Cubanita's Thoughts ... far away from el terruño
Mar 26, 2010
It's not about Cuban Rights. It's about Human Rights - Updated
It's about Solidarity, NOW! H/T to Marti
And la Sra. Luza, being ready to roll, drags througth the floor the misconceptions that the Cuban exiles from fifty years ago and the recently arrived ones are two bands of divided people.
Besides, who needs idiots like Sean Penn when you can have Andy García!
;-)
UPDATE:
Along with the march in Los Angeles, more Cubans of all ages, hungry for change, are marching in Barcelona and New York today.
Ladies in White - dragging myself to another post, just because of them
I am tired.
I am exhausted.
I am hopelessly tired to see what’s going on in my native homeland and desperate to see how my adopted-homeland is being forced down the same path by the Obama administration and its enablers.
The progressives, Socialistoids, Marxists and Communists-in-the-making that are wrecking the United States are working overtime to erase the word FREEDOM from our lives.
Everything is a take-over by the government.
Everything is a power-grab orchestrated by the most corrupt claque of politicians that I’ve ever seen in my life – after (c)astro’s nomenklatura. Or are they even?
Pretty soon, our earth-conscious, organic and recycled toilet paper will come imprinted with THE words: “We The People”.
This is just too painful to witness and honestly, I find it harder and harder to cope.
However, it is on those worst days when something happens and, bang! I hit the floor and that makes me put every thing in perspective.
The plea of the Ladies in White is one of those things that are able to ground me, in a New York minute.
(H/T to Babalú Blog)
I have no right to feel tired. I have no right to say I am saddened by the USA’s current political circus. I have no right to complain. I should just shut up and keep talking, blogging, Twittering, marching, speaking with regular people and ét al.
Because when I look back to my oppressed native homeland, those women are experiencing things a gazillion times worse that my conservative, common-sense fatigue. What on earth am I complaining for?
They march for their loved ones. And we march for and with them. (And even the MSM notices!)
They are dragged and pulled by their hair. They are assaulted by Nazi-like pro-government mobs.
Ladies in White / Damas de Blanco: Seven years has passed since their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers were sent to prison for having the courage to dissent.
Seven years since the Black Spring of 2003.
And they keep marching, armed only with gladiolas.
And we're blessed that - so far - here in America, we still have, love and defend freedom. (Whether we're gonna be able to preserve it for our children is... well... that's another ball game).
I am exhausted.
I am hopelessly tired to see what’s going on in my native homeland and desperate to see how my adopted-homeland is being forced down the same path by the Obama administration and its enablers.
The progressives, Socialistoids, Marxists and Communists-in-the-making that are wrecking the United States are working overtime to erase the word FREEDOM from our lives.
Everything is a take-over by the government.
Everything is a power-grab orchestrated by the most corrupt claque of politicians that I’ve ever seen in my life – after (c)astro’s nomenklatura. Or are they even?
Pretty soon, our earth-conscious, organic and recycled toilet paper will come imprinted with THE words: “We The People”.
This is just too painful to witness and honestly, I find it harder and harder to cope.
However, it is on those worst days when something happens and, bang! I hit the floor and that makes me put every thing in perspective.
The plea of the Ladies in White is one of those things that are able to ground me, in a New York minute.
(H/T to Babalú Blog)
I have no right to feel tired. I have no right to say I am saddened by the USA’s current political circus. I have no right to complain. I should just shut up and keep talking, blogging, Twittering, marching, speaking with regular people and ét al.
Because when I look back to my oppressed native homeland, those women are experiencing things a gazillion times worse that my conservative, common-sense fatigue. What on earth am I complaining for?
They march for their loved ones. And we march for and with them. (And even the MSM notices!)
They are dragged and pulled by their hair. They are assaulted by Nazi-like pro-government mobs.
Ladies in White / Damas de Blanco: Seven years has passed since their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers were sent to prison for having the courage to dissent.
Seven years since the Black Spring of 2003.
And they keep marching, armed only with gladiolas.
Photo - Reuters - Via Uncommon Sense
And we're blessed that - so far - here in America, we still have, love and defend freedom. (Whether we're gonna be able to preserve it for our children is... well... that's another ball game).
Mar 23, 2010
Health care power grab: Colorado AG will join lawsuit
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today he will join another 11 states in a lawsuit against the federal health care power grab - I mean, reform - passed by Congress last Sunday.
The Denver Post has the report here.
They have also posted a poll where, so far, 57.19% of respondents have answered "Yes!" to the question: "Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says Colorado will sue the federal government to block federal health care legislation." Would you support this lawsuit?
In case that you haven't noticed that health care bill monstruosity (that it is not true reform by any means), came with an attached tail for... students loans.
Yep. The goverment not only will own you health care choices, now they will also own your student loan choices, since this legislation kicks out the option to have private lenders.
When will the government stop trying to own ALL your choices in life? That's a very good question, and you may start going to get clues for your answer from places like... Cuba? Or North Korea?
Sorry to break the good news, but there is never such a thing as a free lunch:
1- Student aid linked to the health care legislation will be trimmed, cut, reduced...
2- The Pell Grant Program, which is one of the best financial aid programs for low income students that can not afford to pay full tuition - and I can testify that because I was one of its recipients when I did my master at FIU - will also be reduced. The program already have an estimate 18-19 billion deficit.
Now, for all that Marxists in the making, Che-lovers and Obama's blind followers college students I have only one question: How is that hope and change working for you now?
How is this legislation not a concealed redistribution of wealth instrument when you, college student, will be able to stay in your parents health insurance policy until age 26 (children my shoes!) but then, you will have to pay more for you college tuiton in order to pay for your neighbor's health coverage? And all from the goverment, you know... kind of like a one-stop shop.
Can your super-powered useful mind, please, explain me that?
Didn't think so.
Finally, yes, I am still wondering what on earth have health care reform anything to do with students loans.
The Denver Post has the report here.
They have also posted a poll where, so far, 57.19% of respondents have answered "Yes!" to the question: "Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says Colorado will sue the federal government to block federal health care legislation." Would you support this lawsuit?
In case that you haven't noticed that health care bill monstruosity (that it is not true reform by any means), came with an attached tail for... students loans.
Yep. The goverment not only will own you health care choices, now they will also own your student loan choices, since this legislation kicks out the option to have private lenders.
When will the government stop trying to own ALL your choices in life? That's a very good question, and you may start going to get clues for your answer from places like... Cuba? Or North Korea?
Sorry to break the good news, but there is never such a thing as a free lunch:
1- Student aid linked to the health care legislation will be trimmed, cut, reduced...
2- The Pell Grant Program, which is one of the best financial aid programs for low income students that can not afford to pay full tuition - and I can testify that because I was one of its recipients when I did my master at FIU - will also be reduced. The program already have an estimate 18-19 billion deficit.
Now, for all that Marxists in the making, Che-lovers and Obama's blind followers college students I have only one question: How is that hope and change working for you now?
How is this legislation not a concealed redistribution of wealth instrument when you, college student, will be able to stay in your parents health insurance policy until age 26 (children my shoes!) but then, you will have to pay more for you college tuiton in order to pay for your neighbor's health coverage? And all from the goverment, you know... kind of like a one-stop shop.
Can your super-powered useful mind, please, explain me that?
Didn't think so.
Finally, yes, I am still wondering what on earth have health care reform anything to do with students loans.
Mar 22, 2010
Health care reform, really?
RIP, USA as we have met you.
Welcome to the United Socialists Stated of America.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin
[Fellow komrade blogger at Iron Curtain Patriots FemmePatriot tells me this quote has never been proven as from Lenin. I wrote it as I remembered it from my Marxism-Leninism classes in college, back in the tropical gulag. Could it be possible they fed us the line because it fits wonderfully with the Cuban "model" of free health care? ...ha! Communist indoctrination and manipulation never ceases to amaze me!]
Anyway, so many years yearning and waiting to escape to the other side of the malecón, the tropical version of the iron curtain, for what? To end up with a soft-tyranny á la Socialism of the XXI Century of Hugo Chávez? Or is it Hugobama now?
