Gee, twice in one month. If this keeps up I may just turn into a shameless sycophant praising other blogs so that they'll mention mine and distributing prizes to all and sundry in order to be acknowledged as the arbiter elegantiarum of the South Florida blogosphere. Still, I'll take that chance and proclaim Gusano's post on the Beijing Olympics the best that I've read on that subject. Best lines: "Crimes Against Entertainment" (title) and "[China is] a land where they preach 'brotherhood' but where it is against the law to have a brother."
http://www.babalublog.com/archives/009248.html
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Christian Science Monitor Reports the End of Socialism in Cuba
The Christian Science Monitor is the official organ of the Christian Science Church, the 19th century precursor of the Church of Scientology. Like L. Ron Hubbard's "discovery," Mary Baker Eddy's purports to combine but really has nothing to do with either (conventional) religion or (conventional) science: Christian Science is about a hypochondriac's search for meaning in life just as Scientology is about the same quest by a psychopath. Of course, it is better to have your "religion" fed to you in a suspension of scientific hogwash with an eyedropper than drilled into your skull with an awl in an amateurish imitation of a lobotomy. Still, I suspect that some day Scientology may be as much a part of the establishment as is Christian Science today. With the passage of time all cults gain respectability and acceptance, their sharpest ends are blunted, their founders die and recede into history, and even their official history is rewritten and reinterpreted so as not to embarrass too much its contemporary followers or offend modern sensibilities.
I mention the origins of The Christian Science Monitor because its mainstream reputation is no guarantee of its journalistic independence. There are other church organs, of course, but these are not generally credited except when it comes to church news. The Monitor is the only religious screed which is read predominantly by non-believers. I suppose the explanation is the same for this phenomenon as for the fact that most Shaker furniture is owned by non-Shakers. Both are supposed to be simpler and more balanced because less mundane and more parochial. But chairs and newspapers, though they share a common materia prima, are far from interchangeable. Chairs are not redolent with theology or ideology. It is also easier to find a balanced chair than a balanced newspaper. The Christian Science Monitor is not such a newspaper.
A newspaper that hails "Cuba's Bold Shift to a Postsocialist Era" [August 12] is in fact rather unbalanced. Somehow, Cuba's Stalinist regime has transcended the post-Communist era and shifted boldly into a post-socialist (note the small "s") era. The author (or channeler) of this revelation is Luís Martínez-Fernández, who, taking Raúl Castro at his word, claims to have detected in Raúl's recent speech to the so-called National Assembly the "most profound ideological shift in the five-decade long history of the Cuban Revolution, ... redefin[ing] socialism and effectively declar[ing] the end of that system." And no exclamation mark, either.
"The end of the system" was contained in the following phrase: "Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income." For Martínez-Fernández, "[t]his remarkable declaration represents an embrace of a postmodern version of socialism." Except that Socialism in Cuba never meant equality of income, not even equality of income within the same profession since model workers were always rewarded with material and not just moral incentives. These "incentives" -- e.g. the right to buy a refrigerator -- were such as would have elicited the anger and laughter of most workers around the world; but they were anxiously sought and graciously received in Cuba because there was going to be no refrigerator unless you were first granted the boon of buying one.
The only "equality" that the Castro regime ever achieved was in making all incomes inadequate for sustaining life and all goods and services intended for the masses shoddy and unfit for human consumption. Martínez-Fernández writes of the regime shirking its "social responsibilities" as if it ever upheld them. What have the last 50 years been but a complete repudiation by the state of the social compact? Indeed, a people that has no say through a democratic process in formulating such a contract should not be asked to be grateful for its imposition.
Cubans on the island enjoy no rights; they are assigned privileges on an individual basis according to their fealty to the state and usefulness to it. Raúl Castro has no intention of altering the system because he personally has nothing to gain thereby. He is not and has never been inimical to squeezing the last drop of blood or sweat from his countrymen. Those kinds of "reform" are not new or news. No sacrifice is too great for the Cuban people to make if it advances the interests of the Castro family. This is the Castros' guiding principle of governance, immutable and inalterable. Socialism would really fall on the day that this rule ceased to observed in Cuba.
Martínez-Fernández believes that continuing to do what they have always done "signal[s] a dramatic ideological shift that actually heralds the end of socialism." But "socialism," as practiced in Cuba, is a system of repression, not a welfare state. The end of socialism will come when the repression ends not when the state's supposed largesse ends. The regime's promised crackdown on "economic saboteurs" that outwit the state at its own game, contributing nothing to the commonweal as the state itself contributes nothing, does not "herald the end of socialism" but is an attempt to consolidate its power and make the Cuban people even more powerless. Accusing them of "stealing" from the productive workers -- that is, from those still willing produce for the state what they do not themselves receive from it -- may signal Raúl's own Cultural Revolution, or revolution within a revolution, but is no harbinger of the end of socialism much less the advent of a "post-socialist era."
And what to make of this preposterous conclusion: "Castro's indication that his government [?] will eliminate some free services and excessive subsidies to consumer goods is further evidence that Cuba is about to enter a postsocialist era." Say what? "Free services" and "excessive subsidies?" When were these ever offered outright to the Cuban people? Fernández-Martínez makes it appear as if the Cuban people are a nation of mendicants provided for by an overindulgent state when in fact their poverty is the result of one family's exclusive use of the national patrimony for its own enrichment over a period of 50 years.
Castroism is a magic lantern which creates sundry illusions; the gears are all rusted together and any attempt to tinker with it will only compromise it since it is beyond repair and may not even stand examination. All that Raúl can do is move the candle in this or that direction, casting the same shadows here or there; but the montage is always the same.
Note to the author:
The idea of creating a double-barreled (or composite) surname is to distinguish a common paternal last name by coupling it with an uncommon maternal one (e.g. "García-Menocal"). I do not see what is gained by fusing together the two most common Hispanic last names (Fernández and Martínez). If your last name is "Fernández" then be Fernández. That is more distinctive than being twice indistinctive.
I mention the origins of The Christian Science Monitor because its mainstream reputation is no guarantee of its journalistic independence. There are other church organs, of course, but these are not generally credited except when it comes to church news. The Monitor is the only religious screed which is read predominantly by non-believers. I suppose the explanation is the same for this phenomenon as for the fact that most Shaker furniture is owned by non-Shakers. Both are supposed to be simpler and more balanced because less mundane and more parochial. But chairs and newspapers, though they share a common materia prima, are far from interchangeable. Chairs are not redolent with theology or ideology. It is also easier to find a balanced chair than a balanced newspaper. The Christian Science Monitor is not such a newspaper.
A newspaper that hails "Cuba's Bold Shift to a Postsocialist Era" [August 12] is in fact rather unbalanced. Somehow, Cuba's Stalinist regime has transcended the post-Communist era and shifted boldly into a post-socialist (note the small "s") era. The author (or channeler) of this revelation is Luís Martínez-Fernández, who, taking Raúl Castro at his word, claims to have detected in Raúl's recent speech to the so-called National Assembly the "most profound ideological shift in the five-decade long history of the Cuban Revolution, ... redefin[ing] socialism and effectively declar[ing] the end of that system." And no exclamation mark, either.
"The end of the system" was contained in the following phrase: "Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income." For Martínez-Fernández, "[t]his remarkable declaration represents an embrace of a postmodern version of socialism." Except that Socialism in Cuba never meant equality of income, not even equality of income within the same profession since model workers were always rewarded with material and not just moral incentives. These "incentives" -- e.g. the right to buy a refrigerator -- were such as would have elicited the anger and laughter of most workers around the world; but they were anxiously sought and graciously received in Cuba because there was going to be no refrigerator unless you were first granted the boon of buying one.
The only "equality" that the Castro regime ever achieved was in making all incomes inadequate for sustaining life and all goods and services intended for the masses shoddy and unfit for human consumption. Martínez-Fernández writes of the regime shirking its "social responsibilities" as if it ever upheld them. What have the last 50 years been but a complete repudiation by the state of the social compact? Indeed, a people that has no say through a democratic process in formulating such a contract should not be asked to be grateful for its imposition.
Cubans on the island enjoy no rights; they are assigned privileges on an individual basis according to their fealty to the state and usefulness to it. Raúl Castro has no intention of altering the system because he personally has nothing to gain thereby. He is not and has never been inimical to squeezing the last drop of blood or sweat from his countrymen. Those kinds of "reform" are not new or news. No sacrifice is too great for the Cuban people to make if it advances the interests of the Castro family. This is the Castros' guiding principle of governance, immutable and inalterable. Socialism would really fall on the day that this rule ceased to observed in Cuba.
Martínez-Fernández believes that continuing to do what they have always done "signal[s] a dramatic ideological shift that actually heralds the end of socialism." But "socialism," as practiced in Cuba, is a system of repression, not a welfare state. The end of socialism will come when the repression ends not when the state's supposed largesse ends. The regime's promised crackdown on "economic saboteurs" that outwit the state at its own game, contributing nothing to the commonweal as the state itself contributes nothing, does not "herald the end of socialism" but is an attempt to consolidate its power and make the Cuban people even more powerless. Accusing them of "stealing" from the productive workers -- that is, from those still willing produce for the state what they do not themselves receive from it -- may signal Raúl's own Cultural Revolution, or revolution within a revolution, but is no harbinger of the end of socialism much less the advent of a "post-socialist era."
And what to make of this preposterous conclusion: "Castro's indication that his government [?] will eliminate some free services and excessive subsidies to consumer goods is further evidence that Cuba is about to enter a postsocialist era." Say what? "Free services" and "excessive subsidies?" When were these ever offered outright to the Cuban people? Fernández-Martínez makes it appear as if the Cuban people are a nation of mendicants provided for by an overindulgent state when in fact their poverty is the result of one family's exclusive use of the national patrimony for its own enrichment over a period of 50 years.
Castroism is a magic lantern which creates sundry illusions; the gears are all rusted together and any attempt to tinker with it will only compromise it since it is beyond repair and may not even stand examination. All that Raúl can do is move the candle in this or that direction, casting the same shadows here or there; but the montage is always the same.
Note to the author:
The idea of creating a double-barreled (or composite) surname is to distinguish a common paternal last name by coupling it with an uncommon maternal one (e.g. "García-Menocal"). I do not see what is gained by fusing together the two most common Hispanic last names (Fernández and Martínez). If your last name is "Fernández" then be Fernández. That is more distinctive than being twice indistinctive.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Myriam Márquez: The Cloning of Ana Menéndez
Ana Menéndez has been replaced by another self-hating Cuban, except that Myriam Márquez, a horrible writer and worse polemicist, makes us look bad even before she embarks on the first platitude or non-sequitur.
