Barack Obama, Comunista y Terrorista? / Communist and Terrorist?

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La ultra-derecha cubano-americana de Miami lanzó este sábado pasado lo que sin duda alguna se llevaría como mínimo el tercer premio en el creciente catálogo de calumnias absurdas contra el candidato demócrata Barack Obama, tildándolo de "comunista" y "terrorista".

Para empezar a entender cómo llegaron a tal conclusión, primero tenemos que remontarnos a los primeros albores de la década del 60, cuando la revolución de Fidel Castro gozaba entre el pueblo cubano de un apoyo casi universal. Los castristas eran vistos como radicales idealistas que prometían la justicia social y económica, dándoles esperanza a millones de personas -- no sólo en Cuba sino en todo el mundo entre los que soñaban con un mañana mejor.

Por increíble que parezca, después de medio siglo todavía quedan personas -- muchas de buen corazón y más bien fuera de Cuba y de izquierdas -- que siguen con sus camisetas del Che y opinando que la revolución cubana es lo máximo. No pueden admitir que su dios ha fracasado, y por ignorantes o testarudos no ven el naufragio bastante obvio que es esta isla y su pueblo, aún cuando los cambios que gestiona el régimen de Raúl Castro tácitamente admiten que todo lo que vino antes fue un desastre.

Crédulos como éstos me recuerdan precisamente el otro -- igualmente ciego -- extremo del péndulo: los ancianos dinosaurios de la "mafia de Miami" (como le llama el gobierno cubano al elemento de línea más dura del exilio). A través de ese mismo medio siglo en Estados Unidos (mayormente bajo gobiernos de Republicanos), presidente tras presidente y político tras político ha hecho el mismo peregrinaje a Miami: toman un cafecito en el restaurante Versailles de la Calle Ocho, balbucean algo sobre la libertad, y gritan "¡viva Cuba libre!" antes de pasar el sombrero y largarse para Washington. Luego no hacen más que apretarle el tornillo al embargo de tal manera que solo castiga a cubanos y cubano-americanos por igual, mientras que les permite a selectas grandes empresas estadounidenses vender millones en alimentos y otros productos a Cuba -- y los hermanos Castro se pueden hacer las víctimas y así reforzar su poder. Es una hipocresía de primer orden, pero muchos de estos dinosaurios siguen tragándose enterito el cuento del Partido Republicano.

Por suerte, ya las cosas están cambiando, aunque lentamente; un sondeo reciente revela que una mayoría de los votantes cubano-americanos en distritos claves del sur de la Florida (y aún más los más jóvenes) está a favor de eliminar las crueles restricciones contra las visitas familiares a Cuba. Pero los políticos que tanto ostentan sus "valores de familia," como los congresistas locales (y sobrinos de Fidel) Lincoln y Mario Díaz-Balart, tratan a esta mayoría con el mismo desdén que demostrara recientemente Dick Cheney en cuanto al rechazo del pueblo norteamericano a la guerra de Irak: "¿y qué?" Después de medio siglo, ellos y los intransigentes no pueden hacer nada más que calumniar a los que hemos llegado a la lógica conclusión de que este embargo ha fracasado contundentemente y por ende pedimos a nuestros sabios gobernantes una nueva estrategia.

