[Luis Gonzalez]

"Mr. Rivero can't speak up anymore -- he's locked up in the Ciego de Avila prison, some 300 miles south of Havana -- but an article he published a year ago offers a good answer. "The truth is that ordinary Cubans are more oppressed by a personal embargo, one that has transformed them into blindfolded and muzzled pawns," observed the poet. "In reality, Cubans want to remove the inequalities that exist between the people and their leaders before they deal with the problems between their country and the United States."

Good Lord!

The Washington Post gets one (basically) right?

[Consort]

Castro is Red
Cubans are Blue
Have a cigar
I'll roll one for you.

[marron]

I have met guys like Rivero, you meet them all the time among the Cuban emigres, and I am always struck by the moral weight and presence of these otherwise very normal men. The empty-left in this country libles them as economic refugees, but these are not the men that I have met, often educated men who gave up good positions to be here, who by the time they finally got their visa out had spent years being harrassed, jailed, fired from their jobs, some spending years in work camps away from home just for wanting to live like a normal human being. The average Cuban you meet on the street corner has paid a price to be here.

They have a lot in common, in that respect, with our war veterans. Most of us say we believe the things we believe. Some men have had to stake their lives on it. It changes them.