Searching for an indelible legacy, President Obama has finally found one. We should all be excited about his family vacation trip to Havana, Cuba costing taxpayers millions of dollars. What a bastion of serene suppression and autocratic paternalism of the Castro Brothers, Fidel and Raúl. The Obama family will surely enjoy their two-night stay in such a hospitable environment.
Reports indicate that this is the first visit by a U.S. President since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Since normalization of relations in 2014, travel between our two countries is encouraged, mail will be hauled directly to the Island and athletes will no longer need to defect to participate in their sport in the U.S. The current population of Cuba is 11.2 million; capital city Havana is home to 2.2 million people.
On his first full day in Cuba, the land of the free… water, free healthcare, free education and free food Mr. Obama made a trailblazing speech accepting much of the blame in behalf of U.S. citizens for the trade embargos and antagonism between our two countries. The free things mentioned above don’t characterize freedom of the human spirit but the absence of freedoms that mankind needs to be self-reliant and emboldened to achieve goals that Cubans will never dream of in a communist regime as now concocted.
Until the Castro revolution took Cuba into the camp of communism (think Russia, China, Venezuela), about 90% of the Cuban workforce was employed by private enterprise. Now, about 75% of all workers get their checks and free stuff from Fidel’s personal choice of Ogre-in-Chief, brother Raúl (75) who took over in early August 2006 when Fidel (79) was undergoing intestinal surgery. In 1959 private enterprise was nationalized; this included $9 billion of U.S. holdings that were seized and would be worth perhaps more than a $1 trillion today.
Prior to the President’s arrival on March 20, protests were held by the ‘Ladies in White’ who are wives of former political prisoners. One of them, Berta Soler screamed, “You said you would not come here unless there had been advances in human rights – and that hasn’t happened.” Raúl Castro accused the U.S. of having a double standard on human rights, is pushing for the return of Guantanamo Bay and seeks lifting the trade embargo. Castro made no mention of the estimated 79 political prisoners or the release of JoAnne Chesimard, now Assata Shakur, a fugitive from U.S justice since killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. Raúl Castro mentioned the many problems we have here in the U.S. and surely Mr. Obama will want to look into these faults right away.
Starting in 2014, doctors with two specialties received raises from $25 per month to $67 and salaries for nurses increased from $13 per month to $25. Average government workers receive about $20 per month. The currency in Cuba has been double trouble for many years; called the Cuban peso (CUP) and the convertible peso (CUC). The CUP is used domestically for residents to purchase goods and services while the CUC is linked to the U.S. dollar and is used mostly in tourist trade and has value of approximately 25X the CUP.
All of us here in the USA have watched Mr. Obama meet with oppressive governments and make concessions without any pre-conditions. The Russian ‘reset’ was an abject failure. Putin took over the Crimean Peninsula, attacked Ukraine and sent airplanes, troops and equipment to Syria. The Iran nuclear ‘deal’ turned sour with numerous agreement violations but our President probably is thinking, ‘what more could I have given to the Iranians to enrich their rebellious spirits?’
Cuba, a nation-state about the size of Virginia, guided by the principles of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Putin is ruled by a consummate dictator who, like other despots, knows exactly what is best for himself. Promoting themselves as liberators of the middle class, the real purpose of dictatorship is to concentrate power into the hands of a few because the masses, as believed by minds like that of Mr. Obama, are stupid and will believe the words of one who defines himself as the sovereign supreme. Communism is supremacy of the few and suppression of all others.
Dick Baynton