The title of her column gave us hope that we might be able to think better of her, because a noble heart can make itself known even tangled in turgid prose: "Wet or Dry, Policy Should Be the Same." Not being a moral monster myself I naturally assumed that she meant that all fugitives from injustice should receive the same compassionate treatment whether they were fighting for their lives on the high seas or had defied all odds and predators (natural and denatured) to make it to these shores. But she meant no such thing. Whether "dry" or "wet" Márquez wants all Cuban refugees to receive the draconian treatment which Clinton decreed for the "wets" in his revision by presidential fiat of the Cuban Adjustment Act (1966), or, as she puts it, she wants the "U.S. [to] appl[y] wet-foot rules to dry-footers."
When the CAA was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Johnson there was no distinction between "wets" and "drys," a refugee was a refugee and the U.S. would no more have sent one back to Cuba than it would have tossed a fleeing East German over the Berlin Wall. That's the way the law worked for 30 years, that's the way it worked for all of us, including Ms. Márquez and her cousins, the rafter and the balsero. She doesn't tell us if one or both turned out to be criminals, which is the reason she gives for wanting the repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act:
"After this country extends them every privilege under the Cuban Adjustment Act, some of them abuse the law. They pop up in Medicare scams and, when the FBI comes after them, they take the next plane back to Cuba or hitch a ride on a smuggling boat headed to the communist island."
First of all, the U.S. does not extend any "privileges" to Cuban refugees. That's her first mistake and the wellspring of all others. Their right to asylum is enshrined in U.S. law. So long as that law exists it is not a privilege or gracious concession which the U.S. grants them but recognition of that right in compliance with that law.
Ms. Márquez writes that at least half of South Florida's Medicare fugitives are "back in Cuba." Did it ever occur to her or The Herald reporter whom she quotes to that effect that the authors of these multimillion-dollar Medicare scams were Castro agents infiltrated into this country for the expressed purpose of perpetrating those kinds of frauds? It is no accident that "at least half" chose to redefect to Cuba with their ill-gotten loot. This is what they were expected to do. I doubt that you would find any rafters among Castro's agents. They are too cowardly to pay such a price even to sample freedom. Their immigration visas were no doubt duly approved by the regime and processed through the U.S. Interests Office in Havana. Is it really so hard to figure out that no Cuban exile would voluntarily repatriate himself to Cuba unless he was never an exile in the first place?
Márquez quotes U.S. District Judge Fedérico Moreno in support of her contention that the latest refugees are not trueblood refugees, but does not realize -- because she is too daft to realize it -- that Moreno's observation actually undermines her case:
''It seems to me that our thinking has to change. We always think here in Miami that if you're a Cuban refugee, you're not going to go back to Cuba. I'm wondering whether a Jew leaving Nazi Germany can go back and forth to visit the relatives. I would suspect you couldn't.''
Moreno is wrong, of course. Our thinking does not have to change. Cubans, whether they arrived here in 1959 or yesterday, are not voluntarily returning to live in Cuba -- not in droves or in a trickle, no more than Jews would have (or could have) returned to Germany in 1939. Such a thing, indeed, is almost unheard of. The handful of Cubans who do return for good to the island do so because they have completed the mission that was assigned to them in this country and are recalled to Cuba. It would be strange indeed if U.S. immigration policy towards Cuban refugees were predicated on the conduct in this country of Castro's spies and agents provocateur, who are sent here, among other reasons, to sully the community's good name and undermine the Cuban Adjustment Act, which, though gutted and perverted by both Clinton and Bush, still provides the only option for Cubans willing to risk lives to attain freedom.
For Ms. Márquez today's "Yosmanys and Yusmilas" are "abusing America's good will" by wanting to be free in a way that the "Rigobertos and Rudesindas" weren't 50 years ago. Still, the tyranny that they are escaping is the same; the tyrant is the same; everything is the same except perhaps their color and social class. Or are they unacceptable to her because they are a later version of the Cuban "New Man," say, version 26.50, when no version after 26.20 is deemed "uncorrupted?"
This daughter of immigrants, who knows that real "Americanism" consists in turning on one's own, warns in the best xenophobic fashion that "U.S. benevolence has its limits."
Benevolence has no limits for those who are truly benevolent just as cravenness has no limits for the truly craven.
The title of her column gave us hope that we might be able to think better of her, because a noble heart can make itself known even tangled in turgid prose: "Wet or Dry, Policy Should Be the Same." Not being a moral monster myself I naturally assumed that she meant that all fugitives from injustice should receive the same compassionate treatment whether they were fighting for their lives on the high seas or had defied all odds and predators (natural and denatured) to make it to these shores. But she meant no such thing. Whether "dry" or "wet" Márquez wants all Cuban refugees to receive the draconian treatment which Clinton decreed for the "wets" in his revision by presidential fiat of the Cuban Adjustment Act (1966), or, as she puts it, she wants the "U.S. [to] appl[y] wet-foot rules to dry-footers."
When the CAA was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Johnson there was no distinction between "wets" and "drys," a refugee was a refugee and the U.S. would no more have sent one back to Cuba than it would have tossed a fleeing East German over the Berlin Wall. That's the way the law worked for 30 years, that's the way it worked for all of us, including Ms. Márquez and her cousins, the rafter and the balsero. She doesn't tell us if one or both turned out to be criminals, which is the reason she gives for wanting the repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act:
"After this country extends them every privilege under the Cuban Adjustment Act, some of them abuse the law. They pop up in Medicare scams and, when the FBI comes after them, they take the next plane back to Cuba or hitch a ride on a smuggling boat headed to the communist island."
First of all, the U.S. does not extend any "privileges" to Cuban refugees. That's her first mistake and the wellspring of all others. Their right to asylum is enshrined in U.S. law. So long as that law exists it is not a privilege or gracious concession which the U.S. grants them but recognition of that right in compliance with that law.
Ms. Márquez writes that at least half of South Florida's Medicare fugitives are "back in Cuba." Did it ever occur to her or The Herald reporter whom she quotes to that effect that the authors of these multimillion-dollar Medicare scams were Castro agents infiltrated into this country for the expressed purpose of perpetrating those kinds of frauds? It is no accident that "at least half" chose to redefect to Cuba with their ill-gotten loot. This is what they were expected to do. I doubt that you would find any rafters among Castro's agents. They are too cowardly to pay such a price even to sample freedom. Their immigration visas were no doubt duly approved by the regime and processed through the U.S. Interests Office in Havana. Is it really so hard to figure out that no Cuban exile would voluntarily repatriate himself to Cuba unless he was never an exile in the first place?
Márquez quotes U.S. District Judge Fedérico Moreno in support of her contention that the latest refugees are not trueblood refugees, but does not realize -- because she is too daft to realize it -- that Moreno's observation actually undermines her case:
''It seems to me that our thinking has to change. We always think here in Miami that if you're a Cuban refugee, you're not going to go back to Cuba. I'm wondering whether a Jew leaving Nazi Germany can go back and forth to visit the relatives. I would suspect you couldn't.''
Moreno is wrong, of course. Our thinking does not have to change. Cubans, whether they arrived here in 1959 or yesterday, are not voluntarily returning to live in Cuba -- not in droves or in a trickle, no more than Jews would have (or could have) returned to Germany in 1939. Such a thing, indeed, is almost unheard of. The handful of Cubans who do return for good to the island do so because they have completed the mission that was assigned to them in this country and are recalled to Cuba. It would be strange indeed if U.S. immigration policy towards Cuban refugees were predicated on the conduct in this country of Castro's spies and agents provocateur, who are sent here, among other reasons, to sully the community's good name and undermine the Cuban Adjustment Act, which, though gutted and perverted by both Clinton and Bush, still provides the only option for Cubans willing to risk lives to attain freedom.
For Ms. Márquez today's "Yosmanys and Yusmilas" are "abusing America's good will" by wanting to be free in a way that the "Rigobertos and Rudesindas" weren't 50 years ago. Still, the tyranny that they are escaping is the same; the tyrant is the same; everything is the same except perhaps their color and social class. Or are they unacceptable to her because they are a later version of the Cuban "New Man," say, version 26.50, when no version after 26.20 is deemed "uncorrupted?"
This daughter of immigrants, who knows that real "Americanism" consists in turning on one's own, warns in the best xenophobic fashion that "U.S. benevolence has its limits."
Benevolence has no limits for those who are truly benevolent just as cravenness has no limits for the truly craven.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
What If the National Enquirer Is Also Right About Obama?
The only fault which its critics can ascribe to The National Enquirer is that it strikes while the iron is hot. The establishment media prefer to strike when it is cold, very cold. They call their reticence prudence when it is nothing more than complicity. Such is their hubris that they can sit on a story for a year or more, and, when they finally deign to report it, assert that it only became "fit to print" when they deemed it so. In the Edwards' case that moment came only when Edwards himself was compelled to admit the truth of The Enquirer's story to Bob Woodruff so that the scandal could be put to rest before the start of the Democratic Convention and Edwards and family airbrushed preemptively from the proceedings.
The Enquirer scooped everybody on this story because it paid for it. The so-called professionals scoff at The Enquirer because it pays its sources, which supposedly violates a journalistic canon which is nowhere to be found in the annals of journalism and which all great editors and reporters have "violated" both before and after the dissemination of news became some kind of vocation. They expect, of course, to be paid themselves for what they report but are loathe to pay anyone else. Can anything be more hilarious than the churlishness of Woodruff and Bernstein when Deep Throat finally emerged from the shadows to outscoop them and collect a long overdue pay day (which would have been theirs had they been left to disclose his identity posthumously)? Money is a less toxic motivation than most. Hatred, envy, the desire to wreak vengeance -- all these can disfigure the truth more and are less reliable than the profit motive. Yet informants with the basest motives can pass muster so long as they do not expect to be compensated for their information while those with the most transparent motive of all are shunted aside as mercenary. None of it makes any sense unless one regards newsgathering as the exclusive domain of journalists, or, rather, their own monopoly. That, of course, would be very foolish indeed.
Something else distinguishes The Enquirer from its mainsteam competition. Although decidedly conservative in its defense of family values -- because it publishes sleeze does not mean that it is on the side of the sleezeballs -- The National Enquirer is not a right-wing or even a politically-driven publication. If I remember correctly it was also the first to expose Newt Gingrich's infidelities. Gingrich went a step farther than Edwards when he asked his cancer-stricken wife on her deathbed for a divorce so he could marry his mistress. Well, maybe Edwards is working his way up to that.
