THE STATUES, THE BUSTS AND THE SMOKESCREENS.

                          

Since 1959 hundreds of thousand of fellow Cubans fled our native island escaping from chaos and dictatorship. They basically ended up in Miami and New Jersey. Most of them thought the new arrangement would be temporary, but as the truth sank in and days became weeks, months and years they started to realize it was more difficult than they had hoped. America was friendly except for a few racist episodes: yes there is racism beyond black and white, but its language was extremely hostile; how could one place the adjectives before the nouns?, they wondered. Castro and his thugs had robbed them of every penny and it was difficult to start from scratch. Then, the American government came up with a plan to overthrow the newly installed Junta and the Cuban immigrants were pivotal in that plot. It had to look like a civil war, no official American meddling. 

It was music to their ears; there was so much hatred and resentment among those whose dreams had been chattered and wealth been swindled. It was only fair after all to take back from the tyrant what he had stolen from the exiles.

A nine year old could have planned it better; not only was the military action clumsily orchestrated, but it was so loudly heralded that everybody knew when, where and how the invasion would take place. One could wonder if the whole thing had been sold to the enemy since the offset.

Our brethren had been assured that once they landed air support would be forthcoming; they were sure that the Kennedy administration would bomb the shit out of Castro and his barbudos hijos de puta. Suddenly, it all went south, no air support, the young president they had trusted so much washed his hands and left them stranded in the swamp; choice of death being a Cuban crocodile or a Czech machine gun, but death it was.

Then came the killing and the humiliation for those who survived, the public parade of defeat and the endless "me embarcaron".

As Cuban Americans do we have the option of demanding the immediate removal of all Kennedy's statues since he flagrantly betrayed us ?; the Brigade was not abandoned in 1800; it was served to a blood thirsty dictator on a silver platter less than sixty years ago. 

REGALADO SE REGALO

Una polémica más en el exilio del sur de la Florida. El alcalde de la cuidad de Miami, Tomas Regalado, había entregado la llave de la cuidad a Gente de Zona, uno de estas numerosas agrupaciones que en lugar de ejecutar instrumentos musicales ejecutan nuestro sentido del arte colocándolo contra el paredón del mal gusto, de lo repetitivo y lo fácil. No me gustan ellos como no me gusta ningún reggetonero ni la superficialidad con que se enfrenta el arte hoy en día. Evidentemente estoy envejeciendo. Pero mis preferencias son irrelevantes porque no me propongo hacer una crítica al trabajo de ningún artista sino poner de relieve el modo infantil en que nosotros mismos nos complicamos la vida. 

Es justo decir que eso de la entrega de llaves de las ciudades es una piñata que se usa para pagar viejos favores, apoyos y fidelidades; la llave en muchos casos se entrega a Juan para quedar bien con Pedro porque este último colaboró durante la campaña electoral y este metodo clientelista no fue inventado por Regalado; más aún, se maneja más o menos en el mismo modo en muchas ciudades de este mundo. Pero cuando se trata de la comunidad Cubano Americana se necesita ser en extremo cuidadoso. Yo personalmente jamás hubiera entregado la llave de la capital del exilio a NINGÚN personaje, cubano o no, que viviese en la isla, perdónenme pero considero que sea la política más sabia y prudente.

Pero bueno; allá fueron las llaves o la llave, no sé si le entregaron una a cada uno o si se trató de una única pieza; lo importante es que la ceremonia se efectuó sin más ni más y al poco tiempo explotó la inevitable bomba: el cangrejo; nieto del dictador heredero y controversial jefe de su escolta, se apareció con la travesura de subirse al escenario en una actuación del premiado conjunto y estos, como es lógico, lo dejaron hacer. Las protestas de este lado no se hicieron esperar y allá fue el alcalde a declarar que "a esa gente había que quitarle la llave..." es curioso que ahora ya no sean un pilar de la música contemporánea o ninguna de las sandeces que se dicen cuando un político desea justificar la entrega de llaves. No, ahora estos son "esa gente"; quiere decir que la llave de Miami se la entregan a cualquiera, o mejor dicho: a cualquier "gente". No nos parece imprudente, superficial y precipitado premiar a "gente" que no conocemos aunque sean de "zona"? o es que no nos preocupó el hecho de que vivieran en aquella "zona" árida y oscura donde contrariar a Su Merced puede significar la desaparición física?

