Yeah. The so-called journalists at CBS are way too predictable. And way too despicable.
Their latest “news” story on Castrogonia is little more than an ideologically-pure communist screed, disguised as an “objective” and compassionate critique of Raul’s phony “reforms.”
To call their critique nauseating would be an understatement.
What the author or authors of this article find wrong with the microscopically small changes initiated by the Castro Dynasty is that they go TOO far and are creating inequality among Cubans.
Yes, Raul has gone too far. And yes, what is wrong with his reforms is that they revive the economic, social, and racial inequalities of the colonial pre-Castro era. In other words, the equality achieved by the so-called Revolution is now imperiled. Next thing you know, Cubans will be living in a dog-eat-dog Darwinian nightmare in which the privileged whites who receive help from abroad once again exploit Afro-Cubans and discriminate against them.
Predictably,CBS proclaims in a matter-of-fact way that Raul’s reforms have already created a middle class and have given rise to “affluence.”
And what might be the chief assumption of this piece of propaganda — an assumption that is itself an implicit argument?
That despite 55 years of total repression and forced “equality”, Cubans have not yet been transformed into socialist saints, and are still a long way from being transformed. Give them the chance to inch towards capitalism, and — bam! — the next thing you know, it’s 1958 all over again.
Also implicit is the argument that the only cure for inequality in Cuba is a perpetual continuation of the repression that has been in place under the Castro Dynasty.
The fools don’t realize it, but, in essence, they are arguing that St. Augustine and the Christian tradition as a whole have been right all along: human beings are inherently selfish. What they are missing, however, is the other half of the Christian perspective: that it is only with the help of God’s grace that human selfishness can be transformed into love of neighbor. That transformation can only take place when the will is free to choose between selfishness and charity, and between good and evil.
Instead, what is being argued implicitly in this CBS piece is the opposite: that human freedom is the ultimate evil and the only cure for human selfishness is a totalitarian state in which everyone is equally a slave and equally poor.
And, as one would expect, who are the Cuba “experts” cited by CBS? From the exile community: none other than the Castro family’s representative in the U.S.A., Arturo Lopez-Levy. From Cuba itself: Communist-Party-approved Professor Esteban Morales of the University of Havana.
This, of course, passes for “journalism”… @!#$#@^%$!…. gotta go, my head is about to explode….
Cuba economic reforms hurting the poor, experts warn
HAVANA — The much heralded opening of a still-limited private sector in Cuba by President Raul Castro is being widely welcomed by Cubans who expect the pragmatic “younger” brother of their long-time former leader Fidel Castro to lead them out of an economic hole with its consumer goods shortages, crumbling housing and salaries with near zero purchasing power.And U.S. visitors to Cuba are often astonished by what seems to be an explosion of private enterprise and the emergence of not just a middle class but an affluent people. However, not everyone in Cuban society is benefiting equally as the government loosens controls.
Arturo Lopez-Levy, lecturer at the University of Denver and a Cuban American, positively views the steps being taken.
“I would say that if there is a priority that Cuban policies and politics should have it is economic development today, economic development tomorrow, economic development the day after tomorrow,” he told CBS News during a recent visit to the island.
There is even a wholesale produce market operating on the outskirts of Havana as a supplier to private restaurant owners and push cart vendors. But there’s a flip side to the opening that worries Lopez-Levy and other observers.
“I’m very, very worried about one specific issue – the possibility that class and race overlap in the context of a mixed economy because whatever you might think about the previous system, it works a lot on the basis of consensus and there was always a concern for those left with the most difficult situation or the most disadvantages,” he said.
Continue reading HERE if you want to raise your blood pressure (Warning: Not for the squeamish — includes a video report with close-ups of Arturo Lopez-Levy’s face)
But Carlos, you sound as if you expected better, when surely you know CBS is “una cosa podrida.” Yes, there is always hope, I suppose, which is no doubt the basis for the lottery racket, I mean system, but sometimes hope is, well, hopeless.
The stench of condescending bad faith permeates this piece of pseudo-journalism. The implication is that Cubans are suitable experimental animals with which to “prove” socialist fantasies held by superior beings who would never want to be lab rats themselves. If the proof is not forthcoming, then the experiment can be tweaked, however fruitlessly, and continued indefinitely, for as long as it amuses or suits the purposes of the superior beings. What the rats themselves may want or need or deserve is irrelevant; it’s not their place to contradict their betters.