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MARIO J. TORRES
Agriculture, Housing and Mass Media
(1) AGRICULTURE
Castro has implemented endless projects in agriculture, which have all
failed. The ruler has always pretended to know all about everything, so he
is able to foretell the weather better than the meteorologist or know more
about economy than the economist, more about Medicine than the doctor and
more about baseball than the team manager.
In agriculture, he took command and changed different crops from their
fields and exchanged them, and they were finally all lost. He took workers
off their jobs and had them plant a vegetable string that would surround
Havana. Soon he got tired of the vegetable string and left it as a failure.
He changed the techniques of growing sugarcane. He seemed to be taking up
something, playing with it for a while for entertainment, and leaving it
half way through without finishing it, and then taking up a new project.
He mobilized thousands of people who were not experts, to agricultural plans
just for the sake of evaluating them at work. The result: lots of crops
spoiled. He has made great expenses of gas, food, transportation, and
material resources for the School in the Countryside Plans for kids to cut
cane, pick coffee in the mountains, or pick tobacco leaves with the final
result of lots of expenses, losses and no yield at all.
Regarding livestock, he changed cattle food several times and intended to
cross breeds; he had negative results. He implemented agricultural markets
in cities several times, and months later he banned them, only to come up
with them again years later.
He has chosen workers from the Communist party and has sent them to the
countryside to work on what has been called the Food Plan. He thought this
would provide all the supplies needed by the population, such as vegetables
and meat. This plan has also been a complete failure.
He also intended that every Cuban should support himself by having a
vegetable garden in his yard to grow greens for his own consumption! These
have all been crazy ideas from a man who has been experimenting with Cuban
people as if they were guinea pigs.
(2) HOUSING
Housing is a big problem in Cuba: there is no cement, no bricks - no
construction materials at all. People's houses are in bad condition, and
government permits are needed for reconstruction or house transfer or
exchange. House sales are forbidden, and everything is under the control of
the state.
People live packed in houses where there is no space, and many have dared to
construct "illegal" rooms or "second floor" rooms called BARBACOAS to solve
their situation. Recently, Castro instituted the construction
micro-brigaders who build apartment houses for the government, and the
government grants the apartments to the ones that "deserve" them.
Many buildings and houses in Havana city are falling apart or are worn by
time with no possible reconstruction, and some of the ones who fall down
become huge garbage cans instead of undergoing reparation. Cities like
Havana have a tourism area in which everything shines, and the people's
area, which is a disaster.
(3) MASS MEDIA
The newspaper, the radio, and the television network are all at the full
service of the state. Everything said or written to the general public is
analyzed and prepared in such a way that it will always defend the interests
of the government and it will criticize and attack its enemies.
There are two television channels, one national official newspaper of the
Communist party, and three national radio stations apart from radio stations
from provinces and small municipalities which are all controlled by the
government. So all positive information about the West (basically the United
States) is eliminated from the news, and on the contrary a careful selection
of the negative aspects of life in the United States and other capitalist
countries is made.
Everything that is released to the public opinion about the subject is a
chain of problems and disasters, which include: tornadoes, earthquakes,
snowstorms, cold or hot waves, hurricanes, unemployment, robbery, murder,
accidents, poverty, suicide, death, crime, alcoholism, drugs, violence
exploitation, low salaries, cost of life, and discrimination. That is,
nothing good takes place in the northern neighbor
On the contrary, in the former Communist countries, everything used to be
nice and quiet like a paradise.
In domestic news everything is focused on economic achievement, promises,
lies, figures of over-fulfillment of plans, political instruction,
historical political dates, references or slogans like the following:
(1) Yankees go home!
(2) Cuba yes! Yankees no!
(3) Until victory forever!
(4) Socialism or Death!
(5) Homeland or Death!
(6) Commander in chief, you order us!
(7) We were born to win and not to be defeated!
(8) Whatever you say, Fidel!
(9) To resist and win!
(10) Long live the Revolution!
Anything that does not meet these parameters will not be broadcast or
published. Or if anyone would dare to say or write something not accepted by
the system in any mass media channel, the public would never see that person
again.
MARIO J TORRES
JANUARY 2004
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