First person - Cuban blogger - 11 May 08

[capecodful]

I love to see the inquiring minds worried where Sanchez got her DELL Laptop or how she access the Internet. I guess Democracy don't teach nescessary survival skills inside a communist state. In Cuba, we get that education for FREE as well.

[jvarela965]

Where did she get the DELL laptop and by Cuban standards nice APT. She has to be Cuban Intelligence agent or under their control.

[editou]

Her main point (not only in this short in her interview but in her blog as well) is that people are not free to express dissatisfaction. Speak against the government and you 're in trouble.

[editou]

smezec: She explains that in her blog. It involves mainly passing as a tourist in hotels, and paying something like a day's wage for half an hour of internet connection, just to email an already-typed text to friends, who then post it on the blog.

[smezec]

If no one in Cuba has internet access, then how are you able to blog?

Do they honestly think we're that stupid?

[SoyMontalvino]

A-hole, there are hotels and institutions that do have web access. People do favors.

[smezec]

"A-hole" ? Oh thta hurts real deep man...

Her laptop looks pretty nice dontcha think?

[Picaro1]

Yoany for president!!! now we need a Yoany meets Obama.

[londonscot1]

I think the blogger is unduly critical of her own nation's efforts to remain independent in the face of an unprecedented 47-year economic blockade by the USA. Compared with other Third World nations, Cuba is doing much better. No homeless, no-one going hungry, free healthcare, a basic but adequate standard of living. Internet access is rare because it's EXPENSIVB (again mainly due to the US blockade). The blogger should try to explain how to hang onto the gains of the Revolution.

[4Barbudos]

CUBA under the Dictator Batista:

- Americans owned 70 % of the arable land

- 1% of the population controlled 46 % of the wealth

- Batista's goons and secret police killed 20,000 Cubans (tortured even more)

- 67 % of the population were illiterate

- 50 % of the population lived in Bohio shacks

[londonscot1]

I agree with your comments, 4Barbudos. The young lady has no sense of historical perspective whatsoever. I would have more respect for her views if she acknowledged that Cuba has been targeted and ostracised by its large and hostile next-door neighbour.

I also think that she's being extraordinarily naive about living standards outside Cuba. Maybe she imagines the quality of life for the bulk of humanity to be on a par with the USA, whereas, in global terms, Haiti is more typical!

[ernestonieblachalita]

U don't even know how right is she.

[ernestonieblachalita]

Y dónde tú vives 4Barbudos? Ahora tu profile dice Cuba pero en Cuba no hay acceso libre a Internet pero creo que en algún otro momento tu profile decía otra cosa, y estos datos de periódico Granma??? Además no puedo dejarte comentarios en tu profile. Que canalla!

[azalori]

Lo mataste, una bala sin nombre. Lo que hoy somos a la epoca anterior es bochornoso. Cuando en la epoca de Batista eramos una potencia ingenua, pero eramos una isla cuyo valor adquisitivo era superior al de los USA. Hoy se suele decir con el socialismo tergiversado, que nos hemos convertido en payasos del capitalismo, y hambrientos por un punado de dollares, el cual nuestra moneda nacional es un bochorno. Este 4 barbudos agarra su cuota todos los meses con la china castra.

[capecodful]

@4Barbudos CUBA under Dictator Castro -Castro Family controls 100% of wealth -Castro Family owns 100% arable land -100% of of Cubans are homeless -100% of Cubans are gungry -0% Democratic Elections -Over 2,000,000 Cubans in Exile -1000's Dead by Firing Squad -100's of New Prison's Built -100's of Disidents are in Jail -2% Freedom of speech

[invanz0]

@capecodful hahaha 100% of cubans are homeless? what about fidels family he has to be atleast .0001% and your right cubans are "grungry" "1,000s dead by firing squads" proof?

[mmagdase]

Nobody in the world would bother about her frustration if she were not the daughter of Raul Castro.

[PauloGVieira]

Woe is me the European elite of Cuba complaining about the loss of their privileged socio-economic situation. Ive been to Cuba many times and am familiar with the sort of person Yoani is.

Having said this I am no fan of Castro and the current governing regime but the alternative of the Cuban Spanish elite is even worse.

[linuxluver]

Cuba should never have been embargoed. No other country embargoes Cuba. It is silly and makes America look (even more) foolish. Had the US engaged Cuba with good will 40 years ago, Castro may well not have had to look to the Soviets and Cuba could be a different place today entirely. Much of the misery in Cuba is due the US punishing them for getting rid of the mafia-riddled, corrupt Batista dictatorship. The repeated US attempts to assassinate Castro helped make him paranoid and oppressive.

[alivonal]

America doesn't look foolish, it is foolish. Money is the only motivator. So if a bunch scummy Cubans with doe decide they're going to starve their fellow Cubans, then that's just fine with out bastard legislators.

[lastnymleft]

The problem was that the US government couldn't handle a "successful" communist regime on their doorstep, so have taken every measure possible to ensure it wasn't successful. The Cuban government, naturally, considers itself under attack, and therefore puts up the protective defenses. And the Cuban people get caught in the middle. If, as you say, the US government had treated the Cuban government openly, 40 years ago, the place would have been like Vietnam now - "westernizing", and capitalist.

[iTellYouNoLie]

Ron Paul called for lifting our embargo on Cuba long before it went mainstream. Just another reason to vote for him.

