Cuba Vows to Remain Impoverished

With the appointment of new supreme leader Miguel Diaz-Canal by the unelected Cuban National Assembly this week the last last gasp of the second longest reigning Communist nation can be heard.

Comrade Diaz-Canal, described lovingly in the Huffington Post article I read as "A consensus builder" and as "an approachable, efficient manager".  As if anyone is going to disagree with this new Cuban "President" when he is predictably "elected" during a national election. I believe we won't need to send former U.S. President Jimmy Carter over to the island to see if the vote is legitimate or not.

And as if any Socialist system is efficient. Because we know from mountains of history that it isn't and can't be. There is no efficiency in having nothing. I suppose you don't have much trash in such a situation since if you have nothing, you also have nothing to waste.

Cuba has nothing to waste most certainly.

And it looks like that trend will continue. The decorative reforms that have been carefully marketed to the rest of the world and lovingly trumpeted by the left-leaning media have amounted to nothing at all since, heaven forbid, anybody gets anything for their efforts. That just wouldn't be sporting. Gain is only for the Dictatorship, nobody else ever gets too much.

I heard on the radio that el Presedente elect Diaz-Canal will exert his efforts on "Perfecting Communism". Stop me if you've heard that one before. All the American Socialists have been saying that for decades now. "Just wait, one of these days we'll get it right, you'll see!" they declare but they never do. They can't. It's not possible with the State calling all the shots. We have a Stock Market in this country that's built on people investing their own money into products and enterprises they think will bring them a handsome return on their investment and there are loads and loads of very smart people who have gone bust thinking they knew what direction the Market was going. So how the hell is a bunch of indoctrinated revolutionaries going to figure it out?

Answer:They haven't and they won't!

Year after dreadful year the Cuban central planners have made the decision of where best to put the country's resources, what crops to grow and what products to produce. And they haven't even accidentally got it right. All those 1956 Chevrolet automobiles the Cuban people are still driving around in aren't going to get an upgrade any time soon.

Cuba has no infrastructure, no shining buildings of glass and steel and now even the old city buildings, built by a more advanced civilization now gone and with no one of knowledge or resources left to maintain them, are collapsing and burying their unfortunate inhabitants in the ruble of their past glory.

Cuba has a whole lot of nothing and the people who have the least know the most about what it would take to bring prosperity to this nation of pure Want. They don't believe anything will change with the continuation of Fidel Castro's "Plenty of Nothing for You" brand of government. They don't expect anything and to a world watching from the outside, it's a shame that they won't be pleasantly surprised. They won't EVER be pleasantly surprised. Not as long as these Commies run the place.

"We don't need no stinkin' Capitalism" declares the soon-to-be elected Cuban President, "We'll show everybody how much the Cuban people can suffer! You think people suffered under 74 years of Russian Communism? Just wait, we'll beat that and then some!"

Don't expect too much applause.

China Goeth Before a Fall

China does not own Taiwan.

They never did.

They aren’t even the same people.

The children of Mao Zedong and the children of Chiang Kai-shek, although both born of murderous totalitarian cloth, have gone in glaringly different directions since the final banishment of 1949. 

Taiwan did not become Chinese, the Chinese who went there became Taiwanese. And while the Taiwanese are a reflective people now delving into the examination of atrocities of the past, mainland China has no such reflective spirit. Their past suppression and killings of their own people go unresolved in favor of pointing fingers at Japan. Mao Zedong remains a close third on the list of top totalitarian murderers behind Stalin and Hitler. Should history make more revelations, Mao could yet reach number 2.

Today the people of Taiwan are facing their bloody history at the hands of Chaing Kai-shek, even building a memorial museum to victims of the 228 Incident and the White Terror but on mainland China, although they may have abandoned the “Communist” ideology a bit for the sake of making some real money, haven’t given up on the suppression of their history, new ideas and thoughts of freedom that still lie within the people.

And Taiwan is a Democracy whereby they have regular and free elections to see who will exercise government power and where victory at the polls confers real power to the winner.

China…not so much.

