Southern trees bear strange fruit

I like Jill Lepore's narration for many reasons, one of which she herself writes about:

My method is, generally, to let the dead speak for themselves.  I've pressed their words between these pages, like flowers, for their beauty, or like insects, for their hideousness. The work of the historian is not the work of the critic or of the moralist ... the teller of truth.

In this, Lepore provides the raw and emotion-laden sentences of slaveholders and abolitionists, of conservatives and progressives, of Lincoln and Davis, ... All these then provide me the evidence to be the critic and call fouls, which I have done in every post that is about Lepore's book.

A reminder again that we are testing out the question that Lepore laid out:

The American experiment rests on three political ideas--"these truths," Thomas Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ...
Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?

We know already how much America does not fare well regarding these truths within its ever expanding boundaries.  How about outside its political boundaries?

In the late 1880s, America had an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to "these truths" when the Spanish-American war began in 1898.  "Cubans had been attempting to throw off Spanish rule since 1868, and Filipinos had been doing the same since 1896."

A glorious opportunity to help Cubans and Filipinos with their natural rights and help them regain their sovereignty, right?  "Under the terms of the peace, Cuba became independent."

Do not celebrate, yet, for there is more: "Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States, in exchange for $20 million."

Filipinos fought for their independence and were now stuck with the US as their ruler!

A U.S. occupation and American colonial rule were not what the people of Philippines had in mind when they threw off Spanish rule.  The Philippines declared its independence, and Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo formed a provisional constitutional government.

American revolutionaries declared their independence from a far away England, and a hundred years later, the Philippines was declaring its independence from a far away US.  A 100 years makes a huge difference about independence.  And, of course, Filipinos not being white folk also mattered!

Aguinaldo worried about "how bitter is slavery."  Yes, "slavery" was the word he used!

The war began.

From its start in 1899, the Philippine-American War was an unusually brutal war, with atrocities on both sides, including the slaughter of Filipino civilians.  U.S. forces deployed on Filipinos a method of torture known as "water cure," forcing a prisoner to drink a vast quantity of water; most of the victims died. ... Eight million people of color in the Pacific and the Caribbean, from the Philippines to Puerto Rico, were now part of the United States, a nation that already, in practice, denied the right to vote to millions of its own people because of the color of their skin.

trump now not caring about Puerto Rico is, therefore, not really new. He is merely practicing good old American politics of white supremacy; at least he tossed the people there a few rolls of paper towels!

Lepore writes that this war "dramatically worsened conditions for people of color in the United States."  The jingoistic war chants "filled with racist venom, only further incited American racial hatreds."

"If it is necessary, every Negro in the state will be lynched," the governor of Mississippi pledged in 1903.

It was now separate-but-equal--and with lynching!

At this stage, do we really need to check for the answer to this?

The American experiment rests on three political ideas--"these truths," Thomas Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ...
Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?

Ninety years of (In)Fidel

The two major party presidential contenders are no spring chicken.  Senators who ought to have retired long ago continue to run and, even more bizarre is how they get re-elected; there are 25 current senators in DC who are at least 70 years old!  A quarter of the Senate!  I hope this guy, who has become highly unprincipled, is booted out even now--well before he becomes the next Strom Thurmond!

And then there is that one guy chomping away at his cigar:

Fidel Castro used the occasion of his 90th birthday to lash out once more against President Obama.

Wait a second.  Shouldn't he thank Obama for normalizing US relations with Cuba?  And how come thugs like Castro and Mugabe live such long lives?

What was Castro's gripe anyway?

"I believe that the United States' president's speech lacked stature when he visited Japan,” Castro wrote, “and it lacked an apology for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on Nagasaki was equally criminal, a city that the powerful chose at random. It's for that reason that I must hammer on the necessity of preserving peace, and that no power has the right to kill millions of human beings."

Wait a second.  How many people were killed by Castro and his people?  I tell ya, we live in a world in which the likes of Castro and Putin and Trump can say anything that pleases them.  As my grandmother used to say, "கேக்கறத்துக்கு ஆள் இல்லை" (roughly translating to "nobody to question")

Meanwhile, the post-modernist extraordinaire marked the occasion:

Castro received a congratulatory call from Russian President Vladimir Putin on his birthday, according to the Russian leader's office.

Of course!

So, is it senility, or ideological rigidity, that made Castro rant against Obama?  A Cuba specialist, Ted , thinks it is a lot more basic than those:

To Henken, Castro's aversion to Obama is transparent. "He doesn't like Obama because Obama has stolen his charismatic thunder," he said.

Obama has certainly stolen the charismatic thunder from quite a few people around the world.  I am going to miss him, even though I have had plenty of problems with many of his political decisions--especially about war and peace.
 

Source

Castro's come-to-Jesus moment ... not really ;)

When the current leader of the Roman Catholic faith, Pope Francis, talks about issues that the political left typically cares about, the political right jumps to label him a Marxist or a communist or whatever such red-colored labels they like to stick on him.

