Oh…I see the confusion.  Some feeble minded folks think when McDonalds spends a million dollars building a restaurant, hires 50 people to work and hungry people go there for lunch, somehow that means America is “ruling” the country!?

People can eat a hamburger at home too you know.(well, except in Cuba because there’s no hamburger except for the party leaders)  It is funny how people have a utopian vision of the world in their own mind and love to put down the international businesses that don’t quite fit their own ideal.  However, when you want the world to bend to your own idea of perfection, you become a fascist. 

If there is ever a McDonalds or Burger King in Havana, I won’t eat there because I never go to them in the US.  However, if those American chain restaurants do appear, they’ll be there because the Cuban people want them to be there because they want to eat there.  Your idea of the perfect Cuba, fortunately, is totally irrelevant to those of her citizens.

Free minds, free markets and a free society is my idea of a perfection.  I wish more people felt the same way.  How about reading a little Milton Friedman so we can bring this discussion up a bit?

JuiceClark - 17 August 2009 08:33 AM

People can eat a hamburger at home too you know.(well, except in Cuba because there’s no hamburger except for the party leaders)

  Hey, I thought you were going to Cuba. You obviously did not go or else you would have seen hamburgers on the menu of all those little restaurants on the Malecon.

JuiceClark - 17 August 2009 08:33 AM

It is funny how people have a utopian vision of the world in their own mind and love to put down the international businesses that don’t quite fit their own ideal.  However, when you want the world to bend to your own idea of perfection, you become a fascist.

Hey, I thought you were going to Cuba. You obviously did not go or else you would have seen hamburgers on the menu of all those little restaurants on the Malecon.

  My guide told me those hamburgers were made from decades of frozen and stockpiled political refugees.

There are a lot of international business in Cuba: Canadian mines in Holguin, Spanish hotels everywhere, Cubana flies Airbuses, etc, etc, etc. There are just no american companies there, the american government does not want it. You’d have to go back to the Batista era to find american business in Cuba. Hey?  Batista, wasn’t he a dictator? Well, yes but since he took his orders from Washington, he must have been a good one.

Yeah, maybe.  I think he took more orders from the Italian and Jewish mafia.  But our government is only as incompetant as any other.  Show me any gov’t not brimming with corruption and stupidity and I’d be surprised.  The ban on American business in Cuba is a most appropriate example.  If we are a free country I should be able to go wherever I want.  Right?  So, that’s what I do.

JuiceClark - 17 August 2009 08:33 AM

Free minds, free markets and a free society is my idea of a perfection.  I wish more people felt the same way.[/quote]

Listen my friend. I do not disagree with this. But there were no free minds under Batista, no free markets when the average cuban of that time did not have enough of his salary to feed his family. The cuban of today in Cuba is not stupid. He knows that comunism gave his country independance (the US gave the phillipines it’s independence in 1946, why no cuba?), education and a health system. But he knows too well that this regime does not have a clue how an economy works and things are going to get worst before it gets better. I strongly think that Cuba will get better only if they fix the relations with the USA but not at any cost. But I doubt this will happen.

Well, things are about to get more interesting politically in the USA too.  No matter who we elect, the gov’t grows at a blistering pace and they are pushing socialist policies far more than what the people want.  If the Congressional elections don’t upset the apple cart next year, you’re going to see Americans start to raise hell.  Perhaps a little “power to the people and not gov’t” action here can spread across the Florida Strait.  It’s ironic, but you may see a conservative (meaning smaller gov’t) revolution here in the US before Cuba.

Obama wants to open things up with Cuba.  That’s great.  He may want to move there before his term is over.

Just returned from my third visit to Cuba.  Many thanks to my Freemasonic brothers in Havana and the Grand Lodge there.

As for this thread - I hate to see it get quiet!  CubaChica hates capitalism, another dislikes America .... but the conversation and debate is what it’s all about.  The problem with the internet is you can’t buy someone a beer after the argument is over…the way it should be.  The rich and privaledged usually think Cubans are adorable lil’ anachronisms to be visited like charming zoo animals.  The poor and repressed want everyone to have the freedom and material things they lack.  Perhaps, having a McDonalds in your airport is the price a society must pay for an abundance of washing machines.

  Man was meant to be free.  Each of us deserve the right to control our own destiny.  However, those in power will always seek more power at the expense of our freedoms.  Each of our personal opinions and bias must be framed within this truth as we search for a world with the correct ratio of the freedom of self-determinism limited by government regulation.

          So, let the debate continue.