Banjoest - You're not the first person to say to me "if Cuba is so great and you feel so safe there, why don't you go and live there?"

So....this means I have to choose???

Hey, I like lots of places I've been to...Bermuda, northwest Pennsylvania, Hawaii, some parts of Mexico, British Columbia, Oregon, Northern California, Cuba...

I can't move to all of them now, can I? :-)

The reason I don't move is this: it's complicated, it's expensive, it involves all sorts of red tape, and I am already quite happy in Ontario, Canada, where I have a small business, friends, family, and a pretty good life. I have no pressing reasons to move at this time.

This in no way alters my good opinion of Cuba. For a country that's been embargoed for 42 years by the world's biggest superpower they are doing damned well, and I admire them for it. They are proof that miracles do occasionally happen in this world, despite the overpowering might of the American dollar.

If you haven't been there, you have little to go on except virulent propaganda. Cuba puts most of its Latin American neighbours to shame when it comes to establishing a decent and responsible society.

As for Ben Franklin, who said: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Precisely. I agree with Franklin on that. So did Castro.

He was the son of a wealthy family, and he could easily have lived a secure life off the fat of the land, been a friend of the corrupt Batista government, and done nothing for his country. He instead totally disregarded his personal safety, put his life on the line again and again, and fought for Cuban liberty...liberty from Batista, from the Mafia, from the United Sugar Company, from corporate USA...which effectively owned Cuba ever since the Spanish lost it in 1898.

Castro's revolution restored to Cuba a great many of the essential liberties that were unavailable under the dictator Batista...such as the liberty to be a young good-looking woman born to a poor family and NOT be farmed out as a prostitute or raped by the local police and soldiers.

The liberty to actually own the plot of land you have worked on all your life.

The liberty to own one's own country's natural resources, rather than to serve as slave labourers for a foreign mercantile empire.

The liberty to get a good education, learn to read, and get your teeth fixed.

The liberty to receive equal rights and opportunities regardless of whether you are black, white, or brown. Tell me how many black faces you see among the Cuban exiles...

I know that all may sound either unfamiliar...or incredible to you, but remember...you live in a country that believes its own mythology, regardless of the other realities around it, and repeats those myths endlessly...and spreads "bogeyman" propaganda endlessly to scare its people...and you have not been to Cuba. I have.

I wouldn't want to be in any jail for a year...not Cuban or Mexican or Turkish or Peruvian or Argentinian or Guatemalan. All of those are American allies at the moment...except Cuba. They all have political prisoners. That's life out there in the Third World.

And I hear that American jails are not exactly a joyride either, unless you like having casual sex with larger men, frequent beatings, and an greatly increased likelihood of violent death or suicide before your term is up.

- LH