The War on Cuba Part I and II - Page 7 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15167862
Julian658 wrote:
You and your comrades (late, Godstud, Dr Lee, Taínar, Jim) tend to post in a very aggressive vituperative manner to avoid the discussion on an issue.



You don't actually discuss, kid.

You just repeat your propaganda, with some fakery for show.
#15167868
late wrote:You don't actually discuss, kid.

You just repeat your propaganda, with some fakery for show.

As a centrist I agree with many left wing positions. However, I also agree with some right wing positions. That is not what I would call propaganda. I think you are intimidated because I am not 100% conservative.
#15167871
late wrote:Thanks for proving my point.

I assume you are looking for right wingers. Seriously, why the acrimony?
#15167874
Julian658 wrote:
I assume you are looking for right wingers.



Tainari nailed your hide to the wall recently.

Pretty much confirmed what I had been thinking... You're an act, a circus sideshow, nothing more.
#15167883
late wrote:Tainari nailed your hide to the wall recently.

Pretty much confirmed what I had been thinking... You're an act, a circus sideshow, nothing more.

Your solidarity with the socialists is noted. She is another one that cannot post without aggression. Why is that?

I believe the best devastating weapon an opponent could use is to simply discuss the point and destroy the opponent's point of view without using ad hominem. That is what BJ does with Tainari. OTOH, Taina replies with "you are a racist". You do it too, but not as often as Godstud or Dr. Lee so I give you credit.
#15167907
Hmm, weren't certain posters @late saying they are scared of me? How I am obsessed with them...and how I am so aggressive? Then they jump into threads where the cyberbully is there saying the racist crap. Lol. No, I am afraid late you are right.

For me it is like reading an ad you don't pay attention to. Scroll down to the person with content. That is how you solve that issue.

I like content. Not BS.

I don't care what other people with confused points of view say.

I never went for confusion. It is not fun to read. Or debate.
#15167944
Cuba's isolation centers:




Many American citizens would not like being told to stay in quarantine for two weeks. Because it is a very difficult thing. But the USA is doing that now. I would have to stay in quarantine for two weeks coming from Mexico especially if I had not produced a Coronavirus vaccine certificate and OK to travel.

For those of you curious about pre Castro Cuba conditions this quick documentary is a good one:

#15168256
XogGyux wrote:I don't buy it.

I sincerely hope you are right.

XogGyux wrote:The solution to this kind of "radicalism" that you are afraid, is not marginalization, it is education.

Guess who runs the education system in the US? Yes, I agree it is pathetic. However, it is not going to change until we change who is running the system.

XogGyux wrote:That is only half true. The US was happy to throw a wrench into Cuba's politics (not unlike it has done in so many other countries). Ironically, the US helped Fidel rise to power... yes that is correct! The first embargos to cuba were not under Fidel's goverment but earlier during Batista's and it was aimed to stop arms sales to the goverment. Meanwhile there are reports that the CIA actually helped the rebels with fundings (yes, the same CIA that latter tried to dethrown/assessinate Fidel :lol: ). Cuban rebels were not a "communist" movement. In fact there were factions that defined themselves as anti-communist. Fidel himself proclaimed shortly after the revolution that he was no communist and the Che had said the same about Fidel prior. I am convinced the US forced his hand by forcing him to become cozy with the USSR.

Yes, and the CIA uses classification to hide their fuck ups from the public too. I really wish they would use the term "information" or "data" instead of intelligence, because they make so many bone-headed decisions.

late wrote:1) That's our failure for not using the best possible policy for that situation. We've let the corrupt Cubans in Miami buy our policy towards Cuba, and that is idiocy.

Just because people disagree with you does not mean that they are necessarily corrupt.

late wrote:2) Neither. Health care policy is quite complicated, that leaves you out.

We aren't discussing health care policy. You should keep your insults relevant to the topic.

late wrote:3) She is prob referring to the time when JFK blockaded Cuba, although I am not sure why.

Perhaps. Let's note that JFK was a Democrat as we address your next point.

late wrote:4) We have a history of putting our boot on the neck of Latin countries that goes back to the 1800s. We have been slowly easing up, at least when there is a Dem president.

The Bay of Pigs was under Kennedy's administration. James Madison was the first to intervene in Chile. He was a Democrat-Republican (today's Democrat party). Polk annexed Texas from Mexico and fought the Mexican-American War. He was a Democrat. James Monroe was a Democrat-Republican too, and laid out the Monroe Doctrine.

As for the Spanish American war:

Wikipedia wrote:The business community had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. Accordingly, most business interests lobbied vigorously against going to war.[19] President William McKinley ignored the exaggerated news reporting and sought a peaceful settlement.[20] However, after the United States Navy armored cruiser Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.


The first intervention in the area of Panama was Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, in 1885.

We have to look to a Republican like Teddy Roosevelt--a progressive, like yourself--to see significant intervention in Panama, and the Dominican Republic. William Taft began a military occupation that lasted through Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover's administration.

It was Harry Truman, a Democrat, who overthrew the Arbenz government. While I'm sure you will blame Nixon for Pinochet, the US involvement there began in 1962 under Kennedy according to the Church Committee. So at least we can say sometimes Democrats do good things as we think of Frank Church.

George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to effect an arrest warrant on Manuel Noriega. That was a pretty novel reason for an invasion. He was a RINO that lied to voters and raised taxes, only to get bounced from office for it.

Clinton invaded Haiti under a UNSC resolution to restore the Aristide government. Clinton also sent US troops into Columbia in 1998 as part of a drug trafficking operation. So the Democrats (and RINOs) don't have clean hands in this matter. Not at all.

Tainari88 wrote:The sugar industry died and so did a lot of commodities that were the base of Caribbean slave economies of the past.

Sugar beets can be planted and harvested mechanically. So they are cheaper.

