and be flabbergasted at the evidence of it? Does he believe that his parents and their generation discovered the work ethic when they arrived in this country, Val in tow, forty odd years ago? Ambition is an innate quality; it can be suffocated in man but can never be extinguished.
At least these latest Cuban handymen were not the great disappointment to him that another ambitious newcomer was last year. Imagine! This guy wanted to save his money so he could visit the island and see his parents, and, horror of horrors, get "laid right and left!" Since he didn't mention a spouse and supposing that he wasn't raping little girls, why the hell should it matter to Val if the guy gets laid from one end of the island to the other? It is not a crime (as yet) for Cubans to have consensual sex on the island. Should it be made a crime to turn up the valve on Val's proverbial pressure cooker? No food, no freedom and no sex, will that do the trick, Val? Will that make you feel better? Of course, Cubans shouldn't have sex because they need all their energy to throw themselves in front of tanks in order to pave the road so that Val himself may be able to return to Cuba some day, and, maybe, even have sex there, when that, of course, is no longer a "revolutionary activity."
The Cuban whom Val berated for wishing to visit and help his family on the island, and, btw, according to Val, for wanting to "get laid right and left" there, supposedly called Val a "gusano." This I doubt very much. Many other words would have been more appropriate. You are thinking of many right now.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Why There Has Been No Successful Revolution to Overthrow Castro in 49 Years
Why hasn't there been a revolution in Cuba to topple Fidel Castro? That question is often posed in defense of the Cuban dictator as if the absence of such a revolution argued against the need for one or represented a silent — very silent — referendum on Castro's continuation in power. Of course, there have been many foiled revolutions against the Castro regime over the last 49 years, more, in fact, than we know or will know until the mass graves are excavated and the witnesses can at last break their silence.
In the early years of the regime it was more difficult to conceal popular uprisings: the anti-Castro rebels in the Escambray Mountains, who waged a real revolution as opposed to Castro's operetta revolution in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, were too numerous and successful over too protracted a time to be ignored, and were not, ultimately, defeated by Castro but abandoned by the the Americans, as the freedom fighters of the Brigade 2506 had been abandoned before them. The fact remains, however, that all these attempts to topple Castro, known and unknown, great and small, have failed. Putting aside for the moment U.S. duplicity as a factor, why has no revolution succeeded in toppling a regime which only the greatest disdain for the Cuban people could suppose is acceptable to them or worthy of them?
Perhaps if we examine the history of other revolutions the answer will become clearer.
The American Revolution was possible because Britain's colonial subjects enjoyed all the rights of Englishmen, and, therefore, were the freest people on earth, so free, in fact, that they regarded a penny tax on tea as "tyranny."
The American Republic itself, which replicated British liberties in its Constitution and Bill of Rights, nearly succumbed to a domestic revolution shortly after it was founded known as the "Whiskey Rebellion," when Americans, taught to regard taxation as tyranny, rose against their government because it levied a tax on distilled spirits. Washington himself marched at the head of the army against the "rebellers" (i.e. revolutionists). It was the Whiskey Rebellion that was the real "Second American Revolution," not the War of 1812. If this country's Founding Fathers had created a police state rather than a democracy (flawed, but still a democracy), there would have been no Whiskey Rebellion or even the Great Rebellion (i.e. Civil War), for that matter, because it is freedom not the absence of freedom that provides the necessary conditions for revolutions, rebellions and civil wars.
At the time of the French Revolution, the peasantry of France was Europe's wealthiest and could well afford to eat cake, the popular myth notwithstanding. The Bourbons, though autocratic, were not despotic. When the Bastille was stormed, no political prisoners were found inside and the revolutionaries had to content themselves with freeing a pedophile (the prison's sole inmate). The guillotine was introduced by the Revolution and thousands of political dissidents or just "people in the way" fell prey to it. Under Louis XVI, there were no executions of the opposition. The Reign of Terror began with the Revolution, not the King.
The outcomes of the American Revolution and French Revolution were quite different, but both were made possible because neither George III nor Louis XVI was a despot. Revolutions require a certain amount of freedom to succeed. There has never been a successful revolution against a police state; nor was a revolution ever waged by people with empty bellies. It is the day-to-day struggle to avoid starvation that keeps the people too busy to rebel. A man who is too hungry to rise in the morning will never be able to rise in arms in the evening.
The Cuban Revolution was no exception to this rule, and the fact that the Castro regime is still in power also conforms to it. Before 1959, Cubans enjoyed the highest standard of living in Latin America and were constrained by none of the restrictions of a police state. Most importantly, the Rule of Law prevailed and there was no capital punishment. Castro, when he surrendered in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Moncada barracks, did so because he knew his life was inviolate and that he would live to fight (or run) another day.
