Postpolitical on Castro

During yesterday's rumors about the "not-dead-yet" Castro, I wrote at Pajamas Media that

Is Castro dead? Until the Cuban government makes an official announcement, there is no way of knowing for sure.

The Cuban government, however, has very little to gain and a lot to lose if and when they make an official announcement.

Today Postpolitical (via Barcepundit) has a brilliant post on the Cuban government's options (emphasis added):

As even El Gusano notes, the current state of transition from Fidel to Raul has provoked no visible popular revolt or known palace coup attempts. This is the point at which the state is most vulnerable as well. If Raul is as clever as is claimed, he might just realize that he has hit upon the ultimate method to perpetuate autocratic despotism: rule as regent to an immortal corpse.

Consider it if you will. A dead dictator certainly can't be assassinated or even really overthrown. What's to seize from a pile of bones? Raul need not risk a genuine political transition, or take the time to build his own personality cult, or even give a single speech to persuade the masses to accept him as their new surrogate secular deity and adopted father. The corpse already has all that.

Sure, the secret will leak out eventually. But is the notion that Castro is both dead and ruling, really too much doublethink for a people who are told daily they're drowning in plenty on empty stomachs? The Cuban state has been lying to the people about almost everything for over four decades now. Why should they suddenly lose obedience over this lie? The people might even be eager to consent to the charade. After all, could a dead man's policies be any worse than a living Castro's?

The benefits are considerable for Raul. If they were to accept the corpse ruler, communism in Cuba could last for a thousand years, because a dead man cannot die. But also because the nature of that political contract - accepting rule by a dead head of state -is perhaps the ultimate exchange of independence for total social control. For any people, I can think of no greater indignity or humiliation than the realization that they are in fact governed by a nonexistent executive, which an entire government pretends to believe exists. If that is granted, anything can follow.

I heartily agree with Postpolitical: Don't expect any official notices that Castro's kicked the bucket for the foreseeable future, folks.

Kim Jong-il is probably watching how it all plays out, too.



Share on Facebook

Global warming, North Korea, and today's items

Augusto sent this, Vaclav Klaus about the IPCC panel (emphasis added)

Q: On Wednesday, the European Commission has approved carbon dioxide caps for new cars. One week earlier, the U.N. IPCC climate panel released a report that has described, once again, the global warming as one of the major threats for the whole civilization. The Stern report about similar threats was published before that. And you suddenly say that the global warming is a myth. Try to explain, how did you get this idea, Mr President?

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" and "if's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.

This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians... If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.
...
It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.

Sunspots, Cosmic Rays Causing Global Warming

When sun is more active, its rays push the cosmic rays away from the Earth. Then fewer clouds are formed and the Earth warms. When the sun is less active, more cosmic rays reach the Earth, more clouds are formed, and the Earth cools.

-----------------------------------------
Tentative Nuclear Deal Struck With North Korea
Steps to Disarmament Drafted in 6-Party Talks

"This is a very bad deal," former U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton told CNN. "It contradicts fundamental premises of the president's policy he's been following for the past six years. And second, it makes the administration look very weak at a time in Iraq . . . when it needs to look strong."

At NRO, via Alcibiades,

We are entering a very dangerous and depressing phase: making deals the principal accomplishment of which is the demonstration that we're not unilateralist cowboys — diplomacy celebrated for its own sake rather than because it actually, materially furthers American interests.

It's deja-vu all over again, babe.
-----------------------------------------
The glamorizing of the covered women continues. (h/t Larwyn)
-----------------------------------------
Also via Larwyn, Let A Thousand Team Bs Bloom: Douglas Feith Deserves Our Thanks: There Is No Category of 'Inappropriate' Activities
-----------------------------------------
In a lighter mode, Air Force Three (h/t Darleen)

Blogging from the Public Library

This morning there's no internet connection at casa de Fausta. The problem certainly wasn't caused by the snow, which was sparse,

and therefore thousands of children had to get up early and head to school.

I left The Husband to deal with the internet problem and took my trusty laptop to the Princeton Public Library, that $18,000,000 living room where

people shop, talk and fall in love

I realize one can't really control who one falls in love with, but I'll do my best to refrain from all of those three activities. Right now I'm sitting entirely by myself right next to the LARGE PRINT BOOKS section. It smells of popcorn.

Last night while I was tidying up the family room I watched one of the weirdest musicals ever: In Caliente (1935), starring Dolores del Rio, whom I remember from when I used to wait for my piano teacher when I was a kid living in Puerto Rico. One of the local TV stations used to play in the afternoons old Mexican movies (mostly horrible tragedies) and Dolores starred in many of them after she left Hollywood.

