Survivor Pool- everyone survives. Lucy Lew cruised with the Giants, while the 3 gentlemen all went with the Bills. The four move on to week 13.
"History will absolve me" is what fidel castro told the court that sentenced him to fifteen years for a failed coup attempt prior to his successful overthrow of the Cuban government. Pardoned and exiled, castro returned and executed a successful coup against the Batista regime.
History has not absolved castro. History will condemn him.
The history of Cuba from 1959 to the present is the history of all communist dictatorships- a failed economy; a people without rights of expression and movement and ownership of private property.
The philosopher Ayn Rand wrote that there can be no rights without property rights, and history and castro and Cuba have been a microcosm of her proof.
Our community is populated by Cuban expatriots whose only crimes was the ownership of property, the running of a business, and education. When castro imposed his dictatorship on Cuba, the doctors, lawyers, engineers, farm owners, and merchants were the first to flee torture, imprisonment, theft of their homes and businesses, and murder. Those who could not own the rights to their abilities would not stay in a society founded on altruist-collectivism.
"From each according to his ability to each according to his need" cannot succeed when those with ability refuse to serve those with need.
Cuba today is an economic and ecological disaster. The farms cannot produce because the land hasn't been taken care of. Knowledgeable farmers who had their land confiscated "for the people" left. With farm production falling, there was little to sell and GDP fell. With his country teetering on economic collapse, castro moved Cuba into the Soviet sphere, where the Soviets propped up the Cuban economy for the next forty years until the Soviet Union collapsed. With no sponsor for his communist state, Cuba fell into economic collapse in the 1990's; its people starving and its economy anemic.
Today Cuba is a county frozen in time. Cars and households and infrastructure remain frozen in 1959. The country cannot produce money to do more than barely feed its citizens. Technology is almost unheard of. There is nothing that Cuba produces that is new or enviable. Even its tobacco farms have fallen into fallow.
History has spoken. The Cuban revolution and communist dictatorship have failed. Hundreds of thousands of good people had their property stolen. There are no free elections, and in 2016 the country teeters without basic technology on the brink of economic collapse.
There are not many things that we can accurately predict, but this is a one hundred percent given: in days, weeks, months or even a few more years, Cuba's totalitarian
communism and fidel castro will be consigned to the ash-heap of history.
Soviet Premiere Kruschev once famously told a group of western diplomats "we will bury you."
Cuba is burying fidel.
And the world will soon bury cuban totalitarian communism.
Guaranteed.
You missed on one guarantee. Castro is being cremated today.
ReplyDeletezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDeleteDeath of a Despot
ReplyDeleteWhen a despot dies, there is little to celebrate. Who will bring back his victims? Who will relieve the suffering he created for decades? How about those that disappeared, who were tortured, who were executed? He destroyed and never created. He hated and never loved. He sat on that perch for the lust of power. He destroyed a country and forced millions into exile. Throughout time, he has been relegated to the "dustbin of history." He was a con man, a charlatan, a thief, and a murderer who presided over another banana republic military tyranny masquerading as a "dictatorship of the proletariat." He is dead and that is good. But the pain, the suffering, the scars and the martyrs remain. If there is a hell, may he rot for eternity. -Alberto Milian
Good Bye--and good riddance--the World is better off without you--too bad that brother Raul did not leave along with you !!! DMD
ReplyDeleteCastro has died. See, the blockage did work after all.
ReplyDelete10:33 after they burn his ass to a crisp, his ashes are being buried. My choice would be any garbage dump, but the fact is that he is being buried.
ReplyDeleteRump great article. Important stuff.
ReplyDeleteApropo of nothing, those laundry detergent pods are really the greatest inventions in the last year or so. Wouldn't you agree?
S/ Love those Tide Pods free and clear of any dyes.
Okay Mr. Milian, who is your political hero?
ReplyDeleteAnd, no, you have to name somebody from the cold war era on, not Lincoln, Roosevelt, etc.
"The hour of my departure arrived. The procession of several cars headed down Rancho Boyeros Avenue toward José Martí International Airport. The plane was scheduled for seven in the evening. The setting sun dyed the afternoon pomegranate-red. My heart sent up a hymn of thanks to God, and I prayed for my family, who hadn’t been allowed to come to say goodbye, and for my friends remaining behind in the eternal night of the Cuban political prisons.
ReplyDelete"As the cars sped along, a flood of memories rushed over me. Twenty-two years in jail. I recalled the two sergeants, Porfirio and Matanzas, plunging their bayonets into Ernesto Díaz Madruga’s body; Roberto López Chávez dying in a cell, calling for water, the guards urinating over his face and in his gasping mouth; Boitel, denied water too, after more than fifty days on hunger strike, because Castro wanted him dead; Clara, Boitel’s poor mother, beaten by Lieutenant Abad in a Political Police station just because she wanted to find out where her son was buried. I remembered Carrión, shot in the leg, telling Jagüey not to shoot, and Jagüey mercilessly, heartlessly, shooting him in the back; the officers who threatened family members if they cried at a funeral.
