painting by adolfo sanchez
Required. Reading new book "Cuba and it's Music" by Ned Sublette. In chapter 19 titled "Marti's Monster" he quotes Winston Churchill 1896:
"Though the Spanish Administration is bad, the Cuban Government would be worse- equally corrupt, more capricious, and far less stable. Under such a Government (US backed) revolutions would be periodic, property insecure, equity unknown. A graver danger represents itself. Two-fifths of the insurgents, and by far the bravest and best disciplined part of the rebel forces, are pure negroes. These men... demand a prominent share of the government of the country. Such a claim would be indignantly resisted by the white section, and a racial war, probably conducted with bitter animosity and ferocious cruelty, would ensue, the result being, after years of fighting, another black republic, or at best a partition of the island, as in San Domingo" (Dominican Republic / Haiti)
Back then it wasn't just confederates in the u.s. who felt that even the whitest of cubans failed their "just one drop" (of black blood) racial yardstick, therby conveniently inferior and conquerable. Today I say "welcome to the mulatto millennium"
Ned writes:
"Almost no one in cuba today can tell you the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but everyone can tell you what the Platt Amendment was. On three occasions in the first two decades of the century the United States invoked the Platt Amendment and sent in troops. Much of the capital and land was in the hands of foreign entities..."
The power structure in Miami may run out of benefits of cuban doubt. Diaz-Ballart and Iliana Lehtinen, Mel Martinez, with microphobes like BabaluBlog n Radio Marti, have been duped by the BFEE for personal benefit. Their drums stop beating as a new chapter is written. CHANGE is always in the wind and it is storm season once again in the swamp. Cuban-Americans today feel a pain that is without tears. We find solace in our music and the spirit of a people that is invincible.
That's just the tip of the cigar, the red-hot end. For the chomped and salacious end, listen to cuban music and read more.
Gracias to Jumel Terrace Books for the signed copy.
UPDATE... to be fair:
#067 Padilla Sues US Officials
Researched by Christina Long and Bill Gibbons
Jose Padilla, a US citizen, arrested on US soil and convicted (under extraordinary circumstances) of being an Al Qadeda operative, is seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 59 other US officials responsible for physical and psychological abuse and unconstitutional tactics while being held as an ‘enemy combatant’ in military custody for 43 months. Early in 2007 a civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Padilla in federal court in South Carolina over abuse he suffered from 2002 to 2006 in the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston Station South Carolina. Serious violations included sleep deprivation, stress positions, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and other extreme interrogation techniques calculated to profoundly disrupt his senses and personality and destroy his ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning. The government held Padilla for two years without any outside contact, including that of his lawyers. When that policy changed, government officials warned Padilla not to reveal any conditions of his confinement to his lawyers, the suit says. Padilla is left severely psychologically damaged.
“Padilla Sues US Officials Over Confinement” Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor 8/24/2007
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p03s03-usju.html?page=2
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