Thursday, December 17, 2015

Cuba, Cubans, Cuban Americans, America, and Americans


The island nation, its politics intertwining with ours, and its favorite sons battling to be the GOP nominee are all over my newsfeed this week.

-- Cruz and Rubio, two sons of Cuban parents, are vying to lead the anti-immigrant party:

There’s nothing new about seeing a group of presidential hopefuls who are the grandchildren of immigrants — Irish, Italian, Czech, German — decrying the burden of rampant immigration. Seldom, it seems, are the candidates who rail loudest against interlopers the ones whose ancestors walked off the Mayflower.

What is unusual, though, is to turn on a presidential debate and see two notably young Latino candidates, both born to Cuban émigrés, jockeying over who will close the border faster and more securely. That was the scene in Las Vegas Tuesday night, and it underscored a central paradox of this year’s Republican contest: Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio seem like decent bets now to become the first Latino nominee in either party’s long history, at exactly the moment when anti-immigrant fervor is reaching its zenith.

[...]

It’s tempting to see Cruz and Rubio as politicians cast from the same mold and reflecting remarkably similar stories. Here are two 44-year-old conservative Cuban-Americans, both lightning fast from mind to mouth, both first-term senators who capitalized on voter rebellion — Rubio in 2010, Cruz two years later — to shock establishment-backed opponents. The parallels are kind of bizarre.

Both men, eyeing the presidency from the moment they arrived in Washington, also wrote readable, if thoroughly forgettable, political memoirs with the kind of anodyne titles that make you think there must be some publishing algorithm for coming up with this stuff: “A Time for Truth” in Cruz’s case, “ An American Son” in Rubio’s.

Cruz’s father fled political repression and existential danger as an ally of communist rebels seeking to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. Once in America, Rafael Cruz grew disillusioned with Fidel Castro and threw communism overboard, replacing it with a new guiding cause: evangelical Christianity.

Rubio’s dad, on the other hand, came to America chiefly in pursuit of economic opportunity. In Florida and then in Nevada, and then back in Florida again, Mario Rubio’s passion was to provide for his family, running small, ill-fated businesses (a vegetable stand, a dry cleaner) and tending bar.

Cruz’s Cuban story is all about zealotry and purity — a journey of faith, both political and religious. The boyhood chapters of Rubio’s memoir, on the other hand, are largely about paying bills and fitting in, as generations of immigrants have tried to do — playing football and celebrating American holidays, switching churches (Catholic and Mormon) in order to adapt to social circles.

Because of Cuba’s outsize role for a tiny island in the geopolitical drama of the Cold War and in American politics, Cuban-Americans have always seen themselves, perhaps more than any other immigrant group, as instruments of destiny. The most common narrative among Cuban-Americans revolves around all the wealth and greatness that would have been theirs save for the scourge of global communism.

“If you put together all the sugar plantations Cubans have claimed to have once owned,” jokes Joe Garcia, a Cuban-American Democrat who represented the Miami area in Congress, “you’d have a country the size of Brazil.”

I'll let you read on from there.  But don't miss this: "Ted Cruz's dishonesty on immigration".

-- Fidel’s niece, Mariela Castro, leads Cuba’s LGBT revolution:

The moment that Mariela Castro Espin met Rory Kennedy on a Monday evening in early December seemed to encapsulate all the promise of a Cuba in transition as relations with America thaw.

Here was the niece of Fidel Castro and daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro agreeably posing for pictures and gabbing with the niece of former President John F. Kennedy and daughter of Sen. Bobby Kennedy.

More than half a century after their uncles faced off during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the two scions of legendary political families sat down for an in-translation tête-à-tête at a dinner at the San Cristobal paladar, or private restaurant, in central Havana.

The moment came toward the tail end of an evening of good food, music and well-aged rum sponsored by HBO in celebration of Jon Alpert’s documentary “Mariela Castro’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution,” about Castro’s emergence as the most prominent gay rights advocate in Cuba.

Of all the unexpected facts about Cuba today, perhaps none is more so than that the 53-year-old Castro daughter — straight, married, a mother of three — has become its most vocal political advocate on behalf of gay, lesbian, bi and trans rights.

-- Obama wants to travel to Cuba as president, but only if he can meet with Cuban dissidents:

President Obama promised in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News that he “very much” hopes to visit Cuba during his last year in office, but only if he can meet with pro-democracy dissidents there.
“If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody,” Obama said. “I’ve made very clear in my conversations directly with President [Raul] Castro that we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside of Cuba.”

Speaking in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Obama strongly hinted that he would make a decision “over the next several months.”

The president hopes that “sometime next year” he and his top aides will see enough progress in Cuba that they can say that “now would be a good time to shine a light on progress that’s been made, but also maybe [go] there to nudge the Cuban government in a new direction.” 

-- The Americans are coming!  Is Cuba ready?

-- US, Cuba to establish regular air service

-- Exploring the underground real estate market in Cuba

-- Hair has become an art form for Cuban men:

Under Fidel Castro, barber shops and beauty salons were state-owned and state-run. For the most part, a men’s haircut was just that — a cut. There was no shampooing and no styling.

