Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast
of the Free Cities Foundation.
Hello and welcome to this episode number 173 of the Free Cities podcast.
Hello indeed, welcome from me. It's been a busy week so far.
I'm off to London tomorrow.
I'm going to record some interviews and guess what?
Pick up my Honduran visa from the embassy there.
Yes, very 1990s.
That trip starts the week after.
I've got a weekend at the Freedom Festival here in the UK.
Then straight on a flight to Honduras via Austin in the US to attend the Liberty Acceleration Summit in Prospera.
That's organized by Infinita City, Nicholas Anzinger's project in Prospera.
He's been on the show, episode 139.
Fun fact about that show, it's the only episode that I've ever recorded online.
all 171 other ones were recorded in person just the way i like it i'll certainly be bringing you
a new episode with nicholas once i get to prosper though and an in-person one this time after my
nearly a month working out of prosper i'll then be traveling back to austin in the u.s for the
running remote conference that's the biggest gathering of remote workers in the world
apparently organized by another previous guest, Liam Martin. That was episode 133 on this podcast.
Certainly going to bring back loads of great new interviews from people you've probably never heard
of before. I hope that's the plan for that one. Right, by the way, lest we not forget,
this episode is lovingly brought to you by the wonderful Veritas Villages. They're our lead
sponsor and you know they're building off-grid freedom-oriented communities in latin america
and they have a new 340 acre acquisition that just got the go-ahead in costa rica for 400
residences in one of their villages can you even call that a village 400 yeah i suppose you can
i know people that live in villages of 400 click on the link in the show notes to inquire about
their other projects in Nicaragua and Panama, especially if you're a Bitcoin because you can
buy your property with Bitcoin and spend Bitcoin at communities, even though it's down 50% off the
highs. But you know what that means, don't you? I hope you're DCA-ing guys right now. DCA, DCA,
DCA all the way. I've been here before. I recognize this time in the cycle. Right.
www.veritasvillages.com forward slash free cities for more info tell them we sent you
and while you're there don't forget our other sponsor ark pad they're planning a second
iteration of their groundbreaking reef resort in the philippines this time off the coast of
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of what you're doing. It's just something that we get a little kickback for, so be sure to mention
us. Right, today's guest is Maylin Salabarilla, good friend of the Free Cities podcast. I met her
in the US last year. She's a Cuban-born American by choice since 2001. That's right, she escaped
Cuba. Now works as a public speaker and bilingual outreach engagement consultant,
amongst other things. Also very frequent English or Spanish media commentator on everything liberty
and I don't know anti-communism let's say. I mean who's not? Some people aren't. Strange but true.
In this episode Maylin argues that Cuba shows what system collapse and psychological collapse
looks like. That's institutions, infrastructure, trust, morals, everything. She draws an uncomfortable
parallel with the US, which she says can drift towards similar incentives via the administrative
state party theater and learned dependence. What's the escape hatch in her view? Well,
as you would imagine, it's voting with your feet, even within the US and in her case,
potentially out of the US. Plus, watch for Latin America's pro-market political turn as the next
frontier of hope. Something we talk quite a bit about on this podcast. FYI, we recorded this
conversation just before Maduro was taken out by the US. So bear that in mind while you're listening.
It's interesting that we talked about Maduro and Myelin was basically talking about the possibility
of this thing happening and she predicted its effect on the region. Many thanks to Mylin for
paying us a visit again. Noster comments and Bitcoin donations now. Everyone seems to be
talking about last week's episode with Joe Quirk. Many thanks for all the donations. The comments,
Piaz says, thank you, gentlemen. No problem, mate. Justin Bianchi, can we get Joe on once
a month. He's such a great speaker. I sent that to Joe in a private message. His reply? Tell him yes.
I'll have to think about that one and how it might work. Anyway, let's get on with it. Those
were the only comments, but thanks for all the streaming sats and the Bitcoin donations without
comments. Time to listen to Mylin. Grab your favorite rum. Get in your chair as you whisper
to yourself, Viva la Libertad, and just sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with
Mylin Salabarilla.
Okay.
So yeah, I think we should just free bowl, as they say.
Free bowling.
Mylin Salabarria.
Yes.
Am I saying it right?
Salabarria.
Yeah, Salabarria.
Salabarria.
Roll the R's a little bit.
I can't do that.
Salabarria.
There you go.
See?
Yeah, but it doesn't feel very natural.
So, yeah, last time we spoke was in the U.S.
Yes.
And we talked about your experience of voting with your feet, leaving Cuba.
um and so we don't need to go there but you did actually say to me afterwards oh there was so
or actually i think it was when i played when you played it back to yourself about a few months about
a month later you said there's so many things that i didn't say that i wish i'd said i don't
know what they were and you probably don't know what they are now either i don't know i can not
remember very well we will we will discover anyway but i like i think a good place to start would be
First of all welcome to the Free Cities Conference Thank you What did you think of it Oh it was amazing It was a great experience I think it was a great group of people
And for me personally, it was like somebody pinched me
because I cannot believe that I'm standing in this stage,
you know, talking to this many people
about how was my life in Cuba the night before Titus was laughing
because I told him, I think you guys made a mistake.
I'm just like a simple Cuban girl, just, you know, trying to build up my life.
What can all these people learn from my experience?
But yeah, I think it was a fantastic, it was a fantastic moment.
And one that made sink in my head in a way better the idea that this is not more,
this is not survival mode in my life anymore.
this is now like the phase of purpose and doing what I feel I'm meant to be doing so it was great
in that sense just move do us a favor move the mic up like that again so it's pointing towards
you yeah that's it okay you were just speaking over the top of it and what about your I mean is
it what you expected I mean some people come into this world like the the free cities world is is
really hidden from your average person and a lot of the projects are quite experimental and there's
lots of unusual people here um it's and i think if you come in like fresh off the boat you can
look around and go what the hell is is actually going on here i know you've had access you've
dipped your toes you know about a few things you know but was it what you expected it was yes i
mean i was it was exactly what i was expecting in the sense of meeting people and gathering new
information like you said about cutting edge technologies new projects and overall living
concepts that the majority of the people around us where we are or where we spend significant
amount of times uh are not familiar with so i think yeah i think in that sense it was it was
really great to hear and see about all those things happening and i had to unfortunately i
saw you just before your talk but then i had to go because i was recording an interview but
But what was, I know it was like this is the whole conference.