When the MSM finally reported the Edwards story it repeatedly asked in mock indignation: "What would have happened if Edwards had been the Democratic nominee instead of Obama?" Having crowned Obama as the nominee long before he had secured the nomination, and even when Hillary's overwhelming lead in super delegates made it unlikely that he would be the nominee if the Michigan and Florida delegates were seated, the media's speculation about a "what if Edwards?" is the most lackadaisical of all hypotheticals. And it begs a response: "What if any of the stories which The Enquirer has published about Barack Obama over the last year proves as devastatingly accurate as its reportage on Edwards?"
What if?
The Enquirer scooped everybody on this story because it paid for it. The so-called professionals scoff at The Enquirer because it pays its sources, which supposedly violates a journalistic canon which is nowhere to be found in the annals of journalism and which all great editors and reporters have "violated" both before and after the dissemination of news became some kind of vocation. They expect, of course, to be paid themselves for what they report but are loathe to pay anyone else. Can anything be more hilarious than the churlishness of Woodruff and Bernstein when Deep Throat finally emerged from the shadows to outscoop them and collect a long overdue pay day (which would have been theirs had they been left to disclose his identity posthumously)? Money is a less toxic motivation than most. Hatred, envy, the desire to wreak vengeance -- all these can disfigure the truth more and are less reliable than the profit motive. Yet informants with the basest motives can pass muster so long as they do not expect to be compensated for their information while those with the most transparent motive of all are shunted aside as mercenary. None of it makes any sense unless one regards newsgathering as the exclusive domain of journalists, or, rather, their own monopoly. That, of course, would be very foolish indeed.
Something else distinguishes The Enquirer from its mainsteam competition. Although decidedly conservative in its defense of family values -- because it publishes sleeze does not mean that it is on the side of the sleezeballs -- The National Enquirer is not a right-wing or even a politically-driven publication. If I remember correctly it was also the first to expose Newt Gingrich's infidelities. Gingrich went a step farther than Edwards when he asked his cancer-stricken wife on her deathbed for a divorce so he could marry his mistress. Well, maybe Edwards is working his way up to that.
When the MSM finally reported the Edwards story it repeatedly asked in mock indignation: "What would have happened if Edwards had been the Democratic nominee instead of Obama?" Having crowned Obama as the nominee long before he had secured the nomination, and even when Hillary's overwhelming lead in super delegates made it unlikely that he would be the nominee if the Michigan and Florida delegates were seated, the media's speculation about a "what if Edwards?" is the most lackadaisical of all hypotheticals. And it begs a response: "What if any of the stories which The Enquirer has published about Barack Obama over the last year proves as devastatingly accurate as its reportage on Edwards?"
What if?
Fantomas Saves Gorillas from Extinction
The Wildlife Conservation Society has announced the discovery of 125,000 gorillas deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo. Previously it was believed that only 50,000 western upland gorillas survived in the wild. This astonishing development brings the species back from the brink of extinction, though conservationists, anxious to conserve their own jobs, sounded much less optimistic. If an additional 10 billion humans were discovered somewhere on earth, I should think that the survival of our species would be assured.
In any case, can it possibly be a coincidence that this marvelous discovery came only days after the marriage of fantomas and King Kong here at RCAB? Was the protuberance that some noticed on Fantomas last Sunday the happy harbinger of this epic discovery? Is Fantomas the "Mother of All Simians," and, hence, retroactively, the true "Eve" of biblical lore?
We may add that the fact that Fantomas is Cuban makes these questions of interest to this blog and all Cubans.
In any case, can it possibly be a coincidence that this marvelous discovery came only days after the marriage of fantomas and King Kong here at RCAB? Was the protuberance that some noticed on Fantomas last Sunday the happy harbinger of this epic discovery? Is Fantomas the "Mother of All Simians," and, hence, retroactively, the true "Eve" of biblical lore?
We may add that the fact that Fantomas is Cuban makes these questions of interest to this blog and all Cubans.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The Beijing Olympics: Berlin In Our Times
The kindest way to describe what is going on in China today is global amnesia. In a nation where "prosperity" hinges on the enforcement of the genocidal "One Child Policy," famines rage unnoticed in the countryside and workers are exploited by plutocrats more powerful than the robber barons because they do not have to contend with ballot boxes or assuage public opinion, the world has converged -- ostensibly in the name of sport -- to celebrate the debasement of man by the State. It has happened before and will likely happen again. It is a pleasing fiction that sport promotes harmony among nations. Sport, in itself, is neither nobler nor more inspiring than any other human pursuit. It is the purposes to which sport is put that can be noble or inspiring, or, as in the case of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, base and despicable:
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Those of us who still find it incredible that the Olympics were once held in Berlin with Hitler as host and the whole world in attendance now have proof (as if proof were needed) that the world is still myopic when it comes to evil and can only appreciate it in its real dimensions when it is too late to do anything about it. What difference is there between holding the Olympics in China in 2008 and holding them in Berlin in 1936? Morally there is no difference. If we parse evil, however, there is a great difference: In 1936 Hitler had not yet embarked on his campaign of extermination nor yet provoked World War II. An objective observer could have seen what was coming, and many in fact did; but most of the world was still in denial about Hitler in 1936. Denial then meant refusing to take Hitler at his word, because he was nothing if not candid about his plans. In China's case, however, the evil is completely consummated. Holding the Olympics there next year is more closely analogous to holding them in Berlin in 1944, not 1936. And yet the whole world is now preparing to do precisely that with great enthusiasm and no moral scrupples. Not one nation has refused to participate in protest and no one has even attempted to organize a boycott.
Many presume that capitalism has mitigated the worst excesses in China, when, in fact, it has only perpetuated them and solidified the Communist system of repression, as no doubt the introduction of the free-market into Cuba would extend the shelf life of Castroism indefinitely while not altering its basic ingredients.
If anyone requires proof that the Red Chinese are still the Red Chinese, they should follow closely the preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The organizers have just published a list of "prohibited objects" in the Olympic Village where the athletes will be staying. Yes, of course, video cameras have been prohibited: they sell them to us but won't allow them to be used in their "controlled environment." But that is not the worst. Bibles are also on the list of prohibited items and the athletes themselves are forbidden from wearing any religious insignia including crosses at the Olympic Village. No word yet whether they will be prohibited from praying or holding religious services there, though for Christians the latter would be difficult to do in the absence of Bibles and crosses. Difficult but not impossible: the 15 Catholic bishops and religious imprisoned by China still manage to say mass in their cells.
Is this what the Olympic spirit has devolved into — Peace and unity through enforced atheism? Well, China is still a Communist state and one can hardly expect it to cease to be a Communist state for the duration of the Olympics. Yet that is precisely what the International Olympic Committee thought would happen if it awarded the games to Beijing. Guess what? China outlawed extraterritoriality a long time ago. When in Red China, you must do as the Red Chinese tell you to do whether "white devil" or no.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The 1936 Berlin Olympics Redux: Or When In China Do As the Chinese Tell You to Do
Those of us who still find it incredible that the Olympics were once held in Berlin with Hitler as host and the whole world in attendance now have proof (as if proof were needed) that the world is still myopic when it comes to evil and can only appreciate it in its real dimensions when it is too late to do anything about it. What difference is there between holding the Olympics in China in 2008 and holding them in Berlin in 1936? Morally there is no difference. If we parse evil, however, there is a great difference: In 1936 Hitler had not yet embarked on his campaign of extermination nor yet provoked World War II. An objective observer could have seen what was coming, and many in fact did; but most of the world was still in denial about Hitler in 1936. Denial then meant refusing to take Hitler at his word, because he was nothing if not candid about his plans. In China's case, however, the evil is completely consummated. Holding the Olympics there next year is more closely analogous to holding them in Berlin in 1944, not 1936. And yet the whole world is now preparing to do precisely that with great enthusiasm and no moral scrupples. Not one nation has refused to participate in protest and no one has even attempted to organize a boycott.
Many presume that capitalism has mitigated the worst excesses in China, when, in fact, it has only perpetuated them and solidified the Communist system of repression, as no doubt the introduction of the free-market into Cuba would extend the shelf life of Castroism indefinitely while not altering its basic ingredients.
If anyone requires proof that the Red Chinese are still the Red Chinese, they should follow closely the preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The organizers have just published a list of "prohibited objects" in the Olympic Village where the athletes will be staying. Yes, of course, video cameras have been prohibited: they sell them to us but won't allow them to be used in their "controlled environment." But that is not the worst. Bibles are also on the list of prohibited items and the athletes themselves are forbidden from wearing any religious insignia including crosses at the Olympic Village. No word yet whether they will be prohibited from praying or holding religious services there, though for Christians the latter would be difficult to do in the absence of Bibles and crosses. Difficult but not impossible: the 15 Catholic bishops and religious imprisoned by China still manage to say mass in their cells.
Is this what the Olympic spirit has devolved into — Peace and unity through enforced atheism? Well, China is still a Communist state and one can hardly expect it to cease to be a Communist state for the duration of the Olympics. Yet that is precisely what the International Olympic Committee thought would happen if it awarded the games to Beijing. Guess what? China outlawed extraterritoriality a long time ago. When in Red China, you must do as the Red Chinese tell you to do whether "white devil" or no.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Tibetans Rise Up Against Communist Rule
The Tibetan people are rebelling against Chinese rule and the world is silent. It seems that saving the Beijing Olympics is more important than saving an ancient people whose land and culture have been eviscerated by more than half a century of ethnic cleansing. The New York Times, which has always done its upmost to keep captive nations captive because their liberation might upset the peace between the democratic West and the totalitarian East, has gone so far as to portray the Tibetan freedom fighters as Chinese seditionists, when, in fact, they are nationalists fighting for the sovereignty of their country, invaded, occupied and illegally annexed by Red China in 1951.
The Times is reporting today that the demonstrators (or "rampaging mob," as it calls them) have "clashed with riot police in a second Chinese city." Chinese city? Have the Tibetans invaded some city in China? No, The Times apparently recognizes Tibet as a Chinese province, and when Tibetans rise against their country's Chinese occupiers in Tibet it reports that they have "clashed" with the Chinese in a Chinese city! When the protests began in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa (which The Times at least recognizes as Tibetan) the uprising there was characterized as a "deadly riot." Tibetans, led by Buddhist monks and flying their country's banned flag, take to the streets to fight for their freedom and their country's independence with only rocks and torches as weapons and The Times accuses them of perpetrating a "deadly riot," although the ones responsible for the carnage are those with the guns and the tanks. The Tibetans are supposedly to blame for causing the Chinese to kill them, as the victims of the Boston Massacre were responsible for instigating the wrath of the British, I suppose.
The Times is also reporting the official Chinese line that the Dalai Lama incited the uprising. The Dalai Lama is their Cuban embargo; he gets blamed for everything that doesn't go their way in Tibet. Of course it would be as foolish to eliminate the Dalai Lama to placate the Chinese as it would be to eliminate the trade embargo to placate Castro.
