Elián's Never-Ending Saga

The Americans that favored the return of Elián to Communist Cuba wanted to see the boy reunited with his father even if it was in hell, and they all knew that it was hell that awaited him in Cuba. Every poll that has ever been taken since 1961 about the attitude of Americans towards Communist Cuba or Fidel Castro has shown that better than 85% disapproved of both. Despite the media's best (worst) efforts over 50 years to deny the reality of Communist Cuba, Americans were never fooled. Why, then, knowing the nature of the Castro regime, did they nonetheless wish to see Elián thrown down the same well from which he was miraculously rescued?

It wasn't because they felt any kind of sympathy for the boy, who should, of course, have commanded sympathy even from the stones given the tragic circumstances of his sojourn to this country and the forces that coalesced against him here to deprive him of freedom and insure his destruction.

Nor do I believe their general attitude towards him had anything to do with the sacredness of the paternal bond or parental rights. Both are abused enough in this country for there to be tens of millions of poster kids for these causes other than Elián, whose peculiar situation bore no relation to these constructs as understood in this country. The paternal bond in Cuba is superceded by the State's propitiary claims over the lives and persons of every Cuban, child or not, and parental rights as understood in the U.S. do not exist since no rights of any kind can be exercised in Cuba contrary to the interests of the State.

What, then, motivated the frenzy to return Elián to Communist Cuba?

The desire of Americans to rid themselves of the littlest "illegal immigrant" (which Elián never was).

The Know-Nothing xenophobia that was predicated by the history professor from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, was responsible for creating the climate in this country that allowed the deportation -- for such it was, and at gunpoint, no less -- of Elián González to Castro's untender mercies. It was Gingrich who dehumanized foreigners, especially children, by supporting legislation that would have deprived "anchor babies" of citizenship, barred them from schools, or, at least, deprived them of their school lunch. Clinton tapped into the hatred that Gingrich had exploited when he mobilized all the resources of the government with the expressed purpose of making this innocent child the scapegoat for this country's failure to control its borders. The "Dry Foot/Wet Foot" policy also scapegoated Cuban refugees for a crisis in illegal immigration that had nothing to do with them since a 30-year old law known as the Cuban Adjustment Act (1966) sanctioned the admission of all Cuban refugees to this country as legal residents. Ironically, it was Elián and all future balseros who ultimately paid the price for Gingrich's xenophobia and Clinton's opportunism. Meanwhile, 10 million illegal immigrants entered the U.S. from other countries than Cuba and have never been penalized for it and likely never will (or should) be.

Today, in Little Havana, a day prior to Obama's visit to Miami, Elián's great-uncle, Delfín González, will hold a press conference to denounce the fact that two of the principal actors in the Elián affaire, Greg Craig and Eric Holder, are now key advisers to Barack Obama. The-then Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder, who planned the logistics of Elián's kidnapping, is now in charge of the advisory committee that will vet Obama's running-mate and is likely to be named Attorney General in a future Obama administration. Castro's (and Clinton's) lawyer and longtime unregistered agent of influence of the Cuban regime, Greg Craig, who ostensibly represented Elián's father and provided a "safe haven" to father and son in his own house under the surveillance of Castro agents from the Cuban Interests Section, is now Obama's advisor on Latin America and probable choice for Under-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.

Although I agree that it is important that Cuban-Americans be made aware of this situation, if there is any one foolish enough even to consider voting for Obama given his pledge to negotiate with Raúl without prior conditions, I don't think the González's denunciation will have much impact outside Miami or New Jersey.

Nothing has changed in the last eight years; if anything, the xenophobia has only deepened. I don't believe that Americans feel the least pangs of conscience about Elián's fate. Over the last eight years he has been seen on Fidel's lap at mass rallies; giving public speeches on behalf of the regime; and this week being inducted into the Young Communist League, which, if you believe CNN, means that he will have a "bright future" as one of Cuba's elites.

None of those who brought about that "bright future" for Elián has been asked his reaction to the predictable turn that Elián's life has taken.

Really, what could they say?

"I thought he would be turned in a Castroite puppet."

Or:

"I didn't think he would be turned into a Castroite puppet."

Neither answer says much for their judgment.

Of course, there is a worse one:

"I am happy that Elián is a Young Communist."