I’ve read and posted, ad-nauseum, about everything that is wrong with this socialist power-grab. But for starters, I think we should all write these in our walls:
This is what happens WHEN YOU TAKE FREEDOM FOR GRANTED. Love my tea party partners but, for Christ’s sake, where have you been in the past eight years, even before I came to this country?! Americans, why did you allow yourselves to learn the lesson the hard way? When you do that, you always run the risk to hit a point of no return...
Welcome to the United Socialists Stated of America.
Have you signed up for your new Committee for the Defense of the Government, Rapid Response Brigade or the Internet Cyber militia yet? Well, you better get moving…
Vladimir Ilich Lenin
[Fellow komrade blogger at Iron Curtain Patriots FemmePatriot tells me this quote has never been proven as from Lenin. I wrote it as I remembered it from my Marxism-Leninism classes in college, back in the tropical gulag. Could it be possible they fed us the line because it fits wonderfully with the Cuban "model" of free health care? ...ha! Communist indoctrination and manipulation never ceases to amaze me!]
Anyway, so many years yearning and waiting to escape to the other side of the malecón, the tropical version of the iron curtain, for what? To end up with a soft-tyranny á la Socialism of the XXI Century of Hugo Chávez? Or is it Hugobama now?
I’ve read and posted, ad-nauseum, about everything that is wrong with this socialist power-grab. But for starters, I think we should all write these in our walls:
- A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.
- The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, not to force individuals to purchase items from that commerce. And let’s not forget that no interstate commerce in health insurance exists, thanks to Congress keeping people from buying that insurance across state lines.
- Democrats jammed the bill through Congress using arcane parliamentary procedures despite the strong disapproval of their proposal among voters.
- Very few of the benefits of ObamaCare even begin before 2014, but all of the taxes and business mandates start this year.
I hate to be the pessimistic in the gang, but I feel we’re doomed. We are %$#@$% con capital letters; thanks to our lovely freedom-haters progressives, socialist coddling and youngsters-drunk-with-hopehandchange useful idiots. We should ship them all – along with Obama, Pelosi and Reid – directly to Cuba or North Korea.
If we don’t do something, my son will never grow up in a nation seen as the epitome of freedom – that was until last night. At least this Cuban mami won’t allow that.
We need to vote out all the Socialistoids Democrats in Congress. We HAVE to repeal it. It will be an uphill battle, but it could be possible; it just that we have no time to waste. The longer we take to start, the harder it will be to repeal it.
This is what happens WHEN YOU TAKE FREEDOM FOR GRANTED. Love my tea party partners but, for Christ’s sake, where have you been in the past eight years, even before I came to this country?! Americans, why did you allow yourselves to learn the lesson the hard way? When you do that, you always run the risk to hit a point of no return...
Cuba got hope and change in 1959.
Would you hear us now? The states are our only and last hope. But they have conceded to the federal government on so many things and so many times before, that I am certainly very skeptical. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, are you listening to our plea?
I know we MUST continue with the hard work.
What on earth did I escaped Cuba for?
Cubanita out.
Mar 19, 2010
SOLIDARITY NOW!
Cuba's prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, indepedent journalists, average citizens and younger generations need your help.
HAVE YOU PUT YOUR FREEDOM TO WORK TODAY?
HAVE YOU PUT YOUR FREEDOM TO WORK TODAY?
Mar 18, 2010
ObamaCare IS tiranny - Random American Thoughts
Make no mistake. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi axis could care less about trully reforming health care.
They have more vicious goals:
"... their higher goal is to irrevocably institutionalize their ideology. Once government control of health care is established, their leftist principles will be implemented by an unelected bureaucracy that rules without accountability to the general public, whether or not the Democratic Party is the majority in Congress or holds the presidency."
America in a once-in-a-lifetime situation:
BHO wants legislators to vote on the health power grab and later on, they can take a look at it to find out what's in it.
Strange bedfellows are coming together.
Federal courts should be getting ready for open season.
It's a sinking ship.
It compromises doctor's ethics towards their patients.
Darn it! Could it be possible that I would ended up sunk in another "wonderful socialized health care system" like Cuba's?!
They have more vicious goals:
"... their higher goal is to irrevocably institutionalize their ideology. Once government control of health care is established, their leftist principles will be implemented by an unelected bureaucracy that rules without accountability to the general public, whether or not the Democratic Party is the majority in Congress or holds the presidency."
America in a once-in-a-lifetime situation:
BHO wants legislators to vote on the health power grab and later on, they can take a look at it to find out what's in it.
Strange bedfellows are coming together.
Federal courts should be getting ready for open season.
It's a sinking ship.
It compromises doctor's ethics towards their patients.
Darn it! Could it be possible that I would ended up sunk in another "wonderful socialized health care system" like Cuba's?!
Mar 17, 2010
Cuba's Communist Dictatorship = Cowardice
It’s business as usual back in the tropical gulag. When you see it from this side of the Florida’s Straits, nothing has changed. Except that this morning, instead of waking up with my dreaded alarm clock, I did with the familiar ping from by Smartphone, letting me know a new post came in through Twitter.
The Drudge Report posted the news of the 30 something dissidents arrested by Cuban authorities. Great! St. Patrick’s of the Caribbean, where are you in moments like these?
During one of the customary peaceful walks starred by the Ladies in White (las Damas de Blanco) to claim the released of their loved ones – political prisoners in castro’s gulag – state security forces cracked down the march. Innocent women holding flowers, not guns.
Standard procedure: first they send the hordes of the regimen sycophants, the repudiation acts, with their “get-in-your-face attitude in full Nazi mode.
Then, the police intervene to control the “authentic demonstrations of the Cuban people against those paid by the evil empire that threaten the revolution”, bla, bla, bla…
Grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, dragged through the streets by the government thugs and forced into a bus, while they were chanting "Zapata vive!" (Zapata lives)
Dragged like stinky dogs. Pulled by their hair.
Dragging abided by those who are suffering the same food deprivation, who live in the same buildings in shambles, by woman who also live on a ration of 30 feminine pads a months… all done maybe for a “privileged” snack of a ham and cheese sandwich with a TuKola (nationally made soda pop).
Some of "spontaneus" even work overtime for the repressive forces.
There is no way that I can explain the unbelievable new lows Cuban society has been sunken by 50 years of communism. No way.
There are words that fly over my mind, like butterflies waiting for a storm, when I see the images:
(Sources: AP, Reuters, AFP, BBC)
About eight of the Ladies in White had to go to the hospital Calixto García, nearby the Havana University in the capital, due to the lesions received. One of them was Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zpata Tamayo, died in a hunger strike last month.
Coincidentally, Fernando Ravsberg, the BBC correspondent / sycophant in Havana (see video above) has a weird concept of "mistreatment", and, in the words of the Ladies in White, doesn't have the set of pants required to truthfully report what really happened.
Exit quote: "Somos mujeres pacíficas, y dignas también. Y demandamos la libertad a este gobierno. No nos vamos a callar. Cueste lo que cueste. Aunque nos tiren al suelo. Aunque nos maten".
"We are peacuful women, and we have dignity too. And we demand freedom from this government. We are not going to shut up. Whatever it takes; even if they drag us through the floor. Even if they kill us."
Berta Soler, wife of political prisoner Angel Moya, sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The day of his arrest, he was dragged down the stairs of our building in Alamar, while he was screaming to the top of his lungs: "Long Live the Human Rights". They are/were my upstairs lifetime neighbors.
The Drudge Report posted the news of the 30 something dissidents arrested by Cuban authorities. Great! St. Patrick’s of the Caribbean, where are you in moments like these?
During one of the customary peaceful walks starred by the Ladies in White (las Damas de Blanco) to claim the released of their loved ones – political prisoners in castro’s gulag – state security forces cracked down the march. Innocent women holding flowers, not guns.
Standard procedure: first they send the hordes of the regimen sycophants, the repudiation acts, with their “get-in-your-face attitude in full Nazi mode.
Then, the police intervene to control the “authentic demonstrations of the Cuban people against those paid by the evil empire that threaten the revolution”, bla, bla, bla…
Grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, dragged through the streets by the government thugs and forced into a bus, while they were chanting "Zapata vive!" (Zapata lives)
Dragged like stinky dogs. Pulled by their hair.
