

Fidel Castros Blog - robchez
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/reflexiones.html

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fnazeeri
I was in Cuba on a "cultural visa" for a week about 10 years ago and a few
things struck me:

\- There are no rich people and there are no poor people. I didn't see a
single homeless person / beggar but I also didn't see a single person that
looked "middle class" in US terms.

\- People seemed really happy to talk to Americans. I remember talking to a
woman celebrating her 86th birthday and she told me (through a translator that
she'd "see me next year in Miami".).

\- Based on my understanding of the USSR, I was expecting a cult of
personality around Castro, but there was no 'Placa del Castro' or anything
like that. The only cult of personality was for Che Guevara, who was
everywhere.

\- There were two economies...one for tourists and one for Cubans. If a Cuban
had a job, like in a hotel, where they could get dollars, they would be very
well off. Everyone else was left with ration cards.

\- We met a kid who spoke English but was afraid to talk (or to be heard
talking) in English in public. He took us to his house where we talked for
several hours and then there was a party (his grandmother's 86th birthday)
where we (a friend and I) drank rum and partied until the wee hours. The rum
was in a really old plastic jug (from the 80s?) that they would pour they
monthly ration or rum into...they saved up for celebrations.

Overall I walked left thinking that Cuba would be a great place to live for
most people but if you were the "Bill Gates" of Cuba it would suck. I suspect
that when the embargo ends and sanctions are over (both ways) Cuba will become
the "Caribbean Tiger" like Ireland or South Korea. The population is very
healthy and education but the infrastructure sucks. All they need now is
capital investment and they will really thrive. I suspect in the long run (as
in 100 years) Communism will have served Cuba well relative to it's regional
peers that didn't experience Communism...similar to China.

~~~
gaius
I was there earlier this year.

 _There are no rich people and there are no poor people_

That is just not true. In central Havana, there are buildings that are
literally crumbling - they couldn't exist in a Western city, they'd be
condemned and torn down, but there are three families crammed in there,
electrical cables strung across the street, corrugated aluminium in place of
glass in the windows, wooden door and window frames rotting. . But if you head
out to the suburbs and have dinner at a paladar, there're people living one
family in a gorgeous Spanish colonial mansion with landscaped garden, a pond
and a gazebo, who want for nothing and amuse themselves by entertaining
Western guests.

In a society where everyone is equal - how do you get that?

~~~
fnazeeri
I suspect it's gotten worse in the past couple of years, but also I was
benchmarking against the peer countries in the region where there is destitute
poverty juxtaposed with billionaires.

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augustflanagan
I love Reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe. I had the opportunity to study at
the University of Havana in 2009. I read Fidel's "blog", which appears on the
front page of Granma, the country's biggest newspaper, every time he publishes
a new article.

Want to improve your Spanish? Read Fidel.

You can also follow Fidel Castro on Twitter -
<http://twitter.com/reflexionfidel>

~~~
rdtsc
> I had the opportunity to study at the University of Havana in 2009.

What are your impressions of the country?

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jwecker
Meh, I was hoping for blog headlines like:

"Cuban Cigars- worth the hype?"

"Western Society - I mean, seriously"

"Now THIS is a hand-made boat you could emigrate in!"

etc...

~~~
robchez
18 ways to stay in power when the entire world is against you!

~~~
lionhearted
Funny, but the answer is that part of the Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement to end
the Cuban Missile Crisis was that the United States wouldn't invade Cuba, and
anyone else with the force to do so was a NATO member/American ally.

This is speculation, but looking at how the Cold War played out, then without
that agreement the U.S. likely would've invaded Cuba at some point or other.
It was still a good agreement overall because of the Moscow-Washington Hotline
getting installed, though one can look at history and wonder if the Cuban
people would've been better off living in an American territory similar to
Puerto Rico instead of a backwards impoverished dictatorship. Hotline
Agreement was good though -

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Agreement>

~~~
riffic
>backwards impoverished dictatorship.

