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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Prisoners in Paradise... God help the Cubans. Leaving for Cuba, I was worried about the Cuban government. What if I sent you something they didn't like? What would they do? Perhaps they would want to kick me out. Or maybe detain me. But after three days of being here, I am more afraid of our group. It's filled with intellectual do-gooders. You know the type, don't you? They have those ideas that are supposed to save the world but end up destroying it instead. They seem to believe that their job is to preserve the "good" part of the revolution. Every question seems to be about how to make sure that Cubans continue living in their prison in paradise. Prisoners in paradise. That's what the Cubans are. Cuba has incredible weather. Cuba has resourceful people who are desperate to make something of themselves. But the government won't let them. The Cubans we've met so far have largely had their heads and hearts in the right place. They all seem to understand that the future depends entirely on them. The first 30 years of Cuban communism were paid for by the Soviet Union. Then there were three years of crisis after the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed. And Castro got Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to pay for the next eight years, through oil prices. And now Cuba is in search of its next savior. Or else Cuba must pay for itself. Yesterday, we met with Father Gustavo -- a priest at a local Catholic church. The Catholic church has survived in Cuba. It's gained credibility in modern Cuba. Gustavo has a remarkable personality. He's got a charming smile and an easy way with words. When Gustavo talks, you want to listen, and you want to help. I'm guessing that these winning ways help him with the Cuban government too. “People are tired of governments telling them movies they can watch, what music they should listen to. They want the reins to their own life.” Gustavo is setting up a university in Havana. His university is going to focus on roughly what we would call the liberal arts. Gustavo is also running an entrepreneur school where, using teachers from Mexico, they are teaching people the basics of business. Listening to him talk about this program reminded me of listening to Addison talk about guiding our Agora friends in China or India or Brazil or France. In fact, I'm going to ask him if we can create a partnership to teach our way of creating a publishing company to his students. And, in some small way, plant the seeds of an Agora in Cuba. "People are tired of governments telling them movies they can watch, what music they should listen to. They want the reins to their own life." And these ideas of independence are being spread by "The Package." In Cuba, the Internet is crazy expensive and horrible. One hour of Internet goes for about $10. Or about 50% of a regular Cuban's monthly government-set wage. So people have figured out a way to get around the Internet to watch movies, television series and other forms of entertainment. For a flat fee, you can get a zip or stick drive that’s filled with 650 gigabytes of movies, TV series, music videos and TV programs. And people use computers to watch all this content. At least 20% of households have computers. And coming from Cuba, you could see many people clutching computers. Modern technology is its revolution, and every place it travels, it makes people want to dump their government... and take more control of their life. Why? Because the central idea of our time... which is the transmission of ideas through technology -- particularly the jet airliner and then digital information -- is as effective as any virus in its ability to travel vast distances and infect millions of people. Each stick drive, each Internet connection destroys the illusions that governments depend on to cheat people into supporting the nonsense that governments worldwide want to cheat people with. And in that way, what is going on in Cuba is incredibly mundane. Dull, even. It's really just an extension of what the tea party folks in the United States use... Don't tread on me. In Cuba, they'd add... Don't tread on me, Fidel. Regards, Peter Coyne for The Daily Reckoning Poster Comment: Cuba is loosening the reigns of totalitarianism just a bit. But, when I drove the big truck to Miami every week, I knew quite a few ex-patriate Cubans who wished that Castro never came along. ;) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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