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August 14, 2015

Will Che's New Man Survive Uncle Sam?

By Deena Stryker

What does the re-establishment of Cuban-American relations mean in the broader context of a world facing an unprecedented and unforeseen climate challenge, as the developing world strives to emulate the life-style created by the United States after WWII?

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As they watch the US flag being raised over the Embassy in Havana that was closed for 54 years, (by the same Marines who lowered it then), Americans will hear news reports that emphasize the lack of certain individual rights that drove many Cubans to flee to the US. What they don't know is that Cuba is recognized the world over for the quality of its free health care and education system, which is also free from

Che Guevara in his office at the planning ministry, in Fe ruary, 1964
Che Guevara in his office at the planning ministry, in Fe ruary, 1964
(Image by Deena Stryker)   Details   DMCA
nursery to post-doc. When I returned to Cuba four years ago I saw that many newly minted engineers and scientists could not find work in their fields. But this problem is not unique to Cuba: it is true in most developing countries, and will only disappear by cooperative efforts rather than by American-led trade agreements that increase the wealth of the 1%.[tag]

Tourists from around the world have been visiting Cuba throughout the five decades in which Americans were banned by their government from doing so, as those who are now able to go there will notice. Personally, I'll be curious to see whether three generations of Cubans who have been educated to the idea that life should not revolve around 'stuff' will be transformed into avid consumers. I'm wagering that the educational system as well as government messages will have succeeded in creating, if not Che's dream of a 'new man', at least a population aware of the planetary consequences of an American-style consumer-society.




Authors Website: http://www.otherjonesii.blogspot.com

Authors Bio:

Born in Phila, I spent most of my adolescent and adult years in
Europe, resulting over time in several unique books, my latest being Russia's Americans.

CUBA: Diary of a
Revolution, Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia
Sanchez

Lunch with Fellini,
Dinner with Fidel: An Illustrated Personal Journey from the Cold War to the
Arab Spring

America Revealed to a
Honey-Colored World

A Taoist Politics: The
Case For Sacredness

I began my journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome,
spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Barbados were Communists before
they made the revolution ('Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young'). After
spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying
Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, I wrote
the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall AND the dissolution of
the Soviet Union ("Une autre Europe, un autre Monde'). My memoir, 'Lunch
with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel', tells it all. 'A Taoist Politics: The Case
for Sacredness', which examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and
modern science and what this implies for political activism; and 'America Revealed
to a Honey-Colored World" is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from
the City on a Hill'.


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