As Cubans we cannot witness the events in Tibet with indifference, nor without a great sense of foreboding. What if those were our countrymen facing down tanks with fists? What would be the world's reaction? How would The New York Times report it and all the media outlets that follow its lead? Consider this: Liberals actually like Tibetans. They admire the Dalai Lama and his religion of peace (which is a lot more militant and dignified than our religion of peace). But liberals admire Tibetans in their place, of course, which appears to be in a Shangri-La collage or menagerie, but not in an independent Tibet.
Unlike Tibetans, Cubans are not well-liked by the MSM; in fact, we are profoundly disliked. More than disliked even: we are as hated as the Tibetans are loved (although the effects of the media's love or hate are much the same, as we have seen). If the Cuban people rose against their tyrants, unarmed and alone, as some wish them to do who have nothing to lose by their annihilation, there may be those who might see it as a propitious moment to end their association with the Castro regime; but the media will never side with Castro's enemies and will not be moved even by mountains of dead bigger than the Pan.
Those really acquainted with the nature of the Castro regime know that it will suppress any mass public manifestation of dissent at least as ferociously as the Chinese and likely more so. Even with Tibet in flames, the Chinese Communists are still masters of China. Tibet is a Chinese colony, obviously worth taking and holding, but not destined to be the last stand of Chinese Communism. Cuba, of course, is the site of Castro & Company and only incidentally the habitation of 11 million Cubans. It can only remain Castro's or revert to the Cuban people.
If the Cuban Communists were faced with an open revolt they would react to it with the closest approximation to a nuclear holocaust which they could manage; they would lay waste to the entire country (or the little they have not already levelled), cast it literally in darkness, cut off food and water, spread pandemics and desolation, and if they could sink the island itself into the ocean, as Castro once promised, they would do it rather than relinquish control of it. Let us never fool ourselves about the nature of our enemy. The Cuban people on the island don't. They know what they are up against and they struggle every day against it, but they know better than us, because they are there and we are not, the limits of the possible. We must not vent our frustration on their bodies but be patient till the hour of redemption comes as come it must. Again, we cannot know that hour because we are not in that place, nor can we schedule revolutions and expect others to do the dying.
Nevertheless, the example of the Tibetans is inspiring. We will not demean their sacrifice by predicting the outcome of their struggle while they are still battling in the streets. Nothing do we desire more truly than their victory. But whatever the outcome there are important lessons in their struggle for Cubans to assimilate both here and on the island.
The Times is reporting today that the demonstrators (or "rampaging mob," as it calls them) have "clashed with riot police in a second Chinese city." Chinese city? Have the Tibetans invaded some city in China? No, The Times apparently recognizes Tibet as a Chinese province, and when Tibetans rise against their country's Chinese occupiers in Tibet it reports that they have "clashed" with the Chinese in a Chinese city! When the protests began in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa (which The Times at least recognizes as Tibetan) the uprising there was characterized as a "deadly riot." Tibetans, led by Buddhist monks and flying their country's banned flag, take to the streets to fight for their freedom and their country's independence with only rocks and torches as weapons and The Times accuses them of perpetrating a "deadly riot," although the ones responsible for the carnage are those with the guns and the tanks. The Tibetans are supposedly to blame for causing the Chinese to kill them, as the victims of the Boston Massacre were responsible for instigating the wrath of the British, I suppose.
The Times is also reporting the official Chinese line that the Dalai Lama incited the uprising. The Dalai Lama is their Cuban embargo; he gets blamed for everything that doesn't go their way in Tibet. Of course it would be as foolish to eliminate the Dalai Lama to placate the Chinese as it would be to eliminate the trade embargo to placate Castro.
As Cubans we cannot witness the events in Tibet with indifference, nor without a great sense of foreboding. What if those were our countrymen facing down tanks with fists? What would be the world's reaction? How would The New York Times report it and all the media outlets that follow its lead? Consider this: Liberals actually like Tibetans. They admire the Dalai Lama and his religion of peace (which is a lot more militant and dignified than our religion of peace). But liberals admire Tibetans in their place, of course, which appears to be in a Shangri-La collage or menagerie, but not in an independent Tibet.
Unlike Tibetans, Cubans are not well-liked by the MSM; in fact, we are profoundly disliked. More than disliked even: we are as hated as the Tibetans are loved (although the effects of the media's love or hate are much the same, as we have seen). If the Cuban people rose against their tyrants, unarmed and alone, as some wish them to do who have nothing to lose by their annihilation, there may be those who might see it as a propitious moment to end their association with the Castro regime; but the media will never side with Castro's enemies and will not be moved even by mountains of dead bigger than the Pan.
Those really acquainted with the nature of the Castro regime know that it will suppress any mass public manifestation of dissent at least as ferociously as the Chinese and likely more so. Even with Tibet in flames, the Chinese Communists are still masters of China. Tibet is a Chinese colony, obviously worth taking and holding, but not destined to be the last stand of Chinese Communism. Cuba, of course, is the site of Castro & Company and only incidentally the habitation of 11 million Cubans. It can only remain Castro's or revert to the Cuban people.
If the Cuban Communists were faced with an open revolt they would react to it with the closest approximation to a nuclear holocaust which they could manage; they would lay waste to the entire country (or the little they have not already levelled), cast it literally in darkness, cut off food and water, spread pandemics and desolation, and if they could sink the island itself into the ocean, as Castro once promised, they would do it rather than relinquish control of it. Let us never fool ourselves about the nature of our enemy. The Cuban people on the island don't. They know what they are up against and they struggle every day against it, but they know better than us, because they are there and we are not, the limits of the possible. We must not vent our frustration on their bodies but be patient till the hour of redemption comes as come it must. Again, we cannot know that hour because we are not in that place, nor can we schedule revolutions and expect others to do the dying.
Nevertheless, the example of the Tibetans is inspiring. We will not demean their sacrifice by predicting the outcome of their struggle while they are still battling in the streets. Nothing do we desire more truly than their victory. But whatever the outcome there are important lessons in their struggle for Cubans to assimilate both here and on the island.
Peligrosidad American Style
Even before it was actually held the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because it denied the defendant such fundamental rights as examining all the evidence against him or confronting his accusers. Nevertheless, so flimsy was the government's case that even with the cards stacked against him, Guantánamo's star inmate, Bin Laden's onetime chauffeur, was acquitted of all substantive charges and sentenced to 5½ years for the crime of knowing Bin Laden, which should give pause to Bin Laden's laundress, the U.S. officials who consorted with him in his mudjadeen days and any Halliburton executives who may have done business with him before he became the pariah that he is today.
Since the hapless Yemeni chauffeur has already been under detention for 5 years, his sentence was the closest that the military court (called a "commission" in Bushian Newspeak) could come to complete acquittal without embarrassing its commander-in-chief beyond all measure and exposing the national disgrace that is Guantánamo. Though they came pretty close to doing precisely that. If GITMO's "top terrorist" merited 5½ years, what will the small fry who never touched the hem of Bin Laden's skirt receive? Probation?
The Bush administration may now wish to avail itself of the Supreme Court's ruling and try Hamdan in a regular court with the usual protections in the hope that a civilian jury may be less impartial and more lynch-proned than was the six-man jury of military officers handpicked by the Pentagon for the first "war crimes" trial in 50 years.
Hamdan will have completed his sentence by January 2009 and should be released then. Except that he won't be. The government has already announced that it intends to confine him indefinitely in "preventive custody" (the U.S. equivalent of Castro's peligrosidad). So, then, why was a trial held in the first place? For appearances' sake? Well, since it was an unconstitutional process as well as an irrelevant one, how exactly was justice served by it? Ironically, not even Bush's purposes were served by it.
What follows now? Hundreds of more irrelevant trials with irrelevant verdicts? The further refinement of a Castro-like state in the 45 sq. miles of Cuban soil that is not controlled by Castro?
We have seen many extraordinary things over the last 50 years. One of the most shocking was the "when in Cuba do as Castro does" policy which the Americans have adopted in running Guantánamo Naval Base. This was formerly the only area of Cuba where the Rule of Law was still upheld even if its mere existence was a legal travesty. Now justice is a fugitive there as much as it is anywhere else in Cuba.
The Supreme Court Ends the Other Tyranny on Cuban Soil
Ex Post Facto Laws Are Unconstitutional
Since the hapless Yemeni chauffeur has already been under detention for 5 years, his sentence was the closest that the military court (called a "commission" in Bushian Newspeak) could come to complete acquittal without embarrassing its commander-in-chief beyond all measure and exposing the national disgrace that is Guantánamo. Though they came pretty close to doing precisely that. If GITMO's "top terrorist" merited 5½ years, what will the small fry who never touched the hem of Bin Laden's skirt receive? Probation?
The Bush administration may now wish to avail itself of the Supreme Court's ruling and try Hamdan in a regular court with the usual protections in the hope that a civilian jury may be less impartial and more lynch-proned than was the six-man jury of military officers handpicked by the Pentagon for the first "war crimes" trial in 50 years.
Hamdan will have completed his sentence by January 2009 and should be released then. Except that he won't be. The government has already announced that it intends to confine him indefinitely in "preventive custody" (the U.S. equivalent of Castro's peligrosidad). So, then, why was a trial held in the first place? For appearances' sake? Well, since it was an unconstitutional process as well as an irrelevant one, how exactly was justice served by it? Ironically, not even Bush's purposes were served by it.
What follows now? Hundreds of more irrelevant trials with irrelevant verdicts? The further refinement of a Castro-like state in the 45 sq. miles of Cuban soil that is not controlled by Castro?
We have seen many extraordinary things over the last 50 years. One of the most shocking was the "when in Cuba do as Castro does" policy which the Americans have adopted in running Guantánamo Naval Base. This was formerly the only area of Cuba where the Rule of Law was still upheld even if its mere existence was a legal travesty. Now justice is a fugitive there as much as it is anywhere else in Cuba.
The Supreme Court Ends the Other Tyranny on Cuban Soil
Ex Post Facto Laws Are Unconstitutional
Friday, August 8, 2008
From the Tellechea Newspaper Archives: Castro's Pet Author Lends his Nobel Credentials to Marxist Cuba (1988)
[Unless they meet again in some Dantean latitude, Fidel Castro and Gabriel García Márquez had their last meeting a month ago in Havana. By year's end, one or the other will be dead; perhaps both. Their mutual admiration society will not be disbanded, however. Both shall continue to live in each others "works:" the tyrant as the sycophant's inspiration and the sycophant as the tyrant's well-used tool. The following article, from 1988, explores the most embarrassing and revealing episode of García Márquez's association with Cuba, which began in 1962 when he was contracted as a propagandist for Prensa Latina, Castro's "news service." In his "Reflection" on their last meeting Castro credits García Márquez with saving his life during a state visit to Colombia in the 70s. Fidel asked the then Nobel Prize-winning author to accompany him in his motorcade and, supposedly, García Márquez encephalitic head blocked a markman's view of Castro's and saved him to tyrannize another 3 decades.]
