I was channel surfing and found a very revealing investigative program called “Inside North Korea” hosted by Lisa Ling on the National Geographic Channel. As I watched this unvarnished account, I kept thinking of Cuba and how nobody with any clout in the media world has sought to do a similar piece on Cuba. Instead we get the kind of cooperative propaganda bullshit that Matt Lauer and the Today show broadcast a few months ago. The parallels between North Korea and Cuba are remarkable with a couple of key differences. North Korea doesn’t have the beaches and the foreign investors to act as accomplices in the repression that Cuba has. Also North Korea’s Kim Jong Il doesn’t have as good a public relations machine as fidel castro.
Let’s hope this 20/20 piece on Cuban health care is the first in a series of honest looks at Cuba.
I too stumbled on that Lisa Ling piece and was surprised at the lack of sensationalism I’ve come to expect from the likes of Dateline and 20/20. Too bad every repressive government would be on to her now making the chances of doing something similar in Cuba pretty much nil.
I’ll believe a critical MSM report on Cuba when I see/hear it. Even if they say that Cuban health care
IS rotten, there will probably be an obligatory reference to “el bloqueo.” Well guess what MSM, there is no real restriction on Medical Goods – EXCEPT PAYING FOR THEM!, a habit the regime is loathe to adopt. Another ‘trust but verify’ moment is coming with this 20/20 report.
-S-
The Korean dictator is too obviously a loon and too over the top (have yous seen him in in his Imelda Marcos designer sunglasses? I mean, Please). North Korea is too much of a distant, grim backwater; it’s never been glamourous. And, as noted, the castro PR machine is light years ahead of North Korea’s (assuming it even understands what PR is).
Anyway, if the appaling case of Cuba teaches anything, it’s that the world is full of opportunists, hypocrites, ideological fashionistas, idiots (useful or not), and out and out SOBs. In other words, the world is full of shit, and if you screw yourself over the way Cubans did, you’re gonna stay screwed unless you figure out a way to get out of the hole YOURSELF.