Under / over on # of Cuban Americans moving back to Cuba after Castro dies

Indeed, looks like Cuba will change, hopefully for the better, but early indicators point to the changes being modest. Looks like Raul will take the helm and assume a Krushchev-type role as one who brings a bit more of a human face to the regime without changing its essential essence.

Of course, history can be wacky, so who knows. But yes, the Batista days are gone for good.

 

I don't think much will change if and when Fidel assumes room temperature. Will Havana be Miami South? Not a chance.

Under/over on # of Cuban Americans heading back? Zilch.

 

it's gonna get really ugly over there. there are a lot of people who owned property that castro took. some - more than 4 1/2 but maybe not thousands - will go back and want to reclaim the property. so yeah, some ugliness.

but as a south florida resident, if a few hundred thousand folks decided to get on a boat and go back tomorrow, i'd be thrilled. my commute would be much improved.

 

Why do you think people would go back to "reclaim" property? It's gone. Forever. Those folks need to get over it. They lost a civil war more than 50 years ago.

 

However, unlike the Kruschev era, the U.S. will actively attempt to destabilize Raul's regime. You and I know it. We didn't want the USSR falling apart in the 1950s and 1960s, so we didn't do anything of that sort inside the USSR, assuming we could've tried.

 

Barbaro Garbey

 

Everything changes when Castro dies.

 

You still plan on moving if *she* wins?

 

Sorry, but there's nothing morbid about 'celebrating' the death of a dictator who has literally destroyed several generations of Cubans.

The Cuban people are deeply rooted in family...there are many here who will go back to be reunited with parents and other loved ones.

I have dear friends who came to this country during Mariel, and have endured more than you can ever imagine trying to aid and support the relatives they left behind. I was fortunate to travel there, via methods too complicated to describe here, and lived briefly with this beautiful family in what was once the elegant home of an affluent family. Now it's a decrepit hovel. You hope the children and dogs don't die from eating crumbled paint chips, although no one seems to notice or care. The few valuables that haven't been confiscated or stolen by the government are hidden away, used for barter...a piece of crystal might score you a pair of shoes, or maybe some real medicine. One hour of electricity a night, one egg per week, all the rancid flour and oil you can lug home. If you're lucky, the smell of frying oil smothers the odor of the unflushable toilets.

If you manage to travel there as a Cuban national--which can cost thousands of dollars for visas and impossibly intricate air travel--you wear everything you can pack onto your body. A dozen pairs of underwear, layers of shirts, pants, socks....all new, all for the people you're visiting. You bring powdered garlic, onion, lemonade...anything to alter the taste of flour and oil. You leave your good shoes there, you leave everything there, and wear home any garbage you can find. You'll buy more when you get back to America.

And even still, there are so many Cubans in America who wish they could go back...not to the way it is, but to what it could be. Sadly, I agree that Castro's demise is merely the death of one dictator...not the death of Communism and oppression in a beautiful country and its people.

 

Not to support Castro, but were the societal losers under the Batista regimes any worse or better off than the societal losers under the early Castro years? Isn't the American embargo of Cuba just as responsible for the deteriorization of the Cuban people as Castro?

 

Ab,
Yes.

 

Ding, dong the witch is dead!
Which old witch?
The wicked witch!
Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead!