Domestic life imposes unpleasant obligations. The faucet leaks, the lamp refuses to light the room, the lock on the door sticks, and one evil day, horrors!, the refrigerator breaks down. Terrified we discover that the freezer is dripping and the appliance's typical humming sound is no more. My neighbor Jose Antonio lived through a tragedy of this magnitude last week.
Early in the morning he called the nearest Domestic Repair Unit, but either they didn't answer or he got a busy signal. He decided to go there and was met by a girl who was meticulously polishing her fingernails. Distressed, he told her the story of his appliance and described its symptoms. He was about to venture a diagnosis but at that moment she interrupted him to say that surely it was the timer and that they didn't have the spare part. She explained that the workshop had a waiting list that stretched a couple of months. Like an intelligent man with some real life experience, the needy client formulated the correct question in a suitable tone, "And is there no other way to resolve this?" The woman paused in her manicure and shouted to a mechanic.
After agreeing on a price, everyone was satisfied. By midday the refrigerator was working again and the repairman went home with the equivalent of nearly two month's wages. That night, my neighbor, who is a barman at a five star hotel, took to work several bottles of rum purchased on the black market. With these, he dispatched the first of the mojitos and tasty pina coladas that the tourists drink. They did not suspect they were helping to fill the gap left by the refrigerator repair, an enormous hole in Jose Antonio's budget.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
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Blockade: the isolation by a warring nation of an enemy area (as a harbor) by troops or warships to prevent passage of persons or supplies.
Examples:
Tthe United States placed a naval blockade around Cuba, ordered by President Kennedy, during the Cuba missile crisis in 1962, to prevent Soviets medium-range missiles, capable of carring nuclear warheads, to reach Cuba . .
North Vietnamese ports were mined and blockaded by the United States in 1972 during the Vietnam War, to prevent Soviets from delivering supplies to Vietnam.
A blockade historically took place at sea, with the blockading power seeking to cut off all maritime transport from and to the blockaded country. Blockades should not be confused with embargos, which are legal barriers to trade
Embargo: A legal prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation (trade embargo).
These areFidel Castro’s reasons to “keep it around”:
“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro*
*Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988.
The Cubans doesn’t need any external help; it has been proven through the scattered opportunities the dictatorship relaxed the hard regulation over the private initiative. Each time it happened the people solved all material problems without the government involving. The farmers produced all food the people needed; markets were full with vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, etc. Small industries proliferated everywhere and the vendors found theirs stands full of shoes, cloths, deodorants and all kind articles long time ago vanished from the market.
But dictatorship is afraid of information and also afraid of richness, even if this richness is account in thousands and not in millions. Because richness means independence and insubordination and dictatorships needs for surviving the peoples dependence and subordination.
Cigar Lover, why you don’t try to convince Castro to lift his own and hard embargo on the Cuban people?
Silly me.
By other side subversion never existed on castrofascism.... it is not possible to subvert a tyranny.... what happens with tyrannies is that the people raises against them and procure freedom, that's what happened in Cuba.... several times.... the people revolted and the tyranny killed them..... tens of thousands of Cubans were killed in the popular war on tyranny from 1962 to 1975 and tens of thousands more were killed in fire squads........ other hundred of thousands were kept in prison for 20 or 30 years.
So, you are right .... very silly of you...