In Cuba, not the U.S.
Last night Oscar Haza held a video conference with young Cubans dissidents on the island. This first of its kind broadcast should be emulated by the international media. This is proof that you don’t need to have a Cuba bureau that compromises journalistic integrity to cover Cuba. It’s also proof that not all of Cuba’s youth have given up hope of ever living in a free Cuba.
Part 1
Parts 2-5 below the fold
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Yahoo.com/News has an enormous number of propagandistic photographs pretending to show Cubans crowding stores to buy motorcycles, computers, flat screen tv’s, cell phones etc.. as if the average Cuban had the money to buy these consumer goods.
Here the text that accompanies one photograph. It gives you the impression that Cubans are no different than American shoppers on a day of specials in one of our major cities:
[Go to Yahoo.com/News and type in “Cuba” to see the photographs.]
People enter a store in Havana April 1, 2008. Cubans crowded shops on Tuesday to buy DVD players and electric bikes that went on sale for the first time as new President Raul Castro moved to lift many restrictions in the one-party socialist state. Shops were authorized to sell electric appliances that were formerly banned, including microwave ovens and even computers.
REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa (CUBA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR5wZ0B-uIE
The saddest thing coming through lots of these reports is that a good portion of the crowd is just going to look longingly at these items.
Something else that comes through—CLEAR AND STRONG–in these news stories about Raul’s “reforms” is that the US embargo is not as OVERWHELMINGLY IMPORTANT as the regime claims it to be. Those stores are stocked with consumer goods that according to the wisdom of the anti-embargo folks, Cuba is not supposed to have, since listening to them, you would think, that the embargo is suffocating Cubans and the USA is the ONLY country in the world that produces consumer goods, not China, Canada, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Japan, etc.. all of which have no embargo on Cuba.
Henry –
This is SUPER. Just one thing missing – English Sub-Titles for viewers who cannot follow the Spanish. -S-
Ray,
Great point regarding the embargo. I will be using it as ammo on other postings.