The CHOP Gallery on Seattle’s Capitol Hill may not be open to the public but its new installation is already raising the ire of its neighbor — the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct.
The installation includes up to five projectors streaming protest-related content onto the north-facing windows on E. Pine St. and onto the precinct itself.
A projector from the John Mithcell Art Gallery shines a mural of George Floyd onto the barricades around the East Precinct. Renee Racketty, copyright 2020, all rights reserved
The curator, John Mitchell, gave Malcontent News a tour on Monday. The projectors have not been mounted yet to their permanent positions as he continues to perfect their placement. Some of the projectors, which he acquired used, had once fetched $25,000 each.
“These are professional grade projectors once used by Nike — not sponsored,” he says.
A projector from the John Mithcell Art Gallery shines an image of Breonna Taylor on a wall close to the East Precinct. Renee Racketty, copyright 2020, all rights reserved
Before Mitchell could finish his thought, a marked SPD police cruiser pulled up. “Mr. Mitchell…” the officer began to say from his rolled-down driver side window. The officer went on to explain that one of the projectors made it difficult for him to see oncoming traffic.
Mitchell, himself an accomplished photographer, says he just wants to spark dialogue in the community and encourage other artists to act.
The video includes strong language, discussion on violence, and police activity.
An estimated crowd of 1500 assembled on Capitol Hill to march in recognition of 150 days of continuous Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. Assembling at Cal Anderson Park, once the heart of CHOP, at 6 PM, the crowd continued to swell as a host of speakers and organizers addressed the enthusiastic crowd. Three black-owned businesses did a brisk business before protesters assembled for their march.
The march route went through downtown and stopped briefly at the West Precinct. The Seattle police reported graffiti was painted on the ecology blocks that surround the building, and some bottles were thrown. We witnessed fresh graffiti but did not see, nor hear any bottles. The march then went to Westlake, where there were more speeches by organizers and black leaders, a candlelight vigil, and live music by the Marshall Law Band. During this time a group of an estimated 100 protesters broke off and moved traffic barricades into the street according to Seattle Police Department reports.
For the return to Capitol Hill a smaller group, who had attended for over four hours, marched back to Broadway and Pine. As the evening march concluded, a large group from ENDD in black bloc, marched east on Pine before turning north on 11th. A resident of Capitol Hill reported that eggs had been thrown at the East Precinct and there was fresh graffiti.
Seattle police then appeared in force heading west on Pine and drove at a high rate of speed north on 12th. When our team moved to investigate, a large group of protesters rounded the corner at 12th and Pine, heading west, with Seattle Police chasing them with dye enhanced pepper spray and batons. No pepper spray was deployed, and upon our arrival with cameras, SPD released two they were just taking into custody and told the third person, “take a walk.” One was held by SPD while one community member yelled from a window and another protester heckled officers. Ultimately the individual was released.
A flyer distributed online over the past week had stated the purpose of the march: “Bellevue is home to the richest people in the world — it’s time to wake them up…”
The group gathered at Downtown Park in Bellevue, WA, before marching through the downtown streets of the city. They chanted familiar slogans to those watching nearby, such as “Off your phones and into the streets.”
Several observers cheered as the marchers passed and some, dressed in their gowns, even left nearby bars and restaurants to join in. A baby could be seen marching as well as one woman who described herself as a “grandma.”
Not everyone was as enthusiastic. About 15 individuals also followed the march with their cell phones or cameras while live-streaming the demonstration. Neoconservative media personality Katie Daviscourt was among them.
Local initiative celebrity and former gubernatorial hopeful Tim Eyman was also walking alongside the police on the sidewalk. Supporters of Donald Trump, Loren Culp, and the police were out in force near the intersection of NE 8th Street and Bellevue Way NE. One young man on his bike yelled “race traitors” at some of the white marchers.
A heavy police presence tracked the protesters’ every move. The Seattle Police Department and Port of Seattle Police were also there providing support to local law enforcement under a mutual aid agreement. Uniformed Washington State Patrol officers provided added security to the Bellevue Square Mall.