Dragging abided by those who are suffering the same food deprivation, who live in the same buildings in shambles, by woman who also live on a ration of 30 feminine pads a months… all done maybe for a “privileged” snack of a ham and cheese sandwich with a TuKola (nationally made soda pop).
Some of "spontaneus" even work overtime for the repressive forces.
There is no way that I can explain the unbelievable new lows Cuban society has been sunken by 50 years of communism. No way.
There are words that fly over my mind, like butterflies waiting for a storm, when I see the images:
(Sources: AP, Reuters, AFP, BBC)
Dishonor. - Deshonor
Injustice - Injusticia
Complicity - Complicidad
About eight of the Ladies in White had to go to the hospital Calixto García, nearby the Havana University in the capital, due to the lesions received. One of them was Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zpata Tamayo, died in a hunger strike last month.
Coincidentally, Fernando Ravsberg, the BBC correspondent / sycophant in Havana (see video above) has a weird concept of "mistreatment", and, in the words of the Ladies in White, doesn't have the set of pants required to truthfully report what really happened.
Exit quote: "Somos mujeres pacíficas, y dignas también. Y demandamos la libertad a este gobierno. No nos vamos a callar. Cueste lo que cueste. Aunque nos tiren al suelo. Aunque nos maten".
"We are peacuful women, and we have dignity too. And we demand freedom from this government. We are not going to shut up. Whatever it takes; even if they drag us through the floor. Even if they kill us."
Berta Soler, wife of political prisoner Angel Moya, sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The day of his arrest, he was dragged down the stairs of our building in Alamar, while he was screaming to the top of his lungs: "Long Live the Human Rights". They are/were my upstairs lifetime neighbors.
Mar 16, 2010
Obama and his Constitutional Coup d'état
This week doesn't promise to bring good news in the health care department. So you better brace for impact, and hope for the best that you won't suffer a heart attack.
And, again, remember this is just the beginning.
And, again, remember this is just the beginning.
( Photo from Nobama)
Obama and his acolytes in Congress, Senate and everywhere else are getting ready for their outrageous political orgasm with the false theater behind "reconcilation". There won't be such a thing. They lie.
In the first attempt of a Constitutional Coup d'état in the history of the United States, Dr. Utopia and his enablers will ram down our throats that monstruosity of a bill. Did I hear dirty tricks? You betcha!
For our Spanish-speaking viewers, NOBAMA has the nuts and bolts of this unconstitutional illegality.
American Thinker has a summary of the real story behind the "reconciliation bill". End point? There will be none. It's a wreckonciliation! - and what on earth do student loans have to do with health care?
I know it might reads as a twister-tongue (remember their goals is to get us so confused we don't realize what's going on) but the Dems plan is to pass the Senate bill, without voting on it! Of course, they are trying to save their sorry rear ends in November... again, you are amongst friends, so you can call it Obama's Constitutional Coup d'état.
FYI, the editorial boards of several newspapers have pulled the plug on Obamacare. But Dr. Utopia is not loosing his sleep over that. The statist and socialist agenda him and Madam Pelosi dream of is way above that pesky public opinion. "They're idiots! We know what's best for them," I imagine them saying in their inner circles. Boy, we need to keep that crappy bill on the ropes. It's our last hope.
Refresher: The Big Lie of Health Care Reform
If this thing finally makes into law, here is a preview for you on what to expect: one, two, three, four, and I better leave it here...
Cubanita out. - I'm going to my first neighborhood caucus tonight. Do you know where is yours?
Death by hunger strike
My take on Jay Nordlinger's excellent article on Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death and those who judge his decision to fight with a hunger strike that meant paying the ultimate price for freedom.
Men like Zapata are heroes. They offered their lives for their ideals, standing up for freedoms for us all.
Only being in their shoes one could know...
Mar 15, 2010
The Cuba she saw, the Cuba where I was born (UPDATED)
UPDATE: Pototo, a commenter over Babalú Blog - who also posted about this article today - notes a couple of glitches that I, bad Mathematician that I am, especially after midnight, did catched.
For what its worth the American Thinker article by Ms. Smith is a but inaccurate to the Castro’s favor. One of the errors is that Cubans earn $250 dollars a month. That’s overestimated by 10x or more. Best I know they make between $10-$15 per month. The picture she shows referring to the butchers Che and Fidel are actually of Fidel and Cienfuegos. She said that people vote for community officials and that is also incorrect. The party appoints the candidates and they run against no one but themselves. Just thought I would bring that to light.
* * *
I just came across of this testimony from an American -who goes by the pen name of Megan Smith - about her recent trip to Cuba and the unavoidable parallel between by homeland's disgrace and the utopia la-la land Obama and his enablers are trying to force upon the ultimate land of the free. (H/T to The Real Cuba)
I apologize in advance for the lenghty text, but thinking in the hordes of useful idiots we have around, drooling over Castro, Obama and et-al, it is a must. (original links disable, go to AT for source)
Again, it was not written by me, this rigth-winger, extremist, intransigent Cubanita... You can call me paranoid for not buying Obama's stuff since day one.
* * *
Interested in seeing Barack Obama's dreams for the U.S. in real time? Pack some toilet paper, Tylenol, and towels. Then hop a plane to Cuba. Just ninety miles off Florida's coast, Obama's ideas are alive and kicking.
In fact, visiting Cuba today may be more meaningful than ever before. Touring the country of 11 million lets you see everything the far left "knows" is right, just, and good for all of us.
Step out at Havana's José Martí airport to throngs of Cubans. The people -- warm and welcoming -- meet friends and relatives at the airport. Hundreds wait for arrivals. Though the government boasts 3.4% unemployment, judging by airport greeters and others hanging around town, those stats are questionable.
Cuba has two currencies: the CUCs (Cuban Convertible Pesos, pronounced "kooks"), which buy the good stuff, and the Cuban peso: fairly worthless. Cubans are paid in pesos. Twenty-five pesos equal one CUC. It's nearly impossible to earn enough pesos to purchase the number of CUCs needed to buy better items. So Cuba's black market is thriving.
Billboards featuring Fidel and his murderous pal Che Guevara are everywhere.
"Viv[a] la Revolución" and "Siempre la Revolución" signs abound, too. Never mind that the Revolution happened 51 years ago, or that Cuba's been trapped in a time warp and state of decay ever since. The Revolution was Castro's finest moment. And he will never let you forget it. There are no promos for anyone else...except Hugo Chávez. Advertising private enterprise is banned.
Cuba has a centralized government. People vote for municipal officials (neighborhood folks) every two and a half years to represent them in Congress. The Castros are never on a ballot. And, in the Obama spirit, Castro's ideas reign supreme regardless of needs or opinions.
For the entire piece go here.
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
For what its worth the American Thinker article by Ms. Smith is a but inaccurate to the Castro’s favor. One of the errors is that Cubans earn $250 dollars a month. That’s overestimated by 10x or more. Best I know they make between $10-$15 per month. The picture she shows referring to the butchers Che and Fidel are actually of Fidel and Cienfuegos. She said that people vote for community officials and that is also incorrect. The party appoints the candidates and they run against no one but themselves. Just thought I would bring that to light.
* * *
I just came across of this testimony from an American -who goes by the pen name of Megan Smith - about her recent trip to Cuba and the unavoidable parallel between by homeland's disgrace and the utopia la-la land Obama and his enablers are trying to force upon the ultimate land of the free. (H/T to The Real Cuba)
I apologize in advance for the lenghty text, but thinking in the hordes of useful idiots we have around, drooling over Castro, Obama and et-al, it is a must. (original links disable, go to AT for source)
Again, it was not written by me, this rigth-winger, extremist, intransigent Cubanita... You can call me paranoid for not buying Obama's stuff since day one.
* * *
Interested in seeing Barack Obama's dreams for the U.S. in real time? Pack some toilet paper, Tylenol, and towels. Then hop a plane to Cuba. Just ninety miles off Florida's coast, Obama's ideas are alive and kicking.
