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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chavez cheers Castro's impending demise |
| 2006-08-01 |
| by Bridget Johnson, National Review As much as they’ve snuggled and back-patted, as much as they act like dysfunctional father and bratty son, the death of the linchpin of Latin American Communism will probably be the best news Hugo Chavez has gotten since he met his useful anti-Bush idiot dream girl, Cindy Sheehan. Because as much as the Venezuelan ruler spouts adulation for the Cuban social model and figureheads such as Che Guevara and Castro, they are the old revolution. Cuba is the isolated Communist island that has never squeezed itself out from under the thumb of the West, focusing most of its energy on weathering the U.S. trade embargo. Though Castro survived U.S. attempts on his life, like the CIA’s famous exploding seashell, his famous tumble down the stairs in old age was a metaphor for his regime. Cuba became the floating prison from which thousands of influential American immigrant businesspeople, politicians, etc., hailed, and never has ceased to be the island from which citizens risk life and limb to escape. Whereas Castro envisioned that his Communist utopia would set the gold standard for the world, he has been handily upstaged by dissidents and exiles who have, over the decades, become poster children for the fundamental thirst for liberty. Chavez sees this as old Communism, and he is the future. He is the Bolivarian revolutionary learning from his Communist forefathers’ mistakes — save for the fundamentally-flawed-philosophy one — and thinking beyond even his own Venezuela. He is quashing opposition, press and even clergy with such slick spin to successfully delude outsiders into believing that he is a humanitarian who has perfected socialism — not the power-ravenous megalomaniac who claims even Jesus Christ was a socialist revolutionary. Chavez fancies himself the cult of personality that will eclipse the long-fading allure of Castro; he fantasizes about being the larger-than-life leader who can unite even the most stubborn and independent Latin American countries into the United States of Hugo. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 The Beard is a monster but he has 100 times the charisma of poor old Chavez. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-08-01 18:10 |
| #4 Sad to say, I doubt it. I think Cuba will fall into chaos post-Castro, for many years. After all this time there is no civil society left, and the mental habits of the population aren't up to running a decent country. Any returning exiles will just be another faction, or the financiers of various factions, like it or not. Chaos will be the last legacy of the monster. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2006-08-01 16:59 |
| #3 The "New" communisim. Same as the "old". |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-08-01 15:01 |
| #2 How about a Cuban vulture? |
| Posted by: Penguin 2006-08-01 14:48 |
| #1 A free Cuba will transform the region and cut Chavez's Bolivaren stock to junk status. Nothing will paint communism in starked relief for the local than watching the billions pouring into post-Castro Cuba virtually overnight. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2006-08-01 14:20 |