Pero volviendo a Obama, aquí en Miami este sábado pasado, durante un discurso del candidato presidencial demócrata al Congreso Estadounidense de Alcaldes, unos cuantos extremistas del grupo Vigilia Mambisa, junto al congresista estatal republicano David Rivera (el de las más duras maniobras contra las visitas familiares a la isla), una vez más hicieron el ridículo. ¡Comunista! ¡Terrorista! gritaron, recordando con su fanatismo y modus operandi los "actos de repudio" contra los disidentes de las turbas revolucionarias de los Castro. ¿Y por qué tanto odio? Pues resulta que un par de personas trabajando en la campaña de Obama habían sido parte del proceso judicial que devolvió al pobre balserito Elián González a su papá en Cuba, lo cual fue apoyado por prácticamente todo el público de EE.UU. y la galaxia entera, pero no por los cubanoamericanos de Miami. Ah, y no debemos olvidar ese famoso "saludo-puñetazo terrorista" de Obama y su esposa valientemente descubierto por Fox News. La histeria desatada ha sido una táctica explotada una y otra vez por la ultraderecha cubano-americana contra cualquier persona en desacuerdo con ellos -- gritan "¡comunista!" y se acabó la discusión. Son éstos, desgraciadamente, los individuos que han manipulado la política exterior de EE.UU. hacia Cuba (y hasta cierto punto América Latina) durante generaciones. Y si te atreves a preguntar por qué merece Cuba el embargo y no otros países comunistas como China, Vietnám, y Corea del Norte, gritarán "¡no es lo mismo!" -- sin jamás explicar cómo puede ser.

Y ahora el viejo testarudo de John McCain viene a añadir su "¡viva Cuba libre!" a la misma vez que apoya la misma política fracasada de siempre, atacando a Obama por desafiar la locura del embargo (recordemos que una buena defición de locura es seguir haciendo lo mismo, esperando resultados diferentes) y proponer una alternativa: diplomacia y sutileza, en vez de acorralar a Cuba y empujarla a resistir más y más sanciones. ¿Que si esto es premiar a nuestros enemigos? Señores, hasta Richard Nixon habló con China comunista (aún sin estar tan enamorado de ella como Bush y McCain), Ronald Reagan con la Unión Soviética, y cada gobierno desde entonces con la muy malvada Corea del Norte. Los comunistas vietnamitas mataron a decenas de miles de norteamericanos, y el embargo contra ellos cayó hace una generación. Nuestros gobernantes ineptos no nos prohiben visitar Birmania, Zimbabwe, Bielorusia, Venezuela, ni la susodicha Corea del Norte. Inclusive podemos viajar a Irán, la supuesta amenaza nuclear -- mientras que Cuba, la que no nos permiten visitar, ni siquiera ha merecido inclusión en el "eje del mal".

Correctamente manejado, el diálogo podrá conducir al progreso, a mejorar las relaciones con EEUU y a fomentar la creciente libertad en Cuba, en vez de entorpecerla, como ha hecho el embargo -- y más hoy que Fidel cuenta poco y el equipo de Raúl ha empezado a poner en marcha los cambios que ellos mismos reconocen como necesarios para sobrevivir. "¡Cambios cosméticos!" gritan los intransigentes y los embargo-industrialistas (así llamo a los Diaz-Balart y otros parásitos que se ganan la vida con el cuento del embargo). Sí señores, son los primeros y pequeños pasos, pero la mayor parte de los expertos no partisanos opina que en la isla está sucediendo algo real, que promete más evolución positiva. Estados Unidos no tiene que abrazar a Raúl Castro en este momento, pero sí debe tratar con él, porque si no evolucionamos también, la historia no nos absolverá. Obama y los partidarios realistas de la democracia comprendemos esto. McCain y los viejos y amargados soldados de la guerra fría, desgraciadamente no.

Barack Obama, Communist and Terrorist?

Miami's Cuban ultra-right-wingnuts this past weekend launched what will surely be at least an honorable mention in the growing catalogue of general-election smears against Democratic candidate Barack Obama, slamming him as both communist and terrorist.

Wow, so what's up with that? To explain, let me rewind a second here -- actually more like forty-five years. Once upon a time, back in the early 60s, the ongoing revolution launched by Fidel Castro's régime enjoyed impressive if not universal support among the Cuban people. The Castroites came across as idealistic radicals who talked a lofty game about social and economic justice that gave hope to countless millions -- not just in Cuba but wherever in the world people dreamed of a better tomorrow.

