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Regarding
the bilge from Begala about the red sections of the electoral
map as hotbeds of "hate" and murderous bigotry:
One
day in Guatemala a GI who was training my older cousins for
the Bay of Pigs invasion finally lost it. He was a
professional soldier and his excitable and unruly charges were
giving him fits.
"Straighten
up, goddamitt!" he barked. "Remember! It’s YOUR
f**king war!"
He
was exactly right.....exactly right. All we asked to
get by was: " a little help from our friends." We
didn’t need no stinkin "no-fly zone" half a world
away, and hundreds of thousands of miles wide, and enforced
for a decade by half the US Air Force. We needed it 90 miles
away, three miles wide, for two days and using, at most, two
planes. We didn’t need no stinkin "New World
Order" – whatever the hell that means. We needed help
in toppling the deadliest and most direct threat this nation
faced since 1812. This wasn’t no two-bit Bedouin thug making
a camel-raid on a neighboring tribe either. It’s plain as
day in recently-declassified Soviet documents my friends:
Fidel and Che wanted to press the button and incinerate
half the populations in the South during the missile crisis.
That’s the MAIN reason the Soviets got them out!.. Holy
S**t! They said.(In Russian) We can’t leave these things
here with these nuts!"
True
stuff here, my friends. But don’t look for it in the asinine
"Thirteen Days." Can’t have a Hollywood movie
portraying Nicholson and Redford’s fishing buddy as a meanie
now can we?
So
you talk about an Operation Just Cause! That was the Bay of
Pigs! Yet we couldn’t convince Washington to spring for a
minuscule fraction of the firepower it hurled against a
two-bit pimp in Panama or tribal warlord in Mogadishu!
My
friends, if I live to be a million years old, I will NEVER
UNDERSTAND the workings of the Liberal North American mind.
But
Ah!.....If Nixon – the man who nailed Hiss and saw through
Castro on the very first meeting in 1959 – had only
shaved off that five-o’clock shadow before the debate! If
Daley hadn’t stolen those votes! Sweet visions!...
My
wife always protests here. "Then he’d given your uncles
and cousins air cover, Fidel woulda been hanging by his heels
like Mussolini, and we’d never met!" she wails.
"Nonsense!"
I counter. "You and your sorority sisters woulda been
going to Havana for Spring Break, not Panama City. We’d a
met."
Whatever,
a month later that same GI was in another sputtering fury, but
at his commanders in Washington this time. He couldn’t
believe what he heard. He choked with rage. Yes, he was a
soldier. And orders were orders....But like the Krauts heard
from 101st Airborne at Bastogne –
"Nuts!"
But
this "Nuts!"was spat at his own commander. Our war
had become his. He defied direct orders from the Ivy
League’s Best and Brightest and followed the dictates of his
stout Southern heart. He was an Alabama boy. His instincts
prevailed. Free of Ivy League taint he had archaic notions of
right and wrong. These crazy Cubans often exasperated him, but
he quickly forged deep bonds with his men (many of them black,
Messiers Rangel, Jackson, and Mfume). He knew who the enemy
was. He knew what was happening on that island.
So
he waded ashore and leapt into what was by then a clearly
hopeless battle as his ancestors looked down, whooping and
cheering and waving their rebel caps. His ammo exhausted, his
resupply canceled by Washington, thousands of Communists
swarming in, he fell dead amongst his adopted brothers.
He
was trying to free Cubans, Mr Begala, foreigners.
And I wouldn’t call him a "bigot" or a
"crackpot" or a "mercenary" anywhere near
Little Havana, if I were you, sir.
That
odious "Miami Mafia" set up a trust fund for his
children’s education too, Mr. Begala. Know of any such funds
from your snooty French friends for the sons and daughters of
the brave men piled-up at Omaha Beach?..Hunh?..... Didn’t
think so.
El
Pais que nos abrio los brazos
– "The country that opened it’s arms to us," as
my late and saintly grandmother always referred to the US. And
she was referring , yes, to the (small) federal government of
the time but mainly to neighbors, to local governments,
to private and religious charities, and often to perfect
strangers.
In
the early 60’s we lived in a humble apartment complex in New
Orleans. The city hosted a major NASA construction site so it
sucked in workers from all over the "xenophobic" and
"hate-filled" South....... Who’s at the door now?