"I remembered Estebita and Piri dying in blackout cells, the victims of biological experimentation; Diosdado Aquit, Chino Tan, Eddy Molina, and so many others murdered in the forced-labor fields, quarries, and camps. A legion of specters, naked, crippled, hobbling and crawling through my mind, and the hundreds of men wounded and mutilated in the horrifying searches. Dynamite. Drawer cells. Eduardo Capote’s fingers chopped off by a machete. Concentration camps, tortures, women beaten, soldiers pushing prisoners’ heads into a lake of shit, the beatings of Eloy and Izaguirre. Martín Pérez with his testicles destroyed by bullets. Robertico weeping for his mother.
Lest anyone doubt who this man was and what he "built."
"And in the midst of that apocalyptic vision of the most dreadful and horrifying moments in my life, in the midst of the gray, ashy dust and the orgy of beatings and blood, prisoners beaten to the ground, a man emerged, the skeletal figure of a man wasted by hunger, with white hair, blazing blue eyes, and a heart overflowing with love, raising his arms to the invisible heaven and pleading for mercy for his executioners.
“'Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.' And a burst of machine-gun fire ripping open his breast."
• Armando Valladares Perez, _Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag_
Castro died? Court closed tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteFidel Castro was a lawyer, that was his profession. Castro stood up to American imperialism, outlived 9 American presidents, fought the good fight for the 99 percent, and WON! Now that Castro is dead, how long before carpetbaggers turn Cuba into a trashy American-style landscape littered with franchise signs and urban blight? You say Cuba is broke, yada, yada, yada, better look at the derelict US financial position. Trump said he would consider BANKRUPTCY for the US. Think about that!
ReplyDeleteSir Winston Churchill and my friend Ambassador Armando Valladares.
ReplyDeleteNo Blog, no problem!
ReplyDeleteThe celebrations don't seem appropriate. The exile community did nothing to affect his life or death. He took our property, killed our defenders and chased us out of our home and died of a ripe old age with his reign intact. I for one wasn't sure he would actually die so that is probably the only thing worth celebrating. Lastly, it might be a good idea for one of our genius representatives to suggest that this is the end of an era and thus an opportunity to work together to create a peaceful and prosperous country. A lot of "leaders" on both sides of the Florida straights are heavily invested in the current hostilities, you can expect the same old lines.
ReplyDeleteChurchill is pre cold war, dq'd on that pick.
ReplyDeleteValladeres, not a head of state, but interesting...much like L. Velenza and n. Mandela.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I had with your comment was that if you look to world leaders, you would be had pressed to find any, including US presidents, who don't have a ton of blood on their hands. Look to what we did in South and central America, the middle east, etc. The dead probably would not care whether they were killed by castros brutality and arrogance or because "freedom is on the march.".
And yet, all the way up until a few year's ago, you could grab the presidential at la esquina de tejas, because Regan was a hero who like Arroz con Pollo. If you compared the two, there are a lot more dead because of Regan.
ReplyDeleteBut, I guess at the end of the day, Regan was our mass murderer, Castro was not.
9:12, Fidel castro fought for himself and his family and screwed the other 99.99% of Cubans.
ReplyDeleteI almost picked the Jets. I was THIS close, but because I am the best player I went with the Bills. But Lucy honey-- the Giants? Puhleeeze. Show so ingenuity baby. Just picking against the Browns every week is going to get you a fast ticket to loser-ville and you can have coffee with frick & frack the other two losers because as everyone knows- Only one team has ever finished 0-16 and the Browns are due sweetiepie.
ReplyDeleteCya. Wouldn't want to be ya especially if you're having breakie with Dumb and Dumber.
REAL NOT FAKE FORMER GERSTEIN MEDIOCRE TRAFFIC COURT CHUMP MAKES PREDICTION, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. OBAMA'S GIFT TO TRUMP WILL BE ALLOWING THOUSANDS OF CUBANS TO COME TO MIAMI WITH NO MILITARY BLOCKADE JUST LIKE BUSH LEFT CLINTON WITH SOMALIA, CLINTON LEFT BUSH WITH OSAMA, AND BUSH LEFT OBAMA 2 WARS AND AN ECONOMY ON THE BRINK OF DEPRESSION. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY. WHEN OBAMA RIDES WITH TRUMP TO THE CEREMONY HE'S GOING TO SAY "TRUMP THAT" AS HE TELLS TRUMP THAT 100000 CUBANS HAVE ENTERED THE U.S. FROM NOVEMBER 26, 2016 AND JANUARY 20, 2017!!!!!!!!!.
ReplyDeleteYou are a FAKE REAL FORMER JUDGE.
ReplyDelete1:49:00 AM, Fidel Castro provided quality healthcare to his people long before Obamacare, which is a sell-out to the insurance companies. Cuba under Castro had a great education system that benefited many people. I could go on. Yes, it was not a perfect society. But as 7:25:00 PM noted, US presidents have a ton of blood on their hands. BTW, which country imprisons more of its population than any other? USA, USA, USA.
ReplyDelete"Real Fake Former Judge" should change his handle to "total douche bag". The consistent belittlement (especially to females) usually translates into serious insecurity. Go ahead, call others "losers", I'm sure you're real popular and quite the ladies man away from the computer.
ReplyDeleteBroward's chief judge already announced new judges' assignments for January about 2 weeks ago. Rumors are already circulating that Trawick is going back to Civil and Brennan is taking over his division. Clerk's office has the complete list. When will u print it on the blog, Rump? Come on. We need to know.
ReplyDeleteAyn Rand? Are you 15 years old?
ReplyDelete