Thoughts on the news, 6/5/2019
As I watch the continued unfolding of the traveling circus that
the Trump British trip has become, I can’t
help but reflect, especially on this day,
of another American leader and future Republican president facing a real crisis
rather than one of his own design on this same date, 75 years ago. Rather than insults
and poorly fitting clothes, Dwight D. Eisenhower was concerned with the possibility
that, regardless of all the planning, materiel preparations and deception, the
next day’s landings on the French coast might well fail and the allies be
repulsed.
As a real
leader does and few are willing to do today, especially not President Bone Spur, Ike drafted a letter on the evening of the 5th of June. 1944, taking
full responsibility for such failure in case it should it occur. The text is as
follows: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a
satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at
this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops,
the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If
any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." Sort of makes you wonder what happened to
that sort of ethical leadership, doesn’t it?
Today is Kenny “G”’s
birthday. Who gives a shit?
In a tragedy
locally, a young man and well-respected athlete who had just graduated high
school a week earlier, was a passenger and was fatally injured in what the
paper initially described only as a “single car accident”, but which, on reading further, mentioned the vehicle leaving the road, striking a tree and killing both the
driver and the young man in question. Any one besides me think just maybe
alcohol was involved? In instances like
this, there seems to be some sort of sense of, “Let’s not sully the kid’s name
by mentioning the (drugs, booze,
whatever)” What gets missed here is that
examples that strike close to home are often the most effective deterrents to
peers. We may never know why the young man died, or whether he or the driver
were even drinking, but if alcohol was a factor, other teens need to know that.
The Trump
administration has issued an edict, immediately praised by Florida senator and
sugar whore, Marco Rubio, banning any further travel to Cuba by cruise ships departing
US ports. This, of course, is
Trumpism at its “Undo everything Obama did”, worst. In fact, the first four
months of Obama era relaxed tensions brought almost 150,000 tourists to Cuba
and last year saw a 300% increase over that figure. This also resulted in
tourist dollars stimulating a hurting Cuban economy.
Trump Administration
hawk in residence, John Bolton, refers to the Troika of Tyranny (Cuba, Nicaragua
and Venezuela) as if they were one cabal plotting the overthrow of the US,
although in the case of Venezuela and Cuba, having difficulties just feeding their
people. Apparently, the lesson of Vietnam and China has blown right past Bolton,
who is, make no mistake about it, since he has the ear of an imbecile, a real
threat to hemispheric stability.
Millions died in
Southeast Asia because, in 1947, Harry Truman was unable, largely due to Congressional
Republican driven pressure, to just leave Ho Chi Minh to run Vietnam as the
election results would have dictated. Instead, Truman gave the French everything short of troops in their 8 years' failed effort to subjugate a people who only wanted to be self governing. Dwight Eisenhower later said that, had we allowed the (Geneva
convention mandated) nationwide election to take place without US interference,
Ho would have garnered 80% of the vote. Alas, the US, bastion of freedom and self determination that we profess ourselves to be, overturned the election and accelerated a war which would result in millions of deaths, civilian and military.
Where would that have left us? Well,
about where we are today, actually, trading with a nominally Communist
nation where our dollars and tourism are welcome. The Vietnamese are a
remarkably forgiving people, unlike us. If we truly believe in the superiority
of our economic system, then its advantages must be self-evident to struggling Communist/Socialist
nations, but only if they are able to interact with our economy and our people.
There’s a reason North Korea keeps most Americans out, and it isn’t really fear
of espionage, but fear of their own system being exposed by contrast and
personal interaction.
Cuba is much
the same. Castro succeeded because a US supported corrupt dictator (the Batista
regime) propped up by Big Sugar interests, had a stranglehold on the economy
and the population. As the situation eased, and had continued to ease with
Fidel gone, poor Cubans were generally better off than under Batista. While Marco
Rubio professes to hate Cuba as it is, it cannot possibly be from personal
experience, since he was born in Miami, 12 years after Castro toppled
the corrupt Cuban government in what was a people’s revolution. He cannot
possibly speak first-hand about the situation, since he was a grade schooler in
Miami when it happened.
So, just how wonderful was Cuba pre-Castro? In truth it was
wonderful only for the moneyed classes. Grabbing power and receiving significant financial,
military, and logistical support from the United States government, Fulgencio
Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties,
including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners
who owned the largest sugar plantations and presided over a stagnating economy
that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. (does this sentiment sound strangely familiar?) In fact, many of Cuba’s poor
who labored for pennies a day in sugar fields were as bad off as their grandparents
had been under Spanish rule.
Eventually it reached the point where most of the
sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land.
Think about the implication of that for Cuba’s underclasses! Batista's
repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation
of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with
both the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution
businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who
were awarded lucrative contracts.
So, any notion that an average Cubano would have been better off during the “good old days” (pre-Castro) is ludicrous. US
anti-Cuban sentiments among ex-Cubans have been fanned by those who lost their
ill-gotten financial gain under Batista. They continue now, by feeding lies to
the offspring of Cuban emigres (like Marco Rubio) who have no real idea whereof they speak.
Now here’s the odd part: Little Marco’s
parents were Cubans who immigrated to the United States in 1956, prior to
the rise of Fidel Castro in January 1959. They weren’t fleeing Castro
but fleeing a shitty economy (under a US supported dictatorship) and seeking
work in the US. His mother made at least four return trips to Cuba after
Castro's takeover, including a month-long trip in 1961. His maternal
grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, immigrated to the U.S. legally in 1956, but
returned to Cuba to find work in 1959. Understand this, Grandpa went back after
Castro was in power to find work.
So why does
Rubio hate Cuba? Probably the same reason as millions of ignorant Americans
with no sense of either History or Economics – they’ve been told to. (And
because it gets votes in South Florida)
Since the McCarthy era we’d been fed a steady diet of propaganda – not just
that Communism was “bad,” but that the best way to deal with it was to make
enemies of people who were either by choice, chance or subjugation, living
under Communist governments.
After a
reasoned overture to Cuba by The Obama administration which has been beneficial
to Americans and Cubans alike, Bolton and his Pillsbury Doughboy have reset the
clock to the early 1960s. How long until the Russians get involved?
And on a final, lighter, but equally scary note: Taylor Forte and her fiancé had planned an
intimate picnic at Lake Alice, near Gainesville, Fl, and things were going
swimmingly until the picnic crasher arrived. The guest, an alligator, sprinted
up from the water’s edge, scarfed a bowl full of guacamole (including the bowl)
after consuming a block of cheese, salami, half a watermelon and a pound of
grapes. It then waddled back to the water, apparently to sleep of the spoils of
its gluttony. What, no big Mac?
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