Tainari88 wrote:XogGyux doesn't like the system but he knows the blockade is not helping others in Cuba who need a way of making a living.

There is no blockade of Cuba. The US does not trade with Cuba. That's the issue.

Tainari88 wrote:Your theories are invalid Relampaguito. Again, study tiny countries and their histories. But you don't so you assume their is no hope with Big Brother.

Tiny islands rarely do well economically. There are very rare cases like Singapore. However, you're looking at an economic system, capital markets and a trade hub that makes a big difference. Hong Kong is a similar story. Why is Hong Kong screwing up now? The communists.

Tainari88 wrote:But imperialism is very very damaging. You just want no socialism. I don't agree.

Imperialism does not imply capitalism. The Khanates weren't capitalist. The Romans weren't capitalist. The Czars weren't capitalist. The Soviet Union wasn't capitalist. Yes, I don't want socialism. I see major flaws in that ideology.

Tainari88 wrote:Socialism is good. For working people most of all. But? You need freedom to trade, and freedom from restriction.

I was watching a John Lennox video on why science became so adamantly materialistic and atheistic. He threw around some ideas. I think materialism and atheism matches more or less my theory on socialism too--that it's an epochal ideology, rooted in industrialism. Industrialism and mass production had what we call in IT a "scale up" approach--making ever larger blast furnaces, bigger is better, etc. It delivered huge increases in output, but at a major social cost. Today, an electric arc steel mill is much smaller than what you'd have seen on the banks of the Allegheny River in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Yet, most progress in those times were measured in material improvements. Today, that's changed considerably.

Tainari88 wrote:Because the PRC is supposedly Communist yet trade a lot and make a lot of profit. Mostly from state capitalism. Yet, the USA doesn't sanction them like they do Cuba. Why is that?

I think they didn't feel a threat from China following the Cold War, and their greed is boundless. I think what is going on in China now is on track to be as bad as Mao, Stalin or Hitler. Some say that if the Tiananmen Square massacre had only happened after the fall of the Soviet Union, we would have reacted much differently. I don't know. I think the US establishment is utterly amoral.

Tainari88 wrote:They deny the concentration of wealth.

Technological breakthroughs frequently produce concentrations of wealth. Without a class system to enforce preservation of it, it rarely remains in families more than three or four generations. The Vanderbilts went from the richest people on Earth to broke within a few generations.

Tainari88 wrote:When they are not trying to invade, dominate and steal each other's resources in the process (making the comparative advantage slide into the toilet).

Much of US trade with China is absolute advantage--a price arbitrage. It's not comparative at all. It makes no sense to import steel from China to the United States in comparative terms. The Allegheny River flows into the Ohio, which flows into the Mississippi, which flows into the Caribbean. America has the most inland navigable water ways of anywhere on the planet. It's just dumb to be importing steel from China.

Tainari88 wrote:You did not see the videos. Uh oh, you failed to see the videos. You would not have said what you said BJ if you saw the videos. No discussing unless you see the videos. They explain and give an example of the problems with the blockade.

A naval blockade is an act of war. The US did that during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is no US naval blockade of Cuba at this time. There is a lack of trade, or a trade embargo if you will. It's not a blockade.

Tainari88 wrote:Yes, and they also have been under the longest economic blockade in the history of the world. Why?

The US does not want a communist satellite state on its Southern border. It's not hard to understand if you aren't putting your normative analysis first.

Tainari88 wrote:Because Cuba is a bigger threat to the USA than the PRC.

China isn't presently a military threat to the US, but it is rapidly becoming one. Between human rights abuses, IP theft, a communist oligarchy and plain old genocide, I think we need to deprecate China rapidly. Cuba just needs to jettison a communist government and have free, fair, multi-party elections and their world will turn around very quickly.

Tainari88 wrote:It reveals greed as the only thing driving political policy in DC.

Greed is a very big part of it. With Cuba, it's not simply greed. Cuba aligned with the Soviet Union against the United States. It also was exporting its revolution as well.

Tainari88 wrote:The reality is greed will corrupt the entire system of the USA.

Greed is not exclusive to capitalism. It is a human trait.

Tainari88 wrote:Like having a fridge, a washer, paint to paint the walls with, and basic consumer goods.

All the labor-saving goodies of industrial capitalism... Yes, I see.

Tainari88 wrote:Most people don't want to live in abject poverty BJ. They want basics. I think people have a right to basics. Don't you?

No. "Rights" are an abstract concept that have no tangible basis in reality. Traditional US ideology sees rights as God given, like life, liberty and the right to acquire and dispossess property. You have the right to live and to make a living. You don't have the right to be furnished with everything you need at someone else's expense.

Tainari88 wrote:Like your Republican bullshit party does.

I am not a Republican.

Tainari88 wrote:Do I have to post all the Republicans who are into neoconservative stuff and backstab the nationalists?

I can do a better job of that than you already. For example, you think that Biden won the election, and I do not. I do not think that the Republican establishment was helping Trump at all.

Tainari88 wrote:Facebook things and twitter cutting off the ones whom they deplatform? Who is going to be determining who controls technology for profit? And why and for what purposes?

I think Jack Dorsey screwed the pooch. Twitter is a fraction of what it was without Trump. As competition increases, the fragmentation will leave Twitter an also ran in a business it once dominated.

Tainari88 wrote:What you need are no more sellout politicians. Good luck with that when GREED is rampant.

When they are literally printing up trillions of dollars at a whim? I don't think they will stop until something like 1/6 happens but with people coming with guns.

Tainari88 wrote:You are totally out of touch with these statements. Cuba was 'given' its independence? It was a very bloody war with Spain that was long and difficult.

The Spanish-American War wasn't very long.

Tainari88 wrote:The Phllipines were let loose in 1946. Find out why.

They were promised their independence much earlier. General MacArthur's father was the first US military governor of the Philippines. They ended up in long term fights with the Muslim population there.

