RE: [Marxism] New leadership may spark change in Cuba

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Thorstad writes, "But nowhere in any of this do we see any sign of
'socialist democracy'.... why is it that even the bourgeois press has not
brought up the past homosexual behavior by Raul Castro that got Allen
Ginsberg thrown out of Cuba? That seems odd, to say the least."

        I'm not sure which is goofier, Walter's reposting of content-free
articles from the bourgeois press saying "I guess we had no fucking idea and
still don't," accompanied by Walter's comment "see -- they really have no
idea."

        Or David Thorstad's follow-up wondering why "not even" the bourgeois
press is talking about Allen Ginsberg's visit to Cuba which was only ...
four decades ago.

        I first learned the word "maricón" --equivalent to the English
faggot-- in relation to Raúl Castro, I'm not sure if it was in Cuba or the
U.S., but I do remember being very afraid of my mother's threat to wash out
my mouth with soap if I ever said the word again. Pato --literally duck--
meant the same thing and was almost, but not quite, as bad. The lesson I
drew was that there were even worse things than communism, like using
certain bad words in the presence of your mother. I must have been 8 or 9.

        You only need to look at old newsreels or pictures of Raul from 1959
or 1960 to see what it was based on. He was a slight young man with a
ponytail. Raúl's homosexuality was as much an established truth in Cuba
counterrevolutionary circles as that the sun comes up in the East, or that
Fidel was just waiting for the right moment to proclaim the law on the
nationalization of children requiring parents to turn them over to the state
at the age of three. The bit about their being shipped to the USSR to be
ground up into sausage was not as well established a fact, but I daresay
many people believed it. Especially us kids. 

        Allen Ginsberg visited Cuba in the mid-60's. Intrigued by Thorstad's
reference, I googled Ginsberg and Cuba and then Ginsberg and Raúl. There are
countless references to his 1965 visit to Cuba, all with basically the same
information, that Ginsberg was deported after protesting Cuba's
anti-Marihuana "stance" (I put the word in quote because it comes up over
and over in these accounts) and saying Che was "cute." I believe the stories
all have the same root, probably a Ginsberg biography.

        The only data I could find on Raul and Ginsberg was an extremely
short review in 2004 of a book about impressions of Cuba by famous people.
The review says, "Allen Ginsberg, who was booted out of the country in 1965,
was sympathetic to the Revolution's basic goals but enraged by its abuse of
homosexuals. Reflecting years later on his ill-fated visit, he told a
reporter, 'Well, the worst thing I said was that I'd heard, by rumor, that
Raul Castro [Fidel's younger brother] was gay. And the second worst thing I
said was that Che Guevara was cute.'"

        I visited a perhaps three dozen sites specifically searching for
Ginsberg-Raul information, which turned out to be a pretty random
collection, and none but that one provided any information about Allen
Ginsberg and Raúl Castro in relation to each other, despite the many sites
repeating essentially the same story about Ginsberg in relation to Cuba. .

        I finally decided the well had run dry when I came to a site where a
self-proclaimed Che admirer wanted more information about Che ordering the
execution of people with AIDS. To be fair, s/he admired Che despite this,
not because of it, but understood it in the historical context of those
days. 

        What can I say? You find a lot of really strange stuff about Cuba
online, the island is a free-fire zone for allegations.

        Which brings me to Thorstad's comment about the lack of democracy in
Cuba under Fidel. The funny thing is I learned about that at the same time I
learned that Raúl was a maricón, except my mother never threatened to wash
out my mouth for saying Fidel was undemocratic.

Joaquín


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