As the march continued downtown, a “civil emergency” was declared by the City of Bellevue. Cell phones on all sides suddenly lit up and the emergency alert tones filled the air. The notice read:
“The City of Bellevue has declared a civil emergency and enacted a weapons ban in the downtown area due to an imminent threat of injury to persons and property during protests tonight (Saturday). Please avoid the area.”
The march resulted in no significant property damage and bike officers only intervened twice to separate the marchers from their critics.
The biggest impact of the demonstration may be on the Bellevue economy and lost tax revenue. Many businesses closed early and hired private security at their own expense. A few businesses appeared to have also boarded up their windows. Furthermore, the overtime for the responding law enforcement agencies is likely to be significant.
The Say Their Names Memorial highlights the memory of over 240 Black individuals who have died due to police violence and institutional racism. The memorial will be in Kirkland through November 30, 2020, and can be viewed at six area churches in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.
Last spring, before COVID, before George Floyd, before the recession, my wife and I took our annual photography trip to the Palouse of eastern Washington. Littered with dying rural towns, southeast Washington is one of my favorite places for photography. I love wide-open spaces, rusty objects, and abandoned buildings as subjects. This region is an area of expanding food and banking deserts and still impacted by data deserts.
The issue of food deserts and banking deserts in America was a dominant topic up until the events of the last six months. A food or banking desert is where the nearest grocery store and or bank is a mile away in an urban and suburban setting and 10 miles away in a rural setting. According to the National Institutes of Health, there is a direct correlation between obesity and food deserts.
The Pioneer General Store appears to have closed decades ago. If you want fresh produce or meat in town, you have to go to the gas station with a slim selection in a back room.
The issue of banking deserts is a more recent trend. As I write this, 25% of American households are unbanked or underbanked. Banking deserts create a significant issue for those who don’t have ready access to online banking, burying them in fees. Since 2015, only one state, Rhode Island, has seen the number of in-person banking locations increase.
The rural town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, is a textbook example of a banking desert. The town has no bank and four ATMs. One offers no-fee withdrawals but is chronically out of cash. The other three machines have fees from $5.00 to $7.50. On the worst days, all four ATMs are out of service because they are empty.
A check on Yelp indicates that Planters Bank is still in Itta Bena. However, the Planters Bank and Regions Bank websites indicate there is no such branch (Regions acquired Planters in 2004). In Itta Bena, like other rural towns, cash is king. The remaining businesses don’t have enough credit to accept credit cards, don’t want to deal with fraud, or don’t have the margin to pay the transaction fees.
Why are grocery stores and banks closing in such dissimilar areas – inner-cities and rural towns? Profit. In Itta Bena, Mississippi, it cost Planters about $200,000 a year to operate the small branch, which ran at a loss. The decision to close the branch in 2015 was to save money.
Whitman Bank collapsed in 2011, leaving some rural Washington communities unbanked.
After nearly a decade of decline, the population in rural areas started to grow again – barely. In the 2016-2017 period, the rural population in the United States increased by 33,000 people. However, the raw numbers only paint part of the picture. When you look at ethnicity, almost all of that population growth has come from Indigenous and Hispanic peoples. The Caucasian population continues to crash while the Black community has had a smaller decline.
Just like in the inner-cities, where banking and food deserts are well documented, corporate America is abandoning rural America. In some areas where Walmart crushed regional Main Streets in surrounding towns two-decades ago, Walmart is now closing (it is worth noting that Walmart has also permanently closed suburban and urban locations). When Walmart became too expensive for the local population, Dollar General or Family Dollar moved in.
It’s easy to dismiss this as “This is just competition! Why do you hate capitalism!” I don’t, but I do hate capitalism run amok. When Dollar General came to Mowville, Iowa, it opened right next door to the only grocery store within a 30-minute drive. Business at the store dropped 20%, and with margins thin in grocery, they boarded up with no replacement. Want a head of lettuce? An onion? An apple? You’re now going to need to drive to Sioux City, Iowa, and lose an hour of your life on the road. Being poor in America is expensive and time-consuming.
