Michael Totten goes to Cuba…
…so you don’t have to.
And believe me, after you’ve read his article, you won’t want to. It’s a brilliant article about a wretched place. Here’s an excerpt:
In the United States, we have a minimum wage; Cuba has a maximum wage””$20 a month for almost every job in the country. (Professionals such as doctors and lawyers can make a whopping $10 extra a month.) Sure, Cubans get “free” health care and education, but as Cuban exile and Yale historian Carlos Eire says, “All slave owners need to keep their slaves healthy and ensure that they have the skills to perform their tasks.”
Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Melié¡ International to manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Melié¡ said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8”“$10 an hour. But Melié¡ doesn’t pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the workers””but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The workers don’t get $8”“$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day””a child’s allowance…
Tourists tip waiters, taxi drivers, tour guides, and chambermaids in hard currency, and to stave off a revolt from these people, the government lets them keep the additional money, so they’re “rich” compared with everyone else. In fact, they’re an elite class enjoying privileges””enough income to afford a cell phone, go out to restaurants and bars, log on to the Internet once in a while””that ordinary Cubans can’t even dream of. I asked a few people how much chambermaids earn in tips, partly so that I would know how much to leave on my dresser and also to get an idea of just how crazy Cuban economics are. Supposedly, the maids get about $1 per day for each room. If they clean an average of 30 rooms a day and work five days a week, they’ll bring in $600 a month””30 times what everyone else gets. “All animals are equal,” George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, his allegory of Stalinism, “but some animals are more equal than others.” Only in the funhouse of a Communist country is the cleaning lady rich compared with the lawyer. Yet elite Cubans are impoverished compared with the middle class and even the poor outside Cuba.
It didn’t have to be this way. But Communism does that, doesn’t it?
[NOTE: Read the comments to the article as well, and you’ll see that there’s a contingent of leftist Cuba-defenders there who say it’s all America’s fault.]
Jay Nordlinger has written quite a few articles about Cuba that are well worth reading:
Here are his notes on the recent movie Una Noche, an apparently honest depiction of life in Cuba:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359143/notes-movie-jay-nordlinger
On the “Castro caucus” in US govt:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/371994/castro-caucus-jay-nordlinger
On the “Ladies in White,” the wives, sisters, daughters and relatives of Cuba’s political prisoners:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335084/another-day-cuba-jay-nordlinger
Do we remember when the Clinton administration seized Elian Gonzales so that he could be returned to that hellhole? What were they thinking?
I spent a week in East Germany in 1981 and a week in the Ukraine in 1994, three years after the collapse of Communism. It wasn’t very different from what Totten described.
You could really sense the fear in the East Germans when we tried to have a conversation with them about anything except the most anodyne subject. Then there was the woman from Communist China whose husband had been in a re-education camp for a decade, nothing but the weather and physics.
For a comparison between Cuba before Castro, and Castro’s Cuba, take a look at Renaissance and Decay: A Comparison of Socioeconomic Indicators in Pre-Castro and Current-Day Cuba. As this was published in 1998,some of the information is dated, but the comparison is still overall a valid one.
In 1950s, Cuba was FIFTH IN THE WORLD in TVs per capita, which would have been the cutting edge consumer technology of the day. In 2012, Cuba ranked 126th out of 201 countries in Internet users (per 100 people).
Many of us remember Ubre Blanca, Fidel’s wonder cow.
Increase in Milk Production, 1958-1996
Argentina 4,481 9,176 105%
Brazil 4,603 19,845 331%
Chile 764 1,873 145%
Colombia 2,085c 5,000 140%
CostaRica 76c 536 605%
Cuba 828 920 11%
Ecuador 375 1,848 393%
Guatemala 128 321 151%
Honduras 111 529 377%
Mexico 4,206b 8,059 92%
Panama 51 155 204%
Paraguay 132 300 127% 0
Peru 372 905 143%
Uruguay 627 1,342 114%
Venezuela 387b 1,417 266%
Granted, the milk data is dated, but the trend is there.
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/databases.aspx World Development Indicators
The experiment has been run. Communism results in equality of misery. The results are right there in Cuba and North Korea. Yet no one mentions them. Very few Americans travel to Cuba or North Korea. It’s as if they didn’t exist for the vast majority of Americans. Yet there they are. Living proof of the evil that progressives want to inflict on us.
The return of Elian Gonzales to Cuba was, IMO, a crime against humanity. But Bubba is one of our most popular elder statesmen. It’s like being in an Orwell book. Up is down. Truth is fiction. Black is white. War is peace.
“The workers don’t get $8—$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day–a child’s allowance…”
Exactly so and that is what makes Totten a star class writer.
And Michael Moore would have *us* believe this was some
kind of medical paradise, something to aspire to for Mr & Ms
average American. oy veh !
I hate to sound like a loony liberal but is the embargo still serving a worthwhile purpose? Give me a good argument here as to why keeping it is worth the PR crap we receive in maintaining it.
More from Totten on Cuba, “The Once Great City of Havana”:
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/once-great-city-havana
I’m more worried about having a guy that walks like a Marxist and quacks like a Marxist residing in the White House. Not that I don’t feel very sorry our neighbors, but….
Harry the “Extremist”
I hate to sound like a loony liberal but is the embargo still serving a worthwhile purpose?
I suggest you read Micheal Totten’s articles on Cuba in World Affairs. In “To Embargo or Not,” he addresses the issues. The basic point is that in a country where the Castro mafia has a stranglehold on everything, the money will go to the Castro gang.
In the City Journal article, vanderleun found an appropriate quote, which I have expanded on.
