I don't hear anything in your story that surprises me much, Fat Albert. I never said Cuba is a Utopia. What I do say is that the average Cuban was better off after Castro than before him, and that the average Cuban is better off than the average person in many other countries down there. They are all police states. You might just as well have to dive off a scooter and hug the ground while cops are shooting at an escaping suspect in Miami as in Cuba. What's the big deal about what happened to your brother in that respect? It would have happened in Mexico or Peru just the same.

You are quite correct that the Cubans experience a lack of goods on their store shelves, and a lack of modern equipment in their hospitals. You know why? They are being embargoed by the most powerful country in the world. That's why. Despite the embargo, they do manage to take better care of most of their people than Mexico does. Mexico is an American ally, so I'm sure you approve of them, right? ;-)

The fact is, I believe you would approve of any American ally regardless of what they did to their people. That's how bias works.

Sure Cubans are trying to get into North America. Heh! So is all of Latin America. They want more money, better jobs, and more consumer goods (and in some cases, a much safer daily existence).

So why is only Cuba "bad" in your eyes?

There are no utopias out there. Ever read any books on Castro's revolution? Try reading both the pro-Fidel books and the anti-Fidel books and comparing notes. I think you will find that there is something to be said for both points of view if you can put your own prejudices aside long enough to be moderately objective about it.

If the USA had chosen to work WITH Fidel after his revolution, instead of trying to stamp him out of existence, he would never have gone to Russia in the first place, and Cuba would be a friend and ally now, not an enemy. And it would most likely still be socialist. To be socialist is not equivalent to joining the ranks of Satan.

I was not "on tour" in Cuba, I was visiting private friends. None of my activities or intineraries there were in any way supervised by or connected with the Cuban government. I met people who didn't like Castro. I met many people who did like him. I met people who wanted to leave. I met people who wanted to stay.

It's a mixed picture in Cuba...as it is in most places.

Look, my friend, I consider downtown Detroit or Miami or Los Angeles like I would consider a piece of hell. But that's not all of America, is it? America and Cuba are both a mixed picture. Neither one of them is a Utopia. Neither one of them has a right to see itself justified in trying to stamp the other out of existence, but that's what the USA has been trying to do to Castro's Cuba ever since 1960 or thereabouts.