February 09, 2005
A response to 'El Cubano', et al
First, I want to thank Val for the opportunity to post this on his site. I am truly honored to write on his blog.
This was originally posted as a comment to one 'El Cubano' and is reposted here slightly edited for clarity (and to correct my misspellings). He was responding to a lampoon I wrote to 'J. Ferrer' telling him that he should go live in Cuba if he admired the leader there so much. Here is 'El Cubano's' comment:
Why don't you George L. Moneo go live in cuba. Want to liberate cuba, stop taalking about it. I am tired of everyone talking about the liberation and what they are going to do. SInce I was a kid I have heard this, Do something about it instead of talking about it in gatherings and making a spectacle of things that have no importance. Like the the smoking situation in cuba. I bet you spoke and made something big out of it.
Posted by el cubano at February 9, 2005 02:15 AM
My response was this:
Well, well.
Let me respond to 'el cubano' and his wish that I "go live in cuba" [sic].
First, on this blog (forgive me, Val, you are the BlogMaster, after all) one of the rules is that fidel castro is not capitalized; Cuba is. It's a respect thing.
Second, I was born in Cuba. My family left to escape castro's stalinist oppression. My parent's generation did try to liberate Cuba. Ever heard of a place called Playa Girón? Many good men died there, and many more in castro's prisons in its aftermath. They were attempting to liberate Cuba and you spit on their memories by being so condescending. Some of us have friends and family who lost loved ones at Playa Girón. What do you say to them? "Let's move on"?
Unfortunately, our ally at that time in 1961, the United States -- who had committed many, many mistakes vis-a-vis Cuba since 1902 -- was being governed by a young, inexperienced Senator from Massachusetts who mangled the plan the CIA had made to invade the island. After that catastrophic failure, the US ceased to help the Cuban exile cause because of the smarmy deal they had made with the USSR.
So what exactly are you accusing us of doing -- or not doing? What were we to do after that heart-breaking disaster? We continued the struggle in the best way we had. Our protesting fidel in any way shape or form is not a form of inaction; it is the greatest possible form of action. Swords and guns are mighty things, but words are mightier still. All tyrants tremble at the written word: that is why your hero, fidel, bans books, free expression, and a free press. Yes, el maximo lider, is a scaredy-cat.
Third, what exactly are these "spectacle of things that have no importance" you write about? All I want is an end to the communist government in Cuba and a return to the Cuban Constitution of 1940. I do not ask for anything else, save that fidel and his gang are hanged -- like the Nazis at Nuremberg -- for crimes against humanity.
So, 'el cubano', let me ask you a question: Every nation is responsible for itself. What have the people on the island done to free themselves from the yoke of castro's tyranny? The Romanians did it (and executed Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife, to boot!), the Poles did it, the Czechs and Slovaks did it, the Hungarians did it. Why haven't they taken their destiny in their own hands?
What I am doing right now, writing my opinion, I could not do on that island. The more light we shine on fidel, the better it will be. Like a cockroach, fidel fears the light of discourse because it exposes him for what he is. And, it makes him very, very vulnerable.
And, your attacks on us exposes you for what you are as well.
Posted by George Moneo at February 9, 2005 09:27 PM
Comments
What a beautiful elegant essay. Thank you for the reminder, George. I have friends and friends of friends who served at Playa Giron. When I was 14, I wrote my second novel about this terrible event.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at February 9, 2005 10:27 PM
JFK just didn't get it, sadly enough. There is no substitute for victory. Either fight to win or wait to be rescued. But don't do something half-assed, kennedyesque - this seems to be the sad lesson. I don't understand what was going through his hairsprayed head when he made the bad decisions he did. Worst of all was the idiot one we live with today, saying there can be no liberation of Cuba by the US. He condemned Cuba to decades of communist slavery for that blunder. He just didn't get it.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at February 9, 2005 10:37 PM
Great work, Geroge.
By the way, not to toot my own horn, but I wrote about the smoking ban in Cuba. Perhaps el cubano can explain some of the questions I had about that.
Posted by: Joe at February 10, 2005 06:00 AM
Well Joe, after reading your article I can say with certainty that Janet Reno and Bubba Clinton can find gainful employment on the island. Since they did the same thing here in the US, they will be experienced, kindred spirits with the apparatchiks in Cuba enforcing the ban. Those two single-handedly made anyone who participated in this legal activity into a pariah. As a Camel-smoking heathen I can say that many of the looks and reactions I get to my cigarette smoking are a direct result of the fascist idiocy enacted by America's most moral President and Attorney General in the late nineties. Let's all remember that Hitler was a non-smoking vegetarian.
Bring on the churrasco and a pack of Camels!
Posted by: George L. Moneo at February 10, 2005 08:09 AM
*cough cough.
Hey, is someone smoking in here?
Posted by: Val Prieto at February 10, 2005 08:50 AM
George,
First of all, welcome to Babalu! So glad you are part of the family.
Second, very well said. The pen, or keyboard in this case, is truly your sword.
Thank you.
