Dictatorship of the proletariat

“The Woman Who Can’t Forget” was on To The Best of Our Knowledge. She, well, can’t forget. She has clear memories of every day of her life since age 14, and as far as scientists can tell, she’s legit. She made an interesting point that you don’t immediately think of (at least, I didn’t): Not only do you remember birthdays and first kisses, but also every lie you ever told, every person you ever slighted, every cutting remark you ever made. What a puzzling, awful burden.

Attention, people of Earth: You have to wait. You really, really do. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Unless my pants are on fire (or, alternately, yours are), no matter what you have on your mind, you just have to wait until I’m finished talking with the person I was talking with. Sorry. That is all.

Cameron Reilly, who is the president of the Podcast Network, which brings me the marvelous Napoleon Podcast and the Biography Show, has been both twittering about and talking about, on his G’Day World podcast, his apparent affinity for socialism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Personally, in my heart of hearts, I’m a socialist, too. The greatest good for the greatest number, all that. It’s all over the Bible, too-camel through the eye of the needle, etc. In an ideal world, that’s what I’d like to have happen.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world. Socialism, in my opinion, when it has been put into practice, has resulted in monstrously evil things. I am almost done with the CIA book I mentioned yesterday-it has progressed from postwar Berlin all the way to Yeltsin/Gorbachev era Russia-and one of the things the Russian characters mention is the Soviet belief that capitalism and the West bring out the worst parts of human nature. Don’t they, though?

Anyway, Cameron mentioned on Twitter that he didn’t think there was any evidence of the crimes of the Castro regime, and then on his podcast he brought up the 80th birthday of the late guerilla leader Ernesto “Che” Stadium.


Sorry, old joke. Che Guevara.

Cameron made the point that, if you believe Guevara committed crimes and committed terrorism, then you need to “read a book”. He recommends “Legacy of Ashes”, which I have also blogged about before and really need to pick up, it looks like.

Now, I know very little about Che Guevara and only a little bit more about Castro. I am fully willing to posit that what I know, and what I may learn, is almost certainly at least slanted, and in places possibly falsified, by simple ignorance on the part of historians as well as CIA/Western disinformation.

That being said, is there any real doubt that secret prisons, murder, rape, and torture occur under Castro? I will give you the fact that the CIA, only based on what we have been able to learn, has been involved with not only morally dubious, but downright heinous adventures from the very beginning. I will also give you the fact that the American government from the very beginning has desperately wanted Castro’s government to fall and has actively sought to make it do so.

Cameron tried to argue on Twitter that Cuban prisoners have violated Cuban law, just like in any other country, therefore Castro is not a dictator. If you have to pass a law to forbid dissent, as I think you pretty much do in a Communist state, isn’t that de facto a dictatorship? Is there a single example of a Communist state without a horrific human rights record? Doesn’t it follow that Cuba must be the same?

Is it possible that how ever many millions of people have decided, no, we’d rather have laws forbidding dissent and giving us free health care and education? With no one disagreeing? And, if the system is so perfect in every way, why not expose it to an election and let the people flock to your banner?

The right to freedom of thought-to freely think what one wishes and express it whenever one wishes-simply has to be a fundamental one. It’s messy, sure-it opens up the stage to Holocaust deniers, racists, sexists, anti Semites, and all manner of other subhuman refuse. But the solution to hate speech, as Alan Dershowitz wisely notes, is not speech codes but more speech-better speech-the will of the majority saying to the spittle drenched morons, “Sorry- that’s not the way the rest of us feel. Go ahead and say it, but we’re going to stand here and ignore you. We-our union, our laws- are stronger than you are- so strong that we can allow you to act like an irresponsible idiot without it damaging the rest of us. ”

I see the contradiction-a Stalinist state can’t allow freedom of speech, because if people see what they don’t have, as they sing in “Chess”, “trinkets in airports” will be “sufficient to lead them astray”. But given that they have to do that, they wind up being dictatorships. I don’t know of any counterexamples, nor can I imagine any other way it can turn out.

Once again, I am not arguing that America’s hands are clean in all this. We have tortured, murdered, and done all sorts of awful things in the name of defending freedom over the years. I guess the difference is we meant well-some of the time, anyway-and we’re trying to do better-some of us, anyway. And, of course, the largest point of all is that I won’t get thrown into jail for writing this.

Reminds me of the old joke Ronald Reagan used to tell about an American and a Russian meeting on the street. The American says, “You know what’s great about my system? I can stand in front of the White House with a sign that says ‘President Reagan is a no good scoundrel’, and nothing will happen to me.” The Russian replies, “I can do that, too. I could stand in front of the Kremlin with a sign that says ‘President Reagan is a no good scoundrel’, and nothing would happen to me, either.”

In New York City, Boston is clinging to a 3-2 advantage in the top of the seventh. After a Kevin "Dollar Dollar Bill Y'All" Cash double scores Lugo, that pushes the lead to 4-2, with nine outs to go. I'd feel a little better with a 14-2 advantage, but it will do. If we can hold on, that would make it 3 out of 4 from New York and a (somewhat) decisive blow.

Jason Giambi looks funny with a mustache.