July 19, 2008
The elephant in the room
The New York Times has an article today on the official announcement yesterday by the monarchical dictatorship in Cuba of its plans to reform farming on the island to boost food output. This change in policy, of course, was credited as yet another astonishing reform by the great and munificent, prince raul.
Coming from the New York Times, none of this is surprising; this was the home, after all, of that magnificently objective reporter, Herbert Matthews. But still, after reading the following passage early on in the article, I continued to read to get to a punch line that never materialized.
Cuba’s government released statistics last month showing that fallow or underused agricultural land had increased to 55 percent in 2007, up from 46 percent five years earlier, The Associated Press reported.
An interesting admission by the dictatorship, especially when it is common practice for them to severely understate bad news. The percentage of unproductive farm land is probably a lot higher. Nevertheless, that 55% figure is immense. So I continued to read the article to learn what reason the New York Times found to explain that after 49 years of socialist revolution and land reform, Cuba’s agricultural industry is in shambles.
That explanation never came.
They know the answer, of course, but to publish the truth about the Cuban dictatorship would be counterproductive to their agenda. They prefer instead to overlook that huge elephant in the room that just defecated on their brand new couch.
In my opinion, however, the most telling point of the paper’s obvious bias was exhibited in one sentence.
The announcement on Friday acknowledged the struggle that the country was facing in feeding itself.
In one simple sentence the writer took the misery and hunger created by 49 years of tyrannical oppression by a small group and made it the fault of the entire island.
Posted by Alberto de la Cruz at July 19, 2008 08:52 AM
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Comments
i thought cuba already implemented agricultural reform...
Fifty years ago.
I thought that was one of the reasons for the Revolution.
Posted by: Henry Louis Gomez ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 19, 2008 10:35 AM
That's the elephant in the room, Henry.
Posted by: albertodelacruz at July 19, 2008 11:04 AM
Now, lets see if I have this right. The population of Cuba when Fidel took over was about 7 million. As I recall, agricultural production was NOT a problem. 49 years and the "Green Revolution" in agriculture have come and gone. The current population of Cuba is about 11 million, half the land available for agriculture is un-farmed. During the same time, India has gone from hungry to essentially self sufficient in agriculture with a larger absolute and percentage increase in population. If I am wrong, please correct me. In any case - Great Going Castro Regime, in 50 more years there will be about 16-17 million Cubans - all starving to death together. -S-
Posted by: Dr.Shalit at July 19, 2008 11:14 AM
You are right, Dr. Shalit, and the New York Times will still be scratching its head trying to figure it out because their view to the obvious is being blocked by that big elephant that just urinated on the Persian rug.
Posted by: albertodelacruz at July 19, 2008 11:45 AM
Expect cuba's population to contract, not grow if the regime remains in place.
Posted by: Henry Louis Gomez at July 19, 2008 12:14 PM
I thought that the Communist revolution was supposed to eliminate latifundismo. Instead Princess Raul is in the process of expanding his latifundio and reintroduce sharcropping, except this time the farmers are really screwed.
Posted by: Cubars at July 20, 2008 10:58 AM
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