Castro and America's Liberals

Go figure. They despise George W. Bush. Bush = Hitler, dontchaknow. (Okay. They don't all despise him. I'm talking the left-wing bigmouths.) But the real murderous brutal tyrant, Fidel Castro, they love. On the one hand, it defies all reason: they adore the man who has ruled the despotic, repressive dictatorship closest (geographically) to the USA. Yet, it makes perfect sense: he is a communist; he is a left-wing tyrant; he is a leftist. Like they are. So he can do no wrong. He's one of them.

Here's an article by Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, Tuesday:

.... In its report on Cuba, Human Rights Watch came right to the point: "Over the last 40 years, Cuba has developed a highly effective machinery of repression." What that means is almost no civil liberties and a penal system as medieval and barbaric as any in the world. That system was accurately portrayed in the 2001 movie "Before Night Falls," which was based on the memoir of the Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas. He had served time in Castro's jails for being a homosexual. Before killing himself, Arenas left a note: "There is only one person I hold responsible: Fidel Castro."

About the time that movie was released, I talked with someone who had just visited Castro as part of a Hollywood contingent. I had to listen once again to how erudite the Cuban dictator is and how, of course, he has established a first-class health system. No doubt Castro has read his Gabriel Garcia Marquez and no doubt he cares about medical treatment. But he also runs a regime a shade worse than China's, according to Freedom House.

If my Hollywood friend was some sort of aberration, I would not have given him a second thought. But he is fairly typical of many American liberals. They seem to think that any regime targeted by the United States is, ipso facto, an innocent victim. Some of that sentiment once attached to the Soviet Union -- remember how the Cold War was the fault of an insensitive America? -- and more recently to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. From some of what was said from the left, you would think that the current war is really about oil or imperialism or revenge -- and not for a moment about the sort of regime Hussein runs.

It's not that the left has no capacity for outrage. It's just that it's so inconsistent. It can vehemently protest the mistreatment of America's poor or its minorities and yet overlook the mistreatment of Iraqis or, as is now happening, Cubans. Conservatives, too, can be just as inconsistent, but they are not my crowd nor my concern at the moment.

So I would like to hear some moral outrage about Castro....

And here, an article by Andrew Breitbart at OpinionJournal today:

.... Why is this thug still the darling of the media elite? Why is it so unwilling to protest his dictatorial moves? As Marxist ideologue Groucho would say, a child of five would understand this; send someone to fetch a child of five.

Perhaps Castro represents a wish-fulfillment fantasy. A romantic, intellectual revolutionary achieves iconic status, absolute power, great wealth and a 40-year-plus reign--quite an appealing vision to ambitious people in industries with high career mortality rates. But who knows? The Faithful aren't talking.

(Thanks, Kathryn.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/11/03 02:21:49 PM
Categorized as Political.