In Caliente takes place in a Mexican town of the same name at the Hotel Caliente (the hot hotel) where four mariachis followed the guests singing the title song, much like Sir Robyn's minstrels, and, while they didn't meet the same fate as the minstrels, there was much rejoicing. Dolores del Rio managed to look impeccable while wearing evening gowns throughout the film no matter the time of day or what was happening around her, mariachi or no mariachi.

The rest of the movie's a Busby Berkely musical, and the songs' lyrics were written by Al Dubin, of Tip-toe Through the Tulips fame. Judging by his lyrics, Al must have been a wild and crazy guy with a Brooklyn accent, with the emphasis on crazy: here's She's A Latin from Manhattan

Fate sent her to me over the sea from Spain
And she is one in a million for me
I found my romance when she went dancing by
And she must be a Castillian, si, si
Is she from Havana or Madrid?
But something about her is making me doubt 'er
I think I remember the kid, yeah!

She's a Latin from Manhattan
I can tell by her 'Man-ya-na"
She's a Latin from Manhattan
But not Havana
Though she does the rhumba for us
And she calls herself Dolores
She was in a Broadway chorus
Known as Suzy Donahue

She can take her tambourine and whack it
But to her it's just a racket
She's a hoofer from Tenth Avenue

While the NYT reviewer said,

Perhaps its most notable factor is the restraint of Busby Berkeley's song and dance interludes

restraint is not what comes mind when you watch eight horses running amok in a Mexican cantina while three dozen dancers drink from shot glasses and sing "Muchacha, at last I've gotcha where I wantcha, muchacha", and Dolores del Rio has just smacked her suitor across the face with a crop, after which he falls down the stairs and miraculously recovers all the while keeping time with the music.

Here's a still showing the moment just before she grabbed that crop and whacked him.

The lyrics are special,

Muchacha, tonight I've gotcha where I wantcha, my Muchacha.
I'll watchcha just like a cat would watch a little cucaracha.
So, stand up and hand me your lovely charms,
Give me two red lips and a pair of arms.
I've gotcha and in the lingo of the "Gringo," I'm so hotcha,
Muchacha, for you.

I can almost guarantee that no one's going to be falling in love at the Public Library if they hear those pick-up lines, but going by what Robert Osborne said, being at the set must really have been a hoot.
--------------------------------------------
On to today's items:
Things are getting more caliente in Venezuela now that the National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months.

Also caliente, the Chinese used a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile to destroy a weather satellite that had been launched in 1999. Meanwhile in Iran, the UFOs are flying.

Venezuela and Iran are now facing reduced oil demand, and oil futures dropped to $50. Captain Ed asks, Have The Saudis Declared Economic War On Iran?

This morning's WSJ has the latest UN scandal, the Cash for Kim, a.k.a., United Nations Dictator's Program

The stakes are nonetheless very high because, unlike Saddam's Iraq, North Korea has already succeeded in testing its nuclear bomb. The hard currency supplied by the UNDP almost certainly goes into one big pot marked "Dear Leader," which Kim can use for whatever he wants, including his weapons programs. This may not violate the letter of Security Council Resolution 1718, which restricts trade in anything having to do with North Korea's nuclear or missile programs, but it certainly violates its spirit.

Unlike Oil for Food, there's no evidence to date that corrupt UNDP officials are in on the game--though given the U.N.'s record of late, it would be unwise to rule that out before a full investigation.

In Turkey, Hrant Dink has been shot dead. He's the guy who had been prosecuted under Turkey's strict laws against "insulting Turkishness."

In lighter news,
There's a local exhibition of diverse views on 'What's Sacred'. I might drop by during the weekend.

Geoffrey Chaucer got tagged with the V Thinges Meme

Al Gore, weather maker Takes on His Critics... while Instapundit links to Gore Effect in the Urban Dictionary:

The well documented phenomenon that leads to very low, unseasonal temperatures, driving rain, hail, snow or all of the above whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global "warming". Hence the "Gore Effect"

Then there's that creepy picture. Botox? Wrinkle fillers? Make-up? Or airbrush?

And from Maria
Castro Shuffling in Place

The cadaverish dictator shuffling in place is a perfect metaphoric rendering of Castro's Cuba over these many decades. He took his country from prosperity and a place at the head of Latin America in material terms to the bottom. In practically every material measure his country is a slum. In terms of freedom it is one vast jail. Had he, when he came to power after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's seven-year dictatorship, made good on his promise to return Cuba to the democratic condition in which it had existed in the 1940s, his country today would most likely be the richest and freest country south of our borders, and possibly Castro would be in the pink and deserving of the accolades now paid him by the American left's rich and fatuous.