I'm going to make a prediction and see how it turns out. I've had a lot of time on my hands lately. It's quite a long-term calculation, so it might be few years until the results show themselves...about 5 years to be exact, for the full thing to take place.
Start
Close to the 2008 presidential elections (somewhere between July and September), a bubble that will have been forming in the stock market will burst, sending the economy into a bit of a decline. The Bush administration, having redeemed itself a bit, in terms of economics, will pour a bunch of money into subsidies in order to keep things afloat. Because of this decline, a highly undecided population will completely lose faith in Republicans and elect a Democrat as their president. That president will be faced with the challenge of getting the market back to a natural pace, thus not needing subsidies. This will take a while. In the meantime, whatever new plans of socialization and reform that the new president ran his campaign on will have gone down the drain because of our tax dollars being used to boost the economy. The public will forget about the fact that the economic trouble began under the previous president, only focussing on the fact that this president couldn't bring us out of it and make good on his campaign promises, and consider his election a mistake and he will only serve one term.
End
We'll get a good feel for how on I am in 2008...this should be fun. Stay tuned!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Time for some news... A break from Cuba
I'll get back to posting about my trip to Cuba sometime soon. I've been getting caught up on society in the last 10 days since I got back from my month long time away. So...
The US along with British officials is fining British Airways for price-gouging. 121mPounds by the UK and $300mil from the US. These fines are going to accompany a class-action lawsuit that will be filed by millions of British customers. Apparently Virgin and BA colluded on this deal but Virgin pulled out and tattled on BA which is what led to this whole thing. The main thing was over how much they were making the customers make-up for the rising cost of oil...and here it is...is it at all possible that US oil companies might be doing the same thing? Of course it's possible, but would the US ever fine its own bread and butter?
The British military released a study that it conducted on the effects of mental trauma on its veterans of the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The results show that there is severe effects seen in family breakdowns, alcholism, and mental health problems. Isn't that amazing...somehow the British can manage to admit that war scars people but we, with many many more fucked up soldiers returning home are offering little assistance oreven recognizing the fact that they are indeed messed up. Oh, I know...US wars are about justice...wars like that don't mess people up. DENY DENY DENY. That's they way of our government...until of course enough evidence builds and then they slowly investigate.
Only weeks before Congress goes on a small break, they pass a bill that allows warrantless wire tapping and monitoring of international phone calls and emails. I just made a friend in Cuba who i've been keeping touch with...there's part of me that wants to say some shit that gets those fuckers knocking on my door.
Now, speaking of Congress going on a break. How many people do you know that get to take a month off of work without a huge blow to their pocketbook? I certainly don't know many. With that said, until Congress starts making conditions so that the people they represent get at least a month off without fear of financial ruin, I better see some town hall meetings going on every damn night while those assholes aren't doing their job in Washington.
One last good one...Since the beginning of the war the US military has lost at least 190,000 weapons and more than half of the supplies that were supposed to go the training the Iraqi military since they began their war in 2003. During this time they were saying that the sudden increase in armed insurgents must be because Iran is funding them. Now, I'm not saying that Iran is innocent but I have a funny feeling that we may have been paying to have our own soldiers shot at. Isn't that fun!
The US along with British officials is fining British Airways for price-gouging. 121mPounds by the UK and $300mil from the US. These fines are going to accompany a class-action lawsuit that will be filed by millions of British customers. Apparently Virgin and BA colluded on this deal but Virgin pulled out and tattled on BA which is what led to this whole thing. The main thing was over how much they were making the customers make-up for the rising cost of oil...and here it is...is it at all possible that US oil companies might be doing the same thing? Of course it's possible, but would the US ever fine its own bread and butter?
The British military released a study that it conducted on the effects of mental trauma on its veterans of the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The results show that there is severe effects seen in family breakdowns, alcholism, and mental health problems. Isn't that amazing...somehow the British can manage to admit that war scars people but we, with many many more fucked up soldiers returning home are offering little assistance oreven recognizing the fact that they are indeed messed up. Oh, I know...US wars are about justice...wars like that don't mess people up. DENY DENY DENY. That's they way of our government...until of course enough evidence builds and then they slowly investigate.
Only weeks before Congress goes on a small break, they pass a bill that allows warrantless wire tapping and monitoring of international phone calls and emails. I just made a friend in Cuba who i've been keeping touch with...there's part of me that wants to say some shit that gets those fuckers knocking on my door.
Now, speaking of Congress going on a break. How many people do you know that get to take a month off of work without a huge blow to their pocketbook? I certainly don't know many. With that said, until Congress starts making conditions so that the people they represent get at least a month off without fear of financial ruin, I better see some town hall meetings going on every damn night while those assholes aren't doing their job in Washington.