The theme was vote with your feet.
You've got the greatest vote with your feet story probably.
But what did you talk, what was the main bulk of your speech?
The main bulk was in a certain way like joking but not joking.
is doing the chronological description of how I voted with my feet when voting with your feet
was not even a thing, or at least a thing in the way that the majority of the people in the audience
in this conference consider it today. It was one of the main points that I did at the end,
which was closing with the encouragement of after everything that I've told you about that
happened when I left Cuba and how I literally had to learn how to be free when I moved to the United
States. And with that closing message that if I was able to do it 25 years ago, like I said,
with two suitcases, $200, not knowing where I was going to stand. Today, people in these audiences
and those that we can share and share the information outside with about it, with the
resources, the education, everything that we have at our disposal, even the technology nowadays,
voting with your feet should be a no-brainer because we're not in the predicament that I was
25 years ago. But do you ever think about voting with your feet out of the States? I mean...
Of course, yes. I felt like even though it was an important phase of discovery and awakening in my
life when I came to the United States, because you have to remember that when you're back in Cuba,
you see the United States as your literal path to freedom. It is the only place where you can
have the potential to realize and make happen that concept of the American dream. And fast forward
time, 25 years in the United States, then the more I learn, the more I get involved with the
liberty movement, the more I start seeing more and more of the same red flags that I have to
escape from in Cuba. So yes, absolutely. Maybe it's my personal view of life. I think that I will
never be tied to one place. Maybe in another life I was, I don't know, a pirate, a mermaid,
or something like that. But yes, absolutely, to the point that I already voted with my feet
between one state and the other three years ago in the United States, mostly based on real estate
property prices, taxation levels, and whatnot. And I am totally ready to do it again.
At the same time, when I think about it, I'm like, well, maybe for me, it's a little bit easier
because I already survived probably the worst and more archaic version of voting with your feet.
So you would think that that, you know, already got me ready to do it again at any other point in
any other circumstances and I understand that for people that have never had to do what I did
might be a little bit harder like uproot yourself from everything that you know from everything that
your family know it might take you know more time more consideration more thinking about it but in
my case it's a no-brainer it's just tell me where to put my my carry-on suitcase and I'll be ready
to do it but what's the line in the sand in the U.S. then because most like you say most people see
the US as one of the freest places on the planet. And when you compare it with other countries, yes,
still is. But the problem is that the more you learn freedom, the more you raise your expectations
about freedom. And I think that's the way that it has happened to me. I think in the United States,
for me, was a very similar process to what happened in Cuba. It was like a million little
cracks in the narrative that made me realize, wait, hold on a second. This is not exactly
what I was told or what I thought it was.
So it was a combination of realizing
how big the administrative regulatory government is,
how the whole idea of the political parties
is the same dog with a different leash,
no matter where you go,
including the Libertarian Party, by the way.
And obviously you have COVID and the lockdowns.
And I was just like the only crazy Cuban
in the Rock Mountain states,
getting blue on my face,
telling Americans that I consider very smart people, telling them in their face, how come you
don't see what is happening? Oh, no, that's never going to happen here. We have the Second Amendment.
We have this and that. I'm like, they might not show up wearing the green fatigues on the AK-47
like it happened in Cuba, but they're doing to you the same slowly in a longer timeline and just
using the increased size of the government and the regulatory state to basically infringe in your
individual freedoms and in your rights exactly the same way that happened in Cuba with a military
guerrilla. It's the same goal and the same process. They're just using a different method.
So I like that term, same dog, different leash. Did you think that when you're in Cuba?
like was there was the like the the political because that's quite a that's quite a an advanced
thing to acknowledge like not many people get there i've got there myself as well but it took
a long time to realize that you know choosing a political party was not the right idea because
they're it's like two mafia groups fighting against each other and you're just in there in
the crossfire but in Cuba do you even contemplate that you just think the
government's bad and I'm just gonna get the head out of it yeah in Cuba you
don have because you sorry did you think it was did you think democracy was the future anyway did it did people in Cuba think wow the democracy is in America and we would get the essay and the vote and all that Is that part of it It is When you are in Cuba and you have never
been able to leave and you don't have nothing to compare with. I mean, that's one of the main
reasons why the dictatorship have kept the censorship and all the information and even the
entire population so isolated because it works towards them staying in power the less people see
the less people know the less people can compare oh i saw this in this country or i saw this in the
other one in that sense the ignorance of the populace helps the tyranny in power when i was
in cuba no when you are in in a place like like you at least in the generation where i was that
there was not that much exchange like there is right now I didn't have anything to compare it
with I only knew that the only choice would be to get out of there and then I'll literally build
the plane as I'm flying it you know I'll figure the rest out but the first step is to get out of
here so what's the line in the sand in the states then for you because I think that's a pretty bold
I think statement it's a it's a little it a little bit of that same combination you know
what happened with COVID, what happened when I started working in political advocacy and this,
I would say, mostly libertarian, classical liberals, somehow conservatarian groups.
And I realized that they are, from the specific topic or the view of political parties,
they are in a chronic circular firing squad. They are shooting themselves in the foot on a daily
basis. And they don't realize that all that, there is like a little puppet string in the background
creating all that on purpose. Why? Because every time that you have a political party or any group
that comes in with a philosophy or some idea of change in the society, they represent a threat
to the state that has the power. And then they don't realize that the more Republicans and
libertarians and Democrats fight among themselves, we're just so busy here in fighting between
political groups that then the big state, this like overgrown government in the United States,
keep entrenching in power and keep entrenching in power. It's like the oldest saying of divide
and conquer. While we're busy here, you know, debating who is a real libertarian or if my
libertarian is with capital L or the little L while we are here you know chasing the shiny
mirror of the day they keep up there growing regulations that infringe on our freedoms on
our daily basis and nobody's paying attention that literally Rome is burdened in the background
while we're fighting here the size of the L behind our libertarian philosophy. So if you when you if
you look at um cuba and the trajectory that you go on to get to the state that cuba was in even
when you left or now i don't really know i don't know much about cuba um where does it end like
i mean does does does the does the freedom ever come does it collapse in the end because cuba's
been cuba for a pretty long time right yes over 66 years now that the communists have been in power
Why? Like normally, normally you would expect that in the end there's some kind of, I don't know, maybe, maybe are some people happy with the state of Cuba, inside Cuba?
