Pay no attention to the dictators behind the curtain
It is impossible NOT to notice that most of the major news bureaus with "reporters" in Castrolandia have been very busy in these past few weeks, whipping up feel-good stories about the island slave plantation. All of these "reports" are as sunny as the Cuban beaches visited by throngs of tourists this past year. Dogs. Skateboarders. Overweight dancers. Transexuals "elected" to public office. Etc.
Some of these pseudo-news items emphasize the enormity of the changes brought about by King Raul, others focus on details of daily life that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (for the gullible) that Castrolandia is a very normal place, deep down, and also colorful and eccentric. For those who know how the Castro Dynasty works, this sudden burst in fluff pieces is no surprise. We know what is going on.
With repression increasing on the island, the Ministry of Truth has been raiding its arsenal of weapons of mass distraction and arming the foreign journalists with some of its deadliest stuff. The ever-inventive Ministry could also have something else up its sleeve. This could very well be an attempt to grease the skids for some other major event or campaign, either internal or external. Any way you look at it, it reeks. And the stench is all too familiar to those who had to breathe it in, day in, day out.
From the BBC: Cuba sugar cane marabu weeds 'could be turned to fuel'
Yes, this is for bloody real: the greatest ecological disaster in the island's history -- caused by the Castro Dynasty's insane economic policies -- is about to become the island's gold mine, thanks to British ingenuity. Sure. Smells like Granma. Has the Coma-Andante become a ghost writer for the venerable BBC? Or have the Brits become as gullible as all those colourful folk they consider so charmingly inferior?
From the Guardian, UK: Entrepreneurs lead Cuba's new revolution – from spas to drag nights.
The sub-headline says it all: "When Raúl Castro relaxed the laws on private enterprise in 2010 he sparked an explosion in services tailored to tourists in Cuba>" Yes, bloody good. It's turning into a @#@!^&^%! utopia for the natives and the tourists at the same time.
From the Associated Press: Mayan Apocalypse: Cuban Beach Hosts Sacred Rites By Sages.
And this sentence puts it all in perspective: "Visitors were asked to turn off cell phones, cameras and recording devices to keep "negative energy" from interfering." Ay, Caramba, those Lateen-ohs are so charming. Guatemalan shamans mixing with Cue-bahn-ohs and tourists to celebrate the coming apocalypse. They're so freaky and normal at the same time, sharing in the same concerns as all the cable channels in the USA that are focusing on doomsday prophecies and end-of-the-world speculation. And all of this is taking place on a beach! A tropical beach! My, my, honey, let's get us booked on one of those people-to-people tours, right away!
And if these mainstream media outlets have failed to slake your thirst for feel-good vibes from the Pearl of the Antilles, well, then check these out from less influential sources.
From Desert Outlook (mydesert.com, a Gannet company): Palm Springs man explores Cuba’s gay life.
From the Huffpost Miami: Alberto Diaz Gonzalez, Miami Man, Smuggled 16 Birds In His Pants At Miami International Airport.
Or, if you prefer your propaganda raw and unseasoned, check out this gem from MRZINE, monthlyreview.com: Why Is Cuba's Health Care System the Best Model for Poor Countries?
As Prof. Eire has noted, there are a flurry of irrelevant, quaint and quirky news stories coming out of Cuba recently. This is actually quite common and occurs in cycles ebbing and flowing depending on the amount of repression, or failure inside Cuba. Whenever something goes wrong--a record number of dissidents are arrested, the economy has another setback or some catastrophic epidemic sweeps the enslaved island--the stories start popping up. I remember during one of the famous hunger strikes [or was it the death of one of the dissidents?], stories started popping up about a 12 fingered man and a man with a giant bicycle. Just the other day, I was surfing the channels on TV, when I happened upon a story of a man in Cuba who has pierced his face with hundreds of rings and enormous needles. He walks around Havana and makes money as tourists pay him to take pictures with them. Of course, if something like this had happened under the Batista regime, the media would have used it as yet another example of how far the desperate natives were forced to go in order to edge out a living. In fact, I remember reading about a Cuban man back in the 50's who used to dive for a living into allegedly shark infested waters off some rocky cliff and the article was aghast at the depths to which Cubans had to succumb in order to make money off those evil, exploitative American tourists, but piercing your face with hundreds of excruciating needles and rings, or dressing like an Aunt Jemima smoking a cigar is just fine!
Of course, Mariela's "gay and transsexual's rights" crusade [read this as another smokescreen] has been on the media's radar for years now becoming as common as the stories about Cuba's allegedly stellar free healthcare and education, it's aging cars, or Raul's amazing "reforms."
The bottom line, Cuba is not Pinochet's Chile, Somoza's Nicaragua, Stroessner's Bolivia, Cedra's Haiti, the Shah's Iran, or Pre-apartheid South Africa, so human rights atrocities are not of interest and they are not worth covering. PERIOD. MOVE ALONG.
BS is easy to sell to those who want to believe it, especially if there's something in it for them.
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