Everything You’ve Ever Seen About Cuba Is A Lie

I wrote my first major novel about Castro's revolution and when it was finished, I discovered that Fidel seemed a hero. He was at the end of the revolution. Then he went to Washington seeking the same deal his predecessor, Batista, had. Unfortunately, Eisenhower was miffed. His ambassador to Cuba, a WWI buddy, hadn't selected Fidel to take Batista's place. Indeed, Fidel had made the ambassador and the US, as well as the Mafia look bad by winning a revolution that he wasn't supposed to win. So Fidel was forced to deal with the Soviets. I added a chapter, and epilogue to recount how brutal Fidel's administration was under Soviet tutelage. As I researched Cuba in the years following the end of the revolution, I discovered just how badly it fell apart. I found films of Havana's once luxurious hotels and apartments decaying, parking garages being used as septic tanks. The muck bubbling away there looked like the trash compactor on the Death Star. Something, something strange and terrible, was living there. The Cuban doctors in Castro's vaunted healthcare system wouldn't even qualified as American ambulance paramedics. And the only thing Cuban children learned to read under Castro's celebrated literacy program were propaganda tracks. That's what I've seen and it isn't a lie...

To hear Bernie tell it, Cuba is nirvana, Paradise, not that I believe a word he says. Socialism/communism has been a total disaster.

I believed everyone knew how bad communism is. Why are we looking at what everyone knows? Because jerk Sanders says something good about communism, and people try to say Cubs is socialism. It seems the world is upside down.