Signs of Hope:

Sometimes, like after yesterday's news, it is easy to be overwhelmed. Our stance is that nothing has changed in Cuba. We know this intellectually. Yet, there lingers that teeny hope inside that maybe, just maybe.... Then the roundup of dissidents yesterday reminds us that there is no quarter. These are not men; these are beasts who starve their brother citizens in order to amass wealth for themselves and their broods, who practice a twisted version of the capitalism they deny everyone else, who wield power at the expense of the freedom and dignity of their fellow man. What hope, then?

It is easy to become discouraged in this instance, and yet there are glimmers. Most of those rounded up yesterday were released. Why? Then take a look at the only English language article I've been able to find, this one from Reuters and found through Castro Death Watch. Last night the only articles were in Spanish from island sources.

The demonstrators, led by prominent dissident leader Martha Beatriz Roque, were pushed and yelled at by a group of 100 government supporters sent to quell the protest, and then put on a bus and driven home, Roque said.

Notice the words sent to. There was a time that this would be framed as " a group of 100 citizens, outraged at the demonstration....." Here we have Reuters admitting it was a goon squad. The rest of the article presents the viewpoints, shockingly, of dissidents.

We are demanding that the political prisoners be treated with dignity, because they are human beings, and besides, they are innocent," Roque, an economist who has twice been jailed for several years for criticizing Cuba's one-party state.

and

Most prisoners lack hygienic cells, clean water, adequate food and medical attention, he said, and many are ill.

The government point of view is almost an afterthought in the last few lines as they deny they hold political prisoners calling them "mercenaries." True, it would have been better if Reuters itself had highlighted the plight of political prisoners. But this article, as it stands, presents progress.

The recent John Stossel report on 20/20 was breakthrough in that it was broadcast on a major network. Would it have been possible, would it even have been considered, without the presence of the Cuban/Cuban American blogosphere, particularly The Real Cuba? Cuban citizens are not allowed to tell the truth. MSM operations on the island face expulsion if their stories are deemed too negative.

So the regime is right to ban the internet, for in the internet, whether the blogs, or YouTube, or the news releases and blogs coming directly from the island that escape their iron curtain, lie the seeds of their destruction.

There is a psychological principle that what is brought into the light loses its power. In mythology, naming someone saps his or her power. That is what the Cuban/Cuban American blogs and their readers do. And I believe wholeheartedly that it is having an effect, as yet infinitesimal, but an effect nonetheless. Every time some stooge, useful idoit, well-intentioned dogooder or media outlet perpetuates the lies of the regime, and we respond en masse, we are witnesses to the truth, helping to frame the discussion because we know the name of the beast. And the name of the beast is Repression.