Timcast IRL - Timcast IRL #335 - Anti Castro Underground From 60s Cuba Joins To Discuss Communism w/Ricardo Lamas

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Tim, Ian, and Lydia join father and son, Jose Lamas, Chicago TV and radio personality, and son Ricardo Lamas, former UFC contender, to critically analyze the history of the nation of Cuba, and the challenges it's currently facing, including Jose's views on BLM, gun rights in the country, Jose's history in the Cuban counterrevolutionary movement, what Cubans actually want (freedom!) despite what the American left says, and whether the US is responsible for the Cuban condition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is no turning back. That's how Politico reported it. People are starting to rise up in Cuba. The police are not happy with it. The regime is not happy with it. There's some pretty crazy witness reports coming out that people are being beaten and disappeared. And it's hard to know exactly what's happening when the country is silencing people and shutting down the internet. So we need to talk about this. Why? Well, in the United States, we have the rise of Black Lives Matter. I'm sure there are many people who are Democrats or leftists who absolutely love and will defend Black Lives Matter tribalistically. But you take a look at the things they support. What do they support?

The Cuban regime. They support Castro. They issued this tweet saying, rest in power, Fidel Castro. They're very much communists. And right now, even Ocasio-io cortez is defending what the what the government of cuba is doing to their people and it's scary scary to realize that if we don't pay attention to what is happening in our own country we might end up suffering the same fate as many of those in cuba who are trying to fight against this communist regime so we're going to talk

about it and today's going to be a bit more conversational because we've got some excellent guests we've got ricardo lamas who is an mma MMA fighter who runs a UFC gym, and you're also an activist for Cuban freedom. And then we have your dad, Jose Lamas, who was actually an anti-Castro member of the underground movement against Castro in the 1960s in Cuba. He's going to tell us all about what he went through, what's happening now, and what we can do, what anyone can do to help Cuba. But I will mention one quick thing, just as an aside. We actually had to deal with some of the communism here in America because they have some shirts

they wanted to share, but we had a conversation about it. I don't think anybody was happy. Couldn't show them. We'll show them on the after show, though. And it's because YouTube would probably delete this show if we showed the activist T-shirts that they had prepared. But we will show them for the members-only show. So do you guys want to just do a quick introduction for yourselves, Jose or Ricardo? Yeah, Pop, go ahead.

You start. Okay. My name is Jose Lamas. I am a Cuban citizen still today. I was a very happy kid in Cuba. I hope someday Cubans that are born there

could enjoy the many things that as a child are enjoying Cuba. Especially being able to think, to explore, to be free,

to do things that nobody will tell me about it, to join the Copa Scouts, to be a Boy Scout with a promise of being always ready to serve. And that is my dream, that someday Cuban kids will be born with my same opportunities. You were born in a democratic Cuba. Yes, in 1940. When the 1940 Constitution was born, I was born right there. And maybe because of that, I have always thought about the ruling of our Constitution. That was a very advanced Constitution. Actually, many people considered the 1940 Constitution to be too much progressive. All political parties in Cuba participated in the drafting of that 1940 Constitution,

including the Socialist Party of Cuba. At that time, it was not known as the Communist Party, which is the only party in Cuba since the revolution took over. And so I believe that the return to freedom in Cuba and liberty has to be based on that last constitution that Fidel, when attacked the Moncada barracks, said that he wanted to

establish, to bring back, which he never did. He ruled the country without constitution, without any constitution for 17 years. We'll get into all that for sure. Some reviewers might know me.

If they're MMA fans, I fought in the UFC for quite a while. I signed my first contract with the parent company, Zufa LLC, in 2009, and I was fighting in the WEC, which is a smaller organization owned by the same people. And then in 2011, they merged us in. Um, and you know, I just, I grew up obviously with a very passionate father who, who, if you heard him talk, these are the stories that I heard growing up my entire life. Um, so I always felt a duty because being born here in the United States, I'd never once felt, uh, or had to deal with an oppressive government or not

being able to go out and speak my mind in the street or do anything like that. And because of the sacrifices made by people like my father, like my uncles, like my grandfather and friends of my father, I feel like I have a duty to kind of continue the fight for those people in Cuba that don't have a voice. Well, you said you didn't have to live under an oppressive government, but that could be changing, especially as what's happening lately. We've got Ian Schillen. What's up, everybody?

Ian Crossland over here. Thanks for coming, guys. No problem. Thank you for inviting us. Yeah, and I am so excited to have both of these guys. I'm really excited to have Ricardo because he fought in the MMA. I'm so excited for his dad because I used to love working with older people and hearing their stories.

And I'm excited you guys will get to do that with him. Get ready for a lot of stories. There are a lot of stories. I'll just say right now, we need to understand how Cuba got to that point. I think you can help shine a light on that. So we'll jump into that. Before we do, head over to TimCast.com, become a member, and you'll get access to exclusive members-only segments from this show.

You will get an ad-free experience. We are working out the bugs, so bear with us. We just launched the new site and we've got a lot of bugs, don't we? Because we're growing as fast as we possibly can. I mean this is only six months now we've had the site up and we've already gotten this new iteration. We're going to have a members-only segment coming up from this show. And you're also helping to support our journalists of which we're're going to have, I think, like six or seven. I think we have six or seven writers now.

We're going to be adding more and more people to do more real journalism, do some on-the-ground field reporting. We've talked to some local reporters, and we're going to start ramping things up with your help as members. So don't forget, like this video right now, subscribe to this channel. And I'll tell you this. This is going to be a bit more conversational. Normally we go through new segments,

but we have to have a conversation about what's happening in this country and what happened in Cuba, how they got to that point, and we've got some real experience who can break that down for us, so share this with your friends, anybody who might be interested

in hearing the story from an actual witness and activists who are fighting against communism. Now, I want to do this. The first thing I want to do is just highlight the story to give us some contemporary context. This is from Fox News. Washington, D.C. removes Cuba Libre street painting from in front of the Cuban embassy, embassy located in the same street where Mayor Bowser ordered painting last year of Black Lives Matter. I got to say, I was actually shocked

to see this, even though I know the biases of the establishment. I know that they support Black Lives Matter. I know the Black Lives Matter activists say they're Marxists. I was still surprised to see that they would be as brazen as to remove Cuba Libre from the street. They painted Black Lives Matter. They had no approval. They took the tax money. They painted it. This just shows you the degree to which the establishment in the U.S. is in favor of the communist dictatorship of Cuba. And it is very scary to me. We also have this story. Nicole Hannah Jones said Cuba most equal Western country in a podcast. The funny thing is, it's also AOC.

It's also other progressive Democrats saying that, oh, the real problem is the embargo. It's not communism. So I need to understand. I can see what's happening here in the U.S. I can see the changes that are happening. But I'm interested. So you're both activists, Jose. You were actually born into a free and democratic Cuba.

How old were you when the communists took over? I was 18 years old. Not when the communists, when the revolution took over. It was never intended to have a socialist revolution taking power and remaining in power for 60, more than 62 years. So I was 18 years old. I had just graduated from the Marist Brothers with a degree on Bachelor of Arts. And I was planning to attend Havana University to study journalism and law. And so, you know,

but basically what took over was a big lie. A big lie of Fidel. You were 18 when the revolution happened, but that wasn't a communist revolution. No, no, when the revolution, when Batista fell down, escaped Cuba, and Fidel took all the merits of the revolution that had been also launched by other organizations and by other leaders and by other movements. But in 1959, Fidel was able to control all the power of himself. And being a great speaker and a huge flyer,

he gained total support in Cuba. That is the truth. In 1959. gain total support in Cuba. That is the truth. In 1959. But right after that, his big lie began to dismantle. And the truth came out. And then those same people that were with him fighting Batista,

that were with him in Sierra Maestra, like Mayor Hubert Matos, ten months after he took power, told Fidel, Compañero Fidel, I cannot continue in the way the revolution is going. I don't want to be an obstacle to you. I want to become a teacher again. Before I went to the Sierra Maestra,

I want to be a teacher again, and good luck with the revolution. went to the Sierra Maestra, I want to be a teacher again, and good luck with the revolution. That's when the big lie really became an oppressive, totalitarian idea of eliminating anybody who dissent with you. And that's when Fidel Castro sent to come away where Hubert Matos was in charge of the military, Camilo Sinfuegos, the chief of the army,

and with orders of apprehending him and taking him to Havana, accusing him on national radio, Fidel, when he sent Camilo over there, that Hubert Matos was a traitor. And when Camilo Sin Fuego got to come away and saw Uber Matos peacefully in his home with his family and his kids, he had not rebelled against the revolution, decided to tell Uber, stay here, I got to go back and talk to Fidel.

And then more lies began to continue. Then they shut down Camilo because Camilo did not follow Castro's orders of apprehending Uber Matos. And then they killed Camilo Sin Fuegos and people

started to blame Uber Matos on the Fidel direction. Now the responsible for killing Uber Matos on the Fidel direction. Now the responsible for killing Uber Matos was Uber 2. How did it get to that point? How did the revolution happen? The revolution happened was very simple. And was a tremendous

excuse for Castro. Fulgencio Batista March 10, 1952 who had been by the way I would say a good president in 1940. Fulgencio Batista, March 10, 1952, who had been, by the way, I would say a good president in 1940, from 1944. He was actually an elected president in Cuba before he threw his coup d'etat

and came into power. So that's like a little fact that maybe a lot of people don't know. So with an excuse, you know, of saving the country from fraud in the upcoming elections, Batista, a few months before Prio was going to end his presidency, and new elections were coming in, he decided to start a revolution based on that. On the coup d'etat. On the coup d'etat.

That was the excuse and this is why it's sad to say that maybe Batista was not as bad as people blamed him to be during those seven years. But the truth of the matter is that without Batista

and the good excuse to Fidel to use the coup d'etat as an excuse for his revolution, nothing would have happened in Cuba because Fidel did not have Fidel had tried to be in the political atmosphere to be part of a political party

to be elected in elections for small positions, and he never won anything. But when Batista gave the coup d'etat in the 26th of July of 1953, that was in 1952, the coup d'etat. In 26th of July of 1953, he attacks the Moncada barracks. He brings there a lot of young Cubans who were very idealist.

And many of them died there. But he gained a name. And from that day was born the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. So the Batista, he was claiming there was fraud in the election?

