Don’t you have to have once known something to forget it?
Just the facts, ma’am.
too bad so sad. At first sight a few years back, I thought Marco might bring a breath of fresh air into the foulness of the GOP, however he wasted no time in disabusing me of that silly notion. He hadn’t even been around a week before he started stinkin the place up even more with the kind of nonsense that comes out of his mouth. If he thinks Obama’s move was wrong, then I’m convinced that Marco wouldn’t be able to recognize a good idea, if it came up and bit him in the ass.
Rubio forgot his family history 3 times already. He’s still working on version 4.0.
Rubio talking about Obama’s negotiation skills? Rubios still trying to negotiate with the RNC for another credit card after they cut up his last one. Ha ha. *Nelson Muntz voice
This short survey is interesting, but seems to leave out an important facet of the relationship of Cuban government to corporate America: that one of the most powerful and interested corporations was American organized crime. One of the first spontaneous and symbolic acts of the Castro revolution was the trashing with axes of the gaming tables in the streets of Havana — an act which was described to me by a participant, a school friend from Cuba who had been home over that Christmas. The casinos were owned and run by the most corrupt and violent of American Mafiosi, masterminded by Meyer Lansky who was so odious that the government of Israel refused him residence even though the Law of Return applied to him as a Jew.
Graham Greene’s novel (and the movie from which it was made) “Our Man in Havana” gives a pretty good idea of the atmosphere of the late Batista regime (fictionalized of course, but Greene tried very hard to base his novels of espionage and intrigue on lived reality). The rage of ordinary Cubans at the merciless exploitation and denigration of their lives explains a good deal of the shocking harshness with which the revolutionary tribunals treated the native beneficiaries of their corrupt rulers. It also explains why the emigres of Florida (like the White Russians) were so adamantly against the new regime — their privileges and overlordship had been violently taken from them. It also somewhat explains why these same exiled oligarchs’ backing of the Bay of Pigs was such a fiasco: a lot of Cubans had no desire to see these people re-installed in power and were quite willing to fight them to the death. You can’t have a balanced historical survey by leaving all of this out.
Thanks very much for that excellent addition! It’s something I don’t know enough about yet, so I didn’t feel comfortable pretending that I did; but your thoughts will help me move that perspective forward, and again, I appreciate it.
Ben
bearing in mind, conservatives forgot the history of the years 2001-2008, so asking them to remember anything farther back than that is stretching the limits of credulity.