I have met many people from China who now live in the U.S. and the first thing they tell me when I ask them “So, what brings you to this part of the world?” is that they now get to live the life they wish to lead. “We do not have much freedom in China” one woman who my company hired part-time and who is also a graduate student at Harvard University said to me, “To achieve the things I want in life, I had to leave.” I’m sure there are many more who remain less fortunate.

To say that China and Taiwan are one is absurd. There is only one China and there is only one Taiwan. There is far more than 110 miles separating the two nations. 

China's Shaky Pins

China may be flexing its muscles in the South Seas but it is a precarious perch for the new bully on the block. One does not have to worry about getting into an arms race to change the balance of power however. All the United States has to do is withdraw China’s Most Favored Nation trading status and impose tariffs on Chinese imports and things will change rapidly.

China’s out there blowing a lot of dough on armaments, building island military bases and planning trips to the moon. It would be a shame if the money ran out before they can finish all that, wouldn’t it. It wouldn’t take long.

We’ve been kissing China’s ass since 1972 screwing Taiwan and ourselves in the process. We have had to put up with a lot of China's nationalistic economic bullshit since then. The dumping of cheap Chinese steel into the United States helped kill our steel production and turned a once iconic steel mill in Easton Pennsylvania into a Sands gambling casino.

Then there is the matter of China’s currency manipulation. See China's government declare their economic independence and might while reaching for the oxygen masks!

But this is very easy to unravel. The action will cause prices to rise here at home but with the coming economic changes on the horizon, the income of working Americans will rise to meet this challenge. Once domestic product kicks into gear, there will be no shortage of goods. They’ll just be made better and last longer.

Despite the last 16 years of spendthrift egomaniac presidents trying to give away the U.S. economy, it’s about time we had a fiscally conservative egomaniac president looking to bring it roaring back.

I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Obama Channels Al Gore

Whoever gets to write the History of our nation 200 years from now will most likely highlight the idea that way back when, people who controlled the major governments of the world also were so self-possessed and so enamored of the power they possessed that they actually thought they could also control the weather.

And so here we are watching the President of the United States kick off his new career as the next big “thang” in climate change. And why not, after watching Al Gore compile not just a small fortune but quite a big one from his self-made pulpit of the Church of Global Warming, who could blame him?

Picture Mr. Gore, a career politician who suddenly found himself out of work at the hands of what we can only refer to as KARMA in regards to his close-but-no-cigar attempt to alter the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, sitting home after his concession and freaking out that he may actually have to find a real J-O-B. "What do I do? What do I do?" he says over and over to himself, running his fingers through his hair in front of the television set in his office. But then the cable channel he's watching begins a broadcast of the Burt Lancaster movie "Elmer Gantry" and suddenly Al Gore gets the most brilliant idea of his political career. “I've got it. I will be the CHAMPION of the PLANET! I will become… Mr. Global Warming!”

“And then I will become Mr. Gazzillionaire!”

And he is.

In fact, Al Gore became so rich jetting all over the country and the world promoting this non-sense to all the Anti-Capitalists in California, Europe and Canada who all couldn't wait to run to the hand to put their cash in, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar or a perhaps a Community Organizer, to see where the big money is.

The BIG money is in promoting FEAR! 

Oh, now some may buy into the Dale Carnegie theory about "arousing an eager want" in people and trying to see the other point of view but Mr. Gore, lacking in those fundamental skills opted to just spew his brand of doom upon the world and scare the crap out of everybody to great results and heaping wads o' cash.   

The seas will boil! No wait, they'll rise. Ooh, that's better, yes the seas will RISE and drown your grandmother as she sits in her rocking chair on her front porch! You want your grandmother to drown? I think NOT! And your little dog, he'll be TOAST as the hot sun scorches the Earth bare!

Oh, and the seals, they will have NO ICE!

That's right, the poor little harp seal pup (cue video of big eyed baby Harp Seal flopping around) will have no ice upon which to lay his cute little furry head! Aw, isn’t he cute? Who will help the Harp Seal?

And who wouldn’t want to help the Polar Bear? Why they need ice too!

Even though NONE of the gloomy predictions made in the 1980s, the 1990s and even in 2000 about how crappy life in these United States will be in the year 2015 due to the change of weather have ever even come close to being true, SOMETHING has to be done TODAY because "mark my words, 25 years from now…blah, blah, blah."

