| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Still Castro After All These Years
You really have to laugh at some of the nonsense that goes on in
the world. Like Fidel Castro attending the World Conference
Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, for instance. If there's
anything Castro loves doing even more than jailing and
murdering political dissidents, it's making long-winded,
overwrought speeches to captive audiences.
Well, he apparently delivered a doozy in Durban during which
he said that America owes reparations for slavery: "Cuba
speaks of reparations and supports this idea as an unavoidable
moral duty to the victims of racism," he intoned.
Fidel, please. You oughta be doing stand-up on the night club
circuit instead of making a mockery of U.N. conferences with
your ridiculous presence. If Gallager was there smashing
watermelons on stage it wouldn't be any more absurd. You
want to talk about moral duty? How about releasing all the
people rotting in your dungeons who don't happen to believe
that Cuba is quite the world's socialist paradise and that maybe
some political freedoms are in order.
But you have to give the man credit for one thing: longevity. It
has been a long time, hasn't it? In 1959, the year Fidel Castro
managed to overthrow the dictatorship that ruled Cuba and set
up another one more to his liking, the United States was a far
different place. A war hero called "Ike" was our president; we
were experiencing unprecedented prosperity; Ben Hur won the
Oscar for best picture; hula hoops were considered great fun;
and "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" was a wildly popular
tv show even though it strained credulity as little else could.
And speaking of straining credulity, what rational person in
1959 would have predicted that this bearded ruffian, Fidel
Castro, would still be lording over Cuba and bedeviling the U.S.
in the far away year 2001? If someone in a visible government
position had made such a prediction, it would have been a
one-way ticket to unemployment, obscurity and maybe even a
sanitarium. Colonies on Mars or a cure for cancer would have
been far more believable.
But here we are, nine presidencies and forty-two years later,
and guess what? He's still head honcho in Havana, still
sporting those macho combat fatigues and still preaching that
old-time Marxist malarkey. The guy has attitude with a capital
"A" that the collapse of most of the world's communism can't
even faze.
In the early years after Castro's takeover the U.S. tried
everything to oust him. There was the miserable failure of the
Bay of Pigs invasion. After that the CIA hatched more
assassination plots against him than the NFL has playbooks.
Some of them were so outlandish as to scarcely be believable,
like the one that purportedly involved an exploding cigar. Who
thought that one up, Groucho Marx?
Other highlights of our relationship with Castro include the
Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the bearded one brought the
world as close as it has ever come to nuclear war, with the help
of Nikita Khrushchev, of course. Neither one of these guys was
exactly a laugh riot, except maybe the time Khrushchev beat
his shoe on the desk at the U.N. Otherwise, things were pretty
bleak with these two around.
Because of Castro Miami, Florida is basically Havana North. If
you're not put off by glaring understatement, let me say that
these people have a deep-seated and fanatical hatred for
Castro. Even Adolph Hitler, humankind's quintessential
incarnation of evil, never received loathing any more intense.
That loathing periodically erupts, turning Miami into a stage
for absurdist street theatre, because of some Castro-related
incident or perceived outrage, as in last year's Elian Gonzalez,
or "Cuban boy," affair.
This particular incident turned normal, everyday, productive
citizens into enraged, screaming street thugs bent on shutting
down all commerce and transportation in the city of Miami, all
because a young boy might be reunited with his rightful father
back in--gasp!--Cuba, Castro's island of torment and infernal
damnation.
The farce went on for months, making the anti-war
demonstrations of the late '60s seem restrained by comparison.
And finally, it culminated, as it had to, in the seemingly
outrageous act of a midnight raid by government agents to
steal the boy away from his fanatical relatives.
If you're wondering when the U.S. is ever going to normalize
relations with Cuba, the answer is, when Castro buys the
collective farm, and not before--and maybe not soon after if his
successor continues the same old policies. Sure, we have no
problem doing business with the communist dictators that
orchestrated the massacre at Tiananmen Square. And we've
cozied up with many a regime whose leaders have given
humanity a bad name.
But there are people in our government who would deal with
Lucifer himself before they would agree to normalize relations
with Cuba as long as the "Beard" still draws a breath of life.
Forty-two years and counting. Miami is practically a Cuban
city, Cuba itself is a shambles, and Castro is living large, loving
every minute of it.