The Miami Herald contends that Barack Obama, then an Illinois legislator, took no position at the time on the Elián case. He would have been the only politician, great or small, who didn't. But even and especially if that were true, he should be asked whether he would have done what Clinton did; and, in retrospect, knowing what (inevitably) befell Elián, whether he thinks Clinton made the right decision.

Fidel Castro Is Now Deaf and Mute

Fidel Castro is dying by installments and it is hard to decide whether to wish him a quick release (which, sadly, his death will not mean for the Cuban people) or to let him linger as long as his brother does, letting him suffer those thousand deaths of a coward which he has so richly earned. Since man can die only once, it is the loss of his faculties, one by one, that constitutes this multitudinous death of cowards. The loss of his ability to excrete, which turned inward the maleficent rain that had been pouring on the Cuban people ever since he first opened his mouth in a public forum, was a poetic start. Few men in history have worn out their anus. The proof, if any is needed, is that even Fidel's brother has managed to keep his.

This was followed by the visible diminishment of his mental faculties. His toadies always marvelled at this encyclopedic knowledge. Undoubtedly, he did have a vast capacity for accumulation but was nearly retarded when it came to the assimilation of that knowledge. The encyclopedia that sits on your bookshelf is not a living organism. Neither was Fidel's brain. Now that library of arcane trivia and truncated statistics has shut down. Accumulating at its door are fliers and yellowed newspapers and it is these which are the only sources at his command now. Fidel has lost the ability to impress useful idiots with his diffuse knowledge. He can now only continue that illusion with his silence. But this is not the reason that the audio was turned off in his latest televised appearance this week.

The reason is that Fidel is deaf and quickly becoming mute as well.

In his latest video, the first issued in 6 months, Fidel is shown wearing a hearing aid. His artificial anus may have come from South Korea but his hearing aid was definitely manufactured in North Korea. It looks as if it were made from the broken off corner of an old transistor radio. But even that is not the most compelling proof of his deafness. It is his inability to articulate words clearly anymore and the exaggerated contorsions of his mouth and face, which are intended to compensate for the indistinctness of his speech, that betray and confirm his advancing deafness. The more animated his speech the less actual speech there is. A man needs to hear himself speak to know what he is saying. If all he hears is mumbling or even silence, then his speech will deteriorate until it becomes incomprehensible to others. Fidel has clearly reached that stage. His listeners, of course, may catch a word or two, or think that they do, and elaborate their answers accordingly, and he, in turn, may guess at what they are saying too and answer in the same vein. But the string is frayed and almost broken and the cans are rusty and filled with holes. In such circumstances it is better to turn off the sound and let the viewers also participate in this game of charades by imagining what it is that Fidel is telling Raúl and Chávez.

Notable & Not Me: Babalú Admonished on Babalú for 2nd Outing of Killcastro

"I've read that list before from several people. It's scary to think that our enemies have achieved so much, in so little time (40 years, more or less since the Cuban missile crisis).

I have a question for you Val. Why did you leak KC´s name again? Do you realize that one of his family members had a cracked skull as a result? Do you really care, as you say you do, about the Cuban people (including KC's family & CB's family)? If you do, why did you risk his family getting killed again by the DGSE?

It's one thing to have a professional disagreement with somebody on how to proceed forward about a subject such as Cuba. It is another thing to intentionally leak someone's real name, knowing full well what can happen as a result. I would ask you to a) clarify your views towards the Cuban people (all Cubans, including those still on the island) and b) issue a public apology to the two men whose families you have put in real danger, through a post on this blog.

Thanks."
Posted by: Matt at Babalú, June 18, 2008 10:37 AM


No, I have not made an excursion into enemy territory, nor have I authorized such an excursion. A reader of this blog and student of Babalú, obviously, has undertaken that mission on behalf of truth and justice and I commend him (or her) for it.

Needless to say, the comment was deleted. I am more surprised that it was initially approved by one of its 17 principals. Is there a resistance movement growing within Babalú's "magnificent cadre of writers? " Let us just say that we have felt some stirrings in that direction lately.

The post where Matt's comment briefly appeared ("Quotalicious") reproduced yet again Cleon Skousen's 45 Goals of Communism. On a previous occasion, a week before I was booted from Babalú, I had in fact offered 5 more Cuba-specific Communist goals which have also been realized since 1963:

46. Give aid and comfort to Marxist revolutionaries and betray your allies fighting against them.

47. Fight wars by proxy against Communism and betray the freedom fighters.

48. Become the guarantor of Communism in small client-states of the Soviet Union.

49. Allow those small Soviet client-states to revolutionize at will your client-states.

50. Determine the justice of granting asylum to refugees from Communism by whether their foot is dry or wet.

Now I could well add a 51st:

Offer to negotiate without prior conditions with America's Communist enemies, which they will rightly perceive as an unconditional surrender.

