Fidel Castro
“F**k you Yankees: I hate you to pieces.”

Poor old Fidel.
Dead at 90 and not very much in the way of tribute from his supporters Down Under. Only a couple of old commies and fellow-travellers nostalgic for the good old days: mass executions by firing squad, Uncle Sam effigies burning in the street, embassies trashed, street demonstrators marching and screaming “Yankee Go Home”, that sort of thing.  So just one or two here willing to put their heads above the parapets. That unashamed little Green-And-Stalinist freak, Lee Rhiannon, of course. And there is the old Leftist war-horse, Kim Carr.

Both of these two being apparent aficionados for Castro’s sick, socialist shit and, by extension, for Castro’s trademark fetish for wearing green uniforms, swilling vodka, sucking on fat cigars – while having wild and horny, half-naked muchachas swinging off both arms.  La Revolución Cubana, hey? Drunken, heady, exciting times they were indeed – but only if you were weren’t marked for elimination by the next firing squad.

Perhaps there’s good reason for the deafening silence coming from Castro’s old Aussie revolutionary fan-base, mourning the passing of this mass-murdering despot? Perhaps it’s because the Cuban local body count just wasn’t high enough?

Castro only managing to murder less than 15,000 (that we know about) of his fellow-Cubans in the name of revolutionary-socialism over a period of 60 years – is this the reason that many of the Left are remaining silent? Indisputably, a few of their other great heroes were far more successful in trying to kill everyone else off. Mao managing some 80 million (a cool 45 million in the 4-year Great Leap Forward period, alone); Stalin 50-60 million; Pol Pot at least a million (near a quarter of his population.)

So what’s not so great anymore for the Aussie Lefties about El Presidente?
If not the low body-count, then perhaps the Left don’t want to remind Aussies again of just how things are likely to end up if their social engineering is taken to its logical conclusion? In other words, with the ends (a chronically failed Socialist state) never justifying the means (millions dead.)

Or is it because quite a few were converted to the old reactionary idea of “Capitalism with a Human Face? That is, while pretending to carry on their fight against US imperialism, global capitalism and exploitation of the working class, they actually spend most of their waking hours assiduously stuffing their own pockets – big time – with the same workers’ hard-earned cash. Yes, that’s right: they became Trade Unionist officials.

Even as a Trades Union official, though, they may not be able to quite manage to swindle and squirrel away the same squillions from the country as Fidel Castro did, or own their own private island like Castro. But, if they prove themselves really good at swindling everyday workers, the doors will be thrown wide open for them to continue on swindling their way to the top and becoming Australia’s next Labor Prime Minister, so what have they got to lose?