....AHHH!! Is that a WHITE HOOD?!!
Of
course not, Mr. Begala....it’s Mrs. Jeffrey with a basket of
fried chicken, and Mr. Jeffrey offering help translating the
job application.
The
Jeffreys were originally from Texas, Mr Begala. That’s
religious nuts in Waco and sadistic murderers in Irving to
you.
To
us it’s Mrs. Jeffrey with her big basket of food, and more
importantly, with her big Texas smile. She’s taking my
mother shopping with her again. She’s consoling her during
another sob-fest about Papi in La Cabana prison and maybe in
front of the Paredon this very dawn. It’s also Mr.
Jeffrey, a WWII and Korea vet who knows a little Spanish,
swerving from fiery rage to silent sympathy while apologizing
to my grandfather in a heavy Texas twang for the Bay of Pigs
– as if it was his doing, as if he hadn’t done enough
for others’ freedom already!
You’d
probably never understand Mr. Begala, but as Mr. Jeffrey saw
it, that was HIS flag on those ships off the Cuban coast. HIS
flag on the planes overhead. And though he choked on the name,
it was HIS President who gave them the order to scram. Mr.
Jeffrey had seen that flag go up over Manila and Seoul. Dozens
of his buddies who helped carry it fell along the way. He saw
what that fluttering canvas meant to the delirious crowds who
screamed and wept and cheered, knowing that freedom was at
hand.
We
can argue about America’s "national interest" till
the cows come home, and reasonable people can differ on
whether it means putting out (or stoking) fires in every
pesthole on earth – but dear Mr. Jeffrey, wherever he is
today, (and if you happen to be reading this, God bless you,
sir) knows that if his flag had flown over Pyongyang in 1953,
North Korea wouldn’t today be a charnel house of
mass-murder, starvation, and cannibalism. If it had waved a
little longer off Playa Giron we wouldn’t be neighbors. But
that’s okay. We might have met on vacations. The Lord works
in mysterious way. And yes, Mr. Begala, you’d probably call
the Jeffreys "religious nuts."
Another
knock......AAHH!!.... are they wearing SWASTIKAS!! No Mr
Begala, it’s Mrs. Frey, from upstairs. The Freys hailed from
Mobile Alabama. That’s the land of Selma and Bull Connor to
you. To us, it’s Mrs. Frey with her bleached-blond bouffant
and hilarious (to us) Southern drawl, offering us terrified
children another ride to that strange school where nobody
understands us ( bilingual education my ass! We learned
English in two months!)....And what’s in that bag? Mami’s
in tears again, but these look different....ah, some clothes
outgrown by the Frey children, for us. (No way Mami! I ain’t
wearing that!) And looks like a new blouse for her.
And
here comes Mrs. Boudreaux from across the street. She’s a
local, from the land of – SHRIEK and SHUDDERR!! – David
Duke, to you Begala. To us she’s a perpetually cheerful
woman with fuzzy slippers and a HUGE-bottom (Cubans always
notice this) who’s bringing a big pot of Gumbo and a phone
number of a friend who might have a job for grandad – and
Glory Be! – speaks a little Spanish.
They
came almost every day, Mr. Begala. Just ask my parents.
And
this was in the very gizzard of the "bigoted" and
"hate-filled" South, Mr. Begala. When you’ve just
fled a totalitarian hell with the clothes on your back, when
you find yourself in a strange land not knowing the language,
when nights are a sleepless, mind-churning marathon of
worries: did uncle Pepe fall to the firing squad this dawn? Is
cousin Manolo still in hiding? Where’s the next meal coming
from? – how on earth will we pay for the kids schooling?
with all this going on, that stuff helps, believe me. ( I
speak here for my parent’s generation. I was seven years
old. Seemed like a Disney adventure to me.)
As
one whose family was almost suffocated by them, I’m here to
tell ya that the arms of the "bigoted" folks of
Dixie opened damn wide for these foreigners. And the
embrace from Hollywood’s favorite caricature of
"intolerance" and "xenophobia" and
"hate" on these weird octopus-eating strangers was
plenty tight and plenty warm.
Put
that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Begala.
February
21, 2000
Copyright 2001 LewRockwell.com |
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