Well, One of Them Is Enjoying It Anyway (And Not the One We Would Expect)

The self-described inventor of the internet and real life Captain Planet, still as wooden and expansive as an inflatable totem pole, has endorsed Barack Obama for president when there was nothing else left for him to do but lumberously climb on the wheel-less bandwagon. The future Anti-Energy Czar, whose prescription for the oil crisis (that is, the crisis of consumption), is higher, not lower, oil prices, hailed Obama as the Tom Cruise of the new scientology, which, like the old, is also science fiction masquerading as science and paganism masquerading as religion.

There has been some speculation about Al Gore as a possible vice-presidential candidate. "Been there and done that" would seem the logical response from Gore. Still, he might be tempted for the same reason that Hillary so desperately wants the nod herself. And she's not the only liberal hoping to succeed Obama in his first term. Well, you will never go bankrupt underestimating their ability to underestimate their countrymen. Gore would balance the Democratic ticket -- the liberal child of privilege coupled with the liberal child of underprivilege; ominous experience coupled with ominous inexperience; the crackpot with the the apprentice of crackpots.

Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize; Cuban Dissidents Again Ignored

The Second Outing of Killcastro

Babalú controls a very large galaxy in the Cuban-American blogosphere. If you would know the names of its many satellites, you have but to read its "Cubiche Blogroll." Of course, not all of its tributary stars are the same size and weight. A dozen or so blogs, whose editors have been invited to join Babalú's "magnificent cadre of writers," constitute a confederacy of its own. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Nothing at all. It is known as free association and is one of the reasons that we are here and not in Cuba.

But it is one thing to choose our own compañeros and quite another to force our choices on others. This is, in effect, what Val did by outing Killcastro on his own blog 2 months ago and repeating the same chivateria here over the weekend. Apparently, the results of the initial outing, a cracked skull and a stint in jail for Killcastro's relatives in Cuba, gave Val a moment's entertainment but did not achieve his goal of silencing him.

Killcastro's independent voice, the first to challenge Babalú's monopoly of opinion, was feared by Val even before the veneer of civility that had first characterized their relations melted under the seething resentments concealed beneath. Val's insecurity was the fuel that ignited those resentments. He tried at first to co-opt Killcastro and Charlie Bravo, too, by inviting them to write for Babalú and was greatly displeased when they both declined. Val has an assimilationist mindset: he prefers to bind potential rivals to him rather than fight them, which not only supplies his deficiencies but assures that he will not become vulnerable because of them. For the most part, he has been successful in neutralizing would-be challengers and avoiding conflicts where he would be at a disadvantage (with one really big miscalculation).

His overtures to Killcastro and Charlie proved unavailing. They knew better than to form any kind of connection with him, which offered nothing to them but the opportunity to lend creds to him and share in his gaffes. Rejection is unacceptable to Val as it is to all who share his insecurities. Killcastro, who had never personally challenged Val except by his refusal to become his satellite, became by virtue of his rejection an enemy.

Since he could not induce Killcastro to join him in calling for the blood of Cubans to be shed in expiation of Castro's sins, or in defending the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy or George Bush's "get tough with the Cuban people" approach to undermining Castro, Val, after endeavoring to isolate and proscribe his blog, decided that the affront of Killcastro's authenticity, and, worst of all, the influence of his example, had to stamped out at any cost (that is, at any cost to Killcastro).

So he did it. Outed Killcastro on his own blog.

RCAB devoted 20 consecutive posts to excoriating this unprecedented act of perfidy and its author. Others joined us in decrying Val's conduct and even a few in Babalú's own orbit wrote to Killcastro disassociating themselves from Val's act if not from Val himself.