The Pioneer General Store is gone, but the need for fresh meat, produce, and grocery items remain.
Does Dollar General and Family Dollar sell food?
Yes.
Do they sell a variety of food and options that aren’t heavily processed? Barely. We know this dance music; the local stores close, jobs are lost, minimum wage jobs replace them, product selection decreases. In the heart of Iowa, you have to drive 30 minutes to buy lettuce – take all the time you need to unpack that.
Now we go back to the Palouse, which is another part of the American breadbasket where wheat fields dot the landscape as far as the eye can see. On the edge of that Washington wheat belt sits the town of Washtucna, a dot on the map about 28 miles south of Ritzville. One year when a nervous farmer drove out to ask what we were doing, he told us they grew four kinds of things out there, “wheat, wheat, wheat, and wheat.”
A no trespassing sign is posted on a building with no contents and no value.
Wastucna got the first Post Office in Adams County in 1882, and the railroad arrived in 1886. The town prospered until the end of the 20th Century when wheat prices dropped, the harvest was poor, and the dotcom recession rippled across America. The town population has plummeted to just 208 people. The per capita income is $17,487, and the median household income is $34,688. For comparison sake, the median household income in Mississippi is $43,000 per year.
The town once had a grocery store, bank, and even a Chevrolet dealership. Now Main Street is boarded up. The last vestige of employment, a restaurant that was well known for great food, had a fire in 2018 under questionable circumstances and remains closed. Groceries? A local gas station has a small offering in a back room, take-out food, and a coffee stand. Bank? The same gas station has an ATM.
Washtucuna wasn’t always a food, banking, and job desert. The abandoned Main Street tells a story of former glory lost in changing times.
The nearest grocery store is 28 miles away, and the nearest bank is in Connell, 33 miles away. Unemployment in Adams County was already almost double Washington state before COVID struck. To inner-city America, they already know this dance music.
“Just sell your home and move!“
Sell your home to whom? At how much of a loss? To sell something, you need a buyer, and relocating closer to Yakima, the Tri-Cities, Spokane, or Puget Sound requires capital. For the 200 plus that still calls Washtunca home, they are trapped.
America’s inner-city communities might be reading this and thinking, “Crying me a river; that’s been our reality for decades.” Now we get to the punchline. Rural America is frightened because of the changes happening outside of their control. The population is aging, and the groups that are keeping the population in check are minorities. The mills, the factories, the rail depots closed decades ago. Small farms continue to collapse, inhaled by corporate farms or sit fallow, for sale, and under bank control.
The inside of a long-abandoned home on the outskirts of Washtucuna. As a photographer, finding an open abandoned home not filled with graffiti and vandalism is a rare find, even in rural America.
The evidence is clear that as a whole, rural America is dying. There are pockets of rural success, such as DeWitt Arkansas. Still, for each DeWitt, there are a dozen Washtucnas. With each gasp from rural America, the rage increases. Corporate America interests have their knee on rural America’s neck. Instead of saying, “I can’t breathe,” rural America seems to be saying, “More weight.“
There is an old saying; a rising tide lifts all ships. Rural America needs to consider that the fight for equality by Black Lives Matter is a fight they should support. The same playbook that subjugated the inner-cities and with it a wide swath of BIPOC America is in use against rural America.
The same playbook – predatory banking, high fees, no access to healthy food, limited healthcare that is low quality, the marketing machines of corporate America telling you to spend your money on slow suicide. Corporate interests have crushed the mills, farms, factories, and small businesses that were your economic engines. Your students learn in low-quality schools lacking educational basics like high-speed internet access and STEM resources. They can’t compete in a college environment. The jobs? They aren’t coming back.
