A discussion about Hillary and Cuba

The Guardian has an article about Hillary Clinton's plan to end economic sanctions against the Castro family dictatorship. The following is an excerpt from the article, and a piece of a follow up exchange I had in the comments section:

"Hillary Clinton will call for an end to the US embargo on Cuba during a rare foreign-policy speech for the Democratic presidential frontrunner, in a signal that the former secretary of state is willing to challenge her chief Republican rivals in the arena in which they have sought confrontation the most."

AND 

"She will highlight that Republican arguments against increased engagement are part of failed policies of the past and contend that we must look to the future in order to advance a core set of values and interests to engage with Cubans and address human rights abuses,” Clinton’s campaign said in a statement on Wednesday."

The article http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/29/hillary-clinton-end-cuba-embargo-florida

So I wrote the following comment:

Let's see....we know the Castro family dictatorship is one of the vilest ancient regimes on Earth. It sponsors and sustain another emerging autocracy, soon to lose any semblance of legitimacy or rationality (Maduro's regime), it advocates hatred towards the USA whenever it can. That's a given. 

Ms Clinton seems to be uncomfortable because Latin American regimes (la Kirchner, Evo Morales, a weakening Dilma, and boy genius Correa?) are made uncomfortable by USA sanctions. So what? If Latin American populists in that list prefer to defend autocracy, corruption and dictatorship, then they aren't worth much. Put them in the backyard and let them bark. And if they want to be Chinese colonies they can be liberated in due course.

Communism is alive and well

I have friends who think communism died when the Soviet empire collapsed and Eastern Europe freed itself. China's move away from its failed version of communism was followed by other dictatorships, like Vietnam. Now Cuba wants to adopt capitalism to protect the ill gotten perks of the party oligarchs. 

But communists seem to insist on rebuilding the past, and will continue wrecking nations like they are doing to Venezuela at this time. This is why I tell my friends communism will always attract followers, and will always remain a threat.

Letter from Ines, the jailed Venezuelan Twitterer

The following letter was written by Ines Gonzalez, a Venezuelan chemical engineer jailed for writing anti-government Twitter comments. Inés has been in jail at a location known as "The Helix" in Caracas, charged with "inciting hatred".

Ins Gonzalez prior to her arrest by 

the political secret police, the SEBIN

Individuals like Inés are arrested under trumped up charges and denied bail, nor are they put on trial. The regime follows the ancient Stalinist repression practices used by the Castro dictatorship, the idea is to pick off individuals and use their fate to terrorize the population.

"The Helix, July 10, 2015: 

To my dear and missed friends It has been over nine months since the repressive forces of the regime forced me to remain silent. 

However, it is time to send smoke signals from the lion's mouth: Inesita of his own hand writes; eternally grateful and touched by all forms of support and solidarity for my sake and that of all political prisoners

The Bible tells me that all our torturers and inquisitors have their reward, only God is the eternal power, and the true fatherland is made up of those of us who are persecuted and fettered.

Ideas can not be locked up in a cell. Here I  am freer than the prosecutor who jailed me, because true freedom is the absence of fear of the consequences. True freedom is to obey reason and a clear conscience ... Everything else is an illusion of stability.

Written word transcends time, connects us with the great minds of the past and allows us to leave testimony of our struggles to succeeding generations. So the regime is more afraid of the word than of lead bullets.

Those who feel they have no hope in this country, fear the  disaster that Maduro wants to impose, should  become your own sun to give luster to your lives. This nightmare will end. Thank you for not forgetting. I love you. 

Ines Gonzalez"

So what did the regime see in this girl? What did she write? She poked fun at Robert Serra, the Chavista who was murdered in Caracas, in a pretty ugly murder (see my post "Two strange murders in Caracas") , and she wrote a tweet saying the protests weren't going to stop the regime, that it was necessary to "lock down the country", meaning it was necessary to call a general strike. In her final days she also wrote the state political police (the KGB clone, known as SEBIN) had been trying to scare her.

http://21stcenturysocialcritic.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/two-strange-murders-in-caracas.html

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Opinion about Venezuela within the US War College

I found a link to a study about the ongoing collapse of the Maduro regime, written by an expert at the USA War College.

The author, Dr R Evan Ellis is a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute.  I'm going to quote a couple of paragraphs from his study so you can see what experts within the U.S. Military intelligentsia are seeing:

"The current regime in Venezuela is locked in an economic and political death spiral from which multiple reinforcing dynamics make it difficult to escape calamity. During 16 years of “Bolivarian socialism,” anti-business policies including expropriations, price and currency controls, government corruption, and skyrocketing crime have destroyed virtually all productive activity in the country outside the oil sector. In agriculture, where producers battle government-encouraged land invasions and outright expropriations, difficulties in obtaining foreign currency to purchase supplies, and demands from government purchasing agents for kickbacks that must be paid in scarce dollars, production has collapsed, and the agriculturally rich, tropical country must now import almost three-fourths of the food that it requires to feed its people, with the result that, as the government’s foreign currency runs out, Venezuela’s poor find it even harder to eat.

......l

The mismanagement of existing oil fields has inhibited production and accelerated the decline of mature fields, while deferred investments have forced the adoption practices that increase production costs. PdVSA’s failure to invest in “upgrader” facilities, for example, have forced it to purchase “light, sweet” crude to mix with the heavier, sour oil from Orinoco, in order to sell it to commercial refineries. 

..........

The Venezuelan military leaders who are not impeded by their own corruption from defending democracy and the constitution must include in their calculations the Cuban Intelligence agents whom President Hugo Chavez, and his successor Nicolas Maduro, have permitted to become embedded within Venezuelan military structures to maintain a socialist regime in power."

Memo: as of today the bolivar exchange rate is 630 to the U.S. Dollar.

Link to the full study at the U.S. War College website:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/the-approaching-implosion-of-venezuela/2015/07/10