Spicoli does not approve.
Traumatic???
One of my favorite movie scenes was from the movie “Moscow On The Hudson” where the character played by Robin Williams, a Communist back in the eighties comes to America and sees an American grocery store for the first time...and they have to call an ambulance for him.
I was sad to see how he went so quickly from astonishment, holding up a frozen pizza and saying it could be hung on the wall, to sadness at the full realization of what has been done to his country since 1959.
How sad.
If they had half a brain, they would turn Cuba into a Caribbean paradise with great hotels and entertainment, and harness the potential of Cubans for business and industry, because the Cubans I have known are hard working and intelligent.
But they don’t. And so the poverty continues.
Most of the 1960 Cubans traced their ancestors to Europe. They became Cuba's professional class and business owners. They brought their skills and their productive energy to south Florida. They voted heavily Republican.
The arrivals since 1980 trace their ancestors to Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They vote about 70% Democrat.
Thank you for posting. Very humbling. Damn f’ing commies!
We hosted a high school Polish foreign exchange student in 1999. Even though the Soviets had been gone for almost 10 years, she was still amazed at our stores.
It took her forever to shop since she was not used to having so many choices.
And every single year, millions of people who voted for communism in their own countries (Venezuelan, Cubans, Nicaraguans, etc.) are now coming here and voting the same way.
Under CCP Puppet Biden, it won’t be long for the USA to resemble one of these communist $hit hole countries. Where will the cockroaches go then?
I grew up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (1959-65). Back then, Cubans would be allowed to come on base during the day to work. Castro took most of their wages of course. But many only came to eat. That way, their food at home would go to their families.
The Naval Base is small, only 45 square miles. One Cuban woman told me you could feed the entire nation of Cuba with the scraps from the tables on the Naval Base.
I heard of a man from a Soviet nation who came to the states. He froze up in the supermarket, saying he didn’t know which items he was supposed to buy. His daughter had to explain he could buy whatever he wanted: the government doesn’t tell you what to buy.
I have been there. I have seen this with my own eyes. It is true.
This is so sad.
“finding basic necessities has become an everyday normality”
When was it ever different in Cuba in the last 60 years?!
A Cuban? Heck i had a fellow visit from Scotland years ago and I took him to a store and the first thing he said when he entered was...”F**k Sake!”
He walked up n down the isle and stopped in front of the frozen pizza and couldnt believe how many brands there were.
There are a lot of YT videos of people from the UK, etc, going to stores in the US.
Have him do a commercial on alphabet tv and then juxtapose it and show the supposed food deserts the giverment chides us with that supposedly plague the gimme summedteat’s in this country.
Got it made and too stoopid to get sum of it.
He’d have felt right at home in our one and only grocery store here. Lots of empty shelves even before covid. People begging or stealing the milk from your cart. Haven’t seen pork ‘n beans or fresh cauliflower for decades. Had to make something very akin (I’d guess) to a drug deal to get “the guy in the back” to give me some frozen fish. Another time, they didn’t have tortillas but said the truck will bring one in the next day (the usual excuse). I knew to verify exactly what “one” meant be it one case or one 8 count package. Of course, it was one 8 count package. This from HEB and commuting rage from Austin.
If I had a magic wand I’d arrange for every American kid between the age of 10 and 20 to spend a week with an ordinary Cuban family, and every Cuban kid to spend a week with an American family.
And then we’d do the same with North Korea, Venezuela, etc.
We had two visiting teachers from Belarus back in the late 90’s visit our school. Took them both to an Acme supermarket. They both began to cry. When we went to the local mall, they asked to leave after about an hour. They said there were too many choices.
We lived in a small town about ten miles from the Air Force Base because there was no base housing for families built yet. I lived there from 3rd grade to 6th grade. We had to shop in the local open air market because the commissary was not opened yet and we had no refrigerator in our home.
It was like a farmers' market with booths with fresh produce and meats displayed out in the open without any cooling. There were flies and bugs on the food. We had to wash all of our food in the sink with some water and clorox to kill any bacteria.
As a kid, I didn't know any different and my parents looked at it as a character building experience on how the rest of the world lived. I found it one of the best experiences of my life.
When my dad's tour was up, we returned to the states and landed in New Jersey. We picked up our car, which had already been shipped ahead of us arriving. My folks bought a 19 foot travel trailer to pull cross country to our next home in Cheyenne, WY.
Imagine the shock I experienced when we went to a local supermarket to stock the trailer with food and supplies. My reaction was one of amazement much like the Cuban man in this video. I could not believe all of the colors and fresh food available in such a clean environment as the grocery story. After living in Spain for 3 years and buying our food daily from the open air market outside, I could not believe how nice the stores were and the multitude of variety we had to choose from.
From that day on, I learned to appreciate what we had in the United States and how lucky I was to be born here. My experience overseas in Spain (and other parts of Europe because we traveled while there) was and eye-opener and taught me how good we had it in the states.
I have never forgotten that experience living in Spain and the blessings we live with here as Americans. In my mid-70's, I still remember the experience vividly.
It makes me so angry when I hear these anti-American, capitalist-hating liberals who think there is a better life with Marxism and socialism/communism. I can tell you first hand, there is not. We have it as good as it gets in the world right here in America.
What a horrible chapter in our nation's history - not something to be proud of. Glad the face diapers are coming off.
Along this same theme:
“When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake” (Texas while visiting NASA)
https://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/