And incredibly, after nearly a half century, there are still plenty of often well-meaning folks -- usually deluded lefties outside Cuba -- who still flaunt their Che Guevara T-shirts and think the Cuban revolution is just the cat's meow. All the while, they refuse to admit that their god has failed, cluelessly or willfully ignoring the fairly obvious wreckage it has made of this island and its people, even when the changes now underway under Raúl Castro are essentially admissions that it was all a massive flop.

Dupes like these remind me precisely of the other -- and equally blinded -- end of the spectrum: these old dinosaurs of the super-hardline anti-Castro "Miami mafia" (to borrow the parlance of the gang in Havana). Through this same half-century in the United States -- mostly under Republican rule -- president after president and pol after pol has made the same old pilgrimage to Miami: they'll sip a café cubano at Calle Ocho's Versailles restaurant, natter on a bit about freedom and shout "viva Cuba libre!" before passing the hat and skedaddling back to Washington. Then they do nothing meaningful except occasionally turn the screws of an "embargo" that hurts only regular Cubans and Cuban-Americans alike but lets U.S. big businesses sell millions in foodstuffs and other products to Cuba while letting the Castros play the victim, thus helping entrench them in power. This is some of the most brazen hypocrisy going, and yet year after year, many of the ossified old-timers still blindly fall for the GOP's same old song and dance.

Fortunately, that's slowly changing -- a recent survey revealed that a majority of Cuban-American voters in key South Florida districts (and an especially high percentage of younger people) favor easing the embargo's heartless travel restrictions because they want to be able to visit their families. Yet so-called "family-values" pols like local congressmen Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart dismissively continue to give this majority the backs of their hands -- their attitude, as Dick Cheney recently said about the American public's hatred of the Iraq war, continues to be: "so what?" Even now, knee-jerk intransigentes like these can offer no solutions -- all they can do is rail and name-call against those of us who've realized that this embargo's been a total flop and are pressing to try something else for a change.

But back to Barack. Here in Miami this past Saturday, several dozen of the aforementioned wingnuts from the group Vigilia Mambisa, along with GOP state representative David Rivera (known for his insistent maneuvers to keep families separated and Cubans on the island isolated ) demonstrated outside the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting being addressed by Barack Obama, making fools of themselves yet again. They were screeching "communist, terrorist!" supposedly because -- get this -- a couple of fellows working with his campaign were involved in the Clinton administration's return of poor little refugee Elián González to his only surviving parent in Cuba, a measure supported by virtually the entire country and world except for Cuban-exile hardliners. Well, and of course there was also that recent "terrorist fist jab" so bravely pointed out by Fox News. Over-the-top hysterics have been a tired but true tactic of this crowd against anyone they disagree with - merely scream "comunista!" and for them, Q.E.D. -- argument over. Yet these are exactly the kinds of characters to whom our Cuba (and to some extent Latin America) foreign policy has been held hostage for generations. Ask why Cuba deserves an embargo and Communist China, Vietnam, and North Korea don't, and they yell "that's different!" -- but never bother to explain how. And it's interesting how, both in their absolutism and their aggression, when demonstrating they also strikingly resemble the hysterical mobs deployed by the Castro régime in actos de repudio (violent demonstrations of "rejection") against dissidents - usually minus the physical assaults, of course.

And now stubborn old geezer John McCain comes along to add his "viva Cuba libre!" while backing the same failed policies and ripping into Obama and others for defying the insanity of the embargo (insanity being famously defined as doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result) by trying something different: applying a little diplomacy and finesse instead of pushing Cuba to dig in yet more against sanctions. Rewarding our enemies? Please, even Richard Nixon parlayed with Communist China (though he wasn't so in love with it as are Bush and McCain), Ronald Reagan with the Soviet Union, and practically every recent president with extra-nasty North Korea. The Vietnamese communists killed tens of thousands of Americans, and that embargo ended a generation ago. Our hapless leaders don't forbid us from visiting Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Belarus, Venezuela, or any number of evilly governed countries. We can even visit supposed nuclear threat Iran -- while Cuba, by contrast, doesn't even rate membership in the "axis of evil."

