Let us start with the "holy trinity": class, gender and race. The new economic reforms, based on a strange blend of market-oriented strategies, American dollars and authoritarian control, are creating an increasing gap between the haves and the have nots.

In a society that never before developed an effective social security network, the economic polarization of the nineties means just more widespread poverty and the birth of a voracious elite without even the minimum ethical concerns of the equivalent upper class in capitalism.

Cuban women have feminine but not feminist organizations. The macho culture of the guerrilla fighters is still ruling over gender relations, after unfruitful attempts of timid reform.

In addition, the Cuban government pretends to be "color blind". That's why there are no political or social organizations based on racial or ethnic issues, fighting for implementing affirmative action policies on the island. The Cuban mulattos and blacks, more than 50% of the general population, are politically misrepresented and economically excluded, but they can still play a very important role in the socialist society: Yeah, they can play either baseball or salsa. It sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?

To better fight corporate power, the Cuban state becomes a huge corporation itself. The central planners fix wages and prices according to their own nightmarish calculations. The government has an exclusive monopoly over natural resources, employment, commerce, social services and production levels.

Of course, all media are under the absolute control of the state. Common people are not allowed to have Internet connections. Government officials are the only government critics and issues like environmental problems, labor conflicts or human rights violations don't receive any independent public coverage.

The state organizes and controls the unions, and of course, there are no strikes in Cuba. There are no ecologic disasters because the government is the only social institution with power enough to destroy the forests, or to contaminate the waters, or to talk about it.

It is true that Cubans have access to free education. But is also true that the academic level of the teachers is incredibly low, the classrooms are crowded, and the basic curriculum is definitely poor. On the other hand, the quality of political indoctrination in the school is quite high. After twelve years of listening to monotonous slogans, you are either completely crazy, or convinced that Castro is the historical leader of the Cuban nation, and that the Communist Party has a natural and exclusive right to monopolize the political agenda on the island.

Health care is also universal and free, but you have access to practically no drugs.

There is a gentle doctor for every 300 persons, a doctor that you can't freely choose, because he or she is "assigned to your area". A doctor who is compelled to exercise daily surveillance over your sexual behavior, your political inclinations and your personal addictions, in order to normalize your body, to control your passions, and to better protect the "public health". And of course, government officials fabricate the statistical material that is used to judge governmental health campaigns.

I see no reasons to support Castro's regime from the perspective of the American liberal agenda. And there is a bunch of good reasons for not doing so. But probably you may think that fighting the embargo is a good idea, if not for political conviction, at least for humanitarian reasons.

The innocent Cuban boys and girls are seen as suffering the consequences of American reactionary policy. They need American food and American medicines. Well, let me tell you this: one of the most ethnocentric, pretentious and insulting ideas of the extreme American right is precisely that nobody in the world can survive without trading with the US. That is a myth.

The inefficiency of the Cuban economy is the main cause of poverty on the island.

One can easily find American products in the Cuban dollar stores for the Cuban new rich. The embargo is a complete political and strategic failure of the US government.

Actually, fighting the embargo in international forums is the last "just cause" of the Cuban Revolution, which is why Castro is the last person in the world who truly wants an end to the embargo. Things would be hard for the Cuban government if the American embargo were to suddenly end tomorrow, and the self-imposed economic and political isolation of the island were finally revealed. But in the meantime, fighting the embargo has the effect of providing symbolic support to the Cuban regime, and that means a contribution to the status quo. It doesn't seem to me that this is the most progressive thing to do.

We need changes in Cuba, and we need those changes right now.

If the divorce of progressive America and socialist Cuba is an "historical necessity", then better just to get rid of it right now.

Let us start a new relationship, based on more realistic principles, between progressive Cubans and progressive Americans. If you think about it, serious subversion makes sense only in places like Cuba. It is probably one of the last countries in the western world in which you can go to jail for writing a political manifesto, creating an alternative ecological movement, or trying to organize a strike. And you can be incarcerated up to seven years for it. Isn't that cool?

Doing something like that here in the US is for lightweights. Go to Cuba and shake the bushes there. You can meet the local opposition guys and probably you can even teach them a couple of things. The American government doesn't like people traveling to the island, and Castro doesn't like troublemakers coming. What a perfect match! Go to Cuba now. For just 50 bucks you can get a beautiful Che Guevara t-shirt, a teenager prostitute and even a box of Havana cigars.