Lillian Hellman, a declared Communist, is reported to have said that “Communism is good, but it doesn’t work.” Yet it took 67 years for the government of Cuba to discover that Communism doesn’t work. And no, Cuba did not sell the rope with which capitalists hanged themselves.
However, Cuban-born Jorge E. Fiterre (pictured), founder of the Miami, Florida-based satellite-delivery TV service Condista, explained, “the Cuban regime controls all media. If a citizen is caught listening to radio or watching television content that’s not the regime’s, he or she will end up losing their jobs and end up in jail.”
Nonetheless, in the past 67 years, Cuba has had a huge impact in the U.S. and in Latin America, including the “duck and cover” school drills, as well as the development of soap operas, TV satellites, broadcast television, and syndication (e.g., Desi Arnaz’s I Love Lucy).
School drills were performed in the 1960s in order to prepare Americans for a potential nuclear attack from Cuba’s allied Soviet Union. The soap operas, originally developed as radio dramas to keep Cuban workers entertained while rolling cigars, later evolved into telenovelas. As a precursor to satellite television, in order to watch live American baseball games, Cubans used to rent airplanes to circle between the tip of Florida and Cuba, picking up and rebroadcasting TV signals with antennas sticking out of the aircrafts.
As for broadcast television in Latin America, Cubans created TV stations in every corner of Latin America. Added Fiterre:” Cuba has played a big role in the development of the radio and television industry. As a Cuban and involved in the industry, I take a lot of pride on many of the past achievements.” He concluded: “At this point we’re not sure where the Cuban situation will go. I hope that it’s freedom and democracy.”
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