Cuba President Raul Castro lashes out at Barack Obama

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

Cuban President Raul Castro has lashed out at the US, accusing Barack Obama's administration of endorsing efforts to undermine the communist regime.

In his annual address, Mr Castro said the US had sent a government contractor to supply dissidents. The unnamed US citizen was detained two weeks ago.
...
The comments came as US band Kool and the Gang performed in Havana, in what some saw a sign of improving ties.

The concert, performed to an audience of thousands on Sunday, forms part of a series of recent cultural exchanges between Cuba and the US.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8424041.stm

---

i've got the feeling that the castros miss the bushes. so easier then, to complain about US and not making a move towards them.
ah, where have all the good times gone - right, mr raul?

[old mark]

1. Hey, Raul - Obama is OUR President. We can kick him because we voted for him.

You and your failing communist regime can go fuck yourselves. We will send your people financial aid after the next revolution. In the meantime, shut the fuck up.

mark

[Marthian]

8. Your lack of respect for a country's leader

is so cliche American. Raul Castro Ruiz is speaking the truth about Obama and the CIA's continued attempts to destabilize Cuba. You obviously know very little about Cuba so maybe you should do what you suggest Cuba's president do...

[UTUSN]

15. Since when are "leaders" ROYALTY. We're democratic people, not SUBJECTS!1 n/t

[Marthian]

26. Cubans

claim they live in a democracy. Look around you and you may notice that Americans have become very subject to the State. Apathy has produced an authoritarian state with the veneer of democracy. Having an opinion doesn't mean you are free.

[hack89]

49. Democracies don't have lifetime leaders.

let me know when a non-communist is elected president of Cuba.

[old mark]

36. Fuck the Castro brothers and that murdering incompetent pig Che, too.

They have done such a wonderful job in Cuba....


mark

[AlphaCentauri]

39. Oh... come on all revolutions involve murder n/t

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

53. Not sure that excuses their crimes.

[ChangoLoa]

63. The "bolivarian revolution" didn't involve murder I believe. nt.

[SOCALS]

43. That's the problem with the theory that,

after electing Obama, America would get more respect from foreign leaders who previously hated it. It simply is not true. These people hate America mainly because it helps them divert their nation's attention from socioeconomic problems.

[AlphaCentauri]

45. or maybe because they want to seat an talk

and our government arrogantly ignore them.

[SOCALS]

46. I still think that using

America as a boogey man is much more useful for these authoritarian leaders in maintaining their hold on their countries than negotiating with America

[AlphaCentauri]

48. well for them our government has been authoritarian in their internal affairs n/t

[MellowDem]

61. Maybe you should learn it's OK...

to criticize a country's leader, even if it isn't your own. Otherwise, you'll end up like the Cubans, with their "Brother of the Elected President for Life". I guess Cuba is experimenting with a return to family royalty?

[Flaneur]

20. Old Mark can go fuck himself, too.

[Ikonoklast]

2. He sees Cuba's future, and a dictator named Castro won't be running it.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I'm cutting Obama some slack here. I'm not convinced he knows what the CIA does at any given time.

[Syrinx]

4. I hope for a Cuban revolution

A left-wing, democratic revolution! Fuck the Castro murderers.

[ChangoLoa]

37. +1.... Soon come?

Unfortunately, many pseudo-leftists here would tell you that Cuba is a functioning democracy where people, who have the choice of voting for their favorite candidate, elected Castro in fair and democratic elections.

I think that the only part of their mind where they care about other countries than the US is the part where they feel concerned about the bad policies of the US abroad. They can only see the world from that angle. Nothing else matters other than the position of a country vis-à-vis their empire. The left is still wearing nappies in the US, in the middle of its "baby stage". The day I'll see these people creating a real progressive/modern socialist party in their country, I'll take them seriously.

[AlphaCentauri]

40. A "left-wing democratic" revolution would privatize anything they could

like health care and housing, thats what "progressive and modern socialist" have been doing in latin america for the last 40 years, without any good results.

[ChangoLoa]

42. Do you have divination skills?

And, if I understand, in your history book, they say socialists have been running Latin America for the last 40 years and privatizing public services?

