News from the top

As most Cubans will confirm, there is a huge gulf between what ordinary Cubans think and what they are told to think by the Castro regime’s pervasive propaganda machine.

It’s not a new disconnect, either. Far from it.

But that gulf between the reality of daily life for most Cubans and the bizarre rhetoric emanating from the regime’s bunker seems to be getting wider and wider by the day.

Take this “declaration” issued today by Raul Castro, which was published with much fanfare by the official media.

A blueprint on how Cuba will recover from hurricane Ike, which has left hundreds of thousands of Cubans homeless? An announcement on when the electricity and telephone systems will be back to normal following the storms? News on how the devastated economy may recover?

Nope.

Although Castro II has not been seen in public since Ike tore through the island last week, he has apparently found time to pen his own declaration attacking the United States for allegedly interfering in Bolivian internal affairs.

Deluded, alright.