But, as the Economist noted in reviewing a book, a biography that traced the arc that Jorge Bergoglio took to become Pope Francis:

Pope Francis excoriates the “golden calf” of the free market, and there are echoes of Marxist or even Leninist thinking in the way he links capitalism and war. But Mr Ivereigh locates the pontiff’s roots elsewhere: in the broad Argentine movement known as Peronism, a kind of populism tinged with nationalism which trusts the wisdom of ordinary folk and resents all elites. Some Peronists went Marxist; the young Father Bergoglio did not.

That last sentence there says a lot: "Some Peronists went Marxist; the young Father Bergoglio did not."

Now perhaps you are worried about the Pope's Peronism, eh!  Don't jump to conclusions:

Nor, contrary to one version of his early life, did he have any truck with right-wing authoritarianism.

 So, what's the deal?

The pope also shows more sign than his predecessors of understanding the human dilemmas posed by abortion and assisted suicide, but still hews to the church’s teaching on the sanctity of life. Even among people who disagree with all those views, Francis commands sympathy. For his part, he has acknowledged the integrity of people, including atheists and Marxists, whose beliefs differ from his own; and the respect is often mutual. His idiosyncratic humanism, forged in a land of political and economic turmoil, seems infectious. This book explains where it comes from.

Within the religious framework, Pope Francis is a relatively freewheeling critic of capitalism and a pragmatic humanist, in contrast to the hardcore ideologue that Pope Benedict was.

If one is not an ideologue, or is rapidly running away from brutal ideology, then this papacy will look all the more friendly.  Is it any wonder then that Raul Castro met with the Pope, on his way back from a trip to Putin's Russia?  Especially after the role that the Vatican played in helping the US end its freeze of Cuba.  And, of course, as any good politician, Castro knew well what will sell in the press:

After the audience with the Pope, Mr Castro said he was so impressed by a Vatican audience with Pope Francis that he might return to the faith he was born into.
Mr Castro praised the pontiff's wisdom, adding: "I will resume praying and turn to the Church again if the Pope continues in this vein."

After ruining Cuba, and exporting its brand of communism, and making Che's secular-jihadist image a "brand" in the global capitalism that they despised, prayers the Castro brothers will need in plenty!

In a few months, there will be the return visit:

Francis will travel to Cuba in September on his way to the United States. He will be the third pope to go to the Caribbean island nation, following John Paul II's visit in 1998 and Benedict XVI's in 2012.

Che Guevara, the secular jihadist!

As a kid growing up in a left-leaning India, I remember being fascinated with Fidel Castro, and the legends of Che. At a meeting of the Non-Aligned countries, Fidel Castro went on and on, and I am now amazed at how I sat through and watched most of that rant speech on TV!

Then I grew up.

I read about the Soviet Union that Solzhenistyn wrote about, and Orwell's Big Brother.  The older and wiser me couldn't understand the violence that the Stalinists and Maoists inflicted upon their own people, leave alone those on the outside.  The communist regimes were nothing but killers and anti-democratic rulers; Fidel and Che, it turned out, were no different from the violent and maniacal Stalin.

In the decades since 1917, communism has led to more slaughter and suffering than any other cause in human history. Communist regimes on four continents sent an estimated 100 million men, women, and children to their deaths — not out of misplaced zeal in pursuit of a fundamentally beautiful theory, but out of utopian fanaticism and an unquenchable lust for power.

Che's use of violence to achieve his version of utopia is no different from how Osama bin Laden didn't find anything wrong in killing civilians.  Yet, while no rational person would walk around wearing an Osama t-shirt, thousands all across the world, including here in the US, think it is cool to wear a Che t-shirt.  I suppose Osama, too, would have gladly worn a Che t-shirt if only he weren't an infidel!

When The Motorcycle Diaries came out and people we are all gushing about it, I intentionally skipped that movie. I stayed away from engaging in discussions--contrary to my penchant for discussions. I didn't want to come across as an annoying dissenter--because commie sympathizers at any level, as much as the commie leaders like Che, do not appreciate dissenting views.

I wish the world would stop applauding Che and making a saint out of this killer and, instead, remember him for what he was:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster.

Castro admits defeat? Awesome!

When I was a young fellow (editor: you were young?) I was a big time admirer of Castro.  Those were the days when I thought everything was wonderful about the Soviet Union, too.

In many ways, like in this situation, I guess I do practice Keynes' idea to change one's opinion if the facts presented change.

Looks like Castro, too, is changing his idea; I almost fell of the chair when I read that he said:

We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world in which people can live without working

and:

The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore

 Viva revolucion :)

Image of the day: Che :)

A wonderful follow-up to my rant about Che, from almost two years ago:

Now, a t-shirt with this image I might buy ...
(ht)

Bikini in Havana

More homage to bikinis here
BTW, this was the pre-Fidel Havana :)