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Dont forget that he also stole seven farms from my grandfather..........left him a brokem man for the rest of his life. Chase Bank can re-coop but my grandfather died broken. What type of price can compensation pay for that?

Guajiro--the sad fact is that their is no way to put a monetary amount on the cost of the broken lives and families caused by the infamous revolution.

If there were, it would grossly surpass the dollar amount of the mere property that was expropriated.

Guajiro, add to your grandfather's farms. The memories they stole of childhoods in their native countries. Add to that the right of Alberto and mine to be born in our parents' land. Add to that the family ties that nasty revolution destroyed and or stole from countless many.

There is no price or payment imaginable to compensate all that has been lost. This embargo doesn't even come close to represent a sheer whisper of all that's been lost.

My grandfather had to quit school as an adolescent to work and help support his family. He never got a high school diploma. However, through seriousness and hard work, he wound up eventually owning several small businesses. He never exploited anybody or took anything he hadn't earned, but his businesses were still stolen from him by the "revolution." He also died a broken man. Even if the Castro brothers were boiled alive, it wouldn't undo the injustice perpetrated on my grandfather and countless others like him. The only way the bastards can pay is through eternal damnation.

Despite this past, embargo opponents want us to believe the fairy tale that now Cuba will abide by the standards of international trade and business. That they will respect the rights of foreign investors. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

Asombra,

Your grandfather's story, and that of mine have many things in common, which I am sure are also shared by the vast majority of Cubans. My grandfather was orphaned at an early age, and was sent to live with an aunt. He left school and began working at the age of eleven. He educated himself by borrowing books from others, he taught himself much.

Eventually, he came to own a pharmacy, a beautiful home in our hometown, and a small parcel of land near the town which he enjoyed working in his spare time. On it, he raised chicken, goats and a few head of cattle. He planted beans, he sold the eggs laid by the chikens. He also kept the books for several businesses owned by friends and acquaintances. This was the rags-to-riches (or at least middle class status) that was so common before castro's rise to power.

During the 50's, at great personal risk, my grandfather hid crates of rifles in his pharmacy for the anti-Batista rebels in the Escambray. Once the revolution triumphed, everything was taken from him. An employee to whom he had been particularly generous was sent to inform him that the pharmacy now belonged to "the people." My grandfather was told that he could continue working there, as one more employee. He handed over the keys, and never returned.

LittleGator, the ungrateful employee you mention, who gladly accepted your grandfather's help before Castro, and just as gladly sold out to the rapacious new order when it came, was a sickeningly common phenomenon. His name was legion, as the saying goes. That's one of the big reasons Cuba was destroyed. Base opportunism was everywhere. There were too many others like him in pre-Castro Cuba, like a latent but deadly virus, just waiting to be let loose so they could show their true colors (as they most certainly did).

I have the deepest contempt for them, but that doesn't change what happened, which is and will remain a major national disgrace. That's why I bristle at any insinuation that only the Castro brothers and their inner circle are responsible for Cuba's tragedy. That's simply bullshit, no matter how convenient or "face-saving" it may appear.

I have always felt that journalists, when speaking of the expropriations, tend to focus on the expropriations of foreign owned property, glossing over the expropriations of Cubans themselves, which obviously far outnumber the foreigners' gripes.

Cheers,

-AB

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