Fidel Castro is dead. Sadly, his ideology is not. Since 1959, Cuba was under the cruel rule of Fidel Castro, yet many in the media, entertainment, and our government are sugar-coating Castro’s legacy. Why? Could it be that they are attempting to transform history before our very eyes?
The act of reconstructing history is nothing new. It makes sense that those who wish to control others would use history as a tool. Orwell expressed the notion in his prescient novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, “Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” It is important for us to be aware of that when studying history. Presently, we are witnesses to the crafting of a false narrative that is meant to serve as the historic record that future generations will learn history from. It is amazing to watch the process. It is also scary.
Those of us who have lived during the decades of communist aggression in our world, and have followed the news as history unfolded and know about the formation and fall of the Soviet Union, China and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, Castro’s threats to America and John F. Kennedy’s response, are flabbergasted to see the history being rewritten and in some cases erased.
What worries me most is that the young generations are being taught that socialism is good, while capitalism and individualism is bad. They are not taught how capitalism has raised more people from poverty than any other system. They are not being taught that the cost of “free” stuff supposedly from the government is not free. The cost is actually their freedom.
During the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister and fierce supporter of liberty, pointed out a major defect of socialism’s structure. “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Winston Churchill also recognized the shortfalls of socialism. He said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
The travelers on the progressive path are happy to block or cover over the parts of their trail that led to the destruction and despair of millions of innocents. The true believers that think the state is the solution and individual freedom is an obstacle to be removed will use any tactic to get to that end. If they can distract or re-educate those who do not agree with this statist approach, they will. If not, then those like Fidel Castro, who believed in Stalin’s more hostile method, which was explained using an omelet analogy, “You have to break eggs to make an omelet,” will step in. Although, via research, it seems, Stalin did not actually use those words, but he did, in fact, “break many eggs” to force his will on millions.
Hopefully, the true history of Fidel Castro and other tyrants will be preserved. The true history that shows that the social justice ends, progressivism promises, have never actually been achieved. The faithful that believe that the progressive pursuit of redistributing wealth to achieve equality is the only way will not stop. The only hope is that those who long to believe that progressivism will lead to “free” stuff for all will study the facts of history and see that this system always leads to the “free” stuff not being free at all. The cost of the promised free stuff is individual freedom. The progressive ploy is a power grab, contrived to control.
Diana Rubio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World.” Read her new blog series “Statues: The People They Salute” and visit the Facebook Page.