- A Funny Smell is in the Air

As I read the different news articles regarding Cuba on the net, I am beginning to notice something coming together. Like a well-organized marketing campaign, several stories and editorials have begun circulating throughout the news outlets talking about possible reforms in Cuba and how the US should reevaluate its position and the embargo. Val, over at Babalublog has taken notice and aptly refers to this cleansing of the castro dictatorship as Absolutionizing, in reference to castro’s often quoted blurb, “History will absolve me.”

The US, as well as the international media has always been teeming with castro apologists, but this is looking more and more like a collaborative effort. In news that came out yesterday, a second political prisoner in Cuba was released: Lazaro Gonzalez Adan. In another story out today from the UK, Ricardo Alarcon is quoted as being open to talks with the US to normalize relations, but only on communist Cuba’s terms, Alarcon reiterated. The article then went on to discuss the changes that had to happen in America’s politics, not the repressive Cuban dictatorship’s politics, to make these talks happen.

Now, let us combine the release of a second political prisoner in a matter of a week (which don’t get me wrong, that’s good—we’ll take it anyway we can) with Alarcon’s remarks, and then we throw into the potaje raulito’s so-called olive branch in his July, 26, 2007 speech. For that spicy kick, we add the unusually large amount of anti embargo/pro normalizing relations editorials that have been coming out lately and then heat it up a bit.

You smell that? It stinks, doesn’t it?

How much coordination is going on between the media and Cuba’s communist leadership? I really have no idea, but if it smells like crap, it usually is crap. As Val said in his post, I think we are going to be hearing some big news really soon and they are setting up the landscape. The strategy has already been decided and put into motion.

There is an old folk tale that states that a frog thrown into a pot of boiling water will jump out to escape. But if the same frog is placed into a pot of tepid water and the pot is heated gradually, the frog will be dead before it realizes what happened.

Is it getting hot here or is it me?