Only the ones on the elites of the government, the military and the party, because those are making millions.
They have invested in buying property and farms all over Latin America.
They send their kids to do PhDs in universities in Spain.
So yeah, for that elite, it's the definition of animal farm.
It is exactly the definition of the characters and the stories that you see on animal farm.
The pigs are drinking the milk and they're happy with it.
They don't care about anybody else.
Everybody else, it's literally dying of hunger.
The situation of Cuba, like right now, is why we are sitting here.
I was talking to somebody last night after the panel that we finished.
we were talking a little bit about this and I was explaining them that the situation with Cuba
went beyond the point of a crisis right now team the country is disintegrating the entire society
is disintegrating right now right now and the sad part and the infuriating part is that the rest of
the world is choosing to look to the other side but describe how society is disintegrating I mean
do you mean culture do you mean buildings everything imagine i'm talking literally not
only about the imagine a picture where the literal image that you have is entire country
country disintegrating you have the society disintegrating the mindset of the younger
generations at the same way that the buildings are disintegrating right now for example there
is like an outbreak of four or five different type of mosquito carrier viruses. There are more
than five children hospitals collapse with kids laying on the on the hallways on the floors because
they don't have enough beds to get them there with the IVs and the medications. When we say
that the country is disintegrated, I think at a human level, you usually start seeing that when
the children and the elderly are the first ones that are going down. And that's exactly what is
happening now in Cuba. What about crime? Is that a symptom as well? It is. And in Cuba, it's also
completely off rails. It's just that part of the censorship that the government and the Communist
Party is that they don't want those news to get out of the island. They don't want to be reported.
There is a high incidence of violent crime.
There is like domestic violence crimes against women.
There is like the crimes in the big cities, especially where they have few tourists that are being mugged, people stealing from the house, whatever little thing you can steal from the house of a neighbor.
The crime is really bad.
The criminality, a lot of people tend to think that when you don't have guns, everybody is happy and well behaved.
Well, I have good news for you and they're not good.
That is not what happened.
Especially when society has reached this point of disintegration at the level, not only physical, but also moral.
There is a moral disintegration of it.
It's like everything is off limits.
And that always increases the levels of criminality and delinquency and violence and all that.
So, and where do you get your information from?
from like are people is everyone on social media in cuba and a lot of people are i have my own
sources that i cannot disclose obviously but a lot of things get put on social media uh and still
some of the people that are doing in the independent reporting on social media are facing
the retaliation and the consequences of the government when when something gets exposed
and they are you know it's something that they want to literally just like sweep under the rug
but yeah I have I have friends I have some you know relatives still there and we get information
from from all of them too. And what do you think the result will be in the end I mean how long can
they kick the can down the road how long can this happen? That's the million dollar question team we
have generations of Cuban that have died in exile with that bottle of champagne or that bottle of
rum hidden in their closet because it's the one that they have been saving since they left Cuba
and they have been saving that one to do a toast the day that the dictatorship is
not there anymore and it's countless of generations of Cuban Americans not only
in the United States but all over the world that have died without being able to pop that bottle of champagne I mean in Europe we hear almost nothing about Cuba
I mean, the most I've ever heard about Cuba really is you get a few adventurous travelers
who go there on holiday and they always say, oh, it's really quaint.
There's loads of old cars around.
There's always a guy with a cigar who looks really interesting.
I'm always ready to go Cuban nuclear every time that somebody tells me, oh, it was so quaint.
And I love the old cars and the cigars and the beaches.
And I'm like, that's not the reality of Cuba that you saw.
And I think there is like a two-part component of it.
Number one is the fact that you mentioned that there is not a lot of information about Cuba.
It's not a coincidence.
It's by design.
That's the way that the Communist Party and the government have designed it to be since day one.
So they operate like on a perennial crisis management plan, if you will.
We're communicators.
That's part of what we do when we work with communications and PR.
You establish your crisis management plan, and when something blows up, those are the steps that you follow.
You have to imagine something like that.
That's exactly what the government has been doing since day one.
And they just pick up the crisis when something leaks.
That's the number one factor.
The number two factor is that they have sold a reality to the rest of the world of Cuba.
That is not the one that your average Cuban person lives on a daily basis.
That's one of the reasons why when I encounter people, like you mentioned that, and they ask me, oh, I want to go to Cuba.
Do you have recommendations or tips or this and that?
And my question always takes them by surprise because I answer back with a question asking them, well, it depends.
It depends of which Cuba do you want to see?
Do you want to see the one that the government propaganda have been marketing to the rest of the world for more than 66 years?
Or do you want to see the real Cuba where I live, where I grew up and where I still have friends and family suffering on a daily basis?
and then depending of that i can tell you my tips or my recommendations how i mean but in in country
if i was to go there i'm not kept away from real cuba am i like the the government it's not like
you know like like in what you call it north korea have you ever seen what happens when you
go to north korea you get shadowed by by a government official and all this kind of that
doesn't happen right not that often anymore but it still happens when i was in cuba it was like that
really yeah it was like that now there is like you might have i would say a little bit of leeway
but you cannot think about it from from the western standards or from the standards of the
rest of the world because it's not like that there is oh the government and the government
information and the political police is embedded in every fabric little piece of Cuba's life and
society. And one of the main reasons is that you have to understand in Cuba, we don't have
private property. So even if you have one of the 222 small private business authorized by the
government, at the end of the day, the way that you get your supplies and where your money goes
when you're doing the closing of every day in your business ends in the same place, which is
the pockets of the government. So they have probably extended the loop a little bit, but at the end,
the loop starts and ends in the same place. And I know it's very hard for people that have
been born and raised in free societies to understand how that works. It's hard to even
visualize it in your head, but it's like that. It's like a vicious cycle where at the end of the
day, let's say that you go and you're thinking that you're staying in an Airbnb and eating in a
little small restaurant in a rooftop in Central Havana in the capital. Yes, they are selling that
to you as a private little restaurant, as a private little hotel. But the actual concept of
private that you and I have when it comes to property is not what is happening in there.