A sign for Fuel rises above the skyline in Washtucuna. The off-brand gas station is also a sandwich shop, coffee shop, general store, and provides limited groceries to the area. If you’re planning to order from Amazon don’t use your phone, there is no LTE service.
The warning bells of the decline of rural America have been clanging for decades in pop culture and music. From Randy Newman’s Baltimore, The Pretenders’ Ohio, and Bruce Springsteen’s Death To My Hometown. In parallel, Black musical artists have sounded the alarm through music since Edison created the phonograph. In more modern times, this includes Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece album, What’s Going On, NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, and Ghetto by Akon.
History has shown that when changes are made to support BIPOC people, all races improve. Without change, food, banking, and data deserts will continue to grow in rural America. Washington D.C. nor corporate America are coming to save you. On the contrary, they are bleeding you dry.
Do you wake up in the morning with a song playing in your head? Am I the only person? Every day, a different song. This morning it was Song of the South, by Alabama.
I lived in southeast Texas for almost eight years. Most of that time was spent on the western fringes of Houston or just across the Brazos in Fort Bend County. My parents had retired to the Big Piney Woods along the shores of Lake Livingston. A million acres of low pines, swamps, shallow rivers, and lakes. Timber was a significant industry with Temple Inland sawmills dotting the area.
This video was done in 1990 and was targeting a country music audience
When I arrived in Texas, it was during what I call the Golden Era of Country Music. The AM radio of Dolly, Kenny, and Ronnie, had faded away to this fantastic blending of southern rock, rockabilly, and blues, while still grounded in traditional country roots. Early arrivers to this renaissance, such as Alabama, The Judds, Keith Whitley, and John Anderson, paved the way for an explosion of talent. This Massachusetts Yankee bought boots, a hat, became a two-stepping fool, and devoured music by Travis Tritt, Garth Brooks, Suzy Boggus, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, and Brooks & Dunn. Garth Brooks did this Chris Gaine thing, Shania Twain showed up, country music went pop, and I went alternative rock with Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Green Day, and Live. That’s another story, but I still have the hat.
Then country music took a hard right turn after 9/11. Alan Jackson gave us Where Were You and Toby Keith gave us Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. If you missed the Golden Age of Country Music – you missed when Country Music had a conscience, and issues such as the environment, equality, and domestic violence were themes.
The official video for Feed Jake is likely a victim of legal agreements, but I found this mashup that has added a live performance to the visuals, likely to work around copyright laws.
Feed Jake – Pirates of the Mississippi
Seminole Wind – John Anderson
Pass it on Down – Alabama
Little Rock – Collin Raye
The Thunder Rolls – Garth Brooks (studio cut)
Wolves – Garth Brooks
Cafe on the Corner – Sawyer Brown
Independence Day – Martina McBride
Is There Life Out There – Reba McEntire
I rattled that list off without thinking, and if I spent some time noodling on this, I could come up with a lot more. Alabama graces that list – with the environmental anthem of Pass it on Down. With exceptions to Garth Brooks’ Wolves, all of these songs were significant hits with massive airplay and videos on CMT.
The ending of the Little Rock video used to have an 800 number to call if you were suffering from addiction, it has since been removed
However, this morning, Song of the South was playing in my head. I never really listened to the lyrics carefully. Still, I could tell you it was about the period from around the 1920s to 1940, the Great Depression, the establishment of the TVA, urbanization, and a lifestyle that vanished into the haze.
Bob McDill wrote the song, and several artists released it through the 1980s. Alabama’s cover in 1988 rocketed to number one. Bob McDill wrote one song a week for over 30 years, creating an impressive list of credits. This includes the haunting Don’t Close Your Eyes, which became Keith Whitley’s signature song, Gone Country, which might be autobiographical, and Song of the South.
Song, song of the south Sweet potato pie and I shut my mouth
Bob McGill – Song of the South
The term Song of the South can be traced back to 1881, and the Joel Chandler Harris book, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. Disney started to negotiate with the Harris family in 1939 to make the movie Song of the South based on his writings. It was released to theaters in 1946 and Zip-a-dee-doo-dah went on to win the Oscar for best song in 1948. Actor James Baskett won an honorary Academy Award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus.