Batista claimed that he interrupted the elections that were coming because they were going to be fraudulent. And with that excuse, he gave the coup d'etat. Of course, nobody believed him. The thing, the interesting thing, if people want to think about this, is that Batista was in power he was a dictator but he didn't mess

with the media he didn't mess with the business he didn't mess with enterprises he just wanted to make some money and be again a figure in Cuba.

But, you know, that basically did not affect at all the development of Cuba from 1953 or 1952 to 1959.

Cuba continued to grow. Cuba continued to develop businesses. Cuba continued to raise. Cuba continued to develop businesses. Cuba continued to raise the standard of living of the Cuban people. The problem with the socialism and with the revolution, the totalitarian revolution, is

not only that they seek power, it's that they destroy everything. And it's very clear. And I am not here to defend Batista. I'm telling you, Batista was, sadly enough, the good excuse that Fidel had to do all these things that he did. There's a lot of similarities there to what we're seeing in the U.S. now.

Donald Trump. Well, I mean, he's not the fascist dictator that Batista may have been, but Donald Trump has that hatred. The excuse, the excuse they use. Society feels it. Yeah. To claim that they need power. They need new laws.

They need to shut down their political opposition, quell dissent, go after the extremists, arrest them, expand federal resources and power and law. I mean, you look at what they've been saying about the far right, about militia groups and the threat of white supremacy. And of course, it's not identical. There's just a few things that feel similar. You have this guy, Trump, they call him a dictator, they call him a fascist. But he didn't, aside from insulting the media, he didn't shut down the press. He may have banned them from some of his events. He didn't call in the military to go and crush protests or anything like that. Certainly has his issues. But because of what the media said about him, because of the view people had about him, the Democrats now, you know, getting elected are using that as an excuse for basically everything, among other things, to be completely honest. So my fear is, obviously, we have a lot of different things that are happening in the US outside of just the politics.

We have COVID. We have the pandemic. Lockdowns and things like that are coming. But I wonder with what we're seeing with the Black Lives Matter supporting the revolution, they call it, the communist dictatorship in Cuba. They call it the revolution. These are people who are gaining power and prominence. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on their activism, what they've been doing, and what that might mean for us in the U.S.

Well, for me, Black Lives Matter is one of the worst enemies, because they are from within, that this country is facing. And they have means, and they have means and they have the support of the media and because people are afraid to speak out against them because they are most

some of them black but others are not black but for some reason they have obtained the ability to destroy this country, to burn, you know, to finish things, to destroy cities, to destroy property that does not belong to them and come out as progressive people. And that's ridiculous. It sounds like authoritarian revolutionaries

they've got establishment power they control institutions and it sounds like they're gaining control Tim, when I see these people that have no power doing the things they do how much destruction and death they have caused people don't realize in this

country that if they ever get real power, a lot of people are going to be dead. But they do, they are gaining real power. No, no, no. But I mean, when they reach the government, when they take over this country, nobody's going to be safe. Only those who with them will continue to oppress the rest. I think it might be worse than you realize. Mark Milley, the joint chiefs of staff for the U.S. is espousing their ideology, saying he's trying to learn about white rage, speaking in support of Black Lives Matter and condemning conservatives and Republicans as the same as the Nazis. That's the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is the highest level of, you know, in the highest levels of our government.

Joe Biden has, you know, removed bans on critical race theory components, critical race applied principles in government trainings and contracting. Maybe, you know, five years ago, you know, I was probably saying the same thing as you. If these people ever gain power and enter government, we're in serious trouble. They're there. They're in the movie studios. They're in colleges. They're in every level of government. And you take a look at what the federal government is now doing with the Capitol Police, the Capitol Police, they're just supposed to be for the Capitol. They're now expanding nationwide to operate as an intelligence agency so i i can't uh i wasn't alive uh in in pre-communist

cuba but you know i just i wonder based on the things you've been saying already even before the show and what i've read it seems like the u.s has headed down that path and you know you mentioned that you uh or it was mentioned, I think you were going to mention this, that you were part of the anti-Castro underground movement opposing communism. And as noble as that sounds, it doesn't seem like it worked, right? We're still to this day fighting against the remnants of that communist revolution. Yes, it did not work because, sadly, I have to admit, the United States did not help us the proper way at the proper time. Because we were alone, we didn't have resources, we didn't have nothing to fight. It's more or less like today that you can see all these Cuban protesting there. They don't even have a gun.

And they're not using guns. And then you see the enemy that is being like into this neighborhood in 20 bus brought security forces dressed in civilian clothing, all of them with sticks and clubs and hitting people. You don't even know they are the state security. So it's a situation where always our underground, for different reasons, never got the right support. From the very beginning, the United States should have helped us Cubans. Not intervene.

No, no, we had enough combatants inside Cuba. Well, there was the fear of the Soviets. If we intervened, the Soviet Union would have threatened us or pushed back, maybe even could have ignited nuclear war. I wasn't alive back then, so I can't speak as to the sentiment from the people or in the press or anything like that. Well, I think that there were plenty of opportunities to help Cubans in different ways. That's what the whole Cuban Missile Crisis was about, too.

Yeah, the Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba, right? in ways. That's what the whole Cuban Missile Crisis was about too. Yeah. The Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba, right? Yeah. And pointing them at the United States. So that's why in the schools in those times, I think it was in the 50s, right? No. Or the 60s? Yeah. It was

in 1962 the October crisis, and basically it was known that the Soviet Union had established missiles in Cuba, and it was discovered, and then Kennedy and Khrushchev worked out a treatment a treat and then as part of that treat where the United States was supposed to do this and the Soviet Union was supposed to do that the sad thing

is that the United States I think committed not to ever help Cubans to freedom themselves and that's where the the destiny of the Cuban people was sealed until today. And that has to be broken. That needs to be broken.

Absolutely. You know, in thinking about what you're saying about Black Lives Matter, an enemy from within, I mean, they're becoming so prominent. It's almost like, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the graphic novel, I Am Legend. So in the story, it's like, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the graphic novel, I Am Legend. So in this story, it's basically, I'll give you the very rough summary because there's probably a lot of nuance I'm missing as, you know, it's been a really, really long time since I read it.

He's a vampire hunter. And he goes around, you know, driving stakes through the hearts of vampires. But the vampires keep spreading. They keep infecting more people. And eventually, everyone is a vampire but him. And then so when they arrest him, he's this monster. It turns out when the majority of the society are all vampires, they look to him and they say, you're the bad guy, the monster who lurks while we sleep, killing our loved ones. So from our perspective, he's hunting vampires.

They're bad. But once everyone's a vampire, he's bad. So what I mean by that is, the way it feels in the United States is that sure, we may be freedom loving individuals who talk about free speech and the rights of, you know, freedom of association movement, the right to keep and bear arms. But it looks like if Black Lives Matter, Bill de Blasio, New York, he paints Black Lives Matter without legal justification, without proper tax appropriation funding, and then he puts police on top of that painting in the street in front of Trump Tower control the major cities. They control the police departments. So we can refer to them as bad people, but they're in control. They may not represent most people. It's definitely spreading around.

I see it too on social media just from these last few weeks where I've been sharing all the stuff about Cuba. All of these socialist sympathizing people are coming out of the woodwork to combat me on my posts and try and say that Cuba is such a great country, the U.S. shouldn't talk, we're worse than Cuba. I'm like, listen, it's getting to a ridiculous point where they even try to compare a country like the U.S. to Cuba. And I always come back with them like, do me one thing, right? Go outside your house and go badmouth the president to your neighbors or to whoever will listen to you.

And if the police don't show up and arrest you or beat you, you're in no position to compare the United States to a country like Cuba. So I think I don't know where this fascination came from. It might come from kind of mainstream media. It might come from like celebrities who kind of push these ideologies on these younger kids uh but it's it's a scary place to be right now and it's it's even more scary to think about what the future would be like for my kids growing up in this country well we're certainly not uh as bad as cuba as yet and that's why there's there's hope that you know maybe our underground movement or,

you know, resistance might actually stop the encroachment of this this communist authoritarian ideology. For now, we're able to have these conversations. But you take a look at what's happened to people's careers when they dig up, you know, your history from 20 years ago, they get you fired because of things your parents said. We're certainly not at that point where they're going to come to your house and they're going to beat and arrest you. However, we are at that point where we have seen rioters go to the homes of people, say, in Portland. They threatened to burn down a man's home because he had an American flag. Many people have started saying that flying the American flag is a sort of underhanded way of showing that you support

Donald Trump or that you support this country, the United States. And I'm kind of like, well, waving the flag shows you're waving the flag for this country. But in certain cities, it can be bad news for you. If one of these riots breaks out, if Black Lives Matter has sufficient numbers or Antifa and you're flying that flag, they will beat and attack you. In fact, in Boston several years ago, there was a rally against Nazis. Of course, there were no Nazis showing up in Boston. It was just hysteria. But you had 40,000 people protesting who they thought were Nazis when it was actually some

Indian guy who was running for office. But there was an older woman who I believe was in her late 50s, early 60s, and she was holding an American flag. And some far left individual grabbed the flag and pulled it from her, dragging her out, pulling her to the ground and then dragging her as they tried to take her her flag from her. So we're certainly at the point where they have institutional authority. And that you are right. You said if these people ever get true power, what do you think these people are going to do if they're given a badge? That is that is truly worrying to me that we're

you know, we're we're we're seeing that starting to happen in the United States. Not if they're given a badge. That is truly worrying to me that we're seeing that starting to happen in the United States. Not that they're getting badges, of course, but they're trying to. They want these woke police. I don't know if you saw what happened at Evergreen College where these leftist extremists took baseball bats and were walking around campus attacking people, or what happened at the, quote unquote, autonomous zone, the no-go zone in Seattle, where several of the security forces for the Seattle autonomous zone opened fire on an SUV with some teenagers in it, severely injuring and killing one. If these people are successful in abolishing the police in the way they want and creating, or I should say not even abolishing the police, but creating their social justice,

as they call it, police forces, then you will have people show up at your house and say, you've bad-mouthed the movement, and they'll start beating you. Jose, what was the gun rights like in Cuba in the 40s and the 50s? You could have your guns and you could go, you know, and... Target practice? No, cazar animales. Oh, to hunt. Target practice? No, cazar animales. Oh, it's a hunt.

