Updated: Friday, October 18, 2013
The now-historic U. S. Government Shutdown of October-2013 closed the Statue of Liberty.
On a cold and gray October day,
Another piece of democracy faded away.
The Government Shutdown closed National Parks, harming and inconveniencing millions of Americans.
The Government Shutdown even stopped death payments to the families of soldiers returning in coffins from the unending war in Afghanistan; the Center for Disease Control furloughed workers that included food inspectors even as 18 states were besieged with deadly threats from a new epidemic of chicken-related salmonella; offices related to national security were closed or down-sized; etc.; etc.; etc.
But....................guess what?
Radio-TV Marti was not affected by the Government Shutdown because the U. S. Government is not strong enough to defy the edicts of the Cuban Government-in-Exile, a situation that had its origin in January of 1959 when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The monumental event, it seems, only moved the Batista/Mafia headquarters from Havana to nearby Miami.
Starting in the mid-1970s when George H. W. Bush was CIA Director, the most virulent anti-Castro Cuban exiles audaciously became an unchecked force within the bowels of the United States government.
George H. W. Bush followed his CIA directorship with two-terms as Vice-president and one-term as President, and by then the most powerful Cuban exiles began pushing their own anti-Cuban laws through the U. S. Congress. By the 1980s, after more than two decades of failed U.S.-Cuban exile attempts to regain control of Cuba, the Bush political dynasty's adornment of Jorge Mas Canosa and other prime anti-Castro Cuban exiles resulted in the official coronation of the Cuban American National Foundation as the Cuban Government-in-Exile. Thus was formed in the 1980s, among other things, Radio Marti to be followed by Radio-TV Marti. It is a propaganda operation aimed at Cubans on the island but from the outset Cuba has easily jammed the signals. Moreover, the quality of the productions are basically laughable, except for the fact that the laugh for decades has been on the U. S. taxpayers who have been stuck with sending hundreds-of-millions of hard-earned dollars to Miami to fund Radio-TV Marti! While the Statue of Liberty, national parks, death benefits for soldiers, Center for Disease Control inspectors, and other federal agencies suffered massively from the Government Shutdown, Radio-TV Marti was totally exempted because the anti-Castro propaganda, which Cuba easily blocks, was considered "essential" to America's national security -- or so Americans since 1959 have been proselytized to believe or accept.
Like monarchs, the Bush political dynasty followed the George H. W. Bush years with George W. Bush's two-term Presidency, Jeb Bush's two-terms as Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush's ongoing desire for the Presidency, Jeb Bush's son's fresh desire for the Presidency, etc., etc. Jeb Bush began his political {and real estate} career in Florida by being the Campaign Manager for anti-Castro zealot Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's successful bid for election to the U. S. Congress in 1989, with mutual Bush-Exile benefits in its wake.
Bush matriarch Barbara Bush, the popular wife of 82-year-old George H. W. Bush, seems to have tired of the Bush political dynasty/monarchy, as have many long-time conservative Republicans like me. When asked about her son Jeb's anticipated bid to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, Barbara Bush said, "We've had enough Bushes." She's right! And the prime proof of that is the archaic U. S. Cuban policy that has insulted America and its democracy for decades! Radio-TV Marti is merely one example.
Jose Marti, for whom Radio-TV Marti is named, died in 1895 fighting the Spanish for Cuban independence prior to the 1898 Spanish-American War that resulted in a U. S. victory that merely transferred foreign domination from Spain to the U. S., at least until the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959. Cubans on the island still revere Marti for his efforts and, as indicated above, they as well as many impartial observers resent Marti's name attached to what many believe is a political money-making scheme merely designed to keep millions of tax dollars perpetually flowing in the Washington-to-Miami pipeline.
The democracy-loving Center for Democracy in the Americas includes a Cuba Central blog that weekly bemoans the U. S. treatment of Cuba, regularly pointing out that every Caribbean and Latin American nation strongly objects to the U. S. government permitting two generations of only the most virulent Cuban exiles to dictate America's Cuban policy. Fittingly, the Cuba Central segment of the current Center for Democracy in the Americas blog scathingly criticizes the U. S. for Radio-TV Marti, including the self-serving funding of the wasteful enterprise continuing while many worthwhile and beneficial projects were curtailed during the Government Shutdown. Cuba Central concluded: "We can't say what exactly the Martis are doing to protect our national security or what earned its employees their exemption from the shutdown. Of course, Cubans couldn't tell you either. The broadcasts are all jammed. They can't hear them. They haven't heard the stations since they were first founded in the 1980s, and the money spent on their broadcasts is being wasted." Every unbiased observer agrees with that assessment, starting with an ABC News report more than a decade ago entitled "The Broadcasts to Nowhere" that pointed out "hundreds of millions of tax dollars" were being wasted to satisfy the whims of a few politically connected Cuban exiles in Miami. The insightful, respected Center for Democracy in the Americas stated: "The decision to keep the Martis running amused at least one senior Congressional staffer who told the Cable, 'If the Martis shut down, we risk forfeiting our .001% of market-share on the island we've spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars cultivating.'"
The Miami New Times this week also chastised the U. S. for continuing to lavishly fund Radio-TV Marti during the Shutdown. Kyle Munzenrieder of the Miami New Times wrote: "Our tax dollars are paying for news reports that Cubans can't hear about how our government can't pay for services that we actually need."
The Denver Post's Penelope Purdy {above} penned the all-time best quotation related to the U.S.-Cuban cauldron: "The U. S. Cuban policy for all these decades has been conducted with the IQ of a salamander."
The cover of Time Magazine during the first week of the October-2013 Government Shutdown reminded its readers that "Majority Rule" is no longer a hallmark of the American democracy, an evolution that perhaps had its origin during the transition of the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba to American soil after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. It's been a somewhat different democracy since.
All of which helps explain why Cuba's inscrutable revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez presciently foretold the destiny of the Cuban Revolution, and the U.S.-Cuban conundrum, with this quotation dating back to 1959: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." But as the prime architect of Batista's demise, she probably didn't expect Fidel to live 87 years and she probably realized that eventually Cuba would succumb once again to some imperial foreign power.
I thought this National Geographic map was quite interesting. It depicts an airplane flight from Miami -- the capital of the Cuban Government-in-Exile -- to Havana -- the modern capital of Cuba -- to Santiago de Cuba -- the first capital of Cuba -- and then a bus trip to the historic city of Baracoa before returning to Santiago de Cuba for the flight back to Miami. If you use the 100-mile scale in the upper-right you can gauge the distance of such a flight as well as the motor route to Baracoa. I've been to all four cities.
Jose Abreu {above} will be the next young Cuban to become an instant multi-millionaire in America. The bidding war has reached $70 million and is now whittled down to three teams -- the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, and Chicago White Sox who are still in the running. On defense, Jose is a first baseman.
Jose Abreu is a powerful right-handed hitter. He is 26-years-old, stands 6-foot-3, and weighs 250 pounds. In the above at bat he blasted a home run for Cuba against China in this year's World Baseball Classic where he hit .360 with 3 homers and 9 runs-batted-in in just 6 games. Abreu is considered a better hitter right now than Yasiel Puig, the 22-year-old Cuban who is perhaps the most talked about player in baseball as the sensation for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Baseball is played at a very high level in Cuba as the recent avalanche of defections to the Major Leagues attest. And no Cuban had ever matched the season Abreu had in Cuba's top league in 2010-2011. That season Abreu hit .453 with 33 homers and 93 runs-batted-in in just 66 games. By next week, Jose will have an American bank account worth millions.
Update: Jose Abreu agrees to the Chicago White Sox offer!
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