Despite the two Oscars, the Disney movie was subject to criticism at its release for romanticizing plantation life, the portrayal of Blacks, and the nature of the content. Think about this, that criticism was back in 1946! The movie has never been released in any home video format in the United States, with only the three animated musical pieces released to television. This movie hasn’t been widely distributed since Baby Boomers were in diapers, to provide some perspective.
Gone, gone with the wind There ain’t nobody looking back again
Bob McGill – Song of the South
Gone with the Wind is arguably one of the greatest movies ever produced. The film is an icon of cinema and based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel. Gone with the Wind is also written in the genre of Anti-Tom books. Anti-Tom stories were literary works that showed slave ownership from the master perspective, with slaves as happy and docile. When actress Butterfly McQueen, playing house slave Prissy declares, “I don’t know nothing about birthin’ no babies Miss Scarlett,” my eyes roll back into my head. In plantation life, the female house slaves would know all about childbirth. Her portrayal in the movie wouldn’t have been offensive during the same period when Amos and Andy crackled on the airwaves. Today, it is cringeworthy.
Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch We all picked the cotton but we never got rich Daddy was a veteran, a southern democrat They oughta get a rich man to vote like that
Bob McGill – Song of the South
Alright! Now things are better! You mean this is turning into a bad episode of Adam Ruins Everything? Yes. During this era, a Southern Democrat would be for segregation, Jim Crow laws, and might be found at the evening cross burning. George Wallace, the now infamous Alabama governor? Democrat. He even ran against President Johnson in 1964 and failed. Now, a modern Republican will tell you that all these laws were put in place by Democrats. Functionally, correct, but ignores one glaring issue. In the 1970s, as the Democratic party embraced the messages of Kennedy, Johnson, and MLK, the conservatives fled. Strom Thurmond, John Connally, and Mills E. Godwin Jr all switch to the Republican party. Southern Democrats like Wallace continued to run on segregation as a platform up to 1976. By then, the Democratic party had lurched away for the racist past, and the south turned Republican red.
Well somebody told us Wall Street fell But we were so poor that we couldn’t tell Cotton was short and the weeds were tall But Mr. Roosevelt’s a gonna save us all Well momma got sick and daddy got down The county got the farm and they moved to town Pappa got a job with the TVA He bought a washing machine and then a Chevrolet
Bob McGill – Song of the South
These are the lyrics within the song I remember and was playing in my head. The TVA is the Tennessee Valley Authority, which brought hydroelectric power to Appalachia, one of the last places in the United States to get reliable electricity. Being able to buy a car and a washing machine is a nod to the arrival into the middle class. The life of picking cotton is over, and the farm, which might have an origin back in the 40 acres and a mule era, is gone. We know they aren’t sharecroppers because the county, and not a landlord, took the farm.
The radio edit to the song fades off with pipes and drums playing reminiscent of the Civil War
Life in the south from the Reconstruction Era to the end of segregation continues to be venerated. There are deep-rooted reasons for why this continues to happen. It is worth noting that Bob McGill, the writer of the song, Song of the South, was born in 1944, and likely never saw the movie Song of the South. He certainly didn’t live in this era. Growing up in the Beaumont, Texas region learning to play the viola and going on to college, he wasn’t a cotton picker. His upbringing and education influenced Song of the South (the song), which brings me to the final point.
When we engage with people who grew up in an environment where this was a 365/24/7 message and normalized, we can be more helpful if we try to walk in their shoes. There is a generation that has been raised through school textbooks, music, household discussion, religion, and politics to see the world through these filters. That life was better – for all. They’re wrong, it wasn’t, it was horrible, and no one should own another human being. I am not making excuses either, but their views have been ingrained by a system that was started in the 1880s during Reconstruction and went on at an institutional level well into the 1990s. They literally don’t know better, and that is very hard for others not raised and educated in that system to understand. It still happens today in the textbooks and language used.
