Beer, Ice cream and Beaten Bloggers

Thanks to Val from Babalublog I learned yesterday that Yoani Sanchez and other Cuban bloggers were temporarily detained and beaten on her way to a peace protest against violence. I've been since following Claudia Cadelo on twitter, and today I checked Generacion Y to see Yoani's point of view. It can only be said that the Cuba Governement is afraid, and that these heirs to Cuba's future are extremely brave. For more details on this Babalublog pretty much has it covered with updates.

After reading the various blogs, I perused the news websites to see what they had to say. The only thing CNN is covering on Cuba is how Miller Beer and Haagen Dazs ice cream may be sold in Cuba --for a premium nonetheless. As Cuban citizens are sequestered and beaten for their exercising of free speech, Chicago food (and other companies) are negotiating how beer and ice cream are to be sold on the island. Given that it is a premium, the target audience is not the everyday Cuban citizen. Given that it is ice cream and beer, the target audience is not the hungry poor of the nation. Given that the Cuba government is still communist, any premium commodity that will come from America, goes through the tourist, and ends up in Castro's pocket. The Cuban people have once again been ignored.

"We're in this for the long haul as well," said Paul Johnson of Chicago Foods. "Like I said before, we're thinking about today as well as tomorrow."

A tomorrow that would have U.S. tourists sipping American beer on Cuban beaches. --CNN

The truth is that any attempt to lift the embargo will only satiate the appetite of the visitor, the tourist, while filling the pockets of an oppressive government regime through inflated taxes. With no embargo, the everyday Cuban citizen will be left as hungry and oppressed as they were with the embargo. Since 2000, the US is the number one provider of food to Cuba and yet the hunger persists. If the Cuban government cannot use the resources it is given to aid its own people on a small scale (restricted donations), then it is clear that it will not do so on a large scale (the lifting of the embargo.) Period.

For those who claim that a new era has dawned on Cuba should take a close look at the incident that happened with a peaceful group of Cuban bloggers. Nothing has changed. Oppression remains in the cities while luxury and freedom exudes in the resorts.

I don't know about you, but I'm no longer eating Hagen Dazs ice cream nor drinking Miller beer.

UPDATE: CNN FINALLY writes an article about this.

Hey Juanes

Hey Juanes, I have a few questions.

Here are two Cuban musicans in Cuba that I'm sure would love the chance to play at your peace concert. Why not invite them?

Why import musicians who don't even deal with the day to day suffering of Cuba? Flying them in on planes is a waste of money that can go to feeding the Cuban people. A full belly is a closer step to peace than noisy propaganda.

Why bother bringing Cuban expats to play with you (like Orishas), when you can have your fill with local rock and rap artists?

Jose Marti said: "Everything that divides men, everything that specified, separates or pens them, is a sin against humanity." Having some musicians play and not inviting others because their views are contrary to the government is divisive, sinful and separates one from the other. This is contrary to the meaning of peace, which always seeks equilibrium.

Jose Marti also said: "Peace demands of Nature the recognition of human rights." Not recognizing the rights of the local Cuban musicians to play at the concert simply because the Cuban government sees these musicians as deviant is a slap at their human right to free speech. In other words, not extending the invitation to these musicians who sing for a better homeland is a slap to the very nature of peace itself.

How can you sing for peace when your actions don't reflect your song?

When will the irony end?

"I think anyone who buys a t-shirt of Che has gotta be cool. If I see someone with a Che t-shirt, I think, 'He's got good taste'."
— Benicio Del Toro

As we know the Che shirt is a delicious irony. A man against capitalism and commodities becomes a commodity sold for capital. As for Del Toro’s quote, taste is an aesthetic that has little to do with fact, and the fact is Che was a murderer. Taste is also irrelevant when it comes to wearing the image of an assassin. Wearing a Che shirt is either a bonafide proof of ignorance, or a possible declaration of hatred for human life.

