Displaced 3rd World Dictators Tour of Miami

Calling All College Students in Florida, Help Me Design a “Displaced Third World Dictators Tour of Miami”

My name is Cotton Smith and I live in Miami Florida. If you live in Florida, you know that our progressive political culture is a little underdeveloped. We’ve got the Bushes, we’ve got the religious Republican right, we’ve got the Cuban right (though, to be clear, I know enough to understand the political diversity in Miami’s Cuban community, and there is a significant, albeit smaller, progressive and/or Democratic Cuban community), etc. Miami makes a go at being the capital of Latin America, though apparently it’s losing to other cities in Latin America. A major paper, I forget which one, just moved its Latin American bureau from Miami to a major city, again I forget which one, in Latin America. I’ll see if I can find the link.

Miami is home to a good number of underworld characters. Just read a little Carl Hiassen, or the Miami Herald, or watch a few Miami Vice, and you’ll get a few takes on this consensus issue. One subgroup of Miami’s shame is what appears to me from afar (not geographically, I live in Miami, but I am not truly sure, and haven’t had time to examine the matter fully) to be a substantial community of ex-dictators, human rights abusers, terrorist-types, etc.

This is where my knowledge ends, but this is where the research begins.

A PROPOSAL

We, that’s me and my partners (hopefully who are students or have a little more time than I (I assure you, I’m not lazy, I have a job that causes me to work 60-80 hours a week for social justice)), need to research, and put together a Displaced Third World Dictators Tour of Miami. I imagine it would have to be a bus tour, not a walking tour, but that depends on what our research shows.

We’ve heard about the Cuban anti-Castro terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, who earlier in the year turned up in Miami’s underground. We’ve heard of the supporters of the oppressive Duvalier regime in Haiti. I’m under the impression that there are former death-squad militants from other Latin countries in Miami. Let’s do a little homework, let’s make a list, let’s explore the interconnections, and let’s shed a little light.

Now let’s not get ourselves hurt, let’s keep this subterranean enough until we know what we’re dealing with. When we’re done, let’s organize a Miami Reality Tour, maybe see some of the mansions where these ex-killers now live in luxury. Or perhaps they are guilty of the “violencia blanca,” the white violence, meaning those that turned a blind eye to bloodshed but didn’t directly participate. I may be mis-using the term violencia blanca. I learned it when reading Latin American liberation theology in the early 1990’s. It may mean those that commit the white violence of promoting poverty and inequality (as opposed to actual bloodshed). The violence of daily life without enough food for your children, the violence of your children having to change schools when you are evicted from your home.

Let’s petition Carl Hiassen to be the emcee for our tour.