I’m sure you’ve all heard that statement out of the mouths of friends, co-workers, perhaps even family members. Every time I hear it, a feeling of shock comes across me, followed by a fleeting feeling of anger, followed by composing myself and explaining to said individual why castro really IS that bad. I’ve heard it from both liberals and conservatives, so I don’t think it follows idealogical lines as much as we’d like to think it does.
So what it is, then? Why would a normally intelligent, educated individual make a statement like that? I don’t get mad at these people because they are being honest and really believe it, not because they are Communist bastards or anything else of that nature. Still, it boggles my mind.
The answer, of course, was revealed today while watching the NBC Today Show. Want further proof? Then check out the comment thread to Kerry Sanders’ (ex-South Florida reporter, BTW) balanced piece on the “embargo” on MSNBC.net. Prepare to hurl objects at your computer monitor.
The sad fact is that the typical American is sadly misinformed when it comes to Cuba. Believe me, this isn’t a criticism of Americans. I don’t think Europeans are much better informed. When you consider the information on Cuba coming out of our own journalists is so frequently one-sided, it’s no wonder our fellow Americans don’t know any better.
It’s precisely because of this that blogs such as this one, blogs in general, are a godsend, and are an absolute necessity – one that the Cuban government keeps from its own people. People cutting through the crap, the bias and the not-so-hidden agendas to write and describe the other side of the story, in our case – The Truth.
(H/T Ventanita for the MSNBC article)
3 thoughts on ““castro Isn’t That Bad””
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Love the comment from the crazy canadian who calls fifo the “cuban lincoln”…that moron had to many hocky pucks hit him in the head.
the ignorance in the comments is scary….
be afraid….be very afraid….
I can’t believe the total ignorance and the thinly veiled (and sometimes not veiled at all) racism. What kills me more than anything are those that dread Cuba opening up because they would lose its “culture”. I almost threw up. Are we not worthy of freedom, prosperity, and dignity? Funny how they decry pre-fidel Cuba as an awful American playground but have no problem with it being everyone else’s playground.
A significant part of it is ignorance, of course, but that’s definitely not the whole problem. There are other things involved, and some of them are much less “innocent” and rather uglier than simple ignorance. There’s political bias, certainly, and also a good deal of resentment and/or envy and/or racism. All too frequently, those things are only thinly disguised (if at all). Unfortunately, the problem is so pervasive that the perpetrators can almost always get away with it, and they have plenty of support from like-minded people.
I don’t know what the answer is, and maybe we shouldn’t even try to “fix” it. Maybe we should just do what needs to be done and let the chips fall where they may.