One last good one...Since the beginning of the war the US military has lost at least 190,000 weapons and more than half of the supplies that were supposed to go the training the Iraqi military since they began their war in 2003. During this time they were saying that the sudden increase in armed insurgents must be because Iran is funding them. Now, I'm not saying that Iran is innocent but I have a funny feeling that we may have been paying to have our own soldiers shot at. Isn't that fun!
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Tales of a Commie (Part 2) - Havana round 1
I fell asleep on the plane but woke up just in time to see us approaching Cuba from the Gulf of Mexico. I saw a small bit of shoreline before it was completely engulfed by costal fog. It reminded me of Santa Cruz. As we were coming in for the landing I felt less safe than I normally feel on airplanes. As far as I can guess this comes from my understanding of Cuba up to this point as a 3rd world country whose technology is not as good as in my country. The way the air-conditioning on the plane spewed out steam didn’t help with my lack of faith in the Cubana airplane. I realized that I was going to need to drop my previous notions of Cuba in order to fully experience it – that I couldn’t learn with whatever blinders I may have had on prior to this.
We landed in Havana sometime in the late morning. At this point I’m thoroughly excited because this is where my learning begins not to mention the fact that after all the sleepless nights and work we’ve done, the thought of getting to step foot on Cuban soil (officially breaking the blockade) was finally becoming a reality. I’m a staying at a church in a working class neighborhood of Havana with people from our group that are mostly in their upper 40’s or older. There are only two other guys that are close to my age. The reason I chose this place is because I figured I could observe downtown Havana any time I wanted by taking a cab there, so staying in the place close to downtown didn’t make much sense. A neighborhood like this I could only observe if I was staying in it…it’s definitely not one of the tourist areas.
On the way in to Havana from the airport I was expecting conditions to be like most of what I’ve seen in Mexico. Nothing was as I expected it. The scenery was amazing…I had never seen a tropical place before. But there was so much more. All around I see power lines and power sub-stations nearly identical to the ones we have in the US. This place isn’t traditional 3rd world. It’s developed (from a physical standpoint) to the best of its ability, which isn’t far off from most of the US. One major difference is the buildings. All of the buildings are old looking. Most of them look pretty dilapidated but in that, they aren’t gross like the housing projects in US inner cities. They maintain a certain respectability that I can’t really explain with words. I think it’s because they weren’t dumps…instead of being run-down they were just quaint. From the condition of everything, it made me wonder what it would be like if they were able to have enough money to keep everything fixed up. Is that one of their values or would they prefer to spend their time doing more meaningful things as long as the basic purpose of the buildings (waterproof shelter) was being fulfilled?
After dinner at Luyano (the church I’m staying at) I had a chance to look around the neighborhood before we left for our first cultural event. On almost every doorstep family members were hanging out with each other and their neighbors. In the middle of the streets groups of kids were playing soccer or rolling down the hills on makeshift skateboards. The older people mostly just hang out in their doorways, but the younger people, both kids and adults, will wave or say something in Spanish that sounds like a kind greeting. On the way to the William Carey Baptist Church for our first ‘cultural event’ I noticed that the whole city was full of people just hanging out and playing. The only hostility I sense is in the drivers – there’s a lot of honking, which I would later find out is how they drive courteously…they honk when passing people or entering certain types of intersections to let people know they’re there…that way they don’t wreck. All over the place there were people on bicycles. Most of them had more than one person though. On one, there was a mom with a kid in her lap who was sitting in front of the dad who was peddling.
The William Carey Center is another one of the churches that people from our group are staying at. It’s only two blocks from the main downtown tourist area. In their courtyard they had chairs and a stage set up that they pulled from their indoor sanctuary. The first act was some musical things – nothing all that great. The best part was the dancing. They are part of the best dance group in Cuba. They consisted of boys and girls anywhere from 10 to 18 who have obviously put a great deal of time practicing their dances to the point where they were perfect. The dancers were all perfectly in sync with each other. Just when we thought it was done every single one of the dancers came back out. They were all up and down the aisles and filling the stage. At first it was a very high-energy planned dance. Eventually it turned into more of an improv dance. Their body language and enthusiasm for the stuff they were doing is how I came to the conclusion that it was improv. There was a designated leader and what that person did the others followed…and they followed very well. When they finally left stage to their dressing room you could hear, over our rowdy applause, their own applause and excitement. The whole atmosphere was enough to make even a cynic like me damn near cry. This is the first time that it occurs to me that their culture transcends the material problems the people face. Their culture is so rich that the poverty they experience, in comparison to the wealth of Americans and other wealthy nations, is of very little importance. This is one of the first things to know in understanding Cuba. And here’s another thing…the training that these kids got in dance is free because their government wants to support the cultural arts.
