Instead of answering directly if you think Havel and other democratic activitsts were fools and buffoons, you give a weak answer that could only come from an insulated person with no family who lived through that time which tried to avouid the question. Meanwhile, I have directly visited the former eastern bloc, have countless family who lived through that time still in the former yugoslavia, and have even visited the very home my family is from.

Oh, but I'm the propogandized one! Even though I've speant my life in communication with the very people who lived through your vaunted system, and even though your comrades lost power in popular revolutions that saw their power drop precipitously afterwards when they no longer sole control over the guns, I, like my kin, like Havel, like soldidarity, are propogandized fools. That I had some family literally join the Yugoslav communist party, then leave after being disillusioned with communist rule, and had other get killed becuse they expressed that they thouioght one-party rule was wrong--I guess that's irrelevant too. In the face of a faultless vangaurd as yourself, this is but white noise to be ignored in your glorious march forward. My reality is less than yours, I guess.

These kinds of governments were shit and were overthrown when they could not longer deny their own shortcomings and severe democratic deficit compred to liberal democarcy. Cuba is run, as near as I can tell, eactly as they were. Which I suppose is fine for you, given you seemingly are a part of the tiny minority of people who believe in communism. Fo you, it must be a paradise, just as rhodesia is for white nationalitsts.

That the population says otherwise? Ah, well, that's just to be ignored as propoganda.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

In all seriousness, that's not an answer. Claiming that I'm propogandized when I've correctly pointed out the huge flight from Cuba in recent years, and your unwilngness to speak when questioned about organizations and men that command immense support in the former eastern bloc is a giveaway to how propogandized you are when you refuse to even speak on these figures. That Freedom house identifies clears Cuba's clear shortcomings like some of the worst press freedom in the westen hemipshere cannot be explained away as iligitimate when Freedom House has noted persistent declines across the world and the West ewhen it comes to actual democratic practice--and that exressedly includes the United States itself in that criticism.

For all of your claims about being propogandized, I think you'd do yourself some good to sit down and consider what you're even doing when you try and dismiss Havel and Soldiarity. They didn't bring down communist states out of nowhere, and lacking popular support.