Here is the reality in Cuba. Don't believe the lie machine that tells you the revolution is against computers or the internet. Don't believe the lies that Washington wants to free Cuba. Believe the reality, it wants to control and dominate Cuba, steal it's resources both human and natural as it has done all over the region. They want to stop the free education and health care and divide a society.

granma.cu -

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Joe, have you ever been to Cuba? Have you spoken to many Cubans about life there? Maybe yes, maybe no? Family friends of mine were born there, and left because of the way Castro ran his country. Poverty and repression. The rich are rich and the poor are poor. But that is just the opinion of people that were actually born there.

I have spoken to many Cubans and they feel the same. It is true that there are other opinions out there though.

You have to ask questions of these people though. Such as what is their motive ? Did they just so happen to be part of the wealthy minority ? Were they land owners ? What do they stand to gain by deposing the revolution ? And if not directly could their family be attributed with any of these "qualities". If they can give legitimate answers to all these questions then i dare say they are in a minority.

And even if they can answer such questions i would have to ask, do they know the statistics for life expectancy pre and post revolution, do they know the infant mortallity rates, do they know the literacy rates, do they know that Cuba now has the most doctors per capita in the world, do they know that Cuba contributes more medical assistance to the third world than the entire World Health Organisation, do they know that Nelson Mandela attributes the Cuban military for forcing the turning point of the apartheid regime ? These are all astonishing achivements for any country, let alone one in the third world. If they know this and can honestly answer the afore mentioned questions, yet still oppose the revolution, i can only say they are idiots, but i sincerely doubt that there are many such people.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Cuba is the most failed show of communism on earth, because its supposed to support the lower class but the lower class lives in total dissaray where rich tourism industries and government groups have all the money.

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"...Follow the crystal star to the pyre of the flame; there exists the dwelling of the spreading fire. The heart of this life rests upon the fate of that place, and what begins there sends a contagion to the rest of the universe.
As long as the fire burns we shall never be free..." (The Shadows of Yavara, Final Reclamation)

Honestly, I think that Cuba is probably infinitely better than the image that we are supposed to get.

On the other hand, asking Castro what it is like there is like asking Bush how life in the United States is.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

Righttttttt. Don't listen to the machine but get your information from the Cuban Propaganda Newspaper. If America did as you said, they would be destroyed by the world arena for repressing the Cuban people and stealing their resources. I can't believe that you really think that America would bring itself that low again.

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I've been there. It's a poor country but it's improving the material conditions of its people. There is state control of many things but it's a lot freer than say, Czechoslovakia was when I went there in the early 1980s (when Brehznev was in the Kremlin). There is absolutely no comparison between Cuba under Batista and Cuba now when it comes to social conditions. Education is free right from the first day of school up to PhD. Medical treatment is free for Cubans. Tourism is a burgeoning industry and the Cubans are smart, introducing the convertible peso for tourists to protect the local economy while getting in hard currency from tourists.

Look, if you get the chance to go there, do so. The Cuban people I met - and I was with a fluent Spanish speaker so we got off the beaten track - are truly friendly (not the grasping "friendliness" you can see elsewhere), hospitable and happy to engage with non-Cubans. True enough, politics isn't something they will talk about at length due to the state's surveillance systems but the people I did get a few words to only made the point that they'd like some more consumer goods.

Funny...I read an article about Cuba a few days ago.

The author observed that the country is on the edge of starvation (rations are 2kg of rice and 1kg of beans per month for an adult)--meat is essentially nonexistant, other than seafood. He described it as "no longer Marxist, just poor".

Also, the Cuban peso is essentially worthless...the currnecy he saw in common use was the US dollar.

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Jarlaxle
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I know that I will never be politically correct
And I don't give a damn about my lack of ettiquette
--Jim Steinman

I didn't see any starvation. I must have been in a different region from the starving ones. I used convertible pesos when I went shopping. I have no idea if there's a black market in US currency because no-one sidled up to me and asked if I had some for sale. But that was just my experience, someone else might have had a different experience.