Has Castro been taken over…
…by a body-snatcher?
I wondered whether that might be the case when I read about his Jeffrey Goldberg interview in The Atlantic—you know, the one where he admonished Ahmadinejad to be nicer to the Jews and Israel, and said, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”
Here are a few other possible explanations I came up with, in case you don’t buy the one I’ve already offered:
(1) It’s part of some sort of very complex mysterious three-dimensional chess strategy we can barely fathom, where he says the opposite of what he means.
(2) He’s been put under a spell that compels him to tell the truth.
(3) He’s so old that he’s decided he needs to level with the world before he checks out.
(4) He actually died, and the interviewee is a Castro impersonator.
(5) Castro is being served by a rogue translator.
(6) We have entered into an alternate universe.
…or, as Gorbachov before him, he thinks his position is so secure he can afford to stop lying and publicly admit what everyone knows but is forbidden to say out loud.
Castro has already denied that he said that the Cuban model doesn’t work.
Regarding his statement about the Jews, there have been a variety of reactions. A reaction on a Venezuelan blog was that Castro was producing fodder for the September 26 elections, so that Hugo/Thugo Chavez doesn’t appear as crazy has before.[Thugo has previously made a number of anti-Semitic statements, not to mention deeds.]
Some have claimed that Castro is a converso surname.[In 1492 Spain gave Jews the choice of conversion to Christianity or expulsion from Spain.] There is even a claim that Castro himself has said he is of Jewish descent.
http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/09/09/whats-up-with-fidel-castro-and-hugo-love-jews-and-hate-the-cuban-revolution/
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/09/08/rosh-hashanah-revelation-castro-is-jewish-after-all/
Maybe he has finally realized that his country is so broke (and broken) that the only possible hope to keep his kind of “regime” in power after he is gone – as his lasting legacy, to to try to do SOMETHING….ANYTHING….to get the trade embargo lifted so that American dollars start flowing into Cuba again. We have a good track record of keeping repressive, freedom-less, regimes afloat with our money – (see, e.g., the Peoples Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela et al.) – maybe he’s thinking – why not us too? Surely it’s time. What can I do to effect this?
Even if that must include “admitting” out loud, that his “model” isn’t working. (not that he has any intention of actually, you know, changing it or anything). And acting like Mr. Moderate when it comes to the middle east. The American hard left already loves him and always has. (“FREE” health care!” Highest Literacy rate in the World!!); but maybe he is finally realizing, in his twilight hours, that the hard left just might not achieve a total takeover of the USA in time to save his broken country.
So he needs to change the message now that it is 4th and long late in the 4th quarter for him (football analogies work in just about every circumstance I seem to find) and try to expand his appeal from the farthest left 15% of the Yanqui populace to include the next 35-40%. So that we are buying more than illegal cigars from his economy. Maybe Government Motors can build a Malibu factory outside of Havana, for example. President Dear Leader can cut the ribbon.
Plus, the actual people who FLED his regime and have the direct memory of it, are getting real old and dying off – so the timing maybe getting good to soften us up.
That is my guess. Which could be totally off base.
BTW, if I have typos and grammatical errors it is certainly partially, but surely not 100%, due to my stupidity, lack of education, and all around illiteracy….the lack of a “preview” function, allowing me to proof the final before posting, also does plays a small role. Don’t taze me bro.
Theres a chance he caught a ride in a 1979 Monte Carlo and all that newound capitalist technology just blew him away .
Had an acquaintance from the Center for Global Education or some such. One of their roles was arranging trips to Central America for the peace freak trade. Usual dog-and-pony shows.
After those booooring elections started happening in El Salvador and Nicaragua, she decided that the lack of revolutionary virility wasn’t sufficiently thrilling.
So she joined the Latin American Working Group, whose job seems to be making sure Castro isn’t inconvenienced by people interested in freedom and suchlike.
Long way for a Swede from MN.
This has probably gotten her all conflusticated.
(3) He’s so old that he’s decided he needs to level with the world before he checks out.
(3a) He is going senile.
(3b) a soon upcoming visit from the grim reaper tends to focus the mind.
(3c) Old people say the darnedest things.
The explanation I heard is that he was handing folks a hammer to use on the Cuban Embargo. “Oh, see, they don’t even like communism anymore, and we’re punishing the chiiiiilllllldrreeeeeennnn!”
His heirs are probably working on some beach resort deals. A couple hundred million USD (and it could be a lot more) is pretty decent seed capital. Fidel is a big family man…for his family.
Or maybe he’s seen the billions of people lifted out of poverty in the past 60 years in places like China, India, Brazil, Russia, Eastern Europe, Chile, and Argentina by instituting free tade policies and said to himself, “hey, that free enterprise capitalism thing might not be oppressive to the average working class Jose after all”.
BTW, here’s a name to remember when Castro finally kicks the bucket and Cuba joins the rest of the world: Yoani Sanchez. She’s a Cuban “blogger” who has won numerous international awards since she started “blogging”. She will likely go down in history as the Lech Walesa or Vaclav Klaus of Cuba when it is finally liberated from the Castro tyrrany. She is an amazing woman, putting herself at risk and potentially becoming a political prisoner as she heroically documents Cuban life in her pursuit of liberty for the Cuban people.
