Tag: Cuba

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folly general freedom ideological culture meme national politics & policies too much government

One-​Party Socialism?

Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialism, Che, democracy, meme, illustration, Common Sense

As the President of the United States noodles around Cuba, opening up relations and trade for the first time in half a century, one obvious obstacle to progress sticks out: Fidel Castro is still alive, and his brother, Raoul, still runs a one-​party state.

It is worth reminding Americans how desperately socialism in Cuba requires repressive one-​party rule. Sometimes folks forget. As Bernie Sanders pushes a “democratic socialism,” we should wonder where he and his Sandernistas stand on Cuba’s brand of socialism, i.e. without the democratic part.

Months ago, an old 1985 video surfaced of Bernie Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, Vermont, back from trips to Nicaragua and Cuba. Frankly, I agreed with his opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America. But Bernie also praised the Cuban government, asserting that Cubans were not “against Fidel Castro” because “he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society.”

He did not mention what Fidel didn’t give, indeed, would not allow: opportunity, progress, autonomy, freedom, democracy … the list is long.

Cubans who speak out are arrested, imprisoned.

Bernie did add: “Not to say Fidel Castro and Cuba are perfect.” But failed to make any mention of the total political repression of democratic activity.

The necessity of violence to establish socialism should be obvious. Even Bernie’s so-​called “non-​violent” supporters engage in raucous, invasive protests against Trump, and litter Twitter with indecent talk of assassinating the Republican front-runner.

What would they do with official power?

Are they committed to democracy as a process, really? Or to their programs alone?

Programs that rely upon mass expropriation and strong-​arming governance. No matter what Sanders says about “love.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Socialist Stasis, Disturbed

Cuba, stasis, Obama, visit, illustration

As the President of the United States treads ground previously trod by such a personage nearly ninety years ago — Calvin Coolidge was the last U. S. Commander in Chief to make the trip to Cuba — we are understandably inundated with coverage.

Obama’s Cuba trip is Big News.

We see that Cuba is backwards — it is socialist, after all, so no surprise there — but slowly opening up to American travel and trade. The nation’s voluntary sector squirms under the omnipresent, oppressive feet of its regulators.

What we see now is the result of socialist repression. Cuba shows, perhaps, socialism’s best-​case-​scenario result, stasis. The island dystopia is in many ways a time capsule. Some of its current charm is that stuck-in-timed-ness.

But there is also endemic hopelessness in the country. The people are held back. Infantilized. Ruled.

And there is no disputing the fact that this is all the result of an excess of socialism. As I have argued before, the old standby, the Blame the US Embargo ploy, is one that socialists wield with devastating results — to their own ideology. Socialism is the suppression of free trade; pure socialism abolishes all trade, along with all private property. Blaming an embargo shows how important private property and capitalism itself are to socialism’s few successes.

Barack Obama is, right now, demonstrating the best case against socialists in his own party, by opening up Cuba to the wonderfully corrosive processes of the market.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

Guantánamo Gestures

Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

It’s a fun word to say: “Guantánamo!”

Almost like “Geronimo!”

Of course, Guantánamo and Geronimo are nearly opposites. Geronimo was an iconic Native American warrior against the U.S. military. Guantánamo is the famous — or infamous — American military prison located at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

President Obama wants to shut the prison down. Why? Symbolism. He argues the prison “undermines” our national security by reminding the world of the harsh interrogation techniques used on prisoners — the Red Cross called it “torture” — and the indefinite detention of people — so far for 14 years — without any due process.

Republican presidential candidates countered, with Ted Cruz telling Obama, “Don’t shut down Gitmo, expand it and let’s have some new terrorists there.” Donald Trump promised, “We’re going to load [Gitmo] up”

Meanwhile, Obama’s plan to close Gitmo lacks any destination for more than a third of the remaining 91 prisoners. Apparently, part of the plan is to come up with the rest of the plan.

What’s not part of Obama’s plan? Ending the American policy of indefinitely incarcerating suspected terrorists and denying them any opportunity to defend themselves in either a civilian or military court. The president’s scheme is simply to relocate these detainees to U.S. soil and continue to hold them without charge — forever.

That’s why lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights panned Obama’s plan, which “does not ‘close Guantanamo.’ It merely relocates it to a new ZIP Code.”

The Guantánamo Bay facility isn’t the problem. Shut down the policy of holding people indefinitely without any system of justice. Let’s show the world more than symbolism; let’s give them (and ourselves) a little peek at truth, justice and the American Way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

No Reconciliation with Communism

Pope, Castro, Vatican, Cuba, collage, photomontage, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill, Common Sense

Pope Francis met with Fidel Castro over the weekend.