Strange...

[AlphaCentauri]

44. Most governments in latin america have been to the left of any US administration

The US has never had a leftist / progressive as president that means the US government is as far right as it can be so latin american governments trying to imitate the US democracy are called neo-liberals or leftist capitalist.

[ChangoLoa]

60. Right

I wasn't talking about "leftist capitalists". But still, I think that from neo-liberals to leftist capitalists, there's a whole world. I don't consider European socialists, Bachelet or Lula to be neo-liberals. In fact, IMO, neo-liberals can hardly be called leftists. Especially in Latin America.

Concerning Venezuela, don't worry too much about them. We had our overdose of neo-liberalism without EVER voting for it (C.A. Pérez never announced his plan of applying the IMF reform in 1989). This political/economical tendency is really a minority in the country. The reference for Venezuelans, when talking about ideology, is not USA. Our whole national ideal is strongly based on anti-imperialism, since the independence. So, structurally and especially after Chavez, it would be almost impossible to have a conservative or a neo-liberal president trying to imitate the US democracy.

When I say modern socialism, I'm not talking about "free-market". I'm a collectivist and I believe that the union and the real socio economical development of Latin America can only happen within the framework of a reasonably regulated market.

[AlphaCentauri]

62. In Venezuela there are many who are eager to imitate the US corporate democracy

specially when it comes to corporate money buying politicians.

[ChangoLoa]

64. I don't think so. We're not in a 2002 situation inside. nt.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Obama/Clinton are continuing the Bush policy of USAID funding of rightwing groups

throughout Latin America. These groups are not democratic. Not even close. They gain and keep power by military coups, by suspending constitutions and civil and human rights, and by torturing and murdering union leaders, human rights workers, political leftists, community organizers, peasant farmers and anyone who dares to oppose them, and by looting their countries and toadying to US global corporate predator and war profiteer interests.

John McCain's "International Republican Institute" was funneling $43 million of US taxpayer money to rightwing coup groups in Honduras via the USAID, for instance, and other US taxpayer funds, such as the Hillary Clinton-controlled Millennium fund, were sending comparable millions to these rightwing groups. These same groups overturned the elected government, and rightwing death squads are now hunting down and killing anti-coup activists in Honduras. The USAID funded the rightwing recall election against Hugo Chavez in 2004, by groups who had, just two years before, mounted a rightwing military coup against the elected government. The first act of that coup was to suspend the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and all civil rights. Last year, the white separatist groups in Bolivia, who rioted, trashed government and NGO buildings, took over an airport, sabotaged a gas pipeline, and machine-gunned some 30 unarmed peasant farmers, in a bid to secede from the government of Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country)--were funded and organized right out of the US embassy, using USAID, Peace Corps, DEA and other funds.

We really need to face the fact that our government does NOT support democracy in Latin America, and is, indeed, extremely hostile to it. Obama/Clinton are even now funneling USAID and other funds to rightwing groups in Honduras' neighbor countries, all of which have recently elected leftist governments, in order to topple those governments in coordination with their strategy in Honduras.

Articles like this one by the BBC--which can be as bad as the Wall Street Urinal and the Miami Hairball, on Latin American issues--are designed to promote the MYTH that the US is promoting democracy in Cuba and other Latin American countries, when nothing could be further from the truth. The US in fact just overturned democracy in Honduras and installed a rightwing government with an election held under martial law, using USAID funds to try to legitimize this brutal government, when all of the reputable election monitoring groups refused to participate. Martial law. At least one hundred dead. Thousands beaten, tear gassed, falsely imprisoned, raped, tortured. Opposition media brutally shut down. Soldiers everywhere. Soldiers 'counting' the ballots! The real president surrounded by the Honduran military at the Brazilian embassy.

And this does not even begin to describe how bad Obama/Clinton policy is in Latin America. They are determined to overturn the leftist democracy movement that has swept the region and seem to be better at it than Bush.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Obama/*Clinton* -- ?

:tinfoilhat:

Counterpunchdrunk FAIL.

:rofl:

--d!

