JetBlue’s inaugural to Santa Clara, in Cuba, was celebrated with a “Cuban” cake, featuring the country’s famous symbols, namely coffee, cigars and Che Guevara. The flight is operated as a charter service due to the trade embargo between the two countries.
“The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind!” (Che Guevara, 1961.)
“Against those hyenas (Americans) there is no option but extermination We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him!” (Che Guevara, 1961.)
“If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City (where JetBlue is headquartered). The victory of socialism is well worth millions of Atomic victims.”(Che Guevara, 1962.)
“We must keep our hatred against them [the U.S.] alive and fan it to paroxysms!” (Che Guevara, 1961.)
“So where’s MY cake?” asks a bemused Hideki Tojo, whose grave is in Tokyo where JetBlue also flies. “Granted, Pearl Harbor was a military target and I only managed to exterminate about 3000 American “hyenas” there. Che Guevara, on the other hand, targeted Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s, etc. on the Macy’s parade day 1962.
“Even here in Poland many people were duped into believing the myth of Che Guevara. After reading Fontova’s excellent book, they will have have no excuse.” (Tomaz Pompowski, Polska Times,–division of The London Times– Warsaw, Poland)
“I read Humberto Fontova’s book in two sittings. I couldn’t put it down!” ( Radio Superstar Mark Levin on Exposing the Real Che Guevara.)
“Humberto’s book is a very valuable book-a book badly needed around the world.” (Former Chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Relations Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R. Fl)
I can totally get that for JetBlue this whole Cuba business is just business, but it’s extremely difficult to believe they could possibly be unaware of the grave insult to Cuban-Americans implicit in putting Che Guevara on top of a celebratory cake in Tampa (and this story is from December 2013, a year before “normalization” became official). Who are the people next to the cake in that photo? Aren’t any of them Cubans or at least Tampa residents who would obviously realize the problem? Are we supposed to think they’re so clueless they might as well be lobotomized cretins?
Either the people responsible for this are retarded or they don’t give a shit about spitting in the faces of “those people,” presumably because they figure “those people” are not their target customers. Evidently, the situation in Tampa, and maybe in general, must be even worse than I thought. Where was the Tampa Cuban community on this? This is worse than the recent Che merchandise incident at a Miami art museum, because in thi case it’s not possible to claim that “Oh, the Che item just slipped in unnoticed with the rest of the product line, and nobody thought anything of it.”
Well, it all amounts to the same thing: insulting and disrespecting Cubans is so “normal” and carries so little risk, if any, that there’s no need for even basic, elemental discretion or tact–and yes, Cubans themselves are significantly responsible for that state of affairs. I understand that the likes of JetBlue essentially see Che as a theme-park character like Donald Duck, and the only thing that will make them “get it” is losing business over it. That’s why that Che cake should have cost JetBlue all business from Cuban Americans, not just involving Cuba but any destination. Has it? Don’t ask.
Is Tampa determined to be the anti-Miami?