Fooling Liberals All Of the Time

What explains the left's half-century love affair with Cuba? A combination of idiocy, gullibility and anti-Americanism. For forgetful progressives, some reminders:

• Late last month, Cuba blocked 14 Portland Oregon Unitarians from entering the country for "religious reasons." Church members didn't fault Cuba, instead blaming an "unfortunate American held in a Cuban prison accused of trying to 'destabilize'" the regime.



• The December 22nd Seattle Times, echoing Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, praised the Democrats for reversing a Bush Administration policy that supposedly stopped export of U.S. foodstuffs. Sounds serious--except that "[e]xports of U.S. crops, meats and farm products [to Cuba] totaled $707 million in 2008," and, in 2007 the U.S. was "Cuba's main supplier of food and farm products."



• Last week, Spain proposed watering-down the EU's Cuba policy, "to move the EU away from a policy dating from 1996 that makes improved relations with the communist-run island contingent on Havana improving its human rights record and moving toward democratic reform."



• Remember the supposedly capable Cuban doctors? They're defecting to the United States.



• When Cuba's economy collapsed after Moscow's subsidies expired along with the Soviet Union, the mainstream media lauded Cuba for solving its obesity crisis.



• Food remains rare and rationed, according to a January 6th post by Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez:

  The new ration book surprised us at the end of December, just when speculation was growing about the demise of this booklet with its grid-paper pages. It arrived, like every year, surrounded by anxiety and annoyance, submerging us in that approach-avoidance conflict generated by the subsidized. In its little pages I notice the absence of many products that once made up the monthly quota, now reduced to just a monotonous repertoire with insufficient nutritional values and rising costs. . .
  
  
  source: Generation Y
  
  I see my name written next to Teo’s and I’m afraid that his children, too, will receive milk only until the age of seven, be allotted washing soap every two months or a tasteless toothpaste to clean their teeth. I shudder imagining that in thirty years we will still have to prove, with a doctor’s certificate, that we have an ulcer to have the right to a few ounces of meat or a container of soy yogurt. With its minimal quantities and doubtful quality, the ration market has also instilled in us an unhealthy gratitude and a guilt complex that cannot be our legacy to those yet to come. If another December arrives and we receive a new ration book, it will not be because we have avoided the economic cuts, but rather because we have fallen another step lower in our citizen autonomy.

Conclusion: Supporting the current Cuban regime requires shutting ones eyes. As Alberto de la Cruz says:

Twisting in the wind is an all too familiar feeling for millions of Cubans both on the island and in exile throughout the world. For more than half a century a lawless and murderous regime has raped and plundered the island nation, killing innocent Cubans by the tens of thousands. All the while, a disinterested and apathetic world sits idly by, turning their eyes away from the helplessly twisting victims that hang from their necks, their mouths gagged and their hands and feet bound. . .

So that leaves only despots and hypocrites dancing around the tree to the sweet song of rapprochement and dialogue. The hypocrites will always allow the despots to lead and they take extra care not to clumsily step on their feet. Meanwhile, Cubans continue to hang from that proverbial tree, twisting in the gentle wind of apathy.

That's because lefties prefer empty protests to preemptive action and blaming the West for all the world's woes. Remember my rule:

The number of human rights violations in a country is inversely proportionate to the number of human rights complaints about that country.

I'll wager most complaints naming Cuba are aimed at the American terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, not even the elevation of the Obamessiah has moderated the despotic Cuban regime or the suffering of the Cuban people.

(via Babalu Blog, NewsBusters, Carpe Diem, TaxingTennessee)