[pjt7]

7. Obama's Mom worked for USAID

eom

[Peace Patriot]

9. I don't understand your comment. Clinton is Obama's Secretary of State.

What we are seeing in Latin America--with the brutal rightwing coup in Honduras, the huge escalation of the US military in Colombia, and the continued USAID and other funding of rightwing groups in Latin America--is Obama/Clinton policy--okayed by Obama, implemented by Clinton. And it is a continuation of Bush policy. There is no 'new' policy.

Please explain. I REALLY don't understand your comment. Literally--I don't understand what you mean.

[ronnie624]

16. No one is laughing with you.

They're laughing at you.

[12string]

11. Our government does not support democracy

in any America.

[Peace Patriot]

13. I agree. It's total hypocritical bullshit.

It's kind of like the word "Christian." In the name of being a "Christian"--indeed, in the name of Gentle Jesus--"Christian" warriors slaughtered people all over Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, for about a thousand centuries.

The US corporate tyrants and war profiteers are doing the same hypocritical number with the word "democracy." They utterly oppose democracy, here and everywhere else. They PREFER to deal with rightwing dictators who can deliver slave labor and other resources, and they install them wherever possible, and where it is not possible, they seek constantly to undermine, slander and topple leaders who actually represent the people of their countries, and actually have legitimate power, earned in transparent elections. Hugo Chavez comes to mind.

If the Obama administration had an interest in democracy, it would have gotten rid of 'TRADE SECRET' CODE voting machines, controlled by far rightwing, nutball, private corporations, as its first act, HERE. It would have acknowledged that no public official in this country--including Barack Obama--can prove that he or she was actually elected.* And it would have DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

------------------------

*(The only exception is New York, where election integrity activists have managed to stall conversion to unverifiable, rightwing corporate-controlled vote counting. But that rebellion is touch and go. We may lose New York, and then there will not be a single state in the country with transparent vote counting.)

[ChangoLoa]

38. Not a discovery... your government supports its interests

But some American people grew up with the naive idea that their country represented a moral reference in the world.

"Countries don't have friends, they have interests"
Charles De Gaulle

[Goldstein1984]

35. That's kind of obvious with our treatment of Honduras

Where we ended up supporting the business interests behind the military coup.

And again in Columbia, where we're gaining a foothold for military control of South America.

The empire has merely changed hands.

[groundloop]

10. If Kool and the Gang was doing a show in Havana...

and if the State Department had anything to do with helping them get there, then it's obvious we're trying to destroy Cuba.

[EFerrari]

17. That is pretty much how it works, yes. n/t

[demoleft]

27. i do not feel destroyed and culturally subdued...

...when i go and enjoy a show by Anastacia.
:)

to subdue a people's own culture needs more than that. a long action of TV's, just to say.
cultural autharchy is typically fascist, and brings a devastating provincialism.

your free critical thinking of western woman proves it. your western culture gave u instruments to dig deep, and you use them.
i'd like cubans to have the same chance.

let's leave to them the task of not succumbing to the worst of our western trash.
or maybe i missed your point?

ciao, always a pleasure to talk to you. :)

[EFerrari]

31. My point was much smaller than you give me credit for.

:)

It was simply that the State Department is not the Welcome Wagon I was led to believe as a young woman.

[demoleft]

33. whatever your point, it is always a pleasure. hehe. ciao. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

41. Business as usual like it was with the baseball players

the show business is looking for talent and they know they could get some from Cuba, then making a Cuban artist to abandon the island would be a good propaganda hit, if that artist is converted into a millionaire in less than a year of course.

It did work that way with the baseball players.

[boppers]

56. Well played, Sir!

:rofl:

[peacetalksforall]

12. Also remember - all the funds awarded under the guise of promoting

democracy are awarded to the same people who circle the money back to the pockets of Congressmen and women.

'Democraticizing' other countries is big business - especially when we are not a Democracy any longer - and because it is conducted by alliances of people in the Republican right wing and now Democrats who are really right wing (called right of center).

It is right against left using top down fear (hate) tactics.

