By Jonah Goldberg
Monday, November 28, 2016
Fidel Castro died as he lived: to the sound of useful
idiots making allowances for his crimes. (That’s not my term: It was Lenin who
called liberal apologists for Communism “useful idiots.”)
The gold medal in the Useful Idiot Olympics should
probably go to Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. In a statement, he
expressed his “deep sorrow” upon learning that “Cuba’s longest serving president”
had died.
One can only imagine what George Orwell could do with
that one word, “serving.” Castro did not serve, he ruled a nation of servants,
often cruelly, while making obscene profits for himself and his family.
To listen to some Castro defenders, you’d think the
scales of justice can balance out any load of horrors, so long as the
substandard healthcare is free.
“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served
his people for almost half a century,” Trudeau continued, repeating that word.
“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors
recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a
deep and lasting affection for ‘el Comandante.’”
Again, where is Orwell’s red pen?
“El Comandante”: The term drips with affection, doesn’t
it? Castro’s “detractors”? Would those be the families of the thousands he had
executed? The survivors of Castro’s Caribbean gulag? Those who didn’t drown
trying to escape?
Trudeau’s expression of “deep sorrow” was typical of a
whole genre of Castro eulogies. His apologists have tended to romanticize the
“revolution” and parrot Cuban state propaganda – literacy rates! Free
healthcare! – while dispensing antiseptic euphemisms for the brutal reality of
what the revolution wrought.
At least when people note that Hitler built the autobahn
and Mussolini made the trains run on time, they’re usually being ironic. To
listen to some Castro defenders, you’d think the scales of justice can balance
out any load of horrors, so long as the substandard healthcare is free and the
schools (allegedly) teach everyone to read.
As much of the American left is openly mooting whether or
not the American president-elect is a dictator in waiting, one has to wonder
whether they would take that bargain: No more elections, no more free speech,
no more civil liberties of any kind, but socialized medicine and literacy for
everyone! American political dissidents, homosexuals, journalists and the
clergy, just like in Cuba, can languish in prison or internal exile, but at
least they’ll be able to read the charges against them.
Such un-nuanced arguments always make leftist eyes roll.
As University of Rhode Island professor Eric Loomis put it, “Castro: It’s
Complicated!” cautioning against thinking “in terms of simplistic moral
judgments.” It seems to me that when people want to ban simplistic moral
judgments, it’s usually because simple morality is not on their side.
Here’s my Fox News colleague Geraldo Rivera on Twitter:
“Conservatives mocking nuanced view of #FidelCastro make me gag-What do they
say about @realDonaldTrump? #RonaldReagan? RichardNixon? #Elvis?
Orwell’s red pen is too good for such asininity. Lest
there is something I don’t know about Elvis, none of these figures were brutal
unelected despots responsible for the murder of their own people (10 times as
many deaths as those credited to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet).
One hint as to why Rivera and so many others were smitten
with Castro: he was an international celebrity. Rivera even tweeted a picture
of himself grinning broadly in “el Comandante’s” presence along with his
condolences. “RIP #FidelCastro Yes, a despot who ruthlessly suppressed
dissidents. But he defeated a dictator & was the premier revolutionary of
his time.”
“Premier revolutionary of his time.” It’s as if Rivera
thinks this title provides moral cover. This is the thinking that allows
vacuous hipsters to unselfconsciously shrug when you tell them that the Che
Guavara on their T-shirt was a sadistic murderer. “Yeah, but he was cool.”
But among serious leftists, Castro’s radical chic is
secondary. For them, Fidel’s revolution provided the slender hope that America
was on the wrong side of history. It was a symbol of resistance – intellectual,
political and spiritual – to Western yanqui
hegemony. They loved Cuba for many of the reasons they hate Israel (despite its
exemplary literacy rate and universal healthcare system). They think – wrongly
– that Israel is an extension of Western colonialism while Cuba was a rejection
of it.
Castro understood this better than anyone, which is why
he was able to “serve” his people for so long.
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