I highly recommend anything by Javier Corrales, but this recent piece is really exceptional. He goes into detail on “why Cuban President Diaz-Canel” is still facing rebellion at home, and it’s exactly the sort of information people on the left, and progressive or liberal left need to hear about Cuba. Corrales teamed up with Scott Brasesco to write the piece on the situation on the island long reified as the socialist utopia we never had.
And everything is rapidly changing on the Island, even while changes toward the Island, at least in Washington, DC, move at a glacial speed. Like, what about that “blockade”? Yeah, the one that basically doesn’t exist? There are the sanctions on the island and it was US sanctions that actually helped Castro to power. I’m talking about the arms embargo put on Batista in 1958, which had little or no effect on Castro and the other rebel groups, but which hindered Batista in his war against dissidents. And when Fidel came to power the US had friendly, even if cautious, relations with his regime, but as things went along, and, in full Cold War, Castro warmed up to the USSR, then began nationalizing US interests (including private property of US citizens and corporations), the sanctions were extended to all trade, followed by a brief blockade after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the years of the “embargo.”
But now even Conservatives like the peope at Reason.com see the sanctions as being utterly counterproductive. And they’re right. They allow the Cuban Communist government to blame EVERYTHING on the US, including all dissidence. As they did in the wake of July 11th. It’s a tired trope, and it needs to end, along with the sanctions. And now pro-democracy protests are beginning to unite against the left authoritarians. Maybe it’s time for people on the left to join in those demonstrations and show solidarity, at last, with the people, and not with the elite holding them down? Just a suggestion.
I’ve long suspected that the communist regime will fall within a year of the end of sanctions. If I were a betting man…