Two brilliant people (Obama and Clinton) should be able to start using skills of negotiation, but the Cuban-American package is still firmly in place and the target is not just Cuba - the entire apparatus is out to regain control of Central and South America - observe the fear and hate through threats and subversive acts.

And never forget that our money is making certain people more wealthy everyday.

It is sad for mankind that we have so much money going into acquiring earth recources for a few.

Never have they said they are doing it for the citizens of this country. Corporate over people. The mad rush for a few to own it all and control it all. To say it in historic terms - kings and serfs.

The evidence is right in our faces - the end goal is a wide split.

Yes, the end goal is a wide split.

And we do not respect the people of any other country on this earth.

[GreenArrow]

14. It's WAY past time

to normalize relations with Cuba.

C'mon, Obama, at least do something right.

[Vidar]

18. Good for Castro!

[demoleft]

23. :) n/t

[Arkana]

19. Yes, god forbid we try and loosen Castro's grip on the country.

:rolleyes:

[Flaneur]

21. Absolutely. God forbid we try to interfere in Cuba's internal affairs.

Leave it to the Cubans to control their destiny.

You would think Americans would learn some day.

[Flaneur]

22. Americans, first remove the mote from your own eye.

Get back to me when you've dumped the corrupt oligarchy that runs the US.

[boppers]

57. We get to remove portions every 2 years.

That's how we prevent latin-america-style "family=government" corruption.

[proteus_lives]

24. Fuck Castro.

He can complain about the US when Cuba isn't a one-party dictatorship.

[Marthian]

28. What unbelievable naivete.

Pres. Castro Ruiz has endured 50 years of embargo by the USA. He can complain about this aggression at any time he pleases, luckily. And, the cause for the one party dictatorship is the embargo. America effectively causes the continued power of the Castro regime. I also notice that the most virulent anti-Castro posters here seem to have fascination with intercoursing the Castros. Most peculiar.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SOCALS]

47. amen , brother

[EFerrari]

50. By the same logic, you can complain about our 50 year war on Cuba

when your country isn't run by multinationals that make a mockery of our elections.

[proteus_lives]

51. Can people vote for someone else in Cuba?

Can they?

[EFerrari]

52. Do you have any clue about how votes are counted here?

[proteus_lives]

54. You didn't answer my question.

Do Cubans have any other choice than Castro?

[EFerrari]

55. No, I was too busy pointing out your hypocrisy.

The Cuban system is not our system.

And under our system, the torture president stole two elections.

Good grief. At least own what we are before you go off half cocked on CUBA.

[proteus_lives]

59. Yeah, we have our own issues.

No problem admitting that. But we have a system that allows us to fix it if we so choose. Do Cubans have that?

Do you admit that they live in a totalitarian state?

"And under our system, the torture president stole two elections."

And in their system a murderous thug held power for 50+ years. Oh wait, it's not their system. It's his system.

[fascisthunter]

25. Another reason to love one's own country

:sarcasm:

Talk about loving and spreading democracy.... hypocrites.

[Jim Sagle]

30. Kool!

[Judi Lynn]

32. And when Cuban musicians have tried to perform in Miami, Cuban right-wing terrorists threaten them

with bomb threats to auditoriums where they are scheduled, even if the musicians or singers are very old. Cuban "exile" right-wing a-holes crowded around a building where Cuban band "Los Van Van" was scheduled to perform, and shrieked filthy sexual insults at concert goers, spitting on them, then unleashing a a storm of full Coke cans, D-cell batteries, and baggies filled with excrement. One person was hospitalized, others injured in that grotesque display.

More of these pathetic triumphs are related in this list of primitive acts from the scums in this article published in 2000:

http://www.walterlippmann.com.nyud.net:8090/mullin_1.gif

April 1976: Severely injured
WQBA news director Emilio
Milian is assisted after a
car bomb exploded beneath him

1972 Julio Iglesias, performing at a local nightclub, says he wouldn't mind "singing in front of Cubans." Audience erupts in anger. Singer requires police escort. Most radio stations drop Iglesias from playlists. One that doesn't, Radio Alegre, receives bomb threats.

1974 Exile leader José Elias de la Torriente murdered in his Coral Gables home after failing to carry out a planned invasion of Cuba.

