You're going to be seeing a lot of this...

A couple of days ago I predicted the firestorm that would be coming in the media about plans to celebrate Castro's death in Miami. Well of course you didn't have to be Nostradamus to see that one coming. Today I was reading some blog entry that I got in a news alert, about the "man on the street" reaction to the story in Havana. Let's forget about the utter uselessness of trying to do that kind of American-style reporting in a country with a totalitarian government whose citizens have perfected the art of the doble-moral (having two-faces, one for public consumption and one for private thoughts) for a minute and reflect on this quote:

Like many Cubans, the father of three supports changes in his country—primarily to open the economy to lighten his load. He refuses though to take the next step and think about political change, maybe through fear of the unknown. "I really don’t have a problem with the government, but this economy has got to go."

I have already seen this sentiment expressed by Cubans in a couple of news reports. It seems that Cubans are either being conditioned to respond this way or feel that they can get away with subtle criticisms of the economy without bringing personalities into it. Nobody has ever accused Cubans of being dumb. I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot similar carefully-worded sentiments from the "Cuban street" over the next weeks and months.