The following morning is our tour of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana). This is one of the few areas of Havana that is in the process of restoring their old buildings for a prettier look. One thing that should be noted here is that when the buildings are restored the families who have lived in them still get to live there. It’s not like typical gentrification you see in the US. The tour guide gives us a brief history of the old garrisons that still occupy some of the city and history of the struggle from colonial times that the people of Cuba have come through to get to where they are today. There is a lot to see in Habana Vieja. Along every street there are locals who make themselves into photo-ops. Old women smoking cigars and dressed in extravagant clothing will let you take their picture for a few pesos. The people of the community still hang out and don’t seem to mind all of the tourists.
Later in the day we make a visit to the ‘120 year old club’. This is a group started by doctors who figured out a life style which they believe has the potential to keep them alive and healthy to at least 120 years of age. I personally wouldn’t want to live that long, but more power to ‘em for trying.
Instead of going back to Luyano I decide to stay in downtown Havana. For hours I walk around looking at the shops and people. It is weird not being able to communicate with people. Even though there are hundreds of people around me there’s a weird sense of loneliness in it. At one point a Cuban from one store spoke English to me. That catches me off guard so I buy ice-cream from him.
A group of us decide to walk to a hotel where there is a restaurant and bar on the roof with live music. It’s about a 5k walk through very urban feeling neighborhoods. It was a change of scenery to see real Havana locals hanging out in their own bars, not the tourist ones. On one corner there is a group of men surrounding a table in the middle of the street where they’re playing dominoes under a streetlamp. When we get to the hotel there is a guy making sure that no Cubans are coming in…it’s a law that unless working at tourist hotels, Cubans aren’t allowed in. My first reaction is that it isn’t all that nice that the people don’t get to go into the nicer places in their neighborhoods, but then again, I don’t go to hotels in my town. Later on I ask someone about that law. When tourism was pretty new to Cuba men from foreign countries would come over to Cuba and bring young Cubans up to their rooms to have their way with them. The Cuban government began pressing charges against these tourists, which didn’t go over too well with those folks countries of origin. Eventually this law was passed as a protective measure for the Cuban people. This is another thing to understand about Cuban society… most of the laws they pass are protective…not like the US where we need to pass a law for every little thing all the way down to how tinted your windows on your car can be.
On the way back to Luyano, Dan (one of the IFCO staff people my age) and I shared a cab. Dan speaks pretty fluent Spanish but since Luyano isn’t in Havana proper the driver doesn’t know where it is. He takes us a long way around before he gets close and stops to ask for directions. At this point I think that the place we’re staying is pretty run down. But then he drives us through a part of town that is really poor looking. All of the roads off of the main street didn’t have streetlamps. They didn’t even looked like they were paved all that well. Even without that though the people were still hanging out with each other. It’s about 11 at night and kids are still playing hopscotch and the adults are all playing dominoes or talking. At about midnight and a half I’m still sitting outside with some of the folks I’m staying with. All over you hear loud music and entire families still awake, just hanging out. Now I’m wondering why the kids don’t have bedtimes and why no one seems to work during the day.
We landed in Havana sometime in the late morning. At this point I’m thoroughly excited because this is where my learning begins not to mention the fact that after all the sleepless nights and work we’ve done, the thought of getting to step foot on Cuban soil (officially breaking the blockade) was finally becoming a reality. I’m a staying at a church in a working class neighborhood of Havana with people from our group that are mostly in their upper 40’s or older. There are only two other guys that are close to my age. The reason I chose this place is because I figured I could observe downtown Havana any time I wanted by taking a cab there, so staying in the place close to downtown didn’t make much sense. A neighborhood like this I could only observe if I was staying in it…it’s definitely not one of the tourist areas.
On the way in to Havana from the airport I was expecting conditions to be like most of what I’ve seen in Mexico. Nothing was as I expected it. The scenery was amazing…I had never seen a tropical place before. But there was so much more. All around I see power lines and power sub-stations nearly identical to the ones we have in the US. This place isn’t traditional 3rd world. It’s developed (from a physical standpoint) to the best of its ability, which isn’t far off from most of the US. One major difference is the buildings. All of the buildings are old looking. Most of them look pretty dilapidated but in that, they aren’t gross like the housing projects in US inner cities. They maintain a certain respectability that I can’t really explain with words. I think it’s because they weren’t dumps…instead of being run-down they were just quaint. From the condition of everything, it made me wonder what it would be like if they were able to have enough money to keep everything fixed up. Is that one of their values or would they prefer to spend their time doing more meaningful things as long as the basic purpose of the buildings (waterproof shelter) was being fulfilled?
