Thursday, July 12, 2007

Odds and ends

  • AFP’s report on yesterday’s Castro “Reflection” on inequality ties Castro’s comment to other party leaders’ recent “hard attacks” on past economic reforms. During the 1990’s, according to communist party culture chief Eliades Acosta, there emerged within Cuba “an undesirable, parasitic, ignorant, mediocre, defeatist, submissive to the foreigner, commercial [mercantilizada], consumerist, and de-politicized anti-Cuba” that “courts a hypothetical restoration of capitalism.” And surplus production of adjectives.

  • A day in the life of the migration accords: Coast Guard intercepts three vessels, returns 70 migrants to Cuba, hands over two suspected alien smugglers to law enforcement.

3 comments:

leftside said...

So far Cubans are in the lead on the Coast Guard's "alien migrant interdiction" statistical website for 2007 (1843 vs 2300 last year at this time).

However, for each of the last 6 years Cubans placed behind Dominicans and/or Hatians in total numbers.... perhaps to most people's surprise considering the press coverage given to Cubans. It is even more suprising given the proximate location of Cuba to Florida vs Hispanola, as well as the preferential treatment Cubans receive if they make it to dry land. People who make simplistic arguments about Cuban rafters being ipso facto proof of Cuba's deficiencies should consider these facts.

Anonymous said...

I can see that you have no idea of what living in a communist country means.

You are full of statistics but no heart. Stay a month in Cuba living the life of one of them and you will come out in the first available raft.

leftside said...

I've been to Cuba for 2 weeks and after talking to hundreds of Cubans, was more convinced and inspired about socialism than ever. Of course it is not perfect, but I was even more convinced after visiting places like Costa Rica and Ecuador.