By: Manuel A. Tellechea
The New York Tribune
Commentary Section, p. 9
September 27, 1988
Gabriel Gárcia Márquez is the best known and most vocal of Castro's apologists in Latin America. He is also Latin America's greatest writer, according to García Márquez himself, most English-speaking critics and a committee of literary Swedes. How much the writer owes his reputation to the apologist, I will leave unanswered. It is clear, though, that the apologist precedes the writer and that both are now fused in the consciousness of the world.
This was demonstrated recently by so casual an event as the defection of García Márquez's personal secretary, which was reported on the front pages of many Latin American newspapers, and not, as one might have supposed, in the classifieds of the literary section. Defection? you protest. Men defect from governments, not from other men. Yes, that's exactly my point. García Márquez is perhaps the only man who lives in Cuba by choice, not compulsion. He lives, of course, in his own extraterritorial enclave which is not only a world apart but another world altogether: a one-man foreign legation representing all the useful idiots of Latin America, where liberty has been nominally decreed for those who most vociferously defend tyranny.
It was from this enclave that Antonio Valle y Vallejo defected. As García Márquez's personal secretary, he had been a daily visitor to his compound. No mere typist or glorified amanuensis, Valle was a professor of Marxist history and philosophy at Havana University and the Lenin Institute. He was also García Márquez's assistant at the Foundation of the Modern Cinema, which the Colombian founded and runs from Havana. And, yes, he transcribed and retyped García Márquez's manuscripts and may have offered a hint or two on the Marxist dialectic when needed.
Valle saw early on that his future did not lay as an exalted professor of lies or cinematographer by rote, but in the simple tasks that he performed for his friend and mentor. García Márquez was not unappreciative. He had his picture taken with Valle, a mark of the highest regard in Latin America. He inscribed Valle's copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude with a cryptic but telling dedication. Finally, came the reward for which Valle had long been hoping and waiting. García Márquez invited Valle to travel with him to Colombia for the Cartagena Film Festival. The magic realist had opened to him a door to another world, but Valle knew that he could not expect any help from him in realizing his defection. He could not guess, however, that his mentor would try to have him killed because of it.
On learning that Valle had gone missing,on his watch, so to speak, García Márquez phoned President Barco of Colombia and requested his assistance in locating him. As a personal favor to Colombia's preeminent son, Barco issued orders that placed his country's security forces at the orders of the DGI operatives that had accompanied the Cuban delegation to the film festival. Just as for an athlete or any other defector from Cuba capture would have meant forced repatriation and a lifetime of expiation in prison or the cane fields.
Valle sought refuge in the only place in Colombia that he trusted would not turn him over to his pursuers -- the U.S. embassy in Bogota; and, ironically, he was granted asylum on the basis of the cryptic but telling inscription in his copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude: "For Tony, the son that Naomi snatched away, with an embrace from his papa lost in the labyrinth of nada (nothingness), Gabriel '86." That dedication, by the way, is in itself an entire García Márquez novel and would alone justify the award of diplomatic asylum to Valle. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to his God is a fitting parallel except that García Márquez's god would have had him go through with it.
García Márquez's ties to the DGI were well-known even before the defection of Antonio Valle, though Valle's defection provided rather squalid proof of it. Ricardo Bofill, whose curriculum vitae is almost identical to Valle's, was the first to denounce García Márquez as an informant for the DGI based on his own experience with him. A member of the Communist Party even before Castro came to power, Bofill was for many years chairman of the Marxist Department at Havana University, and as Cuba's leading Marxist ideologue had entry into the highest party echelons as well as García Márquez's charmed circle. Bofill was purged and imprisoned for "divisionism" in the 1970s (his sin was that he wanted Soviet planners to handle Cuba's economy directly, not through Castro, thereby removing one layer of insanity from a two-layer system). Bofill later re-emerged as the president of Cuba's unofficial Helsinki Human Rights Committee. It is interesting that Bofill still considers himself a Marxist and regards García Márquez as a betrayer not because the Colombian novelist is an ideological Marxist (which Bofill is also) but because he is a practical Marxist (i.e. one who turns abstract notions into hideous deeds and accepts unseemly rewards for his treachery).
García Márquez's unstinting hero-worship of Fidel Castro is a matter of public record, but less known are the rewards he has reaped from his association with him. The Cuban state press has published more editions of this foreigner's works than it has of any living or dead Cuban author. García Márquez has used the royalties he has received -- which, incidentally, were paid to him not for actual sales but the official press run -- to purchase and restore a 19th century palazzo in old Havana. He also owns a yacht and his own private beach and marina in Cuba.
Bofill charges that he has acquired these not through his literary work but because he furnishes the Cuban government with information on internal and external dissidents. In other others, he "sounds out" local writers on their views of the Revolution and reports their answers to the DGI. It is also alleged that he provides the DGI with information on Cuban authors and artists living abroad who have not officially broken with the Revolution but are privately critical of it. García Márquez's defenders have countered that he has on occasion assisted Cuban friends who have fallen afoul of the regime. No names are ever given of the beneficiaries of his intervention and he has never been a signatory to any petition on behalf of Cuban political prisoners or any imprisoned Cuban in particular. His conduct in respect to his closest literary associate in Cuba should give the lie to all who think better of him than he deserves.
It is true that García Márquez has enough money to live anywhere he wishes and buy anything he wants. But he wants to live in Cuba and in opulence. And that boon is not obtained just with dollars. As José Martí wrote 100 years ago, "Every tyranny has at hand one of those learned men to think and write, to justify, to extenuate, and to disguise. Sometimes it has many of them, because literature is often coupled with an appetite for luxury, and with the latter comes a willingness to sell oneself to whomever can satisfy it."
By: Manuel A. Tellechea
The New York Tribune
Commentary Section, p. 9
September 27, 1988
Gabriel Gárcia Márquez is the best known and most vocal of Castro's apologists in Latin America. He is also Latin America's greatest writer, according to García Márquez himself, most English-speaking critics and a committee of literary Swedes. How much the writer owes his reputation to the apologist, I will leave unanswered. It is clear, though, that the apologist precedes the writer and that both are now fused in the consciousness of the world.
This was demonstrated recently by so casual an event as the defection of García Márquez's personal secretary, which was reported on the front pages of many Latin American newspapers, and not, as one might have supposed, in the classifieds of the literary section. Defection? you protest. Men defect from governments, not from other men. Yes, that's exactly my point. García Márquez is perhaps the only man who lives in Cuba by choice, not compulsion. He lives, of course, in his own extraterritorial enclave which is not only a world apart but another world altogether: a one-man foreign legation representing all the useful idiots of Latin America, where liberty has been nominally decreed for those who most vociferously defend tyranny.
It was from this enclave that Antonio Valle y Vallejo defected. As García Márquez's personal secretary, he had been a daily visitor to his compound. No mere typist or glorified amanuensis, Valle was a professor of Marxist history and philosophy at Havana University and the Lenin Institute. He was also García Márquez's assistant at the Foundation of the Modern Cinema, which the Colombian founded and runs from Havana. And, yes, he transcribed and retyped García Márquez's manuscripts and may have offered a hint or two on the Marxist dialectic when needed.
Valle saw early on that his future did not lay as an exalted professor of lies or cinematographer by rote, but in the simple tasks that he performed for his friend and mentor. García Márquez was not unappreciative. He had his picture taken with Valle, a mark of the highest regard in Latin America. He inscribed Valle's copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude with a cryptic but telling dedication. Finally, came the reward for which Valle had long been hoping and waiting. García Márquez invited Valle to travel with him to Colombia for the Cartagena Film Festival. The magic realist had opened to him a door to another world, but Valle knew that he could not expect any help from him in realizing his defection. He could not guess, however, that his mentor would try to have him killed because of it.
On learning that Valle had gone missing,on his watch, so to speak, García Márquez phoned President Barco of Colombia and requested his assistance in locating him. As a personal favor to Colombia's preeminent son, Barco issued orders that placed his country's security forces at the orders of the DGI operatives that had accompanied the Cuban delegation to the film festival. Just as for an athlete or any other defector from Cuba capture would have meant forced repatriation and a lifetime of expiation in prison or the cane fields.
Valle sought refuge in the only place in Colombia that he trusted would not turn him over to his pursuers -- the U.S. embassy in Bogota; and, ironically, he was granted asylum on the basis of the cryptic but telling inscription in his copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude: "For Tony, the son that Naomi snatched away, with an embrace from his papa lost in the labyrinth of nada (nothingness), Gabriel '86." That dedication, by the way, is in itself an entire García Márquez novel and would alone justify the award of diplomatic asylum to Valle. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to his God is a fitting parallel except that García Márquez's god would have had him go through with it.
García Márquez's ties to the DGI were well-known even before the defection of Antonio Valle, though Valle's defection provided rather squalid proof of it. Ricardo Bofill, whose curriculum vitae is almost identical to Valle's, was the first to denounce García Márquez as an informant for the DGI based on his own experience with him. A member of the Communist Party even before Castro came to power, Bofill was for many years chairman of the Marxist Department at Havana University, and as Cuba's leading Marxist ideologue had entry into the highest party echelons as well as García Márquez's charmed circle. Bofill was purged and imprisoned for "divisionism" in the 1970s (his sin was that he wanted Soviet planners to handle Cuba's economy directly, not through Castro, thereby removing one layer of insanity from a two-layer system). Bofill later re-emerged as the president of Cuba's unofficial Helsinki Human Rights Committee. It is interesting that Bofill still considers himself a Marxist and regards García Márquez as a betrayer not because the Colombian novelist is an ideological Marxist (which Bofill is also) but because he is a practical Marxist (i.e. one who turns abstract notions into hideous deeds and accepts unseemly rewards for his treachery).
García Márquez's unstinting hero-worship of Fidel Castro is a matter of public record, but less known are the rewards he has reaped from his association with him. The Cuban state press has published more editions of this foreigner's works than it has of any living or dead Cuban author. García Márquez has used the royalties he has received -- which, incidentally, were paid to him not for actual sales but the official press run -- to purchase and restore a 19th century palazzo in old Havana. He also owns a yacht and his own private beach and marina in Cuba.
