My Trip To Cuba - The Reasons For My Trip - Part II

A good friend of mine and I took a trip to Cuba.
We have a long running discussion about politics, race, and economics.

He sees Fidel Castro as his "BFF".
I am more critical and skeptical about Castro, Cuba, leftist dogma and the notion of a "Permanent Revolution".
Instead of continuing our discussion in abstract - we both decided that we should take a trip into the land in question to see for ourselves.

My friend is a perfect depiction of the term I coined "Anti-America American".   He is an educated man and does substantial research about how the world arrived at its present state.  The two most common subjects for his indictment are "American Imperialism" and the "Jew".  Thus it comes as no surprise when I hear other left wing individuals come to the same conclusion during my frequent debates with them.  I typically heard it all before.

"Poverty Politics", "Military Interventionism" and Race are the three key issues underneath all of these debates.   My friend is well versed in history.  He takes a cut and dry view regarding the bloodshed and outright exploitation that was executed in the founding of America.  History proves to be the greatest indictment of America, Europe and the Jew - per his reading.

I take a far more pragmatic approach.  I am fully aware of the history of the world but I am not as dismissive about the present complicity of all who claim to be "history's victim".  There needs to be more than an "indictment" rendered as you find out "I know who did this to us".  If these same forces which are indicted were to separate themselves and agree to limit themselves to their own continental borders - many of those who claim continued molestation would be the main one's opposing the departure of the force so much of their own ideology is counterbalanced against at its foundation.

For me - Cuba was a test of the theories that I hold.  I have long said that "abstract leftist theory" is not organic.  It is merely a mental exercise of retaining one's "moral high ground" and indicting others.  Cuba proves to be an instantiation of said theory.   It proves that in putting this theory into action, indeed some of those moral high ground points had to be compromised because now they are dealing with actual human beings and painful economic truth.  As there is "no such thing as a free lunch" - the contradictions that I spoke of earlier prove that this is the case for those who are forced to make their theories work.

I did not travel to Cuba to prove my friend wrong.  This series will not be a "hit piece" against Cuba.  I will, however, evaluate the island from the perspective of American standards but also in reference to its contemporaries within the Caribbean basin.