Handled correctly, talks will move both Cuban freedom and relations with the U.S. forward rather than backward as the embargo has done -- especially now that Fidel is gone and the Raúl team has set in motion the changes they know are necessary for survival. "Cosmetic changes!" shout the intransigentes and the embargo-industrialists (as I dub the Diaz-Balarts and other leeches who in one way or another have made the embargo their bread and butter). Well, these may be baby steps still, but most nonpartisan experts agree, there's something real happening down there, something which promises even more evolution. The U.S. doesn't have to embrace Cuba at this time, but we do need to engage, because if we don't evolve too, history won't absolve us. Obama and we pro-democracy realists understand that. McCain and the embittered cold-war dead-enders obviously can't.

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Comments

[Constitutionalist1]

Castro has single handedly destroyed an entire country and the ethics of Cubans on the island. Under Castro, children who reach the age of 8 are cut off from receiving milk. Buildings collapse in Old Havana and just stay there in a pile of rubble. Free education and healthcare is a joke. Textbooks are from the 1950's. There are no bed sheets, supplies, or medicines in hospitals. Their telecommunications infrastructure is from the stone age. Young women who study law and medicine by day work as prostitutes by night so they can provide for their family. The average wage for a Cuban is the equivalent about $30USD per month. As a result, nobody wants to work legitimately any more. Everyone is running a scam. The Abuelos are selling "bolitas" and illegal cigarettes. The kids are begging tourists for change. Women and young girls are prostituting themselves. The able-bodied men are all hanging around on the streets with no shirt on and no jobs.

At least under Batista there was a possibility of getting somewhere, somehow. Battista was a corrupt dictator but the country was clean and people were decent. Castro has created millions of "chusmas". Cuba was a first world country back then. Color TV appeared in Cuba before it hit the US. The latest cars were launched there.

Castro blames the embargo for all it's woes....Really? You mean he can't buy products like medicine, paint, textiles, and other equipment from China, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, and others?

[Constitutionalist1]

Obama is the worst thing that can happen to this country. He has lied about every aspect of his life. The press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Why aren't we talking about his shady past with thugs Tony Resko, William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Nadhmi Auchi, Jeremiah Wright, and others? Never have I seen a presidential front runner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record.

Obama's solution to everything is to have government take it over. A Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck. Gee, that sure sounds like socialism to me. His vision of 'bringing America together' means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers, racists or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs. He panders to the radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values. It is no wonder that every rogue leader and terrorist supports Obama - from Hamas and Evo Morales to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Obama is a danger to our national security. Obama has emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something NO president has ever taken off the table since nukes were created. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned his remarks. Obama also stated that he would bomb Pakistan, a US ally and nuclear power. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

[SonnyBono]

When people talk about what bad guys Fidel and Raul Castro are - why do we forget about the government that the Castro revolution threw out of office - Batista was a dictator that sold out Cuba to the the big corporations and the Mafia. Before Castro, Cuba was a great place to live if you were connected and had money - if not, you were screwed. Batista was such a miserable individual that the US wouldn't let him stay in America so he wound up in Venezuela.

Every since the US foreign policy has been the classic story of the tail wagging the dog with the Cuban Americans leading the government around by the nose. As for Elian Gonzales, he belonged with his father.

[David Paul Appell - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm with you on Elian and the tail-waggi­ng-the-dog thing, but as for the rest, so what are you saying, that because Batista was also a dictator, that two wrongs make a right? No one these days except maybe the right-wingnuts I mention in my piece is arguing that Batista was swell and his regime was a paradise; if that were the case, the revolution would never have occurred. But the "connected with money or screwed" dichotomy you cite is not so different from where we are in the U.S. today. And people also forget that even before Castro, Cuba had one of Latin America's highest literacy rates if not the highest, and a quite good social security and worker protection system for that era. Too many people looking at the question of Cuba, past and present, see it in black and white terms and through the lens of their own partisanship and ideology. The truth is always more shaded and complex.