In fact, visiting Cuba today may be more meaningful than ever before. Touring the country of 11 million lets you see everything the far left "knows" is right, just, and good for all of us.
Step out at Havana's José Martí airport to throngs of Cubans. The people -- warm and welcoming -- meet friends and relatives at the airport. Hundreds wait for arrivals. Though the government boasts 3.4% unemployment, judging by airport greeters and others hanging around town, those stats are questionable.
Cuba has two currencies: the CUCs (Cuban Convertible Pesos, pronounced "kooks"), which buy the good stuff, and the Cuban peso: fairly worthless. Cubans are paid in pesos. Twenty-five pesos equal one CUC. It's nearly impossible to earn enough pesos to purchase the number of CUCs needed to buy better items. So Cuba's black market is thriving.
Billboards featuring Fidel and his murderous pal Che Guevara are everywhere.
"Viv[a] la Revolución" and "Siempre la Revolución" signs abound, too. Never mind that the Revolution happened 51 years ago, or that Cuba's been trapped in a time warp and state of decay ever since. The Revolution was Castro's finest moment. And he will never let you forget it. There are no promos for anyone else...except Hugo Chávez. Advertising private enterprise is banned.
Cuba has a centralized government. People vote for municipal officials (neighborhood folks) every two and a half years to represent them in Congress. The Castros are never on a ballot. And, in the Obama spirit, Castro's ideas reign supreme regardless of needs or opinions.
For the entire piece go here.
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
Welcome to Cubazuela! - or is it Venecuba?
Keep your anticommunism radars well oiled and running, because that (stuff) is hitting the ceiling fan:
Hugo "Monkey" Chavez, Venezuela's communist-dictator in the making, ordered in his Sunday radio "show" that all members of the Venezuela's United Socialist Party (PSUV) should start studying Marxism if they wanted a guaranteed victory int he elections.
Yes, you read correctly. Waving a "Communist Manifesto" in his hands, he ordered them to study Marxism. (Spanish version only, so far)
My very own free translation of the money quotes:
"... there are lazy people who never grab a book" and prefer the soap operas and other electronic hobbies, instead of getting themselves ready for the XXI Century Socialism. " (Or is Dr. Utopia bashing you for spending your money in Vegas?... never mind... confused Cubanita over here)
"We shouldn't have a single candidate, not even a member of the PSUV that has not read Karl Marx, Rose Luxemburg, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.He added and emphasized that "it would be a tragedy" if the PSUV doesn't keep the majority now has in the unicameral National Assembly. "
This idiot can not even come up with a communist crap of his own making; he is limited to recycling the same anti-West, anti-USA rhetoric that Castro has been force-feeding in the tropical gulag for 50 years.
I'm really sorry to beat the dead horse but, to my dear Venezuelan friends, I need to pose the same question, one more time: so Chavez was not communist, he was not going to mess up Venezuela the same way Castro messed up Cuba, no way! That will no happen in Venezuela!
Yeah... sure... whatever...
By the way, back home those studies, scheduled for all members of the communist party and aspiring members enrolled in the Youth Communist Union, were called "círculos de estudio" or "círculos políticos".
You know, in case Venezuelans are interested in becoming familiar with the new terminology. You betcha Chavez mono-neuronal brain will not be able to come up with his own title.
Just sayin'...
PS - My BF, Venezuelan herself, always goes beyond her pacifism and offers the ultimate solution: on single bullet, straight ahead to the mole.
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
Hugo "Monkey" Chavez, Venezuela's communist-dictator in the making, ordered in his Sunday radio "show" that all members of the Venezuela's United Socialist Party (PSUV) should start studying Marxism if they wanted a guaranteed victory int he elections.
Yes, you read correctly. Waving a "Communist Manifesto" in his hands, he ordered them to study Marxism. (Spanish version only, so far)
My very own free translation of the money quotes:
"... there are lazy people who never grab a book" and prefer the soap operas and other electronic hobbies, instead of getting themselves ready for the XXI Century Socialism. " (Or is Dr. Utopia bashing you for spending your money in Vegas?... never mind... confused Cubanita over here)
"We shouldn't have a single candidate, not even a member of the PSUV that has not read Karl Marx, Rose Luxemburg, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.He added and emphasized that "it would be a tragedy" if the PSUV doesn't keep the majority now has in the unicameral National Assembly. "
This idiot can not even come up with a communist crap of his own making; he is limited to recycling the same anti-West, anti-USA rhetoric that Castro has been force-feeding in the tropical gulag for 50 years.
I'm really sorry to beat the dead horse but, to my dear Venezuelan friends, I need to pose the same question, one more time: so Chavez was not communist, he was not going to mess up Venezuela the same way Castro messed up Cuba, no way! That will no happen in Venezuela!
Yeah... sure... whatever...
By the way, back home those studies, scheduled for all members of the communist party and aspiring members enrolled in the Youth Communist Union, were called "círculos de estudio" or "círculos políticos".
You know, in case Venezuelans are interested in becoming familiar with the new terminology. You betcha Chavez mono-neuronal brain will not be able to come up with his own title.
Just sayin'...
PS - My BF, Venezuelan herself, always goes beyond her pacifism and offers the ultimate solution: on single bullet, straight ahead to the mole.
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
Mar 13, 2010
Cuba, hunger strikes and Fariñas's condition
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots.
As I write this post, Guillermo Coco Fariñas is still alive.
But there is really no way to know for how long...
Last evening, #Fariñas was the #2 trending topic in Twitter in the US.
That's what we have been left to do: using the internet to spread the reality the MSM in the United States and other partd of the world refuse to report.
It's working something, though. When the regime deploys its cyber brigade in rapid response mode on Twitter, it means they are scared. They have no way to control and censor the internet 100%. Call it your tropical version of the Iran green revolution...
A blog has been set up for information on Guullermo Coco Fariñas.
Today's updates can be read here:
Babalu Blog
Uncommon Sense
Penultimos Dias (Spanish)
Directly from #Fariñas updates in Twitter, my own free translation of some tweets:
Yes, little prince, we've known that all along... that you will let Guillermo Coco Fariñas, a man with capital letter as you´re unable to be, die.
At this point in time, who the hell care about more blood, right?
As I write this post, Guillermo Coco Fariñas is still alive.
But there is really no way to know for how long...
Last evening, #Fariñas was the #2 trending topic in Twitter in the US.
That's what we have been left to do: using the internet to spread the reality the MSM in the United States and other partd of the world refuse to report.
It's working something, though. When the regime deploys its cyber brigade in rapid response mode on Twitter, it means they are scared. They have no way to control and censor the internet 100%. Call it your tropical version of the Iran green revolution...
A blog has been set up for information on Guullermo Coco Fariñas.
Today's updates can be read here:
Babalu Blog
Uncommon Sense
Penultimos Dias (Spanish)
Directly from #Fariñas updates in Twitter, my own free translation of some tweets:
about 13 hours ago via txt - Stable, without urinating.
4:57 PM Mar 11th via txt - intensive care unit, bed 8
4:54 PM Mar 11th via txt - Farinas conscious, oriented, stable
2:46 PM Mar 11th via txt - In these moments, Guillermo Fariñas is hospitalized in the intensive care unit
3:53 PM Mar 8th via The Remote - I am not afraid to die, but to dissapoint my brothers in this fight [those] who are in the streets, in the exile and in prison
3:52 PM Mar 8th via The Remote - This sacrifice I do it for the independent journalists, for the opposition, for people in the civil society and for the bloggers.
3:48 PM Mar 8th via The Remote - I answered him that those asylum offers should be made to my 26 brothers that continue jailed, in very poor health conditions.
3:46 PM Mar 8th via The Remote - I can tell you thw Cuban goverment contacted Spain's for them to offer me political asylum in Spain. I have refused.
3:45 PM Mar 8th via The Remote - In his first visist, visita Carlos Pérez asked me to stop the [hunger] strike because of the conversations that have started between the governments of Cuba and España
3:41 PM Mar 8th via web - I received another visit from the political counselor in the Spain's embassy, Mr. Carlos Pérez
3:38 PM Mar 8th via web - Raúl castro gave me a Makarov pistol for being the most outstanding private int he war, and I donated to the Camilitos [military high school academies ] museum
3:36 PM Mar 8th via web - I have only used violence when I was under Raul Castro's chain of command, when he sent us to the war in Angola.
