RE: [Marxism] MSNBC on Fidel's latest speech

["Jose G. Perez" <elgusanorojo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MSNBC (quoting Wayne Smith) says "Bush?s strident policy is designed to
capture the Cuban 
American vote this November in the critical state of Florida."

Yes, this is what is always said. But actually, the new policy measures,
which restrict family reunification visits to once every three years,
and only to visit immediate family (no cousins, aunts, uncles,
grandparents or great grandparents), and restrict remittances to Cuba
are very unpopular with many Cubans in Miami. It is mostly the
Batistiano old guard that supports it, not people from the later
migrations. And most of the Batistiano exiles are now dead. Their
U.S.-born children and grandchildren don't give a flying fuck about Cuba
or Fidel.

The later migration, which was of a different social character, and
where family division is much more common, deeply resents the new Bush
measures. Which block represents more votes is an open question. But if
votes were the issue, then Bush's policy would have been a touch
different. He would have tightened the restrictions on Americans, and
left untouched the Cuban community's privileges. 

Moreover, by doing this the Bush administration has committed what is
probably one more huge political blunder in defending the interests of
American imperialism. He has handed the pro-Cuba minority in the emigre
community, and through it the Revolution, a powerful lever with which to
pry a much broader layer of the community away from the policy of
hostility. Once again he has shown that imperialism is the enemy of the
Cuban nation. 

This idea of the tremendous political influence of the gusano mafia is a
myth. It is a cover story for the real reason for the hostility to Cuba,
which is simply that Cuba has never genuflected before imperialism, it
has never asked for forgiveness for having made a revolution, and most
of all, has never declared its revolution over. On the contrary. If you
want to know what permanent revolution is, look at Cuba. 

That they are dealing, not simply with a *country*, but with a
*revolution*,  is what drives the imperialists batty.

And then there's an aggravating factor: the intolerable affront that
this revolution is *Cuban.* 

In U.S. early and mid-20th Century ideology, Cuba was special,
different. Cubans, by which, of course, they meant caucasian Cubans,
were considered by the United States to be honorary white people: true,
not the equal of the Yanqui kind, but save the Brits, no other people
were truly and completely "white" from an American point of view
anyways.

We should remember that the most popular show on American TV in the
1950's was about this Cuban guy married to this white, redheaded
American woman. And they had a baby together. You know what that means.
And everyone was OK with it, Proctor and Gamble didn't threaten to pull
out its ads from I Love Lucy unless she divorced Ricky.

And even these barbudos up in the hills did not get uniformly hostile
treatment from the U.S. media. 

"Y en eso llegó Fidel," as the song says. And then Fidel showed up.

The invasion of Cuba had been the first inter-imperialist war of the
modern imperialist epoch as well as the first "humanitarian" military
intervention. It was America's playpen protectorate, nation building
success story. If the people of Cuba could make a revolution, then
ANYONE could. 

WORSE: they got away with it. And they're still getting away with it.

(White) Latinos in popular culture until then had been treated as an
especially exotic variant of Italian. After that, they became spics. The
whole post-WWII anticolonial revolution was, of course, related to that,
not just Cuba, but then again in many senses you can say Cuba was the
high point of that revolutionary wave, certainly in an ideological,
political and moral sense.

Those two things, the character of the Revolution and the specific place
of Cuba in U.S. expansionist ideology (going back actually to the early
1800's) and then in the rise of American Imperialism are what's behind
this new expression of Washington's unrelenting hostility to the island.
The gusano mafia in Miami has never been the driving force of U.S.
policy or attitudes. It has been a useful tool and convenient pretext,
but never more than that. 

José



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