However, in 2010, two years after Fidel’s brother, Raúl, became president, many small salons were handed over to their employees — essentially privatized. 

This quietly implemented, small economic change might be the reason behind the evolving hairstyles worn by men in Havana. When you walk down the streets today, you’ll see guys with carefully sculptured Mohawks, pompadours, fades, and highlights.


Much more from Yahoo: "US and Cuba, One Year Later" and also from the Havana Times.  And be sure and click on the blog appearing regularly in the right-hand column: "Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter".

Texas Greens file for 57 state and local offices in 2016

Kuff and Stace both have your Democratic rundown; I had some first-take POV on Tuesday, and yesterday the Green Party of Texas offered their slate for next year.

A total of 57 filed for offices across Texas, and here's the full list.  (I only counted one presidential candidate because recent polling shows Jill Stein with 63%, but she has four challengers, including Kent Mesplay of Texas).  The GPUS presidential nominating convention will be held in Houston next August, with most events occurring in and around the University of Houston.  The state convention will held in April, in San Antonio.

Regular readers here will note that I have been advancing a vote for Stein for president on the expectation that Bernie Sanders will eventually be eliminated from contention as the Democratic Party's nominee, and that his supporters should be welcomed to join the only real progressive campaign remaining after this spring.  Both Stein and the GPTX agree with me.

“The Democratic Party is not going to allow Bernie Sanders to squeak through, so where would we be if we don’t have a Plan B? When Bernie gets knocked out of contention, there would be no place for people to go if not for our campaign. The difference between our campaign and Bernie’s is that we’re not looking for the Democratic Party to save us. We are establishing an independent base for political resistance where we can continue to grow, because there is no relief on the horizon and we need to get busy right now building the lifeboat we’ll need to rescue ourselves and our children.”

Sanders is riding a populist wave in the Democratic primary that closely aligns with Green positions. For Greens who are committed to building an electoral alternative outside of the Democratic Party, we must be prepared to capture as much of this momentum as possible when the super-delegates and other Democratic Party machinery finally close the door on the Sanders campaign. To do this, we will put forward a solid and coordinated slate of candidates this cycle, and we will conduct a Green Party brand awareness campaign intended to let voters know that they still have an opportunity to vote their values and put people, peace, and planet before profit.

Since Texas Democrats and Republicans finally figured out that the way to reduce the electorate's choices back down to two was to file a candidate for every statewide office and let the mindlessness of straight ticket voting works its magic, it becomes imperative that to avoid having to petition for signatures for ballot access in 2018, a statewide Green (and Libertarian, for that matter) needs to hit the 5% threshold in next year's elections.

The statewide offices on the ballot in 2016 are Railroad Commissioner, state Supreme Court (Places 3, 5 and 9), and state Court of Criminal Appeals (Places 2, 5 and 6).  Multiple Democrats and Republicans have filed for those seats, most of them incumbents, and the primary elections in March will determine who bears the D and R standard in November.

The Railroad Commissioner's contest will be the liveliest, with over half a dozen candidates, including former Republican state representative Wayne Christian and three other goombah Republicans trying to out-"most conservative" each other in the GOP primary.  Former Land Commisioner Jerry Patterson's in-and-out dance prior to the filing deadline last Monday ended when he decided he couldn't be a ticketmate with Trump.

Former statehouse Democrat Lon Burnham, infamous perennial Grady Yarbrough -- you should remember him from his 2012 US Senate runoff against Paul Sadler -- and one other are vying to represent the Blue Team.  The Greens re-submit Martina Salinas, who got north of 2% in a 2014 bid for the RRC in a four-way race.

Gadfly had a good suggestion as the best shot for the Greens to hit their 5% number, and I won't disagree.  Quoting...

Cheryl Johnson is NOT running for Place 5 on the CCA, though. And the Democratic candidate, Betsy Johnson, is in a solo practice, which means she probably doesn't have a lot of legal depth she brings to the race. Her Texas Bar page lists, besides criminal practice, real estate and wills/probate.

Judith Sanders-Castro is the Green here; she got 10.45% against a Republican and a Libertarian in the CCA contest in 2014.  She had a long career as a voting rights activist going back to the '80's and early '90's with MALDEF.  Both Sanders-Castro and Salinas should campaign together and work the RGV and urban areas for Latin@ votes in their respective races.  Their success will be key in the bid for continued ballot access.

Besides those two excellent candidates, longtime Travis County activist Debbie Russell is running for sheriff there.  She and I spent time working on David Van Os' campaign for TXAG in 2006.  Deb Shafto, the Green Party's gubernatorial nominee in 2010, will make a run at Sylvia Garcia in Texas Senate 6, and her husband, George Reiter, the past co-chair of the state party, takes aim at Congressman Al Green in CD-9.

The godmother of the Texas Green Party, katia gruene, is a candidate for the statehouse (District 51, incumbent Eddie Rodriguez) and Joseph McElligott, fresh off his bid for Houston city council, will run against Dan Huberty in HD127.  Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee also draws a Green challenge from Adam Socki, a transit/urban planner with engineering outfit HDR.

David Collins, the Harris County Green Co-Chair, posts more.