I thankfully missed the last GOP debate, but from what I've read, Cuba was mentioned more than once. Perhaps more than a dozen times? Look...I know this is the Florida primary, but this American has to ask..."What the fuck is so special about Cubans, Cuban "exiles", and the history of Cuba, that enables this immigrant enclave to retain its vitriol and its political relevance after 53 years?
Frankly, it baffles me. So I decided to dig into it a little.
It's an ugly, cruel, violent and strange history, wrapped up in Cold War, electoral and local politics, and a people who hold tenaciously to grudges and a largely fabricated history they can hardly relate to anymore, let alone remember. It's almost a cult. And if Cuba were undergoing their revolution today, instead of in 1959, most Americans would be cheering them on.
But timing is everything. So, in Florida, is every last vote that a hopeful candidate can pander to in the most assinine and basest of ways. It's hard to believe that in 2012, the sort of crap that that GOP hopefuls in the last debate tossed out still resonates with anyone. Yet it does. To Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich...and a whole host of politicians who came before them, as well as the populace they pandered to...I send out a resounding "Fuck You."
Where are the enclaves of other former dictators in our political discourse? And their succors? Where are the politicians who sing the praises of, and pander to the exiles generated by, the likes of Idi Amin? The Shah of Iran? Guatemala's Rios Monnt? Chile's escapees from Pinochet? Argentina's refugee's from the "Dirty War" that ravaged that country during years when American held it, and a host of other Latin American despots, close to it's chest?
The others are diffused amongst various cities, unlike the Cubans. Cubans still concentrate in South Florida and New Jersey (Union City is nicknamed "Havana on the Hudson) to this day. And Florida is rich in electoral votes. So to this day, inexplicably, politicians will say anything to gain an edge, and a possible 2% swing in that State's vote.
America is blithely ignorant of much of its own history, so it's no surprise that we don't know much about history outside of our own borders. Cuba's history, and our own, is entwined in many ugly ways. I will provide but a brief outline of that history, and the more recent history of what has come to be referred to as the "Cuban Exile Community" in this country.
Memo to Newt: The Palestinians are, in fact, a real people. There is no such thing as a "Cuban exile", however. But when you get your history presented to you on the back of a $5 million check from Sheldon Adelson, certain facts are bound to be omitted.
First, let's here what Mittens has to say on the pressing topic of Cuba:
And then there's Newt...
You know what? I live in the PNW, but I used to live in what's commonly referred to as "flyover country". In either case, I'm left with a major case of What The Fuck Are You Talking About? Cuba? Really?
Give me a break!
What I wouldn't give to see a politician wax this disdainful and this threatening against China. Oh....but China not only crushes the balls of its internal dissidents, it owns the balls of its external debtors, of which we are one. Other than that, I fail to see any difference between China and Cuba. Or Vietnam...a country we waged war against for how many years? 15? It, too, went communist. But Bill Clinton conferred Most Favored Nation (Normal Trade Relations) status upon that country during his term in office.
We live in an age of throw away history, or history that's never taught in the first place. Some of you know this, but for those who don't...in a nutshell....Cuba was a dictatorship prior to the revolution which put Castro in power. Fulgencio Batista was, by any measure, a Dictator and a Cleptocrat. Even the Millenials who never learned the history can appreciate the fact that there existed a 1%, and probably much less than that, that controlled all of the wealth. But there are 1%'s...and then there are 1%'s. In Latin America, the 1% was an exalted group that American Blue Bloods of Mitt Romney's type could only aspire to (and, dare I say, envy).
There was no pretense in Latin America of some "classless society." Society WAS Class. In El Salvador, back in the 80's, it was said that the country was ruled by 14 families. Think about that for a moment, when you consider the Civil War that wracked that country for so many years. Guatemala? It wasn't much different. Cuba? By the mid fifties Cuba was an American owned company island, facilitated by it's president Batista, who attained his office through graft, military intimidation and electoral fraud. His only concerns were ingratiating himself with the small sliver of Cuban society that owned land and factories, stuffing his pocket with as much money as possible while in office, and stomping on anyone who voiced any opposition to the first to goals.
Cuba, under his control, became a Mafia run country. Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano controlled all of the casinos and most of the prostitution in Havana. While unemployment was rampant, there were in excess of 11,000 prostitutes in Havana, ready to serve the steady stream of American tourists who came to play there. While the criminal economy was firmly controlled by American mobsters, the legitimate economy was controlled by American corporations. Batista sold off control to the phone system to ITT, the country's oil reserves to American investors, and much of the sugar industry had been acquired by US bankers and investors back in the 20's. Batista got a kickback from every transaction that took place inside of the country. After granting ITT an especially large phone rate increase, they expressed their appreciation by presenting him with a gold plated telephone to adorn his office. Today that phone is an exhibit in Cuba's National Museum.
