A Deliberate Cruelty

I just returned from a three week visit to Cuba, that oh0so0dangerous country lying ninety miles off the Florida coast. A country still on America's terrorist watch list (the hypocricy almost too much to bear), a country being purposely strangled by a blockade and trade sanctions, a country filled with struggling people who just want the opportunity to create a decent life. And but for the neighborhood bully, they certainly could. We met lots of warm and generous people who make amazing music and art and who love to sit and chat, to be social, to hang with friends and family and discuss this or that. They have, as a collective, a very small carbon footprint and make do with what little they have; old cars they keep repairing, horses to pull their cart of produce into town, oxen to plow their small plot of red soil. Ways of being we could definitely learn from (but won't). But being slowly strangled means you do what you can to better your condition. For some that means leaving, emigrating to a place where the future holds more promise. Many Cubans have relatives in America, especially Florida, and this means a leg up in their efforts. The U.S. also makes special provisions for those immigrants who can reach our shores, special funding and programs that immigrants from other places do not enjoy. America's little way of further undermining their poor neighbor. Another way people can improve their circumstances is through the tourist economy. To get a hold of U.S. dollars. This economy is a less-than-subtle way to create inequality and division, the hallmark of capitalism. The goal is obvious; to bring down the socialist government and drive a nail through socialist ideology. Still smarting from the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs and the missle crisis, the bully is relentless in his efforts. Astounded that this small island survived the fall of the Soviet Union and persists in its goals and revolutionary values, the bully is patient but deliberate. The population may or nay not desire socialism but they are proud of their country's ability to fight back against imperialist greed and ambition. It is the kind of pride you will only find among the ignorant in America, those ignorant of their country's history and continued naked aggression.