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This must be the sort of thing President Obama meant when he talked about"more flexibility" after elections.Relations with Cuba are to be normalized.

Let's try to sort this out dispassionately. Cuba isn't a topic that often lends itself to calm and collected discussion but let's try.

Take the response of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is appalled the U.S. will open an embassy soon in Havana (at present, the U.S. has an office in the Swiss embassy there and an envoy housed in tropical splendor in Miramar).

"This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba," Rubio told The Associated Press. "But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castroregime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come."

The first part of Rubio's take is unquestionably correct. Castro is a Communist thug and that's his romantic persona. He and his ilk put thousands up against the wall and thousands more in foul prisons for vicious crimes ranging fromdemanding a free press to being attracted to the same sex.

What the world needs are fewer and better Castros; ridding it ofdespotic killers like Che Guevara was a plus. So it's maddening to see American liberals who think both are good guys and who'd like to see a little more of the Cuban experiment here.

But take the second part of Rubio's remark. Castro has already been a permanent fixture in Cuba for generations. If the embargo's goal is toppling Castro it hasn't worked. That doesn't mean the goal isn't a noble one, simply that clinging to an unsuccessful policy isn't sensible.

From time to time, especially from Havana, one hears the embargo hurts Cubans. This has it backwards. Castro hurts Cubans. State run economies are disastrous for people. If anything, Cuba refutes Marxism even more than the Soviet Union's collapse, because if Castro can't make a go of it on a Caribbean island with massive aid from Russia, practically free energy from Venezuela and full trade with every country but the U.S., then fellow travelers in America need to upgrade their thinking.

Still, disgust with the intelligentsia is no guide for foreign policy. The U.S. should not maintain the Cuba embargo to spite the dupes among us.

There's also an inconsistency in the American position. TheChinese Communists have murdered more than any political group on earth. The U.S. and China have had formal relations since 1972.

See the article here:
The Cuban embargo and Castro's Communism: James Varney/Thursday chat

14 Dec 2014 Spotlight: Tales of close shaves from Singapore #39;s struggle against communism
Earlier this week, a marker to commemorate Singapore #39;s struggle against communism was unveiled at Esplanade Park. In this week #39;s Spotlight, Channel NewsAsia hears first-hand from those who...

By: Channel NewsAsia

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14 Dec 2014 Spotlight: Tales of close shaves from Singapore's struggle against communism - Video

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) Romania has changed dramatically in the 25 years since the people rose up against dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, executed him and began the slow transformation to a market economy and democracy.

Here are five ways that daily life has changed:

REGISTERED TYPEWRITERS TO SMART PHONES

Under communism, typewriters could not be bought in the shops, because the regime was fearful of people distributing anti-government manifestos. Those who had typewriters had to register them with the police every year and explain why they needed them.

Today even young children have smart phones and tablets and people enjoy high-speed Internet. One thing that has gone backward? Modern keyboards do not have diacritics and many don't bother to install the software to use the cedillas and accents that Romanian uses, a source of lament for language purists.

CARS BANNED IN WINTER....NOW PARKED ALL OVER THE SIDEWALK

Ceausescu rationed everything from bread to meat and gasoline. The few people who had cars could only get 20 liters (5.3 gallons) a month, often with waits at the pump of up to 48 hours. Private car use was banned altogether in the winter in the 1980s as Ceausescu squeezed people even further to pay off the country's foreign debt.

Today in Bucharest, where more than a tenth of the Romanian population lives, it can take two hours to cross the city when traffic is bad and cars clog the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk in the road. Affluent families often have several cars, with SUVS being a favorite even though Bucharest has no hills or rough terrain. Some SUVS cost as much as an apartment.

TWO HOURS OF TV A DAY

Romanians famously tuned into Serbian, Bulgarian, Hungarian or even Russian television as their own state TV station was so lousy. Two hours of TV, much of that dull "news" about the first couple. In the 1980s, even "Dallas" was taken off the small screen after Ceausescu deemed its values too decadent.

More here:
Communism to capitalism: Romania sees huge changes

Colin Thornton-Smith

COLIN THORNTON-SMITH

Scholar, historian

12-12-1929 - 18-10-2014

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In the 1950s, Australian Catholics who defied the political orthodoxy of their church in the fight against communism were stigmatised as arrogant and disloyal. French-language scholar Colin Thornton-Smith, who has died aged 84, was one of them.

He was one of the last of the Catholic Worker group which took a stand against the secretive church-sponsored anti-communist organisation known as the Movement, led by the charismatic layman B. A. Santamaria with the mission to "save Australia from communism".

French language and literature was the focus of Thornton-Smith's professional life. His studies of the early 20th-century novelists Francois Mauriac and Georges Bernanos earned him international repute.

In defence of his principles Thornton-Smith had a gritty, often courageous, element to his character well illustrated by an incident early in his career. A priest in his local parish at Warragul declared from the pulpit that Thornton-Smith "had the communist rat on his back" when he obdurately continued to sell the Catholic Worker outside the church, despite the journal having been banned by Archbishop Daniel Mannix. The priest had met his match. In the face of angry taunts Thornton-Smith went on selling the journal each Sunday.

Continue reading here:
Scholar defied his church to join opposition to Santamaria crusade

Communism 6A

By: Elementary iPads

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Communism 6A - Video