Hey Donald, make Havana great again!

"Think of the beauty pageants!" 

 

Let’s face it Donald, Gaza is so far away.

I will admit that Gaza has some great beachfront property. With temperatures always 65 to 89°F (18 to 32°C), beach lovers have been flocking there since the Bronze Age. King Tut moored his superyacht there 3500 years ago. But the look is bad for the United States, and especially for a cadre of billionaire broligarchs, coming in on the tail end of a genocide with a lawsuit now before the ICC to arrest and jail a former US President, his Secretary of State, and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Ethnic cleansing is never a good look.

But what’s wrong with Cuba? It is a heck of a lot nicer than Greenland and the beaches are sandy, with no calving icebergs to spill the margaritas on the poolside dining tables on the afterdeck.

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Imagine strolling down the Malecon at sunset, tango-ing in the street in Old Habana, sunning on the white Mayabeque beaches, or taking a gourmet coffee tour to the mountains. The art is great, the music is amazing, the people are friendly, there is virtually no crime, and the weather is terrific.

Have you forgotten what the original Tropicana was like? In the 1940s, it attracted singers and dancers from all over the world. You can see the gene lines in Havana girls today. Ana de Armas, Gloria Estafan, Daisy Fuentes… the place just mints beautiful women. The casino was called the Crystal Rainbow (Los Arcos de Cristal), with its chandelier-ed dining room. Does that not have a Mar-A-Lago feel to it? Even the mafia clientele was family — a decade before you were born.

You remember Santo Trafficante? Your dad must have pointed him out to you on a Queens street corner in 1966. He was thrown out of Cuba pretty rudely. Che Guevara stuck him in a concentration camp for two months before he was allowed to return to the United States. Don’t worry, he got even. And in the 40s, that guy really knew where the money was, back when Las Vegas was an Esso stop in the desert.

Little wonder that Havana has over a million international tourists every year and used to attract retirement enclave owners like Hemingway, Gabriel García Márquez, and Langston Hughes. The real estate is cheap, regulators are easily purchased, and it’s a short helo hop from Key West and Miami. JetBlue already has daily flights from London, Paris, and Dubai. Just think of all the luxury condos you could sell!

Cuba has attracted everyone from slavers to bootleggers since Columbus sailed the ocean blue. On a trip there a few years ago with Hans Peter Schmidt and Ruy Anaya de la Rosa, I went to the Indio Hatuay Research Station to see their biochar experiments with animal feed and silkworms. Hatuey was a very smart indio and it was great that Fidel and Che named that station after him. He was the Taíno Cacique (chief) of the Hispaniolan cacicazgo of Guanaba (in present-day Haiti) at the end of the 15th century. Having witnessed the depravity Diego Velazquez inflicted on Hispanola in 1511, Hatuey canoed across to warn the people of Cuba. Hatuey showed the Taíno of Caobana a basket of gold and jewels, and said:

Here is the God the Spaniards worship. For these they fight and kill; for these they persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea… They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break…

I know you don’t read and don’t know where I am going with all this but you will like this next part, Donald. Using mastiffs and torturing the native people for information, the Spaniards found Hatuey. He was tied to a stake and burned alive, but before he was burned, a priest asked Hatuey if he would accept Jesus and go to heaven. Father Bartolomé de Las Casas recorded his reply:

“Él, pensando un poco, preguntó al religioso si iban cristianos al cielo. El religioso le respondió que sí, pero que iban los que eran buenos. Dijo luego el cacique, sin más pensar, que no quería él ir allá, sino al infierno, por no estar donde estuviesen y por no ver tan cruel gente. Ésta es la fama y honra que Dios y nuestra fe ha ganado con los cristianos que han ido a las Indias.” [Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.]

“He, thinking for a moment, asked the priest if Christians went to heaven. The priest answered yes, but only those who were good went. The chief then said, without thinking any further, that he did not want to go there, but to Hell, so as not to be where they were and not to see such cruel people.”

I digress. It just fascinates me that we have all but forgotten Indio Hatuey.

Not in Cuba! The Cuban cigar and the Cohiba brand show Hatuey’s distinctive ponytail. Cerveza Hatuey can be ordered in any restaurant or tavern. It is brewed in Santiago de Cuba and has been sold under his name since 1927 — by Bacardi until 1960 (when the Bacardi family fled to Miami). An ersatz Hatuey label was introduced by Bacardi in Miami in 2011. With no Cuban recourse to trademark law, Bacardi did the same with Cuba’s favorite rum, Havana Club. But if you want the real deal, you have to go to Havana.

Donald, I have to tell you, this would be a great time to reopen Cuba. That could be your profile and brand on the cigars and rum. Don’t worry about that Miami vote. You know those people. They’d probably vote for you anyway, not that you need to run for election ever again.

Forget the sinking stock market. There is only one stock that matters, and that is DJT. If you want that to go through the roof, think Trump Tropicana.

And watch that chorus line kick!

Meanwhile, let’s end these wars. We support peace in the West Bank and Gaza and the efforts to cease the war immediately. Global Village Institute’s Peace Thru Permaculture initiative has sponsored the Green Kibbutz network in Israel and the Marda Permaculture Farm in the West Bank for over 30 years. It will continue to do so with your assistance. We aid Ukrainian families seeking refuge in ecovillages and permaculture farms along the Green Road and work to heal collective trauma everywhere through the Pocket Project. You can read about it on the Global Village Institute website (GVIx.org). Thank you for your support.

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#RestorationGeneration.

當人類被關在籠内，地球持續美好，所以，給我們的教訓是:
人類毫不重要，空氣，土壤，天空和流水没有你們依然美好。
所以當你們走出籠子的時候，請記得你們是地球的客人，不是主人。

When humans are locked in a cage, the Earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.

We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. It is not too late. All of these great works are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.

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