Racism should have no place at the table in 2020 and here it is, reaching over to grab a roll, eating mashed potatoes from the serving spoon, and chewing with its mouth open. Song of the South should be gone with the wind, and no one should look back anymore – but look forward to a future of true equality. It is a marathon, not a sprint, and this is going to take a generation of work.
Let that image sink in. As a nation, our Democracy is dying. We the People are extinguishing the beacon of freedom that was the United States. Our country is losing our moral high ground on a global scale and our ability to say, “you can’t treat humans like this.” We have become the enemy of ourselves.
The implications of what we have become will echo for decades. You may read this and go, “I’m white, male, Trump-supporting, agree with all of these actions, and it can’t happen to me.”
Study your history. It can happen to you because, through history, people thought the same thing. It is acceptable right up to the point they are in a concentration camp, or slave labor camp, or forced into conscription in an aborted war. There was no one left to go, “what the Hell, stop this!” Or maybe it will be your child, or your spouse, or your parents who will run afoul of the state.
Here are some facts that should keep every American awake. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates as an extra-judicial organization and primarily outside of Constitutional protection.
FACT: Immigration and Customs Enforcement can do enforcement action at will up to 100 miles away from the borders of the United States. That includes waterways and ocean boundaries. Almost 70% of the United States population lives within this area.
FACT: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has set up checkpoints within this 100 miles zone. They are demanding proof of citizenship and operating outside of Constitutional protections.
QUESTION: If you had to prove your citizenship on the spot, can you? What if ICE says your paperwork is fake aka, “your papers are not in order,” and that you need to go to headquarters, errr detention. Think it doesn’t happen? Multiple United States citizens have ended up in ICE detention and held for months, told they have no Constitutional rights while in ICE custody.
FACT: ICE courts do not roll up into the Judicial branch of the United States government. They are part of the Executive Branch. Yes, that’s right, courts in the United States operate outside of the balance of power, and report directly to the Attorneys General. Run by the Executive Branch, this has created a system that works outside of the Constitution. Judges must meet deportation quotas. There are new rules invented out of thin air, and asylum seekers, even children, have to represent themselves with no translator and no legal council. The appeals process, which provides balance in the Judicial Branch by enabling defendants to argue that laws were violated in making a decision, are little more than kangaroo courts.
FACT: Illegal border crossing and the number of people seeking asylum has skyrocketed under the current administration, the “we must be tough,” polices are not working. Further, the actions taken against the governments of several Latin American countries, obstinately to reduce immigration, has only increased it.
FACT: The seal of decency, the outrage that would typically follow a savage attack on minorities, simply because they were minorities, is gone. The Latino population in the United States is living in fear because of almost three years of exaggerations, lies, and vile hatred directed at them.
All of these actions, all of these systems, this has happened before. Every dollar, the current administration gets, goes to building a private army for the Executive Branch. If fully weaponized, this system could move on almost 70% of the United States population at will. The Executive Branch could detain people into detention camps to disappear among the immigrants, to have cases heard by judges that report to the same branch. Not only are the seeds of dictatorship planted, but they are also growing into a tangled vine. The Legislative Branch is impotent and paralyzed, and leaders like Mitch McConnell are in lockstep alignment with the Executive Branch. You could argue, coherently, that McConnell helped lay the foundation for where we are today.
If you’re not familiar with your history, in Germany, an individual leader didn’t sweep to power illegally. A vote legally made by the Reichstag made him Chancellor. During this era, the political party didn’t openly support or organize violence against minority classes but didn’t do anything to stop it. They used language like “good people on both sides.” The vote by the Reichstag was tainted by the arrest, delay, and detention of politicians that would vote against giving the Chancellor dictatorial powers. However, there weren’t enough votes to stop it. The point becomes only academic.
