Friday, July 23, 2010

The hero of San Juan Hill 'splains it all for you...

I'm so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth. All we have wanted of them was that they would behave themselves and be prosperous and happy so that we would not have to interfere. And now, lo and behold, they have started an utterly unjustifiable and pointless revolution.
--President Theodore Roosevelt, 1906


As the second half-century of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution unfolds, it is worth reviewing how the last ten American Presidents have fared in taming, uplifting and re-directing the Cubans and their pointless revolution.

All (some more than others) have huffed and puffed about giving Castro his walking papers...or an assassins's bullet. Six of them have gone to their graves knowing they failed. Four more have left office knowing they failed. And, the incumbent has been distracted, leaving all things Cuban to his Secretary of State, whose diplomacy has consisted of nothing since the opening gambit: "You change; then, we'll talk".

A recent book is well worth the time and effort demanded by a 700 pager. The title is from TR's genocidal rant. For an overview, the first three chapters are here.

That Infernal little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution
, by Lars Schoultz

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Of the biblical allotment of three score and ten I have lived only three of them more than a bicycle ride from one of the Great Lakes. I grew up ten blocks from Lake Erie in the (once Irish/Italian ghetto, now newly-hip) "Near West Side" of Cleveland. I can still cycle to the Milwaukee lakefront in an hour and a half; but, a round-trip has always been more than I would (noror ever did) attempt. -0- I'm a "...somewhat combative pacifist and fairly cooperative anarchist," after the example of Grace Paley (1922-2007). -0- I'm always cheerful when I pay my taxes (having refused--when necessary--to pay that portion of them dedicated to war). -0- And I always, always vote.