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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Castro cracks down on private movie theaters



Communists ban home movie theaters
  • After legalizing some businesses, Communist Cuba has banned home movie theaters, the re-selling imported hardware and clothing because they were too successful.
  • Big Government Leftists in all nations are frightened to death of free men and women daring to live their lives without the 24 hour a day watchful eye of Big Brother telling them what to do, eat, watch, read or think.


President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba's economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that "those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure."

Castro has legalized small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields since 2010, but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seen as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months, the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothing and cracked down on unlicensed private videogame and movie salons.

Many Cubans have enthusiastically seized opportunities to make more money with their own businesses, but new entrepreneurs and outside experts alike complain that the government has been sending mixed messages about its openness to private enterprise reports the Associated Press.

President Raul Castro
"Too much freedom is bad for Communism."

The conflicting signals were apparent in Cuba's handling of the dozens of private home cinemas and video game salons that sprung up around the country this year, drawing crowds of young people willing to spend a few dollars for access to the latest home entertainment technology imported, purportedly for private use, by Cubans returning from the U.S., Canada or other countries.
 
The government denounced the cinemas as spreading uncultured drivel to the young, and ordered them closed last month for stretching the boundaries on the kinds of private businesses allowed under reforms instituted by Castro. Then came the backlash, with entrepreneurs bemoaning thousands of dollars in lost investment and moviegoers saying they were exasperated by heavy-handedness toward a harmless diversion. The official reaction was swift, and unprecedented.
 
An article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on last month acknowledged there was wide disapproval of the ban, and hinted it was being rethought. The same Granma article also offered a full-throated defense of the ban on the reselling of imported hardware and clothes.
 
Castro appeared to justify all of the recent moves to clamp down on private enterprise.
 
"We're not ignorant of the fact that those pressuring to move faster are moving us toward failure, toward disunity, and are damaging the people's confidence and support for the construction of socialism and the independence and sovereignty of Cuba."
 
Banned from selling imported clothes.
Several people buy clothing at a private shop set up in the
colonnade of an old building in Havana.

Castro threw his full weight behind measures of the communist legislature to control business, saying "every step we take must be accompanied by the establishment of a sense of order."
 
"Inadequate controls by government institutions in the face of illegal activities by private businesspeople weren't resolved in a timely fashion, creating an environment of impunity and stimulating the accelerated growth of activities that were never authorized for certain occupations," Castro said.

Accelerated growth . . . can't have that can we?

Several Cubans interviewed on the streets of Havana said they generally approved of Castro's speech but wanted more details on economic reforms, and a softer line toward the U.S.
 
"I would have liked to know exactly what pace of reform we're going to follow," said Daniel Mora, a 72-year-old retired state worker. "And he told the United States that we're ready for another 55 years of blockade, but I'm not ready for that. I'm 72 and I'd like to see the light at the end of the tunnel before I die."

"You a Communist?"
.
"You a communist? Huh? How'd you like it, man? They tell you all the time what to do, what to think, what to feel. Do you wanna be like a sheep? Like all those other people? Baah! Baah!

You wanna work eight, ten fucking hours? You own nothing, you got nothing! Do you want a chivato on every corner looking after you? Watching everything you do? Everything you say, man? Do you know I eat octopus three times a day? I got fucking octopus coming out of my fucking ears. I got the fuckin' Russian shoes my feet's comin' through. How you like that? What, you want me to stay there and do nothing? Hey, I'm no fuckin' criminal, man. I'm no puta or thief. I'm Tony Montana, a political prisoner from Cuba. And I want my fuckin' human rights, now!

You know somethin'? You can send me anywhere. Here, there, this, that; it don't matter. There's nothing you can do to me that Castro has not done."

Tony Montana

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