Opinion Archives - Page 478 of 492

Cuba’s Agricultural Funnel

Agriculture bureaucrats responsible for allowing much of Cuba’s farmland to be invaded by the marabu bush weed are losing ground in the countryside, while campesino families are beginning to take control over their own properties. Land in Cuba is changing hands and the effect is immediate: food production is increasing.

The authorities have taken a first step toward transforming land tenure, but they also need to change the distribution and commercialization system. Otherwise, all the efforts of farmers in the field will never be reflected on Cuban tables.

Contrasts: Would I Have Been Happy?

Julia Cabrera is a happy woman this morning. It’s a a quarter till eight, but she has the luxury of taking her time walking slowly along with the man of her life because she knows she’ll still be getting to work early. She has no economic problems; in her country the wages of the workers are enough to live decently, discrimination doesn’t exist and all citizens are entitled to the same rights.

It’s the Transgenic Chickens Fault

It’s sad that Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has not found more intelligent arguments against transgenic foods and that he was only able to appeal to machismo, which served to reinforce existing prejudices against male homosexuality.

Cuba’s Health Resources Dilemma

Lately, however, I’ve confronted a contradictory feeling. I can no longer speak of the public health system as all-embracing. The reality is that while some doctors work day and night in Havana, Guantanamo or Haiti, others do in fact squander their material resources.

The national media, however, blanket us with data on the Operation Milagro (eye surgery) program, the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, the medical brigade in Haiti and other public health campaigns in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador.

State Owned Doesn’t Mean Socialist

Apparently those who wrote about the “socialist government enterprise,” based themselves on the identification of state and socialist property by virtue of the fact that this property belongs to the Cuban state; assuming that all state property is, de jure, socialist. However, what gives a property its social character —be it socialist or capitalist— is the form of its operation and the appropriation of its output, not its legal form.

A Reader’s Response to: “No False Promises in Cuba’s Elections”

Seeing as that the author of the article seems to be interested in the US electoral system, please note that normally only 50-60% of the possible electorate votes there, and once the votes are divided between the Republicans and Democrats, the president of the US (which IS NOT elected directly elected but rather by electoral colleges – remember Bush vs. Gore, etc,) gets about say 20% of the votes: a very far cry from the minimum 50% required for any Cuban elected citizen. And so Cubans, through the 2007-08 elections of the municipal assembly delegates and the National Assembly deputies do indeed have a say as to who should be the president.

No False Promises in Cuba´s Elections

Here in my country, on the eve of Cubans turning out to vote in the April 25 elections, I can feel pity for people in the US who went to the polls with the hope that their vote could change things in their country. How naive.

US Military Bases in Colombia

Despite the strong opposition it now faces in the Colombian parliament, the military agreement between that country and the US continues being put into operation. This began to become evidenced this past December when the first detachments of Marines and equipment started to arrive.

Don Alejandro

Among the private campesinos, Don Alejandro stood out as much for the quality of his tobacco as for the productivity of his land. His prestige was such that Fidel Castro himself —the father of the agricultural collectivization— went to his farm to learn its secrets.

They Keep Us in Shape

There were times when I reflected on my situation and I concluded that I had spent a considerable amount of my lifetime waiting at bus stops. It was at these stops where I had witnessed the most interesting things and had come up with the most interesting thoughts. It was at bus stops where I had met the most interesting —and the most uninteresting— people in my life.