Frankly, we did not think that there would be a sequel. Not that I thought Val had learned his lesson. Still, I thought it likely that he would want to put some space between himself and this episode, and allow those naturally disposed to forget the opportunity to do so. Instead, Val deputized the malleable fantomas again, the Barney Fife of Cuban bloggers and Babalú's "weakest link," and authorized him to launch yet another attack on Killcastro. Although it was hardly necessary, Val bullied and even banned fantomas from Babalú to make sure that he would be susceptible to his brandishments. The threat of removing fantomas' blog from its conspicuous place on Babalú's blogroll secured his collaboration though he's more than a little afraid of Killcastro, whom he ridiculed publicly at the time of his first outing while assuring him of his support in e-mails. As fantomas has stated here before, he cannot "afford" to lose Babalú's patronage.

Fantomas, who has as much tact as a child, first announced that he would be leaving RCAB forever, which news our resident experts on fantomas, his ertwhile keepers in The Madhouse, Vana and Agustín, received with the skepticism and ridicule which such an announcement from such a party merited. Fantomas then donned his most familiar "disguise" as "Anonymous." He, of course, fools no one. He thinks one has to check Sitemeter to identify him. Yet, really, why would one have to? Every comment of fantomas' whether signed or not is marked with his DNA. He may not be his own man but he is certainly his own character, unmistakable in any guise and only more obviously himself when he tries to be someone else. As a final precaution before carrying out his assigned mission, fantomas wrote to Killcastro offering him a putrid olive branch, which was not accepted. If anything this was a warning that fantomas was up to no good.

The second outing of Killcastro was more persistent than the first. Val's attack was strictly a hit and run. Fantomas' was also, except that he kept coming back to the scene of the crime as if he thought, or had instructions, to back his car over and over the hapless victim. Those of us familiar with fantomas' antics will not doubt the pleasure that he derived from this exercise.

I could have delegated his comments to The Madhouse or even deleted them because I do not consider yelling "Fire!" in a theatre to be protected speech. But this would not have stopped fantomas, who has more identities than he does opinions. Killcastro and Charlie, who will be undertaking an important trip shortly, found it necessary to close their blog for the duration so that fantomas would not use the occasion to compromise them or their families.

Their readers and ours, who tend to be the same people, need not fear that Killcastro and Charlie Bravo have quit the field. They will return shortly to settle accounts with those who have conspired against them and the dignity of all Cubans.

The Father of José Martí

Last year, on Father's Day, we posted a tribute to José Martí's father, whose place in his son's life has often been diminished by historians. Some have even perpetrated the myth of an unsympathetic or indifferent father whose allegiance to his native Spain put him and kept him at odds with his son. There have even been those who have suggested that Mariano Martí was an abusive father. Nothing could be a greater injustice. The devotion of this simple man to his son was a source of strength and pride for Martí all his life:

Martí's Father (June 17, 2007)

Will Freedom Come to Babalú Before It Comes to Cuba?

After several hundred posts with nary a comment among them, the Babalunians have arrived at an important conclusion. It is that dissent cannot be completely suppressed without silencing at the same time all commentary on their blog except from the "Hallelujah chorus" which is as well-rehearsed and redundant as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing carols in July.

Last night, a certain BoricuaEnLaLuna, a straw man if ever there was one, landed on Babalú and was welcomed with all the honors. Yes, they poured the usual abuse on him, which he received with perfect nonchalance while himself spouting more provocative nonsense than even Val could pack in ten of his "rants." But the Babalunians, led by George, also addressed and refuted, logically and methodologically, his ludicrous contention that it is possible to admire "Che" or Fidel for their putative "good intentions" while acknowledging (and dismissing) their actual deeds. But, as Martí said, a man's eloquence is in his deeds, not in his words (something to remember about Barack Obama, too). If deeds do not support the words, then the words are meaningless, or worse than meaningless, the smokescreen that facilitates the deeds.

There really is nothing to admire about "Che" Guevara. His words (BoricuaEnLaLuna is fond of bromides like "Hasta la victoria siempre") are barely intelligible except when he is rhapsodizing about man as a "killing machine." As for the myth of the "Heroic Guerrilla," it is impossible to reconcile it with the actual facts of Guevara's life. How "heroic" is a man who tried to commit suicide with his own rifle when he heard that the "Yankees had landed" in 1961 and begged for his life when captured in Bolivia as no prisoner that he executed ever did?

The Babalunians have too long been occupied with their Che-tee shirt fetish, fighting Guevara from department store to department store across this land, while ignoring the propaganda that is the basis of his legend. They argue (and it is true) that the pasty-faced fools who don them don't know for the most part who Guevara was and what he did. They don't realize, however, that the solution is not to take their tee-shirts away but to disabuse them of their illusions about Che's image. This requires, of course, acquainting them with the real Che, that is, replacing ignorance with knowledge.