Che: a man against capitalism and commodities becomes a commodity sold for capital. For a while I thought the Che shirt was the epitome of this irony, but then a greater irony developed –the Che movie. The American Che movie phenomena of the new millennium are unprecedented. In the past 7 years we have seen 8 different versions of Che in the US alone. The attention is nauseating and some of his portrayals are indeed myopic. Nevertheless, the irony is all the more exquisite; after all, nothing says capitalism like Hollywood.

Up until today I thought that Hollywood would be the apex of the Che irony, and I was proven wrong. To my surprise, this latest bit of irony has been going on long before the Che shirt and the Che movie. This bit of irony surpasses any shirt, movie, or clueless comment.

In Vallegrande, Bolivia Che is known as San Ernesto de La Higuera

Every October 9th there is a tribute to Che with flowers, candles, and invocations. That’s right, there are people who actually pray to Che Guevara. Now, I know for some of you this may be old news, but this is mind blowing for me. They actually pray to Che for a miracle. Che was a self-proclaimed atheist and he has become a deity for these peasants! I am not one to judge any person’s religious experience, but contradiction is contradiction, and I have to ask what history do these peasants know? It’s not like these peasants are learning about foco theory or arming themselves against the bourgeois. They’re praying to him for help in their day-to-day farm life: a murderer has become the patron saint of farming. Here we find a religious icon without historic grounding. Saint Che is hagiography at it’s worst. Anytime we read about a local’s encounter with Che, it’s never the philosophy that attracted them, but his appearance that wins favor. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if Che had the looks of Ghandi, Che would’ve been long forgotten.

The substance of Che is that of a human butcher who did not believe in God, who fought against capitalism, and who found hatred as the key element for his revolution. Today his image makes money on T-Shirts and in movies, his contradictory quote on love is found on bumper stickers, and somewhere in the little town of Vallegrande peasants pray to the atheist for rain and good harvest.

When will the irony end?


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For more information about San Ernesto de La Higuera you can check here:
mir.indymedia.org | San Ernesto de la higuera y el hombre nuevo

If you google San Ernesto de la Higuera then you’ll get plenty more links. (A strong stomach may be required.)

Come one and come all and come quickly before it’s gone!

That’s right, you too should visit the world’s finest circus that is Cuba before Fidel is dead and Obama drops the embargo! Hurry. Yes, hurry! Come to the paradise of car collectors. The haven of Anti-American sentiment. The center of cigar aficionados. The tropical hub of human meat marketing, where flesh thirsty tourists can have their fill of sultry, sexy, and lets not forget savage, Cuban prostitutes.

And what about the artistically inclined?

Fear not! There is still room for you as the decrepit and poorly cared for remnants of the colonial old world stands on rotting wood and broken concrete. After all, isn’t any art best with age? Isn’t the finest of wines the oldest of wines? Does it really matter that these two analogies don’t fit, because in the end you're really visiting the most original work in the tropics: Castro communism in all its damning glory.

If that is not appeasing enough, you can visit the Cuban music halls sipping Son like some deep overproof rum. Perhaps Trova is more your thing? Maybe you like the raw and raunchy Rumba of la calle! Whatever your preference, whatever you desire, know that all art in Cuba is too created by the original artist that is Castro who inseminates the expression of the Cuban people into one collective communistic catastrophe.

And speaking of communism let’s not forget la revolucion!

On every corner. Down every street. On every entry door and living room there is the static reminder of a time long past. A reminder of a nation so thoroughly duped by grandiose lies and merciless assassinations. That’s right, these are the images of Fidel and the images of Che--the architects of what Cuba is today. These are the two men who were brave enough to seek a helping hand from the USA to stand up against the mob-encrusted Batista, only to then become the greatest cowards in history hiding behind senseless acts of violence, collective mental abuse, and giving blame to the one country that helped these bearded ones into power--America.

Come one and come all and come quickly before it’s gone. Cuba is a paradise for anyone who desires to sip exotic Anti-American and Anti-Democratic vintage at its finest.

And what of the colorful, always smiling, people on this esoteric oasis?

