Fidel Castro's Death Reveals A Lot in the USA

By Chuck Marshall
   

After a bruising year of elections here in the United States,  the death of Fidel Castro somehow seems to clarify the state of American politics and media here in 2016.  It's like putting on new reading glasses and marveling at how clear a page seems now.

     First I must confess a personal slant.  I am  more acquainted with Cuba than most Americans being a Floridian with its massive population of Cuban-Americans.  Also, my wife is Cuban-American.  I've heard many stories of  Fidel Castro that most Americans might not have heard before.  My wife's family left after waiting many years to emigrate to the  US.  Her family left with not much more than the shirts on their back.  They left an apartment, furniture, personal photos, books, friends, and the comfort of what's familiar.  They didn't sell it to leave, they had to leave it all for the government to confiscate.    Their desire to leave Cuba was a well kept secret lest their neighbors scorn them.  My wife would have to sneak into church.   There was no Christmas.  There was no Easter.  Religious freedom was nonexistent.   All human individuality was removed from society for the good of the state.  It is a historical fact that Fidel had many innocent people executed for refusing to bow to his power.  Usually it was by firing squad.  Many people vanished into the night.  People drowned in the ocean by the thousands because they were so desperate to leave Cuba.  It was and still is a hell hole of Communist dictatorship with absolutely no human rights, freedoms or liberties.

     Keep all that in mind as you can imagine my wife and her family watching as President Obama extended his condolences to the "family of Fidel Castro" and mentions that "history will judge Fidel Castro".  There was no mention of his brutal dictatorship or the millions of Cubans displaced and oppressed for the last 60 years.   Why did he not mention it?    I can only suppose because President Obama admired Fidel's accomplishments at  "redistribution of wealth".   I can also only assume that President Obama along with the leftist media secretly admired his ability to silence all of those who don't think like him.  He silenced contrary thought., and they yearn for such an ability.   They are the "thought police" (as in George Orwell's novel 1984)  without the power to enforce their ambitions and Fidel Castro was their patron saint.  It is a sad day for them.

     This is all very revealing as Trump condemns Fidel Castro as a dead tyrant who brutalized his people while Obama offers condolences to the Castro family and looks to history to "judge" Castro.  Many people are concerned with  Donald Trump becoming a dictator of some sort, but in reality we've been living on the edge of a communist regime for 8 years now.   If not for a Republican congress and Senate, we very well could have been  there now as the liberals and Barack Obama would slowly choke our liberty and freedom of thought  quietly and "oh so very eloquently" into submission.  Let history judge ?  I think it's safe to go ahead and judge right now, Mr. President,  and I'm thinking it's already safe to judge you too.

Do We Expect Too Much from the Presidency ?

By Chuck Marshall

The election is drawing to a close in the next couple of months and I have to say I echo what most Americans seem to be thinking these days "None of the Above".  You may read the polls and see that Clinton is ahead of Trump by 10 points but to dig around the details shows that  most people are not happy with the options.  There is Gary Johnson, the Libertarian but the media largely ignores him and from some of what I've seen of him... I'm not sure I blame them.  (Stay tuned for another blog on Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and Evan McMullin)    But at the end of the day, are we placing too much emphasis on the White House/President ?

There is no one person that can fix the problems of a nation.  I think it's highly naive to think we can hand the keys to the White House to ANY one person and then have them move on to rule the nation with great positive effect in regards to our problems.  The reasons for that are multiple;  partisan politics, massive government, a three chambered government with checks and balances that contains the President (thankfully !).  So, the true power comes from the people and right now the people are looking for President Washington or Lincoln or Kennedy or Reagan.  That kind of leader only comes along once every generation and I think history tends to treat some Presidents a little too kindly through "rose garden" colored glasses (Ha, Ha).   Were they all really that great, or were there just glimpses of greatness and they are treated with higher reverence- in part- because they made two or three great speeches and then "got shot"?   You could pick any of the "Mt. Rushmore" presidents and make a list of their mistakes and lack of effectiveness or absence of personal morals.  They were all human.

Today we have President Obama who was swept into office with ringing oratory and high intelligence and a great deal of help from the mass media in love with "making history".   In addition, it didn't hurt that John McCain picked Sara Palin as his VP choice frightening many thinking people away from his candidacy.   Wall Street was in free-fall and the real estate market was cratering and the Republicans were suddenly the goats of public opinion.  You could make an argument for how "good" or "bad" a president he was but I doubt there are too many people that think he should be on Mt. Rushmore.  But... so what?   My life  has not changed much since Obama became President., and I don't think in all that time he really fixed much of anything.  However,  I don't buy that he's "ruined our country" like a lot of Republicans seem to think.  Health care sucks but it sucked before.  The lobbyists do their bidding just as they always have.  The national debt has doubled but it went up "times five" under Bush.   Also, in his defense the economy was pretty scary back in 2009 and, in my humble opinion, we did need heavy action on the part of the federal reserve- Obama could be said to have steered us through the icebergs.   I hear both sides saying "but" this and "but" that .... but nothing.... The President is not that powerful, and is essentially in charge of steering the ship to the right or to the left.  Yes, he can declare war but if he gets out of hand, then Congress has the power to impeach him.  

Folks, if there's a failing here, it's us.  If we really want our government to become more effective, if we really want the problems we face to be solved we all need to walk into our bathrooms and peer into the mirror.  It's not going to happen with any one "savior" single person.   It has to come from where the real power is and where the real power "IS" is with the people....thanks to our founding fathers...  John Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Washington-- if anyone is to be revered it's this group of men and a few others from the late 1700's that set up this remarkable republic in which they empowered the citizenry from the very beginning.  The only reason we have lobbyists directing legislation, and Presidents overriding the constitution and a moribund congress and  a grotesquely overgrown federal government is because "We the People" have let all that happen.


In My Humble Opinion.....