Change will be real when Cubans can pay to see the Rolling Stones

A free concert is very nice, but it's a reminder that Cuba remains in communist squalor

, --March 28, 2016

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It was awfully nice of the Rolling Stones to go to Havana this past weekend and play a concert for free. I'm sure the longtime victims of communism appreciated the gift - especially since exposure to any media that would have made them aware the Rolling Stones exist put them in jeopardy of prison under the Castro regime that Barack Obama thinks we can learn from about civil rights. The Stones may be almost as old as the Castros, but they rocked, as they always do. But before we consider this a real breakthrough in the fortunes of everyday Cubans, let's keep some perspective on what actually happened:
The Rolling Stones on Friday played an historic gig at the Ciudad Deportiva stadium in Havana, entertaining tens of thousands of fans in Cuba’s capital, and marking their first appearance in the country in 54 years as a band. This free concert came just a few days after President Barack Obama made his own landmark visit to the island-nation. For the most part, Western rock music had been taboo in Cuba, and many of the people in attendance at the Good Friday concert were longtime Stones fans who had to keep a low profile when it came to their admiration of foreign rock bands. Until the dawn of the 21stcentury, communist leaders had banned most foreign rock and pop songs, due to their alleged potential to incite rebellion and decadence among Cuba’s citizens. The veteran rockers played 18 songs over two hours, starting off with their 1968 hit “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” and also including classics such as “Satisfaction” (as one of two encores), “Gimme Shelter,” and “Sympathy for the Devil.” “(We had) the visit from Obama (earlier this week), and now (we have) the Rolling Stones,” one fan told the BBC. “It’s just unique and historic. So, yeah, (it’s) nice to be here.” One die-hard fan, 66-year-old Ulrich Schroder from Germany, made the trip to Cuba for his 181st Stones show. “It’s so very special that Obama makes the border open for the economic, for the political thing, and Mick Jagger and his friends, they open it maybe for the music,” he told Billboard. “So it’s a very important week here in Cuba.”
Now the Stones are welcome to do whatever they want, and if they want to play concerts for free, that's their choice. But they don't play concerts for free in other parts of the world, and there's no mystery as to why: Even though good seats at a Rolling Stones concert cost hundreds of dollars, people will pay the money. And more important, in other parts of the world - particularly here in the United States - people can pay the money. You can criticize the choice to do so, but that's beside the point. People who earn enough money will spend it for the things they really want, and in the West, the Stones have always been able to sell out their shows even though they charge exorbitant prices. If the Stones had charged their usual prices for the Havana show, the only people there would have been like the guy quoted above from Germany, because everyday Cubans subsist on poverty wages. The cultural value of the Stones concert is well and good, but it doesn't change the truth of how Cubans are stuck living on a day-to-day basis. Leftists think the best society is the one where people are giving the most free stuff. Conservatives think it's the one where people have the economic power to buy their own stuff, and have the ability to earn that economic power without needing giveaways from the government or anyone else. So it's nice that the Stones played a free show in Havana. Hopefully the day will come when the people of Havana can pay the same ticket prices as Stones fans throughout the world - and hopefully the Stones are still rocking (or at least breathing) when that day comes.

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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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