Letters to the Editor
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Any thoughts to why they announced this at 3 in the morning?
I figure Fidel is dead, or dead enough and they need to get organized ahead of the announcement. It's truly a Black Day At Salon when the Dear Leader Passes to that Great Revolutionary Firing Squad in the Sky.
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Sorry, it doesn't matter. Raul is in command.
You know, Raul Castro? The guy who supposedly has really run the Cuban government for the last few years? Not much has changed during that.
I know how miserable life is under Castro - either one - but I also know the other side of the story. I used to work under a Cuban emigree whose family left before Batista fell (he must have been an infant). He would occasionally wax nostalgic about all the land his family would get back once Castro fell.
In other words, all those Cuban expatriates in Miami are like the aristocrats during the French Revolution, waiting for this nonsense to be over so the peasants can go back to being their slaves, and licking their feet clean. (To use the nicest form of that phrase.) Sorry, Jorge. The old oligarchy is over, and the people are used to the new oligarchy. Whatever Cuba turns into, it won't be the Mafia whorehouse and cigar plantation it was before my birth.
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There's a good book you should consider reading
"Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More -- The Last Soviet Generation" by Alexei Yurchak
This book is about how Marxist-Leninist political rhetoric lost its ability to describe reality and lacked the ability to adapt or evolve from within due to Party control.
It doesn't matter who is in charge -- when the basic political vocabulary loses its meaning, and the system is too rigid to allow the introduction of other vocabularies, the system this language holds up is doomed.
Communism is a language, more than anything else. In the Soviet Union it became a dead language and then the system it held up died as well.
What can you talk about at a Party meeting when you're speaking a dead language, a language whose expressive power belongs solely to the past?
You need a living political language in order to have a functional political system.
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unnamed
Is the unnamed problem for their discontent Fidel Castro or the American embargo? We will see when their condition is more like that of Haiti.
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The posting is poignant
Mainly because she points out that neither she nor her parents have known any other El Presidante than Fidel Castro. They may not remember but I do that Castro's immediate predecessor was a gentleman name Batista. He was not a nice man and many pinned their hopes for Cuba on Castro when he overthrew Batista.
Alas, Mr. Castro chose Communism. The wealthy, privileged class that thrived under Batista while others starved moved to Miami. Since the US reacts to Communism much the same way that a dog reacts to a cat, nobody seems to remember that the Cubans that fled to Miami were the privileged elite that would lose their money, privilege, and power under a Communist regime.
So what now for Cuba? Unlike The Current Occupant, I'm not simpleminded enough to think that Democracy just naturally springs up in societies that have little in the way of democratic traditions. I would like the Cuban people to be able to shape their own future. A future free from heavy handed American meddling and the elitist Cuban ex-pat community in Florida.
Good Luck.
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I'm sure Corruptionism will replace failed stupid Communism soon enough
I mean we're talking about Latin America where even Daniel Ortega is on the take. Please, the opposite of Castroism is not democracy, it's Latin-Americanism. And with the possible exception of Uruguay, none of the Latin American countries has ever known anything but periods of anarchy alternating with fascism in varying degrees.
Talking to Castroists is a waste of time. Their answer to everything is bbbbbb-uttt- Americaaaaa!!!!!! Ok but which way is illegal immigration - are 30,000 Americans trying to sneak into Cuba or is it the other way around.
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A young Cuban blogger, please I have a bridge for sale.
Please , this is sooooooooo state controlled it's pitiful that anyone outside the island might actually buy this crap. Lat week a supposedly undercover video of a young cuban asking tough questions during a government meeting leaked out, he came out later on american TV admitting that it was all for show.
She mentions that her phone won't stop ringing. Ha, only government lackies have phones.
Were my uncle lives, there is one house in the whole town with a phone, much less internet access.
This is nothing but a show to try and show dissent. By the way the Y generation has those names because their parents were communist. I was born in Havana in 1971 and my name is not Russian sounding at all. My dad went to jail for decent, we were exiled from our country because my dad fought. All these revolution "Y" kids were the privileged class, now they realize that their whole existence is bullshit.
They can go reap what their parents sowed.I don't feel an ounce of pity. The ones that cared fought and died.
F_ck them, communist bastards.
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Hey Tom
My family shed blood for my country, we were exiled (forcibly removed), I didn't choose to leave. Not in the 50 and 60's when the rich cowards ran away, in the 80's when torture and round ups were the norm.
"Cubans in Miami are like the aristocrats during the French Revolution, waiting for this nonsense to be over so the peasants can go back to being their slaves, and licking their feet clean."
Go Fuck yourself and your ignorant nicest phrase.
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Careful what you wish for.
To all Cubans I say; If you think things are bad now consider the US. Bill Clinton was demonized and they ended up with George Bush Jnr.
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Fidel wins
Say what you must, but the fact is that Fidel gets the last laugh--a peaceful first step transition without the U.S.A butting in or calling the shots. For 50 years the CIA has tried to do away with Fidel--including a failed invasion--and failed. The embargo has failed.
The people of Cuba will continue the transition out of socialismo at their own pace and without bloodshed. Other countries are already involved in bringing about change--and making a good profit too. Except the U.S., which is stuck in a time-warp as far as policy towards Cuba's concerned.
Obama has already promised to lift the embhargo when he becomes president. It's about time.
BTW, I'm a Cuban American and know both sides of the equation quite well.