As it stands right now in the year 2015, our lives are only crappy because of the grasping over-taxing all-encompassing government that won’t let us keep enough of our money to keep most of use or the economy going, and certainly NOT because of the weather.

The Conundrum of Alaska Development

So the message is that the nation has to do something and do something quick to LIMIT Climate Change and it’s horrible, devastating and dangerous effects that we will all be seeing any day now.

But on the OTHER HAND, since business is still lousy in the United States after 8 years of not a whole lot of growth despite all the self-congratulations by the current administration, we will let business suffer at our own peril. We still need to develop!

This is why Shell gets to drill in the Arctic region counter to the Climate Change campaign and that Mr. Obama has called for a whole lot more ice breaker ships to be built for the region. But the ice is melting, right?

Some may see the irony of calling to cut development to aid the planet and to spur development to aid Alaska but the reality is that Mr. Obama has to deal with a group of hard-core individuals that Mr. Gore never had to think about, namely The Russians. Those resources sitting under all that melting Alaskan permafrost may just go to the people who can get to them first.

So more icebreakers it is. Could it be that they will be...Solar powered icebreakers?

Anyway, in an attempt to discourage the Russians, not destroy the fragile U.S. economy AND save the planet long enough for the president to grab some of that lucrative Climate Change lecture cash once he's out of office, Mr. Obama has to try to have it every way he can think of to come out looking good to the people who’ll pay the money to have him as a speaker.

Looks like the planet will be the odd man out once again, sigh.

But then what on God's Green Earth would the future Reverend Barack Obama talk about while traveling with his Climate Ministry?  This way the development will be allowed to happen and then he'll get to rail about it later. 

Win win, baby, win win.

The Anarchist Mentality

My last girlfriend was and remains an Anarchist.

I have to admit that living here in suburbia that one doesn’t get to meet or have everyday interaction with a real Anarchist so it was a bit of a shock to the system upon the revelation of that Anarchist attitude toward our society as it is presently.

We met on an Internet dating site and she lives in the city of Boston.

The thing that attracted me to her was that we had similar backgrounds. I was born into the projects of the City of Boston and she was born into the projects of New York City. We both had gone to public school, were around the same age, liked many of the same things culturally and were, essentially, city dwellers. We were both employed although she works for a public radio station in the city and I work in the private sector out in the burbs.

What I didn’t like about the relationship was her attitude. Her attitude politically, in my opinion, was disturbing.

It wasn’t that she was a Liberal, because she was and I could deal with that, but also her distain for and desire to destroy the pillars of what had built in the United States from the very beginning. The tenants of Capitalism, self reliance, of working hard to build wealth, private ownership of property and even Democracy when it got in the way of what was "Right".

She wished for the whole system to collapse, the economic system, the political system, our society and yes, our Constitution, the document upon which is was all built, to be done away with. This was unbelievable to me.

I would ask “Well doll, what would you propose we replace it all with?” No clue. She didn’t care about that part. “You know, I continued, this will hurt not just the well-to-do but the working class and yourself as well. If the system is destroyed, wouldn’t you lose everything too?” She didn’t care about that either. It was only important that the people who were in power lost theirs and the consequences to her, her family and her friends were secondary.

This is the mind of the Anarchist. They don’t care who gets hurt or what happens afterward, they only wish to tear down what is there now. There is no thought of "after". 

Greece is currently displaying the Anarchist Mentality as it has been plying its Con Game with the European Union. Greece didn’t join the EU to be a part of something greater, they joined because they saw an opportunity to scam some money from some high-minded aristocrats who traditionally had looked down their noses at them. They saw an opportunity to spend other people’s money because they know that once established, the EU would throw more money at them to hold it together. Now when they’ve pushed the EU monetary ministers to their breaking point, Greece, which has already stated that they are in War Mode, will only work to pry the EU apart. Too bad the EU didn't believe it when they first heard this said. 

But this is what Anarchists do. It’s Comeuppance. To them, it’s what the EU deserves for taking home a sick, half-dead rattlesnake and nursing it back to health. They should have known better. You cannot expect gratitude from a snake. 