How does it work then if there's no private property? And say you run a restaurant,
do you pay rent to the government and and you make what happens to the money you make in the
restaurant and stuff in the in most in most cases you have to pay rent uh whatever rent you pay is
always to the government because houses or spaces you know real estate it's all owned by the
government even even like after you finish supposedly paying it you you still have to pay
the taxes exactly as in the United States. By the way, that was another land in the sand to go back
to your question in the United States when I realized that, oh, I bought the house,
but I still have to pay property taxes every month. I mean, every year. And I was like, hold on,
wait a minute. Then this is not real private property. I'm just renting this space from the
government. And then if I don't pay the taxes, they're going to come and repossess it and kick
me out of it. Okay, hold on a second. Somebody explain me the concept of private poverty again,
because I think I missed something on it. It's the same, it's the same system with the little
Airbnbs and the little hotels and the little restaurants in Cuba. And then now in the last
10 years, the crisis, like I said, it's gone beyond the point of crisis is now a disintegration of
everything is even worse. Do you think it's coming to a head then?
I think it is. I think it is, but I think that 99% of the people around us are not ready to understand what is going to be the tipping point.
Why? Go on then.
The tipping point is going to be taking down Maduro in Venezuela.
Why?
Because the little oils and supplies that are coming to Cuba right now are coming from Venezuela.
And that's what keeps Gaesa and the military junta company that is running the little hotels and whatever little, you know, the power paraded economy we still have running on the island.
That's what they control.
That's literally their pipeline.
But what makes you think Maduro is going to disappear or lose power?
Well, because he has been tied with all these drug trafficking and human trafficking operations
that have been directly impacted the United States and all the countries surrounding Venezuela,
in Latin America and Central America.
It's a really, really bad crisis what is happening with the drugs and the human trafficking
and the women and children trafficking in borders in different countries.
At some point, all that has to stop.
I don't know anything about any of this.
I'm so out of touch with what's going on.
And there is the U.S. Department of State is doing a big operation against the drug trafficking in the Caribbean now.
So we're kind of like closing our fingers like nobody wants a war.
Nobody wants, you know, soldiers to die or anything like that.
But at least survivors of communism like myself, we know, especially in places like Venezuela, that you can vote your way into socialism, but you can only shoot your way out.
They're never going to leave power.
I did an interview a few weeks ago where we basically concluded that democracy always ends in socialism.
Of course.
But that's a big, that's a red pill of red pill.
It's the tyranny of the majority.
You only need plus one.
to be either in the wolf side or in the cheap side.
So it is the tyranny of the majority, yes.
So do you think that if Maduro was overthrown,
people would see that in Cuba and then act?
Or do you think that the oil, the trade, as you said, would...
I think it would be at least one component of it.
I mean, all the military operations,
the special securities, the special forces,
private police, everything in Venezuela now
It's being run by the Cuban state security.
And it's been running like that since Chavez was in power.
Maduro was trained in the Communist Party Leadership School in Havana before he took power.
And they did the same with Hugo Chavez.
So a lot of people in the world don't understand the intricacies of how close connected the political,
the repressive machine in Cuba was implemented in Venezuela.
So I think that, yes, definitely if Maduro is out of power and a transition, a democratic new administration comes in Venezuela, it's going to make a big impact in Cuba.
But at the same time, I don't think that the solution to Cuba getting out of this disaster of communism for so many years is going to come from only one way.
I think it has to be like a series of little cracks that make that communist apparatus implode from within.
There are so many other economic factors that play a role with it.
Cuba, for example, I believe that the remittances that Cuban refugees and exiles in the United States and other countries of the world represent last year or the year before,
represented like the second largest revenue stream that the government have like the most
money that the cuban government is getting i think i believe number one was a trade with the united
states and i think number two was the remittances which is the money that cubans and cuban americas
that escape and live out of the country are sending back to help their families yeah but
Why did the government get it?
Because the government owns the banks and owns the entire currency circulation.
What's the currency?
Let me give you an example.
Let's say that I have a cousin living in Kamaui now and I send her $100.
When she goes and gets to change it, she doesn't get $100.
I think she gets like $70 or $75 and the government keeps the rest.
And when I say the government keeps the rest,
Yeah, it's the little bank or the little exchange office.
But who owns that bank and who owns that exchange office?
It is the government.
Wow.
So that must be a bitter pill to swallow, sending money home to the government.
I don't.
No.
No, I'm sorry.
I refuse to keep feeding the monster that forced me to leave my entire life behind 25 years ago.
I don't.
And what's the currency?
It's the Cuban peso.
All right. So you have they have their own currency. There's no other way to get pesos.
No. And obviously Bitcoin would be a great dollar to.
And now the dollar a few years ago was legalized again, because that's the other thing.
When I was in Cuba in the early 90s, the possession of dollars was a crime and it was penalized up to four years in prison.
the name was illegal possession of foreign currency you know because they give them like
really scary names to keep people from doing it then the crisis got so bad that the party had to
you know backtrack that they supposedly liberated the dollars and the euros a little bit and now
they are starting to climb down back on it the levels of inflation with the cuban peso
and the dollar exchange in Cuba now is at the same levels of Venezuela.
I believe the last week or the week before we came here to Prague,
I was talking to someone and they were telling me that $1 was like
nearly 1,000 Cuban pesos or something like that.
And then the government did all this propaganda of,
oh, we're increasing the minimum salary and this and that.
It was a lie.
They just changed the numbers so the inflation rates weren't so evident.
and to people that can do some math.
So when you send dollars back to Cuba,
they have to go into, obviously, a bank,
is it the central bank of Cuba or whatever?
And they hold the dollars
or they convert them into pesos straight away?