[linuxluver]

Ron Paul's libertarian views are the best reason NOT to vote for him. Such faith-based absolutism would be the enemy of peace and good order. We regulate and oversee because the powerful abuse their freedom. Reducing the power of the state to restrict abuses by the powerful is not the answer to anyone's problems. Instead, make the US a genuine democracy with real accountability. Neither exists at present.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

i agree, ron paul's presentation is seductive and damaging to the american left. he is essentially claiming that faith in the "free market" will help citizens by putting more power into the hands of economic elites. the US government is a tool the public can use to deal with the owners and wealthy elites, although this does not turn out as it should. the private sphere requires no accountability to the public, regardless of how many people they harm and how widespread their control is.

[lastnymleft]

2:Please read my other comment here. The problem is *corporatism*, NOT free-market capitalism. Corporatism arises from non-free markets. Like NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. They are thousands of pages long and are *managed* trade, benefiting Big Business. Same with corporate subsidies and bailouts. It's that type of government interventionism that has caused capitalism to become corporatism and needs to end. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ron Paul hates corporatism as much as he does socialism

[linuxluver]

The US government should BE the American people. Instead it is very much the tool of the powerful. That is possible because the US Constitution is a deeply flawed document. The two year term for the House is too short. Elections every 2 years forces House reps to pander to wealthy interests for donations. The number of districts is too few. It has been set at 435 since 1911. Each rep has to represent an average 750,000 voters. Too many! With elections every 2 years, democracy is the victim.

[lastnymleft]

1: You don't seem to understand the difference between capitalism and corporatism. The former is good and desired. The latter is what we have now and is Bad. Corporatism is the merger between Big Business and Big Government. Mussolini said fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism. Because they are as one, increasing the power of one, does so to the other. If you want to "regulate", increasing the power of the government, it only feeds the beast. We need to get back to *capitalism*

[jklasdfjdfksl]

a true "free market" has never existed and never will exist. it is a utopian idea because it expects artificial constructions, that are based around the principle that greedy self interest at the expense of other competitors is the reason for existence, to play fair and not seek advantage and protection. your assuming that concentrated captial owners will not seek to subvert others and will play fair on their own, when every principle they are based on tells them otherwise.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

the ravenous psychopath's created by captialism demand a warden. the very fact that capitalism rewards only greedy self-interest and competitive destruction of competitors puts people who follow basic morality and respect for others at a disadvantage, who then have to pay a price for their mutual respect. there will never be a non-oppressive market that does not mutilate the good in humans.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

you recognized that big business taking control of the government led to fascism, and i agree with you. the main goal of big business property elite in italy and germany was to take the people out of the picture by seizing government for business interests; this arose from a fear of popular democratic political movements that arose from the depression.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

the US still has a democratic system, by taking that out of the private sector, paul is trying to accomplish through the ballot box something that is very similar to what took a coup in nazi germany. namely, taking people out of the picture of their own economic lives by leaving their livelihoods up to owners who have proven their worth by acting like antisocial sociopaths trying to subvert anyone they can gain from.

[linuxluver]

At the federal level at least, democracy is seriously broken for the past 5 House elections the percentage of incumbents re-elected has been over 98%!!!!! This is because the US Constitution gave the power to define district boundaries to partisan state legislatures. They gerrymander district boundaries so that their party is favoured, dividing p the areas that support the other party. Plus: Why only TWO parties? Every other democracy elects several parties. Not jst two. A failure of democracy

[lastnymleft]

Good points.

But the sort of bottom-up, grassroots collectivism of which you seek is every bit as utopian as a perfect free-market. It is *always* corrupted by third-party interests to become top-down oligarchical collectivism. Bottom-up, grassroots individualism, with a focus on winding back the powers of corporatism, is the answer. Did you protest the Fed's bailout of Bear Sterns? What about farm subsidies? There's much we can wind back. Giving power to corrupted governments is not the answer

[lastnymleft]

Small businesses *can* compete against Big Business. I know, I've started a couple. It just needs to be a vaguely level playing field. Right now, it is not, but can be with little effort. There is much that the general populace can jump up and down at, but aren't. And if they won't jump up and down about a Big Business getting a public-coffers bailout, how do you expect them to protest against a government willing to do such? You want to give them MORE powers to the Fed, that DID the bailout?!

[jklasdfjdfksl]

i do not think democratic progress towards popular control is utopian, it has been the driving force behind every improvement in living conditions in the US and these movements have had to fight bitterly against small and big buisness to gain the rights that we enjoy today, from the end of serfdom to workplace standards of the 20th century. im only supporting state power to the extent it represents the will of the people; which is possible in democratic government, but not in private business.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

the problem is that there will never be a level playing field and it is impossible for everyone to be a business owner at the top of a hierarchical pyramid. you are associating liberatory ideas with antisocial capitalist business ownership, which is in direct competition with those they supply. virtually all the benefit is gobbled up by the owning class, while anything "trickled down" is purely incidental to ownership profit.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

putting power in the hands of those who seek to exploit society will not liberate society. business seek to oppress those they will profit from, there is no mutual benefit sought. unless everyone is an ultra-cautious cutthroat, the system is inherently unjust and antithetical to freedom, even in the non-existent imaginary realm of "vaguely fair competition"; the existence of which relies on an assumption that institutions, greedy by nature, will not seek to cement their power.

[jklasdfjdfksl]

i agree with you on your critiques of US democracy, which has many problems. incidentally, one of the major causes of this is private ownership of a for-profit mass-media, which claims the right to own mass information and seeks the profit interest at the expense of american democracy, replacing politics with elliot spitzer sex scandals and disgusting fascinations with the moral degeneration of US captialist culture.