There was no problem, and Cuba was very peaceful. For guns to be something so bad, some illness has to be in the minds of so many people that they use them wrong, probably. But the problem are not the guns, are the people. And if you have people that hate, whether it's a gun or not, you can go and smash somebody's head or destroy somebody's property, which is the same thing. And you can do it with a gun or with no gun.

Did Bautista take the guns? No. Castro? No, Castro, yes. What year? Yeah, in 1959. I tell you what, there was a speech, a famous speech of Fidel. The problem is this.

Fidel takes over, but really there are other organizations and movements that also had guerrilla forces fighting Batista from different organizations, okay? Revolutionary organizations and students' organizations like the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil that, you know, they had fighting fronts, okay? And then in order for Fidel to control the movement, he needed to disarm everybody else. And then he asked a beautiful question.

Guns for what? For what? And then he demanded that all organizations that had fought Batista give their guns. It seems like it was a mistake. And did they all do it peacefully? Yes. Yes. Because Fidel had at that time a tremendous power on the people. Not because people wanted to have a socialistic dream that he had made them think of. Fidel never spoke about socialism or spoke good about communism

he always denied that but he was a charismatic leader that somehow made people think at the end well if you say you are communist if you say you are socialist put me in the list

and that is the mentality that really made it very difficult for us to fight in the 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 Fidel. Because still there were people believing that he was like a god. But that had nothing to do with whether they wanted socialism or not because not until 1961 Fidel declared the revolution socialist. That was

the headline using the invasion of Iran where then he stopped lying. In 1961 the 17th of April of 1961, the newspaper Cuban Revolution had a headline with six words. We will defend our democratic and socialist revolution. And he used the invasion of Iran as an excuse to then declare socialist Cuba. You mentioned that he was very charismatic and he had this hold on the people.

I wonder what your thoughts are on Trump. Well, look, I am not a hypocrite. I like Trump. I like the fact that a person speaks out what he has in his mind. I credit that. Maybe because I knew another leader, Fidel Castro, who did the contrary. He lied. He lied. And he lied again.

And he lied again and he lied again until he found the way to say his truth when the invasion came in and used that as an excuse to declare the socialist state let me clarify something about Trump I am a Cuban citizen still I didn't come to this country to be an American citizen. I came to this country to continue being a freedom fighter. And to do that, I needed to remain

a Cuban because I was committed for life. If I become an American citizen, then I have other things. No, no. I wanted to remind myself, no matter how good or bad I was, and I started working in factories, in production lines, in a print shop, because I love papers and printing and propaganda. And I had success. I made

a lot of money, but it never was my intention. I didn't come here to make money, didn't come here to look for food, to buy me shoes. I came here because at a time all the avenues in Cuba were closed to me. Closed. Closed. I was emotionally destroyed after an event that didn't go the way it should have gone.

And I don't see how it would have been gone good anyway because it was crazy what we did and that destroyed me and my organization said Bonifacio I think if you want we have the embassy for you and you can continue working there and that's what I did

but let me finish about Trump something I like that man I have never voted for anybody and I am not here to say vote for Trump Let me finish about Trump something. I like that man. I have never voted for anybody. And I am not here to say vote for Trump in a second, whatever. I don't care about that. But Americans have to understand that in this country, anybody should have the right to speak out what they think.

Nobody should have the right to lie, okay, and not to be confronted. The media says that Donald Trump lies all the time, though. No. What is his lie? I mean, tell me a couple of those lies. I don't know if he lies or not, but he's saying something openly, and you can prove he's a liar,

then, you know, he's a liar. But the problem is that how many people are here telling us lies and nobody says anything about it? I would just say if the media institutions are supporting, you know, Black Lives Matter, the individuals who are praising Castro and right now praising the communist regime. And look, I fact check news stories every single day they use deceptive framing techniques and manipulation to present falsehoods as it were and then when i look at the things they've said about donald trump you know what he lies but he lies about really dumb things like how many women he's been with or like you know how he's the best and everyone knows it it's like really how much

money he has. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's something amazing in that even The Intercept, which is very anti-Trump progressive, called him simultaneously the most deceptive and honest president we've ever had. There's one very famous moment where he's about to get on the helicopter

and they asked him what was happening with Saudi Arabia and stuff. And he goes, oh, it's fantastic. We're doing this excellent weapons deal. We're going to get on the helicopter. And they asked him what was happening with Saudi Arabia and stuff. And he goes, oh, it's fantastic. We're doing this excellent weapons deal. We're going to make billions of dollars. And all the anti-war left activists, their jaws hit the floor like Trump just came out and said it. There was another point where Trump was trying to withdraw troops from Syria. And he goes, they tell me that we can't take out all of our troops from Syria. So we're leaving 200 for the oil because we're going to protect the oil.

And then everyone's just like he's just admitting what the U.S. does with their foreign policy. So I think one of the challenges is that there's always a risk. There's a charismatic leader who's going to come in, who's going to entrance people and lie to them. But I have been I've been wading through the muck and the mire for years and I can just see non-stop lies from the media so it's different, it's not the same, you say Fidel Castro was his charismatic leader, he had everybody

I mean where was the press, were they challenging him, were they calling him a liar what press, he destroyed the press what year by 1960 you could not really, you know. For example, I didn't tell you this. In 1959, when the revolution took over, I began to think about a figure of the revolution that was very important during the organization of the 26th of July movement that nobody spoke about him anymore.

And we had a radio program where we started to talk about this Cuban figure. And three or four weeks after we were on the air, Fidel asked the director of the radio station that had given us the time to put us off the air. And that was 1960. They had already confiscated that radio station. They were already putting

coletillas where a newspaper writes a small column and then the government will put at the end of that column a coletilla, the ending phrase, saying this is a lie and all that. And then immediately after that, there was no more, no more. Cuba doesn't know, Castro's Cuba didn't know right after he took over what was freedom of the press.

All media was controlled and it's controlled by the government. There is no other opinion, nothing else. You cannot create even good or bad public opinion. The government is the one that creates the opinion they want. What are we seeing now with Joe Biden, the Biden administration? That they are currently flagging misinformation for Facebook, that they are pushing a list of the greatest misinformation individuals on the Internet, that they're working with the DNC, the Democrats, and phone carriers to censor private text messages. a bombastic man of Donald Trump, but one who mostly just insulted the press compared to what the current administration is doing in actually trying to circumvent the Constitution to take away the rights of people to shut down their free speech and their allies, very much progressive

leftists in big tech. It sounds like we're heading towards a similar direction to what happened in Cuba. That's why a lot more people need to look at, you know, Cuba's only 90 miles away from our shores. And it's the perfect blueprint of what happens when you put in place a communist dictatorship or communism and socialism. Everything's ruined. Everything's falling apart. Nothing has moved on that island since 1959. That's why people drive around in all these old cars that they literally have to just keep inventing things to keep the cars running. You know, buildings are falling apart. I believe it was last year there were three little girls playing in the street.

They were killed just from falling rubble of a building. You know, everybody's houses are falling apart, but they're building hotels for the tourists to come and stay at, which Cuban citizens are not allowed to use. I was going to say the, the, the, the, the progressives in this country say that's the fault of the U S and their embargo. No, I mean, in my opinion, whether, whether the embargo stays or is lifted, the Cuban people are going to be in the same spot because for the regime, it's all about control. They control everything that comes in. They control everything that goes out, uh, as it is right with the scraps that they have, they can barely afford those scraps. Uh, the, the average

Cuban makes about 20, $30 us dollars a month. And they're paid. They're not even paid in dollars. They're paid in pesos in Cuban pesos, but at the stores where you go and you want to buy something, you have to buy it in dollars. Wow. So how does sense at all you know and it's man it's just everything's like upside down there it's broken yes completely so you you ended up in the underground movement against castro yes during during the when he was gaining power during the initial confrontation where people realized, at the beginning I thought that, for example, I went to Sierra Maestra as a volunteer teacher. Before I, when I graduated. Just to put context, Sierra Maestra was the mountain range in Cuba where Fidel's army was hiding out during the revolution.

So that's where all of his troops were. And so my dad went up there as a volunteer. Okay. Castro make a call to secondary graduates. People have just graduated from secondary. To go to teach and read the farmers. And then I volunteer. And the sad thing is that I volunteer in 1959,

and they call me 1960. And we went to Havana University. They got us together. There were about, you know, a thousand applicants. They gave us like a test. I remember one question. When was the first battle of the guerrilla in Sierra Maestra? I remember. December 5th, Alegría del Pío. So they gave us a test probably to make sure how much we knew about the revolution,

and they selected 500 of those kids that volunteered to become teachers of farmers. So, in 1959, I wanted to do that. Actually, I would have loved to be a teacher, not only a journalist or a lawyer, but I like, actually, in Channel

44, that I ran for 10 years, I developed a called Show Berchita years. I developed a called show, Brechita Little Path, a kids show. And we won an Emmy with it. Oh, Channel44 in Chicago. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always joke that my dad was the Cuban Mr. Rogers. Oh, wow. I used to watch him. He was on the show. I did a show, Pets, the Best Friends of Kids.

And this guy had a few pets. so he he came in the show he came to our to our taekwondo school too yeah first time i displayed my martial arts on tv when i when i was little we didn't have cable and the only only way to watch dragon ball z was in spanish on channel 44 yeah oh wow that's crazy well i can tell you a lot of stories about channel 44 because when i went to Channel 44 for the first time, it was not to run Channel 44, but I bought an hour once a day, and I run a Spanish soap opera, and I did all my logs and my slides and my production sitting on the cafeteria. At that time, Channel 44 was White Sox, Bulls, and Bob Luce in wrestling.

Yeah. Those shows. Well, let's go back to what you were saying about, yeah, yeah, so you volunteered. Yeah, I volunteered because, but the sad thing is that I volunteered myself in 1959, and They called me in 1960 in May to go to Sierra Maestra. I had already been, I had already considered that the revolution betrayed Hubert Matos. But still I wasn't ready to fight the revolution. I didn't know how to do it. I felt persecuted. They wrote an article, no, they wrote an article in the newspaper saying, didn't know how to do it. I felt persecuted.

They wrote an article. No, they wrote an article in the newspaper saying that at the Marist Brothers, the school where I studied, there was a fight between two kids. One that was a revolutionary kid and one that was not a revolutionary kid.