One place where I think the paths of my ex-girlfriend and I diverged was when my family had to enter the projects in Roxbury, my mom, who was the head of the household, remained working. We were in public housing but we didn’t go on the welfare track. She had always worked from a young age, from fighting boys for the coal that fell off railroad coal bins as the trains passed by during the first Great Depression and then in the war factories of WWII. She ran a giant turret lathe and drilled cannon barrels for tanks. She always told us how the oil that lubricated the drill wreaked havoc with her complexion. When the boys came home from the war, the women were let go and told to start families. The work ethic stayed strong and when she was left widowed with three children, she went back to work.

In the projects, where few people actually got up everyday and went to work, Ma got up every day and went to work. We saw this. This is how the work ethic is built. There were things we couldn't do with her because she was working. There were things she couldn't do with us because she was working. That's why they call it "work". This also fostered resentment among those who did not work and there were tensions, threats and sometime physical violence which myself and my older brothers had to deal with. Me being the youngest, I became the easiest target for some of this. We were different and the "so, you think you're better than me?" mentality was evident. This is a divide for the ages. When they couldn't get to us, they went after my mother's car and that had to be defended too on occasion. And one of my most vivid memories was one winter when ma slipped on the ice, fell hard, hitting her head and then getting up and still going into work. She said the next day that she doesn't remember a thing about the day or what she did.

Back then women weren’t viewed as the bread winners and you only got your start as a secretary. A secretary salary only goes so far.  Still, through hard work, taking college courses at night and seeking higher opportunities, ma was able to work herself into a better position to get the family out of the projects which she eventually succeeded when I was halfway through elementary school and my brothers were entering junior high school. She bought a house, not the best house, in a suburb of Boston in a blue collar neighborhood. Up to the time we could work, we never asked for money.

Neither I nor my three brothers went to our high school Proms. We didn’t go on school trips that required money. We didn’t go out to eat much except for an occasional trip to McDonald’s or Howdy’s and a big trip was going to Lake Pearl way out in Franklin, MA to swim. When we got old enough to work, we saved every dime and contributed to the house. One brother and I both worked our way through college, myself through night school. We took nothing and we owed nothing. 

My girlfriend’s upbringing paints a different picture. When her family came to New York from Puerto Rico, they went on public assistance even though they had an intact family unit since her father and mother, who were married, were together. She lived in public housing right up until she graduated high school and went to college. College was paid for through the State since she lived in public housing and was “poor”. The family was all this time on the welfare system. She went to the University of New York and also got her master’s from prestigious California University, all on the public arm.  She now works for a “non-profit” communications group funded by the State and by listener contributions making a better wage than I do. Was that life hard for them? I bet it was but it was very different from my experience growing up.

So it stands to reason that she would be All In on the Welfare State since all that she is today is because of it. The gulf between us was wide and deep and although I was very fond of her, our relationship was doomed.

One time I noted that my organization really likes to hire minorities and would do so at every opportunity yet, due to the nature of the work, most don’t tend to stay long. She asked me what kind of community outreach we were doing to correct this “problem”.

My reply was, after “Are you fucking kidding me?!” was that we are an equal opportunity employer and if someone, anyone, can’t make an effort to apply (online even) and walk in our door for an interview, what good will it do to go looking for them? Success does not cater to the unmotivated. Community outreach indeed. We have plenty of Portuguese employees since we are located on the south coast of Massachusetts, THEY are a minority group and THEY seem to have no trouble finding the place.

This is a fundamental rift of the entitled. They hate the very system that hands them everything and they should since we’re doing nobody any favors by giving them the very things they could earn themselves if given half a chance. In this instance the Welfare State served only to create and support Anti-Capitalists and Anarchists.  

At least one that I know anyway.

One sees people doing well and works to get ahead like they did and the other just wants to take it away from them by force if necessary as if somehow they cheated them or others to get where they are and are keeping them down through The System! If only they were allowed to make it so.

But there are many others just like her who work with us, walk among us and are currently in our government. Judge the actions and not the words but their words give them away if we actually take the time to listen to them. Anarchists tell us everyday what they are after. We just refuse to believe it. 

