Sucker Punch

You have to be 60 years old to remember 1959. You have to be older than 70 to have been aware of what was happening politically in 1959.

So, there are fewer and fewer of us who remember political events of that year. I happened to have been heavily involved in a career move in that year, so my memories may involve a bit of a peripheral view. I clearly remember the event... perhaps not every detail.

In Cuba, a guy named Fulgencio Batista (a former President of Cuba) had seized power in a bloodless coup and installed himself as dictator of that island nation. Another guy, son of wealthy sugar plantation owners from Spain, a guy named Fidel Castro, was planning to run for office in upcoming elections. When Batista took power, he cancelled the elections.

Castro was so infuriated, he gathered a group of supporters and led an attack on a government military installation. The attack failed, Castro was captured, convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Batista had failed to learn what many dictators before him knew... when you have political opposition inclined to violence, you don't forgive them and turn them loose to commit future violence. Batista did just that. In an amnesty deal of some sort, he released Fidel.

Castro fled to Mexico where he met and formed a tight bond with Che Guevara, a big time Communist rabble-rouser. Together they returned to Cuba and conducted a guerrilla operation against Batista's government. Batista was a dictator who had seized power illegally. Castro cast himself as the savior of the Cuban people. Hope and change! I, and many Americans, cheered him on.

Eventually Batista fled in exile and Castro took power. He insisted he was not a Communist, but did seize American-owned businesses, assumed more and more power for himself and did, eventually declare Cuba to be a Socialist State. President Eisenhower smelled the rat Castro was and broke diplomatic relations with his government.

Finally, Fidel Castro 'fessed up and admitted he was a committed Marxist. Having urged support for Fidel Castro, the only thing I could think was that we had been sucker-punched! A lot of people were upset about that, and any number of attempts were made to remove Castro from power - none successfully. Castro once said that if avoiding assassination were an Olympic sport, he would be a gold medalist.

Frankly, I doubt all the stories of assassination attempts. The leftists always use the victim card to divert attention from their own misdeeds.

Fast forward today to a young American president whose parents and grandparents were Communists; who was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a notorious Communist; who wrote of seeking out Marxist professors and students in college; who has strong friendships with admitted Communists; is gobbling more and more power for himself; is assuming more and more control over American enterprise and the American people; is repeatedly appeasing America's enemies and alienating her allies; who seems ignorant of the most basic American principals. It all seems so familiar, I am forced to remember Cuba of seven decades ago.

We know that Barack Obama is a Socialist. Even Rev. Al Sharpton says the American people "voted overwhelmingly for Socialism when they elected Barack Obama."

I am forced to ask... are we about to be sucker punched once again?