On Friday, they showed that this is not beyond them. Or, at least, that it is not beyond most of them. We hold out no hope for Val, because, as we have seen in his recent exchanges with LittleGator, he considers calling a man an "asshole" to be a polemical coup de grace. Henry, who does have the debating skills, prefers to "refute" BoricuaEnLaLuna by offending all Puerto Ricans.

If BoricuaEnLaLuna will stick around and others of his ilk surface because of the tolerance shown to him, and if Val and Henry can control the urge to sabotage their own work, Babalú's "Comments" section may again be instinct with life and the blog itself recover some measure of respectability and relevance. If, however, the Babalunians continue to abuse but not refute others like BoricuaEnLaLuna, they will surrender the high ground to them and do the cause of Cuban freedom no service.

Will Babalú Be the "Lastest with the Leastest" When Fidel's Death Is Announced? That is Val's Dread

There is a crisis at Babalú. The Founding Editor and the Managing Editor are in conference at El Intransijente [sic]. Besides the usual statemate about who will pick up the check, something else weighs heavily on their minds. Charlie Bravo has reported on Killcastro that Fidel underwent an emergency operation last night for an undisclosed ailment and that his doctors had debated whether to put him in an induced coma, which usually indicates swelling of the brain. Charlie received this privileged information from Killcastro's contacts on the ground in Cuba.

Our readers will recall that earlier this year Val Prieto disclosed Killcastro's real identity on his own blog setting off a chain of events that culminated in a cracked skull for one of Killcastro's relatives in Cuba and a stint in jail for another. Now Val is in a quandary. The very informants whose lives he compromised, at great peril to themselves due to Val's outing of Killcastro, have reported that Fidel Castro is in extremis.

This news greatly distressed Val, not because he doesn't long for it to be true, but because he can't stand the idea that he's not going to be the first to report the long-awaited news after so many dry runs. Getting there "firstest with the mostest" is an obsession with Val and the prospect that he might just be "lastest with the leastest" is more than he can stand. Last time Val paired off with PerezHilton, Henry's classmate from Belén2, to sound the false alarm that had to be shot down by the White House on a Friday afternoon, no less. In August.

Well, it's Friday again. Friday the 13th, in fact. (The number "13" and its double have always been regarded by Fidel himself as the loadstars of his life). And Val is again contemplating whether to announce orbe ex urbe Fidel's death. The stakes are high. He has cried wolf one too many times. It would also be tawdry in the extreme to steal Killcastro's thunder when Val's past actions have hardly been those of a friend. Still, this may be the scoop that he's savored all these years and it may just be getting away from him. Val wants to strike whether the iron is hot or cold. Henry is trying his best to restrain him, but for how much longer?


POSTSCRIPT:

"One day we're gonna be right [about Castro's death]. " -- Henry Louis Gómez


Yes, everybody dies.

But what matters is not that Castro is mortal. That is not in dispute.

What matters is being certain that he is dead before reporting it as a fact.

http://killkasstro.blogspot.com/

RCAB News: The U.S. Department of Justice Visits

Today is obviously the day for distinguished visitors. This morning the Vatican made a pilgrimage here. And just now, at 6:11:19 PM, RCAB was visited by usdoj.gov (US Dept of Justice). Sad to say, they did not come to read the previous post but landed on my biographical sketch of Obama with accompanying photograph of baby Baracka and his mother:

Barack Obama: The Future Is the Past

The Supreme Court Ends the Other Tyranny on Cuban Soil

The United States would never think of violating Cuban sovereignty again by removing the tyrant it installed 50 years ago in our country, but it has no problem usurping that very sovereignty by committing atrocities on Cuban soil which U.S. law would prohibit on U.S. territory.

Guantánamo Naval Base, of course, is Cuban territory under U.S. jurisdiction. It was leased "in perpetuity" in 1901 as a naval coaling station during the U.S. Occupation of the island that followed the Spanish-American War. The U.S. refused to end its occupation unless Cuba's Constituent Assembly approved the lease of Guantánamo and incorporated the Platt Amendment into the new Cuban Constitution. Actually, the Americans originally wanted ten bases in Cuba. It was a pyrrhic victory that Cubans were able to keep them to one.

