Bankrupt Cuba's 'Silly Ideology'...?

Exactly!

Yeah I agree with you completely. Not to mention the fact that its Americans doing the critiquing here with a very biased or apathetic attitude towards the third world and resistance movements.

You know what I'd love to see drowned in a debate of whether or not its propaganda? Every single action movie-spy movie made in the 70s-90sl. Rambo easily could draw accusations of propaganda from Russians even today, even for those with no particular warm feelings for the USSR.

I've shown this film to different audiences, consisting of your general center to right Americans who saw it as a prop piece and weren't bothered to take note of the photography or the story, a group of disenfranchised bourgeois which loved the photography and cinemathography but could care less or were apathetic behind the message, and finally to a group of friends from Mexico, Salvador, and Guatemala who grasped the idea behind the film and who appreciated a look as to the causes of the Cuban Revolution. I think Hispanic people who aren't hypocrite Cuban exiles can appreciate the film because of what some reviewers termed 'broad strokes'. Also because imperialism through globalization and economic manipulation, assasination attempts against Leftist heads of state (chavez), and the cronyism of the governments of Latin America to the United States still has not ended.

Well let me tell you that, believe it or not: campesinos (farmworkers), radical students, impoverished women with difficult choices, and general workers do define the majority of the populations of Latin America. Some parts of South America and Central America are still identical to the conditions the pre-Revolution Cubans faced, and yes, believe it or not some people would prefer the promise of a decent house-free medical care-rationed but constantly available foodstuffs-free education to the choice of which of 50 different styles of dresses they can buy, or whether nor not there is a McDonald's down the street. The kinds of values you guys have are pretty f'd up but whatever.

The worst people who review this film though aren't the total idiots who go immediately into defense mode like they're ambassadors for every decision the American state has ever made, no its not them, the worst are the folks who have sense enough to admire the photography of the work and the framing and techniques, but almost immediately tune out to the condition of the Cuban people before the Revolution.

obviously you don't live in Cuba because Cubans aren't allowed to use the internet.

The worker's paradise hasn't succeeded according to obvious standards. The once vibrant cattle industry has collapsed, Cuba now has to import 80% of its food while 70% of tillable land lies fallow, there are shortages of virtually every basic product, and Cubans make on average $20 a month.

As for that "free healthcare" you trumpet, Cuba's public hospitals are short on everything from anesthetic to blankets, whereas the Cubans with relatives abroad that send money can afford to go to the ritzy private clinics that are well stocked. Pharmacies even run short on aspirin. So much for equality.

Furthermore, Cuba had one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America BEFORE the Revolution. Either way, literacy in every nation has improved since 1959.

It's also particularly rich how you talk about a "war dependent" United States when Fidel Castro sent tens of thousands of Cuban troops to fight for a genocidal government in Ethiopia that massacred over five hundred thousand people and a corruption-ridden, dictatorial government in Angola that used Cuban troops to guard oil drilling areas that the nation's leaders were using as private bank accounts.

This is not to mention anything about the state of human rights in Cuba. No democracy, no freedom of speech, no press freedoms, etc. Need I say more? It is particularly disgusting that you feel that you are entitled to basic human rights, but not Cubans. Why is this so?

No one in their right mind would back the Batista government, but then again, why would anyone back the current Cuban dictatorship. Other nations that had right wing dictatorships fifty years ago have blossomed into well-run liberal democracies, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. All of these have much higher standards of living than Cuba, which is stuck in the hands of a failed ideology and a dictatorship that refuses to let go.

So please, if you are really against dictatorship, stop backing Fidel Castro.