[Crowhaul]

Great piece.

Es una curiosidad que, hoy en dia, esa extrema cantidad de odio aun exista aqui en EEUU cuando se habla del comunismo. Es simplemente otra forma de gobierno, nada mas.

[David Paul Appell - Huffpost Blogger]

Gracias. Pero de victimas del comunismo hay muchos millones -- no es una forma de gobierno sino de organizacion economica. El problema es que la historia ha comprobado que ese sistema mas bien requiere una dictadura. Y naturalmente dictaduras inspiran odio.

[Crowhaul]

Bien dicho. Pero parece que ese sistema odioso, como organizacion economica, esta funcionando perfectamente en China y en otras partes. Solo digo que no se queda exactamente como se lo describe aqui en los EEUU. En otras palabras, esta bien cierto que los poderes que existen aqui quieren que lo odiemos.

[Bramptonian]

Good piece, Mr. Appell. You've oviously done your homework.

[DaObamaMama]

It's sad they use his first name as a way to scare people. It just shows they have nothing to use against him.

[Marichu]

Your post was right on the mark. As a Cuban-American I have heard the older Cubans rail at the injustice done to Cubans under the regime of Fidel Castro. My uncle was a member of Hermanos al Rescate. The group is mostly made up of a few older men who sit and talk as old men are want to do, reminiscing of what life was like in Cuba during their youth. They've come to a point where they have an idealized version of the past and as such can't let go of it. Their world is black and white when it comes to Castro; no deviation is allowed.
Too often when someone mentions Cuban-Americans they think of the hardliners who tend to be the most vocal and well-organized segment of the group (the squeaky wheel syndrome). The Miami Cubans are not monolithic. Besides the early exiles, there are exiles that arrived since the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and U.S. born Cuban Americans. It is annoying, to say the least, when an entire ethnic group is stereotyped based on the actions of some within said group. The Miami Cubans do not have the power to make or break Obama’s or McCain’s bid for the presidency.

[Berettasskeeter]

I wish I'd heard of this Raul Castro you speak of before! Who is he? Fidel's brother Raul is a monster who was at least as enthusiastic in his killing of innocent men, women and children both during the overthrow of Batista and afterwards. Also, Fidel's brother Raul was the head of the DGI, the Cuban Secret Police, responsible for the deaths and imprisonment of tens of thousands around the world. Where has this other Raul Castro been hiding, with his reformative ideas?
Semper fi

[David Paul Appell - Huffpost Blogger]

Hooah! Thanks for the news flash about what a bad guy Raul Castro is -- gee, I didn't know anything about that! But seriously, almost every world leader has blood on his or her hands -- some quite a bit worse than others, for sure. But if a terrorist like Menachem Begin could evolve to the point that he helped achieve one of the few significant peace agreements in the Middle East, why not Raul? And reformed or not, especially when the country in question is in our backyard, we have to make some attempt at engaging, rather than than this by now ridiculous and boneheaded yet still cruel stab at strangling the regime. The U.S. has dealt with reprehensible characters aplenty -- Kim Jong Il being just one of the more recent in a long line -- and has supported its share, too (Pervez Musharraf, anyone?). So what's your point, again?

[Berettasskeeter]

You know, you're correct that we deal with a lot of reprehensible characters in this world. But that doesn't mean that we must deal with one more, does it? Castro has not released his people from bondage, exports terrorism, espionage, and Communism throughout the world. He has done a fairly successful job of undermining a vibrant democracy in Venezuela and Argentina (which used to hate Castro), and stymied a budding democracy in Bolivia. There's the guy we should go to, huh? No, not for me, not until he releases the political prisoners he still holds, in their thousands. Not until he renounces his efforts at communizing the hemisphere.
Semper fi

[kkuate]

Excellent post.
I feel so sorry for the poor and neglected Cuban people.... Fidel was a lunatic during his 50 something years in power, and I am sure he never missed a real meal...Too bad the island's children had to pay the price for a foolish leader, and a punitive and regressive Washington policy.

