Matt Lauer is mostly known in this country for his ever metamorphosing hair (hair today gone tomorrow). Nevertheless there is great anticipation about his trip to Cuba among my fellow Cuban bloggers. One has already bought into NBC's propaganda and is actually soliciting questions for Lauer. As if. Well, on today's "Today Show" they had a video preview of some of those questions. There was a man, virtually in tears, pleading with NBC to tell us the truth about Cuba. He was not allowed to specify what that "truth" was. And then there was a prototypical dyke who was allowed to opine on air that "I know that in the Batista days there was no middle class, just rich and poor in Cuba." Really, and yet every indicator shows just the opposite, that before the Revolution Cuba had the largest middle class in Latin America. Well, what else may we expect? Castro taught Cubans to read? Gave them "dignity?" His "legacy" will survive him?
Well, as I said, they came to praise him, not to bury him.
Well, as I said, they came to praise him, not to bury him.
As we well know Manuel, this is going to be a circus. We also know -very well- that this is Randolph Hearst resuscitated.
ReplyDeleteI am just amazed how people can even think that Matt Lauer is going to listen to any questions by anyone that is not the NBC honchocracy, the politicians who want to make nice with kasstro, and maybe some "enemy" of the regime that they will showcase as a hypocritical balancing act.
Whenever kasstro dies, the new Maine will sink. God protect us and have mercy on the Cuban people!
Charlie:
ReplyDeleteHere is what the U.S. government wants to happen in Cuba after Fidel departs completely (by order of preference):
1). The status quo prevails. Raúl holds the fort for Fidelito, who together give us another 40 years of Castroism.
2). Someone detonates Castro's weapons of mass destruction (he has them even if Saddam didn't) and wipes out Cuba's population, sparing the U.S. Coast Guard the trouble of picking them off one by one.
3). A revolution erupts on the island and the U.S. intervenes to "restore order" (that is, to prevent Cubans from asserting their independence). They stay there as long as it takes to install a puppet government of neo-annexationists.
The first item is already working, Manuel, as they need the "stability" provided by the successor's dictatorship and as seen by the latest developments in Cuba. They don't want the economies of the Caribbean, Mexico, South Florida and las Vegas to implode with the formidable competition of a free Cuba.
ReplyDeleteThe second scenario is favored by many too, who actually think of Cubans as sub-humans, even if they don't say it for the sake of political correctness.
The third option will follow the first, provided that the second scenario didn't happen before.
There will be many ready to collect the spoils. That's the saddest part.
My goodness Manuel the way you put it is very alarming, that the good Ol'USA wants to still keep Cuba a Commie Slave Island, this upsets me very much Manuel, for is not what I, NO! nor any of us want for our poor Cuba, Damn it I want to see a free Cuba before I die, we hope that our last years of life will be spent in the soil that gave us breath, is it not to be so? isn't almost 50 years of selling our soul to the Devil enough? seems to me this country works quite hard at keeping Cuba the way it is, my Cuban heart can't take much more dissapointment, when the Monster Kasstro got sick I was so happy, hoping something would happen, that something would change,but so far NOTHING, and it seems NOTHING will change for the best, it's very hard living in limbo Manuel, as we all know very well, for that is what it is LIMBO! in between here and there, I look to you my brethen who are smarter, wiser and more intelligent than I, to tell me it isn't so, that things will improve, that there is something we can do! that one day in the near future our CUBA WILL BE FREE!
ReplyDeleteThe Castro regime has been taking advantage of the suffering of the Cuban people on both sides of the Florida Strait.In fact, Cuba is a country held hostage by criminals –criminals because they violate numerous laws. To anybody who is knowledgeable about the injustice acts on the cuban people by the U.S. Media understand well, this Cat and Mouse game. Is obvious, the Today show is going to lick castro's boots.Castro will Continue Violate Human Rights,locking up political prisoners in refrigerated rooms; blindfolded immersion in pools; intimidation by dogs; firing squad simulations; beatings; forced labor; confinement for years in dungeons called gavetas (drawers or punishment cells); the use of loudspeakers with deafening sounds during hunger strikes; degradation of prisoners by forced nudity in punishment cells. All this atrocities are"NOT NEWSWORTHY" Today show or any U.S.Medias has yet to publicly recognize his error, apologize for offending Cubans, denounce or even express dissatisfaction with any aspect of Castro's criminal regime.The U.S. Media don’t really cover the things that they need to be covered. They don’t do an analysis of the Cuban situation. They play into the Cuban government’s game. Fidel gets coverage, not the issues, not the people, not the situation. That is why the American people are so misinformed and mislead about Castro’s Cuba. The images the media presents do not correspond to the reality of what life really is in Cuba under Castro’s boot.