It’s not the first time the Bishop of Rome has met with a dictator, in Cuba or elsewhere. But it is the first time this particular pope has done so.

Next stop on this tour? The United States.

The pope’s most pointed words were directed not to the Communist nation but south by southwest, to Colombia, from where hail contestant parties to peace talks (the government versus leftist insurrectionists) now being held in Havana. The pope wishes no breakdown in the talks, urging that the world cannot afford “another failure on the path of peace and reconciliation.”

Pope Francis has been credited with the thawing of cold war relations between the United States and Cuba, and, for his part, praises both parties for the detente, which he has dubbed “an example of reconciliation for the whole world.”

But Cuba remains under tyranny; the people cannot speak freely and are impoverished under the thumb of socialistic regulation. The pope may not be seeing elements of causality here, of teleology, of purpose: Cuba’s poverty is not caused by the American embargo, really, but by a pernicious attachment to outdated ideas of government supremacy over people.

Unfortunately, many of the pope’s most famous remonstrances about capitalism suggest that he may be closer to the Castro brothers’ oppressive Marxist ideology than to a more liberatory approach.

While the pope publicly prays for reconciliation, Americans would be better off if we repudiated reconciliation with destructive ideas that too easily get packaged as “humane” and “Christian” when they are really, and deeply, precisely the opposite.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pope, Castro, Vatican, Cuba, collage, photomontage, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill, Common Sense

 

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crime and punishment

Cold War Casualty

The Cold War never quite ended. At least two countries still sport that old-​fashioned “Second World” status of ostensibly communist, definitely totalitarian, and utterly crazed leadership: North Korea and Cuba.

Alan Gross, age 65, was convicted of un-​Cuban activities in 2011, and has since been serving a 15-​year prison sentence. He was a subcontractor, working in Cuba, for the U.S. Agency for International Development. What, precisely, did he do “wrong”?

U.S. officials said Gross was merely trying to help Cubans bypass the island’s stringent restrictions on Internet access. But Cuban authorities say Gross was part of a plot to create “a Cuban spring” and destabilize the island’s single-​party communist government.

The two interpretations are not exactly at odds with one another. Sure, he was trying to bring the Internet to Cuba. And that’s why the communist government was suspicious: free information would likely bolster opposition to the commie way of stasis.

Which just goes to show how awful single-​party states are, how mind-​crushingly awful communism is: restrictive; vindictive; paranoid; cowardly.

These qualities are supposed to be absent from New Socialist Man, of course, qualities found only — at least, in ultra-​left theory — under capitalism and democracy.

But, instead, they serve as hallmarks of governments that cannot trust their subjects with even a smidgeon of freedom.

Gross is now reportedly weak, and has given up on life. Prison life in a prison society is not worth it, he says.

We can hope for a prisoner exchange. But really, what’s needed is a change of government in Cuba.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Flight to Freedom

One of the more inspiring perennial stories of my youth were of defectors, people who left their Communist-​controlled countries to reach freedom … on American soil.

Many, many Soviet and Eastern bloc subjects smuggled themselves out of their countries, or “jumped ship” while visiting the U.S. or other Western nations. The list of freedom seekers is long, impressive, and inspiring.

And this isn’t just “ancient history.”

After an international tour, seven members of Cuba’s National Ballet were confirmed by homeland sources as “not having returned.” And a Cuban exile website has informed us that six of the defectors are now in the U.S., while the seventh remains in Mexico, where the troupe had broken free:

“We were intent on seeking a better artistic life and economic well-​being for our families,” Cafe Fuerte quoted one of the group, Annie Ruiz Diaz, as saying.

Correspondents say Cuba’s National Ballet has suffered from a number of high-​profile defections over the years, as performers stay abroad in search of greater creative and economic opportunities.

But this is only the tip of the proverbial floating mass of frozen water. In truth, thousands of people defect to the United States every year. Leaving their countries of origin, they flee poverty, tyranny, reckless government and outrageous criminality (too often these latter are the same thing), seeking the comparatively peaceful life found under a nation run by the rule of law.

Alas, defection is going the other way, too, as more and more Americans attempt to escape from increasingly burdensome taxation, oppressive regulations, and selective enforcement of innumerable laws.

We honor the heroic defectors from Cuba only by making the U.S. a place that fewer and fewer peaceful folks would be tempted to flee from.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.