In his letter, Castro stated that if the "imperialists" attacked, "then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever…however harsh and terrible the solution." In other words, the Soviet Union should instantly retaliate with its nuclear weapons, which are currently in Cuba.Castro emphasized that the Cuban people were determined "to confront aggression heroically" and that "people's morale is extremely high." An arrogant assumption, given that the Cuban people were never informed. It's hard to assume Moscow took Castro's message seriously. They must have understood they were dealing with a crazy. Cuban missiles were deployed to defend the Soviet Union, not Cubans.Decision-makers and political scientists have conducted extensive research on the Cuban missile crisis. President Biden appears to have learned his lessons. The United States' attitude to Putin's recent escalation is straight out of Kennedy's playbook: weakness emboldens aggressors.The Castro letter is barely recognized outside of individuals who study such topics. That's unfortunate because Canada, which has been a generous supporter of the Cuban people for more than 50 years, deserves to know that Cuba's totalitarian authorities were willing to sacrifice millions of lives to realize the ideals of a now-defunct political theory.Patrick Luciani is a former executive director of the Donner Canadian Foundation who now writes and reviews books for The HubFrank Sinatra famously sang, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere." Of course, Ol' Blue Eyes was referring to the Big Apple, but any Canadian politician leaning to the right of Leon Trotsky could say the same thing about Vancouver, British Columbia.
Vancouver has always been an outlier among Canadian cities
reflecting the hippy-dippy regions of America's Left Coast rather than our other main urban areas. VanCity, a city we've both grown to adore despite our own conservative tendencies, is an odd little place: a bohemian enclave with clothing-optional beaches, green juice, and chic vegan cafés. The city is also known for its other notable green offerings—"BC bud" is a favorite strain of cannabis among celebrity connoisseurs such as Snoop Dogg and Seth Rogan (a Vancouver resident).This alternative ethos has long been reflected in the city's municipal politics, which is dominated by left-wing groups such as the openly socialist Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE) and the "green liberal" Vision Vancouver, which was previously an electoral vehicle for ex-NDP MLA Gregor Robertson (Vancouver mayor from 2008 to 2018).It's a city with very little real estate on the right (or anywhere else in town). Politicians of all political stripes attend drag brunches, do yoga in public, and ride bicycles to city hall. Vancouver's politics are so far to the left that a simple pledge to remove one bike lane for every additional bike lane established gained mayoral candidate Wai Young the kind of news attention often reserved for puppy killers in 2018.
So, what explains the outcome of this month's municipal election
in which police union-backed businessman Ken Sim ended 14 years of uninterrupted left-of-center rule at Vancouver City Hall by obtaining an overwhelming majority of the popular vote in a five-candidate mayor's race? Sim's ABC Vancouver slate won seven of Vancouver's ten city council seats and will have a strong mandate to lead when the council reconvenes. Outgoing Burnaby mayor Kennedy Stewart (previously an NDP MP) will have the dubious distinction of being the city's first incumbent mayor to lose an election in almost 40 years.The headline from Vancouver's municipal election is that even one of Canada's most progressive electorates has grown tired of the failed left-wing orthodoxy on urban issues like as crime, homelessness, and drug addiction. A casual peek at the raw data begs the question of why it took so long.Fatalities from illicit drug use have increased year after year throughout Stewart's tenure, and they are on track to reach another all-time high this year. Every day, four Vancouverites are violently attacked by strangers (severe assaults have increased by more than one-third since the late 2010s). Catch-and-release policing has kept even the city's most frequent offenders on the streets.
A recent government analysis concedes
that official crime numbers do not tell the whole story about the province's rising crime rates. The inability to report crime or arrest and convict those involved does not imply that actual crime is not increasing. Even before the recent decision by the federal and provincial administrations that possession of hard narcotics would be essentially decriminalized for three years, it was commonly known that drug-related crime enforcement in the province had been slack for decades. Regardless of one's views on drug policy, it's difficult to argue that these decisions have no impact on the crime rate.Politicians have disregarded these troubling tendencies at their peril, but new Mayor Ken Sim appears prepared to reverse course. Sim, who ran on a platform of increased public safety, has promised to immediately hire 100 extra police officers to patrol Vancouver's streets.Vancouver's centrist tilt reflects a realignment taking place in several of the most progressive places in the United States. Just under a year ago, New York City voters rejected the grassroots "defund the police" campaign by electing former police captain Eric Adams as mayor. In June, San Franciscans voted to oust reformist district attorney Chesa Boudin from office. Boudin, an outspoken supporter of alternatives to criminal prosecution, was blamed for an increase in a variety of crimes, including muggings and car break-ins, and chastised for failing to control drug-related mortality.
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