What sort of change?

Just because it appears in a newspaper letters column doesn’t guarantee its authenticity, but most editors require some sort of authentication, so it‘s got a bit more veracity than a forwarded 100-times anonymous e-mail. But it's still just one man's opinion on change. This one I checked--a letter to the editor of the Richmond Times (VA) on July 7. You can read the whole thing. The Cuban American writer states he’s now been in the U.S. for forty years, but he remembers a young leader in the late 1950s who promised change and they all, particularly the press, put their faith in him. He continues. . .

"But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.

Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?

Would we?

Manuel Alvarez Jr., Sandy Hook."