After dinner at Luyano (the church I’m staying at) I had a chance to look around the neighborhood before we left for our first cultural event. On almost every doorstep family members were hanging out with each other and their neighbors. In the middle of the streets groups of kids were playing soccer or rolling down the hills on makeshift skateboards. The older people mostly just hang out in their doorways, but the younger people, both kids and adults, will wave or say something in Spanish that sounds like a kind greeting. On the way to the William Carey Baptist Church for our first ‘cultural event’ I noticed that the whole city was full of people just hanging out and playing. The only hostility I sense is in the drivers – there’s a lot of honking, which I would later find out is how they drive courteously…they honk when passing people or entering certain types of intersections to let people know they’re there…that way they don’t wreck. All over the place there were people on bicycles. Most of them had more than one person though. On one, there was a mom with a kid in her lap who was sitting in front of the dad who was peddling.
The William Carey Center is another one of the churches that people from our group are staying at. It’s only two blocks from the main downtown tourist area. In their courtyard they had chairs and a stage set up that they pulled from their indoor sanctuary. The first act was some musical things – nothing all that great. The best part was the dancing. They are part of the best dance group in Cuba. They consisted of boys and girls anywhere from 10 to 18 who have obviously put a great deal of time practicing their dances to the point where they were perfect. The dancers were all perfectly in sync with each other. Just when we thought it was done every single one of the dancers came back out. They were all up and down the aisles and filling the stage. At first it was a very high-energy planned dance. Eventually it turned into more of an improv dance. Their body language and enthusiasm for the stuff they were doing is how I came to the conclusion that it was improv. There was a designated leader and what that person did the others followed…and they followed very well. When they finally left stage to their dressing room you could hear, over our rowdy applause, their own applause and excitement. The whole atmosphere was enough to make even a cynic like me damn near cry. This is the first time that it occurs to me that their culture transcends the material problems the people face. Their culture is so rich that the poverty they experience, in comparison to the wealth of Americans and other wealthy nations, is of very little importance. This is one of the first things to know in understanding Cuba. And here’s another thing…the training that these kids got in dance is free because their government wants to support the cultural arts.
The following morning is our tour of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana). This is one of the few areas of Havana that is in the process of restoring their old buildings for a prettier look. One thing that should be noted here is that when the buildings are restored the families who have lived in them still get to live there. It’s not like typical gentrification you see in the US. The tour guide gives us a brief history of the old garrisons that still occupy some of the city and history of the struggle from colonial times that the people of Cuba have come through to get to where they are today. There is a lot to see in Habana Vieja. Along every street there are locals who make themselves into photo-ops. Old women smoking cigars and dressed in extravagant clothing will let you take their picture for a few pesos. The people of the community still hang out and don’t seem to mind all of the tourists.
Later in the day we make a visit to the ‘120 year old club’. This is a group started by doctors who figured out a life style which they believe has the potential to keep them alive and healthy to at least 120 years of age. I personally wouldn’t want to live that long, but more power to ‘em for trying.
Instead of going back to Luyano I decide to stay in downtown Havana. For hours I walk around looking at the shops and people. It is weird not being able to communicate with people. Even though there are hundreds of people around me there’s a weird sense of loneliness in it. At one point a Cuban from one store spoke English to me. That catches me off guard so I buy ice-cream from him.
A group of us decide to walk to a hotel where there is a restaurant and bar on the roof with live music. It’s about a 5k walk through very urban feeling neighborhoods. It was a change of scenery to see real Havana locals hanging out in their own bars, not the tourist ones. On one corner there is a group of men surrounding a table in the middle of the street where they’re playing dominoes under a streetlamp. When we get to the hotel there is a guy making sure that no Cubans are coming in…it’s a law that unless working at tourist hotels, Cubans aren’t allowed in. My first reaction is that it isn’t all that nice that the people don’t get to go into the nicer places in their neighborhoods, but then again, I don’t go to hotels in my town. Later on I ask someone about that law. When tourism was pretty new to Cuba men from foreign countries would come over to Cuba and bring young Cubans up to their rooms to have their way with them. The Cuban government began pressing charges against these tourists, which didn’t go over too well with those folks countries of origin. Eventually this law was passed as a protective measure for the Cuban people. This is another thing to understand about Cuban society… most of the laws they pass are protective…not like the US where we need to pass a law for every little thing all the way down to how tinted your windows on your car can be.
