● A new role for Cuba’s young trabajadores sociales: Juventud Rebelde reports that they are combating “indiscipline” on intercity buses, e.g. “drivers of low professionalism, indisciplined passengers, and resellers of tickets.” Lower down in the article, it notes that the new buses are replacing some passenger trains, at least temporarily.
● “El Duque” Hernandez gave an interview last weekend that sounded like a retirement announcement, effective at the end of this season. He’s backtracking now, saying his arm just might give him another year.
● At Miami’s Big Five Club, a big dinner tribute for Luis Posada Carriles last Friday. “We must not wait for Fidel Castro to die…for Raul to make mistakes,” Posada, said, according to the Herald. “We must recall the words of General Antonio Maceo: ‘Liberty is not something we must beg for. It is conquered with the sharp edge of the machete.’ We ask God to sharpen our machetes because difficult times are arriving.” President Bush’s Justice Department calls Posada an “admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks.” Herald story here, more at Cuban Colada.
That famous phrase from Antonio Maceo is constantly repeated by Cuban hard-liners, especially those who want a violent overthrow of the Cuban government.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase is so commonplace within extreme circles that the original context is totally forgotten (or ignored). That's why people today like Rodolfo Frometa, from the F4 Commandos, can easy recall the phrase to mean timeless support for violence against the Cuban "tyranny."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGf3yFpcgu8
But, when the phrase was spoken during the Cuban War of Independence of the late 19th Century, the Spanish army was committing massive atrocities towards the civilian population under Spanish rule.
It is from the highest levels of outrage, and within a climate of war, that Maceo spoke those words.
The phrase today does not have the same frame of reference, unless one wants to make it so, or forces the population to believe it is so.
In which case, it makes sense that hard-liners continue to quote Maceo.
As an unapologetic conservative Republican I just ask one thing of my people in Miami... in the name of all that is holy please put Posada Carriles in a strait jacket, gag his mouth and send his but to a nursing home where no one speaks Spanish. Who the hell lets this guy out of his house. He should be deported just for sheer stupidity.
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