Tainari88 wrote:Cuba was kept with interventionist policies for years.

That is true. The US was making sure that Cuba paid its debts, because defaulting on debts to European powers meant that the European powers had a right under international law to invade. The US assumed that role because it didn't want European powers in the Americas.

Tainari88 wrote:It is about economic freedom to be able to keep people in their home cultures and home nations and STABLE.

Economic freedom? How much economic freedom? I thought you were for the state allocating assets to people and stripping them away if they were getting too much.

Tainari88 wrote:Or aren't you interested in keeping immigration to a minimum in your country the USA? Yes or no?

I am for legal immigration. I also think it is important prefer people who can speak the language and want to live in a democratic republic, and not some dictatorship.

Tainari88 wrote:I don't care about the inner workings of the dark dictatorship of a nation that runs an empire that keeps people fucked for life in economic terms.

Well, you should if you want to get free of it.

Tainari88 wrote:Who deny us our votes and our land. That is YOUR nation and your KARMA BJ.

They deny us our votes too, as we just saw in 2020. Every other modern nation requires identification for voting. Yet, the establishment claims that all Americans can get IDs, except for black people. So requiring IDs is somehow racist. One of the funnier strings of YouTube videos are of white conservatives asking black Americans if they know where the DMV is. All of the blacks who were asked knew where the DMV was, all of them had some form of ID, and all were shocked at what white liberals thought of them. The urban Democrat political machine is very bad news.

Tainari88 wrote:But they must CONTROL it all or they can't live with themselves. When are they going to have enough money?

It's not about money. It's about control. Birth control. Gun control. It's all about trying to control everything.

Tainari88 wrote:You think Trump was an innocent man?

No. Of course not. I think he was not part of the deep state.

Tainari88 wrote:That capitalist asshole from Atlantic City broke into politics because he was a showman who probably thought he did not have a shot at the White House but he thought he could at least revive his tired Apprentice program and then had to deal with the REAL job of a president and did not know what the hell he was doing and who he was pissing off. A fool.

He was saying throughout 2016 that he thought the system was rigged. It is. They just didn't think they needed to stuff the ballot boxes in 2016. They were prepared in 2020. Trump wasn't trying to revive the Apprentice. He cancelled the show himself to run for office. The fact of the matter is that he spoke to blue collar working class voters who have been abandoned by the establishment. Did you see his 2020 rallies? They were cheering "we love you!" I'm not saying you should like Trump. I'm saying if you don't overturn the deep state, Puerto Rico will never be independent. Biden is a neoliberal/neoconservative stooge. He will do everything they tell him to do.

Tainari88 wrote:I am not married to it. I am just trying to solve the problems of the PAWNS caught up in all that SHIT.

As long as that deep state runs everything, you are swimming against the tide.

I just finished Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's book. They destroyed his career. Do you know how? They scoured every record of his, and found he billed back about $67.00 that he shouldn't have billed. Then, stripped him of his security clearance, ending his DIA career. Do you know why? He told the 9/11 Commission about Able Danger--that they had identified Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11. The DIA didn't want that to come out in the public light. They are frankly just bad people.

Tainari88 wrote:You really defend that degenerate man? Ave maria.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. You are not powerful enough to take on the deep state alone. Your life experience should be enough to tell you that. You are not going to get some wonderful person of virtue into the White House probably ever. You had someone in there who was thwarting the deep state's plans. He was the first president in 30 years who didn't start a war. That's the problem with your analysis. It's too emotional and visceral. You worried that Trump would start a war, but you're now more comfortable with a war monger in the White House because he isn't pissing you off with 3am tweet storms while lamenting the only president in 30 years that didn't start a war.
#15168263
@blackjack21
The business community had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. Accordingly, most business interests lobbied vigorously against going to war.[19] President William McKinley ignored the exaggerated news reporting and sought a peaceful settlement.[20] However, after the United States Navy armored cruiser Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.

Did you just bolded the part that mentions democratic party as a cheap partisan shot? Dude that sort of lose association might work for the average Tucker Carlson/Glen Beck idiot or the slightly inebriated obnoxious uncle at the thanksgiving party but such conection it is meaningless as the interests/politics of both parties have changed over the past century specially at that time in history when the rep/dem flipped. More importantly, right now the party with the most toxic views regarding Cuba is the republican party. You don't have to dig deeper to find countless of failed policies/views toward Cuba that are favored by republicans. Remember Elian Gonzalez? How republicans well hell bent over what essentially translated into overriding parental custody?
Please, we already have plenty of cheap partisan hackery in the news/adds, you don't have to bring more nonsense like this.
#15168290
blackjack21 wrote:

I was watching a John Lennox video on why science became so adamantly materialistic and atheistic. He threw around some ideas. I think materialism and atheism matches more or less my theory on socialism too--that it's an epochal ideology, rooted in industrialism. Industrialism and mass production had what we call in IT a "scale up" approach--making ever larger blast furnaces, bigger is better, etc. It delivered huge increases in output, but at a major social cost. Today, an electric arc steel mill is much smaller than what you'd have seen on the banks of the Allegheny River in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Yet, most progress in those times were measured in material improvements. Today, that's changed considerably.



Science isn't an ideology.

It's a method...

Since it started centuries before the Industrial Revolution, we can also rule that out.

What you are babbling about is the transition from a sectarian way of looking at the world, to a secular way of looking at the world. There's a great German world that this comes from, weltanschuung . " the worldview of an individual or group."

Capitalism transformed the world. The church was literally the center of town in the Dark Ages. Markets became the center of town as market economies spread across Europe.

This also began the decline of both the political power, and intellectual influence, of the church.

The reasons why this happened are complex, and there is no SI (standard interpretation) about it so far. A nice introduction is Guns, Germs, and Steel.

But we do know capitalism played a large, pivotal role.

So why did this result in atheism?

