Castro Hints He’ll Retire Soon
An ailing Fidel Castro has hinted that he may retire soon.
Reuters reports that “[a]iling Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public for 16 months, suggested on Monday he might give up his formal leadership posts.” This was the first time that he talked about a possible retirement, even though he’s probably not truly leading his country for months already.
“My elemental duty is not to hold on to positions and less to obstruct the path of younger people,” he said in a letter that was read on Cuban television. Castro also said that his duty is “to contribute experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional times that I have lived through.”
In the letter, the 80-year old seems to say that he will not “resume office but instead continue in the role of elder statesman advising the country’s communist government on key issues.”
The Communist Party can formalize Castro’s retirement as head of state in March 2008.
The question will then, of course, become what this will mean for Cuba. Many people thought that at the moment Castro would lose power, Cubans would revolt and rebel against the communist regime destroying their country. However, most Cubans haven’t known any other leader than Castro. Even when one opposes Castro it’ll be difficult for one to imagine having a country without Castro in charge of it.
Although I’m a fervent opponent of Castro, I think that it would be best for Cubans themselves if Castro’s successor(s) would remain in place for a couple of year as to break with Castro’s communism slowly. A fast, quick and violent revolution would probably bring disaster on Cuba. It’s better for them to take the time they need and to slowly reform the country and to guide it into the 21st century.
So I take it that preznit’s time has been dominated by productive pursuits, rubber products, and haphazard knowledge of the stars and other less recognized operating systems. His whole house of cads is hanging together barely by a thread, a ambiguous metaphor foisted by an individual with a flute, or a flinging of baloney at clueless people (media) trying to figure out which fork to use, as he embraces the promise of alienation and it’s various gifts it has bestowed on him. What is needed is dissolving boundaries, the latest tome by the Shulgins, ethno-botany as it relates to oemlets and other egg dishes, prepared remarks to fend off media dorks and the dopey 25%, the throb of the zeitgeist, existence in the indeterminate zone, and the opportunities of his dilemma. Wasn’t it Gurdjieff that claimed that people do not perceive reality, as they are not conscious of themselves, but live in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep." My motto: While sleeping, watch. I guess I’m disappointed with the revelation of no commonality of perception, and it bites me on the ass every trash night. It’s the monkey mind, post-Mcluhanist. No one is in control, absolutely no one.
The road Boosh has set out upon has been in a sorry state of disrepair for quite some time, six times, and for you loyal 25 percenters, that’s the amount of toes you have on your left foot. The bridge he crossed to get to what appears as a sun blasted lifeless desolate tract out in the middle of nothing (Are you sure this is the way?) is out as well, blowed up real nice, or so rumor has it. At the very least it would take quite a bit of effort to get back to where we were, as they tell me there is a sizable hobo camp inhabiting it’s forlorn and forgotten shell. The Caltrans worker he passed a day ago warned him that the rode ahead is in a dreadful condition as well, or at least that’s what he denies he said, as it was filtered through a formidable chunk of a puffy sickly sweet jelly doughnut confection crammed down his gibbering maw with suicidal abandon, unaware of the lurking type II diabetes about to cap his ass. And us? I try not to worry about the various potholes of of this preznit’s deceit, nor the road-kill that’s the price we must inevitable pay to play. Ah, but the play’s the thing, wouldn’t you agree? Gas is a small price to pay for the high fiber diet of Boosh’s life closely examined. Sometimes the pressure becomes too much to hold back as it attempts to escape in a barrage of born-again floppy-doodle, and we are ultimatley left with little choice but to reply to the unanswered question, squeezing out a joyous but cacophonous fanfare for this miscreant. Everybody by now has been warned or notified of his delicate mental condition, some getting more than a rebuke, others constantly thrown off kilter with every new geyser-like revelation. So we plug along, equally puzzled by where we’re going and the eternal battle with the con inside the White House, seeking freedom from all external constraints on our behavior. And ask anybody - he’s definitely misbehaving! The fear of being overwhelmed by, what lately seems to be the boogey-man of his impending discovered lies has foisted an extra heaping helping of denial and guilt, inserting severe limits on his normal exercise of desire, need, and deception. Afraid to move forward, fearful and preoccupied by the past, his uneasy self-hate a way of generating and then explaining his perpetual sense of being downtrodden and defeated throughout his life. When one gets chopped off at the knees by fate, it’s easy to feel defeated, which I guess is better than be fetid. The electorate has now jumped out of a plane twice without admitting how dangerous it is - Now there’s the possibility that some of the original mouth-breathers will do it again, and constantly run the lousy film back over and over. This movie sucks! The springs in the seat are goosing us big time, we can’t get comfortable, there’s sticky gak all over the floor, the popcorn is stale and over-priced, the media all around us constantly yammer, and we can’t get our money back. So what do you think? Do you think the tires need to be properly inflated? Or do you feel like a lot of people that the resale value on this car is going to be nil?
It’s a pity we’re so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan… Cuba is in our backyard and 10 times more ready for democracy than those backwater nations. We have to let a Castro successor take power; what else could we realistically do?
I agree but I think we would have had no other choice but to do as Michael was saying - the slow road. And if there were ever a case as to the ineffectiveness of Sanctions - this is one of them.