Apparently the notion that the propaganda was too crude for Cuba, was actually based on a review of the film written by a Cuban ex-pat doctor, who speculated that even the Castro regime wouldn’t dare to put such a blatantly false rosy picture of the Cuban health care system. Unfortunately, this speculation was converted to ‘fact’ by some other bloggers who then fooled a few tens of people, including whomever wrote that cable.

This item does, however, point out how utterly worthless governments are; this is the same tripe that Russian spy ring here in Mass were sending to their masters back in the capital in an attempt to justify their pay.

That the Cuban govt might ban it is somewhat plausible to those of us who are aware of famous propaganda blunders; back in the 40′s (I think) the Soviet Union decided to show a movie version of the Grapes of Wrath in an attempt to show how heartless capitalism was. It backfired; the Russians learned that in the U.S. the poor had cars, something that even the relatively well off couldn’t afford in the workers paradise.

On the other hand, as Russ pointed out, storming out of a meeting with the party is a great way to earn a one way trip to a prison in Cuba. That was a the reason why I thought the story was a bit fishy when I first heard it.