They convert it into pesos straight away
and they give the person the pesos.
And they keep the dollars.
Yeah, there are some methods
where they don't give the person the pesos,
they just put the equivalent in a, like in a debit card.
I mean, in Cuba, the whole thing with debit cards
and electronic transactions started after I left.
So I'm not very familiar with how it works.
But yeah, it's something they are holding into the literally hard cash.
Like I imagine that it's just like piles under their mattresses
and all people that are holding that obviously are the privileges
from the government that have easy access to it.
Do you ever get any, like you say, you probably don't know this,
but do you get many alternative economies rising up?
Like I'm thinking precious metals, gold, silver,
or Bitcoin or any of that stuff, is it?
No, there is no technology for doing that.
There was some guy in Miami,
I cannot remember the name of the group,
that he was trying to do some Bitcoin
with the small libertarian groups of Cubans
that are still on the island.
How are you going to do that
when you don't have the technology team?
Right now, they have power, electricity, two hours a day.
And this is Havana, the capital that usually have been the one that they prioritize
because they know they run the risk that people are going to riot on the streets faster.
How are you going to do that?
You don't have internet.
You don't have safe connections for anything.
You don't have power.
There is no way.
You have to imagine the situation in Cuba like, I don't know,
a deserted island in the middle of the ocean where people are still, well, I mean, not imagine,
in reality, they're cooking now with wooden stuff outside. They're using locks and all that to cook
because they don't have electricity. They don't have gas. Let alone internet that is not even
openly and readily available for everybody, albeit being heavily censored by the government.
and what do people think about that like what's the like what i know it's we when we're always
looking from the outside in right i get that we it's funny in the uk right now we're getting this
lot from americans a lot of americans are looking at the uk and saying what the hell is going on in
england you know getting put in jail for tweets blah blah blah all this kind of stuff so i know
what it feels like to be judged from abroad because i disagree with all this stuff about
going to jail for tweets and stuff.
But what am I doing about it?
Nothing really.
What can I do about it?
So us looking into Cuba and people having no electricity
and everything crumbling around you and everything being old,
what is going through their minds?
Because that seems an extreme version of what we're seeing.
Is it just the same or is it just completely they've given up?
It is a stream scene, definitely.
it's part of that description of the disintegrating of the country that I was mentioning earlier.
I believe that there is a combination of responses. Number one, you have a lot of
children, malnourished children, malnourished senior citizens that basically have given up.
But it's very hard when you are in Cuba because you don't have access to information,
You don't have firearms.
You don't have support from anywhere.
I was briefly explaining this yesterday, too.
You have to imagine the situation of the country being an island.
We are, geographically speaking, a natural prison.
And then if you only have a military junta controlling all the firearms, all the resources, all the vehicles, what choices the citizens have?
What choice does an average Cuban, you know, in a rural town in the middle of the island have?
When something happens, some people get out in the street with pots and pans in the middle of the blackout, making noises on the street.
And that their way to protest But you tell me what else can be done when you don have anything at your disposal You don have internet or power to get organized to share information That why I always say that
all that scarcity of access and vehicles of information, it is by design. It is not a
coincidence. The government has kept it like that on purpose. So people cannot get real information,
People cannot get organized. People cannot protest. That's part of it. The other part,
which is the one that deeply, deeply saddened me, I think that at the society level, when you look
at human beings, I believe that Cuban has been broken down. They have been broken down and they
are in such a sense of despair that the majority of them, especially if you don't have anybody
living abroad that can help you send you some food or medications or this and that,
the level of despair, it's completely, you know, out of control into the sense that they say,
what can I do? There is nothing that I can do. If I get out on the street and try to do something,
they're going to shoot me and I have no way to defend myself.
I'd like to take a couple of minutes just to tell you about what I think is one of the most
interesting real world freedom projects that we've come across recently. If you've been listening to
this podcast for a while, you'll know that I'm always looking for things that actually exist,
not the concepts, not the renderings, but real projects where people are already building the
future. And this brings me to the Reef Resort, developed by the seasteading company ArcPad,
founded, of course, by Mitchell Suchner, who, many of you will remember, was the winner of the
Innovation Award at the 2025 Free Cities Conference. The Reef Resort, as far as we're
aware, is the world's first operational seasteading resort. It's located just off the coast of Samal
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Seasteading is no longer just an idea.
It's happening and now it's coming to prospera.
Is it true as well that the chance of something like an uprising
is very difficult because there are so many people embedded in society
who are going to snitch on it?
Yeah, who are snitches, yes.
and that that's the history of the cuban communist party in power they have infiltrated everybody and
their mother and that's how they have crushed all the things that they do i think they have been
for 66 years the best implementators of all the kgb and stasi techniques that we have read in books
and watching movies and they are still being used and implemented on a daily basis in cuba
and do you know who the snitches are like if you live in a community
surely like i'm thinking about where i live i i i hope i would know who the dodgy people are you
know we you usually can't see they i mean we have the committees for the defense of the revolution
which is like a little neighborhood watch usually the people that are in in you know in charge of
that committee have like the connections to be like the snitches level one and level two you find
them in your places of employment, you find them in schools, they're everywhere. And the most
enraging thing, it's not the snitching attitude itself. I mean, we're human beings, we know human
nature, you're going to find that kind of people everywhere. It's the fact that there are like the
cheapest snitches in the world, because they do that in exchange for a plastic bag with a bottle
of cooking oil, a tube of toothpaste and some shampoo and conditioner. That's the situation
that the country has been, you know, in such a level of misery and despair that people are
literally selling their souls for a plastic bag with those items. I mean, is it, is this,
this probably not true, but is it true that the people in charge are living lavish lives or they're
just living good lives or is it that bad?
Or are they struggling as well because of...
Who are struggling?
The people that run the country, the people in charge.
Oh, no.
They live.
The people in charge live like millionaires live in our countries,
in the United States and the rest of the world.
But in Cuba they live in.
Yes, they are the ones driving the Mercedes.
They are the ones driving the Teslas.
They are the ones driving the BMWs.