The mid 1800s, Europe and America became secular worlds. You can even see a change in the language. People started thinking the way we think, and were less overtly religious in the way they talked.

There were a few that took this to it's natural conclusion. If you don't have a logical proof of the existence of a deity, and no actual evidence, then a theist is assuming his conclusion. You're not supposed to do that, logically speaking.

I think the increasing secularism as part of the intellectual evolution of Western thought.
Last edited by late on 21 Apr 2021 15:53, edited 3 times in total.
#15168326
I will post two different Cuban in exile perspectives, one from a right leaning magazine called [i]The Economist[/i] which I do like reading even though I am a Richard Wolff economic prescription person. It is a good thing to read other points of view on economics.



Notice how Ponte lives in Spain? Yet he wants to go back to a Cuba if it is democratic and he can be free to write and do what he can in his field. That is NORMAL.



Some Cubans find the adaptation to a capitalist economy or even a mixed economy hard to adjust to and go back to Cuba after living in the USA. Why? I think it has to do with what many prioritize. Some prioritize the family and friends and they feel lonely in the USA. It is not their language or culture. A lot of work is involved in adapting to new cultures and societies.

@blackjack21 wrote:

As long as that deep state runs everything, you are swimming against the tide.

I just finished Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's book. They destroyed his career. Do you know how? They scoured every record of his, and found he billed back about $67.00 that he shouldn't have billed. Then, stripped him of his security clearance, ending his DIA career. Do you know why? He told the 9/11 Commission about Able Danger--that they had identified Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11. The DIA didn't want that to come out in the public light. They are frankly just bad people.


The deep state gets its fuel from capitalist elitist shit BJ. That is their greed fuel. Sure imperialism existed in pre-capitalist societies. It about building wealth through force and greed and privilege. You are not against that. I am. While you permit greed, force and privilege to run relationships between nations? The deep state and all its horror WILL NEVER GO AWAY. And eventually it will cannibalize its own national interests in order to keep its greed fueled. All Empires in the past have faded. They had to. They reached their limits. They cannibalized their wealth from the rot of the values lived in those deep states BJ. You got to change the value system that perpetuates Empire. The USA was at a crossroads in 1898. They chose the cannibalization and the subjugation of conquered territories. You might think it is human nature. I happen to think it has to do with a change in consciousness. That only happens through so many hundreds of years and thousands of trial and error problems till people realize that a certain value system leads to certain outcomes. Not believing in the white people are superior. Asian people are superior. Black people are superior. Etc. No. It has to do with VALUES that are emphasized in a government. And cause and effect. You want the PRC to stop messing with the USA's economy and not have some greedy people doing business regardless? Then don't mess with the little nation's need for basics. It is that simple. BE CONSISTENT in respecting other nations and don't use might is right as the justification for actions that are INHUMANE. I am a humanist. Make human beings and their well being in all nations a priority in values. You say it is impossible? This man I watched his video. My mother loved human rights activism all over the world. She was one. He is a human rights activist. What did he say? He said something very very important. For every problem there is a solution. You just got to be smart, have a heart, and compassion. Again. CORAZON. Cold greed will lead to eventual destruction of your nation-state and its power position.

Here is the video:



India has laws against child slavery. But if there is corruption and lack of enforcement? It is moot.

The values have to change BJ. It has to be that no one in India will remain passive as that happens. Poverty retards it all. If there is severe lack of money for basics? Corruption is much more likely to remain perniciously stubborn to a change in value system. Fix the economics. Because it does affect adaptive abilities.

If you can't give a damn about other people's situations? And you believe in some shitty ideal of English only when people in India and Cuba and Puerto Rico and Mexico and many other nations including Russia and China and Greece all study English and don't feel threatened by assimilaton and their societies are all should be RUSSIAN only and Mandarin only?

I am not some monolingualism fool BJ. More languages and more understanding of other cultures and world views? Is not some threat to cohesion. It is FREEDOM of thought and freedom of exploration.

Again I loathe imperialism and assimilation. Both are about imposing by force and thinking that humans who live in some other environment are INFERIOR to others. Human experiences are rich innately in their own realities. Expanding what is possible requires flexibility in thinking. Not rigidity. Bilingualism and polyglotism is an important component to that flexible mind.

I disagree with your fears of importing dictatorship. You yourself already stated the USA is a cabal of dictatorship of GREED. Break that. It is your challenge.

The poorer nations are chock full of problems to solve. Let us get some freedom to do so.

Abject poverty does no one any favors. It is about restrictions on human potential. I don't like that at all!
#15168328
Tainari88 wrote:Some Cubans find the adaptation to a capitalist economy or even a mixed economy hard to adjust to and go back to Cuba after living in the USA. Why? I think it has to do with what many prioritize. Some prioritize the family and friends and they feel lonely in the USA. It is not their language or culture. A lot of work is involved in adapting to new cultures and societies.


I agree, but this doesn't really have all that much to do with the economic system. I would also add it's hard to leave your family behind, and it's even worse for Cubans since internet use isn't all that expanded in Cuba.
#15168335
Maybe some of those Cubans that go back (I've never heard of that in Miami by the way, the one's I know never went back) are simply institutionalized by the Cuban system. It's like people that get out of prison. They are so used to the prison life, that they cannot function properly in a freer world. For example, many former inmates get stressed out about trying to figure out what to wear or eat after they wake up in the morning. They are so used to being told what to do (i.e. they are institutionalized), they simply cannot handle the new found freedom. This is why many decide to go back to prison by committing a crime.

The assumption that these Cubans go back because Cuba is better, could be very wrong. Maybe they just didn't get the help and support they needed to function in other societies.