Bofill charges that he has acquired these not through his literary work but because he furnishes the Cuban government with information on internal and external dissidents. In other others, he "sounds out" local writers on their views of the Revolution and reports their answers to the DGI. It is also alleged that he provides the DGI with information on Cuban authors and artists living abroad who have not officially broken with the Revolution but are privately critical of it. García Márquez's defenders have countered that he has on occasion assisted Cuban friends who have fallen afoul of the regime. No names are ever given of the beneficiaries of his intervention and he has never been a signatory to any petition on behalf of Cuban political prisoners or any imprisoned Cuban in particular. His conduct in respect to his closest literary associate in Cuba should give the lie to all who think better of him than he deserves.
It is true that García Márquez has enough money to live anywhere he wishes and buy anything he wants. But he wants to live in Cuba and in opulence. And that boon is not obtained just with dollars. As José Martí wrote 100 years ago, "Every tyranny has at hand one of those learned men to think and write, to justify, to extenuate, and to disguise. Sometimes it has many of them, because literature is often coupled with an appetite for luxury, and with the latter comes a willingness to sell oneself to whomever can satisfy it."
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Is American Democracy Imperilled by Barack Obama?
Another (more or less) democratic discussion at Babalú spearheaded by its resident champion of free speech, Marc Másferrer ("Beware False Prophets...," Aug. 4). This time Marc objected to the proposition that if Barack Obama were elected president it would mean the end of American democracy as we know it. George took the opposite side of the question. And guess what? George is right. I might note, however, that not too long ago George issued his manifesto taking leave of the GOP (for the second time) and charging his fellow Republicans with betraying the ideals of Ronald Reagan by choosing McCain as their party's standard bearer. He has since said that he will vote for McCain, after all, while holding his nose. If George truly believes that the election of Obama means the end of American democracy, then he should really be a little firmer in his commitment to the only other alternative. Still, tepid to cold as is George's support for McCain, he is right about Obama and the threat that his election would pose to this country.
The motto stamped on U.S. coins reads: "In God We Trust." This does not mean that American democracy was ordained by God to be indestructible. It is as fragile and volatile as any other. A fratricidal civil war (1861-1865), three presidential assassinations within the span of 25 years (1865-1901), the Great Depression (1933-1941) and the near ascension to the presidency of a Communist and Soviet spy (Henry Wallace) on FDR's death (1945) -- the U.S. has dodged a lot of bullets, but because it has been lucky thus far does not mean that its luck is going to hold out forever. The odds, in fact, are stacked against it and with Barack Obama the end of that winning streak may be in sight. True admirers of American democracy should be vigilant at this moment not complacent. Elections are still held in Venezuela, there is a legislature there and a supreme court, but no one would seriously suggest that democracy thrives there.
The institutions of American democracy may survive an Obama presidency, the Constitution itself may survive too, but institutions and constitutions can be and have been perverted in the past, and not only in so-called "banana republics." Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War; the denial for 100 years of the civil rights of black Americans though these were enshrined in three constitutional amendments adopted immediately after Emancipation; Wilson's suppression of free speech and imposition of a police state during World War I and afterwards; and FDR's scheme to pack the Supreme Court in order to undermine its authority and independence — all show that not only could it happen here, it has happened here and will likely happen again.
Marc, who admits that many of his family were fooled by Castro but doesn't mention that the main man wasn't, refuses to believe that what happened in Cuba could happen here. His own family history belies his optimism. Marc mentions that Castro killed his grandfather's cousin by firing squad in Cuba but fails to mention that his great-uncle Rolando Másferrer was killed in Miami by Castro's agents. Yes, Marc, it can happen here. All that is required is someone disposed to make it happen and enough people to tell themselves that it couldn't happen here.
The Rise and Fall of the United States: The Final Chapter
The motto stamped on U.S. coins reads: "In God We Trust." This does not mean that American democracy was ordained by God to be indestructible. It is as fragile and volatile as any other. A fratricidal civil war (1861-1865), three presidential assassinations within the span of 25 years (1865-1901), the Great Depression (1933-1941) and the near ascension to the presidency of a Communist and Soviet spy (Henry Wallace) on FDR's death (1945) -- the U.S. has dodged a lot of bullets, but because it has been lucky thus far does not mean that its luck is going to hold out forever. The odds, in fact, are stacked against it and with Barack Obama the end of that winning streak may be in sight. True admirers of American democracy should be vigilant at this moment not complacent. Elections are still held in Venezuela, there is a legislature there and a supreme court, but no one would seriously suggest that democracy thrives there.
The institutions of American democracy may survive an Obama presidency, the Constitution itself may survive too, but institutions and constitutions can be and have been perverted in the past, and not only in so-called "banana republics." Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War; the denial for 100 years of the civil rights of black Americans though these were enshrined in three constitutional amendments adopted immediately after Emancipation; Wilson's suppression of free speech and imposition of a police state during World War I and afterwards; and FDR's scheme to pack the Supreme Court in order to undermine its authority and independence — all show that not only could it happen here, it has happened here and will likely happen again.
Marc, who admits that many of his family were fooled by Castro but doesn't mention that the main man wasn't, refuses to believe that what happened in Cuba could happen here. His own family history belies his optimism. Marc mentions that Castro killed his grandfather's cousin by firing squad in Cuba but fails to mention that his great-uncle Rolando Másferrer was killed in Miami by Castro's agents. Yes, Marc, it can happen here. All that is required is someone disposed to make it happen and enough people to tell themselves that it couldn't happen here.
The Rise and Fall of the United States: The Final Chapter
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Importance of Disappearing
All of Solzhenitsyn 's obituaries make it a point to mention that the young people of Russia scarcely know him if they know him at all. This is presented as evidence that his importance has waned since the collapse of Communism and that, in effect, he died long before he took his final breath yesterday. If this is true, then it is the greatest tribute that could be paid to him. It means that this generation of Russians is not in the thrall of the demons that haunted their parents and grandparents. It means that they are free of fear and want, that the central fact of their lives is not an omnipotent state that will dictate to them every facet of their existence and punish them for any deviation from the one ineludible path. It means, ultimately, that they don't need a Solzhenitsyn as their parents needed him and can afford the luxury of taking a Solzhenitsyn for granted. Now that every man in Russia is free to think for himself, it is no longer a novelty that one man dared to do so when few others would. A universal conscience is no longer needed in Russia because the duty of thinking has devolved on all men. It is Solzhenitsyn's legacy to his countrymen and he lives every time that injustice is denounced there or the rights of man are affirmed. To penetrate the minds of men, with your presence being unperceived but your entire essence permeating every fiber, is a better measure of a man's worth and usefulness than any personality cult or even the sincerest admiration. When a man becomes organically a part of his people then he is indeed immortal. Until we are shown another this is the only immortality we can be sure of. When Martí said that he knew "how to disappear" this is exactly what he meant. Today Solzhenitsyn has disappeared in the same sense and he, too, is more alive than ever.
Solzhenitsyn also influenced Cubans:
http://miamiandbeyond.blogspot.com/2008/08/solzhenitsyn.html
Solzhenitsyn also influenced Cubans:
http://miamiandbeyond.blogspot.com/2008/08/solzhenitsyn.html
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), R.I.P.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a man who lived and wrote on his own terms, who told great truths that no one else dared to tell, who constructed the future by excavating the past: harsh, dogmatical and intransigent; fair, visionary and right.
POSTSCRIPT:
Why has President Dmitry Medvedev not declared a period of national mourning in Russia or decreed a state funeral for Solzhenitsyn? Indeed, why has this not been done by all the states of the former Soviet Union and former Eastern bloc? The end of Communism began when the truth about its crimes was finally told. To Solzhenitsyn belongs the credit for exposing that truth so completely and forcibly that it could no longer be denied. Without Solzhenitsyn Russia would still be ignorant of its real history and a hostage to the lies that kept its people enslaved and the world itself at its mercy for more than 70 years. The debt of the free world to Solzhenitsyn is also beyond reckoning. Here, too, he should be mourned for what he was -- one of mankind's greatest benefactors and a universal conscience of the world.
POSTSCRIPT:
Why has President Dmitry Medvedev not declared a period of national mourning in Russia or decreed a state funeral for Solzhenitsyn? Indeed, why has this not been done by all the states of the former Soviet Union and former Eastern bloc? The end of Communism began when the truth about its crimes was finally told. To Solzhenitsyn belongs the credit for exposing that truth so completely and forcibly that it could no longer be denied. Without Solzhenitsyn Russia would still be ignorant of its real history and a hostage to the lies that kept its people enslaved and the world itself at its mercy for more than 70 years. The debt of the free world to Solzhenitsyn is also beyond reckoning. Here, too, he should be mourned for what he was -- one of mankind's greatest benefactors and a universal conscience of the world.
Fidel Rewarded for the Defection of Cuban Athletes in Edmonton
This is a time of regrets for Castro. Not the regrets that one might expect him to have after a lifetime of being the scourge of other men. That would require a conscience and that is something which psychopaths are unburdened by. His regrets are not for the crimes he has committed or the lives that he has crushed and eviscerated. His regrets are for the quarry that got away. His "Reflection" on the Cuban baseball players who defected in Canada reads like an ad for runaway slaves. These were common in Southern newspaper of the antebellum era. The only difference is that Castro does not actually offer a reward. I suppose because he is unwilling to buy back what cost him nothing in the first place. Although he did not actually buy his slaves on the auction block, Castro is no less attached to them than Southerners whose fortunes were invested in them. They are also, ultimately, the source of his wealth and social standing. His name is writ large in the annals of history with the blood and sweat of his people.
Of all his slaves Castro feels a particular attachment to Cuba's athletes. First, because they realize his vicarious ambitions; but also because they represent his only success in biological engineering. He was able to produce only one champion bovine of legendary (and perhaps mythical) accomplishments while cattle in Cuba became virtually extinct. Now he has a chicken that can lay an egg as big as an ostrich's but the other chickens, cowered perhaps by her achievement, have stopped laying eggs. Bigger and better, for Castro, has always meant a fetish with the abnormal over the common and ordinary. The statue of his beloved Ubre Blanca, world's champion milk producer, cannot be milked. Cuban children, despite of Ubre Blanca or more likely because of her, have their milk ration cut off at age 7.
It is different with Cuba's athletes. Their achievements can be shared by all even if the credit accrues only to him. They are Castro's ambassadors of sport in a literal sense, more so even than Hitler's Olympians. Their profession is the most politicized in Cuba and the athletes themselves are treated like state property. Of course this can be said about all Cubans but in their case the State has a most active interest in them which never lets up for a second while they are still in their prime. Then they are "shielded" at all times by several layers of "security," Castro's version of overseers. Their natural talents are not so much cultivated as circumscribed by regime. In its service, they are allowed to exercise those talents on a world stage but must renounce the rewards that accompany athletic excellence everywhere else. Perpetual amateurism in sports is no less desirable than in any other profession. It is an apprenticeship that never ends, or, rather, ends in frustration and superannuation. Every Cuban athlete's career is stunted if not destroyed unless he manages to escape Castro's plantation. Success or failure is contingent upon it.