1974 Bomb blast guts the office of Spanish-language magazine Replica.

1974 Several small Cuban businesses, citing threats, stop selling Replica.

1974 Three bombs explode near a Spanish-language radio station.

1974 Hector Diaz Limonta and Arturo Rodriguez Vives murdered in internecine exile power struggles.

1975 Luciano Nieves murdered after advocating peaceful coexistence with Cuba.

1975 Another bomb damages Replica's office.

1976 Rolando Masferrer and Ramon Donestevez murdered in internecine exile power struggles.

1976 Car bomb blows off legs of WQBA-AM news director Emilio Milian after he publicly condemns exile violence.

1977 Juan José Peruyero murdered in internecine exile power struggles.

1979 Cuban film Memories of Underdevelopment interrupted by gunfire and physical violence instigated by two exile groups.

1979 Bomb discovered at Padron Cigars, whose owner helped negotiate release of 3600 Cuban political prisoners.

1979 Bomb explodes at Padron Cigars.

1980 Another bomb explodes at Padron Cigars.

1980 Powerful anti-personnel bomb discovered at American Airways Charter, which arranges flights to Cuba.

1981 Bomb explodes at Mexican Consulate on Brickell Avenue in protest of relations with Cuba.

1981 Replica's office again damaged by a bomb.

1982 Two outlets of Hispania Interamericana, which ships medicine to Cuba, attacked by gunfire.

1982 Bomb explodes at Venezuelan Consulate in downtown Miami in protest of relations with Cuba.

1982 Bomb discovered at Nicaraguan Consulate.

1982 Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre defends $10,000 grant to exile commando group Alpha 66 by noting that the organization "has never been accused of terrorist activities inside the United States."

1983 Another bomb discovered at Replica.

1983 Another bomb explodes at Padron Cigars.

1983 Bomb explodes at Paradise International, which arranges travel to Cuba.

1983 Bomb explodes at Little Havana office of Continental National Bank, one of whose executives, Bernardo Benes, helped negotiate release of 3600 Cuban political prisoners.

1983 Miami City Commissioner Demetrio Perez seeks to honor exile terrorist Juan Felipe de la Cruz, accidentally killed while assembling a bomb. (Perez is now a member of the Miami-Dade County Public School Board and owner of the Lincoln-Martí private school where Elian Gonzalez is enrolled.)

1983 Gunfire shatters windows of three Little Havana businesses linked to Cuba.

1986 South Florida Peace Coalition members physically attacked in downtown Miami while demonstrating against Nicaraguan contra war.

1987 Bomb explodes at Cuba Envios, which ships packages to Cuba.

1987 Bomb explodes at Almacen El Español, which ships packages to Cuba.

1987 Bomb explodes at Cubanacan, which ships packages to Cuba.

1987 Car belonging to Bay of Pigs veteran is firebombed.

1987 Bomb explodes at Machi Viajes a Cuba, which arranges travel to Cuba.

1987 Bomb explodes outside Va Cuba, which ships packages to Cuba.

1988 Bomb explodes at Miami Cuba, which ships medical supplies to Cuba.

1988 Bomb threat against Iberia Airlines in protest of Spain's relations with Cuba.

1988 Bomb explodes outside Cuban Museum of Art and Culture after auction of paintings by Cuban artists.

1988 Bomb explodes outside home of Maria Cristina Herrera, organizer of a conference on U.S.-Cuba relations.

1988 Bomb threat against WQBA-AM after commentator denounces Herrera bombing.

1988 Bomb threat at local office of Immigration and Naturalization Service in protest of terrorist Orlando Bosch being jailed.

1988 Bomb explodes near home of Griselda Hidalgo, advocate of unrestricted travel to Cuba.

1988 Bomb damages Bele Cuba Express, which ships packages to Cuba.

1989 Another bomb discovered at Almacen El Español, which ships packages to Cuba.

1989 Two bombs explode at Marazul Charters, which arranges travel to Cuba.

1990 Another, more powerful, bomb explodes outside the Cuban Museum of Art and Culture.

1991 Using crowbars and hammers, exile crowd rips out and urinates on Calle Ocho "Walk of Fame" star of Mexican actress Veronica Castro, who had visited Cuba.