What does it matter to you! Take their pictures and wave your holas. Their struggle, political desensitization, and cultural asphyxiation will have no affect with your walks on the white sandy beaches and flirty sips of mojitos. Cuba was made for you! You are Cuba's true citizen. Cuban’s love tourists and you will be accommodated accordingly.

Come one and come all and come quickly before it's gone! Though Cuban oppression isn’t going to change anytime soon, your trip may lose all its far away flavor as the political environment turns with Obama now on the scene and Fidel soon to walk off.

Don’t miss out!

November 22, 1963

By George L. Moneo

I was a second grader in Mrs. Mudre's class at St. Mary's Cathedral School, my parochial school here in Miami. The day started as all days back then did. I have no memory of it save that it was my birthday and I was expecting lots of presents when my class celebrated it later that afternoon. We had a Cowboys & Indians theme party and I received a great present -- a gun that fired plastic bullets -- that was a very cool plastic western Colt .44. It worked great and you could reload it just like the Cowboys in the movies. We sang songs, my classmates sang happy birthday, we ate cake and stuff, and all was right with the world. I was seven years old! When the dismissal bell rang, we formed our usual line to wait for our parents.

It was around between 2:30 PM, Miami time, on Friday, November 22, 1963.

The nuns who ran the school -- for the life of me I can only remember the name of one of them, the principal, Sister Mary Esther -- stopped us as we were leaving and said that we had to go to church to pray because something terrible had happened. I know that I showed the gun they had given me to my mom and she quickly told me to put it away. We went to church and prayed for, what seemed to my seven-year old mind, hours and hours and hours. I vaguely remember hearing that the President had been shot. What did I know? I sort of knew that the President was a Roman Catholic like I was. All I knew was that I had a great present and I couldn't wait to go home to play with it.

That day, and the three days that followed, would, of course be forever etched in my mind. The black and white TV was on in our house for what seemed all the time. Nothing was on the TV except that the President had been shot. My mother and father, grandfather and grandmother, all looking very, very serious. On Sunday, November 24, I saw Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald on TV. Live. Ruby yelled, "Oswald!" and pow! Oswald went down. What did I know? I was seven. I thought I was watching a movie that lasted all weekend long. And I saw the funeral on Monday. The haunting drums that kept the pace for the escorting of the caisson carrying the President's body still gives me goose bumps when I hear them.

In the intervening years, November 22, has held a special significance for me. Not because it's my birthday -- I haven't had a birthday since when I haven't remembered the assassination -- but because of what it did to us, all of us, as a nation.

We were hurt badly that day.

And I became obsessed with the assassination. The theories about it have become a cottage trade, like spy novels or B-movies. I've read huge chunks of the Warren Commission Report. Its purposeful lies were promulgated to assuage a nation and to cover up the ineptitude -- or complicity? -- of the Federal agencies that failed to protect the President. I most definitely do not believe the "single-bullet" theory. I remember hearing about it this "magic bullet" in 1964 -- a year after the assassination. I was amazed at what that bullet had done! In my young mind, I was still thinking it was like a movie or a TV show. Over the last thirty years I've read books about the assassination by Anthony Summers, Mark Lane, David Lifton, Jim Marrs, Fletcher Prouty, Edward Jay Epstein, Gus Russo, and Henry Hurt; magazine articles and websites. I've seen hours upon hours of documentaries, all of them outlining their theories about what happened. I don't believe David Lifton's theory that the President's body was altered on Air Force One to reflect an entry wound to the back of the head instead of a frontal shot, but I do believe the autopsy was badly bungled by someone who was not a trained forensic pathologist. I don't believe that Connolly was the target of the attempt and the assassins missed. I don't believe Oliver Stone's JFK and its leftist paranoia of a right-wing cabal, although it is a cinematic tour de force. I don't believe it was the CIA: did they suddenly go from inept, after the disasters they had been involved in, to brilliantly efficient, and execute a complex murder almost flawlessly? I don't think so. And I've seen the Zapruder film over and over again, its gory images etched in my mind forever.

I still remember.

I have my own theories about what happened that day, but I'll keep them to myself. What is certain is that none of us will ever know the whole truth about the forces that came together on that beautiful sunny day in Dallas to murder the President.