1:00 PM Mar 7th via The Remote - Through his friends with whom he was in Angola, Coco Fariñas, learns that Raúl Castro's orders regarding him is "let him die".
Yes, little prince, we've known that all along... that you will let Guillermo Coco Fariñas, a man with capital letter as you´re unable to be, die.
At this point in time, who the hell care about more blood, right?
Mar 11, 2010
CUBA: ex political prisoner in hunger strike taken to hospital
The (c)astro's dictatorship is getting ready to wash their dirty hands with more innocent Cuban blood.
Today Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas, a Cuban psicologist, peaceful dissident, indepedent journalist and ex political prisoner, collapsed in his home in Santa Clara and has been taken to the hospital.
It is Fariñas' 16th day on a hunger strike he started after the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, to demand the release of 26 Cuban political prisoners who are severely ill. Zapata's death filled with blood - one more time - the hands of the castro-facist dictatorship. And Fariñas is near to go the same path.
On an average day, facing unjustices of this magnitude who have been the norm in Cuba in the past 50 years, I'd have unleashed my (toilet) mouth like there is no tomorrow.
However, in front of images like these, I just haven't been able to hold the tears.
Shamelessly, the regimen has been planning his murder. Most of the world is looking to the other side.
But we are not.
Uncommon Sense has more on Fariñas and other Cuban political prisoners. Félix Bonné Carcasses have said that if Fariñas dies, he will taken on his place and continue the hunger strike to demand the freedom of the sick political prisoners.
Whether we agree with their weapon to fight or not, the supreme sacrifice of the human life, one thing should be clear to the world: these men are fearless. Communism had failed in trying to break them. Their strengh knows no limits; ante ellos, yo me quito el sombrero.
Via Twitter, we can learn on Fariñas updates following @farinascuba and checking the hashtag #Fariñas. Licet, who has become his spekewoman in is hometown of Santa Clara, is updating his Twitter account via SMS messages through a cell phone.
You can donate them prepaid cell phone minutes going to http://turecarga.com/, specifically to the number +5352625640.
Penúltimos Días has more, in Spanish, including screenshots from Twitter updates.
Photo credit: EFE/ El Nuevo Herald
It is Fariñas' 16th day on a hunger strike he started after the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, to demand the release of 26 Cuban political prisoners who are severely ill. Zapata's death filled with blood - one more time - the hands of the castro-facist dictatorship. And Fariñas is near to go the same path.
On an average day, facing unjustices of this magnitude who have been the norm in Cuba in the past 50 years, I'd have unleashed my (toilet) mouth like there is no tomorrow.
However, in front of images like these, I just haven't been able to hold the tears.
Shamelessly, the regimen has been planning his murder. Most of the world is looking to the other side.
But we are not.
Uncommon Sense has more on Fariñas and other Cuban political prisoners. Félix Bonné Carcasses have said that if Fariñas dies, he will taken on his place and continue the hunger strike to demand the freedom of the sick political prisoners.
Whether we agree with their weapon to fight or not, the supreme sacrifice of the human life, one thing should be clear to the world: these men are fearless. Communism had failed in trying to break them. Their strengh knows no limits; ante ellos, yo me quito el sombrero.
Via Twitter, we can learn on Fariñas updates following @farinascuba and checking the hashtag #Fariñas. Licet, who has become his spekewoman in is hometown of Santa Clara, is updating his Twitter account via SMS messages through a cell phone.
You can donate them prepaid cell phone minutes going to http://turecarga.com/, specifically to the number +5352625640.
Penúltimos Días has more, in Spanish, including screenshots from Twitter updates.
Mar 9, 2010
Colorado's Medicaid / CHP glitches hurt the most vulnerable
- Welcome, Erickson readers! ;-)
The are from the government, and there are here to help them.
But government burocracy and computer glitches are hurting the most vulnerable in Colorado: the poor and the children on Medicaid and CHP Plus.
At the counties' offices, you have to leave endless messages before an actual human being answer your calls, while you're trying to do the right thing and report them anything you may be asked to.
Yep - but it's free, right?
These are only state-sample cases being investigated, for now.
But, is this where ObamaCare want us ALL to be dumped on?
That is such a great reform!
The are from the government, and there are here to help them.
But government burocracy and computer glitches are hurting the most vulnerable in Colorado: the poor and the children on Medicaid and CHP Plus.
At the counties' offices, you have to leave endless messages before an actual human being answer your calls, while you're trying to do the right thing and report them anything you may be asked to.
Yep - but it's free, right?
These are only state-sample cases being investigated, for now.
But, is this where ObamaCare want us ALL to be dumped on?
That is such a great reform!
US Census, Chicago style
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots.
More food for thought on my previous rant, caused by communism-induced post traumatic stress disorder:
More food for thought on my previous rant, caused by communism-induced post traumatic stress disorder:
- Canvassers with criminal records could, after all, end up working for the 2010 US Census, and simply put, asking how many times you have been married or what type of mental condition you suffer from. That is people with criminal records, being paid with your and your children tax money.
- If I shred all papers with my personal information to prevent identity theft and other misuses of such information, why should I voluntarily give it to this gang of political thugs?
- ... again, what about my privacy? I will never believe the government has good intentions for its use. Best case scenario, it is "an axchange for all Americans handing over their personal information to the federal government, some Americans will get a federal benefit."
Your tax dollars at work
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
Today, I also received the stupid letter. A letter that tells me that within a week, I will be receiving another letter from the US Census.
And talking about the Census, today I also received an email detailing the questions included in the American Community Survey, that some Americans will randomly received thought the US Census.
So, the answering the Census is supposed to be voluntary -otherwise, why the in national PR campaign, Superbowl ad included, paid with my tax dollars, to convince people to participate? But this "random" survey is mandatory... humm, humm, humm...
Let me insert here that it is an open secret that the Obama administration has a super-uber interest in controlling the Census, therefore, they will not economize resources - your aforementioned tax dollars - to meet their goal.
According to the Census Bureau Web site, "the American Community Survey is conducted under the authority of Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193, and response is mandatory." Those refusing to comply have been threatened with imprisonment and fines up to $5,000.
The survey asks questions about one's ancestry and ethnic origin, languages spoken at home, level of education, which I have no problem with whatsoever.
But things started to feel creepy when I read about questions asking for:
ADD note - The CDR members monitor the activities of each person in their respective blocks. They keep invidual files on each block resident, some of which reveal the internal dynamics of households. The system mimics Germany's "committees of territorial vigilance", described as organizations of agents that Adolf Hitler established by 1935. In 2006, Amnesty International reported CDR involvement in repeated human rights violations that included verbal as well as physical violence. Their trademark are the actos de repudio (acts of repudiation) against those targeted as "counter revolutionary."
And, yes, back in the tropical gulag, they also collect information about your sources of income, how many times you have been married, how many children do you have, how many TV's you have at home, whether you have changed your traditional incandescent light bulbs for the energy-efficient - and lousy lighter ones - etc, etc, etc.
After having experienced the most gruesome and disrespectful intromision of the government and its sycophants in my private life during most of my life, do these people really believe I will answer those questions?!
There have been many cases of privacy violations with the Census. I just learned that one of the most known is how the Census information was used in the forties, during WWII, to round up Japanese American citizens and to send them to internment camps. The Census even issued a public apolgy, years after the fact.
I mean, as far as I can understand, the constitutional mandate bind us to answer how many people leave in the house, the age, and the sex of thouse household members.
Do they really expect me to believe "they are from the government and they are here to help me"?
OMDB!
Blame it on my communism-induced post traumatic stress disorder. Wait a minute, do I have to report that PTSD too, don't I?! Cubanita confused. Very much confundida.
I pray that I am not included in the "random" sample.
I hope they have payment plans for the $5,000 fine.
Today, I also received the stupid letter. A letter that tells me that within a week, I will be receiving another letter from the US Census.
