Founding Fathers Craved Cuba

And the Craving Still Exists
But first..........

      ........this Willow Haven Outdoor photo caught my eye. The brave, lucky couple is standing on their favorite rock in Norway. It is wedged in an alpine crevice of the Kjerag Mountain range.

Meanwhile.............

      .......meet Colonel Alejandro Castro Espin. He is the son of Cuban President Raul Castro and the late revolutionary heroine Vilma Espin. On Tuesday of this week Alejandro led a Cuban delegation to Moscow. He personally signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Russian Security Council and tentatively agreed to a Russian-Cuban pact relating to a joint use of space for peaceful purposes. The "Voice of America" website quoted Alejandro as saying, "Russia and Cuba need an effective cooperation tool to respond to sensitive issues. The memorandum may define priorities for cooperation to ensure effective security on both sides." (UMMMMmmm...?}

     After all these years, the indomitable Thomas Jefferson remains celebrated as America's greatest and most important Founding Father. He was born in Shadwell, Virginia in 1743 and died on July 4th, 1826. He was the principal author of America's Declaration of Independence and the President of the United States from 1801 till 1809, among his myriad of momentous, incomparable achievements.

     To this day, even apart from his Declaration of Independence masterpiece, Thomas Jefferson is America's most quoted person. In the last years of his life, he had a fixation on...CUBA! No kidding. In 1820 Mr. Jefferson wrote: "Cuba is the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states." Later in 1820 Mr. Jefferson wrote this salient suggestion to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun: "The United States ought, at the first opportunity, to take Cuba." 

      Beginning on July 12, 1900 this poster saturated America in remembrance of Thomas Jefferson's burning desire that the United States should one day "take Cuba." As you study this poster, note that in the lower-right portion there is the celebration in July of 1900 of the "American Rule in Cuba." This, of course, was shortly after the United States, to sate its craving for Cuba, had provoked and then easily won the Spanish-American War in 1898, providing the U. S. with control of Cuba once and for all...except, of course, when the Cuban Revolution astoundingly changed things in 1959. The two men prominently featured in the center of this poster are William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. McKinley was President of the United States from 1897 till 1901 when he was assassinated six months into his second term. Teddy Roosevelt was then President for two terms from 1901 till 1909.

     In 1898 America's most prized warship was the ultra-modern USS Maine. It had been built in Philadelphia and commissioned in 1895. In 1898 President McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, a naval officer, were extremely proud of this ship. So were America's two most powerful newspaper moguls -- William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. McKinley, Hearst and Pulitzer also had two primary goals: {1} They wanted Cuba; and {2} they wanted Teddy Roosevelt to succeed McKinley as President when McKinley's second term ended. They knew that could happen if Teddy became a military hero, even a fabricated one. They also knew that Spain, which owned Cuba, was too weak and far too extended to put up a fight if the U. S. could come up with a pretext {excuse} to attack! What if, uh, we sacrifice the USS Maine and, uh, a few young sailors? No problem. President McKinley, goaded by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, ordered the USS Maine to sail to Cuba and dock in Havana Harbor on a, uh, good-will mission.

BOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM..... 

    On February 15, 1898 a powerful explosion in Havana Harbor blew the USS Maine to bits. The terrorist bomb killed 258 people, mostly young American sailors. The top officers, perhaps not coincidentally, were reportedly partying on shore. The U. S. had its pretext to declare war on Spain, using the war-cry "Remember the Maine!" to garner approval from the duped American people. Of course, from 1898 till the present, the American people have continued to be duped regarding Cuba.

     It was well known that the last thing Spain would do is blow up America's prized ship in Havana Harbor to provoke a war it couldn't possibly win. Spain, well aware of America's desire for Cuba and also aware that the U. S. had an insurmountable military edge, had been bending over backwards to pacify President McKinley's war-mongers, including Hearst and Pulitzer. But to seal the deal America's newspaper moguls plastered provocative articles, like the one above, all across the nation. Note the headline "THE MAINE WAS DESTROYED BY A SPANISH MINE." It is much more likely, of course, that the U. S. blew up its own ship as a pretext for the Spanish-American War although some historians believe it was an accident.

    President McKinley sent Teddy Roosevelt to win the easy Spanish-American War in Cuba. Hearst and Pulitzer sent their top reporters -- and even famed artist Frederic Remington -- to Cuba to make sure Teddy got the lion's share of the credit for winning the war. The pretext worked perfectly -- at least for the rich people who stayed home but not for democracy nor all those young sailors aboard the docked USS Maine. The easy victory in 1898's Spanish-American War finally made the U. S. the dominant power over Cuba. And posters like this claimed that Teddy led the brilliant charge up "San Juan Hill" to bravely win the decisive battle of the war. The paid propagandists for Hearst and Pulitzer overwhelmed the American people although, in fact, San Juan Hill was no more than an ant hill in military terms. But the American people were not in Cuba to see that; what they saw was propaganda like this poster. And soon thereafter, McKinley was assassinated and, indeed, Teddy Roosevelt was President for the next eight years, making sure he took good care of his rich pals -- especially Hearst and Pulitzer. And -- oh, yes! -- the U. S. had replaced Spain as the imperialist power in charge of Cuba, just the way Mr. Jefferson had dreamed in 1820!

      If you do a Google search of "Propaganda of the Spanish-American War" you will be directed to a long, insightful article that begins with this sentence: "The Spanish-American War (April-August 1898) is considered to be both a turning point in the history of propaganda and the beginning of the practice of yellow journalism." Study the graphic above and you will begin to understand how America's fixation to dominate Cuba has, since 1898, adversely affected the U. S. democracy. The U. S. reasons for provoking the Spanish-American War were abominable, made more so by the fact that, once it dominated Cuba, democracy for the island was never a priority. For many of the same reasons that Pulitzer and Hearst prompted the Spanish-American War, 54 years later -- in 1952 -- the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the wicked Batista dictatorship in Cuba! All along the way, U. S. citizens who could have brought sanity to U.S.-Cuban relations have been either too ignorant, too intimidated or too unpatriotic to defend the Jeffersonian principles of democracy. 