1992 Union Radio employee beaten and station vandalized by exiles looking for Francisco Aruca, who advocates an end to U.S. embargo.

1992 Cuban American National Foundation mounts campaign against the Miami Herald, whose executives then receive death threats and whose newsracks are defaced and smeared with feces.

1992 Americas Watch releases report stating that hard-line Miami exiles have created an environment in which "moderation can be a dangerous position."

1993 Inflamed by Radio Mambí commentator Armando Perez-Roura, Cuban exiles physically assault demonstrators lawfully protesting against U.S. embargo. Two police officers injured, sixteen arrests made. Miami City Commissioner Miriam Alonso then seeks to silence anti-embargo demonstrators: "We have to look at the legalities of whether the City of Miami can prevent them from expressing themselves."

1994 Human Rights Watch/Americas Group issues report stating that Miami exiles do not tolerate dissident opinions, that Spanish-language radio promotes aggression, and that local government leaders refuse to denounce acts of intimidation.

1994 Two firebombs explode at Replica magazine's office.

1994 Bomb threat to law office of Magda Montiel Davis following her videotaped exchange with Fidel Castro.

1996 Music promoter receives threatening calls, cancels local appearance of Cuba's La Orquesta Aragon.

1996 Patrons attending concert by Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba physically assaulted by 200 exile protesters. Transportation for exiles arranged by Dade County Commissioner Javier Souto.

1996 Firebomb explodes at Little Havana's Centro Vasco restaurant preceding concert by Cuban singer Rosita Fornes.

1996 Firebomb explodes at Marazul Charters, which arranges travel to Cuba.

1996 Arson committed at Tu Familia Shipping, which ships packages to Cuba.

1997 Bomb threats, death threats received by radio station WRTO-FM following its short-lived decision to include in its playlist songs by Cuban musicians.

1998 Bomb threat empties concert hall at MIDEM music conference during performance by 91-year-old Cuban musician Compay Segundo.

1998 Bomb threat received by Amnesia nightclub in Miami Beach preceding performance by Cuban musician Orlando "Maraca" Valle.

1998 Firebomb explodes at Amnesia nightclub preceding performance by Cuban singer Manolín.

1999 Violent protest at Miami Arena performance of Cuban band Los Van Van leaves one person injured, eleven arrested.

1999 Bomb threat received by Seville Hotel in Miami Beach preceding performance by Cuban singer Rosita Fornes. Hotel cancels concert.

January 26, 2000 Outside Miami Beach home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, protester displays sign reading, "Stop the deaths at sea. Repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act," then is physically assaulted by nearby exile crowd before police come to rescue.

April 11, 2000 Outside home of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives, radio talk show host Scot Piasant of Portland, Oregon, displays T-shirt reading, "Send the boy home" and "A father's rights," then is physically assaulted by nearby exile crowd before police come to rescue.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2000-04-20/news/mullin

[Judi Lynn]

34. Adding useful article on Miami "exiles" for people who could use some information:

The political culture of terrorism in Cuban Miami

~snip~
The batistiano machine

As one eminent exilio sociologist has pointed out, the usual explanation of Miami extremism is the nature of the first wave of exiles (Portes, 2007, 123-137). These were the batistianos, prominent officials and supporters of the Batista dictatorship. Some fled with a vast treasury including Cuba's entire foreign currency reserve, but they left behind properties, family members and colleagues, some of whom were executed for crimes committed by Batista's forces, and many more imprisoned. These bitter batistianos regarded themselves as a government-in-exile. As a Miami FBI veteran told the leading US investigative journalist in this field, some, including Havana's former chief of police, simply took up where they left off: "To some extent, the gansterismo of Havana was transferred to Miami by a handful of early batistiano arrivals … they set up shop here just like they did in Havana - running protection rackets and illegal gambling" (Bardach, 2002, 116). The batistianos were at any rate determined to preserve the cubanidad de antes - the 'cubanness' of before the Revolution - and to organize a swift counter-revolution. Arriving in a still-segregated Miami, they reopened Havana's 'big five', racially exclusive clubs. Within a couple of years they had, the CIA reported, created 371 counter-revolutionary groups in the US, competing for US support (Arboleya, 2002, 171ff ). Bombings and arson attacks on Cuban targets followed. The chief executive of the Bacardí rum company actually bought a B-26 bomber to attack the island's oil refineries (Calvo Ospina, 2000, 19). It was this community which supplied the bulk of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion force.