I use the term blog in quotations because she can’t see her blog. She goes to a hotel to logon to a public computer, then sends an email to an international network who translate her thoughts into 17 different languages and “post” them on her behalf. She says the last time she saw her blog was in 2007. Here’s the English version:
http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/
Check it:
http://bigpeace.com/dwest/2010/09/18/burned-for-being-american/
Might I submit:
(7) He no longer views himself as head of state, thus feels he is able to speak more candidly.
I think he had a near death experience. He’s also issued a quasi-apology for the punishments meted out to some political opponents. He’s not grappling yet with the truth, but he’s in the ring.
I don’t think his handlers will let him go too far. No more unsupervised phone calls or else the line will suddenly go dead when he starts to approach reality.
Confession in progress; death bed conversion (reversion?) to follow. Cominternists hold their breath.
southernjames concluded:
“BTW, if I have typos and grammatical errors it is certainly partially, but surely not 100%, due to my stupidity, lack of education, and all around illiteracy….the lack of a “preview” function, allowing me to proof the final before posting, also does plays a small role. Don’t taze me bro.”
Suggestion — compose your post in notepad or wordpad (or something similar); do your best editing there; then paste the edited text into the “Leave a Reply” box, and let ‘er rip!
Good suggestion MJR – I’ll give that a try.
By the “best” estimates, Fidel is a billionaire, though who can really know? And the Cuban gov’t, employer of 97% of Cuban workers, just announced it would soon terminate (not execute) 500,000 workers. Good luck to them!
Although I can’t say I actually believe what I’m about to say, I can’t deny that it’s occurred to me more than once: Both Castro and Osama bin Laden disappear from public view fro a number of years. Eventually, each man reenters public life. But it’s been years, they’ve aged, their health is poor… In short, they’ve changed, physically. Can anyone say for certain, from these rare and generally scripted public appearances, that they are who they say they are?
(cf. Double Star, one of Heinlein’s Hugo-award winners.)
It’s my one foray into conspiracy territory. Sorry. As I said, I don’t even actually believe it myself. I just think it COULD happen, under these very circumstances.
It was a slip. Cuba is releasing 500,000 government workers and taking steps to kick start the private economy – probably something like the Chinese did. Better late than never.
Trouble is, Cuba doesn’t have any assets with which to kick-start anything. Maybe they should check with Bernanke for a stimulus. Heck, the Fed could buy Cuban bonds! Crank up the presses, Ben; it ain’t counterfeit if you do it.
“probably something like the Chinese did.”
Heres another option: Castro knows that Communism has had its run as a revolutionary concept and that as an actual governing form of economics it simply doesnt work. So, he is opting for something like the ’70s era Deng Xiaoping Chinese model: let captialism flow while the Communist Party stays securely in power.
Off topic:
A cartoonist has been forced into hiding by a fatwa issued by an Islamic imam in Yemen.
Why doesnt Obama open his big mouth and speak out against this outrage the way he so easily defended the Ground Zero mosque?
Story here
Imagine the scene.
“Comrades, we’re going to terminate 500,000 of you.”
Gasps, white faces, people crossing themselves, and fainting all around.
“Uh, just to be clear, by that we mean, ‘let you go from your jobs.'”
Relief washes over the assembled multitude, who begin hugging and high-fiving each other.
C’mon, SNL, step up to the plate. The scenes write themselves!
Yeah, and SNL could go on: with no private sector jobs for them, the Terminated will likely turn to crime. So see, capitalism causes higher crime rates!
SNL could have a field day if they weren’t loyal comrades themselves.
Support abortion! It’s for the children!
Cut spending?? We can’t afford to cut spending!
We need more social spending to fight hunger in America! And obesity too!
We Dems have the plan – we’ll borrow our way out of debt!
And then the government could start programs to offer the unemployed government jobs…
The comedic possibilities are endless.
You know what they say – if you’re 80 and not a socialist you have no heart, but if you’re 90 and still a socialist you have no brains.
You missed the most outlandish possibility: that both the Atlantic and a writer in its employ are reporting what actually happened without tweaking things to make them square with reality.
You forgot “Zionist plot” as a possible explanation, but I’m sure someone else will post that somewhere.
Or, it could just be –as so often happens– a case of controversy being the last refuge of the has-been.
The comments here ignore what I pointed out in the second comment: that Castro subsequently denied he said that the Cuban model didn’t work.
Jeffrey Goldberg dealt with that. See Atlantic Monthly link.
Gary Rosen wins the “best comment on the thread” award.
He’s so inspired by Obama’s work in dismantling the U.S., he’s cutting those workers loose to help flood the country with illegals. Every little bit helps the cause.
Go ahead, call me crazy.
Jamie: another Double Star fan! Thank you!
(Back when the theaters were full of Kevin Kline’s silly movie Dave, I wanted to hand out copies of Double Star and say, “THIS is how that story should have been told”. The last page still brings tears to my eyes.)
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
His handlers no longer follow the ideology so there is no reason to help him other than to have him make Obama look even worse for tacking left of castro!