Just a thought.
#15168371
Rancid wrote:Maybe some of those Cubans that go back (I've never heard of that in Miami by the way, the one's I know never went back) are simply institutionalized by the Cuban system. It's like people that get out of prison. They are so used to the prison life, that they cannot function properly in a freer world. For example, many former inmates get stressed out about trying to figure out what to wear or eat after they wake up in the morning. They are so used to being told what to do (i.e. they are institutionalized), they simply cannot handle the new found freedom. This is why many decide to go back to prison by committing a crime.

The assumption that these Cubans go back because Cuba is better, could be very wrong. Maybe they just didn't get the help and support they needed to function in other societies.

Just a thought.


A lot of Puerto Ricans don't go back to Puerto Rico. 5 million in the USA and 3.2 million in the island. Why? Economic reasons mostly. In the 1960s more went back to Puerto Rico than the ones staying in the USA. Why? The economy had improved on the island and they wanted to live in PR with a lower cost of living and just as good paying jobs and free university educations. People go back when the standards of living improve a lot. That changed and there was reverse migration from the 1980s and still going today to the point of more Boricuas outside the island than inside Rancid.

If you ask them though? The ideal for them is to be able to go back to the island. Live among other Puerto Ricans but without the crime waves, the drug problems, the stagnation in economics, the lack of internal power and ability to rule their own nation. They need jobs, safety, infrastructure, education and consumer goods but with sustainability and ecologically respectful things Rancid. They also need a lot of trade with other nations who don't charge exhorbitant rates like the USA does.

Look at this video where El Boricuazo (Jesus Rivera) the Puerto Rican historian and commentator tackles the issue of the lie that the USA props up Puerto Rico and that Puerto Rican society and the economy is a parasite of the USA. He deals with that lie. Here it is, Puerto Rican stats for 2008-2009. How the Puerto Rican government deals with the budget.


Here it is. The USA sucks out a lot more money in profits and dividends for the corporations and private banking sector than what the Puerto Ricans receive as benefits. it is hard stats. There it is.



People believe those lies. Because the ones running off with the big bucks want them to believe it.

The USA cabal as @blackjack21 knows their golden goose is there. Cuba if it had done the same thing as Puerto Rico become a colony in name of the USA unincorporated territory status. They would have created the same conditions. 5 million Boricuas had to MOVE out. Cubans would be living in the USA en masse, a lot more than the Miami crowd. But knowing how interesting Cubans are? They would have been in some great positions. Lol.

But? In the end. You lose control of your land and society? You won't be making big bucks. You will be subjugated to the Greed Empire.

That is the reality. Puerto Rico is not doing well in many ways.
#15168600
late wrote:Science isn't an ideology.

Ok. Allow me to clarify. People born during the industrial era who went into the physical sciences tended toward atheism, because so much of what constituted improvement was physical in nature. So you are correct that science is not an ideology, but scientists can be ideologues too. Read The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins for example.

late wrote:A nice introduction is Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Jared Diamond's inspiration for that book was speaking to wealth inequality--standard Marxism. He was arguing against any sort of supremacy of morals, intellect or genetics, and in favor of a purely environmental explanation between Eurasia and Egypt and the rest of the world. It's worth rereading it with respect to Cuba. Maybe Tainari88 might benefit from reading it so she can understand why a place like Puerto Rico will never be an industrial power house, but maybe PR could be an IT-based economy.

What Diamond doesn't consider is that genetics ends up playing a role, and he simply ignores it because it does not help him arrive at a Marxian conclusion. For example, Diamond posits that humans domesticated animals that were docile enough for domestication. Wolves and wildcats were domesticated into dogs and cats very early on. Selective breeding of dogs has been going on for a very long time. Dogs were often used for hunting, not agriculture.

However, genetics also played a role in humans. Most humans are lactose tolerant as babies and toddlers but are lactose intolerant into adulthood--except a significant portion of the European population. You cannot explain a dairy culture without this genetic modification. France has over 400 varieties of cheese. How many does China have? How many does Congo have?

The Chinese don't have a cheese culture, because they lacked milk-bearing bovines or they are too stupid to make cheese. They overwhelming majority of them are lactose intolerant. It gives them an instant stomach ache.

late wrote:But we do know capitalism played a large, pivotal role.

That's not easy to establish either. US money expressly states "In God we trust." One of the earliest banking powers was the Knights Templar. Religion and finance have a complex history and relationship.

late wrote:There were a few that took this to it's natural conclusion. If you don't have a logical proof of the existence of a deity, and no actual evidence, then a theist is assuming his conclusion. You're not supposed to do that, logically speaking.

Lennox emphatically disagrees with this assertion. If you think everything is random and unguided, would you bother to make plans? Of course not. Would you write a computer program? Obviously not. Science is founded on an assumption that physical phenomena obey rational rules. Otherwise, there would be no point in doing scientific research. That's why Richard Dawkins is kind of a daft prick.

late wrote:I think the increasing secularism as part of the intellectual evolution of Western thought.

I think the increasing acceptance of intelligent design is because Darwinism only explains specialization within an existing species, not the origin of a species or the origin of life itself. Further, Gregor Mendel demonstrated heritability of traits. Watson and Crick demonstrated the structure of DNA. The understanding of DNA and RNA demonstrates that it is a code--an instruction set. A series of discrete instructions that direct deterministic behavior at the microscopic level. It's a force that permeates all life. Master Yoda of the Jedi can tell you all about it.

Tainari88 wrote:I will post two different Cuban in exile perspectives, one from a right leaning magazine called The Economist which I do like reading even though I am a Richard Wolff economic prescription person.

The Economist isn't right leaning. It's more like the London School of Economics and Political Science, in that it seeks a rational discussion of market forces.

Tainari88 wrote:It is a good thing to read other points of view on economics.

It is, because I have a bachelor of science in business. Why a bachelor of science and not of arts? It's because the science degree requires a lot more math, isolating independent variables, and identifying statistically defensible causal relationships, etc. That's why they use terms like "market forces" in the same vein as physical forces.