Cubans have no such assurances today. Castro's Cuba is a police state which uses food (rationed in Cuba for 47 years) as an instrument of social control and requires internal passports to move from province to province, or city to city. Official permission is even necessary to move to another house across the street and the authorities must be notified when guests (even family) are staying in one's home. On every street, of course, there is an official neighborhood vigilante committee charged with spying upon and denouncing all "unusual activity."
Before Fidel Castro confiscated anything else, he took all firearms from the Cuban people. There was no "gun control" in the Thirteen Colonies, Bourbon France or Batista's Cuba. Without food, without freedom of action and without guns no revolution can succeed. Or, rather, every revolution which is attempted will fail.
The fact that there has been no successful effort to overthrow Fidel Castro in the last 49 years does not argue that the Cuban people have not wanted to overthrow him but that it is impossible for them to do so under prevailing circumstances. They can, certainly, shed rivers of blood; the regime will surely oblige them in that respect and has. They can fill the prisons and the regime will build more prisons; the only "housing stock," incidentally, that has increased in Cuba over the last half century. The Cuban people can choose to die on their feet rather than live on their knees, which means, of course, that they can commit collective suicide and end up that much closer to the ground.
The path that they have taken may not be more heroic but it is certainly more practical than walking off a cliff, which is what Gandhi advised Jews to do in the face of the Holocaust to give the rest of mankind a lesson in "moral greatness." Of course, there can be no morality where there are no mortals, nor humanity without humans. The greatest resistance to tyranny is not to die but to survive. Cubans have had enough martyrs to last us 1000 years, indeed, to share with all mankind. We do not need more martyrs. We needs more survivors, or else the future will not belong to men who love liberty but to men who are content with tyranny.
In the early years of the regime it was more difficult to conceal popular uprisings: the anti-Castro rebels in the Escambray Mountains, who waged a real revolution as opposed to Castro's operetta revolution in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, were too numerous and successful over too protracted a time to be ignored, and were not, ultimately, defeated by Castro but abandoned by the the Americans, as the freedom fighters of the Brigade 2506 had been abandoned before them. The fact remains, however, that all these attempts to topple Castro, known and unknown, great and small, have failed. Putting aside for the moment U.S. duplicity as a factor, why has no revolution succeeded in toppling a regime which only the greatest disdain for the Cuban people could suppose is acceptable to them or worthy of them?
Perhaps if we examine the history of other revolutions the answer will become clearer.
The American Revolution was possible because Britain's colonial subjects enjoyed all the rights of Englishmen, and, therefore, were the freest people on earth, so free, in fact, that they regarded a penny tax on tea as "tyranny."
The American Republic itself, which replicated British liberties in its Constitution and Bill of Rights, nearly succumbed to a domestic revolution shortly after it was founded known as the "Whiskey Rebellion," when Americans, taught to regard taxation as tyranny, rose against their government because it levied a tax on distilled spirits. Washington himself marched at the head of the army against the "rebellers" (i.e. revolutionists). It was the Whiskey Rebellion that was the real "Second American Revolution," not the War of 1812. If this country's Founding Fathers had created a police state rather than a democracy (flawed, but still a democracy), there would have been no Whiskey Rebellion or even the Great Rebellion (i.e. Civil War), for that matter, because it is freedom not the absence of freedom that provides the necessary conditions for revolutions, rebellions and civil wars.
At the time of the French Revolution, the peasantry of France was Europe's wealthiest and could well afford to eat cake, the popular myth notwithstanding. The Bourbons, though autocratic, were not despotic. When the Bastille was stormed, no political prisoners were found inside and the revolutionaries had to content themselves with freeing a pedophile (the prison's sole inmate). The guillotine was introduced by the Revolution and thousands of political dissidents or just "people in the way" fell prey to it. Under Louis XVI, there were no executions of the opposition. The Reign of Terror began with the Revolution, not the King.
The outcomes of the American Revolution and French Revolution were quite different, but both were made possible because neither George III nor Louis XVI was a despot. Revolutions require a certain amount of freedom to succeed. There has never been a successful revolution against a police state; nor was a revolution ever waged by people with empty bellies. It is the day-to-day struggle to avoid starvation that keeps the people too busy to rebel. A man who is too hungry to rise in the morning will never be able to rise in arms in the evening.
The Cuban Revolution was no exception to this rule, and the fact that the Castro regime is still in power also conforms to it. Before 1959, Cubans enjoyed the highest standard of living in Latin America and were constrained by none of the restrictions of a police state. Most importantly, the Rule of Law prevailed and there was no capital punishment. Castro, when he surrendered in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Moncada barracks, did so because he knew his life was inviolate and that he would live to fight (or run) another day.