Under international law, then as now, the U.S. could not just take a chunk of Cuban territory as recompense for "liberating it." France, after all, did not claim Chesapeake Bay as its due for winning America's independence at Yorktown in 1789. Nor, do I think, will the U.S. claim the oil fields in Iraq as compensation for liberating it. Back in 1901, however, the U.S. was just getting its bearings as an imperialist power and pretty much did as it wanted in regard to its pseudo-colonies. That "lease in perpetuity" was a triumph of American gunboat diplomacy. Under international law, no such thing ever existed before or since.

No doubt the U.S. would have returned Guantánamo to Cuban jurisdiction at the time it agreed to cede the Panama Canal to Panama except for Fidel Castro. The Panama Canal Zone, where, incidentally, John McCain was born during his father's term of service there, was indeed U.S. territory, not "leased" from the Panamanians. Guantánamo is not. It is that legal fact which allowed the Bush administration to subvert the Constitution and the Rule of Law by aping the worst abuses of Fidel Castro in the land where, apparently, all rights end for everybody.

Since Castro does it to his own people, Bush figured that he was also entitled to torture his enemies on Cuban soil, deprive them of all rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Convention, and, without bringing charges against them in an American court, hold them indefinitely as the U.S. once did the Mariel excludables. Infinitely worse than the internment of the Japanese during World War II as "enemy aliens," the confinement of these 270 political prisoners under truly inhuman conditions and in violation of all norms of international law has weakened the U.S. position as an advocate of human rights throughout the world and led directly to the revamping of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which in the past had condemned Communist Cuba but which is now controlled by its terrorist allies, and the election of a Sandinista relique as president of the General Assembly. George Bush not only did great damage to this country but empowered, indeed, resurrected its enemies when he agreed to stand on the same moral plane with them.

Today the Supreme Court restored America's moral equilibrium when it ruled that the detainees at Guantánamo have the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. Courts. In a 5-4 decision, it struck down the parts of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would have created special military tribunals to hear their cases. Under the provisions of this Act the detainees would not have been allowed access to the evidence against them and hence would not have been able to refute it (if, in fact, any such evidence existed). It is the closest that the U.S. has ever come to establishing star chambres since the Sedition Act of 1798. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that "The laws and the Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, even in extraordinary times." We should all hope so.

RCAB News: A Visit from the Vatican

A visit from vatican.va [Holy See (Vatican City State)] this morning at 5:52:23 PM. They used google.it to search for "Catholic martyrs against Communism." Glad that someone there is still interested.

Read the articles that the pope (or a seminarian) read:

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/search?q=fray

Notable & Unbelievable: "I Know What Newt Thinks Better than Newt"

"Great video of Newt, damn I'm pissed that he didn't run for president, talking about oil. Except for the last bit about the incredibly flexible theory of man-made global warming. I have to believe that he doesn't really buy into that garbage. If he does then it invalidates the whole first part of the video." -- Henry Louis Gómez, "Common Sense About Oil," Babalú, June 12, 2008

Henry's new mission in life is to solve the oil crisis. Anything that consumes some of his time and commandeers some of his brain matter to a subject other than Cuba is always welcome. Today he has posted a video of Newt Gingrich with a curious caption. First, of course, he laments that Gingrich "didn't run for president." I was under the impression that he did and nobody wanted him. In any case, if Newt had won the nomination, it would have been a hard call for me which to repudiate the most, the white or the black mountebank. Henry does not remember that Newt was the architect of the resurgence of xenophobia in this country with Hispanics targetted as the new blacks. But Henry can excuse a lot of things in his idols. He even forgives Newt's embrace of global warming because he "has to believe that [Newt] doesn't buy into that garbage." He doesn't give Bush or McCain the benefit of the doubt when they repeat the standard received wisdom about global warming. I guess that Henry really has to like a guy to believe that he's insincere.

Babaloo's Waterloos: Fanning the Flames of Xenophobia at Refugee Blog

Cuban-American History 901: The Virginia Ham

From TIME MAGAZINE,
Monday, Dec. 08, 1947

Good Will

Flying a stripped-down P-51, Pilot Woodrow ("Woody") Edmondson had rushed the gift from Washington to Havana in a record-breaking 3½ hours. A palace photographer was on hand to snap the presentation — of a fine 15-lb. ham from Virginia's Governor William Tuck to Cuba's President Ramón Grau San Martín. Unwittingly, Virginia's Tuck had given habaneros their joke of the month.