No matter what I think of JFK -- his fear of fidel and his betrayal of our brothers on Playa Giron; the sordid deal he made with Kruschev in 1962 that effectively sold out the Cuban exiles in the United States (myself included) by effectively preventing us from taking military action against fidel; the dishonest, some might say criminal, way in which he was elected in 1960 -- the manner of his death, so public, shot like a rabid dog on a street in Dallas, in full view of all of us, young and old alike, is a trauma that has not healed.

On November 22, 1963, on my seventh birthday, our innocence died and our unbounded optimism was derailed. America has yet to fully recover from the shots fired in Dealey Plaza forty-five years ago today.

The day after

I read Granma the day after the election, you know, the dirty mouthpiece of Castro they call news. Yes, I read it from time to time looking for what is said, and more importantly, I look for what isn’t said. For many of us, the election of 2008 was a surprise. I was shocked to see Obama win, and knowing the praise that Castro has given him, I wanted to read what filth Granma was spewing.

One article. One homely article was given in homage to the President Elect. In many ways, Bush made more news on Granma than Obama did. For the first time, in a long time, in Granma I read an article on the US that did not mention the “Miami Mafia.” Nor was there mention of the US greedily and secretly wanting Cuba. Nothing. The favor, or shock, of Obama’s victory is so great that there are no canned complaints or exaggerated exaltations.

Interestingly enough, I found an archived article from the day before that was classic Granma. It was the bashing of McCain if he would win the Presidency. The article closed with the subheading: un voto que no vale gran cosa (a vote that is worthless). Reference was made to the 2000 election and how Gore had the White House stolen from him. This was the Popular vote vs. the Electoral vote schema, and how our electoral system is allegedly corrupt. There is no mention of this in Obama’s victory article. There is no Granma press coverage as there was when Bush won both times. The single article in Granma is sober. And as I think about it, isn’t it clear that though Castro may find su media naranja in Obama, having a black man as a US President spits in the eye of Castro’s Revolution. I’m postulating that Granma’s initial reaction is sober because it shows that in the US we can have a black president, while the Cuba after Castro is still run by old white men. Granted this scenario would have been sweeter for me had Alan Keyes, and not Obama, been the first African-American president.

The US was at one time was more racist than Cuba. In the fifties US racism was at a height and yet Cuba had a mulatto President. Castro came with a promise to uplift the colored in Cuba, and instead he equally oppressed everyone. Now the Cuban cabinet is mainly white, and in the US we have a mulatto President elect. Let’s not be fooled by Castro’s past acclaims for Obama. This is not the scenario he had hoped for in the election. Any mulatto oppressed in Cuba can now look at the US and question why a white bearded man has Governed and oppressed him and his family for almost 50 years. Also, Obama’s openness to relations with Cuba is something that Castro does not want. As crucial as the Embargo has been to hurt Castro, Castro has been using the Embargo to scapegoat his failure. The threat of an Embargo lifting leaves Castro without an excuse. It would have been easier to have a Republican to throw blame on and expose how “corrupt” is the US electoral system. Yet Obama’s win shows how our democracy works. It’s not about the few in Miami; it’s about the American people and how this country is handled. Bush failed to handle his presidency well, and because of that many people threw the blame on the party and voted against Republican. Castro has failed Cuba and no matter how many “elections” happen on the island it is clear for the Cuban people that their vote is, un voto que no vale gran cosa.

Many are skeptical and fearful about Obama. However, Obama became President through our system and our political system is greater than any individual. Our voice, our action, and our resolve is what guides this nation –not the whim of one man. America is where the cutting edge of history happens, and it happens because the people have a voice. This is something that Castro could never grasp, and something that no President can ever take away from us unless we allow it with closed mouths. Obama will have it tough –we will not be quiet on issues that endanger our country and our people. And let’s not be so sure of Castro’s acceptance of Obama; our President elect can easily become a figure for Castro’s failure in Cuba.

It is silence, and not one man, that will be the death of our democracy.