1960s A Pro-Soviet Tyranny
1959-1960: Following Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the dictatorial Batista administration, a host of people, including children and women, welcomed the arrival of guerrillas, but they turned the Island — about the size of Tennessee– into a place of repression. On the other side, Raúl Castro had been hand-picked by his brother, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, as the second leader of the Cuban Revolution. In the meantime, in the early years of the new regime, up to 3,200 Cubans had been slaughtered by Fidel Castro and his family. On the economic side, Castro nationalized all U.S. businesses (without compensation). In fact, these events marked the beginning of one the world’s worst undemocratic governments. Toward the end of 1960, Washington imposed an embargo on Cuba.
1960-1980: As a consequence of the totalitarian policies, over one million Cubans had fled to America (chiefly Florida), Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Spain and Italy.
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Probably at some point in our nation’s past, this was a true statement: “I’m from the government and I am here to help you.” That was when government was much smaller and more focused on a limited set of functions. So limited, in fact, that government was actually good at getting some problems solved. However, given the behavior of today’s government functions, personnel, and the American political class these past few years, it is probably true that this statement is no longer a fact, it is just a myth. Consider the following myth busting behaviors:
1) The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is responsible for overseeing the integrity of the accounting processes and accuracy of public companies’ financials. They were obviously asleep at the wheel when many of Wall Street’s largest financial firms, rapidly and without warning, either went bankrupt or dove into deep financial stress at the onset of the greatest financial collapse in this country since the Great Depression. How did this economic and financial fiasco occur with almost no advance warning by the SEC? A possible answer was published in an April 23, 2010 Associated Press article which reported on the findings of an SEC Inspector General analysis. The analysis found that more than two and half dozen SEC employees were found to have used their government issued computers to search the Internet for pornography during the time they should have been hard at work protecting the interests of Americans who invest in public companies. As examples of their findings, one SEC attorney spent up to eight hours a day downloading pornography, burning his findings to CDs and DVD discs once his hard drive filled up with the pornographic material. An SEC accountant was blocked over 16,000 times in one month (or about 800 times a day, 10 times an hour) from visiting pornographic websites yet he was able to eventually collect a collection of pornographic material on his government computer by using a method to bypass the SEC filters. Seventeen of the pornography seekers at the SEC were considered “senior level” employees, earning salaries up to $222,000 a year. These government employees were obviously too busy to help protect the interests of the American investors, people who lost untold billions of dollars as a result of the financial crisis that the SEC staff never saw coming.
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Politics have always been an interesting topic to people engaged in government related activities. Historically, politics is the back bone of every nation. Its effectiveness can always dictate the future of the nation it serves. True leadership will always be tested when it comes to the idea of serving the purpose of politics. It has always been a challenge for politicians to face defining moments. Defining moments are events that will test even the most tactful judgment. Its always easy to choose between right and wrong but its just difficult to choose between right and right. Experience and values are always the differentiator of every politician.
The odd in politics come to surface on each election period. You can just imagine the events that may arise during campaign period. The funny thing is that it is very rare to see a politician keep up with commitments and promises made during the campaign. You and I will agree that each of them would showcase what they can do when elected. Those promises in itself is quite odd. It is like setting a condition before taking the right actions. Seldom that you will hear somebody “I have done this and will continue doing it”; in most events, you will hear them say ” when elected, I will move the mountains for you”. Indeed oddity!
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