On the way back to Luyano, Dan (one of the IFCO staff people my age) and I shared a cab. Dan speaks pretty fluent Spanish but since Luyano isn’t in Havana proper the driver doesn’t know where it is. He takes us a long way around before he gets close and stops to ask for directions. At this point I think that the place we’re staying is pretty run down. But then he drives us through a part of town that is really poor looking. All of the roads off of the main street didn’t have streetlamps. They didn’t even looked like they were paved all that well. Even without that though the people were still hanging out with each other. It’s about 11 at night and kids are still playing hopscotch and the adults are all playing dominoes or talking. At about midnight and a half I’m still sitting outside with some of the folks I’m staying with. All over you hear loud music and entire families still awake, just hanging out. Now I’m wondering why the kids don’t have bedtimes and why no one seems to work during the day.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Tales of a Commie (Part 1) - Getting to Cuba
This is the first installment of what I believe will be 5 describing my trip to Cuba. I've decided to write it this way because I want to make you really work to find out what I did in Cuba...since we can't really have a conversation in person in which I would be really vague, I'm just going to make you read a whole bunch. For some reason this part is mostly in present tense...i don't really know what's up with that. Enjoy!
_______________________________________
On 14 July 2007 I landed in McAllen, TX to begin my mission to Cuba. The group I’m with is called IFCO/Pastors for Peace (Pastors). They are a group that has been involved in promoting various types of solidarity work since the late 1960’s – from foreign work in Latin America to domestic groups in African American movements. At this point all I know of Pastors is that, despite the name, they are not necessarily a Christian organization. They operate on more of a Unitarian mentality, akin to many groups who claim to follow liberation theology. I’m interested to see what type of people I run into. Everyone on the caravan is there because they want to have a part in ending the US blockade against Cuba, and in my experience these types are very anti-American to the point that they blinded by hate from seeing the injustice on the other side of whatever cause they might be serving.
I have two goals for this trip. Primarily I want to learn as much as I can about Cuba in a way that is fair to the truths presented on both the pro and anti-Castro sides of the debate. As with most parts of my life I’m also very interested in meeting the people that I’m on the caravan with learning their stories – why they are involved in this work and where they come from in life.
Our time in Texas had two main purposes. We had to pack, mark, and manifest the aid we were taking into the vehicles that would take us to the Gulf of Mexico as well as learn the basics of what we were going to experience in Cuba and crossing both into Mexico and back into the states in direct violation of the US government. They leadership told war-stories of things that had happened in past year – times when they went on hunger strikes and were beaten by the border officials. Most importantly was that we were to be non-violent and stubborn in any attempt the officials made to pry unnecessary information from us. The worst-case scenario is that they will try to take all of the aid from us and prevent us from being able to take it to Cuba.
In order to save time and space I’ll skip the specifics about the days in McAllen. All that’s really important is that on zero hours of sleep I and busy packing buses and trucks, typing up manifests and translating them into Spanish (I don’t speak Spanish so that was fun), and doing at least one security shift at night from 2 to 4 in the morning. The purpose for security I will take the time to explain. There are two groups out there who will go to great lengths to sabotage the work we are getting ready to do. The first is a group of Cuban people who don’t live in Cuba (they mainly live in Florida/Miami) and are absolutely militant about not supporting the Castro government(1) . The second is the US government. Our fear is that one or both of these groups will attack the credibility of Pastors by planting drugs on our vehicles, so when we cross the border we will get negative press coverage. There’s also the fear of theft, but that isn’t as big of a threat as the former.
On my night shifts doing security there were a lot of cars with darkly tinted windows that would drive by very slowly, numerous times, often times changing the license plates between Mexican plates, Texas plates, and government plates. What were they really going to do? My guess is that it was really only meant as intimidation. The morning before we left they had been circling all night. We were keeping the time we left a secret, even to the people on the caravan, because one year they put up roadblocks so our vehicles couldn’t leave the ‘compound’.
At 4 in the morning we started waking everyone up. On the outside it looked like everything was normal. On the inside though the people were busy getting their stuff ready to rush out to the buses so the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) people wouldn’t try to stop us from leaving. At about 6 a.m. the exodus began. As I stood guard at one of the gates the people made their way to the buses. The buses started, we opened the gates, I boarded one of the buses and off we went to the border. All of the agents that had been patrolling gave us a nice little escort all the way through town to the border. When we got there, there were border patrol cars, lights flashing, blocking the road in order to direct us into a special inspection station. They did very little. We had to get off our buses and they scanned the buses with this giant x-ray machine they have. This is where they took our computers.
