By Repatriado

HAVANA TIMES – The Mesa Redonda (roundtable TV program) is the flagship of government propaganda. A few days ago, a program was dedicated to Cuba’s “environmental health”, explaining all of the government’s “efforts” to look after us.

Of course, they referred to some “problems”, those as a result of the US Blockade and civil indiscipline, translation: the US is bad and the Cuban people aren’t grateful enough for our leaders’ sleepless nights.

Like any Communist regime that bases its legitimacy on a utopia, which is becoming further and further away from our reality, the thing they talked about the most was the future; they talked about plans, projects and statistics.

A national government whose present is a disaster loves the future, it’s always a good communication strategy to talk about “everything that is being done to achieve a prosperous and sustainable socialism”, which we have yet to see after 60 years of government, but hey…

Even so, what really made me laugh was that while the guarded journalists in suits on the Mesa Redonda talked about the government’s huge efforts and public health achievements, we could barely breathe in my house because of a plague of flies (have a look at the photos which were taken on street corners all within 300 blocks from my home) and you will understand why I smiled when I listened to them talk about plans and projects… But, I smiled with my mouth shut, so as not to swallow any flies!

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