You really have to laugh at some of the nonsense that goes on in
the world. Like Fidel Castro attending the World Conference
Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, for instance. If there's
anything Castro loves doing even more than jailing and
murdering political dissidents, it's making long-winded,
overwrought speeches to captive audiences.
Well, he apparently delivered a doozy in Durban during which
he said that America owes reparations for slavery: "Cuba
speaks of reparations and supports this idea as an unavoidable
moral duty to the victims of racism," he intoned.
Fidel, please. You oughta be doing stand-up on the night club
circuit instead of making a mockery of U.N. conferences with
your ridiculous presence. If Gallager was there smashing
watermelons on stage it wouldn't be any more absurd. You
want to talk about moral duty? How about releasing all the
people rotting in your dungeons who don't happen to believe
that Cuba is quite the world's socialist paradise and that maybe
some political freedoms are in order.
But you have to give the man credit for one thing: longevity. It
has been a long time, hasn't it? In 1959, the year Fidel Castro
managed to overthrow the dictatorship that ruled Cuba and set
up another one more to his liking, the United States was a far
different place. A war hero called "Ike" was our president; we
were experiencing unprecedented prosperity; Ben Hur won the
Oscar for best picture; hula hoops were considered great fun;
and "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" was a wildly popular
tv show even though it strained credulity as little else could.
And speaking of straining credulity, what rational person in
1959 would have predicted that this bearded ruffian, Fidel
Castro, would still be lording over Cuba and bedeviling the U.S.
in the far away year 2001? If someone in a visible government
position had made such a prediction, it would have been a
one-way ticket to unemployment, obscurity and maybe even a
sanitarium. Colonies on Mars or a cure for cancer would have
been far more believable.
But here we are, nine presidencies and forty-two years later,
and guess what? He's still head honcho in Havana, still
sporting those macho combat fatigues and still preaching that
old-time Marxist malarkey. The guy has attitude with a capital
"A" that the collapse of most of the world's communism can't
even faze.
In the early years after Castro's takeover the U.S. tried
everything to oust him. There was the miserable failure of the
Bay of Pigs invasion. After that the CIA hatched more
assassination plots against him than the NFL has playbooks.
Some of them were so outlandish as to scarcely be believable,
like the one that purportedly involved an exploding cigar. Who
thought that one up, Groucho Marx?
Other highlights of our relationship with Castro include the
Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the bearded one brought the
world as close as it has ever come to nuclear war, with the help
of Nikita Khrushchev, of course. Neither one of these guys was
exactly a laugh riot, except maybe the time Khrushchev beat
his shoe on the desk at the U.N. Otherwise, things were pretty
bleak with these two around.
Because of Castro Miami, Florida is basically Havana North. If
you're not put off by glaring understatement, let me say that
these people have a deep-seated and fanatical hatred for
Castro. Even Adolph Hitler, humankind's quintessential
incarnation of evil, never received loathing any more intense.
That loathing periodically erupts, turning Miami into a stage
for absurdist street theatre, because of some Castro-related
incident or perceived outrage, as in last year's Elian Gonzalez,
or "Cuban boy," affair.
This particular incident turned normal, everyday, productive
citizens into enraged, screaming street thugs bent on shutting
down all commerce and transportation in the city of Miami, all
because a young boy might be reunited with his rightful father
back in--gasp!--Cuba, Castro's island of torment and infernal
damnation.
The farce went on for months, making the anti-war
demonstrations of the late '60s seem restrained by comparison.
And finally, it culminated, as it had to, in the seemingly
outrageous act of a midnight raid by government agents to
steal the boy away from his fanatical relatives.
If you're wondering when the U.S. is ever going to normalize
relations with Cuba, the answer is, when Castro buys the
collective farm, and not before--and maybe not soon after if his
successor continues the same old policies. Sure, we have no
problem doing business with the communist dictators that
orchestrated the massacre at Tiananmen Square. And we've
cozied up with many a regime whose leaders have given
humanity a bad name.
But there are people in our government who would deal with
Lucifer himself before they would agree to normalize relations
with Cuba as long as the "Beard" still draws a breath of life.
Forty-two years and counting. Miami is practically a Cuban
city, Cuba itself is a shambles, and Castro is living large, loving
every minute of it.