Castro's indignation at the fact that his Fugitive Slave Law is not respected in all countries, his denunciation of Canadians for not enforcing it against the Cuban baseball players who recently defected there as the Brazilians did against the Cuban boxers last year, should merit the world's repudiation except that his pretensions are taken seriously even in countries that decline to serve as his bloodhounds.
Three and possibly five Cuban baseball players have defected in Edmonton, Canada during this year's Junior Baseball Tournament there. Castro has called Edmonton a "dumping grounds" and questioned its desirability as a site for future athletic events. One would think that the citizens of that city would be offended. That Fidel, who has singlehandedly turned Havana and all of Cuba into a dump, should so characterize their city would be sufficient cause to take umbrage for not only Edmontonians but Albertans, and, indeed, all Canadians. Instead, the mayor of Edmonton, Stephen Mandel, has extended an intivation to Fidel to visit his city as its guest. Yes, an all-expenses paid vacation so that Fidel can see that Edmonton, Alberta is not as bad as he thinks. If he had called it a "hellhole" perhaps a delegation from Edmonton would have delivered the invitation personally to him.
I wonder what Edmonton will do for the three (and possibly 5) 18-year old kids who defected there? Well, not rounding them up and turning them over to Castro's goons is at least something. But since they want to regale Castro as a "guest of honor" in their city what are they prepared to do for the teenagers who defied him and are now branded by him as "despicable traitors?" Their presence in Edmonton is more honorable to its citizens than would be that of this hemisphere's last slaveholder.
Should We Cheer for Cuban Athletes At International Competitions? Only If We Revel in their Degradation
Words of Reassurance to the Cuban Boxers from Fidel and of Thanks to Brazil
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Marriage of Fantomas
[The Madhouse has been decorated with jungle vegetation suitable for the occasion. There is a festive air of loving hearts joined in love's name. The long expected union is about to be sanctified].
"Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here today, in the presence of this company, so that Fantomas may at long last become a man in the fullest sense of the word, and that love, which knows no impediment, may claim its rightful prize. Love does not fear adversity because it knows itself to be stronger than adversity, and knows, too, that its claims are foreordained by Heaven. So I say to you that this is no happenstance; no accident; no aberration. Nay and a thousand times nay. It is Mater Natura that has framed this hour according to her inscrutable laws. Man and gorilla, proud and ancient bloodlines, descended from a common ancestor, and destined, perhaps, to sire a common progeny! Here, in this place and at this time, is history made. Man and simian, simian and man, fulfill their historic destiny and become one! For where gorilla came closest to man, and man closest to gorilla, there did love bridge the breech. Long did man wonder what was the common link. Look! here is the common link! and it belongs not to yesterday but to today!
One among us here, even more than fantomas, has dreamt of this hour, caressed it in her bosom since first she rocked him there. It is fantomas' 106-year-old Tía Tecla, who took no "jubilation" at age 65, but spent the next 40 years looking after her little "cebolla." She worked scouring floors and starching shirt collars and does so to this day so that fantomas should never have to exert body or mind on his own behalf. Hers is this hour as all her waking hours belong to him! Stand up, blessed hoary dame, if you can, and receive our recognition and thanks! [She struggles to her feet with the aid of Chichi, fantomas' first girlfriend, a mere chimpanzee of a girl. Uproarious applause].
And there are other people here who have meant much to fantomas in his life. There, sitting together, and loving every minute of it as if they wished they had lived in our times, are the ghosts of fantomas' dead mentors, Eddie Chibás and Frank País. Will you not both float over us and give us your benediction? No guns or bombs please. Save that for the fireworks after the wedding.
Fantomas best friend, his "nigga," as he proudly calls himself, is also here. Henry, erstwhile conductor, economist and diviner of dark mysteries, who did not see this coming in the prophecies of Nostradamus Dorschner, is with us today; and not only Henry but all the gang from Babalú who booted him from their blog but not from their hearts. George is standing on his seat, not wishing to miss the least detail of this historic day. And Val, the Founding Father of Babalú, appears to be overcome with emotion (as one would expect), as he holds in both hands the dead chickens and coconuts that he has brought as an offering for the nuptial table.
Occupying more than half the hall are those who know him best, his fears and calamities, his hopes and disappointments, his attempts and his failures: the delegation from RCAB, luminaries of thought and action, who have been fantomas' confessors, advisers and occasional flagellants. It is they who have emboldened him, encouraged and delivered him from a barren existence and brought him here today: Vana and Agustín, Ms. Calabaza and Serafín, and Angel. There is another who has been in an intellectual sense what Tía Tecla has been to fantomas in an intestinal one. He has fed fantomas' famished mind, and if his mind is still no match for his body, at least, it has stretched beyond anyone's imagination before finally popping. (Laughter) Yes, many things will be popping tonight. (More laughter) This noble gentleman forbids that his name be mentioned here today, disclaiming all cults of personality and, indeed, all responsibility for anything that fantomas may become or do in the future. Seriously.
But wait! There he is! Virtue's last reliquary, virgin in body and mind, and now King Kong's betrothed and soon to be wife."
Wearing half the lace in the world on his wedding gown, his 40 stone (560 lbs) looking no more than 39 (546 lbs), fantomas appears demure inside the encroaching shadow of his 2 tonne groom.
The Gay Mens Choir of Puerto Rico sings "Love Changes Everything" as bride and groom prepare to pledge their lives to each other for eternity.
"If there be any man or gorilla who shall object to this wedding led him speak now or forever hold his peace"
Then, suddenly: "Stop!"
The word, though only one syllable, resonates though the building as if uttered by a thousand voices. Everybody turns his neck to see who had spoken it but no one is in view. Visible panic can be read on the faces of many of the assembled. Fantomas' own face, as might be expected, is a study in anxious perplexity; but that is hardly out of the ordinary.
"I object!" Again that voice which seems to emanate from the ether.
"Present yourself and make your reasons known," answered the minister.
"You can't see me but I am here. I am King Kong's first love. It was to me that he is bound for all time."
King Kong's eyes are popping out and his ears seem literally to swallow every word with an immemorial hunger. Can it be her, after all these years? The tears are gathering in his eyes. That voice! That voice!
"Yes, it is I, beloved, come from the very bowels of the earth to claim you as mine. When we were young the world stood in arms against our love. But now the world cannot bind me. I am free of its shackles at last and seek shelter in your strong arms again. Come with me, my love, let us fulfill the promise of our youth and make the world go away!"
"Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here today, in the presence of this company, so that Fantomas may at long last become a man in the fullest sense of the word, and that love, which knows no impediment, may claim its rightful prize. Love does not fear adversity because it knows itself to be stronger than adversity, and knows, too, that its claims are foreordained by Heaven. So I say to you that this is no happenstance; no accident; no aberration. Nay and a thousand times nay. It is Mater Natura that has framed this hour according to her inscrutable laws. Man and gorilla, proud and ancient bloodlines, descended from a common ancestor, and destined, perhaps, to sire a common progeny! Here, in this place and at this time, is history made. Man and simian, simian and man, fulfill their historic destiny and become one! For where gorilla came closest to man, and man closest to gorilla, there did love bridge the breech. Long did man wonder what was the common link. Look! here is the common link! and it belongs not to yesterday but to today!
One among us here, even more than fantomas, has dreamt of this hour, caressed it in her bosom since first she rocked him there. It is fantomas' 106-year-old Tía Tecla, who took no "jubilation" at age 65, but spent the next 40 years looking after her little "cebolla." She worked scouring floors and starching shirt collars and does so to this day so that fantomas should never have to exert body or mind on his own behalf. Hers is this hour as all her waking hours belong to him! Stand up, blessed hoary dame, if you can, and receive our recognition and thanks! [She struggles to her feet with the aid of Chichi, fantomas' first girlfriend, a mere chimpanzee of a girl. Uproarious applause].
And there are other people here who have meant much to fantomas in his life. There, sitting together, and loving every minute of it as if they wished they had lived in our times, are the ghosts of fantomas' dead mentors, Eddie Chibás and Frank País. Will you not both float over us and give us your benediction? No guns or bombs please. Save that for the fireworks after the wedding.
Fantomas best friend, his "nigga," as he proudly calls himself, is also here. Henry, erstwhile conductor, economist and diviner of dark mysteries, who did not see this coming in the prophecies of Nostradamus Dorschner, is with us today; and not only Henry but all the gang from Babalú who booted him from their blog but not from their hearts. George is standing on his seat, not wishing to miss the least detail of this historic day. And Val, the Founding Father of Babalú, appears to be overcome with emotion (as one would expect), as he holds in both hands the dead chickens and coconuts that he has brought as an offering for the nuptial table.
Occupying more than half the hall are those who know him best, his fears and calamities, his hopes and disappointments, his attempts and his failures: the delegation from RCAB, luminaries of thought and action, who have been fantomas' confessors, advisers and occasional flagellants. It is they who have emboldened him, encouraged and delivered him from a barren existence and brought him here today: Vana and Agustín, Ms. Calabaza and Serafín, and Angel. There is another who has been in an intellectual sense what Tía Tecla has been to fantomas in an intestinal one. He has fed fantomas' famished mind, and if his mind is still no match for his body, at least, it has stretched beyond anyone's imagination before finally popping. (Laughter) Yes, many things will be popping tonight. (More laughter) This noble gentleman forbids that his name be mentioned here today, disclaiming all cults of personality and, indeed, all responsibility for anything that fantomas may become or do in the future. Seriously.
But wait! There he is! Virtue's last reliquary, virgin in body and mind, and now King Kong's betrothed and soon to be wife."
Wearing half the lace in the world on his wedding gown, his 40 stone (560 lbs) looking no more than 39 (546 lbs), fantomas appears demure inside the encroaching shadow of his 2 tonne groom.
The Gay Mens Choir of Puerto Rico sings "Love Changes Everything" as bride and groom prepare to pledge their lives to each other for eternity.
"If there be any man or gorilla who shall object to this wedding led him speak now or forever hold his peace"
Then, suddenly: "Stop!"
The word, though only one syllable, resonates though the building as if uttered by a thousand voices. Everybody turns his neck to see who had spoken it but no one is in view. Visible panic can be read on the faces of many of the assembled. Fantomas' own face, as might be expected, is a study in anxious perplexity; but that is hardly out of the ordinary.