When Cubans want to say a politician has been grafting, they say está en el jamón—he's in the ham. That was why last week's picture of Grau receiving the Virginia ham was good for Page One of Prensa Libre. Other papers and the radio joined the fun. So did Grau himself. Said he to his friend Congressman Primitivo Rodríguez: "Primitivo, I'll give you a good slice."


***
Grau was famous for his dry wit in Cuba and beyond, as this "news bite" from Time Magazine shows. A thousand anecdotes in a similar vein could be told about him and some like this one would actually be true. But Grau was more than just a colorful personality. When he took the oath of office in 1933, Grau, a university professor installed as president by his students, refused to swear allegiance to the 1901 Constitution because it contained the Platt Amendment and instead swore allegiance to the Cuban people. 28 U.S. warships in Havana Harbour waited the order to land. It never came. Instead, a year later Cuba and the U.S. signed a protocal abrogating the Platt Amendment.

Grau's first (and only) "Hundred Days" in office were the most productive in Cuban history in terms of social legislation thanks to his minister of the interior Antonio Guiteras y Holmes, who created Cuba's version of the "New Deal" before Roosevelt coopted Mussolini's programme. The other signal event of Grau's administration was the promotion of a sergeant named Batista to colonel-in-chief of the Army. Batista then removed Grau.

Ironically, after losing to Batista for president in 1940, Grau became his successor four years later when Batista presided over free elections that saw his own handpicked candidate defeated. Grau's second administration, which his followers believed would be a continuation of his first, was instead rife with corruption and anarchy. But even the venality of public officials and the unchecked lawlessness of gangsters like Fidel Castro could not slow down the progress that was already integral and self-perpetuating in Cuba. Nothing, indeed, could ever have stopped it except the destruction of the republic and imposition of a communist regime on the island.

Jamón of all kinds was plentiful in Cuba before the Revolution and was not the limit of a man's aspirations in life but the foretaste of bigger and better things to come. Jamón was never as literal then as it is today. When one says that someone "está en el jamón" today it literally means that ham is not a figment of imagination as it is for most Cubans. Before 1959, practically everybody was "en el jamón" in Cuba if we limit the definition to the pork product. Cubans were also the third-largest per capita consumers of beef in the hemisphere, after Argentina and Uruguay, the world's biggest. So, yes, neither ham nor beef were the rarities on the Cuban table that they are today and eating a bistec was not punishable by 10 years in prison nor eating a ham an existential experience in the Cuba of yesteryear.

I find it alike unacceptable to hear Cubans from the island speaking resentfully of the ham which exiles consume here (as if the governor of Virginia sent us all hams) as I do when Val Prieto asserts that Cubans on the island are not supposed to want ham much less eat it, which, true to form, he does in a post entitled "Everybody Wants Ham." It is Val's fantasy that Communist Cuba is some kind of voluntary "Club Unfed" where nobody works but everybody wants ham. His ham.

Val is especially angry with Cubans who return to the island of their own volition because they were not able to acclimate to life in this country as some birds return to their cages even after having been freed. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the Republic of Cuba was an original signatory, guarantees to everyone the right to enter or leave his country of birth without restrictions whatsoever. We cannot demand that the Castro regime recognize that inalienable right and at the same time ostrasize Cubans who choose to avail themselves of it to return to Cuba whatever their reasons (even if to their detriment). We are no more master of them than Castro is.

Yoani Sánchez and her husband are among those who returned. From Switzerland. With their young son. Will Val impugn their character or allege that they did it for the "jamón," as the regime does in fact claim? He is nobody to judge them. Neither does he have the right to judge any other Cuban for what in every case is a private decision.

And what is this curious chant and declination of jamón?

"Jamon jamon jamon. Jamas jame jamon."

Some kind of personal mantra?

The Prieto family motto?

Or a petty and puerile taunt directed at starving Cubans for wishing to eat above their station in life?

We must not forget that Val believes that (more) starvation is a necessary imposition on them if Cuba is ever to be free.


POSTSCRIPT:

LittleGator again unmans Val, as is becoming customary in the "Comments" section:

People returning permanently to Cuba, particularly from the U.S., is an extremely rare event. Although, I guess the guy in the video made what to him was a logical choice. He has his entire family there. He missed them. He is a musician, and apparently got no gigs here. He was born and raised in the revolution, and found it difficult (impossible) to adapt to life here.