Tainari88 wrote:The deep state gets its fuel from capitalist elitist shit BJ.

This is why you need to read up on economics so you can see what it doesn't say. Nowhere in an economic text is it going to be telling you about erecting a deep state, conducting espionage, etc. The KGB and the Stasi, for example, were not capitalist. It's as if you associate everything you don't like with capitalism. It's not capitalism that is bad. It's Democrats. Democrats are bad, bad, bad. :D :excited: :lol:

Tainari88 wrote:It about building wealth through force and greed and privilege. You are not against that. I am. While you permit greed, force and privilege to run relationships between nations?

Building wealth sometimes requires force. However, that's not what a modern nation state is about. It's why I recommend reading Law and Revolution by Harold J. Berman so that you understand the legal philosophy behind nation states. They are in effect an asserted monopoly on the use of violent force. That's all nation states. Not just capitalist ones.

Tainari88 wrote:And eventually it will cannibalize its own national interests in order to keep its greed fueled.

Well, it has already done that many times over. When you hear the left leaning types here talk about the US military versus the American people, they speak as if the US military could easily defeat the American people in a revolt, while ignoring that they lost winnable fights in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan against relatively primitive enemies. However, an alternate view of that is that the greed of maintaining physical assets precludes unrestricted warfare. Anthony Schafer provides a blueprint for winning against the Taliban, which is more or less a very sound strategy. However, it will not get implemented because the establishment does not want to risk war with Pakistan, and by extension, China. So they go with a strategy where they lose by their own design.

Tainari88 wrote:All Empires in the past have faded. They had to. They reached their limits. They cannibalized their wealth from the rot of the values lived in those deep states BJ.

The decline of empires is well studied, and it's rare that it simply redounds to bad morals of a few back bencher bureaucrats. Economically, the British Empire was simply eclipsed by Germany and America. Other than South Africa, British holdings in Africa were not profitable. It was India that was profitable. So once India was independent, the British more or less scuttled most of the rest of their empire, save a few militarily important places, a few profitable places like Hong Kong, and a number of small islands. The French weren't as economically strong as the British, but they actually fought to maintain empire and lost in places like Vietnam and Algeria. Yet, there is still a part of France on the East Coast of North America--Saint Pierre and Miquelon. And you thought that the Euro wasn't used in North America... :lol: That's true of French Guiana as well, down South. France shares a border with Canada, Brazil and Suriname as well as the European countries you know and several other non-land borders as well.

Tainari88 wrote:You got to change the value system that perpetuates Empire. The USA was at a crossroads in 1898. They chose the cannibalization and the subjugation of conquered territories.

For all practical purposes, the US stopped its empire building project. That is why Cuba is an independent nation, as well as the Philippines. We even left Clark AFB and Subic Bay naval station. Alaska and Hawaii were incorporated into the US. Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands haven't been. They have been allowed to vote on it. The US Virgin Islands cannot even draft a constitution consistent with the US constitution, so it's ruled as a municipality.

Tainari88 wrote:Cold greed will lead to eventual destruction of your nation-state and its power position.

Sometimes empires are collapsed because of greed, just as they are erected for similar reasons.

Tainari88 wrote:India has laws against child slavery. But if there is corruption and lack of enforcement? It is moot.

So does China, but it's meaningless. China is a communist country that abandoned many of the principles of communism for greed. So now it is just another totalitarian state like Nazi Germany.

Tainari88 wrote:It has to be that no one in India will remain passive as that happens.

It takes a lot to get people to demand action. I think frustration with the Covid lockdowns had a lot to do with the Floyd riots, for example. Many people felt the government had a knee on their necks and still do.

Tainari88 wrote:Fix the economics.

Ah, but you are fighting against greedy people and they know how to manipulate you. Who was it that warned about the effects of making high schools feeder schools for college and abandoning vocational training? Charles Murray. That was his argument in the Bell Curve. Some people aren't ready for college fresh out of high school, and some may never have the aptitude for it. All it takes to prevent fixing it is to run around calling the person with the right economic answer a racist and a white supremacist, and the greedy people get to keep their system. It's a pretty neat little racket when you think about it.

Tainari88 wrote:And you believe in some shitty ideal of English only when people in India and Cuba and Puerto Rico and Mexico and many other nations including Russia and China and Greece all study English and don't feel threatened by assimilaton and their societies are all should be RUSSIAN only and Mandarin only?

I am not some monolingualism fool BJ.

Uh... neither am I. However, I am not someone to move to another nation and expect them to learn English so they can talk to me rather than to learn their language. I am not fluent in any other language, but I can speak some German, Russian, and Japanese. That's primarily to accommodate the people I work with around the world. Language is a big part of culture and economy.

Tainari88 wrote:More languages and more understanding of other cultures and world views? Is not some threat to cohesion. It is FREEDOM of thought and freedom of exploration.

Again, you are arguing with a straw man in your own head. I have never said (at least seriously) that we should abandon all languages and make everyone speak English. I don't know if I said something like that in humor just to piss you off, but it's very obviously not something I believe. I do believe you are at a serious disadvantage if you live in a country and cannot speak its dominant language. India has English as an official language because of the British Empire. Likewise, Hindi is the other official language. If you cannot speak either of these in India, you are at a serious economic disadvantage. If you can speak English, you can effectively work for American, British, Canadian, South African, Australian, or New Zealand-based companies. It provides a major economic advantage.

Tainari88 wrote:Again I loathe imperialism and assimilation.

Yes, but you cannot understand the value of why it persists. For example, Latin is a dead language except in religion and academia. Yet, the Roman Alphabet is a fine invention. It's relatively compact and flexible enough to accommodate many languages. The Roman numeral system, by contrast, totally sucks. The Indo-Arabic numeral system is much more efficient. The mother of all ironies is that you are trained in perhaps the one discipline more or less founded by the imperial mindset: anthropology. Here a link to a PDF of Kathleen Gough's Anthropology and Imperialism paper.