And these are the people the "progres" out there want me have handling my health care? Yeah... sure... OMDB (over my dead body - sobre mi cadáver putrefacto, como diría Cantinflas)
So, the answering the Census is supposed to be voluntary -otherwise, why the in national PR campaign, Superbowl ad included, paid with my tax dollars, to convince people to participate? But this "random" survey is mandatory... humm, humm, humm...
Let me insert here that it is an open secret that the Obama administration has a super-uber interest in controlling the Census, therefore, they will not economize resources - your aforementioned tax dollars - to meet their goal.
According to the Census Bureau Web site, "the American Community Survey is conducted under the authority of Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193, and response is mandatory." Those refusing to comply have been threatened with imprisonment and fines up to $5,000.
[Cubanita with cultural barriers is banging her head against the wall over here...]
The survey asks questions about one's ancestry and ethnic origin, languages spoken at home, level of education, which I have no problem with whatsoever.
But things started to feel creepy when I read about questions asking for:
- the features of one's home
- the amount of electrical, gas and water bills
- condo fees
- insurance costs
- rent earned or paids
- one's physical, mental, or emotional condition
- number of marriages
- the hour one leaves for work and how one travels to work
- the status of one's eyesight and hearing
- and sources of income and one's total income, including interest, dividends, rental income, or income from estates and trusts
- ... and well, at some point the the ram of paper, I guess they'll ask how many people live in the house.
ADD note - The CDR members monitor the activities of each person in their respective blocks. They keep invidual files on each block resident, some of which reveal the internal dynamics of households. The system mimics Germany's "committees of territorial vigilance", described as organizations of agents that Adolf Hitler established by 1935. In 2006, Amnesty International reported CDR involvement in repeated human rights violations that included verbal as well as physical violence. Their trademark are the actos de repudio (acts of repudiation) against those targeted as "counter revolutionary."
And, yes, back in the tropical gulag, they also collect information about your sources of income, how many times you have been married, how many children do you have, how many TV's you have at home, whether you have changed your traditional incandescent light bulbs for the energy-efficient - and lousy lighter ones - etc, etc, etc.
After having experienced the most gruesome and disrespectful intromision of the government and its sycophants in my private life during most of my life, do these people really believe I will answer those questions?!
There have been many cases of privacy violations with the Census. I just learned that one of the most known is how the Census information was used in the forties, during WWII, to round up Japanese American citizens and to send them to internment camps. The Census even issued a public apolgy, years after the fact.
I mean, as far as I can understand, the constitutional mandate bind us to answer how many people leave in the house, the age, and the sex of thouse household members.
Do they really expect me to believe "they are from the government and they are here to help me"?
OMDB!
Blame it on my communism-induced post traumatic stress disorder. Wait a minute, do I have to report that PTSD too, don't I?! Cubanita confused. Very much confundida.
I pray that I am not included in the "random" sample.
I hope they have payment plans for the $5,000 fine.
Mar 3, 2010
Hummm, hummm, hummm
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots.
This morning I kind of woke up with the news, via Babalú Blog, that a new poll found that there is little clamor for change in the U.S. embargo on Cuba. (Spanish version here) 40% to 36%, to be more exact.
Hummm?
And... happened with that generational shift and the genuflexive position of Obowama and his "new approach" to the gang of communist thugs 90 miles South of Florida?
This is something that, unavoidably, takes me to Alberto's post the other day about how important is to hit the dictartorship and those corrupts tyrants where it will hurt them the most: in their commie wallets.
Please, make no mistake: the depauperation of Cuba is the last 50 years has NOTHING to do with the embargo, and any regular average Cuban Joe knows that.
The whole tropical gulag has always been a failure, even when the pipes established directly from Russia and the Eastern Europe communist countries were up and happily running all year long.
Cubans have lived on misery, starvation and as slaves-substandard human beings while the militar and communist elite have had the life of their times, á la "hated rich people" in the US, despite the embargo restrictions.
Personally, this topic places me between a rock and a hard place. A really hard one, because I still have relatives (sub)living back in the island. However, I know a change in this policy WILL NOT change an iota in my relative's life back there.
The reality is that Cuban people's way of life improves as its government worsens.
It will leave the regimen without justification for its disasters! Yes, and...?
How is that gonna change my relatives' day to day living? Will that allow them to meet freedom? Will that allowed learn what life, liberty and the pursue of happiness is?
Absolutely not. Even more, lifting what is left of the embargo without meaningful changes in Cuba will do more harm than good, and will entrench that corrupt communist dictatorship in the power even more.
How do I know? Well, from the main source:
If the embargo is lifted, it will, actually, become (yet another) liability for me, as American taxpayer.In this crazy era of goverment takeovers, bailouts and spending like there is no tomorrow, the least thing I want to end up with is paying for the defaulted credits with American banks of a dictator widely known as the worst payer in the face of earth.
You can read more about the real life facts of bringing democracy to Cuba, one mojito at a time, here.
Obama already placed the ball in (c)astro's court by lifting the restrictions on remittances and traveling by Cuban Americans. And what happened in Cuba? The prince took the crown and increased repression of political dissent, so nothing changed.
That being said, do still I believe the cosmetic measures still in place will bear any fruits?
Yes. I mean, on top of protecting my wallet and my son's financial future (if there is any left for him after Obamaquake).
Yes, it they are properly used with the sole goal of seeing human rights, freedom of speech, free elections and democracy coming back to Cuba.
UPDATE: Israel asks the US to implement a Cuba-like embargo against Iran.
Hummm, hummm, humm... but the Cuban embargo has not worked in fifty years, no?
This morning I kind of woke up with the news, via Babalú Blog, that a new poll found that there is little clamor for change in the U.S. embargo on Cuba. (Spanish version here) 40% to 36%, to be more exact.
Hummm?
And... happened with that generational shift and the genuflexive position of Obowama and his "new approach" to the gang of communist thugs 90 miles South of Florida?
This is something that, unavoidably, takes me to Alberto's post the other day about how important is to hit the dictartorship and those corrupts tyrants where it will hurt them the most: in their commie wallets.
Please, make no mistake: the depauperation of Cuba is the last 50 years has NOTHING to do with the embargo, and any regular average Cuban Joe knows that.
The whole tropical gulag has always been a failure, even when the pipes established directly from Russia and the Eastern Europe communist countries were up and happily running all year long.
Cubans have lived on misery, starvation and as slaves-substandard human beings while the militar and communist elite have had the life of their times, á la "hated rich people" in the US, despite the embargo restrictions.
Personally, this topic places me between a rock and a hard place. A really hard one, because I still have relatives (sub)living back in the island. However, I know a change in this policy WILL NOT change an iota in my relative's life back there.
The reality is that Cuban people's way of life improves as its government worsens.
It will leave the regimen without justification for its disasters! Yes, and...?
How is that gonna change my relatives' day to day living? Will that allow them to meet freedom? Will that allowed learn what life, liberty and the pursue of happiness is?
Absolutely not. Even more, lifting what is left of the embargo without meaningful changes in Cuba will do more harm than good, and will entrench that corrupt communist dictatorship in the power even more.
How do I know? Well, from the main source:
- Castro’s own words: “There will not be change in Cuba with or without a blockade”.
- June 16, 2002: in a “no-alternative referendum”, petitioned a constitutional amendment declaring Cuba’s socialist system "untouchable" and "eternal". The rubber-stamp National Assembly passed the constitutional amendment making the one-party socialist state "irrevocable".
If the embargo is lifted, it will, actually, become (yet another) liability for me, as American taxpayer.In this crazy era of goverment takeovers, bailouts and spending like there is no tomorrow, the least thing I want to end up with is paying for the defaulted credits with American banks of a dictator widely known as the worst payer in the face of earth.
You can read more about the real life facts of bringing democracy to Cuba, one mojito at a time, here.
Obama already placed the ball in (c)astro's court by lifting the restrictions on remittances and traveling by Cuban Americans. And what happened in Cuba? The prince took the crown and increased repression of political dissent, so nothing changed.
That being said, do still I believe the cosmetic measures still in place will bear any fruits?
