MIAMI, United States.- It is very strange what happens. According to a dictum gringo, you don’t change horses in the middle of a river. According to the analysis of Politician –a portal that is much closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans—, the recent announcement of a Joe Biden’s change of strategy in his perception of Cuba and Venezuela, it means that he gives up the next election in Florida. Compromising with these two dictatorships is leaving the way clear for the Republicans, as complained by federal senator Bob Menéndez, no less than president of the Senate of the Committee that oversees that specific issue, and state senator Annette Taddeo, both from the Democratic Party.
Here is a cat locked up. The politicians —and Biden is the quintessence of “the politicians”—, or the president know something of which we have no idea, because Juan S. González, the person who manages the foreign policy of the White House in that part of the world meeting with Díaz-Canel and Maduro, or going through a stage of dangerous naivety, unbecoming of a 79-year-old man who has seen the entrails of the authoritarian monster.
Cuba and Venezuela know that they have to move in the direction of democratic change, but there is not the slightest symptom in that sense. Cuba has just approved a Penal Code infinitely more restrictive than the one that existed, increasing the “reasons” for which the State can shoot you, while keeping hundreds of demonstrators in jail who went out to protest peacefully last July 11, to the rhythm of the song “Patria y lifetime”.
Spain is the model, although each one must do it in their own way. Neither Díaz-Canel nor Maduro have to think about it much. It all starts with a general amnesty. They speak to opposition parties discreetly. An electoral calendar is established and the chimera of socialism is buried. Really, that it does not work. He never has and never will. If you want to protect the radical change with a referendum, it is possible to carry it out. Society is crazy to get rid of those chains.
How many people do not want change? In Spain, which was an orderly nation that prospered, unlike Cuba and Venezuela, it was calculated at 15 or 20%, despite the fact that in 1975, the year Franco died, they had a little less than 80% of the GDP of the nations. leaders of the European Economic Community. In the end, only less than 10% voted for or were against the change. If they dare, those numbers will be confirmed.
Will they dare? I do not think so. The conditions for change are given, but I don’t think so. There is the conviction of the most resounding failure. There has been a generational change, because the original leaders have already died —Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés “have two shaves left to hang up their sneakers”—, and those who follow are supporters of change. And if, in some cases, they are not, their wives and children want to modify the destiny of the country and not continue to be tied to the ghostly mandate of the dead leaders, nor to the emotional blackmail “of what Fidel Castro would have done.” Nobody knows what he would have done and, best of all, almost nobody cares.
What does the support of China or Russia mean? Very little thing. The only handle is anti-Yankeeism. Neither one nor the other are Marxists. Both systems have abandoned collectivism and cling to private property, although in China they continue to praise Mao, while giving him a real lip service, him and his Party, hiding all his follies. That is why Fidel brought up the Chinese example, but, as far as I know, he died disappointed in both China and Russia, and he did not forgive Vladimir Putin for his first gesture of independence, when he began to reign alone, without the shadow of Boris Yeltsin closed the base of Lourdeswithout prior explanations.
Why doesn’t Cuba allow the self-employed to import directly from abroad? Why not put an end to the monstrosity of the single Party, which only serves to assign privileges? Why not make truly democratic reforms? Really, out of cowardice, and because the ruling leadership, whose family is abroad, feels comfortable with the system designed by Fidel Castro himself: the State Military Capitalism, even if it is crazy, as has been proven since 1992, thirty years ago!
It is absolutely true that a society with a high degree of inequality would be created, but not everyone has the psychological urgencies of entrepreneurs or commissioners. Deng Xiaoping stated that “getting rich is beautiful”. Why? Because those who pursue their fortune pull the social cart. In the United States there are millions of entrepreneurs and the good habit of investors with risk capital.
You have to create wealth and then distribute it through taxes, as do the Scandinavian countries, the United States, Canada, Holland, Estonia and the rest of the nations where immigrants (literally) run. How much is the “fair” percentage of the tax burden? It is not known. It depends on many factors that are beyond the urgency and scope of this chronicle.
I suspect that in eighteen months Joe Biden and Juan S. González will meet again to examine the results of the change in strategy. It will be time to count. Nothing will have happened. The two dictatorships will continue paralyzed. There will be more sanctions and we will return to the starting point. Someone who likes rustic metaphors will remember “you don’t change horses in the middle of the river.” It has been that way for a good number of years.
OPINION ARTICLE
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