OPINION: Following the Communist cause in the Caribbean
By Nathan ‘Jolly’ Green, October 12, 2020.
Following the path created by Hugo Chavez, which caused the destruction of that once beautiful country called Venezuela.
Several countries in the Caribbean have a socialist background, but most of those today has been hijacked by politicians who are so far left of the Labour movements that they are little more than communists. People are pretending to be Labour who are Marxist monsters trying to take their countries along the Chavez path to become part of the Cuban model.
The Cuban model follows the old USSR path to a communist regime that is intolerant and so nasty that it has to keep their peoples under a strict form of perpetual slavery.
Cuban citizens have spent years trying to escape Cuba, in, or on whatever floats. It should be noted not a single political refugee, or financial migrant, from any other country in the hemisphere flees to Cuba. It’s strictly one-way traffic, so what does that tell us?
Many Americans travel to Canada to take holidays in Cuba, to circumvent the US rules on going to Cuba. The Cubans do not even stamp the passports of US citizens. Cuba is also great for the Canadians to go on holiday; it’s cheap for them, prostitution is rife, and is also very a nasty attraction to paedophiles. Some of the sex trade in Cuba is also an attraction to leaders of some of the small Caribbean countries while praising the Cuban model they are frolicking with the Cuban chicas.
There are many shortages in foodstuffs and toiletries, in fact, in everything. Many of the shops are bare and shelves empty. The Cuban housewives buy most of the crap food. While the prime, if you can even call the prime, prime, goes to the tourist industry. Half decent cuts of meat and lovely fillets of fish are unavailable to those who cannot pay top peso. There are even two kinds of those, one for the tourist and one for the local. Two tiers of monitory value; there are two different kinds of Cuban pesos. The currency that you as a foreigner will use everywhere in Cuba is the CUC, also known as the Convertible Peso. What can you buy with the Convertible Peso? Anything that is for sale in your hotel is in CUCs. Everything that you see in the Dollar stores is in CUCs. All tourist souvenirs sell for CUCs. Most restaurants and cafes charge in CUCs. Taxis accept payment in CUCs. All CUC bills have the words “pesos convertibles” on them so that you won’t mistake them for National pesos. CUCs are worth 25 TIMES, the National pesos.
Suppose you want to buy something in a local Cuban store, a National Peso store, or purchase street foods or take a local bus across town. In that case, it’s a good idea to exchange a handful of your CUCs for National pesos at a Casa de Cambio, or Cadeca. Not all of those will do that exchange, so watch out.
Despite ripping off the foreign tourist and visitor, commerce is still pretty stagnant and heading down the drain. The supposed first-class health care provided in Cuba is a myth. Hospitals in the island’s capital are falling apart. There are specialized hospitals for visiting diplomats, which are said to be superb. There are also individual hospitals catering to health tourism. I am also told and verily believe to be right there are exceptional hospitals for leading members of the Cuban communist party. But the regular Cubans, the slaves, have to put up with what can only be described as the worst of the worst, broken down or no equipment, shortages of drugs, dressings, and medicines: dirty, dilapidated hospitals, incompetent staff, missing bed-sheets and bedding in general. Socialists and progressives outside of Cuba have been known to gush praise over the island’s state-run health-care system, while it is in a state of total disarray. The regime has neither provided Cubans with equality nor fairness in health care. The ruling elite, their relatives and friends, get better service than the rest.
So this is what the leaders of our Caribbean islands want for their slaves, not for themselves, of course. Have you noticed that communism is only expected of the people, the slaves? While the leaders live high on the hog, best of everything. Most of the rules do not apply to them. They like to travel first class, ride in limousines, walk on the red carpet, and look to be described as honourable.
I sometimes wonder if the Caribbean leaders who become affiliated to Cuba do so out of personal political values or if the Cuban state pays them. Because I find it hard to believe any sane person would want to devote their lives to trying to introduce to their islands such a failed system. A system the maddest of them think is fair and equitable but is a million miles from that. There has to be some attraction to our want to be revolutionary rulers; what in hell’s name could it be?
In Barbados, it’s not just the leadership collaborating with the Cubans. Some Barbadians are Cuban collaborators, of the ‘Solidarity Movement with Cuba’ and the ‘Association of Cubans in Barbados.’