Yes. I mean, on top of protecting my wallet and my son's financial future (if there is any left for him after Obamaquake).
Yes, it they are properly used with the sole goal of seeing human rights, freedom of speech, free elections and democracy coming back to Cuba.
UPDATE: Israel asks the US to implement a Cuba-like embargo against Iran.
Hummm, hummm, humm... but the Cuban embargo has not worked in fifty years, no?
Mar 2, 2010
What is torture? - a compilation of thoughts, images and comments
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots
What is torture?
[Original post, image and comments, in Spanish, at Guamá]
Pulling off finger nails and teeth is not the only form of torture.
Torture is also being locked in room of 2 X 2 (meters), with the air conditioner in its colder setting, with no socks, wearing shorts and a shirt, not being guilty.
Torture is to force a drunk man to “dance like Alicia Alonso” while a stick is being stuck in his [rear end].
It is torture to be locked down in a cell meant for four people, which it is filled with [heces] up to the height of your ankles, along with another ten men.
It is torture if a police officer asks you for identification with not reason whatsoever, and while you are asking him why, he slaps you in the face.
Torture is to spend three years in the mandatory military draft in the [military base] 3500 or in Cuito Cuanavale [Angola]
Torture is the authorization to leave [exit permit] and the authorization to enter [entrance stamp]
Torture is a note in the academic records for “ideological deviation” or “attempting against your own life” after entering the dorms through the external gutter because a dorm’s administrator does not allow you to get in to grab your asthma inhaler, because your duty is going to pick up bags of oranges, only to have rice and peas as lunch afterwards.
Torture is [living] chasing after food and [material] stuff like stray dogs begging.
Torture and murder is to censor, to enslave, to manipulate and to force an entire populace to fight against each other.
Torture is the promoted hate, the fear to talk about you.
Torture IS YOU.
[Give me a break!]
Now, there are the comments that should make history:
(Garrincha) … and we all know there is more in the tortures’ list.
( Yosi) ... Torture is the family’s separation, torture is one bread [bun] a day per person and six eggs per month, and torture is not being able to eat red meat or nourish [yourself] properly. Torture is to live in a house all your life, seeing that is falling onto you. Torture is standing a crazy dictator for more than 50 years. All that, and much more, is torture in Cuba.
(Ma. Acapulco) ...Torture was each one of those speeches, broadcasted simultaneously in all TV channels. Four hours of torture. And torture is to have an idiot from the state security questioning you why did you say this and that…
But, on top of all those tortures, they do pull off teeth if they have to, and finger nails too, they pick and the beat up whomever they have to. What happens is that they are so evil that their torture techniques are silent and concealed; that torture is not evident: the rooted hatred, the evil whistle blowing, the social piece of crap… they have designed it so well, so á la Machiavelli, that that torture is just enough.
Damned.
(Yosi)... I just saw the photos from the dead [patients] in Mazorra and I’m in shock, poor elderly, living in there was a torture for them.
(Cucovish) … [Ryme in Spanish; translation will be out of synch in English]
What is torture?
What is torture?, you ask, while you
Stick in my eye’s pupil your brownish one
What is torture? And you ask me?!
Torture is you [faggot]
( Güicho) …Torture is having to stand a shark bites, one after another, or swallow sea water, over and over, until you die. All whiel trying to escape from the other tortures in your island-plantation, SOB!
Now, my two cents…
• Torture is having to kill the cockroaches flying on top of your severely ill father’s bed in an intensive care unit.
• Torture is seeing your uncle undergoing dialysis for last stage renal failure due to diabetes, but having your siblings sending the erythropoietin weekly shots from Germany.
• Torture is seeing, the day of your uncle’s funeral, in the middle of the Vía Blanca [highway] the mortuary car stopped because it ran our of gas, halfway to Havana’s cemetery. And having had to stop and siphon the black-market gas you bought to your own car, in order to finally bury him.
• Torture is having your father’s pancreas damaged by a medical malpractice and not being able to say anything.
• Torture is learning that you aunt’s beautiful green eyes were pulled off during an unauthorized autopsy while in Mazorra, and that later on her body was sent, completely naked and uncovered, to the funeral home in her hometown of Guane. Torture is to know that Ordaz royally wiped his rear bottom with the complaint letters written by my mother.
• Torture were the eight hours long blackouts, on a rotating basis, in the summer of 1994, being asked – while in school – to denounce your classmates if you’d see them praying on Sundays, or seeing your mother suffering from a neuropathy (Beri Beri) epidemic caused simply by hunger.
• Torture is the ration of 30 feminine pads per month – irregular women are not allowed in this socialist revolution!
• Torture is having to deal with the fact that after age seven, your children will not receive more milk through the rationing card.
• Torture is seeing the pictures and the differences between the hospital’s OR where my cousin had her two C-sections, and the room in the suburban borderline rural birthing center where my dear son was born.
• Torture is to see that it will take a long time before my son can see the hometown of his grandparents, that he is unable to spend the weekends at the beach with his cousins and that he is not growing up in the neighborhood where his mother did.
• Torture is that, even living in freedom and working my butt off like a mule for my family, I still feel a knot in my throat when I eat an ice cream cone or buy something cute, after the mere thought that the loved ones that I left behind may never enjoy such petty things in life.
• Torture is going back witness, with your own eyes, that the new generations of Cuban could care less about other human beings. And we can not blame them for only dreaming with jumping off the strait get out of there.
• Torture is seeing that three generations of Cubans have been broken by 50 years of communist dictatorship. Broken souls and hopeless faces; that’s all left.
… to be continued, but, hopefully, NOT for another fifty years.
What is torture?
Pulling off finger nails and teeth is not the only form of torture.
Torture is also being locked in room of 2 X 2 (meters), with the air conditioner in its colder setting, with no socks, wearing shorts and a shirt, not being guilty.
Torture is to force a drunk man to “dance like Alicia Alonso” while a stick is being stuck in his [rear end].
It is torture to be locked down in a cell meant for four people, which it is filled with [heces] up to the height of your ankles, along with another ten men.
It is torture if a police officer asks you for identification with not reason whatsoever, and while you are asking him why, he slaps you in the face.
Torture is to spend three years in the mandatory military draft in the [military base] 3500 or in Cuito Cuanavale [Angola]
Torture is the authorization to leave [exit permit] and the authorization to enter [entrance stamp]
Torture is a note in the academic records for “ideological deviation” or “attempting against your own life” after entering the dorms through the external gutter because a dorm’s administrator does not allow you to get in to grab your asthma inhaler, because your duty is going to pick up bags of oranges, only to have rice and peas as lunch afterwards.
Torture is [living] chasing after food and [material] stuff like stray dogs begging.
Torture and murder is to censor, to enslave, to manipulate and to force an entire populace to fight against each other.
Torture is the promoted hate, the fear to talk about you.
Torture IS YOU.
[Give me a break!]
Now, there are the comments that should make history:
(Garrincha) … and we all know there is more in the tortures’ list.
( Yosi) ... Torture is the family’s separation, torture is one bread [bun] a day per person and six eggs per month, and torture is not being able to eat red meat or nourish [yourself] properly. Torture is to live in a house all your life, seeing that is falling onto you. Torture is standing a crazy dictator for more than 50 years. All that, and much more, is torture in Cuba.
(Ma. Acapulco) ...Torture was each one of those speeches, broadcasted simultaneously in all TV channels. Four hours of torture. And torture is to have an idiot from the state security questioning you why did you say this and that…
But, on top of all those tortures, they do pull off teeth if they have to, and finger nails too, they pick and the beat up whomever they have to. What happens is that they are so evil that their torture techniques are silent and concealed; that torture is not evident: the rooted hatred, the evil whistle blowing, the social piece of crap… they have designed it so well, so á la Machiavelli, that that torture is just enough.
Damned.
(Yosi)... I just saw the photos from the dead [patients] in Mazorra and I’m in shock, poor elderly, living in there was a torture for them.
(Cucovish) … [Ryme in Spanish; translation will be out of synch in English]
What is torture?
What is torture?, you ask, while you
Stick in my eye’s pupil your brownish one
What is torture? And you ask me?!
