Fidel Castro recently bestowed The Atlantic Magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg with an exclusive interview. More than a mere exclusive, this is the first interview granted by the Stalinist dictator to an American reporter in 4 years.
The MSM is absolutely agog with the catalogue of insights, woes and regrets bequeathed by the Cuban mass murderer to Goldberg. “I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting,” writes Goldberg.
"'The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore,” Castro replied. The MSM and assorted “Cuba Analysts” are all aflutter over Castro’s “epiphany,” “honesty”, “regret,” - take your pick - “that Communism “doesn’t work.”
Some actual study of recent Cuban history might enlighten these learned parties. To wit:
"This doesn't work, I'm resigning!" - Fidel Castro, July 1959 during political crisis with his puppet "President" Manuel Urrutia)
"This doesn't work! Terrible mistakes were made (especially in adopting Che Guevara's moral incentives) - we need material capitalistic incentives. So I'm resigning!" - Fidel Castro, July 1970, after the much-ballyhooed "10 million ton" sugar harvest proved way short and utterly disastrous.
"The capitalists organize production better than we do. There's much we can learn from them." - Fidel Castro, 1986 during "Rectification Process" i.e. another “re-evaluation” after another economic crisis.
"We are not afraid of the market. We are not afraid of economic reform. The people understand the reasons behind them and support them." - Fidel Castro, Nov. 1991 announcing Cuba’s "Special Period" i.e. loss of Soviet Sugar Daddy - another re-evaluation after another economic crisis.
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Has any “Cuba analyst” noticed a marked change in the rights, prosperity and welfare of the Cuban people after any of these “epiphanies,” “regrets,” “re-evaluations”, etc.?
And has any “Cuba Analyst” mentioned that Hugo Chavez (current Cuban Sugar-Daddy) looks to lose the Sept. 26 parliamentary elections in Venezuela Venezuela 52 to 42 percent? (granted, there's much room for altering the results).
And has any “Cuba Analyst” mentioned that this will present Castro with an economic crisis as bad as the "Special Period" in the early 90's after the Soviets collapsed? Will this require another “re-evaluation” that will buttress the regime but have the same effect on the Cuban people’s rights, prosperity and welfare as all the other “re-evaluations?”
And has any Cuba Expert mentioned that - given Castro's history of pronouncements during his various economic crises (to say nothing of this one) - his pronouncements to Jeffrey Goldberg just might be insincere? Just might have an ulterior motive? Just might have meant absolutely nothing with respect to the rights and welfare of the Cuban people?
If so, I haven’t seen or heard it.
Fidel Castro converted a nation with a higher per capita income than half of Europe, the lowest inflation rate in the Western hemisphere, a larger middle class than Switzerland, a huge influx of immigrants and whose workers enjoyed the 8th industrial wages in the world into one that repels Haitians. And this after being lavished with Soviet subsidies that totaled almost ten Marshall Plans (into a nation of 6.4 million.) This economic feat defies not only the laws of economics but seemingly the very laws of physics. (Full documentation for the above here.)
Cuba’s infant mortality rate plummeted from 13th lowest in the world in 1958 (lower than in Germany, France, Japan, Israel among many other first world nations) during the unspeakable Batista era to 44th today. This rate qualifies as an “achievement” in the lexicon of “Academics” and news agencies that have earned a Havana bureau.
This current infant-mortality rate, by the way, is also kept artificially low by an abortion rate of 0.71, the Hemisphere’s (and hovering among the world’s top five for the past two decades) highest, which “terminates” any pregnancy that even hints at trouble. Cuba’s suicide rate is also currently the Hemisphere’s highest, triple its rate during the unspeakable Batista era.
And now, Castro realizes “the Cuba Model doesn’t work”? Please.
Actually, given the goal of Cuba's ruler since January of 1959 (absolute power) the Cuban economy has been EXPERTLY managed and has worked splendidly. Castro inherited a vibrant free market economy in 1959, something unique among communist rulers. All the others, from Lenin to Mao to Uncle Ho to Ulbricht to Tito to Kim Il Sung, took over primitive and/or chaotic, war ravaged economies.
A less megalomaniacal ruler would have considered it a golden goose landing in his lap. But Castro wrung its neck. He deliberately and methodically wrecked Latin America's premier economy. Castro has long believed that the Cuban capitalist is a difficult person to control. Cuba - despite a deluge of tourism and foreign investment for over a decade - is as essentially Communist in 2010 as it was in 1965. The Castro brothers are very vigilant in these matters.
“A foreign reporter — preferably American — was much more valuable to us at that time (1957) than any military victory. Much more valuable than rural recruits for our guerrilla force were American media recruits to export our propaganda.” - Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries
“We cannot for a second abandon propaganda. Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles,” - Fidel Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954.
And he’s still at it. And foreign reporters are still eating out of his hand like trained pigeons.
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