Forking The Pig

I don’t know about you, but as I read about the latest change du jour of the day coming from the Cuban regime, I start to get the impression, that although most of the changes are all about “gussying up a pig”, as Ruth pointed out the other day at 90 Miles Away, that its getting hot in the China’s caja and that the pig’s skin is turning into a crispy chicharron.

Every single one of those announced changes are meaningless propaganda ploys to siphon some cash from those who have it and make it appear to the outside world like they are making changes.

But they all represent a departure from the “revolution”. They are all tiny admissions that the tropical experiment in socialism has failed. They all amount to a white flag where the supposed egalitarian ideals of the revolution are surrendering to the realities of the free market. Time to stick a fork in that Puerco because it is done-and you’re not even going to need a knife.

Anyway, in the latest “change”, we find that Raúl, in all his pragmatism, has decided to do away with salary limits for Cuban workers. He’s doing away with the red wage ceiling.

"For the first time it is clearly and precisely stated that a salary does not have a limit, that the roof of a salary depends on productivity," economic commentator Ariel Terrero said.

Now, when I was a wee socialist trainee, socialism was described as a system where the individual would contribute to society according to his abilities and society would provide for the individual according to his needs - Imagine! If you substitute "Fidel" for "society" in the above definition, however, the true injustice of this nefarious system is exposed. Competition was considered capitalistic, bourgeois, evil and not egalitarian. Egalitarianism was the ideal. Eqalimisery was the result.

And for those that weren’t too motivated to contribute all they could for society, Fidel had a ready answer-“El que no trabaja, no come.” (if you don’t work, you don’t eat). And if that wasn’t enough of a motivator for you, well they had way more persuasive arguments.

Fast forward fifty years-thousands of dead Cubans, hundreds of thousands of separated families, millions of sorrows and an ocean of tears- if you could ever fast forward such things-and now they’re telling us we’ll, “salary depends on competition”. Le Ronca.

All that for nothing. They we’re wrong, made a mistake, the "exuberance of youth", the Yankees made them do it, blah, blah, blah. Wrong.

I guess those of us who didn’t like being a trained flea in Castro’s flea circus and were lucky enough to hop out, well, we were right all along.

And then, while enjoying a beer in the land of the free and the home of the brave, in the monument to individualism and competition, you read this:

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama
denounced huge pay packages for U.S. corporate chiefs on Friday…

…The first-term Illinois senator has introduced "say-on-pay" legislation that would give investors more of a voice in setting executive compensation packages.

He said the legislation needs to be approved immediately. He later acknowledged to reporters that getting the bill moving quickly in the Senate could be tough, although his spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said he would make it a priority if he is elected president in November.

Hmm. Just as the red pay cieling starts to go up in Cuba, it starts to come down in the US. It's like déjà vu all over again. Le Requete Ronca.