Kathleen Gough wrote:Anthropology is a child of Western imperialism. It has roots in the humanist visions of the Enlightenment, but as a university discipline and a modem science it came into its own in the last decades of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.


Tainari88 wrote:Both are about imposing by force and thinking that humans who live in some other environment are INFERIOR to others. Human experiences are rich innately in their own realities. Expanding what is possible requires flexibility in thinking.

This is what makes your philosophy a bit of a mess. You think we should get everyone running water, sewage, access to education and health care. If you want to do that, you must have laws and property. So you're headed right down the slippery slope you say you hate. Anarchy isn't a solution, but government basically is force. It doesn't matter what kind of government it is.

Tainari88 wrote:Bilingualism and polyglotism is an important component to that flexible mind.

Sure. So is assimilation. Think about the English language. We use foreign words in our language all the time. Shampoo and pajamas aren't English. They have their roots in India. You can feel sick and ill in English, because we incorporate words from the Danish, Vikings, French, etc. Sail, maelstrom, cog, cozy, rig, ombudsman, snug, knife, husband and so on are not English words. They're of Scandinavian origin. Preach, dungeon, rampart, dragon, accoutrements, aide-de-camp, lieutenant, camouflage, cavalry, corps, espionage, reconnaissance, squadron, sergeant, sovereignty, finance, coup d'état, bureau, constitution, jurisdiction, court, case, judge, jury, envoy, embassy, chancery, accord, treaty, alliance, harmony, melody, music, note, and an endless list of others are all French words. We speak them with regularity. The English language is an assimilating language. The Anglo culture is an assimilating culture. That's why Chicken Tikka Masala or Butter Chicken is the most popular dish in England. It's why I had a burrito for breakfast this morning.
#15168618
blackjack21 wrote:Ok. Allow me to clarify. People born during the industrial era who went into the physical sciences tended toward atheism, because so much of what constituted improvement was physical in nature. So you are correct that science is not an ideology, but scientists can be ideologues too. Read The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins for example.


Jared Diamond's inspiration for that book was speaking to wealth inequality--standard Marxism. He was arguing against any sort of supremacy of morals, intellect or genetics, and in favor of a purely environmental explanation between Eurasia and Egypt and the rest of the world. It's worth rereading it with respect to Cuba. Maybe Tainari88 might benefit from reading it so she can understand why a place like Puerto Rico will never be an industrial power house, but maybe PR could be an IT-based economy.

What Diamond doesn't consider is that genetics ends up playing a role, and he simply ignores it because it does not help him arrive at a Marxian conclusion. For example, Diamond posits that humans domesticated animals that were docile enough for domestication. Wolves and wildcats were domesticated into dogs and cats very early on. Selective breeding of dogs has been going on for a very long time. Dogs were often used for hunting, not agriculture.

However, genetics also played a role in humans. Most humans are lactose tolerant as babies and toddlers but are lactose intolerant into adulthood--except a significant portion of the European population. You cannot explain a dairy culture without this genetic modification. France has over 400 varieties of cheese. How many does China have? How many does Congo have?

The Chinese don't have a cheese culture, because they lacked milk-bearing bovines or they are too stupid to make cheese. They overwhelming majority of them are lactose intolerant. It gives them an instant stomach ache.


That's not easy to establish either. US money expressly states "In God we trust." One of the earliest banking powers was the Knights Templar. Religion and finance have a complex history and relationship.


Lennox emphatically disagrees with this assertion. If you think everything is random and unguided, would you bother to make plans? Of course not. Would you write a computer program? Obviously not. Science is founded on an assumption that physical phenomena obey rational rules. Otherwise, there would be no point in doing scientific research. That's why Richard Dawkins is kind of a daft prick.


I think the increasing acceptance of intelligent design is because Darwinism only explains specialization within an existing species, not the origin of a species or the origin of life itself. Further, Gregor Mendel demonstrated heritability of traits. Watson and Crick demonstrated the structure of DNA. The understanding of DNA and RNA demonstrates that it is a code--an instruction set. A series of discrete instructions that direct deterministic behavior at the microscopic level. It's a force that permeates all life. Master Yoda of the Jedi can tell you all about it.


The Economist isn't right leaning. It's more like the London School of Economics and Political Science, in that it seeks a rational discussion of market forces.


It is, because I have a bachelor of science in business. Why a bachelor of science and not of arts? It's because the science degree requires a lot more math, isolating independent variables, and identifying statistically defensible causal relationships, etc. That's why they use terms like "market forces" in the same vein as physical forces.


This is why you need to read up on economics so you can see what it doesn't say. Nowhere in an economic text is it going to be telling you about erecting a deep state, conducting espionage, etc. The KGB and the Stasi, for example, were not capitalist. It's as if you associate everything you don't like with capitalism. It's not capitalism that is bad. It's Democrats. Democrats are bad, bad, bad. :D :excited: :lol:


Building wealth sometimes requires force. However, that's not what a modern nation state is about. It's why I recommend reading Law and Revolution by Harold J. Berman so that you understand the legal philosophy behind nation states. They are in effect an asserted monopoly on the use of violent force. That's all nation states. Not just capitalist ones.


Well, it has already done that many times over. When you hear the left leaning types here talk about the US military versus the American people, they speak as if the US military could easily defeat the American people in a revolt, while ignoring that they lost winnable fights in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan against relatively primitive enemies. However, an alternate view of that is that the greed of maintaining physical assets precludes unrestricted warfare. Anthony Schafer provides a blueprint for winning against the Taliban, which is more or less a very sound strategy. However, it will not get implemented because the establishment does not want to risk war with Pakistan, and by extension, China. So they go with a strategy where they lose by their own design.