Saint Vincent has its ‘Cuban Friendship Society’ and a leader who is well known in the communist world, PM’ Ralph E Gonsalves. He openly courts Cuba, goes there and makes disrespectful referenced in speeches about the USA to wild hand clapping. He is a hero in Cuba and loves them so much that he allowed them to build the new airport at Argyle in Saint Vincent. He told the Vincentian people that the Cubans would be doing the jobs of Vincentians because Venezuela was paying their wages and insisted on them being employed. So hoards of Cubans arrived, driving trucks and machines, doing all the jobs Vincentians could do. It was a three-year project but took the Cubans nine years to complete. But guess what, the Venezuelans never paid a red cent towards the Cubans wages, SVG paid it all, up to $300,000 a month in Cuban salaries. The promise by Chavez, if he ever made such a promise, was never fulfilled. The airport costs more than a billion dollars, and the figures have been hidden by using private companies instead of state organizations. The people were told that when the airport was finished, it would have cost the state nothing because there was a coalition of the willing, a lot of friendly countries who would be paying for the whole thing. Guess what; there was no coalition, the state of SVG is in debt for massive borrowings. The government is currently admitting to 1.5 billion dollars in debt; it could be double that figure, no tourists coming to the main island, and no way of ever being able to pay it off. But that is how state communism works, lies and deception, smoke and mirrors, and gross enslavement.
Barbados, through its prime minister’s friendship with the PM of SVG, is in danger from the ‘laying down with dogs’ syndrome.’ The people of Barbados like SVG may have got someone who wants to stay in power forever, who will create a family dynasty, and all the leaders’ family and friends get prime government jobs, copycat behaviour.
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DISCLAMER: The opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com
Since taking up office in SVG the ULP and its leadership Ralph Gonsalves has wilfully taken our small nation down a very sad path, a path more akin to Stalinist Russia, than aligning us with the British family of nations that created us.
The result of that action for Vincentians, is all the misfortunes and sadness that former Prime Mitchel recently described in a radio interview that include the loss of freedom and increased poverty and which had caused him to say “I am fed up with Ralph”. Some in the Gonsalves regime proudly tell us that the ULP political philosophy is profoundly Marxist in origin like Venezuela and Cuba.
However, the Marxist philosophy that some in the ULP are so proud to express, has been responsible for much sufferings and death of countless millions and millions of individuals around the world since its inception by Karl Marx, of which Cambodia and Maoist China are but examples, not to mention todays Cuba and Venezuela and of course now Vincentians.
Moreover, what some of these same people are not aware of is this, that Karl Marks its creator was indeed a failed theology student, whose parents were European Jews and who, because of the hostility that they experienced as a result of their Jewish faith in Europe, is said by all accounts to have expressed an interest in Christianity. Religion for Karl Marx therefore presented a severe challenges. His failure to grasp the Christian doctrines later would have consequences for the world of faith.
Therefore, the Man Karl Marks, as a failed theology student, had made a very famous quote that resonates with us even today and reads; “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”. Hence the hostility to Christianity by all Marxist.
The renowned writer C. S. Lewis had this to say of them “Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere “opiate of the people” have a contempt for the rich, that is, for all mankind except the poor”. Yet the Marxist scorn is only against other people’s wealth and not against their own.
Indeed, the ULP and its leadership delights in telling Vincentians a gross lie. That lie they peddle is how that they are the only party who champions the poor in SVG, yet the evidence is to the contrary and is that they have single-handedly made the poor in SVG very much the poorer and their own family and cronies much, much the richer during their term in office.
Like their friends in Venezuela, they delight in creating poverty so as to create dependency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1SVMLUSWso although for themselves they dine sumptuously and delights in personal opulence. They are what could otherwise be called real champagne socialist!
The man Ralph Gonsalves an old political fox, confirms that old adage of The Lord Acton that reads “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Yet we humans learn so little from history, as from time to time, foxes like these are apt to offer the mass of the nation “something for nothing” a free lunch as they only to capture power and amass wealth for themselves.
Indeed for Vincentians, the Gonsalves family hold on power also confirms another sad fact, that these characters are never easily vacated or willingly give up power, despite the harm their longevity cause nations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKhR9i5CGkA from Joseph Stalin to today’s Nicolás Maduro.
