RE: The Latin American Report # 547

"They fail to see that the risks of inaction far outweigh those of decisive action."

Perhaps this is not true. There is a common misunderstanding when people consider government. It is that government exists. Government doesn't exist. It is a spook, merely the agreement of people to undertake their mutual management of their common needs and assets. People hire managers to act on their behalf, in nominally democratic systems, or an autocrat assumes control of the institution that has arisen. Either way, the managers act in their own interest. They aren't the country. They are individuals, and are able to hide their self aggrandizement behind rhetoric that portrays their actions as purported to be taken on behalf of the mythical government.

Subsidiary functionaries often are at risk of very deleterious consequences if they fail to proclaim the acts of their superiors in the hierarchy as noble and beknighted. Portraying their bosses as saints is mete, expected, and the most obsequious and groveling of minions rise to the most powerful positions under their chiefs.

Government isn't a mechanism by which people manage their common interests, but a vector for corruption and a cesspit of lies. In such a corrupted system, it is a gross misunderstanding of the perhaps existential need of public servants to do nothing to rock the boat that might perturb the flow of graft and bribes, or worse, potentially trigger the release of blackmail information used to extort their bosses.

I doubt Cuba is any different in this regard than Western democracies.

Thanks!