Here is a foreign company that set up operations in Cuba. While it pays its workers a decent wage, the Cuban government takes the lion’s share. Out of $8-$10 per hour the foreign company pays its workers, the Cuban government takes all but about 10 cents an hour [67 cents per day]. That is a pretty good argument for the embargo: all the money from foreign trade will go to the Cuban government, not to the workers.
There are more Totten articles, but I don’t want to risk the spam filter.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/letter-cuba-embargo-or-not
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/illusion-cuban-reform-castro-strikes-out
Very few Americans travel to Cuba or North Korea. It’s as if they didn’t exist for the vast majority of Americans.
Going to communist countries, being surrounded by minders, and taking the official tour isn’t worth much.
Same thing people went into Iraq thinking they could find info because Saddam’s minders would show it to em.
Do we remember when the Clinton administration seized Elian Gonzales so that he could be returned to that hellhole? What were they thinking?
They were thinking the same thing when they went into WACO and Ruby Ridge. Got to wipe certain kids out.
Gringo is correct, ending the embargo would not improve the lives of the Cuban people; it would only enrich the regime and provide them with funds to increase their ‘mischief’ elsewhere.
Thanks Gringo. Ill read that.
To fund his trip to Cuba, Totton used Kickstarter. Kickstarter is notorious for discriminating against and censoring Conservatives (ex: the Gosnell movie).
Totten has been asked to abandon Kickstarter. He will not.
Abandon Michael Totten.
Paul A’Barge:
I’m not about to go through the habits of everyone I know and abandon everyone who isn’t 100% conservatively pure. I certainly wouldn’t pass that test, either.
So maybe you should abandon me.
There is no real hard economic impact of the US embargo on Cuba. Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans and South Americans all travel and trade with Cuba. Only the Cuban regime loves the embargo but if we lifted it it would not change the regime or their tight controls on the people. The progressive world loves castro in a way that can only be explained that he was coexistent with JFK. Tito, Hoxha, and other Cold war dictators didn’t gain the glamor factor with the left.
Cuba is a text book example of how the left doesn’t care about national wealth and prosperity. If you hobble enterprise the progressives can always find a way to worm them selves into a cushy job.
“Abandon Michael Totten.”
For now, you may abandon whatever you wish. If the ‘progressives’ seize total control (after slaughtering 50-100 million) you will not be able to choose who or whom not to abandon. Instead, the small fry (in your secret heart you know what you are) will be boarding the cattle car to the crematoria. Relax, first you get a shower.
No one here says anything about the USA’s failure to rectify Cuba. It could have, you know. It was all those pragmatists, realists, the good old Democratic party and a goodly dose of GOPers. Who allowed the Bay of Pigs? Who didn’t follow up when follow-up was immediately possible? The Dean Rusk types; I said types. The same crowd that got us into Nam and then refused to allow victory, and finally handed Nam over to Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh.
Never give the Left an inch; they’ll always take a mile.
Used to go to Guantanamo pre-Castro. The civilian employees on the Naval Base were hopeful, and we were generally sympathetic.
Neither group had a clue.
The gates opened, and I went into town one time to drink and whore (well drink; I didn’t do the other; although it seemed to be the major industry). It was like something out of a cheap movie about the third world
Stopped at a Cantina mid-way back to the base for a final rum and coke. A couple of weeks later Castro blew it up for some reason or another.
Others who went to Havana pre-Castro said it was kind of like Las Vegas on a smaller scale, and more authentic. Everyone I know who knew Havan in the pre-Castro era loved it.
I really believe that Americans would have supported Castro big time if he had wanted American support.
I grew up in Tampa, Fl with then the the largest Cuban population outside of Havana. It was a fascinating culture. We occasionally rubbed each other a little irritatingly, but it was generally a benign relationship.
It was a great event–believe me–when the Havana Cubans minor league baseball team came to town to play the Tampa Smokers in the Post WWII Florida International League. What an atmosphere.
On the subject of Cuban influence; found a Cuban themed restaurant in Warrenton, Va that served Cuban mixed sandwiches almost as good as those in Tampa in the ’40s. Found another one in Corona, Ca, recently, but it sadly is just not up to standard.
If you find a good source for an authentic, or even semi-authentic, Cuban Mix Sandwich, nurture it.
(It may be well to mention that the reference to the “Smokers” in my above post, is because the baseball team was named to honor the huge cigar industry in Tampa. Tampa was always the cigar capital of Norte America–and this undoubtedly contributed to the large Cuban influence.)
And isn’t Castro a billionaire?
“Why Havana Had to Die” by Theodore Dahlrymple is an excellent essay.
Totten has been asked to abandon Kickstarter. He will not.
Abandon Michael Totten.
The internet is controlled by Democrats, pirates, and the MPAA. Why haven’t you abandoned the use of the internet yet?
Come to think about it, the IRS is controlled by evil. If P is still paying the IRS his part of the protection fee, one wonders why such brave demands for Totten aren’t mirrored elsewhere.
Rather then sending armed forces to Nigeria to free the Christian girls the US should overthrow the Cuban regime.
I am sure that as part of the Cuban Missile crisis resolution that Kennedy agreed to never overthrow the regime, but it is time to break that agreement. Then we can go free the Christian girls.
I put this comment in the thread to Totten’s article:
This is for the pro Cuban government commenters:
Some of you didn’t bother to read the article. The US already is a big trading partner with Cuba, so lifting the embargo when the government will just take the additional largesse will do nothing.
That said – I thought the Fidel backers hated capitalism? The fact that you blame the capitalist country to Cuba’s north for not engaging in capitalist trade with this anti-capitalist country means all of your irony meters are out of whack. If communism was such a good idea, Cuba wouldn’t need to trade with free market countries. Which of course was the point of Totten’s article.
But keep apologizing. In your echo chambers, you’ll all be able to comfort each other.
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