The decline of empires is well studied, and it's rare that it simply redounds to bad morals of a few back bencher bureaucrats. Economically, the British Empire was simply eclipsed by Germany and America. Other than South Africa, British holdings in Africa were not profitable. It was India that was profitable. So once India was independent, the British more or less scuttled most of the rest of their empire, save a few militarily important places, a few profitable places like Hong Kong, and a number of small islands. The French weren't as economically strong as the British, but they actually fought to maintain empire and lost in places like Vietnam and Algeria. Yet, there is still a part of France on the East Coast of North America--Saint Pierre and Miquelon. And you thought that the Euro wasn't used in North America... :lol: That's true of French Guiana as well, down South. France shares a border with Canada, Brazil and Suriname as well as the European countries you know and several other non-land borders as well.


For all practical purposes, the US stopped its empire building project. That is why Cuba is an independent nation, as well as the Philippines. We even left Clark AFB and Subic Bay naval station. Alaska and Hawaii were incorporated into the US. Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands haven't been. They have been allowed to vote on it. The US Virgin Islands cannot even draft a constitution consistent with the US constitution, so it's ruled as a municipality.


Sometimes empires are collapsed because of greed, just as they are erected for similar reasons.


So does China, but it's meaningless. China is a communist country that abandoned many of the principles of communism for greed. So now it is just another totalitarian state like Nazi Germany.


It takes a lot to get people to demand action. I think frustration with the Covid lockdowns had a lot to do with the Floyd riots, for example. Many people felt the government had a knee on their necks and still do.


Ah, but you are fighting against greedy people and they know how to manipulate you. Who was it that warned about the effects of making high schools feeder schools for college and abandoning vocational training? Charles Murray. That was his argument in the Bell Curve. Some people aren't ready for college fresh out of high school, and some may never have the aptitude for it. All it takes to prevent fixing it is to run around calling the person with the right economic answer a racist and a white supremacist, and the greedy people get to keep their system. It's a pretty neat little racket when you think about it.


Uh... neither am I. However, I am not someone to move to another nation and expect them to learn English so they can talk to me rather than to learn their language. I am not fluent in any other language, but I can speak some German, Russian, and Japanese. That's primarily to accommodate the people I work with around the world. Language is a big part of culture and economy.


Again, you are arguing with a straw man in your own head. I have never said (at least seriously) that we should abandon all languages and make everyone speak English. I don't know if I said something like that in humor just to piss you off, but it's very obviously not something I believe. I do believe you are at a serious disadvantage if you live in a country and cannot speak its dominant language. India has English as an official language because of the British Empire. Likewise, Hindi is the other official language. If you cannot speak either of these in India, you are at a serious economic disadvantage. If you can speak English, you can effectively work for American, British, Canadian, South African, Australian, or New Zealand-based companies. It provides a major economic advantage.


Yes, but you cannot understand the value of why it persists. For example, Latin is a dead language except in religion and academia. Yet, the Roman Alphabet is a fine invention. It's relatively compact and flexible enough to accommodate many languages. The Roman numeral system, by contrast, totally sucks. The Indo-Arabic numeral system is much more efficient. The mother of all ironies is that you are trained in perhaps the one discipline more or less founded by the imperial mindset: anthropology. Here a link to a PDF of Kathleen Gough's Anthropology and Imperialism paper.




This is what makes your philosophy a bit of a mess. You think we should get everyone running water, sewage, access to education and health care. If you want to do that, you must have laws and property. So you're headed right down the slippery slope you say you hate. Anarchy isn't a solution, but government basically is force. It doesn't matter what kind of government it is.


Sure. So is assimilation. Think about the English language. We use foreign words in our language all the time. Shampoo and pajamas aren't English. They have their roots in India. You can feel sick and ill in English, because we incorporate words from the Danish, Vikings, French, etc. Sail, maelstrom, cog, cozy, rig, ombudsman, snug, knife, husband and so on are not English words. They're of Scandinavian origin. Preach, dungeon, rampart, dragon, accoutrements, aide-de-camp, lieutenant, camouflage, cavalry, corps, espionage, reconnaissance, squadron, sergeant, sovereignty, finance, coup d'état, bureau, constitution, jurisdiction, court, case, judge, jury, envoy, embassy, chancery, accord, treaty, alliance, harmony, melody, music, note, and an endless list of others are all French words. We speak them with regularity. The English language is an assimilating language. The Anglo culture is an assimilating culture. That's why Chicken Tikka Masala or Butter Chicken is the most popular dish in England. It's why I had a burrito for breakfast this morning.



I'll give you this much, you know how to waste bandwidth, and other people's time.
#15168622
@blackjack21: educating the world, one obscure internet politics forum at a time.... :)
#15168631
Potemkin wrote:@blackjack21: educating the world, one obscure internet politics forum at a time.... :)


You come into my thread on Cuba Potemkin and only write this one line? I should slap you hard!

You see @blackjack21 you see how clever he is with his propaganda for his point of view? Didn't you study propaganda Bellísimo?

Lol.

No, I find Blackjack21 with a lot of excuses for backing greed and empire. He essentially blames it on the Democrats. Everything is the Democrats. He is not a Republican either.

What the EMPIRES need to understand is to stop with the coercive bullshit and let people work on their issues without some GREED involved. And capitalism and greed go hand-in-hand.

As for you Señor Blackjack21. Puerto Ricans do have a lot of IT people educated in that. The issue is financial greed problems of banksters. The same ones playing both sides of the fence in the USA in politics.

I am unconvinced you care about los Boricuas.

You love people? You don't live off of their desperation. Period.



Blackjack21 he eats a burrito for breakfast it means he is flexible with Mexican culture? I don't think so Señor. A burrito does not a Mexican culture lover make.

Stop the Merchant Marine ripoff of the Puerto Rican economy. But the lobbyists and the politicians over in DC--they are the ones living off of us.

Puerto Ricans need to stop subsidizing that Greed Empire.
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