Posted by: Amanda at February 10, 2005 09:43 AM
Great post, George.
While we're talking about what Cubans have done to fight fidel, don't forget that many, many Cubans enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces and fought communism in Vietnam.
Posted by: Juan Paxety at February 10, 2005 11:55 AM
My Dad's cousin Eddy - just a kid died at Bay of Pigs - he was an aviator and shot down. I saw his picture on the wall of the Political Prisoner club house meeting place in Union City NJ. My father never got over that. He hated Kennedy and taught me at a young age how he not only betrayed Cuba but America. My Dad said it the best - Kennedy = communista! It's as simple as that. The Manchurian Canidate. Didn't he take a bunch of drugs given to him by a doctor called Mr. Feel Good?
One of the many argument of the Left is - why don't you go back to Cuba and fight castro. Oh really? And it's that easy. Book a flight with Marazul tours and go to Cuba and form an army. yeah tell me about it. plus the USA government doesn't allow for exiled Cubans to form any military units to go fight Castro after the Bay of Pigs.
But in the end - it's not us Cuban Americans that have to smell the cafe con leche but the actual brain dead Cubans on the island have to wake up from the burjeria voodoo slumber fidel has put them under and really get serious and kick some ass for democracy. I wish sometimes Cubans were boring and extroverted like the Poles and Eastern Europeans who overthrew communism. I don't say this to put down Eastern Europeans but Cubans on the island are sometimes more concerned with el relajo and just getting by. They need to get focused and fight. The solution is in the Cuban people - they just have to decide when to do it and be not afraid because the angels can very definetly be on their side if they wanted to get rid of kkkastro.
Posted by: Mandingo Jones at February 10, 2005 12:59 PM
George: I'm a cigar man myself. I quit cigarettes back in '89, but I promised I never be an anti-smoking nazi, since I know how tough it is to quit, and how much I liked smoking. I think the cigars offend more people, and faster, too.
Until Cuba is free, I'll just have to "suffer" with the hand-rolled Dominican and Honduran beauties, most of which are made by exiles anyway.
Ah, who am I kidding? I'm off the damn things for a while anyway. G-ddamn heart attacks.
Smoke 'em if you get 'em, brother.
Posted by: joe at February 10, 2005 05:40 PM
Joe, hand rolled Dominicans are purty darn good. I am partial to the Fuentes brand myself, Opus X Churchills. These (very expensive) monsters are, of course, named after the one of the two great statesmen of the 20th Century. (The other being Ronald Wilson Reagan, of course.)
Posted by: George L. Moneo at February 10, 2005 09:35 PM
George I agree with almost everything you said but this:
What have the people on the island done to free themselves from the yoke of castro's tyranny?
Ever heard of the alzados del Escambray? My family and thousands of other peasant families fought the tyranny in the early 60s in central Cuba. It was a guerrilla war the dictator referred to as la guerra contra "bandidos", but of course we all know who were the bandidos in that fight. As a result, our entire family was forcibly relocated to what amounted to a concentration camp in Miramar, a Havana suburb. Two of my great-uncles were killed, my grandfather was injured and imprisoned for 20 years, and my great-grandfather was murdered in front of the family farm. With all due respect, I suggest you inform yourself before making a remark that - in effect - insults the memory of thousands of Cuban heroes. It's sad that many of us in exile disparage the efforts Cubans have made and continue to make, from within Cuba, to free themselves. Como dicen por ahí: es muy fácil hablar desde aquí, protected by the first amendment and this great nation, pero no son muchos los que se comen la candela.
Posted by: Yoan at February 11, 2005 10:14 AM
My apologies if I offended. Believe me, it was not intended. I know the history of the resistance that existed in Cuba. But that was thirty or forty years ago. What is being done today? The sad answer is almost nothing.
Yoan, even you must admit that the brave and right actions of a few -- even then -- did not inspire the grand majority of those in Cuba to shake off their chains. I made the comparison with Eastern Europe, and especially the with the Poles, because they were living right next to the Soviet Union. The Poles persisted with the idea of Solidarity to the bitter end. They had balls. Why didn't the Cuban people rise up in 1989 or 1991? The world would have supported their actions and they would not be slaves to fidel today.
Am I correct in stating that armed resistance in Cuba ended pretty much in the 60s or mid 70s? I have not heard of many events in the last twenty years or so. A bombing here, a hijacking there, the tragic ferry that was hijacked and sunk by this bastard.
Today, it is the journalists, the poets, and the writers -- and ordinary citizens, like Dr. Biscet (a living symbol of resistance to fidel) -- who are putting up a fight and being ignored by their kindred spirit in the west. Just yesterday Val posted an article he wrote on this great man on another blog.
I have no quarrel with the resisters and dissidents; what I have a problem with is that there are so few of them willing to do what your brave relatives did forty years ago.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at February 11, 2005 11:49 AM
Yoan, BTW, thank you for your service to our country. Your actions are what allow overfed blowhards like me to do and say what I do. Please stay safe.
Hooah.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at February 11, 2005 11:56 AM