Breaking: Fidel Castro is dead.

[Billy Burnett]

According to Radio Mambi.

Mambi says that's why he wasn't seen voting yesterday, and, unlike Miami-Dade, dead men don't vote in Cuban elections.

[flamingdem]

1. omg conga line at Versailles any minute nt

[Mika]

3. Its absolutely pouring buckets in Miami today.

The celebrations will have to wait until tonight I guess.

:hi:

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[Judi Lynn]

5. They'll be heading for the boats to get that flotilla underway, Mika!

Make way for the glorious Mr. Ramón Saúl Sánchez! HE'LL lead the way to Cuba to free those peoples!

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/media/images/41239000/jpg/_41239376_ramon_ap203.jpg http://thumbs.photo.net.nyud.net:8090/photo/7935713-sm.jpg http://www.cubaencuentro.com.nyud.net:8090/var/cubaencuentro.com/storage/images/encuentro_en_la_red/cuba/noticias/ramon_raul_sanchez_continua_la_huelga_de_hambre_por_la_repatriacion_de_los_balseros/ramon_saul_sanchez_presidente_del_movimiento_democracia/84325-4-esl-ES/ramon_saul_sanchez_presidente_del_movimiento_democracia_large.jpg

http://cms7.blogia.com.nyud.net:8090/blogs/n/no/not/noticiasmiami/upload/20060118044350-raul-saul-sanchez.jpg

Ramón, near death after being
tear-gassed by govt. agents
who came to retrieve Elian.
Rest, brave soldier, rest.

http://198.62.75.1.nyud.net:8090/

Ramón Saúl Sánchez' boat.

[Mika]

2. Again?

:rofl:

He gets nine lives every year.

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[flamingdem]

7. I found Raul Saul Sanchez' Facebook page if you want to friend him!

http://www.facebook.com/RamonSaulSanchez#!/RamonSaulSanchez?v=info

[flamingdem]

8. Story in Spanish, infighting between Sanchez and Vigilia Mambisa crowd, "his flag was very small"

http://villagranadillo.blogspot.com/2009/12/ultima-noticia-ramon-saul-sanchez.html

[Judi Lynn]

10. It's so funny learning Miguel Saavedra is a competitor against Ramon Saul Sanchez.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/exile/miguel-saavedra.jpg http://www.granma.cu.nyud.net:8090/fotos1/febrero07/saavedra.jpg

Ramon Sanchez will want to stay out of range of Saaveda's flying bullhorn!

[flamingdem]

13. Judy do you have any shots of the planchadora? The steam roller Saavedra used on Juanes' CDs? nt

[Judi Lynn]

19. I'll be looking for one. I'd love to see it, too! Here's a video of some Juanes supporters

standing on a corner yelling support while anti-Juanes people stand across the street from them, yelling NO support:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdRjxSqT1NE

Here's a comment from a Miami blogger:

Gracias Juanes! You fucking communist son of a bitch."

Also another video of people arguing on the street about the concert. Jeez!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvpmw93gkI

A news report from Miami:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvpmw93gkI

Got the links from MambiWatch.

D.U. thread from Billy Burnett:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x22516

Will look some more later this evening when I get back on. I'm certain a photo of Saavedra crushing Juanes' CD's is one I'd like to have! What a hoot.

Edit, adding Miami Herald article:

Juanes' concert for peace -- reading the tea leaves
BY CARLOS SALADRIGAS
www.cubastudygroup.org

After watching the much talked-about Juanes concert on Sunday, I was left with a feeling that something transcendental had taken place.

Almost 10 percent of Cuba's population showed up -- about 30 percent of Cuba's youth. Considering the lack of available transportation, it became clear the Cuban people voted with their feet.

For a people used to speaking in code, things were said that, except during the Pope's visit, have never been said in Cuba in a public forum. The joy in their faces said it all, in sharp contrast to the taciturn faces normally seen during the interminable political gatherings of the past.

Meanwhile in Miami, at the Versailles Restaurant, Miguel Saavedra and his Vigilia Mambisa had a steamroller crush dozens of blank CDs in yet another of their usual, but detestable, demonstrations largely aimed at intimidating dissenters from the hard line of exile politics. Unexpectedly, a spontaneous gathering of young people, fed up with a 50-year-old failed policy, outnumbered them, and gave Saavedra a dose of his own medicine. A recent poll showed that the vast majority of Cuban Americans believe his actions severely damage the hard-earned image of our community.

