HEALTH CARE EL COMANDANTE NO SABE

I''m happy I could not see the entire Obama speech yesterday. The sound bites that I have seen sicken me. As much as I know this gentleman and his arrogance I must confess I was sure he would use lines like: "..the buck stops with me .." or " I take full responsibility" or " I apologize to the American people and I beg you to allow for a few days to fix this unacceptable situation". None of that, the stronger he got was to say that there was no sugar coating, but quickly rushed to add the system works and it helps average Americans save money.

I can't predict whether Obamacare will be a good law or not. I nurture a deep concern about any laws that from one day to the next add millions of people to an already ailing system, but I have no hard evidence one way or the other; however the president's demeanor goes beyond being right or wrong. It rather goes to his righteous way of handling issues and his quasi hatred for anything or anyone contrary to his views.

It is to me impossible to believe the first citizen was not aware of the glitches in the website of his, may I say? signature law. But he acted as if he had just learned "folks" were having a messy time trying to log into Obama nightmare and while the press is giving him a slap in the wrist for the first time, you can still hear people saying he didn't know, otherwise this wouldn't have happened. This reminds me of my younger years in communist Cuba when Castro played dumb once and again claiming he was not aware of all the mess in the economy. Most Cubans then, as quite a few Americans now, said: "el comandante no sabe nada, si el supiera todo se arreglaba, el pobre, el no puede estar en todas partes" It took some of my fellow Cubans over 50 years not only to realize how incompetent el comandante was, but that the whole plan was to keep things as dysfunctional as possible so that every citizen relied on the government for all his/her needs. Let's only hope my fellow Americans are smarter than that and take a shorter time to wake up.

Rumor has it that the company that built the webpage was booted out of a similar project in Canada and we still took it throwing a lot of OUR money down the drain. Mr Obama claims nobody is more upset than he is; once again putting himself beyond all of us lesser beings. The trouble is it's us and not him who pay for his mistakes, his golfing, his gaffs ( and those of his VP), his lavish hanging out with showbiz, and his incompetence.

Forgive me Mr. president if I'm not impressed with your phony outrage; actually you know what? I don't give a rat's ass how pissed you are. I am pissed, and I pay your salary; so wise up and shift this pinata mode of yours to healthier and more effective way of doing politics. The fact that the opposite crowd is made of a bunch of losers doesn't mean you're doing it much better. Anyone in Washington remembers what public servant means?  

VLADIMIRO ROCA DICE QUE SE MANTIENE EN SUS TRECE

Ser hijo de Blas Roca (Francisco Calderio) no debe ser facil para un opositor que tomo la via de la disidencia hace decadas.

Meses atras escuche el rumor de que Vladimiro Roca se estaba dedicando a rehabilitar la memoria de su padre; es decir: dar un matiz menos totalitario y siniestro a su papel como secretario general del PSP que entregara las banderas a Fidel Castro permitiendole borrar de un golpe mas de 30 anos de lucha politica (mas alla de lo que podamos pensar de la ideologia comunista).

Hoy finalmente, tras la logica demora de la tecnologia en un pais en auto bloqueo como Cuba, logre cruzar unas breves palabras con el en Facebook; su respuesta fue diafana y concreta: "primero fuera los Castro depues hay tiempo para todo". Esto me lleva a pensar que para nada se esta dedicando a otra cosa que no sea lo que ha venido haciendo por los ultimos 30 anos aunque no parece descartar en una Cuba libre la posibilidad de hurgar en la escabrosa historia del comunismo en la isla entre 1926 y 1961 y el papel que su padre jugo en dicho contexto.

Vladimiro me parecio accesible, jovial y directo; intercambiamos  nuestras respectivas coordenadas y quedamos en que me daria una entrevista en la que yo trataria de actualizar su perfil. Por un deber elemental de honestidad le aclare que mi impacto en la comunidad es practicamente nulo, que me leen solo algunos amigos mas por carino hacia mi persona que por la presunta validez de los temas que abordo.

Todos aquellos que han alzado su voz contra el atropello merecen solidaridad y respeto; la dinamica de la lucha es a veces demasiado vertiginosa y corremos el riesgo de pasar por alto el papel que algunos patriotas han jugado; deseo poner un microscopico grano de arena para contribuir a que se difunda la idea y escencia de alguien que dice mantenerse en sus trece a pesar de rondar los setenta

TREASON OR WHISTLE BLOWING ?

Much has been said lately about Snowden's leak of classified information to the press and this amorphous mass of manipulable criteria we call public opinion is divided in two main groups; one that claims the man is a hero and the other that insists he is a traitor. No doubt the case has shed light on the government's invasion of our privacy and the risk inherent in allowing bureaucrats to take advantage of exceptional junctures to take exceptional measures and erode our freedom. While nothing Snowden said strikes me as unexpected or even out of the ordinary one has to admit the revelations brought a great degree of embarrassment to the Obama administration.

Is whistle blowing a prerogative of the citizens?; of course it is, but you simply do not steal secrets from your government, not matter how much at fault it is, and feed them to the Russians, the Chinese, or the Cubans for that matter. A true hero would have warned Congress, the American press or chained himself to the White House main gate, but as much as we may hate the NSA's flagrant violation of our rights we are still far from the totalitarianism in any of those three countries.

This case is a clear warning to those of us who share a concern about the stalinization of our republic. There is a blurred line beyond which we must not go; otherwise we would be undermining the very spirit of whistle blowing and becoming tools in the hands of foreign powers.