We can see the pictures of Fidel Castro's grandson all over on Instagram and all the private fishing tours and their resorts and with the access to the food and the air conditioner and the houses that the rest of the population doesn't have.
But in Cuba has always been like that.
Now, to add insult to injury, don't get me wrong.
I don't criticize anybody making money and getting a good house and a good car.
The ill suit to injuries when you have an entire country, 11 million of human beings selling them the lie that, oh, I'm going to bring you equality and I'm going to bring you a good life.
And the reality after 66 years is the only thing that they redistribute is hunger, misery, repression and despair.
They are the only ones.
Back again, like the pigs in the animal farm, they are the only ones that have access to the milk.
Nobody else.
It almost seems unreal to think about it because it's such a cliche. The cliche is of communism or socialism is that you get the elite class who just gorge on, you know, but you're saying it's really like that.
It is. It's always been like that. Always.
it's so out of order i mean i'm probably being naive here but you'll probably see many many
similarities between that and what you see in a lot of western democracies right of course yeah
and i'm missing it right i i'm i'm looking at the cuba and going that is just out of outrageous how
can how can people well obviously like you say they're probably just beaten down so hard they
don't care anymore. The spirit of the Cuban society, it's being broken down by 66 years of
communism. If you read a little bit about the history of the country, that spirit of the
Mambises that we had when we were a colony of Spain, those mulatos in those years that in horses
and with machetes did three wars for us to gain the independence from Spain. I think that genetic
pool has been killed by communism. I don't think it's there anymore.
I suppose I'm swayed a bit by you because you're a very passionate person. I'm assuming
that everyone in the country is potentially like that right Is that a common Is that part of the human psyche of a community It is who we are It our spirit It the way we are And the fact that you don see that spirit coming out on a daily basis
in all these six decades, especially in the last 20
where everything has gotten worse,
it tells you that communism has broken us down as humans.
what do you think would happen then if i mean you can imagine it can't you can imagine the
whole thing falling apart and you can imagine what would happen and then there'd be a tipping
point and then people would be out in the streets and then there'd be ransacking
houses of politicians and what do you think would happen in the in the wake of all that afterwards
i think it's gonna be something similar there was like a little preview of something like that
I was still in Cuba, I believe it was before the 1994 Rafter crisis.
There was a lot of issues in Havana.
That was a famous year that Fidel Castro took the tanks out to the streets in the Malacan to crush the riots.
And it was a crisis that it was not as bad as the one right now.
And people were just ransacking the stores to get the food and whatnot.
not. I imagine that probably as, again, the crisis and the disintegration of the daily life of the
average Cuban has been worsening instead of improving, I think that we're going to see that
probably in a worse level. Hopefully not violent, but at the same time, I don't know, it's going to
take a lot of time to rebuild that country. And I'm not talking about infrastructure and investment,
And that's the easy part.
Once you get a transition and exchange with the constitutional guarantees for private property,
for free market economy, for freedom of speech,
the part of doing the rebuilding of the infrastructure is not going to be the hardest one.
The hardest one is going to be to change the mindset of three generations of Cubans
that have been broken down by this socialist idiocy.
people that don't have a concept of what personal responsibility is people that
think that the government is going to take care of them people who do not know how to be free
that's going to be the change that is going to take the longest that's an interesting idea can
you can you elaborate on that a little bit that you mean like but presumably given the chance
people would want to take responsibility for their own lives.
I don't know.
I've never been broken down to my, broken as a person.
But you're saying that you think that there's going to be
a completely dysfunctional society.
Probably.
If there is not a transition plan that has a solid foundation,
I think that most people are expecting that there is going to be
some sort of transition and there is going to be elections
with hopefully a new government that can change the constitution and implement.
Who does that then?
The same representative republic that we had in Cuba before communism took over.
But the problem, that's the million-dollar question, is who is going to do it?
There are so many fractured dissidents groups.
There is not an organized opposition.
All those groups have been infiltrated by the state security and police in Cuba.
All those groups have also been, to a point, corrupted by all the USDA aid, foreign aid and whatnot, get it in there.
There is like so many layers, even within the dissidents movement.
It's so fractured that it's really hard to anticipate or to even guess what's going to happen.
If it all kind of fell apart, you know, tomorrow, would you think about going back there?
to sort of rebuild?
Yes, if I have the resources
and I see that there is a guarantee
of, you know,
minimum level expectation
of what free market freedom is,
yes, there is a phrase
from our national hero
that he was asked the same thing
in the early 19th
and I don't know how to translate it
in English.
So I have to think about it
before I tell you.
But yes, I will do it.
I won't go now.
I can't.
since I left, especially because I have made my career in media,
I have made it precisely speaking out and exposing what real life under communism is
to the point that they deleted me from the birth registry records.
Someone tried to get me a copy of my birth certificate and I don't exist.
So I don't believe in coincidences.
If they did that, I probably should not be planning to go and do anything like it anytime soon.
But the minute the communists are out and a new free country, it's being rebuilt.
If I have, you know, my life is still with me, the time and the resources.
Yes, I absolutely would do it.
I think I even have a map that I drew where I can totally see how many free economic sons we can have in Cuba and how many seapots we can have around the island.
And we have the best location in the Caribbean to do all of that.
Do you think a lot of people think like that? A lot of Cubans abroad?
Yes, we have a lot. At least, you know, I can speak from the ones that I have met and know in the United States.
We have very, very successful business people, investors, cutting edge technologies that are Cuban Americans living in the United States and in other countries too.
And they have, they share the same value. I am ready to go and help rebuild and help with infrastructure and this and that.
but my only condition is that the communists have to be out.
Something I just thought of when you were talking earlier about sending money home and sending medicine and sending this and sending that.
Can you send parcels into Cuba from the outside?
Yes, they are, which is another ironic reality.
There is a lot of agencies and businesses.
I would say most of them in Florida, although you can find them in other places in the United States, that they send boxes and all that.
And we have discovered all these years that majority of those agencies are actors from the Cuban government or the Communist Party or the state police that were able to get a visa or a residency in the United States.
And they are the ones running those businesses, sending boxes of medicines to Cuba and whatever, you know, what you call parcels.
And do they get through?