And that the revolutionary kid got the bad energy of it and that was the first attempt to destroy in Cuba private education. I wrote an article. No, I asked the director of the school to allow me to go class by class

to investigate where that incident had occurred. In third grade, I found two kids that because one wanted to erase the blackboard and the other didn't want after school, helping the teacher, they got into a little match and nothing happened there. So I wrote an article called Falsa, Facil y Fatua La Denuncia de Jesus Soto.

False, easy, or very easy to make a statement that is not true. Completely false. The accusation of Jesus,

what was the last name? He was the non-revolutionary kid that was in the fight? No, no, no, no. Jesus Soto is the revolutionary leader that made the accusation that in that school, that incident happened. And that was at the midst of when the government wanted to destroy private education.

I did a little research, wrote an article, and said that this wasn't true. And I went to the newspaper in Old Havana that had published that article, and I asked for them to publish the article, and they threw me down. In Old Havana, the buildings have very long stairs, and the guy took me and pushed me down. I almost got killed. Still, I thought that there was a mistake,

that this guy made a mistake, not that the revolution was bad. So this is why I went to Sierra Maitre. I thought that maybe still there was a hope that the revolution wouldn't end up the way I was beginning to see. And then my mother said, look, go and talk to your father before you go to Sierra Maestra, because my father, who was a very civic and patriotic person, who had been in jail during Batista,

his brother spent time in prison during Batista too. His brother ended up being a captain of the Revolutionary Police of Cuba, serving a sentence of 20 years and ended up being 23 years. So I went to talk to my father because my mother said, look, you are going to go. You haven't asked permission for your father. And my father said, niño, he called me boy. I was the smaller of the three brothers, although we were apart only one year and a half. And he said, niño, why do you want to go as a volunteer teacher? I said, dad, you know, I love teaching. This is a commitment I made, you know, a year ago.

And they called me, and I told him, don't worry about it, because you know how much I love the teaching and the doctrine of José Martí. I have read José Martí a lot. Sometimes I wrote things that looked like Jose Marti. And I wasn't copying Jose Marti. I was so much enticed by the teachings of our patriot Jose Marti that I told him nobody is going to be able to get me out of that route. And I was right. I didn't know.

In May 1960, being a Sierra Maestra, May 19 was the day in 1885 that Matisse died fighting for Cuba's independence. And in the

Sierra Maestra, a group of my companions, we decided to organize a tribute to José Martí's anniversary. And I spoke there. And what I said about José Martí, and since my speech did not refer to nothing of the revolution or nothing like that, just about the spirit of the doctrine of José Martí, the spirit of the doctrine of Josemartin, the chief of the, the guy that was in charge of the campament,

called me outside and said, I'm no more talking now. You guys go and finish. We were building a barrack because we had just gotten there. We were building a barrack for us to hang our sleeping bags or whatever. And then he said, you guys are not going to eat until you finish building the barrack. And I told this guy, and I was expelled in the point, I told this guy, listen, wait, wait, wait, wait. How do you call me?

Volunteer teacher? Do you know what volunteer teacher means? I am here as a volunteer. And I am not going to build any, finish any barracks. If you have food, you have to give it to us now. And that's it.

And that was night. And then they expelled me. I left Sierra Maestra walking. I go to Minas del Frio. Minas del Frio was right there next to Pico Turquino, the biggest mountain of Cuba. You could see from there. It was a valley among the mountains,

like a flat terrain. And that was a school for the military, farmers and things. And they had a lot of arms there and ammunition. And there was there a mayor, okay? And that mayor, I went to him and said, this is what happened to me at La Magdalena. La Magdalena was the campament where I,

there were three campaments for the 500 volunteers, and that was one. And his name was Aldo Santa Maria, the Mayor Aldo Santa Maria. I was looking for the revolution to, again, in my case, fix a mistake. And then I looked for Aldo Santa Maria de Tomiz in the Capitania. I went over there. There were about 10 captains in a wooden, big, like a little office. How do you call it, a cabin or whatever.

And then I said, I said, Comandante, I said, what do you want? I said, well, I need you to investigate something. I came here as a volunteer teacher from La Magdalena. I just was expelled. Why? No.

I just want you to go investigate. We were just talking about Hosea Matthew. And then this guy said, look, have you eaten? No. He said, okay. He took me to the front of the cabin. You see over there? There is food

over there in a huge tent. You go there, sleep the night there, and I am going to investigate what happened. Come here tomorrow at 6 o'clock in the morning. This is in the middle of Las Minas del Frío, a huge secret military base where they have a lot of things, important things going on in there.

So I go there. Next morning I go to see Aldo Santamaria. Aldo Santamaria was the brother of Abel Santamaria, who was one of the biggest and first martyrs of the Cuban Revolution. And him, he had died, and his brother now was a major commander of the revolution. So I was impressed having met Aldo Santamaria. And then he says, okay, come back. I went back and when I go back,

I enter the cabin. There were a lot of captains there and he says, okay, I did not send anybody to investigate. I have a request for you. Stay here with me. Stay here with me.

Stay here with me. And he really took me off. Because I have been a Boy Scout. I love mountains. You know, I never liked guns. But, you know, the discipline, I mean, the challenge. I felt like enticed maybe to say yes. But I said, Mayor Santa Maria,

I did not come here to become a soldier. If you cannot address my problem, then I must leave. I don't want to be here. And then he said, fine. I said I said well how am I going to leave when we came in they brought us to go out there were a lot of posts where you need to be identified

to get out from there you are in a military territory and he said don't worry about it he wrote in a piece of paper to let me go through everything. And he gave it to me and said, thank you very much. And I hit the door. And when I was leaving, Aldo Santa Maria

said, joven, boy, what is your name? I said, Jose Francisco Lamas. And then he challenged me for the rest of my life. He said, Jose, you are going to be or very good or very bad. But he let me go.

And these are, when you say, you know, the beginning of the revolution, me and I am putting myself only as an example of many people that love the revolution that try to serve the revolution that try to wait for the 18 months for having general elections and that waited for the constitution to be in place in 1940 constitution which were the two main promises

of Fidel Castro to establish the 1940 Constitution to call for elections. When we saw none of that happening, and when me, as a person, me, realized that I was being persecuted, I found myself that the only way that I could get out of that situation

was fighting the revolution that I thought at the time that might have been a good thing. And that is the process. But the time that I thought at the time that might have been a good thing. And that is the process. But the time that we decided to do that, Fidel had imprisoned most of the big leaders of the good revolution that did not become part of the communist takeover. And we were, you know, we had no resources,

and we had no help, and there was no press, and we did crazy things. But we cumplimos con nuestro deber. We fulfilled our duty. This is what a lot of the young people here in the U.S. and many other places don't realize, that if they actually get their revolution, they are actually the biggest threat to those who want to seize power. The layabouts in this country the regular people who don't do anything

well they're no threat to the authoritarians they don't do anything revolutionaries, they're a big threat to revolutionaries so that's why I'm not surprised to hear that Fidel imprisoned the other leaders in the revolution immediately, and he was not only imprisoned, sent them to

the firing squad. You know, the only reason why he could not do that to Uber Matos, is because Uber Matos was, I would say, in the five major leaders of the revolution in the Sierra Maestra, Uber Matos was one of them. The biggest shipment of guns that got to Sierra Maestra, Uber Matos delivered from Costa Rica. He landed there with a small plane, and he brought the best armament that the guerrillas had seen. And Uber Matos being a teacher, he was a teacher to his soldiers. And his troops were really committed to ideals, not to following people.

He spread among his followers in his troop the thoughts of democracy and fighting for freedom, and so he had a very cohesive, his army, his post. Ubermato had a real good people that were convinced of his ideas. And Fidel was afraid that that had permeated among other ranks of the revolution and was afraid to kill Ubermato. But he tried to destroy him and he spent 20 years in prison. and was afraid to kill Hubert Matos. But he tried to destroy him, and he spent 20 years in prison. Were there counter-revolutionary forces?

People opposing, obviously there were battles. No, they called us counter-revolutionaries. The revolutionaries that opposed the revolution, we were called counter-revolutionaries. But we were the revolutionaries with the revolution. Now, the problem is when you oppose the revolution, then you are a gusano. Yeah. And you are a counter-revolutionary.

I haven't changed. You know, ideas do not change. Okay? Sometimes you are in favor. you can do it in favor. Sometimes you got to do it against. But that doesn't mean you are a canter or nothing. You are pro your own idea, if you have ideas. The problem in this country is that I don't think people have the right ideas.

How long were you in this, you know, underground movement against Castro? How long were you actively trying to oppose Castro? 1960 to the end of 1962. And I mean, living wherever I could, sleeping wherever I could. And I didn't even know that I was missing anything. It never occurred to me. I live, I don't even know that I was missing anything. It never occurred to me. Okay? I live, I don't know even how, but I live.

And I was fully embraced by what we were doing with my friends, like Lucia Sanchez that might be listening to this podcast right now in Chicago. When she was young, as I was young, I was a little bit older than she was. And I was so much in love with our group and we became family. Then she married one of our companions that went to jail, the brother of a companion of ours, that when I was the national head of the student sector

of the 7th of November Revolutionary Movement, and I seek refuge at the Brazilian embassy, I gave him the folder that I had kept with all our papers. That was at the end of July 1962. His name was Luis Sanchez Carpente. He was caught on the 30th of August and on September 21st he was already executed. Wow. What was

the regime's excuse? Oh, because this is my theory. The regime had different ways of destroying the opposition. The number one

was to infiltrate our groups. Our group, the 30th of November Revolutionary Movement, Fran Pais, since it was a group that came from the revolution itself, it was very easy that anybody being an official of the revolutionary government would come to us because we were identified truly with the real revolution

and with the real purposes of the revolution. So if a G2 guy comes to us and he declares that, you know, he wants to be with us, you know, we were like a perfect target

for people that were revolutionaries to join us. G2 were like the military police of Castro's revolution. And the second thing that they did, and this is what happened to my friend, they

know, the security knows you have a plan. And they had a plan. On August 30th of 1962, there will be a general insurrection of Cuba. And at that time, all those military people and a lot of people still were in power were supposed to join us, join my group and the other groups to rebel against the revolution but that plan was

really built by the state security police ok, they really control the organization of that thing because there is no other way of explaining that if there are

let's say 10,000 people organized to do something on a particular day, a particular night, that that morning everybody gets into prison? How in the world could that happen unless that uprising had been planned by the regime. Yeah, the trap. The trap. So is this when you went to the Brazilian embassy and this is when you fled? No, no, no. He was already in the Brazilian embassy when his group was infiltrated. No, no, my group was infiltrated before by many other people in many other ways.

