Groggy Monday Morning Ajiaco

5 thoughts on “Groggy Monday Morning Ajiaco”

1. From the Notre Dame article:
   “In 1935, Cuba gained protectorate status.”
   That’s not just spin that outright crap. Or a lie if you prefer.

2. :”Factually incorrect” I think is the proper term (;>)

3. As to Raul’s “reforms” one could view it as a repeat of the Soviet “New Economic Plan” merely a temporary means to gain some desperately needed positive publicity and perhaps some economic advantage, while duping the population of Cuba into believing that there can be some meaningful positive change under the present regime.

4. Larry’s right, typical NEP-style Commie vacillation for PR purposes, and possibly as a way (like Mao) to smoke out the “counter-revolutionaries”.

5. My letter to the Boulder paper:
   An Oligarchy in pre Castro Cuba you say? You surely must mean the oligarchy 50 years in running – that of the Castro family and cronies who have used Cuba as their own personal fiefdom.
   Let’s face it, 2 million plus people have left Cuba since 1959 – not all of them were rich or land owners or members of the Batista family – a lot where middle class and even working class folk who did not want to live under communism. Heck, many have left Cuba during the years, are you telling me that those thousands that left in 1962, 1966, 1973, 1979, and all those rafters were members of the rich land owning Batista clan? No way – they left because they saw repression in the Castro regime. My parents were not rich, and they hated Batista – like many did, but they saw that Castro would rapidly destroy Cuba – so along with millions they left to the US. They did the smart thing by coming to this wonderful country.
   As to the embargo – that was not put there to please Miami “ex pats” as you call them, or to win elelctions, – you guys are either filled with xenophobic hate or ignorance or both – but the embargo was created in response to Castro’s stealing of billions of dollars of American property on the island which he never gave back or paid the US for. So what’s wrong with America having property in Cuba? So what? Many nations have overseas holdings around the world. Here in NYC the English and Japanese own lots of property and no one complains – we also own property around the world too. So why couldn’t the US have property in Cuba. As to the casinos, so what? Many nations have casinos – that’s no reason to start a revolution. And what about organized crime in Cuba? A small percentage compared to cities like New York or Chicago in the 1950s. If you want to start a revolution because of organized crime or the Mafia I suggest you start one in Brooklyn NY because that’s where all the Mafiosi are living.
   The Cubans always loved the Americans – Castro and his supporters where a small minority that took over because he lied to the Cuban people that he would restore democracy and the Cubans were duped by his charisma because they so much wanted to get rid of Batista – instead the Cubans got a prison island and 50 years of Castro. Batista was only a petty dictator in Cuba for a small number of years – not 50 years like the organized crime Castro family has held on to power!
   Dropping the embargo will not do one thing to improve the current situation in Cuba. The influx of Americans to Cuba won’t improve the lives of Cubans nor bring about a more just Cuban regime. CUBA TRADES WITH THE WHOLE WORLD and the whole world trades with Cuba and Cuba is visited annually be hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens from other western democracies and yet those travellers have not bought freedom, democracy or prosperity to the island. Don’t hold the United States as the PANACEA to all of Cuba’s problems.
   Cuba’s problems stem from the failed socialist economic policies put into place for 50 years by the Castro regime. Before the revolutions Cubans had everything – now they have nothing. All this talk of free education and medicine is bunk. I come from a 3 generation medical family and in Cuba before the revolution medicine was free – Castro has taken credit for something that was already there! If you don’t believe me just look at the United Nations statistical year books for the periods before the revolution – they don’t lie!
   And what about education being free? But what good is free education in a dictatorship when the state limits what information its subjects are allowed to digest, or like in China where all Internet sites critical to the regime are forbidden?
   Real change will come to Cuba, not by the so called “reforms” that Raul is implementing – too late and too costly for ordinary Cubans to afford, but the change will come when:
   1. All political prisoners are freed from Cuba’s prison industrial complex.
   2. All independent media outlets are legalized.
   3. All political parties and labor unions are legalized.
   3. Free multiparty internationally supervised elections are held.
   Then my friends there will be change in Cuba!

Comments are closed.