Cynicism to disguise defeat

Cynicism to disguise defeat
PEDRO CAMPOS | La Habana | 10 de Abril de 2017 - 13:43 CEST.

Cynicism is, according to the dictionary definition, the attitude of one
who lies shamelessly, and defends or practices in a brazen, impudent and
dishonest way something that deserves general disapproval.

Cynicism has always characterized the Government headed by the Castro
brothers. But today, in its eagerness to cover up the bankruptcy of its
monopolistic, quasi-feudal State capitalism, implanted in the name of a
socialism that has never existed, it is reaching astonishing levels.

It suffices to take a look at some aspects of recent events appearing in
the official and alternative press, which is winning over everyday
Cubans, who are coming to trust in the latter over the former, such as:
the "symbolic" issuance of bills for medical services to citizens,"
access" to Internet for agricultural laborers and households, at
sky-high prices; the sale of used Peugeot cars at luxury-car prices; the
defense of "revolutionary sports" despite their obvious failure; the
"great democratic significance of the accountability assemblies,"
according to Esteban Lazo, and the purportedly bountiful potato harvest.

But the height of cynicism, something inadmissible, is the unscrupulous
attempt to appropriate the term "participatory and democratic
socialism," but emptied of any content endorsing autonomy, freedom and
democracy, in the way we advance it as a political, social and economic
alternative to populist authoritarianism.

Let us take a look back their cynicism, in the epithets used in their
attempts to discredit the opposition and dissent on the Island:

The invaders at Girón were called "mercenaries" because they received US
support and funding, when everyone knows that the Castro government was
sustained thanks to the massive military and economic aid furnished by
the USSR, for four decades, and, later, for another two thanks to
Venezuelan oil.

Those who rose up in El Escambray against the new dictatorship – which
vandalized and appropriated every property, factory and company it could
– were called "bandits."

"Worms" were those who criticized and opposed the outrageous acts of a
bureaucratic government that has survived as a parasite off Cuban
workers, and international aid, and is now groveling for the lifting of
the blockade.

All those who have opposed the unnatural, antihistorical, backwards and
destructive system of state capitalism, the most, retrograde and
conservative version of it, are called "counterrevolutionaries."

"Terrorists" is the term used to describe all those took up arms to
oppose a Government imposed on them with an iron fist, through blood,
bombs and missiles... and that revealed its brutality by raiding
barracks in which there slept soldiers of an army that had not shed a
drop of blood.

"Imperialist agents" is the term used to describe the journalists who
decide to write about and reveal the truths that the regime's press
either hides or distorts, a press entirely and exclusively at the
service of the Party-Government-State that pays it and maintains it,
with the people's money.

Today in crisis, wage-based Statism, as an economic system, and its
political parallel, the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat (a
total contradiction because power in it does not lie with the
proletarians, but rather the bureaucratic "Communist" elite), with its
single party, centralized system for the making of every decision and
perpetration of every type of repression, is not able to recognize its
failure, and lies and acts cynically.

This becomes evident when it seeks to open up, in a controlled and
limited way, to a private economy, cooperativism and foreign investment,
in a calculated effort to bring in more tax revenue and obtain
investments for its ailing State-owned companies, based on the premise
that they are "a necessary evil", which explains the obstacles of every
kind erected to the unfettered development of these activities, and its
constant attacks on private businesses.

The betrayal of democracy back in 1959, in whose name the Revolution was
carried out, was rendered complete with the betrayal of its socialist
ideas, later articulated, through the imposition of a centralized
political system, the expropriation of the cooperatives that existed
before 1959, the elimination in 1962 of the system of sugar cane
cooperatives, formerly the backbone of the national economy; the
maintenance of wage labor in State factories and enterprises; and,
finally, the elimination of all free labor through the "Revolutionary
Offensive" of 1968, and the expropriation of all small businesses.

Socialism would have meant restoring democracy and pursuing it to its
ultimate consequences, having decentralized and municipalized all the
central powers, totally liberated the Island's productive forces,
especially as regards investments and the market; eliminated all kinds
of monopolies; extensively supported free, cooperative and private,
medium-sized and small work and business models through credits of all
kinds; maintained a policy of respect for international law, without
prejudiced and absurd tantrums and confrontations, and without being
utterly seduced by the brutal schemes of Stalinism, fiercely rejected by
the people.

Now this scarecrow, painted up to disguise it as socialism, seeks its
salvation through an alliance with foreign capital, not with the workers
to whom it denies the ownership, management and profits of its faltering
companies, which it prefers to close if it cannot not find foreigners to
take charge of them, as it denies all access to significant sums of
Cuban capital to émigrés and those on the Island. After much championing
of nationalism, it also betrayed this.

It is no secret to anyone that Cuba's Statist economy is is more tied
than ever to that of the US, due to the remittances it receives from
emigrants in foreign currency, and the sending of medicines, food,
clothing and appliances; its reliance on the travel and tourism of every
kind, and the purchasing of food.

If it is not cynical to spend 60 years blaming all our ills on
imperialism, and then begging the allegedly imperialist power to lift
what is left of its embargo, because the country depends on its wealth,
then that word ought to be removed from the dictionary.

Source: Cynicism to disguise defeat | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1491824620_30285.html