That movement... But when they were all arrested other ways. That movement was something that they created I don't know from where because in July 28th I participated in an action

to disarm some people. Okay? Because we didn't have arms and somebody in my organization told me I'm going to be leaving the embassy I got to go to the United States when I come back

I'm going to organize something to come back I need you to have arms and he gave me two ways of getting the arms go to Oriente province where in Cienaguilla we had a front Of getting the arms. Go to Oriente province. Where in Cienaguilla. We had a front. And the people that were in the guerrilla force. That place was destroyed.

And assassinated. But it looks like there were some arms. That were hiding somewhere. In Oriente province. In a town called Campechuela. So this guy. That at the time was sort of my boss said, you go to Campechuela and find those arms. And I went to Campechuela with a friend of mine.

There is another episode of something ridiculous that happened towards the biggest scare that I had in that trip. But anyway, I go to Campechuela, and the lady that I'm supposed to see in this town, she doesn't know nothing about anything, or she didn't trust me. So I asked, knowing that I might not find the arms, I asked my boss or my leader, what do I do if I don't find the arms?

He said, well, take it away from the army. And we developed a crazy idea, a crazy plan, what do I do if I don't find the arms? He said, well, take it away from the army. Okay? And we developed a crazy idea, a crazy plan of young people going to take the arms with no, you know. We had some arms. Okay. And that was a catastrophe. Okay?

Yeah. So that happened at the end of July of 1962. In that catastrophe, okay, I shot trying to defend a friend of mine. He was paralyzed. Jorge Luis Aguilar Garcia. I had been hiding in his house.

He was one of my closest friends in the underground. The other, there were three participants in that plan. The other person that were three participants in that plant. The other person that was participating, both are dead already. This is why I'm telling this story. I'm the only one alive.

The other one was shot in the leg by crossfire. We tried to steal a car. We needed to steal a car to use that car to go and do the operation and then move the little arms that we got into our other car. So we didn't want to burn our only car, our only transportation. So when we went to steal this car, that's when the whole situation came about. Because what happened to me and what I did accidentally, I was emotionally destroyed. That day I escaped miraculously,

because where the incident happened, near to Malecon, a lot of resonance, a few shots, and all of a sudden, when I am trying to get my friend out of the car that was shot, I didn't know how seriously at the time, I heard boots of people running, walking, like a group of soldiers. Okay, and my friend said, go, Bonnie, go. And I started to walk away. And I heard saying,

Bonnie, you killed me. And I came back. And at the end he said, Bonnie, go. And I went. But I took a pistol from the other friend of mine that was shot on the leg.

And the pistol that I had. And instead of going that way, I went into the same direction where the soldiers were coming, with one hand in one pocket and one hand in the other pocket. And the idiots let me go through them. And I said, call... We can't hear you. I said, I'm sorry.

I said, call... We can't hear you. Call... I said, I'm sorry. I said, call emergency. There are people hurt in that car over there. And they let me go through. Brilliant. Well, that situation forced me physically and mentally to leave the underground. Because the only thing that I could have done at that time is to allow them to get me. I had no more spark to jump out of a car, as I did once, to run out of my house when the G2 came to get me

and resulted in my parents being under arrest for two weeks because they were waiting. They didn't want my parents to go out, to think that there was nothing wrong in my parents being under arrest for two weeks because they were waiting. They didn't want my parents to go out to think that there was nothing wrong in my house, and they're thinking that I will come back. I escaped on many occasions in many different ways, but I never had emotionally been hurt or emotionally felt that I needed to do something else,

that I didn't want to continue. And that's where the next day I called Luis Sanchez Carpente at El Prado, Paseo del Prado, where as a kid I had been playing in the Iron Lions that are in this Paseo del Prado, beautiful, you know, walk through with trees. And as a kid my father used to take me there. And in one of those benches, with the folder of my organization in my hand

that I had collected from all the things that we had done with the Robert Stapp of the organization, I gave it to Luis Sánchez Carpente. Okay? That was about July 29 or July 30. After that, the next day, I met with the coordinator of my organization, a Cuban architect that liked me a lot and protected me a lot, and said, Jose, I said, Bonnie,

I have secured an entrance to the Brazilian embassy in case I need it. But I think you need it. Do you think you want to go to exile? And I said, Enrique, where else can I go? I am destroyed. And then I went there, and there was another story how I had to wait for a minute between two soldiers when I had been persecuted and when I had participated

in so many things, waiting for the guy to open the door in the embassy. I tried to get a friend of mine that is listening to, Tony Antilles, who was a lieutenant of Castro Railroad Army. Once I got to the embassy, I got a permit to get him in. And when he got there and stood in front of the same door and pressed the button, the soldiers got him and didn't let him get into the embassy.

Wow. So that was terrible. So this is you basically leaving, you're going into exile? Going into the embassy. Right there, of course, they didn't give me my safe conduct. There were 100 Cubans there. And the strategy of the Minister of Relations of Cuba, who should have given us our safe conduct,

was not to give anybody a safe conduct so the embassy could not bring any more people there. But what happened? Because of the assassination that was in there and the problems that we faced there, two people got killed inside the embassy. And then the government of Brazil, one committed suicide. One was killed. And one committed suicide.

Because of that trauma in the embassy, the government of Brazil that was socialist at the time, or friendly with the Cuban government, there were not too many other countries that had diplomatic relations in 1962 with Brazil. They sent a military representation of Brazil, a military plane, and they told simply, Raul Roaa who was the minister of exterior relations you either give us the 100 safe conducts of

these political exiles or we break their relations. Wow. And they gave us our safe conducts and then I was able to leave Cuba. You went to Brazil. After 7, no. They gave us the opportunity to go to the United States to San Juan

so they flew us in this military plane that we saw at the beginning that was like a sabotage to kill us because it was an old artifact from the second world war, didn't have any seats, it looks like a transport it looks to us, when we got in the plane that they were going to drop us somewhere

you know, not in Puerto Rico but we reached Puerto Rico and I spent two weeks in Puerto Rico. I had a brother in Chicago who sent me the money, and then I flew two weeks after that from San Juan to Chicago, and I have been in Chicago since February of 1963. It's been a long time since 1962, but now we're seeing people in Cuba start to protest,

sitting down with dictatorship. Are you getting that spark back? Do you feel hopeful? He never lost that spark. I mean, since he left, I think there hasn't been a day that's passed that he hasn't thought about the cause of bringing freedom back to Cuba.

And every single day that I can remember, every single chance that he's had, he has dedicated his life here to that fight for freedom in Cuba, whether it's through his Cuban Civic Committee where they put on events throughout the year to raise money. Yeah, but, I mean, there is tons of stuff that he's been doing. So to answer your question, there was no spark that needed to come back. It was the fire has always been burning since the day he left and well there's more hope now if i if i understand your question as well what is my reaction well is is a reaction of of uh sadness that people had no other chance of surviving than living day by day

and could not really free themselves because they, in my case, okay, I had no problem in being in the other ground. It was for me great. I didn't have anything, didn't have no security, I wasn't afraid of anything, didn't even know that I was in danger. But I never had a son that would go to bed without milk. I never had a mother that was dying with no medical services.

I was a young, healthy Cuban doing whatever he needed. He learned in a school, as I said. I had the pleasure of having had a better education than the economic situation of my parents could afford. But we didn't have a car. We lived in a middle class neighborhood, lower middle class, not bad in El Cerro.

It was okay. And I had a good standard of living. But people today have not been able to do what I did because they had responsibility with their families I didn't have

there are many young people that don't have families but they needed to survive on a day to day day to day day to day they never took for me it was

for me it was not a process of not being able to eat or to find food to fight I fought and then I had no food. And I didn't give.

I don't want to say that word. Okay? Never. Never felt hungry. On the contrary, I always felt okay. And then my friends would come and one would say one day, oh, what shoe size you wear? Because he saw holes on my shoes. I was sitting in a bench in Parque

Central, waiting for Alejandro Moreno, Maya, one of the guys that was with me the day that I jumped out of a car when they were taking me to prison. And Alejandro Maya looked at my shoes and said, what size do you wear? So next week, I am in the Parque Central de La Habana waiting for him again, and he comes laughing with a box of shoes, new shoes.

And you know, I didn't even know I didn't have, I didn't even care about the shoes that I have. But today, and the revolution, I've been able to control the Cuban people by scarcity, by hunger, by starvation. But there is a point, a breaking point, for people to, I would like to talk,

I don't want to forget, right there. I want to talk about the zoo, the Cuban program in Hanoi, during the Vietnam War. Oh, yeah. Okay? But now the people have suffered so much. I think they are in a catatonic state.

They don't give nothing about what happens now. They are willing to risk it now. They have nothing to lose. Now Castro is dead, and his brother, Raul, is he dead? No, he's alive. Is he in control? No, he's not. He was, and then he relinquished.

He designated Diaz-Canel president. Miguel Diaz-Canel is now the acting president and face of the regime in Cuba now. Is he willing to give it up? No. No, no, no. He's a bureaucrat. He's a bureaucrat. He has power.

He did nothing for the revolution. He didn't fight Batista. He did nothing. He just was, you know, a good. He absorbed the theory of Marxism. He lives in a huge mansion with a swimming pool. Do you think he's going to give up that? His actual, you know, he was addressing, I saw a video,

he was addressing people about the protests, and his exact words were, you know, if they want to face off with the revolution, they're going to have to walk over our dead bodies. So his answer is, and he gave an order for combat in the streets. We're going to go to the streets and we're going to. He said he called on the revolutionary citizens to fight back. It's amazing how they refer to themselves as the revolution when they've been the dictators for decades, generations.

Dictators and traitors. They are traitors to the revolution. And by the way, when we use the word revolution, really, it was not a revolution with social or nothing.

It was a movement to get rid of a dictator that we have for seven years and go back to what we were. Not jumping with ideas and plans and things that never happened or that would never achieve their things like

the stories of the chickens in the farm. They'll say, oh, we're going to start with this farm. We're going to have so many chickens. And we're going to have 100 million chickens here soon. And there were no chickens and nothing happened. Do you understand? Yeah, the command economies don't work.