More: http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/09/24/1250066/juanes-concert-for-peace-reading.html#ixzz0mGz7nkPD

[Judi Lynn]

21. Found one photo, flamingdem!

http://media.elnuevoherald.com.nyud.net:8090/smedia/2009/09/20/22/exilio.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg

~snip~
Many Cuban nationals gathered at Versailles Restaurant, a small handful of aggressive, non-supporters in attendance spent the day destroying juanes CDs – (really a joke because they only had a few discs), and arguing with the far-larger pro-juanes crowd that showed up to make their support clear. It is definitely interesting that anti-Juanes fans went to the trouble of bringing an actual steamroller – to Versailles – that they used to crush about 40 or 50 CDs (tops), in demonstration of their hatred for the actions of Juanes. This has got to rank among the lamest demonstrations in history – at least put more CDs in the path of the steamroller.

http://www.acdell.com/blog/?p=210

http://alvarezgalloso.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/09/miami2.jpg

[Mika]

22. funny Youtube of Juanes protests in front of the Versailles on Calle Ocho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H51FpOUvlUM&feature=related

Note the pro Juanes crowd is larger than the loony crowd.

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[flamingdem]

25. the pro-Juanes crowd is much more enthusiastic

if we could give them marks:

pro Juanes 9 out of 10 (better flags and good jumping up and down moves)
anti Juanes 6 out of 10 (better signs okay with the libertad chant)

[Judi Lynn]

27. Good one. Geez. those guys are irritating. Interesting accent from the woman.

Is that common in Miami?

Good to see a shot of their steamroller. That's right in step with the times, the 1960's, that is:crunching recordings!

The reporter looked like a total tool. Embarrassing!

Thanks, Mika. Very interesting to see.

[flamingdem]

24. Thanks! These are great photos

I've looked around ever since I heard about the steamroller, you are amazing at these finds, you must have some kind of esp on where to look!

Anything about Vigilia Mambisa interests me in my attempt to understand Miami politics They are stuck in time.. or so it seems, I wonder how they feel about Rubio or Garcia, cat fights on the way!

[flamingdem]

14. Another cat fight! Zoe Valdes vs. Yoani Sanchez

Might be worth translating if you don't read Espanol, due to the points she makes against Yoani
from her right wing perspective. She's a well known author if anyone is not up on her story.
"La Vida Cotidiana"

http://zoevaldes.net/

http://zoevaldes.net/tag/yoani-sanchez/

I can't find it now but she was bitching a week ago about Yoani and how she showed up at the Damas march to promote herself, and how she's an opportunist and blah blah

This looks like a response to criticism that she is envious of Yoani (clearly she is) and how she was a dissident before blogging came along! She lives in Spain now.

En cuanto a este post, ahórrense el tema de que si la envidia y no sé qué más, ¿qué envidia puedo tenerle yo a YS? Es más, la apoyé, y volveré a apoyarla si cambia la manera de llevar su lucha de disidente -en lo que se transformó a última hora. Y el que quiera saber lo que hice en Cuba, que investigue, que bastante hice, en silencio, cuando no había internet, ni blogs. ¡Allá los que no hicieron nada de nada! Sólo mencionaré lo que escribí dentro de Cuba: Sangre azul, La nada cotidiana, Te di la vida entera, Traficantes de bellezas, poemarios, guiones de cine…y que publiqué fuera de Cuba. Basta ya de aguantar mentiras, y sobre todo, basta de tener que aguantar a los inventaditos plagiadores de última hora que le hacen el juego al régimen, involucrándolo a uno. Así que, ahórrense dedos.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Yikes! Now there's a sorry spectacle! No thanks, what about you? n/t

[Mika]

11. Raul Saul Sanchez did jail time in America.

Leadership Abhors a Vacuum
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1999-07-22/news/leadership-abhors-a-vacuum/2

(snippet, from page 2)

To appreciate the Ramon Saul Sanchez of today, you need to consider his past. Sanchez came to the United States during the Freedom Flights of 1967. He was fifteen years old, and almost immediately joined Alpha 66, a paramilitary group based in Miami and dedicated to the violent overthrow of the Castro government. Although today Alpha 66 is largely a farcical faction of would-be warriors who play soldier in the Everglades, the Alpha 66 of the late Sixties and early Seventies was a true paramilitary force, and Sanchez was one of its proudest members, taking part in several raids on Cuba.

