Thanks for your comment. You’re entitled to your own opinions about Cuba and its Revolution, but your passive aggressive personal attacks on me won’t win you any points around here.

Where we agree is here: the landscape for civil liberties and freedom of speech needs to change in Cuba. While there have been positive signs over the past few months, it hasn’t been nearly enough and there’s still a long way to go. Cuba, to me, is a great country, but far from a perfect one.

However, the jailing of innocents and stifling of dissent is something that happens, believe it or not, here in Canada as well as in the US (search youtube for the mass arrests of independent journalists at the RNC, for example). So using Cuba as a sort of scapegoat for this behavior is dishonest and short-sighted. Do you think that the Bush regime is any less responsible for this kind of thing around the world than the Cuban government is?

As for “people risking their lives to come to the US”, it’s simple - economy. Far, far more Mexicans try to cross into the United States (and far more die), and last time I checked, Mexico was a capitalist nation. Ironically, the economies of those two nations suffer directly because of policies that are cooked up in the US, whether it’s the genocidal embargo against Cuba or Draconian privatization policies that ensure that Mexico stays dirt poor. Why do so many more Mexicans than Cubans “escape” to the US?

Calling a country a “rude and poisonous aberration” also does not do much for your credibility - especially as a journalist, who I thought were supposed to be ever slightly more objective. And you have every right not to respect my values; I have no problem with that. I respect that yours are different and you are entitled to them.

Also, for the record, I don’t consider myself an “expert” on Cuba by any means, nor have I have claimed to be. I simply write about what I see. The only “experts” on Cuba are the ones living on the ground in Cuba, not you or I. Do you consider yourself an “expert” on Cuba?

Know that I haven’t succumbed to any “socialist notions” nor do I believe that Cuba is a paradise. I was a socialist far before I ever went to Cuba, and the times I spend in Cuba only helped to reinforce my belief that socialism is the least oppressive economic system for the vast majority of the world.

Finally, to clear up the misconceptions you seem to have about what I believe personally: I’m a non-Marxist market socialist Quebecois nationalist. Ergo, I’m not really Canadian.

Have a nice day.

First of all, your angry comment has very little to do with the subject of the post at hand. But I’ll humor you anyways.

When I go to Cuba, I don’t find a “destroyed” country like you put it. I find a great country filled with great, ambitious, fiercely intelligent people. Like every other country in the world, it has its share of problems. But I wonder when the last time you actually went to Cuba was, to see it for yourself, instead of getting your news from the Miami Mafia.

I try to see both sides of every situation, and while I know Cuba isn’t perfect (nowhere is), it’s definitely not the dystopia you try to make it to be. Maybe you should revisit your ideas and your sources about Cuba to try and get a more balanced vision of things.

Good luck.

Try this:

penton@correodecuba.cu

I would stay away from vitriolic statements such as the one you ended with. Like every country, Cuba has its share of issues, but also its share of successes. It is a very beautiful country filled with great people, and I haven’t had any more trouble with privacy in the Cuba than I have in the United States.

Regards,

s.

GEORGE LOPEZ, M.D. MIAMI