ReplyDeleteVana:
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing as a hopeless situation. Germany was reunited; the Captive Nations regained their freedom; and even Russia renounced Communism. It all happened in our lifetime, and I believed once that Cuba would be free long before all those world-shaking events transpired. So you see, Vana, I can be wrong because I have been wrong in the past, and I hope desperately that I am wrong now. One thing I do know for a fact: the U.S. is the only obstacle to Cuba regaining her freedom. This has been the case since 1959 and long before 1959; indeed, since the time that the Monroe Doctrine was promulgated in 1823, which sanctioned ("grandfathered") Spanish imperialism in Cuba.
Thank you Manuel for your kind words, I'm in a funk today, I've cried most of the day, I feel so helpless, so nothing, that our sorrow is scoffed, yes even laughed at, I hope you are right my friend, and that soon we may see a change for the possitive.
ReplyDeleteVana,
ReplyDeletedon't despair, as we say in Spanish: "no hay mal que dure 100 años ni cuerpo que lo resista"
As Manuel has correctly pointed out a lot of things we thought will never change, are no more. Who would have thought only 20 years ago the USSR would disappear without a single shot or a single rocket being fired in anger? Nobody I talked to at that time thought that possible. And is a fact. Who would have thought all those former Communist countries would have collapsed from an implosion? No one. And they did. I believe in my heart that the time for our liberation is coming soon too. And just like it happened in the old Communist bloc it may occur without no one planning it or any foreign intervention. The Cuban people themselves will put an end to it. From what I am told from travelers there conditions are so bad I don't think they can take anymore of that suffering and one day they will say enough. I have my doubts that the army in Cuba will shoot at the people in the streets if they revolt. But that is only my belief I have no raw data nor information to support that. But they have relatives among the population like anyone else and they know that until the system changes there will be no end to their suffering. We may even have a situation like in Rumania where the Army fought State Security in the streets of Bucharest for weeks. I pray that does not happen because of the needless bloodshed, but who knows.
I sent an e-mail to Matt Lauer also, but in my heart, I feel he wont even read our e-mails. They don't fit their castro regime apology plan, and in the end we all know what Today is there for.
ReplyDeleteTo fawn over fidel and his cronies. Like we say in Spanish "No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver".
Juan Cueto Roig wrote exactly what I feel:
"Cuba es un recuerdo que se niega a ser olvido. Una distancia que desgarra y enajena.Cuba es el paradojico eden por el que mueren: los que en volverla a ver mueren soñando y los que en escapar sueñan muriendo. Cuba es la ultima ilusion de mi vida". I have never been able to read or write his lines without crying.
Agustin
ReplyDeleteFirst of all thank you for your comforting and kind words, they help alot on a day like today, I feel as you do Agustin, that our liberation is at hand, also I don't believe the Cuban Army would shoot at the people, I think they fill as the people do, they've all had it. but I lose so much hope when I hear thar the USA is hindering us every step of the way, and they have the power to do it!
Pray tell me what have we ever done to this country, except live in peace, work hard, contribute to the economy, even love it! etc..etc..I know because I have read how much they have hurt us in the past, will it ever end, let us be, let us forge our way back, give us the freedom to return to the Island, that is why a paper embargo exists on us, and us only, they the powers that be want it that way, and we are utterly helpless, is just not fair.
Again Thanks I appreciate all you guys very much, you are always teaching me, and I hunger for it.
Vana:
ReplyDeleteThe FAR has done nothing for the Cuban people in 48 years but deplete its resources and maintain the dictatorship in power. If Communist propaganda is to believed, this so-called Cuban army has shown extraordinary courage in a thousand foreign battlefields but not one moment of bizarría in our own country. Even when their beloved leader Gen. Ochoa was made a sacrificial lamb, the FAR did nothing but stick their knives in him. There is no Pinochet among them, alas, nor a sergeant named Batista.
The FAR, at its highest echelons, is a capitalist conglomerate with various monopolies, the economic engine of the regime. In its middle tiers, it is a pampered elite fond of its perquisites. In the bottom ranks, it is the masses, as cowered or even more cowered than any other group in Cuba.
Manuel,
ReplyDeleteWhen I mentioned the army (FAR)I understood that to be the rank and file. The generals, coronels and the top echelons as a rule are well paid and bribed with their perks. They also run the most profitable (for them) enterprises in the country. I doubt very much if they will ever lift a finger against the system. But funny that you mentioned Batista, because if I remember that period of the 30's, he was only a sargent at the time and yet he led a revolt against the upper echelon officers. Who knows what other sargents may be lurking unbeknown to us among the rank and file.