Hero Of The Left On Deathbed (or Die Castro, Die!!!)

Break out the cigars - Castro’s dying

By Jules Crittenden/ Online exclusive
Boston Herald City Editor
Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - Updated: 01:36 PM EST

It’s a tragic day for the earnest Left. One of their darlings may be about to nationalize the farm.
Castro’s health:
Castro’s coughing up blood. He’s handed over the reins to his kid brother Raul.
The original "Speak Truth to Powah" guy, the bearded, combat fatigue-wearing, cigar-chomping originator of Guerrilla-chic, is now as old and feeble as his cause: International socialism with a gun. It is on its last legs, and so is he.
Forgive me if I don’t adopt a reverential tone. Others will. Just wait and see. Forgive me if I don’t meet this development with the correct cocktail of respect and awe tinged by a vague sense of disapproval. Don’t worry. Others will. United States congressmen. The leaders of free nations in Europe. American media giants. Hollywood activistas. They will talk with poorly disguised admiration about a towering figure who thumbed his nose at the United States.


Thanks to Castro’s remarkable Madonna-like sense of marketing -- and our own cynicism in this difficult world -- it has always been too easy to overlook the thousands of political opponents imprisoned, tortured and killed; the hundreds of thousands who risked sharks, thirst and drowning at sea to escape his people’s island paradise; and the untold numbers who succumbed to wretched fates. Cuba had that great much ballyhooed national health system. Its peasants weren’t being oppressd by Yanqui imperialista multi-nationals anymore.
The history of the Cuban missile crisis, when Nikita Kruschev tried to gain leverage and instill fear by planting missiles 90 miles off our shores, only mentions Castro in passing as the puppet host. It is easy to overlook the fact that he too wanted to bring us to our knees.
Castro himself was always smart enough not to push it too far. Those were the bad years, when he had to make sure he wasn’t about to light up an exploding cigar, compliments of the CIA. But like his Venezuelan understudy, Hugo Chavez, Castro knew at the end of the day that the United States would tolerate a buffoon just offshore, as long as that buffoon, murderous though he may be, knew his place.
This is not to diminish Castro’s bloody accomplishments: the export of violent class warfare, with material support, throughout Central and South America and across the pond to Africa. Impressive for a people’s banana republic.
In Miami’s Little Havana, they are gearing up to party. You can rest assured they are looking forward to the brief reign of Raul, and the power struggle and ultimate collapse of Castro’s commie dream that is to follow. Let us just pray the Cuban Communists can just smell the cigar smoke and go quietly. Hey ... speaking of doddering Raul, I thought this was supposed to be a classless society.How come, of all the high-ranking card-carrying commies in Cuba, after an exhaustive island-wide search, no doubt, the best candidate to replace Fidel is his kid brother? Aren’t they going to have an election or something? ... Oh, right, never mind. [continue]

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