A Family Letter

The letter below was written to one of my relatives after we engaged in a battle of ideals regarding the recent Wilma destruction in La Habana. In her 46 year indoctrination she still feels that El Sumo Hijo de Puta can do no wrong, that everything that s done in Kuba is for the benefit of the people, that the USA should learn from THEM how to deal with natural disasters and how to “protect” the population.

In my last letter to her I questioned the fact that no one had been killed in the hurricane since it was documented that 3 Canadian tourists had indeed been killed , she responded with the fact that it was a lie , perpetrated to discredit the “Revolución” . She also proudly informed me that La Habana was back to normal 2 days after the flooding. This fact has resulted to be a TOTAL and unrelenting load of bullshit since as of last night at 9PM ALL the tunnels in La Habana remained flooded.

This blindness and sense of omnipotence that KaSStro has instilled in some of the most rabid ñangaras in Kuba, will always be the major stumbling block to any peaceful solution in the Cuban crisis. As we have the extremists on this side , we have them there , and THAT kind will only understand one thing, a bullet in the head.

This I say without feeling a bit of anguish by advocating that someone in my family deserves to be executed for defending that which is indefensible. For ignoring the suffering of 12 million people. For ignoring the needs , the education , the well being of her own children and as a sheep to be slaughter being stupid enough to swallow 47 years of lies , deceit, hunger, repression and STILL not only apologize, but blatantly lie in order to defend their MAXIMUM LEADER.

The letter was originally in Spanish, but I think an English translation would be more appropriate in this forum.

Dear G.

It hurts me that after all this time you and I are still debating the benefits of the system of government you have chosen to embrace. It hurts me doubly because in me , in your own flesh and blood you have seen how all the propaganda you have been fed against the USA is nothing but that, PROPAGANDA. It hurts me because your own son has been victim to the barbarism that is the Castro government, the fact that your son, because of his superior intellect, his desire for knowledge his thirst of history his digging into the reality that was the deceit of the “Revolución” is now a pariah within the system that you so vociferously defend.

Imagine the triumphs of your son in a country like the USA. Put him in my place trace his life on the pattern of MY life in this country. My life is not a carefully plotted story of propaganda but the real story of a boy who arrived in a foreign country without knowing where his next meal was going to come from or where he was going to sleep next.

You pride yourself on your achievements, but yet half your life is spent “resolviendo”, your husband stealing this and that trinket from work so you can have a couple of eggs on the table.

You pride yourself of your free health care and yet you ask me for $50.00 so your mother can have the proper antibiotic to cure a lung infection.

Hypocrisy does not begin to describe your duality of conviction.

You pride yourself of your “civil defense” system but you are not allowed to read a history book that will teach you how that civil defense system was first perpetrated on a nation and for what purpose. The purpose was one of REPRESSION and not of welfare.

When you are forced to evacuate your home leaving behind the few things you do own and the refrigerator that *I* had to buy for you , you are nothing but cattle , you are a slave without the right of dissent . Your free will is non existent. You are a prisoner and your prison bars are that ocean that surrounds your island.

Let me show you the contrast of our ways of life.

You stayed behind, within the midst of what was going to be YOUR utopian society. I left. At 14 years old, without a clear destination, without a set course for a future.

I left because my parents realized that your Utopian dream was nothing but a historical rehash of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

You had everything and I had nothing. You had the house where you were born , your family , your language . I was alone and 35 years later, look at the differences in our lives.

I live in a country where education is not free, but I received a full education and never paid a cent for it

I have not gone hungry a day in my life and yet I never had to steal anything to achieve this or had to depend on a ration card to buy some maggot infected rice.

I have never been sent to jail for expressing an opinion or wearing the wrong type of clothing or the wrong length of hair.

I live in a country where medical care is not free but I have never lacked medical attention.

I live in a country where medicine is not free but I never lacked the best medicine I needed to cure an ailment.

I live in a country where your system of government claims there is no equality , yet I arrived in this country as a refugee , received a free education and never not once did I have to defend myself against any discriminatory practices.

I live in a country were my teachers were Black, White, Asian, Hispanics and not once was I harassed because of my accent or the vowel at the end of my surname.

I learned from all of those who camme before me. Their cultures, and their wisdom. I learned tolerance and different points of view. We were able to open a news paper and discuss the good and the bad of the administration that we had elected. We did this without fear of reprisals.

I lived in a country that was torn by the Vietnam War and yet there was no need for a Comité De Defensa del Gobierno to snitch on those who were pro or against the war. ALL news were frontpage news. The good and the bad.

I live in a country were our fatalities of war are more readily disclosed than our victories.

I live in a country where our military interventions are not hidden from the public, where our citicenz do not go hungry because we decide to intervene or impose our ideology in a country like Angola.

I live in a country were our leaders do not force hundreds of thousands of people to listen to 8 hours harangues, under 100 degree heat exhorting the virtues of a system whose only virtue is the fact that they can force hundreds of thousands of people to listen to their lies.

I live in a country were dissent, or disrespect to the elected officials of the government does not get your ass in jail.

I live in a country where people do not jump on inner tubes and risk their lives fleeing that which you so adamantly defend. We effect change by voting not by fleeing.

I live in a country where the front page of the New York Times will call the president of the country by whatever name they feel appropriate and there will be no reprisals.

I live in a country that has afforded me the ability to travel to every continent in the world and not ONCE have I had to pay the USA a cent for the right to see and experience other cultures. Nor have had I the need to request a permission to leave.

I live in a country where I have never seen a robbery nor have I been victim of a crime.

I live in a country where at 27 years of age I owned my own business. I paid my taxes and I supported 15 employees.

I live in a country where without stealing, lying, or cheating I had a net worth of 5 million dollars on 9/11/2001.

I live in a country where after that fateful day I lost it all but was able to pick myself up and start a new with the full support , economic moral and humane of my government.

I live in a country were we send billions of dollars of aid to countries in need and do not feel the need to disclose why we spent the money and how we spent the money. We do so quietly modestly and without rhetorical fanfare.

I live in a country which in spite of the vitriolic, spiteful, sinister harangues of YOUR leader, is willing to quietly come to your aid in your time of trouble.

I live in a country were my leader doesn’t have a hidden bank account with 3.9 billion dollars in Switzerland which is cause of a multinational investigation into drug & white slavery trafficking.

And that is just some of our differences, why I, even though taking a leap into the void at 14 years of age AM successful, spiritually, materially and emotionally and YOU are full of hate , envy and despair. Why you child hates you because of your intransigence, blindness and hypocrisy and your husband must put his job at risk every day by stealing toilet paper from his place of work.

You and I will never see eye to eye, because to be totally fair one of us has chosen to keep their eyes tightly shut and has embraced hypocresy and deceit as a way of life.