When they took the computers off our bus, they did the same thing they did a few weeks prior on the Canadian border when part of our caravan was bringing medical supplies across the border. They said that they would be held for no longer than 30 days in order to determine if they were duel use computers, meaning that they could be used for military purposes. The only resistance I heard about was a smart-ass comment made by the leader of the whole thing, Lucius Walker. A DHS officer asked if he could get a picture with Lucius to show his family and he replied, ‘why don’t you show them a picture of you taking our computers.’ Although that was a funny reply, our lack of resistance led me to question the purpose of our taking all this aid across(2).
The next part was getting through Mexican customs. They too had us pull into a special station. They then told us to take everything off the buses and out of the trucks. We declined their offer. We unloaded about 20 items from each truck so they could compare our manifests. They were told that if they wanted it all unloaded they would have to do it themselves, which naturally made them go by our rules. The communication of the Mexican officials was terrible. We (all 120+ of us) ended up waking back and forth across their whole border place several times before they figured out what the hell they were doing. We were having a problem getting visas for vehicles. Especially a bus that didn’t have a VIN number on it. This bus was packed full with aid. We were just about to get the bus when one of our drivers wrecked into a roof section of an area they told us we had to pull all of our vehicles into. The roof was too short but everyone seemed to have overlooked that.
We got to the border at 7 that morning. The main group left at about noon or 1. A handful of us stayed behind to do whatever was going to have to be done with the bus. On my end of things this was a great opportunity to hang out with some of the best people on the caravan. Eventually we were able to get one of our passenger buses to come and we proceeded to load all of the aid from the condemned bus onto that one. We left the border at midnight that day. We had to be up at 4 the next morning to begin our drive to the Gulf, and the group of us that stayed behind still had to eat and shower. I slept about 2 hours that night at our hotel in Reynosa, Mexico.
In the morning we had to re-pack everything in order fit all of the people and all of the aid in light of the fact that we had a full bus less space than we did the day before. Before all of this took place though a lady came up and offered to buy me a cup of coffee and breakfast at the 7-11. She ended up being one of my favorite people ever. Her name is Diane. She has been at this protest business for a long time. As an example how involved she is, she was invited to Loretta Scott King’s funeral. She has a condition similar to MS. About 90% of her muscle is deteriorating but that doesn’t stop her from going out there and getting arrested and telling the government what she thinks. I can’t really say what it is, but there is just something about her that makes her one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever met.
Back to the re-packing… Just as we got the plan together and began pulling all of the stuff off to re-pack, the sky bursts open dumping flood-worthy amounts of water on us. Despite that we continued to pack. Some people were complaining, but those were the people who complained about most everything. I guess they don’t understand that this trip isn’t a vacation. Finally we began making our way to Tampico, Mexico. We arrived close to midnight and unloaded all of the aid onto containers that would be put onto barges. That night we were to stay at a hotel that would have showers, breakfast, and a pool. The last group of us got the hotel at about 4 in the morning. We had to leave at 6 in order to catch our plane at 7:30 that morning. Most of us didn’t sleep. We swam, ate, and showered then got on the buses to the airport.
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1. Before the revolution most of the bigger industries of Cuba were owned by rich American individuals and corporations. Agriculture being the best example. On these massive farms Cubans were employed for very poor wages and kept in plantation style accommodations while the landowners realized huge profits. Most of these plantations were run by Cubans who were paid a lot by the Americans to keep the workers under control. When Castro assumed power he set out to redistribute the property. He gave much of the property to the workers who had been exploited for so many years. It was theirs to own and maintain for generations to come. The Cubans who had once enslaved their own people sought exile in the US. Here they tried to get their property back. The new Cuban government said that they would give them their property but only a portion that they could farm on their own. They weren’t about to let the people be subject to those conditions again and they were also concerned that too much useable land my go un-farmed. To this day those once rich anti-revolutionary Cubans wage a war to end the Castro government.
2. I’ve written a letter to IFCO saying that I think the trip needs to be more aggressive, not in terms of violence but in our active resistance, if we’re going to make any progress. I may post the letter some time.
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On 14 July 2007 I landed in McAllen, TX to begin my mission to Cuba. The group I’m with is called IFCO/Pastors for Peace (Pastors). They are a group that has been involved in promoting various types of solidarity work since the late 1960’s – from foreign work in Latin America to domestic groups in African American movements. At this point all I know of Pastors is that, despite the name, they are not necessarily a Christian organization. They operate on more of a Unitarian mentality, akin to many groups who claim to follow liberation theology. I’m interested to see what type of people I run into. Everyone on the caravan is there because they want to have a part in ending the US blockade against Cuba, and in my experience these types are very anti-American to the point that they blinded by hate from seeing the injustice on the other side of whatever cause they might be serving.