As the disparity between the few rich and the overwhelming majority of impoverished Cubans grew, so, naturally, did social unrest. Eisenhower's administration supplied Batista with a generous amount of military equipment, which was used to keep the peasants down. Youth unemployment was so high, and political disaffection so high among that group, that simply to be in your late teens or twenties was enough to cast you as a probable enemy of the State in the Batista government's eyes. He shut down the University in Havana, because he saw it as a hotbed of political discontent. His polise were legendary in their brutality, and protesters were routinely arrested, tortured and often killed...sometimes in public executions, other times at night, with their mutilated bodies placed in a public place for display when the morning came. Batista killed more than 20,000 of his people before fleeing the country on New Years Eve in 1959.
This is the Cuba that the "exiles" who fled to Miami extoll. This is the kind of society that they, even after 53 years, wax nostalgic for. They aren't exiles, because they were never forced to flee. They left of their own volition...and most of them thought that the "revolution" would be short lived. They left their possessions and property behind, often in the caretaking of relatives or friends, and fully anticipated returning a few months later after "things blew over", to return to the former positions of social and economic status. Things never returned to "normal", in their eyes, and they lost what they left behind. Boo fucking hoo, is all I have to say about that. But make no mistake...they weren't exiled. They hopped a plane or a boat to avoid the unrest and troubles, with every intent to come back and resume their former lives as if nothing at all had happened.
Much to their chagrin and undying consternation, it didn't turn out that way for them. America has seen waves of refugees from other civil war torn Latin American countries of the past decades...Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans...but those refugees have been almost entirely the dispossessed. The poor, the landless, the bottom of violently dysfunctional societies. The "poor" Cubans, on the other hand, were hardly poor. They were the affluent. The comfortable ones. The ones whose comfort came at the expense of their fellow countrymen. And they mostly came here not in search of a new and better life, but in search of a temporary respite from events back home. That they ultimately could not return, or chose not to, came as an afterthought, not a forethought.
That our politicians, in both parties, have routinely kow towed to them and pandered to them over all these years defies logic. Okay...it defies morality, but it follows logic. At least electoral logic, as Florida represents a prize of 27 electoral votes along the road to the presidency.
It especially defies logic when you look at the history of the Cuban American community in this country since 1960...and especially it's more extremist elements. While the extremists are in a category of their own, the community as a whole has been almost universally a conservative bulwark in American politics, and a solidly GOP constituency. You may not be familiar with the names of groups like Alpha 66, or Omega 7, Poder Cubano (Cuban Power), MIM, Brigade 2506, Accion Cubana or the FLNC.
These groups, and countless others, were spawned in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco launched by JFK. It was an armed attempt, by Cuban "exiles" trained by the CIA, to assault Castro's forces and "retake Cuba." It failed miserably, and ever since a hardcore among the Cuban community in this country blamed Kennedy, and by extension, the Democrats, for not providing adequate support. If you aren't familiar with the Bay of Pigs, you should be...check it out here:
http://www.u-s-history.com/...
The failure of Bay of Pigs led to a multi-generational bitterness, anger and disaffection amongst the Cuban immigrant community with the Democratic Party. But the brand of political terror and criminality that has characterized the Cuban "Exile" Groups cannot be laid at the feet of a feckless JFK. It is part and parcel of the culture of that community, I would argue. JFK had a hard line policy against Cuba, but not hard line enough for the Miami crowd. His "Operation Mongoose", a concerted effort at the highest level of the Administration to foment either a coup or an uprising against Castro, was literally run out of Bobby Kennedy's Attorney General's office. On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, in the midst of the shock and grief and turmoil of his borther's assassination that day in Dallas, Bobby picked up the phone and called one of the top Cunan exile leaders he was working with and made this accusation:
"One of your boys did this."
Bobby Kennedy knew more than a thing or two about the Cuban community he had been working with. Allow me to refresh your memory of just how violent and criminal they were...
Having just saved my diary and reread what I've put into words so far, I'm already afraid that I might be losing some of you here...it's gone beyond the accepted norm in length, and I appreciate the fact that everyone has only so much time, and just so long of an attention span. That's too bad...and I do apologize...but please continue reading. These things need to be known, and acknowledged.
Between 1964 and 1980, Cuban "exile" groups planned, executed and participated in an unprecedented number of acts of political terror in this country, as well as many other foreign countries. Assassinations. Car bombs. Mail bombs. Molotov cocktails. Airplane sabotage. Even a bazooka attack upon the United Nations. This is but a brief timeline:
In 1967, Miami suffered almost 2 bombing incidents per month. Newspaper accounts note that many of the explosive devices utilized military grade plastique, which was relatively hard to acquire, and sophisticated detonating devices. The Cuban Mission to the United Nations is bombed. Later in the year, bombs are detonated outside of the Finnish, Yugoslav and (again) the Cuban Missions to the UN.
1968: At least 22 bombings are traced to Cuban "exile" groups. Targets include consular, trade and tourist offices of Mexico, Australia, Japan, England, Cuba, Spain, Canada and Yugoslavia.
