War Is My Viagra

“Habit disposes us to normalize the abnormal.” David Bromwich

What is it about the island nation of Cuba that scares the bejesus out of the big, bad USA? Is it the memory of the Bay of Pigs or Fidel Castro’s decades-long refusal to bow and lick Uncle Sam’s red, white, and blue combat boots?

To hear John “War-is-my-Viagra” Bolton, you might think Florida is in imminent danger of being overrun by heavily-armed Cubans inflamed with malice and high on cheap rum. Bolton recently accused Cuba of “ideological imperialism” which is, in Bolton’s fevered imagination, far more dangerous than the brand of economic and military imperialism routinely practiced all over the world by the US against its perceived enemies.

Cuba, you see, exports its potent Communist ideas to Venezuela and Nicaragua, and if the three nations ever joined forces, the US would find itself in grave peril. The land of the free and the home of the brave might cease to exist, might be turned into a communist hell-hole. No more freedom of choice. Say goodbye to 250 TV channels, Costco and Whole Foods, Disneyland and Harry Potter World, 75 varieties of toothpaste, 45 varieties of suppositories; all would be replaced by drab, bland products produced by worker collectives. Our capitalist fat cats, real and pseudo (like Trump), would be stripped of their wealth and sentenced to hard labor at reeducation camps in the Texas Panhandle. (This, come to think of it, is appealing to contemplate. Imagine Trump, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Mick Mulvaney, and the arch-dickhead, Mitch McConnell, digging trenches with pickaxes in the blistering sun. That would be hilarious. I’m not sure Trump could lift a pickaxe, let alone swing one, and in no time he’d start whining about the terrible unfairness of it all.)

Along with Iran, Cuba keeps John Bolton awake at night. Visions of robed mullahs and brown-skinned, bearded men in fatigues, marching, chanting, and waving AK-47’s in the air pervade his dreams. The ghost of Fidel, the specter of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. “We must get them before they get us,” Bolton mutters as he paces the floor of his bedroom. “Economic warfare! Tomahawk missiles! To the ramparts before it’s too late!”

Cuba is the mouse that strikes fear in the bull elephant.

Short Takes:

And on we march to the abyss, the blind and corrupt leading the blind and complacent. The Democratic National Committee refuses to host a presidential candidate forum devoted solely to climate change, offering the pathetic reason that such an event wouldn’t be “practical,” but the real reason isn’t hard to figure out: the Dems are fearful of scaring off corporate donors. Let the oceans rise. Let the glaciers melt. Let the temperature hit 120 degrees in Delhi, India. Nothing must get in the way of business as usual. Give us your money, we’ll remain silent.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi continues to shirk her constitutional duty to uphold the law and launch impeachment hearings against Trump. She’s waiting for the planets to align. Trump’s recent admission on national TV that he would accept foreign government assistance in the form of dirt on his 2020 opponent, and not bother to inform the FBI, isn’t a blatant enough abuse of power for Pelosi.

Maximus Pompeo is gunning for Iran. Two hours after an attack of mysterious origin on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Pompeo was laying the blame on Iran. Maximus offered little to no proof for his claim, other than a grainy, inconclusive black and white surveillance video, and his claim was immediately refuted by parties closer to the situation. Only Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US want another American-instigated shooting war in the region. Economic sanctions are punishing the Iranian people, but the blood-lust of the US will not be sated until the bombs fall and the missiles fly and thousands of innocent civilians perish. I haven’t heard one media talking head ask why Iran would risk precipitating a conflict with the US at this time. US policymakers obviously believe that Iran is led by idiots.

The cowardice, corruption and cruelty I see from the leaders of my country almost every day makes me want to hang my head and weep.

And there’s no end in sight.   

So Long, Fidel

"Citizens are encouraged to distrust their government and politicians; to concentrate upon their own interests; to begrudge their taxes; and to exchange active involvement for symbolic gratifications of patriotism, collective self-righteousness, and military prowess." Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated

For my entire life, Fidel Castro has been on the world stage. I was born the year that Fidel led the revolution that toppled the American-backed Batista regime. I remember seeing video clips of the American debacle at the Bay of Pigs, and watching file footage of Fidel, in his trademark green fatigues, haranguing large outdoor audiences; I remember believing what the American establishment told me -- that Castro was a vicious dictator, a menace to peace, justice, and freedom.

For half a century, Fidel Castro battled the Goliath that is the United States to an impasse. Overthrowing Castro was always a wet dream of the CIA and over the decades US operatives hatched many schemes against Fidel. All failed, of course, and Castro, to the consternation of the US establishment, would watch eleven presidents come and go.

As I got older, read more, learned more about US imperialism -- and witnessed US imperialism for myself -- the US position toward Cuba seemed ridiculous. Why did we maintain an economic embargo against Cuba long after the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War ended? Why were we so terrified of this island nation and its leader? Ending this lame stance is one thing I will give Barack Obama credit for, although I fear what American-style capitalism will do to Cuba. The island nation is now ripe for conquest by the likes of McDonald’s and Taco Bell and Bank of America and Wells Fargo and AT&T and Verizon and WalMart. If anything can kill Cuba’s soul and render it bland and sterile, it will be American corporations.

Was Castro a strongman, a dictator who ruled Cuba with a heavy fist? Yes. He suppressed dissent, jailed rivals, did all those terrible things that dictators do. But, as is evident from the outpouring of emotion in Cuba, millions of Cubans loved Fidel, loved what he stood for, which was independence and sovereignty, particularly from the big bully to the north. Under Castro, the Cuban people were educated, and Cuba established a health care system that many in the world envied. For millions of people in the developing world, Castro and Cuba represented the hope that a small nation might chart its own course.

When the American corporate propaganda machine tries to downplay what Castro meant to people in Latin and South America and Africa, I remind myself that America is now a nation that has normalized torture, murder without due process, indefinite detention, massive surveillance of its own citizens, mass incarceration, and a brutal crackdown against whistleblowers and independent journalists, in short, all the despicable acts America once accused Castro of committing. Though our house is glass -- and much of it cracked -- we still throw stones.

Fidel has exited the stage; for some he will always be a dictator, for others, a liberator. History always depends on who tells the story.