For sure there abuse of power knows no end. But as true and real champagne swigging socialist, they offer the nations heaven on earth but delivers living hell instead! Indeed, the history of that failed philosophy of Marxism, be it in the Caribbean or around the world, speaks volumes for itself which is, poverty, loss of freedom and lots and lots of misery for some!
At the heart of Christianity and the Christian religion is the “10 Commandments”. The same is said to have been written by the finger of the creator God and given to Moses according to the Bible.
Therefore to Christians, the highest moral authority is God, and these “10 Commandments” are sometimes referred to as the Moral laws. However, since the Communist and socialist sees “the state” as the highest moral authority, we immediately encounter that great chasm that continues to exist between the Christian Religion and Socialism. The Moral Law of God or Marxist philosophy.
At John 1, in our Bible we read; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
What our bible is there telling us, is this, that “the Man Jesus” was the very God himself and who had made the world and everything in it, that is including men, although men find difficult in recognising such a person as God, despite enough disclosures to them. (The things he did before their very eyes being examples of his divinity) that ought to have pointed this out to them.
Moreover, the Man Jesus’s divinity is being confirmed for us at Colossians 2:9 that reads “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” For sure, God as a man with men!
Indeed, the Man Jesus let it be known, when asked about the “10 Commandments” that they all hinge on just two principles and which simply put are, “to Love God” and to “love our neighbour as we love ourselves.” And with that, we encounter another very severe problem with the Communist and socialist, and Christianity namely, their enduring hypocrisy regarding their own gross self-love.
Any individual reading the biography of Karl Marx, the founder of the Marxian philosophy that came to take his name, soon discovers that there is nothing new in Karl Marxian self-love hypocrisy, since Karl Marx too, exhibited great hypocrisy in his own personal life. Some of which was only discovered by his wife and daughter after his death.
The fact is this, quite apart from our not loving God as we ought to, all of us too, have difficulty in loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. However, this neighbour principle, is not at all taxing for the totalitarians that often gravitate to Marxism, since all that matters to them, is “not love of others” but rather their own love in controlling other people.
Despotic tyrants them all, who have heaped nothing but misery on humanity, see part of the roll call, Joseph Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Ralph Gonsalves, Nicolás Maduro. Nothing but misery follows in their wake! Though they all spoke of love.
However with God’s dictum in mind, who then are our neighbours that we ought to show love to? An English Judge once expressed it as those “others who could foreseeably be affected by our actions or inactions”.
And since according to God, we ought to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, the same would clearly fly in the face of the socialist Marxist doctrines. Love of the State and the tyrant comes first.
For the Marxist, love is entirely for the state, as first principle towards the greater good, as they see it and not towards the individual. State control and not personal choice or liberty.
However, God in his wisdom gives us all our own personal liberty and the “10 Commandments” to guide all of our actions, but the Marxist make grubby dictators of themselves over us, with very little liberty to boot for the individual.
God tells us to look at the “10 Commandments” and then choose our actions, the Marxist tells us to do as they choose and do as they say and direct us to do as they direct us to.
Only a Communist/Marxist or someone as such would put their own rights or the state’s right first. The right to dictate to a citizen and prevent that citizen from the lawful enjoyment of their own Land and property. Liberty ceases, God given rights are taken away and the dictator and state supersedes.
In all democratic societies, it has always been accepted that it is a “God given right” for an individual to own, hold and use his/her own individual personal property, with peaceable enjoyment, providing that one is not causing any harm to one’s neighbours as the 10 Commandments so prescribes.
As such, the case in point, the Murry Family’s case, highlights the degree to which the U.L.P here, and its leadership in the form of Ralph Gonsalves, has taken our nation away from its Christian values and towards a Marxist/Communist dictatorship, thereby overthrowing the given Moral Laws.
This salient act on Ralph Gonsalves’s part, demonstrates indeed that nothing could be further from Love, in Ralph Gonsalves Marxist actions, compared to “God given Christian values”. To LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR is to respect your neighbour’s property, thereby fulfilling that part of God’s published requirement. However, we already know that Marxism and Christianity are not at all compatible.