Un cubano que vive entre dos aguas está obligado a "nadar y guardar la ropa"; el error está en haber premiado a compatriotas ambiguos e indefinidos y habría que preguntarse quién propuso la payasada y como fue que alguien con la experiencia de Regalado se dejó envolver tan fácil en una madeja sospechosa y complicada. De nuevo se nos prueba que las dudas, las medias tintas y los gestos huecos conducen solo a más confusión y caos. Debe servir esto de experiencia a nuestros políticos para que no regalen llaves como si fuesen Jolly Ranchers y a todos los cubano americanos nos debe hacer patente que siempre es necesario saber con qué "gente" tratamos y delimitar la "zona" en que deseamos movernos. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Racism, bigotry, discrimination, the rejection to all that together with the interests of the powers that be triggered the process to put Barrack Hussein Obama in the White House. Some claimed America was not ready for a black president and I think that for different reasons they may have a point. My view is that America was not ready for a black president not because it hated the notion of a darker shade of skin leading the nation. The overwhelming majority of the American people favored that notion; what we were not prepared for was to deal with it once a black individual had been elected; thus, it took us both his two terms to adjust to the new reality until it was no longer new and no longer reality. In a few quarters the reaction to Obama's election was utterly racist, but for the most part a cowardly and philosophically dishonest paternalism prevailed. If we criticized the president we were racists, fascists, bigots and all sorts of negative things. BHO indeed got a free pass and his shortcomings and weaknesses were conveniently hidden by the biased mainstream media and a public opinion afflicted by a childish guilt complex. The presidency of the first African American Commander in Chief was marred by a surprisingly racist approach to the individual in question; never was he judged by objective minds since he was vilified by a few and blindly justified by most; people forgot that failing to see a wrong where there was one just because it involved a black person is as racist as or more racist than demonizing that person merely due to the color of his or her skin. 

The ruling style of the previous administration was somewhat dictatorial; the president had his hounds and nothing got past them; contrary to what appears to have been a plague for the first 200 days of the current administration, there were very few leaks under Obama and if there were any a whole army of minions was ready to shield their boss. The press usually looked the other way and hardly ever pressed hard enough on the real issues. The fact that the Obama administration destroyed Libya; overthrew a confessed thug (who had accepted to disarm and was a wall of contention against ISIS) only to create the current chaos that prevails in that African nation and the press let him and Mrs Clinton get away with it is a disgrace.

During the last administration we witnessed horrible episodes of racism; the police shooting at black subjects without a valid reason; black thugs murdering police officers point blank, and all our mundane president did was to fan the flames and utter unfounded statements. Barrack Obama couldn't have made miracles; but he was in a unique position, being a widely popular president, to usher us all to an era of better racial relations and an honest, candid and productive conversation regarding race in our great nation. Another failure, another missed opportunity that the complicit press and the coward public opinion chose to ignore.

On top of that the Democrats underestimated the widespread discontent of average America; they didn't care to choose a decent candidate and went ahead with the mafioso pact between the Obamas and The Clintons. Joe and Jane were tired of waking up every morning only to face accusations of racism; they felt they were guilty by default simply because their skin wasn't dark enough and their eyes were blue or green. In eight years the extreme left had pushed the agenda of anti America, anti white, anti religion and anti patriotism beyond any rational limit; voting for Obama in 2008 was the effect of a cause: the persistence of racism and other prejudices in some sectors of our society; that effect in turn became the cause of yet another effect: the election of Donald J. Trump.

If America is to survive; and that's a big if, it must abandon this shifting from one extreme to the other; if every new president is to dismantle the work of his predecessor we are in deep trouble and after a few swings of the pendulum frustration and anger can lead us to fratricidal violence 

We were never a people of extremes and if our elected officials don't care to be late to this most important appointment with history we must remind them who's boss. 

BANNED AND ALLOWED

The current notion that the arm struggle is illegal is a half truth; actually the use of violence has ALWAYS been illegal and anyone who seized power or even attempted to seize it by using force should have been imprisoned and condemned; however, up until the time when some extreme left regimes were fighting to change the status quo in their respective countries violence was viewed through a convenient veil of leniency; thus, it was a generally accepted opinion that Castro's rise to power in Cuba, albeit illegally attained, was somewhat the logical result of injustice and inequality; very few nations stopped to review the summary trials and the numerous firing squads; the world acted as thought those executed by the Cuban Caligula in a way deserved their fate.

At a certain point it all changed; all opposition leaders in Latin America rushed to label themselves as "peaceful" as if it were possible to find something peaceful in an antagonistic contradiction. The Havana Junta and their puppets in Caracas call terrorists all those who in any way do what they did some years ago.

He sad truth is that we the people have fallen hostage of the current rhetoric and we fail to realize that even the Bible allegedly justifies the use of violence against a tyrant. As the totalitarian regimes in the world repress their peoples we must swiftly take a few steps backward and aim at power "by any means necessary"; their words not ours.