Tagged: Cuba
Red house
In addition to an early, massive revolutionary mistake, after the Wende Mr Castro made anti-Americanism the sole raison d’être for continuing his family dictatorship.
On the other hand, Mr Castro updated the image of the revolutionary: the beard, the cigars, and tea with Sartre and de Beauvoir.
It will be interesting to see how the scarface generation in Miami celebrates his passing.
Ice age
Stark contrast between the doddering Raul Castro and Obama, the past and the future embodied behind the lecterns.
The octogenarian Mr Castro, well into his graveyard years, is in no position to make demands. Such bravado made sense when Cuba was a CCCP satellite; it makes less sense when the Cuban economy is propped up only by declining oil profits derived from Venezuelan oil. The Revolution is exhausted, evidenced by the fact that revolutionary claims have become singularly focused in recent decades on anti-Americanism rather than real political progress. Whereas Party Communism has evolved into Party Capitalism in China, the Party in Cuba remains fixed in the political realities of 1960. As such, the Communist Party Cuba and the Republican Party USA are a perfect match for each other.
From Havana to Des Moines
Raul Castro is an embittered old man. Perhaps in his more reflective moments, Mr Castro would admit that Cuba made a mistake by throwing in its lot with the CCCP, only a few years after it had brutally crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. It meant Cuba merely traded in one form of dictatorship (the dictatorship of US capital and Latin American authoritarianism) for another (the dictatorship of the Soviet political catechism). If only Cuba had remained truly independent … alas a history of the post Batista era in Cuban history could be entitled “Errors Were Made.”
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Only Iowans take Iowan political judgment seriously. It’s a small state with few electoral votes.
Iowa has no effect on the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. It may wipe the grease paint off a few of the Republican candidates though.
Most Americans can’t locate Iowa on a map.
Maybe that will change now that Hannah Horvath is enrolled at the Iowa Writers Workshop.
Rough riders
One reason the normalization of US-Cuba relations happened now is that the anti-Castro Cuban vote can no long swing presidential elections in Florida. The most hardened revanchists have entered their graveyard years.
The NY Yankees are poised to plunder the goldmine of Cuban baseball talent.
Authentic avant-gardistas like Duchamp would approve of the whitewash of Banksy’s “works.”
Overture
The majority of Americans are not cathected to the embargo against Cuba. Miami, the old stronghold of anti-Castro sentiment, is now dominated by other Latin Americans who arrived via first class accommodations rather than by raft. Revanchists like Mr Rubio are tilting against a tsunami of indifference.
Kitsch pleases, but does not edify. As per Kant, it is neither beautiful nor sublime. However, this is not true of ironic kitsch (called “pre-emptive kitsch” here).
Not even the Vatican Patriarchs desire to tangle with nuns.
The unchurched are a potential bulwark against future state sponsored torture.
Low life
USA sets up “Cuban Twitter” for counter intel purposes. Clever. Millions of instagram photos of cats are enough to topple the mightiest world power.
After Carson, David Letterman is greatest American talk show host.
The treatment of Nigella Lawson by the US Department of Homeland Security threatens to fracture the special relationship of the US and UK.
When did the Church of England begin the practice of ordaining clowns?
Princess Anne has a hankering for the Great War, apparently.
I recall DJs on a rock radio station in Boston crucifying Kurt Cobain for committing suicide.
Lois Lerner is a distraction from Benghazi.
Et cetera 