I know we saw it with Mao when he said, kill all the birds, kill all the pests. And then they destroyed their ability to farm. All of a sudden, the locusts came and started sweeping across China. No, no. Farmers in Cuba now are starving. They are not allowed to sell what they can produce. They are not allowed to produce. Everything has to be controlled by the government.

Everything has to go to them. This is why I say, please, Americans, open your eyes. Cuba doesn't need food. Cuba doesn't need humanitarian aid. Q1 needs to get rid of the dictatorship that will absorb anything you send over there. Nobody in the streets

is saying, I want food, I want a vaccine against COVID. No. They want freedom. They know it's the only thing. But what can America do? Well, Americans should get involved in that. I think that the American government should help us at this time. Do you know what happened in 1961 with the invasion of Iran?

No. Okay. There were, you know, in Miami, as young Cubans began to go from Havana from Cuba to Miami in Miami when they knew they were going to prepare a force to fight they already started to volunteer also known as a bay of pigs they started to volunteer

and they wanted to go to Cuba to liberate Cuba but then Kennedy changed the plans. And Kennedy was told, but listen, what do we do with the 1,500 Cubans

that want to go? And then his advisors said, well, Mr. President, they want to go to Cuba. They want to go to fight. And then he said, okay, send. President, they want to go to Cuba. They want to go to fight. And then he said, okay, send them. But no air coverage. No support.

That was like sending the best of the Cuban youth in exile to die. Okay. This country has to pay us back.

Because after that, you know what has happened in 62 years. We Cubans expect the United States to behave like the United States maybe in the 50s,

I don't know. I don't know when to go back. But I do know that the United States maybe in the 50s. I don't know. I don't know when to go back. Okay. But I do know that the United States had a prestige, an international prestige, that we Cubans were in love with the American dream that we were living in our own country and that we relived when ours ended

and we came here looking to establish, you know, a new life. I came looking for something different, to tell you the truth. In Miami, this past election, there was a safe Democrat district in an urban center. No one saw this coming. The Republican got elected. The continuing pushes from the far left, the Marxists, the Black Lives Matter groups, is turning many of these, you know, in like South Texas, for instance, and in Florida, it's turning Democrat areas into Republican areas. And it's very likely because, especially in Miami, obviously, the people who know the horrors of socialism and communism are seeing that within

the United States and pushing back against it. So perhaps that's a sign of hope for us here, that we won't let it happen. And I wonder if people in the United States are willing to do anything to help Cuba. You know, here the Cubans are pushing back against the problems here, but will it go the other way? I think about the Spanish-American War in 1898, when the Spanish Empire controlled Cuba, and the Americans liberated Cuba and then let it go. No, it's not correct.

What happened? It's not correct. Your statement is, I mean, maybe you read it in a book like that, but Cuba has fought for its freedom since 1821. In 1851, there were different movements. 1868, El Grito de Yara. Ten years fighting the Spaniards, okay?

The Cuban Guajiros, the Mambises Cubanos. Then came the 1895 war, okay? And after we had done. Most of the fighting. And put most of the dead. The main blew up. Somehow. I am not going to discuss here.

Some people say. That the United States. Blew the main. I don't believe it. Okay. And I don't care what happened now. that the United States blew the main, I don't believe it, okay? And I don't care what happened now. It doesn't matter. What happened, it doesn't matter.

It was an excuse of the United States to intervene. And then they intervened. But you cannot say they won the war. No, no. We were already in the final stage. Jose Marti had already died a few months after he landed in Oriente to fight for what he had been preaching for many years. He had been in prison when he was 15 years old

by the Spaniards. Okay, so when you say the Americans won the war, no. They intervened. Actually, they did a few things that were not right, like not allowing some Manvisa forces

to be respected for what they were, and to be given more authority. But the Americans or the United States end up allowing Cuba

to be a republic. And they created with the help of Cubans a constitution, which in 1940 we changed and became really a Cuban constitution. But they gave us the framework to establish a democratic republic. But we cannot give them the credit for winning the war. What I get concerned of is that before when it was independent Cuba,

that it was, how did Batista come to power? It feels like it was usurped. It was ridiculous. Batista came to power without killing anybody, without firing one shot. He was a leader of the military. He gave a coup d'etat, you know, without any

bloodshed. The bloodshed came, of course, when we Cubans decided that we didn't want to be a republic with a dictatorship. We wanted to be a republic with a dictatorship we wanted to be a republic

with a bad government or with a good government but elected by the people, not a good government we didn't want to have a bad government or a good government but Fidel said it very clearly when he was talking about why we needed

to get Batista out of power. Because Cuba was a republic, and then we had a president that you elected, and he did bad things, or good things, and then you changed to a new one. You had the ability to do good things or bad things, but there was a rhythm, a constitutional rhythm. And that is what Fidel interrupted. He preached that he wanted to return Cuba to that situation, because it's beautiful to say,

you made a mistake, you elected a bad government, or this government was bad, you have the power to change it. And that was the biggest lie of Fidel. You elected a bad government or this government was bad, you have the power to change it. And that was the biggest lie of Fidel. That he wanted to bring Cuba back to be self-determining by the people in what kind of situation we were, who was going to be the president and all that. But, you know, that's what happened.

Did you believe in Fidel at the start of the revolution uh i did not believe in fidel uh i i i i i i knew that he was fighting and a young person considers that you have an ideal and you fight for it, that that is good. So, to tell you, I'm never a fanatic of nobody. And when I said about Trump, you know, that I respect him, I am not a fanatic of Trump.

And I think that Trump did some major mistakes in how he talked to the press or how he did it or how he did that. But I have never been moved by following anybody. My father

gave me a lesson one day and that was during what I did against Batista. I am at the Marist Brothers one day and they tell me in 1958 hey Jose we are not going to come to school tomorrow

why? no it's going to be a general a general strike against Batista so I said fine how is this? ok well we come in the morning we go to

the first class for two the morning we go to the first class for two hours when we go to the recreo how do you say recreation? when you go to recreation you come back to the salon get your books and go home

and I did that there were 500 students there half the lower grades and half of the secondary so I get my books I start walking towards a green gate at the end

of the campus there was a baseball camp I go over there where we all go and the buses go out and when I look back I see only one student behind me There was a baseball camp. I go over there where we all go and the bosses go out. And when I look back, I see only one student behind me. Joaquin Badel. I remember his name.

It happens that Joaquin Badel was the son of a Batista functionary. His father had a good job during the Batista regime. I know because he lived in my neighborhood, and when you walk by his house, a large window was open, and you could see a painted thing of Batista, a nice painting of Batista. So I knew that he was for Batista. That was the only kid that followed me.

A guy that would get in trouble with his father because his father would ask, wait a minute, what are you joining? What strike are you joining against Batista? So they call us the next week. They call my father and me and said, this is not, he said, the herman week. They called my father and me and said, this is not, he said, the hermano. Hermano is not a

priest. It's a religious order. And they are called hermanos, not fathers or whatever. So he said, this school is for learning. This school is not to do strikes here.

And I said, well, but Cuba has a dictatorship. And it was not even my idea. Here, they told me it was going to happen and I just participated in it. And then my father ended the meeting and said, Niño, you did right, but you did something wrong. Next time you do something,

know what you committed with don't commit with people that are not really committed so you know the day that youngsters in Cuba in the future can commit themselves to do something I don't care if it's right

or wrong but that they have the integrity to follow through what they think if they are wrong they but that they have the integrity to follow through in what they think. If they are wrong, they will realize they are wrong. But I think I did the right thing in committing myself

to do something and my father only gave me a lesson. Be sure that you do it with the right people. And this is why when I joined the underground, I realized that I was with that kind of truth, that I was committed to the same things that I was committed to.

It's a great lesson. There are a lot of people who are mindlessly droning on and just following whatever it is the media says, and they're putting out these messages, and young people just blindly repeat it. But let's jump to Super Chats and see what a lot of people probably have questions. We'll talk to the audience.

If you haven't already, give us a like. Hit that like button. And subscribe to this channel. Share this show with your friends if you thought these warnings and stories were very important. And we're going to have a members-only podcast going up, usually around 11 or so p.m. tonight after this show wraps up, where we're going to get to talk about the censorship and other things that are affecting this country because we're certainly dealing with it. So you'll want to see that. But let's read some super chats. All right, let's see. Here's a totally off topic because a lot of people just want to ask questions. Alexander Leon M. says, first super chat.

This is for Ian. Trying to discuss the tabletop RPG stream you and Tim have discussed on Mines. Please get back to me when you can. We will make sure Ian is aware. I will convey this to him. Enlightened Worm says, Tim, please stop saying San Diego has a GOP mayor. We lost him in November. Our new mayor is a Democrat aligning with our progressive city council. He supports SB 145 and doubled his salary while calling people that want to work selfish.

Yes, and that is an absolutely fair point. So to clarify my previous comments, and I did mention this a few times, the data on San Diego's mayor is outdated. And the data on the crime stuff was from a while ago. All right, let's see. GC Geek Army. This important podcast will anger Jimmy Dore. He claims that Cuba is a CIA operation. Do you think that the people that are rising up in protest is CIA manipulated?

No, that is completely false. People have rebelled out of a situation that they cannot live under. There are no CIA people talking to people in Havana or in any town. There are no Americans there doing anything. And to say that is coward. and to say that is is is coward is a coward statement

because people even when I was in the underground in 1960 where there were CIA people in Cuba I never met one and none of my friends met anyone. I am sure they had contacted maybe other organizations,

but our own organization never had contact with the CIA. If the CIA... And we didn't even know about the invasion. But listen, listen. If the CIA is actively trying to foment revolution, would that not be America helping Cuba? Of course. I think this whole CIA talk, I mean, you just have to look at the everyday life of a Cuban

and what they've been living for the past 62 years where, you know, basically if you don't have family outside of Cuba, you're not going to survive. Like these Cubans that are still on the island are getting a lot of outside help from their family members that have left. They send them money back. That's kind of how they survive through their day-to-day. And I think a lot of these Cubans that are rising up and protesting may be some of the ones that don't have that outside help, but they're just fed up with trying to survive from day-to-day. And like my father said, you reach a breaking point at a certain point where you're denied your basic

human rights every day of your life. You're paid in a currency that isn't valuable to go out and buy things that you need. When you do go out and get the things you need, you have to sit and wait in line all day long. By the time you get there, oh, we don't have any left. You got to go to this other place. You spend your whole life sitting around waiting in line. You have no real, you don't feel like you have a purpose in life and they're sick of it now. So now they're finally raising their voices against their oppressors, which is bound to happen sooner or later. All right. We got James Dorpinghaus says, the stream has only just begun, but I love it already. God bless this man.

