Friday, April 12, 2013


“The Eighteenth Brumaire of the Castro Dynasty”


Hitchens’ is incensed that no one (especially the not the New York Times) is upset that the rise of Raul Castro to replace his older brother in the seat of Cuban power is effectively a military coup. He writes, “…for the first time in a Communist state since General Jaruzelski seized power in Poland in 1981, the army has replaced the party as the source of authority.”

And yet, he writes somewhat in contradiction, that it has always been this, “Cuba is not a country that has an army, but an army that has a country.” Not sure of he source of his outrage. Maybe just an opportunity to point out his knowledge of Napoleonic France?

 18 Brumaire in Spanish:



New learning: in Cuba,  “A military holding company known as ‘La Gaviota’ oversees perhaps as much as 60 percent of Cuban tourist revenues.”

New word: caudillo = Spanish for a military or political leader

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