I have two goals for this trip. Primarily I want to learn as much as I can about Cuba in a way that is fair to the truths presented on both the pro and anti-Castro sides of the debate. As with most parts of my life I’m also very interested in meeting the people that I’m on the caravan with learning their stories – why they are involved in this work and where they come from in life.
Our time in Texas had two main purposes. We had to pack, mark, and manifest the aid we were taking into the vehicles that would take us to the Gulf of Mexico as well as learn the basics of what we were going to experience in Cuba and crossing both into Mexico and back into the states in direct violation of the US government. They leadership told war-stories of things that had happened in past year – times when they went on hunger strikes and were beaten by the border officials. Most importantly was that we were to be non-violent and stubborn in any attempt the officials made to pry unnecessary information from us. The worst-case scenario is that they will try to take all of the aid from us and prevent us from being able to take it to Cuba.
In order to save time and space I’ll skip the specifics about the days in McAllen. All that’s really important is that on zero hours of sleep I and busy packing buses and trucks, typing up manifests and translating them into Spanish (I don’t speak Spanish so that was fun), and doing at least one security shift at night from 2 to 4 in the morning. The purpose for security I will take the time to explain. There are two groups out there who will go to great lengths to sabotage the work we are getting ready to do. The first is a group of Cuban people who don’t live in Cuba (they mainly live in Florida/Miami) and are absolutely militant about not supporting the Castro government(1) . The second is the US government. Our fear is that one or both of these groups will attack the credibility of Pastors by planting drugs on our vehicles, so when we cross the border we will get negative press coverage. There’s also the fear of theft, but that isn’t as big of a threat as the former.
On my night shifts doing security there were a lot of cars with darkly tinted windows that would drive by very slowly, numerous times, often times changing the license plates between Mexican plates, Texas plates, and government plates. What were they really going to do? My guess is that it was really only meant as intimidation. The morning before we left they had been circling all night. We were keeping the time we left a secret, even to the people on the caravan, because one year they put up roadblocks so our vehicles couldn’t leave the ‘compound’.
At 4 in the morning we started waking everyone up. On the outside it looked like everything was normal. On the inside though the people were busy getting their stuff ready to rush out to the buses so the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) people wouldn’t try to stop us from leaving. At about 6 a.m. the exodus began. As I stood guard at one of the gates the people made their way to the buses. The buses started, we opened the gates, I boarded one of the buses and off we went to the border. All of the agents that had been patrolling gave us a nice little escort all the way through town to the border. When we got there, there were border patrol cars, lights flashing, blocking the road in order to direct us into a special inspection station. They did very little. We had to get off our buses and they scanned the buses with this giant x-ray machine they have. This is where they took our computers.
When they took the computers off our bus, they did the same thing they did a few weeks prior on the Canadian border when part of our caravan was bringing medical supplies across the border. They said that they would be held for no longer than 30 days in order to determine if they were duel use computers, meaning that they could be used for military purposes. The only resistance I heard about was a smart-ass comment made by the leader of the whole thing, Lucius Walker. A DHS officer asked if he could get a picture with Lucius to show his family and he replied, ‘why don’t you show them a picture of you taking our computers.’ Although that was a funny reply, our lack of resistance led me to question the purpose of our taking all this aid across(2).
The next part was getting through Mexican customs. They too had us pull into a special station. They then told us to take everything off the buses and out of the trucks. We declined their offer. We unloaded about 20 items from each truck so they could compare our manifests. They were told that if they wanted it all unloaded they would have to do it themselves, which naturally made them go by our rules. The communication of the Mexican officials was terrible. We (all 120+ of us) ended up waking back and forth across their whole border place several times before they figured out what the hell they were doing. We were having a problem getting visas for vehicles. Especially a bus that didn’t have a VIN number on it. This bus was packed full with aid. We were just about to get the bus when one of our drivers wrecked into a roof section of an area they told us we had to pull all of our vehicles into. The roof was too short but everyone seemed to have overlooked that.
We got to the border at 7 that morning. The main group left at about noon or 1. A handful of us stayed behind to do whatever was going to have to be done with the bus. On my end of things this was a great opportunity to hang out with some of the best people on the caravan. Eventually we were able to get one of our passenger buses to come and we proceeded to load all of the aid from the condemned bus onto that one. We left the border at midnight that day. We had to be up at 4 the next morning to begin our drive to the Gulf, and the group of us that stayed behind still had to eat and shower. I slept about 2 hours that night at our hotel in Reynosa, Mexico.