We need more good Americans like him to speak out against communism. What? You're Cuban. I am Cuban, but I tell you something. The citizenship is not in the paper. And it's true that I have not become an American citizen to remind me why I'm here. But I am more American and feel more American that many people that really have the certificate,

were born here, but by their conduct, they are traitors to this country. Yes. So, you know, I really feel that I am a soldier of this country. And I am willing, Tim, believe me, I am willing to die for this country. Anytime.

Yeah. Okay? With the same love and passion, even though I don't feel happy with this country sometimes. Oh, yeah. But I am here. And I am grateful that I am here and that I was able to raise a beautiful family like my son Ricardo and all my kids. Right on. JR says, as a Cuban-born American citizen, I want to say thank you, Tim, for giving these

men a voice. Long live freedom. I saw that, and then I just thought of something. I'm like, you're telling me the story about being in the Anticastro underground in Cuba, being chased by these soldiers, trying to sneak past them, and I'm like, man, this guy is a fighter.

And his son is a fighter, quite literally. I mean, you can see that. Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Well, Tim, there is something you don't know. My son is very special in many ways. He's a great son. He's an spectacular father. He's a great brother.

He was a little kid very special and all my sons are basically like that so I am very proud but there are many things about Ricardo

that people don't know and that I actually sometimes I get surprised that he has been watching me. We had in Chicago for 30 years a Cuban picnic. And that Cuban picnic, when organizers began to die and the community became not smaller but more Americanized, it was difficult to organize a big activity where 4,000 or 5,000 Cubans would show up to have lunch with pork and rice and, you know, our things. So that activity that also served to raise funds for many Cuban organizations that would come together and organize it, disappeared. And about 11 years ago, a young Cuban, half Cuban, a young person,

decided to organize, using the old name that we have, Festival Cubano, as an activity, but different. Not with the purpose of bringing together Cubans to remind us of our culture and our duties and to make a contribution, but he did it to raise money. He was an entrepreneur involved

in other festivals and he thought, wait a minute, the Cuban music, let's do the Cuban festival. But you could not say there abajo fidel. No political talks at a Cuban festival about Cuba that's being oppressed by a dictatorship.

Wow. Okay. So the way we realize about this is because I was doing a promotion for Ricardo, and one of the sponsors of Ricardo, a jewelry store, asked me, Jose, could Ricardo come to my table, to my area in the festival, to my tent, and be there signing posters and letting people take pictures? I said, yes. And then they invited us to go.

I know I said, I want to introduce my son in the stage. So I went to the stage, introduced Ricardo, and said, Viva Cuba Libre. And behind me, where there was the VIP area, I heard like something strange. So Ricardo spoke, and he said, Viva Cuba Libre. And the same reaction happened. So in a Cuban festival where you cannot say Viva Cuba Libre, I realized

And that means, for those who don't speak Spanish, long live free Cuba. Okay. I realized we need to pick it next year festival. And I spent about a week in my, he

used to live with us in his home with us in a, how do you call that, the second floor? It's like an attic like this up here. Attic room. And we had an escalera de caracol

walk Yeah, the spiral walk. So he will And we had una escalera de caracol. Yeah, the spiral walkway. So he would pass by my area where I had my desk, where I was working in some flyers, trying to come up with a propaganda thing to distribute there. And every night that he sees me working there, he looks at me and then he goes off. Then the Friday that I decide, the Friday that I started that festival, I had about 10,000 flyers that I was going to go and distribute there.

By himself. He was going to go by himself. Showing a picture of Almuerzo Campestre, or a banner that the same name that these people were using, in one of the latest Cuban festivals. And I said, this is truly the real Cuban festival. And then we described the purposes of what we were doing at that time and what this festival was. And my intention

was, which I did, to distribute there, but I didn't know. On Friday, when I am going to walk out of my house, Ricardo comes down and says, where are you going, Dad? I said, well, I'm going to distribute the flyer. Okay, fine. And then he went with me.

And he was my security there. And then, since I am very well known in Chicago, we distribute all these flyers, right? But there was an area that I wanted to enter. It was the VIP area where the VIPs that were behind the stage had their cars. Okay? There were a hundred cars there? Yeah, there were a lot. Okay. So I approached

the security people that were there, and I showed them the flyer, and they say, I said, look, I have been distributing this in the front. I would like to put it in the car. They said, oh, Festival Cubano. So they didn't read it. So we went

there and in all the cars we put these things. And next I know is they were very much upset at the next festival I couldn't do, pull the same trick. But then what we did is, instead of keeping, you know,

going there to distribute flyers, we organized again the truly Cuban festival. And we could not do it last year because of COVID. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was suspended. But this year, we probably won't be able to do it because it takes too much time. But anyway. There might be lockdowns coming again as well.

I mean, Mitch McConnell just said, you know, get vaccinated or the lockdowns are coming so yeah we'll see what's uh so ricardo has played an important role on all my family my kids in in my in me being able to feel good in doing things because they support me they have always done it very nice let's read some more we got trash panda he says i've heard similar horror stories from the Soviet Union. Mr. Lamas, have you considered testifying to Congress or making videos talking about communism? Well, I don't think that I need to go to testify in Congress. I think that Americans should learn more about what already had been testified in Congress. And this brings me to the Cuban program in Dissou in Hanoi.

There were 17 prisoners, American prisoners, in this torture center or program, and that program was called the Cuban program. The main torturers there, there were three Cubans. The prisoners themselves designated one of them with the name of Fidel, because he was the worst of them, the most savage, okay? And these prisoners were tortured.

And, you know, how do you say? They were tortured with physical tortures like pulleys from trucks across their butt and their face. And there were 17 prisoners. These three Cubans of the Cuban program were able to break all those except one. That was a pilot that was down. This pilot that was down developed some brain trauma. And this torturer thought or wanted to believe that he was acting up so he wouldn't be tortured. And then they sat him on a chair and a prisoner saw it from his cell when Fidel, with a big rubber sheet from a truck,

smacked this guy on his face. He did not blink. He did not cry. He was in catatonic state do Americans need that I go to testify about anything when there are information like this

that this happened to 17 American soldiers and this country didn't react to that I can go to congress but number one is going to be soldiers and this country didn't react to that? I can go to Congress but number one is going to be of course there will be a translator there and people won't have to go as crazy

as those people listening now trying to understand what I'm saying. Because when I get to emotional topics my Spanish culture and my Spanish culture, my Spanish language, permeates my brain,

and, and even mutilates more, my, my good command, my command of the English language, when I, when I get into emotional topics, because,

it's, it's what happen, it's, it's when you speak in your language, you really feel what you are saying, and when you speak in your language, you really feel what you are saying. And when you say in a foreign language a dirty word, you don't even think it's a dirty word.

So when I am talking about this, I know it's hard to understand me. But I have a message for the American people. Try to research the information that was hidden from you. Try to understand that this country is at a crossroads. Principles, ideas, love for the country. Forget about those revolutionary ideas that only destroy what you already have. You know, progress is a continuous effort. It's not now, five minutes from now, a huge jump. Okay, all these people want power, and they are destroying your country.

This is the greatest country in the world. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, Cirilio says, My father had me read Against All Hope by Armando Valadares in middle school. It details his experience in Castro's political prison in Gulags. I'd love to know if this gentleman can confirm the horrors in that book. Of course. And actually, for his information, we brought his wife, Marta Valladares, to Chicago.

Okay? And we paid tribute to Valladares through his wife. And yes, everything that Armando Valladares wrote, including another book, Desde Misia de Ruedas, some people say that he pretended to be paralyzed. But he wrote poems and he wrote that book. and everything that is in the book is true. And the problem is that it's hard to understand and how to write when somebody stands in front of the fighting squad and night by night you hear them saying,

Viva Cuba Libre, Viva Cristo Rey. And you feel the chats of the squad, and then you feed the solitary chats on his head. How can you describe that, night by night, throughout Cuba? So, yes, Armando Valladares is... Actually, he became ambassador of Cuba, of the United States, I think. Wow. Yeah.

All right. Hayden says, thank you guys for coming on tonight. It's great to hear the real story of Cuba. What can the average American do to help Cuba? Petitioning our government isn't having much effect anymore. What can we do to stop the U.S. from failing that way? I'd love your perspective. I think, you know, getting the Cubans message out, number one, the regime is constantly cutting off electricity, shutting down

the Wi-Fi for the Cubans to kind of get these videos out. So the ones that are circulating to keep circulating them. You know, me and my father also raise to to try and help out with these groups that are opposing the regime we've we've raised money we've sent to cuban dissidents um we've sent it to other uh groups like the ladies in white is another famous group in cuba who non-violently protest for the release of political prisoners and they're uh uh, daily, you know, every time they go to protest, they're beaten. Um, they're, they're physically harassed in the streets. Um, so if, if they would like to contribute, you know, they can get ahold of me and, and we can, we can set up something to do that. Uh, although I tried setting up like a go fund me page or whatever, but because of the sanctions the U S has on Cuba, when I mentioned the word Cuba, they shut down the page. So, um,

all the money that I've raised, I've raised by hand through my social media pages. And then through contacts that my father has, we were able to get money into Cuba to Cuban dissidents to help them out. All right. Let's see what we got here. Grab Boy Biden says, sounds like he is talking about the modern day FBI. Makes me sad to see this country repeating the worst parts of history. Absolutely. All right, let's see.

Where are we at? Kisham says, not surprising that Castro set up or supported purported events as cover to arrest those opposing him. Doesn't sound familiar at all. Well, there you go. All right, let's see. A lot of people just saying thank you for coming which is which is fantastic platamir vutan says this man is a master storyteller keep going sir thank you yeah have you uh have you have you written a book about it or anything no no we've pushed him for years and years to at least get his story down. I've heard it throughout my life in bits and pieces,

but I've never been able to chronologically put it together, and I think that's an important part. We've tried everything. I've even bought him a tape recorder, the old-school tape recorder, because I knew he wouldn't know how to handle a digital one with the tapes and all that. But I think you definitely have to sit down and get your story out on tape, and we go from there. Definitely. And maybe get a ghostwriter.

