It is no secret that the US Administration hates Fidel Castro. This extraordinary character has outlived 13 US administrations, has escaped, over 40 years, numerous assassination attempts engineered by the CIA and he still draws crowds of Cuban citizens to hear him speak.

I suspect that the only reason why the Ministry of Peace (that is the Defense Department) has not yet invaded Cuba and killed Castro is a tenuous sense of shame – as well as some concern about the added hatred that the US would acquire in the eyes of the world.

Barring the actual killing of Castro, the administration and the media never slack in their desire to denigrate Cuba and of course Fidel Castro.

We know that anyone who attempts to say something positive about Fidel Castro is immediately labeled as a communist. Since I am not a communist, I will report an anecdote from many years ago..

You will remember the first Iraq War, so called ‘Desert Storm’ – a war waged, according to the previous Bush, to save freedom and democracy in Kuwait, as well as the ‘American Way of Life’ in America.

I have visited and travelled both in Kuwait and in Iraq - you can say anything you like about Kuwait but you would have to be quite drunk to call it a democracy. As Ross Perot pointed out at the time, the Ruling Sheik had even a minister of sex. The Sheik has 60 wives and concubines - actually I should say the Sheik ‘had’ 60 wives and concubines because he died during the 90s, presumably from exhaustion

Anyway, with 60 women around your house, let alone around your bed, an administration is not only advisable, it is indispensable. The minister of sex dealt with recruitment, scheduling, accounting, health-care, eunuch management and sundry other related issues.

But let’s return to Desert Storm, which given the circumstances should have been better called Desert Porn. At the beginning of that war, a republican group had organized a demonstration downtown, in support of the war, and I happened to be there during the demonstration. Near me, there was a war supporter, carrying a large American flag.

Iraq is invading Kuwait, I said to him, and that is wrong. But Israel has invaded Palestine and to create the state of Israel, the Israelis have displaced several million people – that is quite a bit of ethnic cleansing. And in 1967 Israel has invaded what remained of Palestine and has been killing Palestinians ever since. My question to you is, if Iraq is wrong in invading Kuwait, is Israel right in invading Palestine?

"But Israel is our friend" he said.

I understand, I said, but let me follow your reasoning and then tell me if I am right or wrong. If I commit a murder, but I am your friend, that’s OK but if I am not your friend I should be prosecuted. Am I right?

I still remember how he looked at me and rather than answering my question, he asked "Are you a Communist?"

No, I said, I am a Humanist and indeed I belong to the Humanist Association of Greater Portland.

"Never heard of them, he said, but to me Communists or Humanists are all a bunch of anti-americans"

End of story inside the story and back to Cuba.

On Feb 17 we find an article in the main-stream media titled "Cubans struggle as Castro boasts of better economy" You do not require a degree in critical analysis to understand that, according to the journalist, Cubans are poor because of Castro and Castro is wrong in claiming improvements in the Cuban economy.

The article starts with a micro-interview with a Cuban John Doe who laments that when there were trade alliances with the Soviet Union some goods were much cheaper than now, especially meat. The same retired person, continues the Oregonian, is supplementing his meager retirement pension with a part time job as a night guard. As if, in the US or anywhere else in the world many people did not have to supplement their retirement income with a part time job. And yet, according to the journalist, it was better for Cuba when Cuba had economic ties with the Soviet Union. But if the US has a total embargo on Cuba and US citizens can go to jail just for traveling there, Cuba must still trade with some other country. In fact Cuba trades with many European countries and increasingly even with China. Now I wonder if the administration is considering placing an embargo on China because it is a communist country and trades with Cuba. I am sure they will not because for one thing most American kitchens would come to a halt considering all the made in China appliances in current use.

The article continues by quoting the omni-present, the ubiquitous Research Fellow, this time a Mr. Mark Thornton of the Alabama-based Ludwig Von Mises Institute. For those who do not know it, Von Mises was a sociologist of the 1930s as well as a great ass, (the two qualifications are not incompatible). Von Mises demonstrated that in a perfect capitalistic society the rich MUST get richer and the poor MUST get poorer. Why? Because prompted by the envy of the rich, the poor will work harder, though they will never get there, but in the process they will improve overall productivity.

And then Mr. Mark Thornton, of the Von Mises institute, utters these profound words of wisdom, "I do not see real economic recovery (in Cuba)".

Mr. Thornton’s words of wisdom remind me of the line uttered by Aaron in the play ‘Titus Andronicus’, when listening to the nonsense spoken by the two characters Chiron and Demetrius,

"O what a thing it is to be an ass!"

We all know it, the US administrations hates Cuba because of her social policies. In a historical very short time, Castro has eliminated illiteracy by investing in education, has instituted universal health-care coverage and has ensured a measure of fair distribution of resources.

But Cuba is poor, the corporate media repeats with endless monotony, and it is poor because it does not have a market economy. And it does not have a market economy because it is not democratic.

But if democracy leads to a market economy and market economy leads to wealth or at least to not being poor then Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, let alone Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guyana should all be bursting with wealth. And yet, every year, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Mexicans and other citizens of Latin American countries enter illegally the US to escape poverty.

This is a clear case where what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. The truth, regrettably, has little to do with geese or ganders. The US administrations hate (paradoxically) a social view of society. In 1996 they bombed Serbia because it was the last Socialist State in Europe. Iraq was the only state with a large population in the Middle East to provide free education and health care for her citizens – see what happened to Iraq.

To conclude, telling the truth does not mean to be a communist nor a desire to advocate communism. It is a modest, but still necessary effort to counter the hypocrisy, the connivance and the flattery (flattery of the administration), contained in all the corporate media.

In the play King Lear, the character Kent, faithful to King Lear but disgusted at how Lear fell for the flattery of his two evil daughters, says

"Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound,
When majesty stoops to folly."

In the same spirit, it is quite possible to be an anti-administration patriot and a pro-administration anti-american. Invading other countries, killing their people and killing American troops in the process is eminently anti-american.

Or we can paraphrase Shakespeare and say,

"Our honor is bound to truth
When the administration stoops to folly "

Jimmie Moglia

PS. In a very fair exchange of messages Mr. Mark Thornton has properly corrected me on the interpretations of Ludwig Von Mises' doctrines or ideas.
I have also been informed that Mr. Thornton had been misquoted by the media. If I can summarize, Mr. Thornton advocates free market economy but does not support US' policy towards Cuba.