Celebration of an Embargo

Today's article From the Ground Up, Cuba Is Crumbling gives a nice long list of how bad the situation is in Cuba. It makes a weak attempt to try to place the blame elsewhere, but the reality is that 45 years of embargo have devastated the economy, and continues to do so.

In addition to the weakness of the economy, more and more of the infrastructure is falling into disrepair. This, of course, has had an effect on the population, forcing them to deal with it by scavenging from any and everything. Of course, it is hard to decipher how much this reflects the real attitude of the population — U.S. newspapers like to pretend that Cubans are on the verge of returning to a U.S.-sponsored dictatorship. I'm sure, as much as people are dissatisfied with the current situation, they have no interest in seeing their health care system and other public goods completely disassembled by U.S. interests.

The other thing to point out here is that much of the infrastructure that is crumbling wasn't even there before 1959. It isn't like Cubans lived in some slick, polished dream up until that date. It's a testament to the Cuban people that they have what they do, in spite of the embargo.