I just do not know what to make out of the Cuban-Americans in Florida, still pushing for stronger embargos and penalties against the Cuban citizens in the island.

[oscarp]

It's funny how th eauthor forgot to mention one comparison: Fidel Castro divided Cuba into rich and poor, Barack Obama has divided this country into blacks and whites. Both have used division to obtain power, so please, don't give me this out-of-reality analysis. I do not care if Obama is communist or not, if he is Muslim or not, I simply don't trust him. Anybody whouses division to obtain a gain should not be trusted.

[David Paul Appell - Huffpost Blogger]

And you base this claim of Obama's supposed divisiveness on what, exactly? A huge part of his appeal is precisely that he's been bringing whites and blacks together. What are you smoking, dude?

[TrevorAlan]

Yes, after 5 centruies on the continent it was only Barack Obama who ended America's Eden and introduced racial divisiveness. There was no Klan, no Plessy v Ferguson, no Jim Crow, no Nixon Southern Strategy, no middle passage. It was Barack Freakin' Obama.

You idiot.

[sueno]

Saludos Senor Appell:

Gracias por su analisis y comentarios. Estoy de acuerdo que se requiere un cambio fundamental en la political estanounidense en respeto a todo, incluso la relacion con Cuba y siento/espero/sueno que Barack Obama, en colaboracion con el pueblo, lo puede lograr.

[MPeter]

It is just amazing how an old, monied, rabidly ideological Cuban group in Miami still refuses to see the changed times and the failed policies of the US on Cuba. For 50 years, we have hurt ordinary Cubans on both sides. There is movement in Cuba towards reform. Obama has signaled a shift too, putting Cuban families at the center. Why would so-called Cuban partriots and supporters not want this?

[BARRISTER]

A commonsense approach to reality. It can only benefit America.

[MaxTaylor1]

I'd be careful of talking smack to the "Miami Mafia" pal. Word has it that they have tons of explosives and arms buried in S.Fla., thanks mainly to the CIA in the late 60's and early 70's. Just wonder what "they'd" do to alittle squirt like you.
**note- before you go crying to mama, this was meant as a sarcastic jab at you and your dumb presumptions of cuban-americans.

[David Paul Appell - Huffpost Blogger]

Wow, I'm not quite sure how to take this. Far from "dumb presumptions of Cuban-Americans," my point is precisely that the "mafia" no longer represents most Cuban-Americans. As for their firepower, if they had any balls they'd have used them to liberate their homeland a long time ago instead of getting fat off the relatively good life in Miami. Instead, the last time I popped into the HQ of Alpha 66, it was just a bunch of tired old geezers sitting around in a daze. They can still occasionally bestir themselves for a round of name-calling. But they're the past, not the future. But thank you for sharing, amigo.

[Obamamo]

Miami Mafia are the same group who made millions of dollars during Batista's reign. When the regime collapsed those same mafiosos stoled millions more of hard currencies from The Nationals Banks, and moved to Miami. They have benefited from this insane embargo; a corrupt policy that made them more money on the backs of the average Cuban. Do you think the embargo has affected the rulings class in Cuba? No, But it did cause more harm and misery to Cuban citizens

[Mojane]

This tiny handful of Cuban exiles (the ones with money) has held sway since the revolution, like you say so well, deciding who will win the Florida electoral votes. I have never understood why, after the Russians lost interest in Cuba, the U.S. continued with its absurd embargo and policies with a government that had no chance of succeeding­....Commun­ism just doesn't in the end. And yet we do massive trade with Communist / Capitalist China. The big bully U.S. again squashing the tiny, the puny for its own self interest.