Yet these batistianos reportedly accounted for only about 5000 of the 200,000 migrants who arrived in the US, the majority in Miami, between 1959 and the missile crisis in 1962 (Levine, 2001, 55ff). Thereafter, until Richard Nixon ended the 'freedom flights' in 1973, some 340,000 more exiles arrived; around 125,000 arrived in the 1980 'Mariel boatlift'; and several tens of thousands more in the 'rafter crisis' of the mid-1990s. These successive waves resemble a social pyramid, with the batistiano core first, followed by members of the white middle class dismayed at the Revolution's left turn. Later came mainly working class economic migrants, some of them black. The latter, a US sociologist has noted, arrived to face explicit racism that the Revolution had removed (Sawyer, 2006, 159). Not only racism, but sexism and class discrimination have characterized a Miami Cubanidad grounded in extreme anti-communism and a 'discourse and practice of intransigence', in the view of a Cuban-American theologian (de la Torre, 2003, 117, 126).

How could batistiano extremism remain hegemonic in this wider Cuban-American community? The most prominent Cuban-American sociologist of migration focuses on two factors: the consolidation of political and economic interests; and the deployment of commemorative ritual (Portes, 2007). As Portes puts it, "… Cuban-American economic and political power created a mass of resources and opportunities available to friends and allies. Fellow Cubans stood first in line as recipients of this largesse but only on condition that they adhered strictly to the ideological outlook of the enclave" (Portes, 2007, 131-2). This fund of financial and social capital, including the 'official pulpit' of exile-controlled radio stations, permitted both reward and punishment (de la Torre, 2003, 47-8). Bernardo Benes suggested that " million Cubans are blackmailed, totally controlled, by three radio stations" (cited by de la Torre, 2003, 49). Exile capital had poured into construction, dominating the key trade associations. "The basic dynamics of this machine are easy to understand," explains Portes, "Cuban-American entrepreneurs contributed to the campaigns of Cuban-American politicians who, once in office, reciprocated the favour" (Portes, 2007, 127). When the 'anglo' elite promoted anti-Cuban referendums in the form of anti-bilingualism ordinances, Miami-Cubans were urged to naturalize and vote. The war on Castro, "turned the city into a one-issue community in which candidates for positions ranging from school boards to judges are assessed by their political beliefs regarding Cuba" (Levine, 2001, 218). Miami became the only city in the US where first-generation immigrants dominate city politics. As one exile scholar has noted:

"By the 1990s, the majority of city commissioners were Exilic Cubans, as was the mayor. The superintendent of Dade County public schools, the state chairs of the Florida Democratic Party, and the local chairs of the county's political chairs are Exilic Cubans. Further, the president of several banks (about twenty) and of Florida International University, the Dade-County AFL-CIO, the Miami Chamber of Commerce, the Miami Herald Publishing Company, and the greater Miami Board of Realtors (a post I held) are or have been Exilic Cuban. It is common to find Exilic Cubans occupying top administrative posts in City Hall, at the Miami Herald, and in the city's corporate boardrooms" (de la Torre, 2003, 19).

Hence, as one deviant but defiant Cuban businessman, whose premises were bombed and vandalized, told Bardach, 'The batistiano element here is very small in their numbers, but they control the media and the political machinery and just about all business contracts handed out in Dade County' (Bardach, 2002, 118).

More:
http://www.cubastudiesjournal.org/issue-3/viewpoint/the-political-culture-of-terrorism-in-cuban-miami.cfm

[boppers]

58. The contractor was "supply[ing] dissidents"... with phones and computers.

Can't allow freedom of speech in Cuba, bad things might happen if people were free to talk and communicate.