RUTHFULLY YOURS

In a stinging rebuke to their (self-proclaimed) U.S. benefactors, Cuban dissidents wore Obama masks this weekend while peacefully demonstrating against the ever-increasing repression in Cuba.

“It’s his (Obama’s) fault, what is happening,” stressed Cuban dissident and former political prisoner Angel Moya. “The Cuban government has grown even bolder. That’s why we have this (Obama) mask on. Because it’s his fault.”

As these Cuban dissidents (and their “hardliner-right-wing” U.S. allies) had repeatedly warned, Castroite repression has cranked up in precise proportion to Obama’s new Cuba policy.

Here in the U.S. the phrase “I told you so” usually comes with a smirk. For Cuban dissidents it’s a different story.  All the clubs, truncheons and machete blades landing on their bodies makes for extremely difficult smirking.

For actual Cubans, you see, this isn’t an elegant debate or panel discussion at some Think Tank. Instead while smartly dressed and coiffed liberals and libertarians sip from their water bottles on panel discussions applauding Obama’s Cuba policy actual Cubans keep getting beaten and starved to death by the KGB-trained goons who benefit from that policy. This deadly process began — almost on cue — with Obama’s taking office and commencing his “be-nice-to-Castro” overtures.  

The Castros instantly plumbed that they were dealing with another sap as an American president. “Another Jimmy Carter!”

As seen above, the Obama mask stunt was not well-received by the Stalinist regime’s KGB-trained secret police. The Castros zealously and viciously guard the sanctity of their own names and legacies with penalty of prison, torture-chamber or firing-squad for any Cuban questioning its glories. Now the Castro family seems eager to guard the name and legacy of their main foreign benefactor (after Venezuela’s Maduro): Obama.

The Castroite “constitution” mandates 18 months in prison for anyone overheard cracking a joke against the Castros or Che Guevara. We haven’t (yet)  heard of any amendments adding Obama to that list of communist saints, but given the club- and machete-swinging Stalinist police who descended on the Cubans (many black) peacefully marching this week—given this wave of terror against women peacefully marching with rosaries, flowers and Obama masks while quoting Martin Luther King, who knows?

Quite fittingly, this latest wave of terror against Cuban dissidents came on the eve of Sec. of State John Kerry’s visit to Havana to formalize the Obama administration’s diplomatic benediction of Castro’s Stalinist regime.

From Hillary Clinton to President Obama, from Rand Paul to John Stossel, all opponents of the so-called Cuba “embargo” claim to speak on behalf of the long-suffering Cuban people. End the cruel embargo, they implore. Embrace the Castro regime commercially and diplomatically, they preach.  Here’s the sure cure for the Cuban people’s poverty and oppression. When will you blockheaded right-wingers finally “get-it,” they ask with an eye-roll.

Some Americans “don’t get it,” that’s for sure.  And some Cubans just risked their lives to point out who those Americans are.

It’s an old story, actually: in liberal and libertarian circles actually knowing something about Castroism seems to disqualify people from commenting on the embargo against Castroism.  Actually having family who lived for years under Castrosim — or having lived under Castroism yourself — will get your views on Obama’s Cuba policy denounced almost before you open your mouth.

Instead, the proper qualifications for intelligently commenting on the effects of Obama’s policy on actual Cubans consist of being able to smirkingly quote some aphorism by Ludwig Von Mises, circa 1908.

Recently your humble servant here, for instance, warned John Stossel and a Cato Institute Cuba “expert” of the consequences of Obama’s Cuba policy (i.e. of exactly what’s now going on in Cuba).

My labors were utterly done in vain. I blockheadedly kept presenting observable evidence, you see. My opponents responded by quoting the holy scriptures of libertarian economists. I didn’t stand a chance. It was as hopeless as arguing with a Hare Krishna.

The libertarian canards on Cuba recently flapped even the normally unflappable Marco Rubio. Recall his response to Rand Paul back in December when Paul instantly began hailing Obama’s Cuba policy.  “Like many people who have been opining, [Paul] has no idea what he’s talking about,” said Rubio.

As amply proven yet again by actually observable events (instead of economic dogma in musty books) Senator Rubio’s comment was spot on.

“But who cares about Cuban dissidents?” say some. “Let’s be practical here, Humberto. Obama is President of the U.S., not of Cuba. How does his Cuba policy affect our national interests? I mean, why should Joe Sixpack and Soccer-Mom give a flying flip about Obama’s Cuba policy one way or the other? I mean, ya know?”

Thought you’d never ask. Well, the issue of immigrant (illegal and otherwise) criminals seems hot-button right now, correct? Fine, let’s go there for a second.

35,000 Cuban criminals sit in U.S. jails (probably living better than living on the streets in Castro’s Cuba, but that’s not the issue here).  Has it occurred to Obama’s “negotiators” to leverage U.S. diplomatic benefaction of Cuba (and the concurrent $4 billion annually in cash flow from the U.S. to Castro’s family fiefdom) for the return to their homeland of these predators on U.S. citizens now living on the dime of American taxpayers?

Actually we don’t know the answer for certain. But given Obama’s record of “negotiations” with U.S. enemies, what’s your guess? And let’s not even get into the $7 billion Castro owes U.S. businessmen and stockholders from his mass theft of their legal property in 1960. Or the massive spy complex in Washington, D.C. Obama just granted among the world’s top intelligence traffickers and terror-sponsors.