If you’ve read this far to tell me what an idiot I am, please study your history. The Reichstag fire enabled the mass arrests of Communists, Socialists, trade union leaders, college professors, intellectuals, reporters, editors, and dissenters. Dachau became the first concentration camp for political prisoners. By effectively silencing any opposition by the end of 1933, the ire of the party could then focus on racial minorities, LGBTQ, Romani, the mentally ill, the disabled, Eastern Europeans, and Jews. The Final Solution started in 1942, a full nine years after the first concentration camp opened.
When it came to enforcement of the fascist state, the Gestapo was an organization with roughly 10,000 employees. Yes, you read that right, the secret police in Germany operated with an iron fist with that few people. They used citizens against each other. All it took was to talk ill of the state. But I love Trump! I would never speak evil of him! I am willing to bet that some of the same farmers that threatened USDA officials this week would have said the same thing 18 months ago.
An admission that up to 30% of US farmland couldn’t be planted because of historic flooding, levee collapses, and tariffs would be an admission of things we don’t admit. The farmers are outraged at the USDA because the crop forecast is beyond pure bullshit. The unintended consequence of hiding reality with the doctored USDA crop forecast was a collapse in grain prices. Farmers will get paid less due to the price collapse on a smaller harvest, cutting their profits even more. Enemies of the state – and I’ll repeat it – tariffs are socialism because tariffs represent price controls.
The Executive Branch has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold families, including children, indefinitely in concentration camp conditions. The due process comes from courts that work for the Executive Branch, where judges have quotas to achieve on deportations. You can’t even say that this is acceptable because “well, it is only illegal immigrants.” Multiple American citizens, including children, have been caught up in this system and held for months. They have been held outside of Constitutional protection and in conditions that violate the Constitution.
We are on the precipice of a cliff that history has shown leads us not to greatness, but as a shattered nation.
How the United States continues to fail to force a change in Cuba
Consider this interesting fact. Fidel Castro was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008 and died in 2016. He outlived Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. The CIA attempted to assassinate Castro no less than seven times during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, with Castro claiming there were 25 failed attempts on his life. That doesn’t even count the numerous times during Castro’s youth he needed to flee Cuba because someone wanted him dead.
Fidel Castro
During this long road, the United States first backed the Fulgencio
Batista government, growing further dissatisfied with his heavy-handed,
dictatorial style. Batista was a monster that employed military action, extrajudicial
execution, torture, and wholesale slaughter of villages to maintain power. As
his grip on Cuba loosened, the CIA felt they could win favor with Castro, who they
viewed as a socialist they could easily control, versus other potential Marxist
leaders.
If you’re not familiar with the story, Castro was a Marxist
to the core and hid his intentions well to the Cuban people, his CIA handlers,
and his contemporaries. In 1959, sensing that Batista could no longer hold
power and fearful it would fall into pro-Soviet hands, the United States government
informed Batista they were cutting off military support to his government.
Castro marched from Santiago to Havana, and later that year formed a provisional
government. Castro then ruled as a bloody dictator exporting Marxist rebellion
and guerilla warfare across Latin America, South American, and Africa.
With the rise of Castro to power, he aligned the island
nation with the Soviet Union, which built ICBM missile installations just 90
miles from the US mainland. The Cuban
Missile Crisis brought the world to the utter brink, with only Russian
Commander Vasily Arkhipov refusing to agree with his political officer and the commander
of Russian sub B-59
to fire a nuclear warhead armed torpedo
at the US naval forces on the surface. The sub, under depth charge attack, was
not aware that only training depth charges were used as an attempt to force the
ship to surface. As luck would have it for future generations, B-59 was the
only Russian submarine in the theater that required three officers to agree to
release nuclear weapons – all other subs just needed two.
