Yeah, Bill, but whenever there's an armed revolution anywhere you have loss of life...and when it's over you have people who are delighted with the result and people who are devastated about it. Cuba was no exception. I've met Cubans who hate Castro, Cubans who admire and support him, and Cubans who simply put up with him because he is the "status quo". It all depends who you talk to. After your American revolution there were a lot of people who wanted to escape to Canada too...they were called "loyalists" (to the British crown). That's what revolutions are like. The medical care is good quality from what I hear, and I found no signs of lack of self-esteem in Cuba. Quite the contrary! I would say that the Cuban population is physically healthier than the North American population, particularly because so many people are grossly overweight in North America. The main concerns in Cuba are lack of money, lack of goods, and the unresponsiveness of the government bureaucracy.

To look at any place and simply consign it to an imaginary "Axis of Evil" or something like that can be very misleading. Cuba, like the USA or Canada, has its good points and its bad points. It's not all one way or all the other way. I can say this: without Castro's revolution ordinary Cubans under Batista were far worse off...and that is why his revolution succeeded in 1959.

- LH