Did Raúl Blink?

Once he realized the world was watching with eyes wide open, (with incredulousness and after a 12 hour wait), at Gorki’s “dangerousness” trial, Raúl decided to change the charges to the American equivalent of disturbing the peace and fined the rocker $28 bucks...blink.

This, of course, was an attempt to by the Cuban regime at damage control. They didn’t want to look foolish for prosecuting a punk rocker for being dangerous especially since the whole world knew that Gorki had been singled out for special attention because of his raunchy anti-Castro lyrics. Had they gone ahead with the original charge, they would have gotten lots of international press which is bad for business.

All the pressure helped get Gorki sprung and grow his international celebrity, thus providing some insurance from future repression, and thwart the regimes plans for silencing Gorki for now, but they’ll keep trying. He’s not going to change his ways.

All the regime can say now to save face is that the “mafia” was lying about the “dangerousness” charge and that they had never intended to charge Gorki with anything but what they convicted him of. Whatever.

The important thing is that Raúl was forced to blink and his forced blink kept Gorki from being transferred to a smaller cell.

But Gorki, like his 11 million compatriots, is not free. He cannot leave the country, for example, and perform in Miami or NYC. He cannot sign a record deal with the company of his choosing or receive royalties from his songs, but at least he’s not in a small barred cell. He’s in the open air portion of prison Havana on the west end side of the greater Cuban penitentiary.