In the morning we had to re-pack everything in order fit all of the people and all of the aid in light of the fact that we had a full bus less space than we did the day before. Before all of this took place though a lady came up and offered to buy me a cup of coffee and breakfast at the 7-11. She ended up being one of my favorite people ever. Her name is Diane. She has been at this protest business for a long time. As an example how involved she is, she was invited to Loretta Scott King’s funeral. She has a condition similar to MS. About 90% of her muscle is deteriorating but that doesn’t stop her from going out there and getting arrested and telling the government what she thinks. I can’t really say what it is, but there is just something about her that makes her one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever met.
Back to the re-packing… Just as we got the plan together and began pulling all of the stuff off to re-pack, the sky bursts open dumping flood-worthy amounts of water on us. Despite that we continued to pack. Some people were complaining, but those were the people who complained about most everything. I guess they don’t understand that this trip isn’t a vacation. Finally we began making our way to Tampico, Mexico. We arrived close to midnight and unloaded all of the aid onto containers that would be put onto barges. That night we were to stay at a hotel that would have showers, breakfast, and a pool. The last group of us got the hotel at about 4 in the morning. We had to leave at 6 in order to catch our plane at 7:30 that morning. Most of us didn’t sleep. We swam, ate, and showered then got on the buses to the airport.
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1. Before the revolution most of the bigger industries of Cuba were owned by rich American individuals and corporations. Agriculture being the best example. On these massive farms Cubans were employed for very poor wages and kept in plantation style accommodations while the landowners realized huge profits. Most of these plantations were run by Cubans who were paid a lot by the Americans to keep the workers under control. When Castro assumed power he set out to redistribute the property. He gave much of the property to the workers who had been exploited for so many years. It was theirs to own and maintain for generations to come. The Cubans who had once enslaved their own people sought exile in the US. Here they tried to get their property back. The new Cuban government said that they would give them their property but only a portion that they could farm on their own. They weren’t about to let the people be subject to those conditions again and they were also concerned that too much useable land my go un-farmed. To this day those once rich anti-revolutionary Cubans wage a war to end the Castro government.
2. I’ve written a letter to IFCO saying that I think the trip needs to be more aggressive, not in terms of violence but in our active resistance, if we’re going to make any progress. I may post the letter some time.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
So, here I am in Denver, CO. Why is it, that in the middle of the country the people who run the hostel I'm staying at are creepy-ass Slavic folks? If I don't survive the night...Mike, you can have my useful things, and Jon, you can have my worthless things.
The past month seems like a blur. It began on July 4th when I left on a trip with 7 high school guys on a skate trip/camp to Oregon. I must add that this was a great 10 days. We drove home on July 13th arriving about midnight then I did my laundry and caught a plane to Texas where I didn't get more than about 2 hours of consecutive sleep for the next 7 days. I logged it somewhere, but off the top of my head, I think the hours of sleep I got from July 13th - 19th was in the low 20s.
I had a brief stay in Texas as posted before, and am now going to cry myself to sleep in creepy-as-fuck Denver hostel after a 20 hour ride on a more-than-usually uncomfortable bus.
But, on the train ride home I'll be typing up my thoughts on Cuba. No guarantee as to when that will be posted, but hopefully it wont suck. I learned a lot when I was there about both Cuba, the US, and the world in general. A few beliefs that I've carried with me over the years became more solidified and some less. It should be fun. Most importantly, I can't wait to sleep in my own warm comfortable bed.
The past month seems like a blur. It began on July 4th when I left on a trip with 7 high school guys on a skate trip/camp to Oregon. I must add that this was a great 10 days. We drove home on July 13th arriving about midnight then I did my laundry and caught a plane to Texas where I didn't get more than about 2 hours of consecutive sleep for the next 7 days. I logged it somewhere, but off the top of my head, I think the hours of sleep I got from July 13th - 19th was in the low 20s.
I had a brief stay in Texas as posted before, and am now going to cry myself to sleep in creepy-as-fuck Denver hostel after a 20 hour ride on a more-than-usually uncomfortable bus.
But, on the train ride home I'll be typing up my thoughts on Cuba. No guarantee as to when that will be posted, but hopefully it wont suck. I learned a lot when I was there about both Cuba, the US, and the world in general. A few beliefs that I've carried with me over the years became more solidified and some less. It should be fun. Most importantly, I can't wait to sleep in my own warm comfortable bed.
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