Cubans have no such assurances today. Castro's Cuba is a police state which uses food (rationed in Cuba for 47 years) as an instrument of social control and requires internal passports to move from province to province, or city to city. Official permission is even necessary to move to another house across the street and the authorities must be notified when guests (even family) are staying in one's home. On every street, of course, there is an official neighborhood vigilante committee charged with spying upon and denouncing all "unusual activity."
Before Fidel Castro confiscated anything else, he took all firearms from the Cuban people. There was no "gun control" in the Thirteen Colonies, Bourbon France or Batista's Cuba. Without food, without freedom of action and without guns no revolution can succeed. Or, rather, every revolution which is attempted will fail.
The fact that there has been no successful effort to overthrow Fidel Castro in the last 49 years does not argue that the Cuban people have not wanted to overthrow him but that it is impossible for them to do so under prevailing circumstances. They can, certainly, shed rivers of blood; the regime will surely oblige them in that respect and has. They can fill the prisons and the regime will build more prisons; the only "housing stock," incidentally, that has increased in Cuba over the last half century. The Cuban people can choose to die on their feet rather than live on their knees, which means, of course, that they can commit collective suicide and end up that much closer to the ground.
The path that they have taken may not be more heroic but it is certainly more practical than walking off a cliff, which is what Gandhi advised Jews to do in the face of the Holocaust to give the rest of mankind a lesson in "moral greatness." Of course, there can be no morality where there are no mortals, nor humanity without humans. The greatest resistance to tyranny is not to die but to survive. Cubans have had enough martyrs to last us 1000 years, indeed, to share with all mankind. We do not need more martyrs. We needs more survivors, or else the future will not belong to men who love liberty but to men who are content with tyranny.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Notable & Prophetic: Obama Reaps What Wright Sowed
"Our choices have consequences, and our behavior has consequences. I've told you for over three decades now: God will forgive you for sowing wild oats. But God's forgiveness don't stop the crop. Them oats you sowed will bring a crop. You will reap what you sow. But stop calling your crops your cross. "Well... that child is just my cross." No, that child is your crop. A cross is a sacrificial vehicle of redemption that you voluntarily pick up; a crop is the result of something you sowed. Our choices have consequences, our behaviors have consequences." — Rev. Jeremiah Wright, sermon delivered on January 27, 2008, at Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois
Barack Obama has been very reluctant to gather the crops that he has sown. The reverend is right, for once, that our choices and behaviors have consequences. When Obama joined Wright's congregation, he made a choice and now he is dealing with the consequences of that choice. For 15 years he sat first alone and then with his family imbibing his religion and forming his social conscience under the tutelage of his minister. Obama has called Wright his greatest teacher because he led him to Christ. Now, there are many ways to reach Christ and not all are straight; but surely Obama chose for himself one of the crookedest, and if it led him to Christ then indeed it was a miracle. Wright's teaching could well have led him in another direction as it apparently has led the minister himself.
Wright occupied in Obama's moral cosmology a central place, not the "tangential" one which he now attributes to him. Wright is correct to question the sincerity of Obamas's efforts to distance himself from him. If not political expediency, then how to explain the fact that only when the propriety of his relationship with Wright was questioned did Obama feel the compulsion to disavow Wright's more outrageous contentions while never actually disowning Wright? A coincidence? Can anyone believe that if Rev. Wright's opinions had not been publicized by the media and Obama himself placed in the position of defending the indefensible or repudiating it, that Obama would ever of his own volition have labelled Wright's beliefs "divisive and destructive?"
If he had done so on his own it would be possible to contend that moral outrage, not just political opportunism, played a part in his decision. But Obama either agreed with or disregarded the content in Wright's sermons, served to him 52 times a year for 15 years. Did he manage to miss all 780 sermons preached to the congregants of Trinity United during all that time? All of Rev. Wright's sermons contain poisonous weeds and all are alike incendiary and offensive. A little bit will certainly do you; but even the great heapfuls that Obama was fed over 15 years were not enough for him to develop a distaste for the racist mythology and visceral anti-Americanism which are its permanent themes. Did Obama dismiss it all as bombastic rhetoric? If so, then how did Wright become his mentor? Do honest men blindly follow the preaching of demagogues? Or did Obama agree with Wright's peculiar take on religion, history and politics? That would seem a logical conclusion given the influence which Obama himself acknowledged Wright had exerted over him.
