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A view of Cuba PART 2 by a former politician

By: Jake Solochek Friday, December 26, 2003

Cuba, so beautiful, so sad. Part One

Kay and I had the good fortune to go to Cuba earlier this month, from Dec. 4-11, under the (legal) auspices of the Urban Land Institute and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a tour of architectural preservation sites. Even these study tours will be banned by our government as of the end of this year, so we grabbed the opportunity when it presented itself. Most of the others on the trip were sucessful developers of U.S. recreational projects. Living in South Florida, we knew a lot more about Cuba than most Americans, so there were few surprises, only one actually, the all but uniformly bad art, (more on that later) but it was still a thrill and a shock to be there.

Knowing English is a plus. Some locals try to practice English with you and it helps if you know how to teach or correct misspoken English sentences. Language Academy in Fort Lauderdale has a program of training teachers called the Visual and Active method. The program teaches amateurs how to give free English Lessons. Other photos can be seen at Roadlovers.com.

The thrill was that it is such a beautiful place, both the architecture and the countryside, the shock was the decay and poverty. Havana has literally thousands of beautiful buildings, all but a handful falling apart. The poverty is so great, there is nothing to be done. Not only are they not receiving a Russian subsidy any longer, the price of sugar has fallen to the point where is is barely worthwhile to produce it. The government blames the U.S. embargo, but that is a very small part of their problem, since everyone else in the world will do business with them. Cuba's poverty is in fact self-inflicted to maintain the Marxist purity of the regime. The government owns everything, even burial plots, and so little gets done. The infrastructure is shot, electrical breakdowns common, water unavailable, and hard currency coming only from limited tourism and support from family members in the U.S. Even sadder, Cubans remember when they were not poor and can see the crumbling stuctures of their economy and culture dissolving before their eyes.

The people are still spirited, although everyone, even the government employed tour guides, mentions the poverty and decay, and music is everywhere. There are political slogans on walls everywhere, but we heard none on anyone's lips. A few quotes from Fidel here and there, but, by at least a 20 to 1 ratio, the revolutionary icon is Che Guevera, who, perhaps not coincidentally, sells better to the tourists, even Americans and who, being dead, can be all things to all people.

There were no visible signs of oppression, very few police or military, but it is woven into the fabric of the society: you cannot move without permission, education and health care are provided, but with strict government controls, housing is virtually free, but you can be evicted and sent to the countryside for so much as owning two copies of Playboy. You get a subsistence level of food every month: beans, rice, coffee, sugar, etc. plus one chicken, and public recreation is controlled by the trade unions or similar organizations. I saw no evidence of a nomenklatura, the political upper class that existed in the Soviet Union: no big limos or big shots throwing their weight around in public, so if it exists, it is very small and hidden. There are three acceptable currencies: dollars, convertible pesos worth one dollar, and Cuban pesos, for Cubans only, which have value only to Cubans and which can be spent only in shops etc. off limits to tourists. A doctor, a high prestige position in Cuba, is paid 240 Cuban pesos a month, worth roughly $20. Even with free or low cost housing, health care, etc., that doesn't go far, so there is a big premium on tourism industry jobs: our tour guide was an eningeer, and many are architects and lawyers. In the countryside we saw much land sitting unused, while people are going hungry, and oxcarts used for plowing and transport.

Back to Blogging:
Two years ago The Center for Creating the Future, Inc. gave its Julian Simon Award to a Danish economist, Bjorn Lomborg, for his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which surveyed a very large list of environmental studies to make the point that our world is not about to fall apart. At the same time we awarded our Chicken Little Award to Paul Ehrlich, who is still considered a " leading environmentalist" by the media, in spite of a nearly perfect record of failed doomsday predictions.

Lomborg went on to be pilloried by nearly every environmental entity in the world, culminating in a finding of intellectual dishonesty by the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (honest). Well, Lomborg has now had that burden lifted by the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation which pointed out that the Committee "had not documented where [Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data.... and the ruling is completely void of argumentation for why the Committee find that the complainants are right in the crticisms of his methods." A panel of experts on intellectual dishonesty indeed!

This entire episode has been an eye opener for me: it is now clear that virtually all discussion and even research on the environment is politically slanted, and that is from both directions. "Global Warming" is a good example: it is virtually certain that global temperatures are going up, but less certain why and even less certain what should be done about it; nearly every discussion concludes with not only the certainty of warming but that the United States is solely to blame and must drastically reduce its standard of living to save the world. That is what the Kyoto Accords dispute is all about, never mind that the U.S. is way ahead of nearly everyone is pollultion control and reduction. On the other hand, the right wing acts as if there is no problem at all and that ownership of a Hummer is not just a right but a God-given obligation.

In any case, if you are interested in following the adventrues of Bjorn Lomborg in environmental land, just read the series of articles and letters in Scientific American, his leading source of opposition: there are virtually no errors cited, just ad hominem statements he does not come to the right conclusion and therefore is a bad person--to the extent of being prevented from even defending himself in front of the aforementioned commission or at Oxford. Another good place to check is the article in the Skeptical Inquirer and the following letters to the editor. The article was similar to many other critques of Lomborg, devoid of facts, but I am proud of my fellow skeptics that the letters pointed this out and defended the need for different points of view. Refreshing in this world where public policy is becoming more a matter of personal beliefs and personalities than facts.
And a Happy New Year to all. In the next few days I will be blogging about our (legal) trip to Cuba, a land so beautiful and sad.