The Legacy of Fidel Castro

A preview of this blog for 2017 and also Fidel Castro’s Legacy for Cuba
The Legacy of Fidel Castro
2017 Preview of the MLLG Blog
By: George Noga – January 8, 2017

    Before we get to Cuba, I must attend to some MLLG business. I hope you enjoyed the new MLLG blog throughout the past year. We are continuing the blog in 2017; hence, I now must ask for contributions from readers to help with our costs which are not inconsequential. I hope that this will be the only time I make such a request.

    All support goes 100% for expenses; any help, even a small amount, is appreciated. Please mail your check to MLLG at: P. O. Box 916381, Longwood, FL 32791-6381. To save time and money, I no longer maintain a separate MLLG legal entity; therefore your check, to be negotiable, must be made payable to “George Noga“. Thanks to all of you for reading, forwarding to others and for all your support since we began in 2007.

    I am excited about upcoming posts. Next week we present a postmortem of the 2016 election; this is followed by a special edition on Inauguration Day (January 20) which is a not-to-be-missed retrospective of the Obama presidency. Other upcoming topics include: Kitty Genovese and the Democrats, nullification, the war on blacks, the ninth amendment, more on climate change and MLLG commencement addresses for both high school and college. With the election now over, 2017 will contain more posts about economic, tax, human interest, environmental and cultural issues.

Fidel Castro’s Legacy

   In 1959 revolutions took place in two countries, both on small, subtropical islands governed by dictators. Both countries were mountainous, less than 25% arable and both relied on sugar exports. Also in both cases, there were giant hostile mainland nations just a few miles away that cut off all diplomatic and economic relations and threatened military invasion. However, one of the nations was much more prosperous than the other one and well ahead in terms of health, education and income.

    One of the two nations was Cuba and in 1959 it was the more prosperous. Today its economy has failed; its per capita GDP is $5,500, but the take home pay of most Cubans is $30 per month. It remains a brutal dictatorship filled with political prisons that practice torture. Its GDP per capita ranks 137 in the world and its freedom index ranks 171. One-third of all pregnancies are aborted and it is a nihilistic society.

    Even Cuba’s vaunted health care system is a failure. Cuban doctors botched Fidel’s treatment in 2006; specialists from Spain flew in to save his life. Infant mortality, once claimed to be ultra low, is based on lies. Cuban data are based on forced abortions for any pregnancy considered risky and they do not count infant deaths from underweight births. Cuba’s infant mortality is worse than elsewhere in Latin America. Most Cuban doctors are sent abroad to earn hard currency to keep the regime from utter failure.

    You may be surprised that the second country referred to is Taiwan. Dirt poor and under military dictatorship in 1959, it became a vibrant democracy and a capitalist economic tiger. Today Taiwan’s economy ranks 21 in the world with per capita GDP of $40,000. It ranks 26 on the index of human freedom. Cuba was ahead of Taiwan in 1959 in nearly every metric of human and economic well being. The juxtaposition of Cuba and Taiwan between 1959 and today reveals the true human and economic disaster that is the eternal legacy of Fidel Castro to the remaining people of Cuba.

    Castro and Che may continue to adorn tee shirts of clueless youth. Useful idiots, in and out of the media, may offer encomia, but the people of Cuba, when the regime inevitably falls, will render final judgment. Castro statues will be felled, murals defaced and the truth outed – that Fidel was a hypocritical, despotic, murderous megalomaniac who inflicted incalculable poverty and suffering on the people of Cuba.


Our next post January 15th presents a postmortem on the 2016 election.