[News] No News is Big News - Cuba Sans Fidel

Wed Feb 20 13:24:11 EST 2008

http://www.counterpunch.org/eckardt02202008.html

February 20, 2008

No News is Big News

Cuba Sans Fidel

By STEVE ECKARDT

It's big news in the U.S. that Fidel Castro has 
declined to accept election when Cuba's 
Parliament meets this Sunday to select the 
country's Ministers--it's the headline story in 
every form of media, along with more than the 
usual background and opinion pieces.

But it's the media brouhaha itself that's the 
real big news, for the actual top story is that 
there's almost no news here at all.

Look: despite half a century of U.S. portraying 
Fidel as the Western Hemisphere's Stalin and the 
Cuban people as both suffering and ready to 
explosively grasp freedom the moment his 
totalitarian grip slips there are no 
demonstrations, let alone riots, in Cuba today.

Nor are there any prospects of them.

Nor was there any form of unrest or disruptions 
of daily life when Fidel first handed over his 
posts to a team of seven leaders after falling ill at the end of July 2006.

Indeed Cuba just completed an immense and 
thorough-going Parliamentary election process 
where some 96% of the electorate (voting age 
begins at 16) cast secret ballots--and 92% of 
them chose the united slate put together by 
union, women's, youth, small farmers' and other 
popular organizations (the Communist Party cannot field candidates).

This puts the percentage opposing what Washington 
calls the 'Castro regime' read the Cuban 
Revolution at 10% under the most liberal possible interpretation.

With the vast majority of Cubans solidly backing 
their revolution and government, the effect of 
Fidel's reassignment to regular columnist for 
Juventud Rebelde (the newspaper 'Rebel Youth') 
goes little beyond ache at the tragedy of human 
aging, especially of the world's greatest leading 
political figure -one so popular that he's almost 
universally and uniquely referred to by his first name.

Without Fidel, is the Cuban Revolution about to 
collapse? What are the chances that Cuba's about 
to go down either the Soviet, Yugoslav, or Chinese roads?

The old phrase "slim to none" is a too generous an answer.

What about U.S. policy toward Cuba? Without Fidel 
 and, for that matter, without Bush  what are the chances that will change?

Call that one slimmer and none-er.

Look no further than the statements by the 
Democratic candidates (even granting the far- 
from-certain assumption that one of them will be 
the next U.S. president) responding to 
yesterday's news, statements solidly fixed in the 
past half-century of Washington's obdurate hostility to the Cuban Revolution:

Declared Hillary Clinton:

"As you know, Fidel Castro announced that he is 
stepping down as Cuba's leader after 58 years of 
one-man rule. The new leadership in Cuba will 
face a stark choice continue with the failed 
policies of the past that have stifled democratic 
freedoms and stunted economic growth or take a 
historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations."

Declared Barack Obama:

"Today should mark the end of a dark era in 
Cuba's history. Fidel Castro's stepping down is 
an essential first step, but it is sadly 
insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba."

(For their complete statements, along with those 
from other leading U.S. politicians, go to 
<http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/candidate%20_statements.htm>http://www.lawg.org/)

Of course no surprise here after all, if there's 
been one eternal bipartisan constant across the 
past fifty years, ten U.S. presidents, and 23 
Congresses, it's the unwavering agreement on 
crushing Cuba's socialist revolution, on the 
demand that (as the 1996 Helms-Burton Act puts 
it) Cuba "return property taken on or after January 1, 1959."

(Want to guess which country's corporations owned 
most of Cuba's valuable land and infrastructure then?)

This is a central and inescapable fact that all 
those favoring restoration of travel rights to 
Cuba and normalization of relations need to 
grasp. Washington is no more about to recognize 
Cuba's government and allow its citizens to 
travel there with Fidel out any more than it did 
after Cuba met all of Washington's previous 
demands: that the island end its special 
relationship with the Soviet Union, that it 
remove troops from Africa, that it halt support 
for rebel movements in Central America, that it 
sign on to international anti- terrorist and 
nuclear proliferation treaties, that it deploy 
forces to halt drug trafficking in its waters, or that etc, etc, etc.

When it comes to U.S. demands on Cuba, one thing 
is certain: the goal posts always move.

It's not enough that Fidel is no longer part of 
Cuba's government, he needs to be dead. Until  
and even after  then, Raul Castro needs to go as 
well. And when that inevitably happens, it'll be 
"well, the Castro brothers might be gone, but their regime lives on."

And so on and so on into eternity until Cuba 
returns "property taken on or after January 1, 1959."

Cuba's free and universal healthcare? Its free 
education through college and beyond? Rent-free 
home ownership? Guaranteed foreclosure-free farm 
land? Twenty-eight thousand (28,000) volunteer 
doctors providing free medical care in 67 countries?

All that has to go.

Property relations must be restored to their pre-January 1, 1959 condition.

Unfortunately for Washington, as the most recent 
events and the past 50 years  have clearly 
demonstrated, the chances of that happening goes 
all the way to slimmererer and none-erer.

And it's that 'no news' that's the big news.

Steve Eckardt produces 
<http://www.CubaSolidarity.com/>CubaSolidarity.com 
for the National Network on Cuba. He can be 
reached at: <mailto:seckardt at aol.com>seckardt at aol.com

Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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