Evil Genius?

There’s no doubt that Castro’s reign of terror has destroyed Cuba and its society.

Documentary after documentary, movie after movie, picture after picture all chronicle the crumbling of what once was a thriving and progressive country. The truth is out. And all the propaganda in the world is not going to get that wild colt back in barn.

The Cuban economy is virtually non-existent. The once fertile land no longer yields enough crops for self sufficiency. The infrastructure, neglected and overused, is crumbling.

And sometimes I wonder: Was this by design or by incompetence?

Certainly, Castro is the responsible party, but was plunging Cuba into a modern day Sparta an accident or deliberate?

Fidel was enamored with totalitarian fascism, copying the oratory styles of Hitler and Mussolini, but the brutality and economic deprivation that he found in Stalin gave him the tool to exert total control over the Cuban people.

By instituting the ration card, nationalizing all businesses and confiscating all private property, he found the vehicle to keep people both subdued and dependent on the state (him) for their survival.

That is why he has always fought any attempts at private property or private enterprise - Because he realizes that an economically independent Cuban has no use for his tyranny.

Why the diatribe?

Well, because I founf this article in the Palm Beach Post that highlights that even after 48 years of slavery, Cubans maintain the independent spirit of providing for themselves.

Entrepreneurial spirit alive for small minority in Cuba
By Mike Williams

HAVANA — It's nothing but a simple shed with a counter stuck in the front yard under a shade tree. The menu, a tiny chalkboard hung from a rusty nail on the wall, offers only two items: pizza and ice cream.

"Before this, my life was very difficult," she said. "My husband died and I had to face life. I had my disabled mother and my daughter to support. This business is not making us rich, but we are surviving."

Perez was part of a new wave of Cubans allowed to open private businesses in the 1990s, when Cuba's economy was devastated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of about $6 billion a year in subsidies.

The decision to allow privately owned enterprises was a dramatic departure from Cuba's long commitment to socialism, a doctrine adopted by Fidel Castro after his 1959 revolution.

But as Cuba's post-Soviet crisis eased in the late 1990s, Castro became uncomfortable with the threat posed by private profit in a state where riches are considered a sin.

Cuban officials in recent years have clamped down on the tiny private sector, raising fees, cutting back the number of licenses issued and increasing inspections.

The number of private entrepreneurs - called "cuenta propistas," or "people working on their own account" - dropped from around 200,000 in 1996 to about 150,000 today, according to news reports.

The question on many minds is whether Cuba will continue to rein in private opportunity or open its economy further.

Although Castro remains firmly committed to socialism, the 80-year-old leader has been sidelined the past nine months by a serious illness. He officially turned over power to his 75-year-old brother, Raul, in July.

Caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

That’s Raul’s predicament.

Just like the rest of the Cubans.

He cannot afford to continue to provide the meager rations the Cuban people get. Tourism is on the wane and Chavez will go bankrupt at some point subsidizing misery as did the USSR.

The only option Raul has is to open up the economy a bit to ease the pressure on the state but that means economic independence for people with fiercely independent souls. And his Big Brother the Blogger won’t let him.

You wouldn’t want to be in his “pumps”.