Some Men Will Never Change (So Why Try?)

More offensive Bush administration messages!

The old saying about married life appears to be true with dictators, too:  When they get married men hope their wives won’t change and they do and women hope their men will change but they don’t.  Maybe a lesson President Obama should learn about the enemies of the Unites States?

I read an interesting article on Reuters about Cuba’s leader, Raul Casto that makes one wonder why Democrats don’t buy into the whole “good vs. evil” thing:

President Raul Castro said on Saturday he would not change Cuba’s communist system to make peace with the United States, but repeated his willingness to discuss all issues with the island’s longtime enemy.

In a speech to the Cuban National Assembly, Castro acknowledged the United States under President Barack Obama was less “aggressive” toward Cuba, but he expressed irritation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for saying repeatedly that Washington expected Havana to make changes in exchange for better relations.

“I have to say, with all due respect to Mrs. Clinton … they didn’t elect me president to restore capitalism in Cuba, nor to hand over the revolution,” said Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel Castro as president last year.

“I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not destroy it,” he added, prompting a long standing ovation from assembly members, most of whom are members of the Communist Party.

“We are ready to talk about everything, but … not to negotiate our political and social system,” he said.

I’m not putting down Raul.  Afterall, his brother is Fidel, the founder of the Cuban “revolution” and Liberals love Cuba for their socialized medicine and “educational” system.  Not so sure they could deal with all of the Big Brother stuff that comes with living in a Communist dictatorship but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right?  But what Raul’s comments do show is that no matter how much Obama tries to appease those whom we oppose (or who oppose us) it probably won’t end up doing anything anyway.

The latest trying to get in the “good graces” of the Castro regime was shutting down of the United States “news ticker” in Havana… you know, that pesky thing that reminded passersby they were living in a Communist dictatorship.  According to The Guardian:

It was smuggled through the US diplomatic pouch, secretly installed across the facade of a building overlooking Havana and given a very specific mission: to annoy Fidel Castro.

The scrolling electronic sign, a low-tech version of New York’s Times Square ticker, escalated the US’s propaganda war with Cuba’s leader three years ago by flashing human rights messages in five-foot high crimson letters.

The ticker, erected by the Bush administration in January 2006, infuriated Castro and provoked tit-for-tat diplomatic jousting which further strained relations.

Of course, Obama wouldn’t have any of that stuff so he ordered it shut down.  What kinds of things did the news ticker say?

It ran quotes from Martin Luther King (“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up”) and Abraham Lincoln (“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent”) as well as the likes of Lech Walesa.

It also blamed the island’s transport crisis and material privations on the communist authorities: “Some go around in Mercedes, some in Ladas, but the system forces almost everyone to hitch rides.” Bush officials said the ticker was a way to circumvent censorship and convey hope and liberty to a tropical gulag.

But the United States wouldn’t want to do anything like preach the words of King or Lincoln, would we?

To make matters worse, Raul Castro just launched a program Liberals must surely despise him for:

He also has pushed for Cubans to be paid based on their production, with the aim of creating incentives for them to work harder.

Maybe that should be put on a news ticker in Washington?

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