Because of the situations of our upbringing, both of us were left with chips on our shoulders. But only one of us wants to destroy what another has built. Sure there is corruption but there is plenty that was built the right way, through hard work, commitment and capital risk. Capitalism may not work for everybody but no system does and we only need to view history to tell us how well Socialism has worked.

Socialism has sunk Greece. It sank Venezuela and Brazil. It will sink Spain. It will sink Italy. And it will most certainly sink the United States of America so yes, my ex will most likely get her wish and feel good about being a part of its downfall. The white European majority, whatever that really is, will fall. But what then?

Zimbabwe got rid of the Europeans and within a year after many of them were drinking out of mud puddles and dying of Cholera in the streets while their economy collapsed and the nation fell to ruins. It’s still a ruin.

But they didn’t care. Anarchists don't think that far ahead. It wasn’t about them living; it was about destroying the white farmers and taking what they had built. That was all that mattered. They neither thought nor cared where the food was going to come from. They didn’t know shit about running a farm but they drove out the ones who did because that’s what Anarchy does. It destroys indiscriminately and without a plan for the future.

Once the Communists gained power in Russia, they quickly learned their plans didn’t work but still took 78 years to collapse. The misery the people of Russia suffered under the Soviet Union is well documented and heart rending.

All the Marxists cared about was taking power, what happened after that was not important and subject to improvisation.

Anarchists can’t run a country. Terrorists can’t keep the lights on.

They can only destroy.

The Obama of Everything!

An excerpt of today's fact sheet released from the White House:

“Laws in 19 states—some specifically written by special interests trying to stifle new competitors—have held back broadband access and, with it, economic opportunity. Today, President Obama is announcing a new effort to support local choice in broadband, formally opposing measures that limit the range of options available to communities to spur expanded local broadband infrastructure, including ownership of networks."

Taking over your school lunch programs. Expanding your government run school system. Taking over your healthcare providers. Expanding your welfare programs. Taking over immigration. Running the country through cabinet ministries. Circumventing a spineless Congress. Spending money your kids haven't even earned yet...

And now taking over what Al Gore began, The Internet!

That’s right, the man who keeps on taking and taking and giving and giving is going to provide equality among the masses: Everybody’s Goose is Cooked!

The President was later heard to say: "Hey, you can't beat us, we have ALL THE MONEY!" as he left for his 1, 279th round of golf since he's been in the Whitehouse.

You will never speak or send another message that doesn’t pass through the government’s able hands. You will never email another picture of your kids birthday that some elite government hack doesn't have access to. You will never view naked pictures of pregnant women that someone in government doesn't know about. As the Whitey-hating rage filled Reverend Wright once said: This is your chickens come home to roost.

There is always someone left out. Always someone discriminated against and Mr. Obama can use that person to drive a wedge between the public at large and the U.S. Constitution. Good show Mr. President!

Somewhere there is a person without a government handout and the president is going to FIND that person and give him (or her) a check, a phone, a free lunch AND the Internet. After all, someone must have oppressed that person in the first place that they don’t have all that already.

What won’t he do next that rascally totalitarian presidential emperor!

By decree, his phone and his pen Barak Hussein Obama will right the wrongs meted out by society and the world. His word will carry and all will be well again.

Your Internet is HIS Internet to do with as he pleases. And he pleases that the government should be the guardian of Free Speech!

What can possibly go wrong!

No private enterprise is safe.  They are all bad for people, bad for equality and bad for the nation. Producing things for people to actually purchase, how absurd. Don’t they know like the President knows? Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they have done.

And what is next?

Your 401k perhaps. After all, the government is already going to take care of your retirement with Social Security, you won’t actually be NEEDING that extra cash where there are so many more deserving than you.

Your home. You don’t own it anyway, the bank does and the GOVERNMENT owns the banks. Even if you pay it off, the GOVERNMENT owns the land and you’ll never be able to afford the taxes if you even TRY to pass it along to your heirs.  Give it up now and we’ll go easy on you.

You fly? That’s the government’s airline you’re flying on. Take a train? Ditto!

The statues are being carved and the two story posters are being printed and will soon be in position.

Never say Never.

Obama for everyone!