You just tell the story to them, and they write it down as you talk. That would be one of us, one of his sons, and it would drive us crazy. You've got to do it, man. Do it for probably at least 10 years just continuously writing. Do it on video when you do so it can they can record you telling the story yeah as well as the writing yeah harry toe says i love this episode it's mind-blowing thank you thank you for the super chat this is funny i saw this one earlier sermon fapple says goobers in the chat keep saying lol tim is so

quiet today when if i were in his position, I would have 100% focus on everything this kind gentleman has to say. Some of you all don't realize he's trying to warn us. This is the point. We have somebody who's experienced the authoritarian communist revolution, and we need to pay attention to those who have experience in this area, I'll tell you, man, there have been conversations for a while now among people I know, like other people who are political activists, other people who are journalists, not necessarily to say that we're at the point where the US has fallen and we have to flee into exile or anything like that. But clearly, with the level of political tumult in this country and the divide, the conversations have come up where people say,

when is that point when you think the U.S. is too far gone and you need to leave? I mean, just for context, Joe Biden said that the Republican voting bills are the greatest threat to this country since the Civil War. As if, you know, we have these, we have the Republicans trying to pass voter reform laws as well as, and the Democrats trying to pass complete voter overhaul, HR1, both of which are viewed by the other side as the apocalypse. And I happen to think HR1 is bad. I fall on the side where I think the Republicans are at least doing something, though they're not doing enough. To say that the Republicans pushing a moderate bill is the greatest threat since the Civil War. I mean, it sounds like we're getting to this very dangerous point with the Capitol Police

setting up national offices. We're getting to that dangerous point. And so I guess there's a question of, you know, how do you know when things are too far gone and you just leave? You have to get out. With Jose, is there something you think could have been done differently between 1958 and 1961 that would have prevented?

Yes. What? Yes. We should have allowed Batista. He was going to have to be out in the other elections. Let's say that Batista would have committed fraud in the elections. But after that, probably another regime will come, another president.

And we could have slowly get out of it. When Fidel took the opportunity and precipitated the revolution, he was only looking not for a solution. He was looking for him to be the guy in charge after Batista left. And he needed to create a convulsion to then to control it.

I think that we should have peacefully tried to manage the situation because Batista had not destroyed the press. Batista had not destroyed the institutions of Cuba, the political institutions and the civic institutions and all the other institutions of Cuba,

good organizations. He had not touched the social standard of Cuba, the economic standard of Cuba. To the contrary, he continued going. And we made the mistake of trying to come up with a drastic change.

Whether it's good or bad, sometimes those changes do not work because they don't have nothing preceding that will allow you to continue in one direction upward. Okay, those changes are not good. So if we would have been more patient, if we would have been listening to the revolutionary spirit, you know, that Fidel tried to convey. We could have not entered this stage, a never-ending stage, a never-ending change. Bo Rai Cho Wins says, this needs to go viral. Well, if you think so, then it's just incumbent upon you to share it.

That's what makes things go viral. So it would be fantastic. I mean, I think, you know, you've basically been telling your story and your experiences. And I'm just wrapped up in listening to these stories because they're so important. And I think for everybody who's listening, if you agree and you think people need to hear this, then absolutely, please share this. Julie Simone says, thank you, Senor Lamas, for sharing your story. We should listen to more people who understand what it is not to be free, to truly appreciate why we are so lucky and should keep up the freedom fight.

Absolutely. Here's something interesting and totally off topic. Ponyboy says, If you go full screen mode on Timcast.com, then swipe out, you can listen to the podcast while browsing your phone or while your screen is off. Is that the – we'll try that later, I guess. That's the non-app hack for listening to the podcast, I suppose. All right.

Let's see. Mr. Glista says, my Cuban refugee grandfather used to tell me these same horror stories. They sounded fictional till 2020. Thanks for sharing your brilliant father, Coach Rick. There you go. Is that what people call you? Well, no. He might be a member of my gym then.

Mr. Glista. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Matt. I think that's Matt. What's up, Matt? How you doing, man? Right on.

All right. Josiah. Let's see. Oh, wait. No oh wait no okay okay i can't read that one um all right michael volpe says because of jfk's failure to support the cuban people in 62 is that the reason most cubans vote republican do cubans vote republican yeah i think for the most part yeah is it because democrats are commies i think they start i think that's what they see you know and that's why they're they're more republican and a lot of these old cubans are more conservative too so they're it kind of it kind of freaks me out when you have people who actually fled a communist dictatorship being like i'm gonna avoid those people because they're communists. I'm like, oh.

They're telling us something. They see the warning signs already and the rest of America isn't paying attention. Yeah, I really think that's the reason Alejandro Mayorkas said that Cubans would not be welcomed into the US, Cubans and Haitians, because they tend to vote conservatively. Oh, yeah. I think it's entirely political. It was amazing.

At the southern border, they're bringing kids in, they're shipping them on planes, they're flying around. And then you've got this crisis happening in Cuba and they're like, let us be clear. If you try and come, we're going to send you away. What? That refers to Cubans and Haitians. Right, right. You know, it's discriminatory. And it's actually crazy.

His statement, I'm not saying that he's crazy crazy, his statement. I'm not saying that he's crazy, but the statement is crazy. What do you mean when you say that if you come by sea, you are not going to reach the United States? So, Cologne would never reach the hemisphere, right? Yeah. By sea. What is the problem with Cubans taking to the sea, seeking for freedom? They're anti-communist. They're anti-communist. When you have people coming with the border crisis in the US, we've had stories of people from Africa flying to Brazil and then traveling

up to the southern border of Mexico. These are people who are not fleeing political persecution. Brazil is amazing. If they've made it to Brazil, I love Brazil. I've been to Rio and Sao Paulo, and they're both just absolutely amazing. Rio, wow. So people want a vacation there. But to leave this place, it's come to America. I get it. America is awesome. But then you have actual Cubans who are desperately trying to build rafts to escape political persecution, torture, imprisonment. And they're like, no, no, you get sent away. They don't care about refugees.

Imagine how bad your life has to be to risk your life by boarding just a man-made raft to try and float 90 miles across open ocean. And Cubans have done this with their children. I don't know if you remember in the 90s, but there was a little boy that washed up on shore, Elian Gonzalez, and his mother did not make the trip, right? She died on the way. America intervened for that to give Elian back, you know, to Cuba. I've said this about the border crisis of the U.S.

Every single one of these refugees who are fleeing political persecution should be granted asylum. The issue is that most of them, the overwhelming majority, are not actually doing that. It's like, I think, you know, something like 95 plus percent, they end up finding out it's just people who want to, they're economic migrants. They want a job. They want to come here. The famous interview was where someone said, I miss Buffalo Wild Wings. It's like, I get it, man. I love me some B-dubs. But when I see people who are like, if I stay in Mexico, the cartels will kill me. I'm like, we can't condemn these people. And I understand it's not a perfect solution.

A lot of people probably are not a fan of America being this place where we're going to bring everybody in for asylum. But at least in close proximity to the country, I can recognize that. If someone's in Guatemala or Honduras, well, Mexico is right there. If someone is in Cuba, Florida is right there. So it's very, very different for Cuban refugees trying to escape compared to people in South America trying to come up through all these different countries and ignoring them. But let's do this. I want to go to the members podcast. So if you haven't already, hit that like button.

Subscribe to this channel. Go to TimCast.com. Become a member. As a member, you get an ad-free experience. You are helping support our journalists that we've now hired very many and are hiring very many more. And you'll get access to these members podcasts we're going to talk about censorship and get more into the details and uh show you know what was going on and talk about a little bit we have an earlier with your guys's t-shirt so again timcast.com you can follow the show at timcast irl on facebook and instagram at timcast underscore irl on tiktok you can follow me

personally at timcast do you guys have a website or any social media or anything you want to shout out? Yeah, people can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at RicardoLamasMMA, and that's where I do most of my fundraising work is through those social media platforms. On Facebook, you can follow my dad's group, Comité Cívico Cubano de Chicago. So you can find the link to that on my fan page also. Are we leaving this broadcast now? Are we ending the show now? This will be the end of the live version.

Okay. And then we'll do the... Can I mention that this coming Saturday... Oh, yeah, yeah. We have an activity in support of the Cuban people that is going to be bringing together all Latin American residents of the city that are willing to voice in behalf of the Cuban people the cry for freedom. And we would like them to know that we are expecting them to come and support us. That will be at the Humboldt Park Monument where the eagle is. Logan Square Monument. Logan Square Monument at 11 a.m. this coming Saturday is a call of dignity.

You know, and I'll mention something, too, just in our demographics, the most populous area in terms of our viewership. Of the people who watch the show, the largest percentage live in Chicago. Great. For whatever reason. I don't know. I'm from Chicago, and I guess we have similar opinions. Chicago people. Ian lived in Chicago. I sure did. Seamus was on the show. He's an Illinois boy. Jack Murphy. Maybe it's just we're just Chicago kind of people, but

guys, it's been a blast. Thanks for coming. We'll obviously go to the members. And by the way, when I say Latin American, it's because we're trying, that is a community where there were many Hispanic Americans. Now there are other nationalities, including, of course, the Americans. But we need the presence of the Americans to there. Yeah.

And that's why our call has been done in English and in Spanish. On Saturday, we're all Cuban. Right on. That's the slogan. Hey, you can follow me on Crossland. I was just thinking about it. Yes. Well, how do you say we are all Cuban in Espanol?

Todos somos Cubanos. Todos somos Cubanos. Gracias. Gracias. I love you guys both. Thank you guys for coming so much. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I hope that you guys can see now why I love my guys both. Thank you guys for coming so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope that you guys can see now why I love my older people. They have something that younger people do not have, and we really need to learn from them. So I'm so glad that Jose could come and speak to us tonight and share his story. You guys can follow me on Twitter at Sarah Patch Lids as I attempt to gain more followers than Sarah Patch Kids. Right on. And you didn't mention your Twitter.

Oh, it doesn't even matter. It's Ian Crosland. All right. Everybody, go to TimCast.com for the members-only podcast. We're going to address some of the censorship issues and talk about what's happening in this country. Thanks for hanging out. We'll see you all there. Bye, guys.