If you sent something to your family, would they get it?
Yes.
Nowadays, they get it.
Again, this was like another change that the Cuban government did after I left.
I mean, in my generation, like I said the other day to the audience in my speech,
my German brother or sister would send me letters
and they would arrive to my house already tampered with and open.
So it was quite different.
Right now, the government had to let the valve of the pressure cooker a little bit out a few years ago.
And they started allowing people to send food and send medicines and whatnot.
I mean, it was the only way because they tried to put like a Band-Aid, you know, in a surgical wound from side to side in the country.
That's what they tried to do.
it helps a little bit but again not every family in Cuba has somebody living abroad
that can send them food and medicines and toilet paper and you know mosquito spray or something
like that it's amazing it's amazing and it's actually I think this is going to sound a bit
crass but North Korea gets all the press about this kind of place doesn't it Cuba I I you're
You're right what you said earlier.
Like I would never think of North Korea as somewhere that tourism would go, but Cuba
has a glossy kind of veneer doesn it And like I said as a tourist I can just go there or do i have to get special permission no everybody cool cuba has been open to tourists all the time even when americans were you know
crying wolf about oh the embargo and i cannot go on this and that i'm like that's a lie the cuban
government doesn't stamp your passport they want you there spending your money so they can pocket
more cash on their side can you take cash into the country yes so there's a u.s dollar black market
in there is there oh yeah there is the regular government control market for the exchange and
there is the black market too yeah and can you spend actual dollars i mean will people take yes
yes you can do it too it's like you know it really doesn't matter how many regulations and how much
control uh the government does the market always finds a way talking to free markets let's go back
to america let's get let's hear what the latest from america according to you since the last time
I spoke with you.
How's it looking?
How are you feeling?
What's good?
What's bad?
I don't know how to say that out loud in public without having to plead the fifth.
It's complicated.
I feel like a teenager talking about boyfriends.
It's complicated.
But I think that you can summarize it into the fact that we have an ever-growing state,
that it's infringing on the market rules and on individual freedoms and on the mere concept where
the country was founded. They are infringing on all of that on a daily basis. And the majority
of the people team are just the little frogs sitting in the boiling water, you know, like
in the little hot tub with a drink with a colorful umbrella and then somebody back there keeps
cranking the heat and they're not even noticing. The majority of the people are not even noticing.
And you're talking about both sides of the political spectrum.
Both sides. And then when to that you add the new generation that has been brainwashed in
government control schools, paid by my taxes, whether I agree with their curriculums or not.
this new generation growing up with this entitlement mentality, where, again, that personal
responsibility, that basic knowledge of economics, the basic knowledge of what is the limited role
of the government, all that is out the window. That generation doesn't know much about it.
They truly think that when they need something, they just extend their hand and the government
is going to give it to them. They don't understand that the government and the state and their
don't produce anything.
That whatever they give away
has been taken by force
from somebody else.
When you mix those two things,
just give it some time
and what are we going to be looking at?
It was surprising the other day
when the Trump administration
announced they were sort of
commandeering a certain percentage
of large businesses.
What was the story?
investing in 10% of yes I cannot remember whichever one it was it was in I think it was
Intel it was a tech company I think it was a tech company that seems a bit out of character
that seems a bit socialist do you know what was my phrase when I saw that I was talking to Trey
and I was just like wake me up please and tell me that I am not in Cuba anymore since when the
government has to be investing anything in a private company. But then, Tim, it takes two to
tango. Okay. Yes, I'm going to criticize the government, but I'm also going to put those big
companies on the spot. It's like, why the hell do you have to go to bed with the government?
You don't have a good business model to put that 10% into the free market investors? What's going
on here? Somebody enlighten me because I'm just, you know, a simple Cuban girl that doesn't get it
yet. I think probably when you get the call to say, yeah, hi, we're the government, we'd really
like to have 10% of your business. I'm pretty sure at that level, you just do it because it's better
for you, isn't it? I mean, this is the point. It's like getting a call from the mafia.
We are lacking a lot of John Galt mentality in our generation and our society. And 10,
20 years from now when we are under the same predicament that Cuba is but in English and with
Wi-Fi we will have nobody else to blame but ourselves what do you think of Florida Florida
seems to be the place I noticed they were even talking about taking away property taxes which
would yes they are still they are still working on it there is a high chance that is going to be
passed I think that you have in the United States like little like little bubbles you know little
bubbles of places where I wouldn't say you have more freedom. I would actually frame it into saying
you have less government control and involvement in the market in your life. You have some of them.
You have Florida, you have New Hampshire, you have a little bit in the Rocky Mountain States,
You have a little bit in Wyoming.
But again, it's not the conceptual idea of limited government and absolute respect of the market and natural rights that we sit down on this cause.
You get like little bits and bites here and there.
But I would say the entire country is highly contaminated with the wrong concept of what the true size and the true role of the state is.
What's your, if you had to make a bet on the future of America, what do you think happens?
Do you think it trends, it carries on trending in the direction that you think you can see,
which would lead to something, you know, mimicking something socialist?
Or do you think it finds a way out?
Or do you think it fractures?
Or do you think you get a bit of both?
I would hope that it fractured in somehow where places like Texas and Florida secede and do their own free countries and their own free projects.
I think it's a big country.
It's one of the largest economies in the world.
It's been years and years of government control and growing.
They're not going to let go of that that easy just because you and I tell them that it's not the right way to have it.
And then when you add generations now coming up that know nothing else, but the government is going to take care of me and I'm okay living in the tax plantation because that's my sacrifice and social responsibility and whatnot.
When you mix those things together, they have ensured themselves a generational growth to keep doing the same thing they have doing for so long.
I've heard people say that there are, I don't know what the latest generation is, but there are, they think a little bit differently. They're not as woke socialist type big government people. Is that not true?
It is true. It is true. And I have been able to see it with my own eyes. Many of the speaking engagements that I work with the decent project, many of the clients that I work doing communications events, public speaking and all that for them are working with younger.
like the Gen Z. And yes, I have been able to see that revival where they are aligning a little bit
more, I would say, a mix of libertarian and conservative leaning. Conservatarians is what
we say, where they are kind of like starting to grow a little bit more suspicious of the size of
the state, the power and the influence that the government has in my life, in my business,
this and that. So that's actually the part that gives me a little bit of hope. But I don't know.