Or is Obama himself Rev. Wright's "crop?" Or is he Wright's "cross?" Obviously, Obama is the best thing that could have happened to Wright. No cross to him but a most bountiful harvest. Thanks to Obama Wright has become a national figure. Don't fool yourself that notoriety is all that he has reaped. He has his legions of admirers in the black community just like Minister Farrakhan, Wright's own "mentor." Not a small minority of blacks actually believe that Obama has betrayed Wright and hence the black community to ingratiate himself to the white establishment. They'll still vote for him, of course, but they believe that in the contest between Wright and Obama it is the reverend who has the "moral" high ground. It would not be surprising if Rev. Wright got a multi-million dollar book contract to publish his execrable sermons. Not even Billy Graham did that well and he was much more popular; nor Archbishop Sheen, who was an intellectual giant compared to both of them.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright was not joking when he said that he might be picked to run as Obama's vice-president. In fact, he is already running as his "vice president." The two are now inseparable in the public consciousness; no "vice president" in history is as completely identified with the presidential contender as Wright is with Obama. Wright has certainly reaped quite a bonanza from the seeds he planted in his surrogate son. The son also got more than he bargained for. But as the reverend said, "Our choices have consequences, our behaviors have consequences."
[Yes, another post on Obama. While his ship is sinking, we insist on documenting that fact].
Barack Obama has been very reluctant to gather the crops that he has sown. The reverend is right, for once, that our choices and behaviors have consequences. When Obama joined Wright's congregation, he made a choice and now he is dealing with the consequences of that choice. For 15 years he sat first alone and then with his family imbibing his religion and forming his social conscience under the tutelage of his minister. Obama has called Wright his greatest teacher because he led him to Christ. Now, there are many ways to reach Christ and not all are straight; but surely Obama chose for himself one of the crookedest, and if it led him to Christ then indeed it was a miracle. Wright's teaching could well have led him in another direction as it apparently has led the minister himself.
Wright occupied in Obama's moral cosmology a central place, not the "tangential" one which he now attributes to him. Wright is correct to question the sincerity of Obamas's efforts to distance himself from him. If not political expediency, then how to explain the fact that only when the propriety of his relationship with Wright was questioned did Obama feel the compulsion to disavow Wright's more outrageous contentions while never actually disowning Wright? A coincidence? Can anyone believe that if Rev. Wright's opinions had not been publicized by the media and Obama himself placed in the position of defending the indefensible or repudiating it, that Obama would ever of his own volition have labelled Wright's beliefs "divisive and destructive?"
If he had done so on his own it would be possible to contend that moral outrage, not just political opportunism, played a part in his decision. But Obama either agreed with or disregarded the content in Wright's sermons, served to him 52 times a year for 15 years. Did he manage to miss all 780 sermons preached to the congregants of Trinity United during all that time? All of Rev. Wright's sermons contain poisonous weeds and all are alike incendiary and offensive. A little bit will certainly do you; but even the great heapfuls that Obama was fed over 15 years were not enough for him to develop a distaste for the racist mythology and visceral anti-Americanism which are its permanent themes. Did Obama dismiss it all as bombastic rhetoric? If so, then how did Wright become his mentor? Do honest men blindly follow the preaching of demagogues? Or did Obama agree with Wright's peculiar take on religion, history and politics? That would seem a logical conclusion given the influence which Obama himself acknowledged Wright had exerted over him.
Or is Obama himself Rev. Wright's "crop?" Or is he Wright's "cross?" Obviously, Obama is the best thing that could have happened to Wright. No cross to him but a most bountiful harvest. Thanks to Obama Wright has become a national figure. Don't fool yourself that notoriety is all that he has reaped. He has his legions of admirers in the black community just like Minister Farrakhan, Wright's own "mentor." Not a small minority of blacks actually believe that Obama has betrayed Wright and hence the black community to ingratiate himself to the white establishment. They'll still vote for him, of course, but they believe that in the contest between Wright and Obama it is the reverend who has the "moral" high ground. It would not be surprising if Rev. Wright got a multi-million dollar book contract to publish his execrable sermons. Not even Billy Graham did that well and he was much more popular; nor Archbishop Sheen, who was an intellectual giant compared to both of them.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright was not joking when he said that he might be picked to run as Obama's vice-president. In fact, he is already running as his "vice president." The two are now inseparable in the public consciousness; no "vice president" in history is as completely identified with the presidential contender as Wright is with Obama. Wright has certainly reaped quite a bonanza from the seeds he planted in his surrogate son. The son also got more than he bargained for. But as the reverend said, "Our choices have consequences, our behaviors have consequences."
[Yes, another post on Obama. While his ship is sinking, we insist on documenting that fact].
Word(s) of the Day
obamafy: To lose an election because one has failed, or is perceived to have failed, to disassociate himself in a timely or sufficient manner from a racist religious figure and former mentor
obamanitis: a chronic condition whose sufferers believe that they can fool all of the people all of the time
obamanitis: a chronic condition whose sufferers believe that they can fool all of the people all of the time
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