Whoa! Reform, Cuban Style!

Change is sweeping over Cuba since Raul took over from Fidel. Riiiight.

HAVANA (AP) - Raul Castro's government opened luxury hotels and resorts to all Cubans Monday, ending a ban despised across the island as "tourist apartheid" and taking another step toward the creation of a consumer economy in the socialist state.

Cuba has made a series of crowd-pleasing announcements in the past few days. Cubans with enough cash will be able to buy computers, DVD players and plasma televisions starting Tuesday [that's a big "with"], and soon they'll even be able to have their own cell phones—consumer goods only companies and foreigners were previously permitted to buy.

Wow! Hey, Raul, how about giving them a vote in a free, open, multi-party election? No? Ya think cell phones will be enough to appease the masses?

Anyway, it's a lesson in how repressive totalitarian states can be (be they Communist or Islamic or dictatorial). Here we see the granting of freedoms so basic we don't even think about them in free America being positioned as huge news in Cuba.