In response to article in Washington Post. repinted below.....
OK, so since it's been repeated at least three times in the last two days, I will add the following (in blue) to our list of the "official line" phrases that need to be unspun: ------------------------------------------------------ Colin Powell: "Castro is quite the contrary. He has used openings not to benefit his people, and he has used openings to enhance his power. Pay me in dollars, and I'll pay the people in pesos." --------------------------------------------------- This is a catchy line. Which means people need to be prepared to combat it, because it is a line that easily confuses people. Yes, it is true, that many foreign companies, especially those running hotels, pay the Cuban government agencies that send them workers in dollars. And it is also true that most of those workers get paid primarily in pesos (as do all other Cubans) -- although almost invariably they get some additional bonus, in goods or tips.
But what is this really all about? Very simply, the revolution was conceived and developed to provide as much opportunity and equality among all citizens as possible, only taking into consideration differing abilities and efforts. It is already struggling mightily to maintain these principles since the demise of the socialist countries by the early 90s tore apart its economic framework and forced it to rely on a number of inherently unequal means of staying afloat: tourism, private enterprise on a small scale, remittances from abroad, etc. While having to accept this overt inequality, it does what it can to keep it from proliferating more than absolutely necessary.
If a handful of people who work for foreign companies are paid in dollars, in addition to the other perks they receive, you are automatically creating an economic class of people whose income and lifestyle is far superior to everyone else's -- and that includes doctors, teachers, government employees, engineers and architects, and so on.
It means if you are a maid or waiter in a hotel, and you have a critically ill or injured child, for example, your weekly income would be greater than the yearly income of the surgeon who would save your child's life -- at no cost to you. Is it in anyone's interest to make it more economically attractive for someone to become a tourism worker than a doctor or teacher?
On the other hand, if most of the dollar income from foreign employment goes to the government, opponents of the Cuban Revolution (like Collin Powell speaking for the class that hires him) would have us all believe that this money (like tourism money, their other main focus) is going to support a repressive apparatus. But everyone who knows Cuba from the inside knows that this foreign income in the hands of the government goes to support all the social services that the entire population benefits from. That includes not only the frequently mentioned health, education, childcare, care of the elderly, but also underwriting agriculture and food imports to make sure everyone eats at least something .
it includes things like seeing that clean water, electricity, roads, parks,sports, recreation, are subsidized so they are available to everyone. Did anyone bother to make these available to the majority of Cubans in the countryside or the slums before the Revolution? Does anyone seriously think they would continue to be available if the revolutionaries were thrown out and the Miami and New Jersey Cubans along with their US corporate backers came back in? Does it happen in the rest of the world?
Let's not kid ourselves: Colin Powell and his puppet-masters are NOT concerned about fairness to Cuban workers. =====================================
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 11:20 AM Subject: Powell on Cuba
The Washington Post
Powell on Cuba
The Washington Post Friday, October 10, 2003; 3:36 PM
Excerpts from an Oct. 3, 2003, interview with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, conducted at the State Department by Washington Post diplomatic correspondents Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin.
The Post: In a number of parts of the world, you face this issue of how much to engage, what to give up, what to get back, how to negotiate. If we could talk about Cuba as the last question. You're familiar very well with Central Europe and the Soviet Union and the arguments that openness to those societies ultimately created hopes, which led to expectations, which led to new governments. Interestingly enough, Gorbachev is going to be giving a speech in Miami tomorrow where, presumably, he will talk about some of these themes..
Powell: An old friend. . . . How do you say "perestroika" in Spanish. . . ? Quick! What's the other word?
The Post: Glasnost.
Powell: Okay. I usually can trap people.
The Post: And so he will . . . be talking about openness. You're well aware of what's going on on the Hill where there is great debate about whether there should be more openness. And a lot of people think the travel ban should be lifted, that the embargo after 40 years maybe doesn't deserve that much more time to see if it's going to work. What do you believe is the right way to approach it?
Powell: I think the approach we're taking is the correct one. This isn't the Soviet Union in 1987 and '88.
The Post: Because?
Powell: Because there is still absolutely no realization of the problems that Cuba is facing with respect to its political system and its economic system, and the need to start changing the political and economic systems, and to start realizing that there is a better way.[And since sovereignty doesn't exist for anyone outside the USA, we have the right to TELL them what that "better way" is.....]
Castro of 1959 is the same Castro in 2003. And Gorbachev was not Stalin, Khrushchev, Andropov or any of the others. He realized that change had to come and he was willing to lead that change. Castro is quite the contrary. He has used openings not to benefit his people, and he has used openings to enhance his power. "Pay me in dollars, and I'll pay the people in pesos."
And we just don't find that to be the kind of system that should be rewarded with the sorts of openness and encouragement that we provided to other states of similar political and economic views, you know, and then they started to realize change was appropriate and necessary.
The Post: And you just don't feel it's a tool that would work either, whether or not it's a reward for Castro?
Powell: No. You know, we've seen some countries try it. I mean, and some of our friends in the hemisphere said we were wrong, and "Let's make major investments in Cuba, and let's help them."
Well, guess what: They not only pulled back from those investments, they didn't help anybody, they helped the regime. And we think there is a body of evidence that suggests this is not the way to deal with Castro.
And even the European Union and other nations have been kind of shocked that this fellow they were trying to bring out in the open would, essentially, lock up people who dare to say anything against him for 15, 20, 25 years, or would shoot people who tried to get in a ferry boat and escape his little island of paradise. [Powell conveniently fails to mention that the people who were locked up did quite a bit more than just "say something against" Fidel --they took money from the US government to work at destabilizing their own government -- and that the ones who "tried to get in a ferry book and escape his little island of paradise" [sic] did more that get in a boat -- they hijacked it, terrorized passengers and crew, held knives and guns to peoples heads and threatened to throw them overboard one by one unless they were allowed to take the passenger ferry to Miami....]
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