End of an Era

I’m 50 years old, and as long as I’ve been alive, Fidel Castro has ruled Cuba. But no more. He’s stepping down today.

Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro announced Tuesday he was stepping aside, ending five decades of ironclad rule marked by his brash defiance of the United States.

Citing poor health, Fidel Castro, 81, said he would not retain the presidency when the national assembly meets later this week, in a message published by the online version of the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma.

“I neither will aspire to, nor will I accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief,” Castro wrote, almost 19 months after undergoing intestinal surgery and handing power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro.

“It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total commitment that I am not in physical condition to offer,” he said.

He’s the last of the 20th century Communist dictators of note. There are plenty who aspire to be like him, such as Hugo Chavez. But Chavez won’t have the longevity. His regime is falling apart. And Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe is as old as Castro and can’t hold on much longer. Also, his socialist dictatorship has less to do with Marxist ideology and more to do with an autocratic despot.

Castro always espoused the Marxist line, but he lived as an example of why Marxist and Socialism are really nothing more than tools for elites to tighten their grip on the people and their nation’s resources. By consolidating all the power in a ruling “party”, all the rhetoric that Socialists bellow about taking care of the “workers” is nothing but a smokescreen to hide their tyranny.

If Castro’s Cuba was so wonderful, as so many dim-witted American lefties think, why didn’t they move there? Why did untold thousands of Cubans flee the place over the decades. Many of them were so desperate to leave they’d try to cross the 90 some miles to Florida on anything that would float, at great risk to their lives. Why did Castro execute or imprison people who tried to leave or spoke out against the regime?

American lefties love to call Bush all kinds of names and accuse him of all kinds of crimes, but the only time they’ll ever see is when they get too rowdy at a protest march. In Cuba, they would have been identified as critics of the government before they could march and be hauled away. Because in Communist countries, every neighborhood has a snitch. Children are taught to rat on their parents. That’s the kind of “liberation” Communists provide. It’s almost always much worse than the government they replaced it with.

Castro’s Brother is taking over. He’s 76, so who knows how long he’ll last. Raul Castro is much different than his brother, but he’s still a Commie. So any reforms he offers probably won’t be that big of a deal. Unless he becomes another Gorbachev. Somehow I doubt it, but here’s hoping.

The people of Cuba will be freed soon. I have a feeling the end of this sad regime is nigh. The economy there can’t last much longer the way it has been. And the people want to be free, despite what the cherry picked man on the street interviews tell you.

UPDATE: A different view on how things will play out.

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