      The fate of the USS Maine is merely a chaotic tidbit in the pantheon of U.S.-Cuban history. But it is a big tidbit. And it brings us back to Thomas Jefferson. Yes, Mr. Jefferson -- as proven by the actual quotations at the top of this essay -- longed for the day when America would take Cuba. That day came in 1898 with the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War. The unfathomable treaty, by the way, was signed in Paris with no Cuban in attendance. That fact as well as the rest of the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, I believe, would have made Mr. Jefferson weep. I believe the quotation above, which he made in 1816, reflects that feeling. While Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and his championing of Manifest Destiny revealed his desire for a gluttonous America, most of all he loved democracy although he owned slaves and fathered children by the beautiful slave Sally Hemings. Once the U. S. obtained dominion over Cuba, Mr. Jefferson would have expected democracy to take hold on the island. He was wrong. The U. S. decided that rich Americans could best be served in Cuba by having U.S.-backed dictatorships to sanction their pillaging in exchange for kick-backs. By 1952 the U. S. even teamed with the Mafia to thrust upon Cuba the ultra-thieving, ultra-brutal Batista dictatorship. The quote above suggests that Mr. Jefferson would have been appalled that the Spanish-American War, started with the deaths of those young sailors, was at the behest of "moneyed incorporations" such as the wealthiest newspapers that backed Teddy Roosevelt back in 1898.

     By the way, this is considered the best likeness of Sarah "Sally" Hemings, the beautiful slave girl at Monticello. She had six children by Thomas Jefferson, four of whom survived long enough to eventually gain their precious freedom.

    This Jeffersonian quote also could be associated with U.S.-Cuban relations, which Mr. Jefferson surprisingly was obsessed with. In Batista's Cuba in the 1950s, the Cuban people feared their dictators; in the U. S. since 1959, Americans seemingly have feared objecting to Cuban-American dictates by the transplanted Batistianos. Mr. Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, best defined tyranny and liberty with the quote above. Does this quotation explain why the American people have been fearful of criticizing such things as the American theft of Guantanamo Bay in 1903, the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 in 1976, etc.?

       Mr. Jefferson would likely say that the U. S. support of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba {1952-1959} marked America's departure from democratic ideals.

           But the transplanted Cuban Mafia in Miami would probably have saddened him more.     

      Mr. Jefferson's fascination with Cuba, tyranny, and liberty -- I think -- is best defined by this quotation. That's why I have repeated it as a coda to this essay in which I am merely trying to state two facts: 

{#1}

The Cuban Revolution says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba.

{#2}

 And so does the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455!

Thomas Jefferson would have wanted Americans to react sanely to both events.

And if that is so, he would have been acutely disappointed.

     In a democracy when the majority of citizens are either too duped or too scared or too uninformed to participate, a handful of self-serving cretins can take full advantage. That's why the bombing of the USS Maine in 1898, killing scores of young Americans, should not have been allowed to benefit the alleged perpetrators. And that's why the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 in 1976, which killed scores of young Cubans, should not have been allowed to benefit the alleged perpetrators. And that's why, from 1898 till today, the island of Cuba says a lot more about superpower America than it says about Cuba itself.

      The Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson, intended for the people -- not the government and not a few looters -- to have the power in America's democracy. That simple but majestic principle worked wonderfully from 1776 through 1945 when the Greatest Generations of Americans courageously defended Democracy. But then...in 1947 the secretive CIA was formed and in 1952 the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the wicked Batista dictatorship that pillaged Cuba, creating the Cuban Revolution that in 1959 booted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship out of Havana...all the way to Miami, as it turned out. As the above graphic illustrates, Power to the People was a great concept...as long as the People had the courage, the will, the intelligence and the patriotism to manage it. Those four qualities need to resurface.

       Frank D. Roosevelt, America's only four-term President, saved Democracy in 1945 just before he died. That ties him with Abe Lincoln as America's all-time greatest President because Lincoln had saved Democracy in 1865 just before he died. The quotation above indicates that Franklin D. Roosevelt understood the essence of Democracy. But since 1945 America has not been guided by a Franklin D. Roosevelt...or an Abe Lincoln. Therefore, amazingly, a neighboring island -- Cuba -- says more, to a significant degree, about the U. S. Democracy than the U. S. says. The "real safeguard of democracy," to quote FDR, "is education." Americans since 1898 have gotten their education regarding Cuba from a handful of war-mongering, proselytizing, propagandizing plunderers who benefit from the turmoil and hostility that results from constantly targeting the island. FDR, I believe, would recognize the demise of that democratic "safeguard" as related to Cuba. Unfortunately, FDR is not around to deliver one of his "fireside chats" in defense of both America's sacred Democracy and mankind's common Decency.

 Thus, to the rest of the world, this is how America's lustful craving of Cuba appears.

      This Friday Barbara Walters, 84, concludes her remarkable television career. She acknowledges that one of the highlights was being driven on a tour of Havana by Fidel Castro on June 6th, 1977.

         On May 1, 2014 -- the month Barbara Walters retired -- the 87-year-old Fidel Castro, although very ill and confined to his Havana home -- was the dominant figure at Cuba's May Day Parade, as this Reuters photo indicates. After his passing, his image and legacy may be even more pronounced, largely due to the excesses of his enemies before and after the Cuban Revolution, which will forever bear his stamp.

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