Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Headline in search of a story

An AFP story in today’s El Nuevo Herald looks back at how Cuba’s small entrepreneurs have been regulated and taxed over the years, now that the government has announced that the sector will be expanded.

The story contains not one word about Cuban attitudes toward the new announcement – not a word.

El Nuevo’s headline: “Skepticism among Cubans in face of new economic measures.”

10 comments:

  1. the skepticism comes only from the editors and writers of Nuevo Herald, who have long had a particular political bent when it comes to Cuba. "Grasping at straws" might have been a better headline, much more accurate

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  2. I have seen similar "measures" again and again over the years, only to be stopped once Castro find somebody to pay the bills. Cubans even go to jail at the end of these cycles because they were successful and made too mucho money before the eyes of the "supreme Castro". So yes, Cubans are also skeptics.

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  3. are we getting back into posts without substantiation? i've never known a cuban to be jailed for being 'too' successful, unless the success was obtained illegally. without specifics should the post have been allowed under the new guidelines?

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  4. "without substantiation"? So, is that how you call comments you don't like?

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  5. I was not aware there were "guidelines" for posting comments. Please advise.

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  6. @ Anonymous: Did you ever hear about "Plan Maceta", when thousands of farmers lost their properties and where send to "reeducation camps" and prisons?
    "Maceta" in cuban slang means wealthy; and their "crime" was become wealthy in a comunist country, without been a nomenklatura member.
    Perhaps they did "obtained illegally" the mangos, plantains and beans, if working hard 7 days a week it's considered illegal.

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  7. PolO - yes plots of land were limited to 3,333 acres (13 square KM) by the Agarian Reform Law. But those Cubans holding land in excess of that (considerable) amount were compensated - with interest. (US companies owning land were treated a little different). But this was not a law against being rich, it was a law intended to break the profoundly unequal distribution of land that Cuba had inhereited since the days of slavery and imperialism - and to produce something on fallow land. Many countries in the world passed similar laws before and after Cuba.

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  8. what's wrong with Cubans applying their own measures, at their own will, to solve their problems? something has to be done to change the perception that this is the only country where people can live without working. everywhere in the world measures have been taken to make work the main way of living and source of wealth. why putting Cuba constantly under the microscope? what's the difference?

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  9. nuevo herald has always paid more attention to its editors and sponsors rather than its readers. they don't comment on the side of the Cuban people 'cause thay don't care. their goal is to keep the island under the microscope.

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