The Cuban people have suffered under Castro in many ways. With
the 1991 Soviet Union collapse, the belief was that the Castro problem would solve
itself. Instead, Cuba continued largely alone in the world, isolated just a
little less than North Korea. The two key metrics where Castro’s legacy can
have any bright lights shone, beyond his amazing ability to survive a world who
wanted him dead, is literacy and healthcare. Cuba enjoys one of the most literate
populations on the planet, and despite being cut off from most equipment
and pharmaceuticals from the United States, has one of the better healthcare
systems on the earth. However, the legacy of the healthcare system belongs more to Che
Guevera, who didn’t survive the CIA’s desire to see him dead.
Havana, Cuba – land of cigars
It’s easy to lay all this blame at the feet of Castro, Marxism-Leninism,
and his bloody regime. Castro was a dictator that committed atrocities against
his people and other peoples around the world. You should also never forget
that the CIA also trained him, armed him, backed him, and characters such as Frank Sturgis were
heavily involved with his movement before his rise to power in 1959. The United
States modern meddling in Latin American and South American affairs goes back
to the 19th century. From the false flag Spanish-American
war of 1898, the formation of Banana Republics in Guatemala
and Honduras at the start of the 20th century, the Cold War machinations
from Dominica to
Peru to Nicaragua, the war on drugs in
Columbia, the backing
of Jean-Claude
Duvalier in Haiti, and more.
If there is anything, we could learn from the Cold War,
which the United States won without turning the planet into a radioactive
cinder, the easiest way to collapse a Marxist-Leninist government is to export
United States decadence to those nations. During the collapse of the Iron
Curtain, Romania was the last hold out under the monstrous hand of Nicolae Ceausescu.
The Romanian people were permitted the guilty pleasure of watching, “Hotel
Dallas,” on TV. Ceausescu believed that the people would scoff at the decadent
lives within the United States and galvanize his power. His plan backfired,
horribly. Instead, the Romanian people went, “holy mother fucking ass crackers,
that is how people live in the west? I want that for me too!” The people revolted,
Ceausescu was eventually arrested and executed.
The cracks within Soviet power were sped along by western music,
Levi jeans, McDonald’s
burgers, and many other consumer-oriented products that made the Soviet
population go, “I want that too!” From Bush legs to foreign aid,
the United States worked carefully to move Russia to a more open form of
government – until Bush (43) and Pooty-poot, but that’s another story.
When it comes to Cuba, the United States continues to follow a policy that has failed to make a meaningful regime change in 60 years. Isolation does not cause regime change; instead, it hardens the resolve of both leadership and the people. We’ve seen this over and over again. It came as no surprise after the Trump Administration came into power that the start of normalizing relations with Cuba took a U-turn. Today the Trump Administration announced that effective immediately, no more cruise ships or group tours will be allowed to Cuba. The policy is stunningly short-sighted and only serves to appease a single county in South Florida, which is becoming decidedly bluer with each passing year anyway.
The Carnival Paradise will have to find new ports of call now that Cuba is off the list
The US border is seeing an overwhelming number of asylum
seekers moving through Mexico to get to the United States. This spike
has happened hand-in-hand with the United States cutting off aid to Latin
America and Nicaragua falling into a state of near Civil War. Hammer meet nail,
nail meet hammer. The black and gray markets in Cuba have operated for decades,
many in plain sight, enabling the Cuban people to scrape together a slightly
better life. Hotels and sit-down restaurants are scant for travelers, with Cuba
instead enjoying their version of Airbnb. A bustling economy, off the books but
in plain sight. Naturally reducing the ability of the Cuban people to enjoy the
rewards of capitalism will surely help them see the benefits of capitalism.
Donald Trump turns 73 years old this month. It seems likely he
will live into his 90s unless his penchant for fast food finally catches up with
him. I suspect that without another u-turn in US foreign policy, Cuba will
still be an isolated semi-Communist island 90 miles from the United States. Or,
it will enjoy the benefits of normalized trade, tourism, and resources with a
powerful Chinese-Russian alliance, where once again we’ll be looking at hostile
military installations just a short hop from the lower-48. The best way to end
the stain of Castro’s grip on Cuba, is to normalize relations and trade.
Think about it.
Malcontent, out.
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