It's a big bet, man.
It's a big, I don't do gambling.
I do, you know, I can do communications
or marketing for gambling,
but I don't do it myself.
So I don't know.
It would be hard to predict, I think.
Well, or would it?
I mean, we can look historically, can't we?
At the trajectory,
that the society in the States is on.
And the sad thing is, unfortunately,
especially for a limey like me,
is me personally, I look to America for inspiration in that way,
in the way of freedom and liberty.
And when I came over to visit you guys,
I really felt it.
I really felt it there.
And I've never felt that in the UK, never.
It's not there.
it's not something that we have in our consciousness certainly not on a national level
so it is a it is it is even is much sadder i mean but but say say like say that that that
the u.s is on the way out say it's not the land of the free anymore and say it's on this kind of
like perpetual decline have you got hope for other places around the world that might take on the
mantle. Absolutely. I'm looking at Latin America right now and the whole trend of changes that we
have seen, which is again, like that irony, sad irony, if you think about it, because the whole
concept of this idea of the American dream of this, you know, life project where you have limited
government influence in your life, where you have free market, where you have individual rights,
how it has been deteriorating in the United States, which has been the beacon of that entire life project for the rest of the world for so long.
And then you start looking around and like I tell many, many peoples and audiences when I speak to them,
it's like if we lose the American experiment, where do we go? We got no place to go.
You know, this was in the founding documents of this country for so many years.
And now what I'm seeing is that hope is actually starting to move south.
It's starting to move to the trends of changes that we are seeing
in the governments and administrations in Latin America.
I think that there are plenty of examples that we have seen lately
with Javier Milley in Argentina the recent elections in Bolivia what Bukele is doing in El Salvador the new president in Ecuador So you starting to see I am starting to see something that honestly I never thought I was
going to see in Latin America. Because I am obviously in Cuba and when I left, I am that
generation that we grew up seeing Fidel Castro exporting socialism all over Latin America. And
then that generation that grew up thinking, oh, it's like our manifest destiny is to be always
governed by corrupt socialists and control freaks that believe in, you know, in centrally planned
economy and whatnot. And seeing this trend of change for me has been very inspirational,
because I never thought that I was going to be able to see it with my own eyes. Is it perfect?
Is this going to happen or change everything overnight?
Of course not.
We're human beings and we have to keep our expectations in check and we have to be realistic
that two, three decades of centrally planned economy, corruption up the roof, and all that
kind of changes are not going to happen overnight.
But we have seen something that, again, I never thought I was going to see because people
are saying in the voting booth that they're done with the failures and the corruption of socialism
and that they want this, you know, enlightening movement to go back to change to free economies,
to low regulations, to guarantee judicial system, to guarantee individual rights. This is the first
time that we see something like this happening as a trend in Latin America. You're right, actually.
I think it's no coincidence that there are so many free city projects there, Bitcoin projects there, you know, libertarian things.
You're absolutely right.
It's the place where that stuff's happening.
And maybe it is because you're just sick of it.
We're sick of it.
And we seeing a lot of young generations embracing that return to free market and you know on the rule of law The recent example with elections in Bolivia 50 of the Bolivian population is 30 years or younger
Imagine having that generation being part of that restoration and rebuild of the country.
That's the message they're going to pass on to the next generation of Bolivians that come into the country.
That's how you pass freedom alone, literally, in a generational timeline.
So, yeah, there is a hope.
My hope, at least, is in there.
Obviously, I'm a biased source of information because, you know, it's going to be my first language and the best weather.
But the fact that we can see the trends and, you know, knock on wood, if we can see Venezuela and Nicaragua, Mexico just getting out of the world with their socialist bondongles and all the, you know, dark cash and cartels and corruption that they have going on, it would be really great.
The region has a really, really good potential if it's here into the right framework of free market economy, rule of law and free societies.
You know, we guarantee rights for everybody.
Viva la libertad.
I have it on my necklace here.
I have it.
Viva la libertad, carajo.
I got it on my necklace from the AP network.
Viva la libertad, carajo.
Yeah, that's a bad word, by the way.
Don't be, you know, traveling to Latin America saying that word like that.
Carajo, what does it mean?
It means the F-bomb.
Oh, so what?
Is that like free fucking freedom?
Yeah, that's exactly what we're saying.
That's exactly what we're saying.
I don't mind saying that.
Listen, Myelin, thanks.
That's perfectly a place to end.
I love it when you end on a positive note because talking of Cuba like that It just depressing It absolutely depressing It is It is absolutely depressing I glad to hear you think that there is a massive opportunity for everyone involved anyone who wants a piece of that new life in
Central America South America whatever it's there for the taking hopefully it's there yeah it's there
for the development the right way and for the law you know for the right reasons and if you think
about it it could be like a snowballing effect where all that trend at some point is going to
reach Cuba too and and yes it's going to take the longest and yes it's going to take a lot of money
to rebuild and all that but at some point it will reach the island too and that's that's kind of like
part of that hope picture that I have in my head I mean it may even be yeah I mean imagine if it
was just the last bastion that fell it would be um who knows I don't know that's I'm getting too
utopian that's we get we just we just need to yeah touch wood and keep an eye on on you know
and seeing what happens which is gonna be good i think it's gonna be good great myelin thanks
lovely to see you again thank you for having me i appreciate it yeah we're really happy to have
you here i think i'm so glad you you came because last time i saw you we were in the america and now
and it's almost like i feel like this is a little bit of my thing over here not that i saw you much
but I'm glad you saw what's going on here.
Yes, it was great.
It was a great experience
and a great group of people to see
and to meet so much potential.
I met so many wonderful people
that I hope, you know,
we can keep in touch
and we can work on things together.
And we'll be in Latin America this time next year.
Yes.
You guys are going to be the jet lags, not me.
Great.
I'll see you.
If I don't see you before,
I'll see you in Prospera next year.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Thank you.