In those days the fight against Castro was waged as much in the United States as it was through clandestine strikes on the island, and the most violent contingent was a group known as Omega 7, which between 1975 and 1982 claimed credit for a string of more than 30 bombings in New York and Miami. In 1980 the group gunned down an attaché to Cuba's United Nations mission and later planted a bomb under the car of Cuba's chief UN delegate, Raul Roa Kouri, in an unsuccessful attempt to kill him.

In 1982 Sanchez was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in New York examining the activities of Omega 7. By that time he was the head of his own anti-Castro group, the Organization for the Liberation of Cuba, several of whose participants were under investigation for alleged membership in Omega 7 as well. (Eventually three individuals in Sanchez's OLC were convicted on attempted-murder charges for their role in the plot to blow up Kouri's car.)

Sanchez publicly denied he was a member of Omega 7, but he refused to testify before the grand jury in 1982. As a result he was indicted and ultimately convicted in 1984 on criminal contempt-of-court charges, and spent four and a half years in prison.

This wasn't Sanchez's first encounter with American jurisprudence. A few years earlier he'd been arrested for threatening a plain-clothes detective with a gun. The cop had been assigned to follow Sanchez and monitor his movements. Sanchez claimed he mistakenly thought the police officer was a member of Cuba's special security forces sent to Miami to kill him. Despite his protestations of innocence, he was convicted of aggravated assault. The conviction was overturned on appeal.

There was no reprieve, however, from the federal contempt charges. Prison had a profound affect on Sanchez. The everyday brutality and destructiveness of prison life repulsed him, and when he was freed in 1988 he says he rejected violence as a means for bringing about change in Cuba. "It has to be moral and it has to be nonviolent," he says today regarding the fight to free Cuba.

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[flamingdem]

12. What the rest of the extreme righties need? 4 yrs in the pen! nt

[Mika]

16. His nonviolent/pacifist conversion was short lived.

He's been involved with several scuffles and arrests (w/no charges) since.

He's a regular face on all of the local Miami TV news stations that ingratiate his performances, for ratings I guess. Anytime any Cuba related event, an anniversary, a rumor, a smuggling op story, a rafter story, Elian, etc, there he is.

He's a three ring circus all in one.

Exile leader plans to station ship near Cuba
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/modem81700.html

U.S. seizes Cuba-bound exiles' boat
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/usseizescubanboundexiles.html

Exiles press on with plan for tie-ups- Police warn of arrests today
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/exlsprson.html

Leader calls off hunger strike after U.S. agrees to return boat
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/endstke.html

On a hunger strike.


Another hunger strike.


The ignoble ship of Democracy.

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[Judi Lynn]

4. Good honk on Miami elections, Billy Burnett. Miami has been notorious for many, many years,

long before Elian, before the 2000 Presidential elections, they've been known nationwide for absolutely filthy handling of their elections. <Spitting sound.>

That's the dead Fidel picture they also used YEARS AGO when he died another time! Wowie. So peaceful, isn't he?

Thank you for this touching moment of reflection.

So sweet seeing they chose a lovely religiously inspired little gown in which to bury him. Awwwwww. (Or was he wearing a housecoat?)

[EFerrari]

6. You scared me.

:spank:

[dipsydoodle]

15. Me too

.

[Billy Burnett]

17. Hold on!! There's some nasty Cubans on my TV partying in front of the Versailles right now.

Uh Oh! We're going to get breaking news updates at the top of the hour on our local stations. Plus I'm hearing honking car horns up on Calle Ocho (I live close to the Versailles, about 3/4 mi as the crow flies).

Some day, I guess that one of these rumors will turn out to be true. Maybe today. :(


Fidel Castro and Mirta Diaz Balart

http://www.pulpinternational.com/images/postimg/cuba%20libre%2002(1).jpg

[Mika]

18. Holy Shit! It was on WSVN's newscheck update.

They were reporting that its an unconfirmed rumor.

What else is new? :shrug:

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[protocol rv]

20. One of these days it'll be true

:thumbsup:

[IndianaGreen]

23. Marco Rubio can now run for President of Cuba

and repeal abortion and LGBT rights, not to mention replace the Cuban health care system with something run by the likes of WellPoint.

[Mika]

26. After he runs for POTUS.

Repugs always attack where they are weak. Often, it works.

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