You mean the one under the Batista regime?

~~~
lionhearted
> You mean the one under the Batista regime?

"one can look at history and wonder if the Cuban people would've been better
off living in an American territory similar to Puerto Rico instead of [under
Castro's rule]."

You might not agree it would be better for certain, but you definitely can at
least imagine an American Cuba that's healthier than the current Cuba. It's
not a particularly high bar.

~~~
blasdel
"Healthier" is one of the only words that I would _never_ use to describe an
American Cuba — their Soviet subsidy led to them educating a ridiculous
percentage of their population as doctors, so many that most work in other
fields. Even now they still have twice as many working doctors per capita as
the US, and are third in the world behind San Marino and Monaco:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=doctors+per+capita+all+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=doctors+per+capita+all+countries)
— I can't find good historical data, but I'm pretty sure it was even higher
back in the 70s.

Their mortality rates are the same as the US, and the food they eat is a lot
healthier out of necessity due to low industrialization.

~~~
gaius
And yet, a bartender or cab driver makes more in tips from Western tourists in
a day than a doctor does in salary in a month.

~~~
blasdel
Which is why the AMA in the US uses collective action to strictly limit the
number of new medical degrees and licenses. They also do a lot of lobbying to
ensure that their job territory is not encroached upon by nurses, EMTs, or
other potentially capable non-doctors.

If getting a medical degrees leaves you with no debt, and practicing as a
doctor saddles you with little liability, why would you be able to demand a
high salary?

~~~
gaius
Surgery is one of Cuba's main regional exports - IIRC they have a deal with
Venezuela where they trade eye operations for oil.

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samg
Fascinating article and followup on some of Castro's changing views

"Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews'"
[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fid...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-
to-ahmadinejad-stop-slandering-the-jews/62566/)

"Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work For Us Anymore'"
[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fid...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-
cuban-model-doesnt-even-work-for-us-anymore/62602/)

~~~
patrickaljord
He said the second one was misinterpreted
[http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE68C5A52010091...](http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE68C5A520100913)

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koollegged
this makes me glad blogs were invented. if this is truly fidel castro's blog,
it is fascinating. I don't agree with the majority of the decisions he has
made a s a leader, but there is no doubt he is a thoughtful man. Having a
vision into what makes him tick...available on your computer or phone any time
day or night...kind of remarkable.

~~~
robchez
I agree, it is an incredible look into the mind of this leader. Whether you
agree with his ideologies or not, it is a fascinating read. (just spent better
part of an hour going through each of his posts)

~~~
swah
You can agree or disagree with his ideologies - but you can't agree or
disagree with putting innocents in jail, killing people, ...

~~~
hebejebelus
>you can't agree or disagree with putting innocents in jail, killing people

Yeah, you can. It depends on your own personal philosophy, but the most common
idea where this could be supported is (a slightly extreme version of) the
greater good, or perhaps if you believe that the ends justify the means.

Disclaimer: I know very little about Cuba and Castro. Just being
argumentative.

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blasdel
Hosted in blog format with an RSS feed: <http://monthlyreview.org/castro/>

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jaekwon
I will pay bank to see PG and Fidel Castro in a fireside chat. Just saying.

~~~
mahmud
Make something people want.

vs

Make people want something.

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cschep
I don't know his viewpoints very well, but it's interesting that the source of
his posts look like they were created in Word. Does Microsoft sell that
product in Cuba? hmm..

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kingkawn
Is this just a repost of his Granma articles? It goes back a couple of years,
and makes me think we'd have heard about it sooner if it were a separate blog.

~~~
Vivtek
He's talking about the heat wave in Russia and the flooding in Pakistan. It's
current.

~~~
kingkawn
right, i just meant that the archives here are back a few years, i saw that
the dates are up to current news. What I meant was that we'd have heard if
he'd started blogging independent from the regular articles he already
publishes in Granma.

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aik
His analysis of the Iranian issues is a bit frightening.

