Situation Normal? No way.

Another account that helps illustrate how most of the "mainstream" media is missing the story in "quiet" Cuba comes from the BBC. They interviewed Raul Rivero, who was one of the 75 dissidents rounded up in castro's black spring of 2003. He is now living in exile in Spain. The important thing to understand that Rivero at one point worked for Prensa Latina, the official Cuban "news" service.

We now have a theatrical society whose script is written every day by the official press...

As a poet, my main enemy was also censorship - not only that imposed by the state, but also the self-imposed one. In an authoritarian society you know exactly what you can say and what you can't...

And one day I started to feel afraid. I was concerned that if my position became public, my family would suffer the consequences.

Fear is everywhere in Cuba - on the streets and also on TV, radio and in the newspapers. You see soap operas featuring a constant police presence, and people make jokes about being under surveillance.

I was very careful about who I talked to. I went as far as to suspect some friends and relatives. In fact, everybody became suspect - that's what the government does to individuals.

I was right to be careful. When I went on trial in 2003, several people I knew, who turned out to be agents, testified against me...

My wife soon lost her job. The government cut off all our sources of income - it suffocated us financially.

We found ourselves cornered. It seemed they wanted to show us that the state was the owner of everything, from work to your children's school.

So please MSM don't please don't film any more man-on-the-street stand-ups with Cubans as if they were regular people expressing their free opinions. It just shows how ignorant you are. It seems incredible that even with the OVERWHELMING amount of evidence against fidel castro and his infernal regime that some businessmen / politicians / academics / commentators / journalists / artists and so-called intellectuals still make ridiculous excuses for him. No, they aren't "useful idiots," they are willing accomplices with blood on their hands.

Hat tip to to Luis M. Garica at Child of the Revolution.