"I object!" Again that voice which seems to emanate from the ether.
"Present yourself and make your reasons known," answered the minister.
"You can't see me but I am here. I am King Kong's first love. It was to me that he is bound for all time."
King Kong's eyes are popping out and his ears seem literally to swallow every word with an immemorial hunger. Can it be her, after all these years? The tears are gathering in his eyes. That voice! That voice!
"Yes, it is I, beloved, come from the very bowels of the earth to claim you as mine. When we were young the world stood in arms against our love. But now the world cannot bind me. I am free of its shackles at last and seek shelter in your strong arms again. Come with me, my love, let us fulfill the promise of our youth and make the world go away!"
King Kong speaking in the sign language that he learned as a young gorilla:
"That love is a memory dear to me but impossible to recapture. If you had limbs they would be cold while fantomas' are warm and beckoning. Be gone, if you once loved me, and cloud not my present happiness with shadows of yesterday. Adieu."
King Kong's declaration is greeted with applause and tears. Fantomas is glowing with pride and perspiration. He knows now that King Kong's love for him surpasses that which he once felt for that skinny-assed harpy that once vamped him. Yes, King Kong is truly his; the past has no hold on him; and even angels or devils from other regions cannot tempt him with their wormy virginity. It is only his wormy virginity that King Kong wants.
The ceremony recommences with the solemn vows that seal their union, each to the other pledging their love and constancy for as long as they both shall live. The exchange of rings is particularly memorable; their rings, indeed, had to be forged by a blacksmith and though open-ended were still a little tight. King Kong posed for a moment not knowing on which of the eight fingers of fantomas' right hand to place the ring, settling finally on the pinky as the point of least resistance.
They kiss as bidden, and such is King Kong's fervor that he bites off fantomas' lips and part of his tongue. Fortunately, fantomas is doubled-lipped and has a forked-tongue besides. The spectators are much amused at this incident, just another of those little adjustments that the newlyweds will have to make if they are going to make a go of their singular marriage.
The final blessing is given and the holy water sprinkled upon them.
And then...
Oh, Fortuna, how carelessly thou snips the threads that bind us to each other!
Continued next week...
RCAB Hacked This Morning
RCAB and other anti-Castro blogs were the subject of continuous hacking throughout the morning as shall be obvious to all who have tried to log-in today. We have as many enemies as does the cause of Cuban freedom. This attack is obviously the work of the Castro regime or one of its surrogates in this country. If nothing else it proves the influence and outreach of this blog and others dedicated to exposing the truth about Communist Cuba. The attempt to silence us because it cannot refute us nor kill that truth speaks volumes about the desperation and impotence of the regime.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Is Up for Reelection: "Remember Elenita!"
If I were ask what I consider the finest moment in this blog's history, I would answer its months-long campaign to expose the judicial malfeasance of Judge Jeri Beth Cohen. Of course, I didn't draw her name out of a hat, which is how she must have been picked in the first place to be a judge. Her interest to RCAB lay in the fact that the case of Elián González was being heard, at long last and by proxy, in her courtroom. Another abused Cuban child, this time a girl, was being threatened with deportation to Communist Cuba because the father who had abandoned her at birth had decided that the road to fame and fortune for him was to sacrifice his daughter's future as Juan Miguel González had his son's. Judge Cohen, who saw the itinerant pig farmer Rafael Izquierdo as some noble savage out of Rousseau and not as a pawn in international politics, found him fit to be a "marginal father" and awarded him custody of Elenita, pending an appeal to a higher court. Before it could render its decision, however, a compromise was reached between the foster parents and the putative father which assured that Elenita would remain in the U.S. for at least 2 more years, when, hopefully, her return to Cuba will be either a moot question or one out of Cohen's hands.
The best way to assure that Judge Jeri Beth Cohen has no further say in Elenita's life is to remove her from the bench. Let me say that this is long overdue and that I am and will always be puzzled how someone who holds opinions about Cubans as racist and xenophobic as Cohen's could have been elected to office in Miami-Dade County in the first place. I suppose she kept her mouth shut then, as did Janet Reno in her day. But the bile will out and it did one day in her courtroom in July 2002, when she proclaimed "I do not think that they deport people back to Cuba. That is our big problem. If we deport people back to Cuba, we could empty our jails. We would have it made and be happy, but we cannot." Ironically, this was said in the context of a denatured parent's request that his 17-year old son be deported to Cuba. The Cuban-American Bar Association demanded an apology and threatened to file a complaint against her with the state's judicial ethics review panel, as would certainly have been done immediately if the subject of her comments had belonged to any other racial or ethnic minority? Can you imagine the uproar if Cohen had advocated repatriating all blacks to Africa, as Thomas Jefferson and other worthies once did? The Cuban-American lawyers, who still had to plead before her in court, accepted her apology on behalf of all Cubans and her faux pas was quickly forgiven and forgotten (contrary to The Miami Herald's assertions today). I am still amazed that I was the first to cite her quote in relation to this case. The Miami Herald certainly had "forgotten" and so had everybody else.
Well, The Herald has made amends by resurrecting that quote in an article about Abbie Corral, who represented Elenita's foster parents Joe and María Cubas during the custody trial and is now running against Judge Cohen in the November election. Ms. Corral could have picked one of several open seats and run uncontested for judge. Instead, she chose to challenge Judge Cohen for her seat. This will be the first challenge that Cohen will face since she was first elected in 1992. Of 32 sitting judges, only she and three others are running in contested races,which is yet another judicial scandal. If 32 state legislators were running for re-election unopposed, I think most would agree that the democratic process had broken down.
Not because she is a Cuban, not because she was Elenita's defender, but because she is not Judge Jeri Beth Cohen, I am endorsing Abbie Corral for circuit judge in Miami-Dade County. Besides McCain that will be RCAB's only endorsement this year.
One last thing: every day there are at least 3-4 visitors to this blog who come here by googling "Jeri Beth Cohen." This is because RCAB's coverage of the Elenita case pretty much defines Judge Cohen on the internet. I could not be more pleased or proud.
"What Can You Do for Me, Baby?"
In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card
Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying
Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom
A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life
More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm
What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night
Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles
The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas
Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)
Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable
Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee
What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?
The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying
Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?
The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)
The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo
Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too
El Bitongo
The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom
By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother
Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle
Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)
Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl
Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner
The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"
Notable & Variable: Well, Well, Henry
What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"
¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog
The best way to assure that Judge Jeri Beth Cohen has no further say in Elenita's life is to remove her from the bench. Let me say that this is long overdue and that I am and will always be puzzled how someone who holds opinions about Cubans as racist and xenophobic as Cohen's could have been elected to office in Miami-Dade County in the first place. I suppose she kept her mouth shut then, as did Janet Reno in her day. But the bile will out and it did one day in her courtroom in July 2002, when she proclaimed "I do not think that they deport people back to Cuba. That is our big problem. If we deport people back to Cuba, we could empty our jails. We would have it made and be happy, but we cannot." Ironically, this was said in the context of a denatured parent's request that his 17-year old son be deported to Cuba. The Cuban-American Bar Association demanded an apology and threatened to file a complaint against her with the state's judicial ethics review panel, as would certainly have been done immediately if the subject of her comments had belonged to any other racial or ethnic minority? Can you imagine the uproar if Cohen had advocated repatriating all blacks to Africa, as Thomas Jefferson and other worthies once did? The Cuban-American lawyers, who still had to plead before her in court, accepted her apology on behalf of all Cubans and her faux pas was quickly forgiven and forgotten (contrary to The Miami Herald's assertions today). I am still amazed that I was the first to cite her quote in relation to this case. The Miami Herald certainly had "forgotten" and so had everybody else.
Well, The Herald has made amends by resurrecting that quote in an article about Abbie Corral, who represented Elenita's foster parents Joe and María Cubas during the custody trial and is now running against Judge Cohen in the November election. Ms. Corral could have picked one of several open seats and run uncontested for judge. Instead, she chose to challenge Judge Cohen for her seat. This will be the first challenge that Cohen will face since she was first elected in 1992. Of 32 sitting judges, only she and three others are running in contested races,which is yet another judicial scandal. If 32 state legislators were running for re-election unopposed, I think most would agree that the democratic process had broken down.
Not because she is a Cuban, not because she was Elenita's defender, but because she is not Judge Jeri Beth Cohen, I am endorsing Abbie Corral for circuit judge in Miami-Dade County. Besides McCain that will be RCAB's only endorsement this year.
One last thing: every day there are at least 3-4 visitors to this blog who come here by googling "Jeri Beth Cohen." This is because RCAB's coverage of the Elenita case pretty much defines Judge Cohen on the internet. I could not be more pleased or proud.
"What Can You Do for Me, Baby?"
In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card
Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying
Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom
A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life
More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm
What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night
Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles
The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas
Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)
Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable
Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee
What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?
The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying
Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?
The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)
The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo
Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too
El Bitongo
The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom
By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother
Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle
Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)
Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl
Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner
The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"
Notable & Variable: Well, Well, Henry
What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"
¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog
Honoring the Revolution's "Martyrs"
July 30th, the anniversary of the death in 1957 of Frank País, Cuba's most sanguinary terrorist, is commemorated in Castro's demesne as "Revolutionary Martyrs Day." The focus of memorial activities this year is Frank País' successor, who also had the good grace to get himself killed before the triumph of the Revolution and so earned Castro's eternal gratitude and friendship. This is something that Castro never awards to the living and the only way to earn it is to die. If Castro never actually said it he has certainly made it a guiding principle of his life: The only good revolutionary is a dead revolutionary.
They may not be competent to do anything else but Communists certainly are good at hagiography. They unveiled today in Santiago yet another monument to one of their revolutionary "martyrs." This time the honoree was René Ramos Latour, called by Castro "a commander in both hills and plains," by which he means that Ramos Latour did not confine his terrorist activity to just the cities but even took sabbaticals in the mountains with Fidel. It was there, 50 years ago, that he became one of the less than 100 rebels who were killed in combat there during the Revolution. With so few casualties they might as well save time and money by erecting a whole complex of statues to their "martyrs." It would make a fine site for bowling with tractors some day.
They may not be competent to do anything else but Communists certainly are good at hagiography. They unveiled today in Santiago yet another monument to one of their revolutionary "martyrs." This time the honoree was René Ramos Latour, called by Castro "a commander in both hills and plains," by which he means that Ramos Latour did not confine his terrorist activity to just the cities but even took sabbaticals in the mountains with Fidel. It was there, 50 years ago, that he became one of the less than 100 rebels who were killed in combat there during the Revolution. With so few casualties they might as well save time and money by erecting a whole complex of statues to their "martyrs." It would make a fine site for bowling with tractors some day.
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