Friday, February 25, 2005
WHEN CASTRO’S GONE
The world is becoming dangerous for authoritarian philosophy and the “leaders” who enforce it (no thanks to the pampered elite in the intelligentsia, of course). Even natural causes can sometimes help to crack the ugly walls erected by tyrants
It doesn’t take great insight to suggest the possibility that Cuba’s one-man authority show will soon be over. The island nation’s dictator, Fidel Castro, has certainly reached an age where death will soon remove him from the power he has held for a good portion of his life. As one of the few remaining autocrats of Marxist –Leninist rule in the world, he’s become to many, an acceptable, if not admirable, figurehead of the Left’s hopes and dreams for a police state with equally distributed poverty and “free” health care.
The Cuban gulag under Castro’s Communism is a variation on a consistent theme of brutality, oppression, and distributed destitution. What can we expect when this icon of the Socialist vision is gone? First of all, I predict that his death will be looked upon with great sympathy and admiration by a score of world leaders as well as many of the world’s artists, intellectuals, and performers. Oliver Stone, in classic self-righteous self-promotion, will remind us that he had said good things about Cuba’s “leader” all along. The media will be peppered with some trite acknowledgment of some of the less than savory actions of the absolute dictator but, for the most part, we will be lead to believe that this guy was okay and maybe even saintly. A balance sheet will be perversely drawn up admitting “some mistakes” (the complete repression of human liberty) while lauding the “great things” he accomplished and “we fail to do.”
After subsidies from the former Soviet Union dissipated, Cuba could only do what all socialist enterprises do when there is no outside host to feed off of – suck its own blood dry. Socialism makes it a crime to produce new wealth (profit). It can only seize from one group, distribute some to another group, and squander the rest for heroic monuments and bloated payoffs to bureaucrats and toadies.
Cuba under Castro’s Marxist philosophy is a prime example of socialism’s failure yet, after Castro’s death, it will be pointed to as a model for continuing the horrible legacy of famine, torture, conformity, and despair -- all because some intellectuals and idealists don’t like wealth, success, and individuality (their ultimate enemy is human nature itself).
There will likely be a transition after Castro’s death, where some stale bureaucrat true believers will attempt to keep the poison flame burning. They’ll realize their treasury and industry are mere phantoms and the common citizens will realize that they “don’t have to live this way.”
Communism in Cuba will eventually fall, because its economy was a lie. The lie exposed will result in factory shut downs, unemployment, and degrees of chaos – which will all be blamed on the “horrors” of being set free (“Capitalism”). As an honest economy asserts itself and makes for the difficult adjustments to a the real world, the Left and their mouth pieces in the media, academia, and show business will contrast images of happy proletarian slaves vs. homeless beggars -- passing over the fact that it is Communism’s fraudulent nature that ultimately catches up with a society after its socialist stage set has fallen.
When Castro dies the puppet masters of authoritarian sympathy will prod us to morn -- and many will. But some of us will be cheering, as we do whenever there is one less dictator amongst humanity.
We often read that America’s free market “distributes” more money to business people than teachers (I’m a teacher and I think my pay is rather good). What we don’t hear is that, in a socialist economy like Cuba, cab drivers and prostitutes make more money than doctors (another benefit of “free” health care).
When Castro’s gone we won’t be teaching our kids about the horrors of collectivist political ideology or the oppression of one-party rule. We won’t be hearing “never again” or “how could it happen” or “how could we have stood by doing nothing.” No, we’ll hear the same that we hear now about the former Soviet Union and its Eastern European Empire, or about China under Mao, or everywhere else Communism has ruled. We’ll hear that they tried a noble experiment and failed, and if we try again, maybe we can create an egalitarian utopia, with “free” health care -- and prostitutes who are paid more than doctors.