By 1972, when the Democrats selected Miami as the host city of their Nominating Convention, there was a numbing pattern of violence perpetrated by the various exile groups. They were numerous, because they kept splintering into ever new groups, unable to agree amongst themselves upon much of anything beyond their mutual hatred of Fidel Castro. Dade County law enforcement officials, in planning for security for the upcoming Democratic convention, identified the Cuban exiles as a likely source of trouble. The most subscribed to Spanish language newspaper that served the Cuban community endorsed neither McGovern nor Richard Nixon, opting instead to use their front page to encourage everyone to vote for George Wallace. Dade law enforcement assessed the risk from Cuban extremists by noting:
Reportedly, the Miami Cuban community has a force of 600 - 1000 men trained in guerrilla warfare and they are well armed and equipped for spontaneous organization. Weapons commonly at their disposal include:
1. 50 caliber machine guns
2. Rifles
3. Carbines
4. Home-made bombs
The Cubans are expected to be active at the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION. The Cuban community newspaper recently gave front-page support for Governor GEORGE WALLACE.
Throughout the 70's Miami was rocked by a steady and unrelenting stream of political violence by Cuban extremists. New Jersey, New York and LA also experienced this violence. KCET, the local PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, had their TV studio bombed after announcing they would broadcast a film made in Cuba. Several bookstores deemed "lefty" were bombed. A Cuban pastor in Florida was assassinated for preaching against the violence and the refusal to engage in discourse with Castro's Cuba. A radio broadcaster, who suggested the same thing on the air, left his studio and, upon getting into his car, lost both of his legs when a bomb exploded. Events like this were almost too numerous to list. And many of them never led to any criminal prosecutions, because the FBI and local law enforcement could never get any cooperation or information from the community at large.
But special mention should be made of one man...Orlando Bosch. Dr Bosch (he was a pediatrician, of all things) got involved in a big way with the Cuban "Exile" groups soon after settling into Miami. He founded his own group (of course), called MIRR. By the mid 70's he was actively coordinating with other South American right wing dictators, and their secret security services, to plan and fascilitate assassinations of expatriot critics of the regimes of Chile, Argentina and others. He collaborated in the assassination, in our own capitol, of Chilean ex-ambassador Orlando Letelier. In 1976 he masterminded the bombing, in mid-flight, of a Cuban DC-8 passenger plane, enroute from Barbados to Jamaica. A bomb placed in one of the aircraft's toilets detonated after takeoff, plunging the plane into the sea. All 73 passengers and crew perished. Shortly after the bomb went off one of Bosch's co-conspirators called him on the phone to relay the news:
"A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed."
Bosch was charged in Venezuela for the crime, as a couple of the co-conspirators were Venezuelan. He was held in jail pending the trial's outcome, but ultimately acquitted, since much of the evidence could not be admitted in trial due to security concerns with Venezuela's own secret service.
What was the reaction in Miami? Did the community and its elected officials express outrage and sorrow for the innocents who perished? No they didn't...that would have been a sane, rational and human response. Instead, the mayor of Miami flew to Carracas to visit Bosch in his jail cell and express his solidarity and support. The city council passed a resolution designating a "Dr Orlando Bosch Day." A lobbying effort was started to rename a municipal expressway the "Orlando Bosch Expressway." An oped piece run by the Herald, which questioned these actions, but couched its criticism with an admission that "a significant percentage" Cubans in the community, for whatever reason, considered Bosch to be a hero elicited this Letter to the Editor:
"You are mistaken when you say that 'many exiles believe that Bosch is a hero.' Not just 'many', as you say, but ALL Cuban exiles believe Dr Bosch to be so decent a man, so Rambo-like a hero, that, even supposing there were any truth to the allegations about that communist plane crash many years ago, Dr Bosch would only have been trying to pay back in kind those enemies of this country..."
Bosch, by the way, fled Venezuela to Chile, where he lived for some time under the protection of the dictator Pinochet. He eventually returned to the US, where the FBI still considered him a fugitive from justice for violating his parole years earlier. Immigration detained him at the airport and turned him over to authorities, but Jeb Bush intervened on his behalf. After a phone call to Daddy Bush, who was then president, the charges were dropped and Bosch was released. In 1990...midterm, mind you, Poppy Bush granted Bosch a presidential pardon. This is the way that Republicans suck up to the Cuban community, and confer seriousness to the issue of political terrorism. To his credit, Bush's Attorney General, Richard Thornburgh, disagreed with the pardon, referring to Orlando Bosch as "an unreformed terrorist."
So yeah...it makes me quite ill when I hear the kind of comments and the shameless pandering to Cubans that both Mitt and Newt engaged in during the last debate. I guess that's just one more of the examples of how the Electoral College no longer serves this country well, but it's more than that. It's a demonstration of moral bankruptcy. What??? Is there going to be a plank on the GOP platform this year to restart Operation Mongoose? Are they going to suggest we should take out Havana as soon as we wrap up business in Iran? Is this what it's come to?