Torture is you [faggot]
( Güicho) …Torture is having to stand a shark bites, one after another, or swallow sea water, over and over, until you die. All whiel trying to escape from the other tortures in your island-plantation, SOB!
Now, my two cents…
• Torture is having to kill the cockroaches flying on top of your severely ill father’s bed in an intensive care unit.
• Torture is seeing your uncle undergoing dialysis for last stage renal failure due to diabetes, but having your siblings sending the erythropoietin weekly shots from Germany.
• Torture is seeing, the day of your uncle’s funeral, in the middle of the Vía Blanca [highway] the mortuary car stopped because it ran our of gas, halfway to Havana’s cemetery. And having had to stop and siphon the black-market gas you bought to your own car, in order to finally bury him.
• Torture is having your father’s pancreas damaged by a medical malpractice and not being able to say anything.
• Torture is learning that you aunt’s beautiful green eyes were pulled off during an unauthorized autopsy while in Mazorra, and that later on her body was sent, completely naked and uncovered, to the funeral home in her hometown of Guane. Torture is to know that Ordaz royally wiped his rear bottom with the complaint letters written by my mother.
• Torture were the eight hours long blackouts, on a rotating basis, in the summer of 1994, being asked – while in school – to denounce your classmates if you’d see them praying on Sundays, or seeing your mother suffering from a neuropathy (Beri Beri) epidemic caused simply by hunger.
• Torture is the ration of 30 feminine pads per month – irregular women are not allowed in this socialist revolution!
• Torture is having to deal with the fact that after age seven, your children will not receive more milk through the rationing card.
• Torture is seeing the pictures and the differences between the hospital’s OR where my cousin had her two C-sections, and the room in the suburban borderline rural birthing center where my dear son was born.
• Torture is to see that it will take a long time before my son can see the hometown of his grandparents, that he is unable to spend the weekends at the beach with his cousins and that he is not growing up in the neighborhood where his mother did.
• Torture is that, even living in freedom and working my butt off like a mule for my family, I still feel a knot in my throat when I eat an ice cream cone or buy something cute, after the mere thought that the loved ones that I left behind may never enjoy such petty things in life.
• Torture is going back witness, with your own eyes, that the new generations of Cuban could care less about other human beings. And we can not blame them for only dreaming with jumping off the strait get out of there.
• Torture is seeing that three generations of Cubans have been broken by 50 years of communist dictatorship. Broken souls and hopeless faces; that’s all left.
… to be continued, but, hopefully, NOT for another fifty years.
Another wonder of Cuba's socialized, government-run, health care system
Cross posted at Iron Curtain Patriots.
Remember in early January, when news broke that twenty something patients died, supposedly of cold and hunger, in Havana’s dreaded mental health hospital, known as Mazorra?
Penúltimos Días (in Spanish) broke the news on January 13th and it went viral all over the internet, including Twitter, where I followed it the most.
[Needles to say, Michael “Sicko”Moore and all the useful idiots claiming the US needs a health care system like Cuba’s never answered any of the urgent pagers!]
The news caused such a mess that the Cuban government, through its only and official fish-wrap, Granma, didn’t have any other choice than to publish a lousy and short note in the back pages, two days after the scandal. Cold was to blame, of course, and an investigation was going to be done.
After a few days, there were more reports that the deaths were actually in the thirty something. My relatives back in the tropical gulag confirmed me that the Public Health Ministry was engaged in a witch-hunt and they wanted to see heads rolling.
Today, also through Ernesto's sources, the pictures of those dead patients, taken while they were at the morgue of the Legal Medicine Institute in Havana, have been made public.
No, these images are not from the Nazi concentration camps.
They are from Havana.
Risking sounding like the lousy lines of the “yellow” TV shows in Spanish – á la Primer Impacto and Al Rojo Vivo – I have to add the images are really STRONG. Therefore, I am limiting myself to post the link only.
During the days when these patients died, I was covered by the white stuff around the Rockies, but there was NO snow or significantly subzero temperatures in the tropics. It was a cold front with temperatures near zero, which is colder than usual, but nothing extremely cold.
The government’s sycophants, as usual, conveniently forgot to address basic issues such as: in what state of starvation needs a human body to be in order to die, massively, due to borderline zero temperatures?
What about the bottom line problem of scarcity that Cuba has chronically suffered since the Soviet Union cut down their pipelines, which makes every single person to steal anything they can from their workplaces? – And do not even start with the “It’s the US and the embargo’s fault” crappy line, because food and medical supplies are exempted from the few cosmetic restrictions that are still in place.
What about previous reports and accusations of horror stories in Mazorra – after 1959?
What about the parallel with the atrocities that happen, on a daily basis, in nursing homes and hospitals for regular Cubans?
What about what happened to my aunt, Mercedes and her beautiful green eyes, when I was still a little girl?
UPDATE: In my Mom's own words, in Spanish, here. It's the second time in her life that she talks about this. The first time it was just the mere "preview" that I used in my post about my aunt. Just now I realized I was only three years old.
What about that?
What the heck happened to the universal health care paradise?!
United Nations, American health care reform champions, Michael Stupid Sicko Moore, Sean Penn and ét al…
WHERE ARE YOU?
PS- And this is coming from the same sources saying that no prisoner has ever been torture in Cuba and that dissident and prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a common criminal - a " worthless nigger" to put it in the words of his jailers - that just committed suicided.
Remember in early January, when news broke that twenty something patients died, supposedly of cold and hunger, in Havana’s dreaded mental health hospital, known as Mazorra?
Penúltimos Días (in Spanish) broke the news on January 13th and it went viral all over the internet, including Twitter, where I followed it the most.
[Needles to say, Michael “Sicko”Moore and all the useful idiots claiming the US needs a health care system like Cuba’s never answered any of the urgent pagers!]
The news caused such a mess that the Cuban government, through its only and official fish-wrap, Granma, didn’t have any other choice than to publish a lousy and short note in the back pages, two days after the scandal. Cold was to blame, of course, and an investigation was going to be done.
After a few days, there were more reports that the deaths were actually in the thirty something. My relatives back in the tropical gulag confirmed me that the Public Health Ministry was engaged in a witch-hunt and they wanted to see heads rolling.
Today, also through Ernesto's sources, the pictures of those dead patients, taken while they were at the morgue of the Legal Medicine Institute in Havana, have been made public.
No, these images are not from the Nazi concentration camps.
They are from Havana.
Risking sounding like the lousy lines of the “yellow” TV shows in Spanish – á la Primer Impacto and Al Rojo Vivo – I have to add the images are really STRONG. Therefore, I am limiting myself to post the link only.
During the days when these patients died, I was covered by the white stuff around the Rockies, but there was NO snow or significantly subzero temperatures in the tropics. It was a cold front with temperatures near zero, which is colder than usual, but nothing extremely cold.
The government’s sycophants, as usual, conveniently forgot to address basic issues such as: in what state of starvation needs a human body to be in order to die, massively, due to borderline zero temperatures?
What about the bottom line problem of scarcity that Cuba has chronically suffered since the Soviet Union cut down their pipelines, which makes every single person to steal anything they can from their workplaces? – And do not even start with the “It’s the US and the embargo’s fault” crappy line, because food and medical supplies are exempted from the few cosmetic restrictions that are still in place.
What about previous reports and accusations of horror stories in Mazorra – after 1959?
What about the parallel with the atrocities that happen, on a daily basis, in nursing homes and hospitals for regular Cubans?
What about what happened to my aunt, Mercedes and her beautiful green eyes, when I was still a little girl?
UPDATE: In my Mom's own words, in Spanish, here. It's the second time in her life that she talks about this. The first time it was just the mere "preview" that I used in my post about my aunt. Just now I realized I was only three years old.
What about that?
What the heck happened to the universal health care paradise?!
United Nations, American health care reform champions, Michael Stupid Sicko Moore, Sean Penn and ét al…
WHERE ARE YOU?
PS- And this is coming from the same sources saying that no prisoner has ever been torture in Cuba and that dissident and prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a common criminal - a " worthless nigger" to put it in the words of his jailers - that just committed suicided.
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