Posted on 12/28/2005 11:39:51 AM PST by FerdieMurphy
Poor Fidel. It's not easy being a dictator these days, not when your sworn enemy has stolen your playbook and recast it as democracy.
How sad it must be to come up with all these creative governing principles -- listening in on private phone calls, reading personal mail, secretly video-taping protestors -- only to live long enough to see a third-rate intelligence like George W. Bush adopt them all as his own. It's enough to drive anyone nuts.
In a few days, Fidel will celebrate an important personal anniversary, and the whole world will look on in awe. Whatever your political leanings, you have to bow before the man who, in just 47 short years, went from savior to tyrant to crazy uncle.
''What's this? Are you becoming a pubic hair?'' Fidel sneered at an aide to Brazilian President Lula da Silva. ''What did I fall into, you faggot?'' he screamed in Spanish at a pair of jokester Miami radio deejays. Jeb Bush is ''fat''; Condoleezza Rice is ''mad.'' Even Fidel's inner circle must be wondering if he's become refreshingly candid or just seriously unmoored.
THE FALL
In Miami, we've become so fixated on the hated Unmentionable One that we're unable to appreciate all the nuance in the man. Neutral observers, on the other hand, can see that Fidel has quite effectively steered Cuba right into the Hallucinogenic Age.
Maybe it started with the fall. When Fidel picked himself off that stage back in October 2004, he immediately proclaimed: ''`Estoy entero,'' a curious statement that, like many in Cuban Spanish, can have more than one meaning. We can't be sure if Fidel meant: ''I'm in one piece'' or ''I'm unbearably sexy.'' Either way, it was an odd confession for a man who, by all outward appearances, is neither.
Things deteriorated from there. Who can forget the cooking show incident? There was Fidel on national television talking starch. Is rice A faster and tastier than rice B? Who cares? No one would dare tell him.
Then there are the speeches. The best of Fidel's performances have always carried an obvious Dadaist influence. But lately, his harangues have catapulted him and his increasingly alarmed listeners right into another dimension. Last month, he gave a speech at the University of Havana that might have been entitled: ``The Apocalypse According To Me.''
''So, a question remains in my mind,'' he said at the beginning of a lecture that touched on philosophy, theology and the origin and prospect of the species. ``A question that maybe you, or your professors, or hundreds of thousands of you have also asked yourselves, and that is if there is any possibility that this species can emigrate to another solar system.'' Hey, why not?
EMPTY PROMISE
''History will absolve me,'' Fidel once famously said. The promise was very much in keeping with the Cuban love of melodrama. But it was unfair to history, which in its advanced age now finds itself with so many to absolve and so little time.
Maybe he meant hilarity would absolve him. Nothing like humor to brighten the dank gulag of the mind. Not everyone buys the idea that Fidel is losing his sanity. Don't think of it, one prominent exile warned me. It's just another trick in his arsenal. This is a theory that has wide currency in conspiracy-soaked Miami, the idea that Fidel is not crazy, only faking. Bonkers? Or just pretending? I subscribe to neither theory.
I'll be the first to admit that I have certain unconventional views. But if you ask me, Fidel, approaching the 50th anniversary of our collective solitude, has decided to let his good friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez write the end of his story.
No bullet will do him in. No ordinary mortal's death awaits him. No, Fidel's tragic reign will end on a droll note, with the old man lifting up into the air in a great whirlwind as he screams: ``What did I fall into? Qué caí, en qué, hijo de p---? En que caí, mari---?'' A beautiful remedy, even if it does fall just short of the one dreamed up for the good Col. Aureliano Buendia.
There are a few, or were. George Orwell, for example.
The liberal loonies become more disjointed every day. I hope they keep up the nonsense long enough to get blown out in 2006 and 2008, so we can enjoy a complete meltdown, with exploding heads and all. :o)
What do you mean better talent. She obvioulsy is smarter than a Yale undergrad, Harvard MBA who has managed to obtain the highest office in the land only held by 42 others in our nations history. This obvioulsy pales in comparison to attending J school and getting a job writing smarmy articleds in the local rag, don't you think.
You forgot the "BARF ALERT" in the title...
"A Cuban scientist invented this amazing device. It has multiple uses. Properly energized it gives relief from hemerroids(sp), can be used in place of expensive laxatives and can be used to sexually excite."
Can we get him to make his movie autobiography as produced by Woody Allen? Woody could use some of the scenes from his send up of Fidel, starting with the speech in which he announces that henceforth everyone will speak Swedish.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.