I have one question though, what is the point of this post? What is the "larger lesson" you seek to impart? Why "jamon"? Are you suggesting that all Cubans in Cuba are lazy and don't want to work?
Posted by: LittleGator at June 11, 2008 06:54 PM

Geez, LG, were you born a sanctimonious asshole, or do you have to work at it?
Posted by: Val Prieto at June 11, 2008 07:36 PM

So, what was the point Val?
Posted by: LittleGator at June 11, 2008 08:32 PM

The point is that your an asshole. Anything else? You need me to cut your steaks and spoon feed you your compota as well?
Posted by: Val Prieto at June 12, 2008 11:25 AM

Subcomandante Henry

We extend our congratulations to Henry Louis Gómez upon his appointment today as Babalú's Managing Editor. It is a distinction long overdue since he has shaped for better or worse (well, worse anyway) Babalú's destinies over the last three years no less than Founding Editor Val Prieto.

Some may remember that a few weeks ago Henry was introduced on a Canadian (or was it Jamaican?) radio show as Babalú's "managing editor." Well, the prophecy has come to past and "The Conductor" is no longer in the caboose with Babalú's 15 other contributing writers.

Some day, perhaps, the contributing writers may be promoted en masse to contributing editors, but we don't think so: Too many bites out of the Babalunian apple leaves Val polishing a knob.

Mr. Prieto Builds His Dream House

Val should place a call to Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy Carter, if he can still hold a hammer, would be glad to knock a few holes in his sheetrock before moving on to the next "Photo Opportunity for Humanity."

When Val triumphantly announced his kitchen-beautiful project, in the midst of the worst housing slump in history, I pointed out to him that it might not be the best time to stake the house on the house. Since Val is a construction project manager and his wife a realtor, it shouldn't have been necessary to point that out to him.

Just as he himself predicted, the kitchen project grew like a fungus to encompass the entire house, every room of which appears to be in various stages of renovation. His shower doesn't work and his kitchen sink hasn't been hooked up yet. Like someone else that we all know, Val is very good at levelling; it's the building part that he can't seem to master. That other guy has been able to escape the consequences of a crumbling economy and his own fiscal irresponsibility for 50 years. Val, by his own admission, has not been as lucky.

Rather than following in footsteps of another fellow Cuban, Bob Vila, Val has unwittingly recreated that PBS series where a family agrees to live as the pioneers did in the 19th century, or, sadly, as Cubans do today. Having "busted his budget" and reached the limits of what the Time-Life Library of Do-It-Yourself books can teach an amateur, Val was left with no choice but to appeal for help to his family of readers, who are by no means unaccustumed to such bail-outs. The foe of remittances or of any kind of assistance to his starving countrymen in Cuba has asked his readers to furnish him with a pro-bono plumber and pro-bono tile-installer, as well as discounts or donations of sundry hardware and construction supplies.

Where is the Val, we ask, who admonished his readers not to send money to their relatives in Cuba but fishing lines? Remember? "Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day, teach him to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime." Except, of course, in Cuba, where fishing is a criminal offence and telling someone to "go fish" is like telling him to go to hell.

Happily, we live in a free country where fishing is not illegal. I suggest that instead of plumbers or other voluntary workers and in lieu of building supplies, his readers send Val fishing poles, lines, hooks and bait. Yes, worms, lots of worms. He can sell the fish off his pick-up truck on Coral Way and with the proceeds buy supplies and hire illegal workers to fix the mess which he has made of the Villa Valentina.

The Villa Valentina

A Bout With Gout

Val spent all week-end on his sofa nursing his swollen big toe. This is what gout is: crystals of uric acid deposit in the big toe, causing it to engorge as if the bone were going to rip through the skin at any moment. It is one of the worst pains known to man and only man, since women don't get it. I guess childbirth is bad enough.

The gout was once known as the "royal disease" because only kings and nobles could eat enough variety of foods to trigger it. If you ate oats and oats only all your life you were not going to get the gout. You'd die of a thousand other diseases and deficiencies, but not gout. As different kinds of food became available to a larger segment of the population, the gout has become more democratic. With Val as a sufferer now, any cachet still attached to the gout is a thing of the past.

I myself had the gout 20 years ago.

One bout and never another since.

There's a little pill that cures its effects within 2 minutes.

Indomethacin.

The first wonder drug.

No one today has to lie abed nursing the gout.

(Unless he wants to).

Take one, Val.

You'll like it.