Therefore for us Vincentians, there is a fundamental at stake, and it is, will we strive to be governed by God through the 10 Commandments as life’s doctrines or will we continue to be governed by the Ralph Gonsalves family through its imperfect Karl Marx’s Socialist/Communist Doctrines. The choice is ours and as a guide, we should just take a look at regional neighbours Venezuela and Cuba today!
The nation have recently learned that poverty, something socialist love to talk about, had not declined under the Ralph Gonsalves family rule in SVG but rather had increased. Should that be a surprise? Not one bit of it. Youth unemployment have rocketed as economic life stagnates.
The fact that “Poverty moves from 30% to 36% under ULP” near on twenty years rule over SVG is not at all surprising, just look at the trajectory for Cuba under the Castro family regime and Venezuela also under the Chavez and Maduro families!
The Cuba/Venezuela preferred economic model and policies for economies were shown to have profoundly failed where ever it had been tried throughout the world. The Soviets in their wisdom saw good sense and abandoned it for the better. Even the Communist in China did likewise to become a “totalitarian Capitalist state”.
People say he who feels it knows it! Equally those Vincentians who have been experiencing hardship as a result of the further increase in poverty rate, sure knows it for sure and the long lines of people outside Western Union Offices, especially in Kingstown, are a clear direct result. And as the jobless rate increased in SVG so has poverty. The youth knows full well, “no money-no honey” as their frustrations boils over into street and home violence!
Indeed, that the rate of poverty in SVG had increased under the Gonsalves family regime and is now being made public unofficially, is a clear vindication of what many individuals have be saying for some time now, but they were being silenced by the family regime through institutional pressure.
Moreover, Ralph Gonsalves in his eloquence, may have been able to talk his way into political office, and may have dupe many at home and abroad with his smoke and mirrors. However, he cannot change the solid and observable facts on the ground. And some of these observable facts are;
His Labour Government in SVG through its foolish policies have cost many Vincentian private sector jobs! Lost jobs have resulted in less food on many tables for both the young and the old. The nation’s constant worldwide begging for income support, is certainly not enough to fill the nation’s economic needs. Talk of “Labour Love” rings hollow and do not pay bills.
The many created Government non-jobs requires “stringent taxes” to support them, consequently the tax burden on Vincentians is now very crippling thus adding to even further burden and further stifles the open economy. The Labour government gross nepotism and cronyism have in addition introduced much inefficiency in SVG’s economic life, thus scaring off real investors in SVG Limited.
Labour therefore is not working for Vincentians! Any further appeal to Cuban/Venezuelan Socialism, will only make Vincentian poverty even worst! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1T4N1DMGGE
The very idea of freedom from oppression, from drudgery and from poverty was something our forebears held very highly and very dearly.
The germs and indeed rudiments of the very idea remained with Vincentians for a long time but this sadly was snuffed out some 19 years ago when the ULP and its leadership took up office here.
They thus commenced to impose upon us their family dictatorship with the promise of unending prosperity, yet we remains the 4th poorest country in the region..
Yet there is that truism attributed to Victor Hugo that we cannot deny. Victor Hugo was and is esteemed as one of the greatest of French writers and poets and who said “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
“No force on earth (save God) can stop an idea whose time has come” ― Victor Hugo; so has the idea of Vincentian freedom finally come? Have we rekindled the spark of Vincentian freedom in us again? Are Vincentians ready to give that unworkable philosophy of Karl Marks short shrift?
The ULP Red-Shirts have sought to force upon us that alien philosophy of Karl Marx in order to satisfy their own grubby thirst for power and control over our lives, just as their counterparts have done in both Cuba and Venezuela:
Victor Hugo again;
“Socialism, or the Red Republic, is all one; for it would tear down the tricolour and set up the red flag. It would make penny pieces out of the Column Vendome. It would knock down the statue of Napoleon and raise up that of Marat in its stead.
It would suppress the Académie, the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honour. To the grand device Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, it would add “Ou la mort. It would bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching the poor.
It would destroy labour, which gives to each one his bread. It would abolish property and family. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them by massacres.
It would convert France into the country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, and deny God.
It would bring into action these two fatal machines, one of which never works without the other—the assignat press and the guillotine.
In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in fever, and after the grand horrors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in all that was low and small.”
Has the time come for Vincentian freedom?