Dear Yoani,I love to read your site. I read it in English and Spanish. I want to tell you sister...you might as well be writing about Glorious Conservative Cultural Revolution that is George W. Bush's America. A prolonged public flagellation is exactly what we need- all across the Americas until we can all cooperate together to make our hemisphere more peaceful and better for normal people.
I mean, if your site is at all an accurate picture of life in Cuba, we are quickly becoming exactly the same as Cuba.....no one ever apologizes for anything, instead, they say things like "well we know there are problems, but what can we do, there are always going to be problems...." Or the "economy is not so bad" when over 47 million people live in desperate poverty another 120 million in real hardship......
With the obvious historical differences the cultural attitude is identical, the scary thing however is that it does not come from the left in America. It comes from the right side of the political spectrum.
Incredible I know, but true.
I am going to use your work here on my blog to prove how similar our two governments actually are.....many of the problems you have are the exact same ones we do. Many of them are social, but are ultimately derived from this or that government policy that has in some way or another hardened the attitudes of the people.
In some ways, in the not so distant future having a computer is going to a be a good thing for you Cubans. Because, then despite our cultural differences, we will get to see exactly how similar we actually are.
I have come to the conclusion after much consideration and reading your site that Cuba is a miniature America and that is why the Big America yells at it so much and little Cuba yells back so much, they are like two siblings that fight which each other because they are so much like each other.
If you have a good imagination, you can imagine that one is like a big cyclops with a giant eye that sees everything and the other is a little phrygian both fighting with each other and the world.
One with cell phones and high tech the other with 1950's cars and palates....or little restaurant kiosks.
It also explains why we have the embargo against Cuba and why I cannot travel there, if Americans ever saw how similar Cuban life is to being a North American they would have to lift the embargo and give you guys all kinds of stuff....and well when the country that acts just like yours asks for anything, we have our machismo that says "make sure they do not get it otherwise we'd be exactly the same as us and we are numero uno."
Just like Cuban machismo says back, "Yankee go Home.."
You have a security apparatus that might censor my e-mail, well guess what now so do we!
How awesome is that?
Unlike yours which is open about being the dictatorship of the proletariat, ours tells us "you have freedom of information, until you say something that the PARTY does not like. Then you are in big trouble." Is that amazing or what?
You used to have re-education camps, now we have all day right-wing radio to re-educate us. How cool is that?
And if my e-mail was bad enough they may send me down to you in Cuba, I mean to Guantanamo Bay where they will torture me for being a bad blogger. How cool is that?
And you think government watchers are bad in Cuba, just imagine we have satellites that can see through walls to see if you are watching illegal cable TV and TV cameras that monitor all your actions on ever corner..... How cool is that?
Maybe if we all had women presidents we would be better off? What do you think?
They say Cuba is the country that goes it alone.
I want to tell you, you have nothing on George W. Bush's America I mean talk about going it alone, now America always goes it alone.
From food problems to military issues if there is a problem, we can do it and we want to do it alone. The motto seems to be, "the less friends we have in the world the better."
Because those meddlesome friends like the entire UN, "are always tellin' us what to do and they need to know", as our President said, "I aint gonna do it when I got my meeting with Vicente Fox down at the ranch in Texas."
Yes, now that is going it alone, screw the UN when Vicente is waiting down at the ranch, it is like John Wayne, isn't that awesome?
All one needs to do to see this is watch the republican cultural revolution unfold or look at Iraq to see how damn sure we are we can go it alone.
We even bomb people just for the hell of it.
They need not do anything wrong, the government just says, "hell they look like a good target..." no one apologizes for that, in fact if you say anything about it, the best answer you get is "shut up." How cool is that?
And if you disagree they declare you a bad citizen and send IRS tanks to your house to collect taxes.... real fun huh?
I do not know about you but I am sure that that is what freedom and liberty are....and I am sure that is what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he wrote the declaration and helped write the constitution....
In fact they just threw a famous black actor in jail for three years for not paying his taxes, but I think they really did because he is a black and they needed to punish the bad negro as an example to keep the rest of us serfs in line. How cool is that?
After reading you blog I think the politicians here are hiding the real Cuba from us, and you Cubans probably hear that we are all North American Imperialists- the truth is we are exactly the same.
Your government security apparatus has nothing on ours, in fact ours is so smooth they removed our 4th amendment that protected our persons, papers and effects and expanded their power so they can even come into my house without me ever knowing and listen to all my telephone calls....how cool is that?
I am beginning to think we live in the same country we just call it a different name, because here no one ever apologizes for anything especially when they are from the government and especially when they are there to "help" you.
Last time I heard that the government wanted to"help me" I began building a raft to so I could sail from my home to Cuba but realized that now the Coast Guard has special orders to shoot small boats in American waters and I imagine that means all the people coming from Cuba and Haiti to the US and would also mean me in my little raft trying to get there. Isn't that awesome?
In a way, we are trapped here just like you are trapped there....
Maybe the laws will change and I will see you some time, or maybe you will just hear my screaming from behind the walls of Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp when the glorious conservative cultural revolution decides to expand it and start shipping all the liberals, leftwingers and libertarians there..... you know nothing says "sun and fun at la playa" like being waterboarded by a sweaty GI or having multiple body cavity searches just for fun....I promise no one ever apologizes for that.
Brian
For several years I’ve been noticing that we’ve stopped using such conciliatory words “excuse me”, “pardon me” and “I’m sorry”. When we screw something up, we would rather blame clumsiness than admit our failure. Into that absurd “code of national male-chauvinism”, with laughable phrases as “a real man doesn’t drink soup, a real man doesn’t eat sweets, etc., etc.”, someone has added the phrase: “A real Cuban doesn’t have to apologize.”
I remember the hilarious anecdote of a friend of mine, whose toe was “crushed” by the narrow heel of a lady passing by. When he realized the lady was not going to apologize, he got closer to her and said, “Forgive me, my lady, for getting your heel dirty.” The woman didn’t like the irony at all, and she came very close to again crushing the toe of her “victim.” All this because she didn’t want to pronounce the magic words that proved her regret for the mistake she made.
How many times have we been badly waited on, insulted or ignored by a waiter who is incapable of articulate words as, “I’m very sorry, Sir.” A phrase like that is not the key to the problem, but at least it leaves you with the sensation that there no premeditation went in such a bad service. The record of pending apologies, however, goes to the bureaucrats and politicians. They’ve been our teachers in this “intensive course for not regretting anything.”
We are exceptional students of a government who, in the almost fifty years of “dancing alone” in the stage of our politics, has never given an apology for anything. We’ve been waiting in vain for the necessary mea culpa for the revolutionary crackdown in 1968, for the atrocity of the repudiation meetings, for the dependence on the Soviet Union, and for the successive and disastrous economic plans that ended up in this productive asphyxiation. Anyway, the list is so long and so dramatic that, instead of an apology, it demands a prolonged act of “public flagellation.”
Oh, well. I already know politicians never apologize. That’s why we, small copies of them, who imitate them, repeating their slogans and poses, also emulate them in not apologizing. “For what?”, the lady who stepped on my friend’s foot would ask. “We already have our toe crushed, and up there they don’t want to recognize they already have their soles dirty.”
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