Cuba withdraws thousands of doctors from Brazil - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14989865
QatzelOk wrote:The vast majority of people in any country DON'T live in large colonial mansions. Maintenance of these kinds of structures is extremely expensive.

So what's your point? It is ok for the government to cramp 10-12 families in one of those old houses which are in terrible conditions?
Please.... let's see if you are willing to cramp 2-3 families in your house and share a single bathroom across multiple families, and not have hot running water and having to have every single room of your house with a metal door as if it was a prison.
Your defense of the indefensible is pathetic.
The only thing that's more costly to maintain than large colonial mansions is the large colonial vassals who used to live in them.

You want to know whats most costly than maintaining a large colonial mansion? Human dignity, safety and well being. Treating people like cattle is inhuman... treating cattle like cattle is inhuman :lol: .... there is no justification for this, your poor attempt at giving an excuse is past pathetic, it is pathological. There are a zillion things you can do with those mansions, you could have destroyed them and build tall buildings for people to live in a reasonable (not necessarily luxurious) condition you could have converted them into museum or touristic attracting (some people like visiting old architectural buildings) and use the proceeds to make houses in other areas for the people. Again... you are trying to paint this as if the people willingly chose to live as dogs to be more "environmentally friendly" or as if the government shaped the situation in this way on purpose to be "environmentally friendly" but the truth cannot be farther. These are desperate people, living in desperate conditions because they haven't got a choice, and the second they do have a choice (like the woman in the video I linked) they leave! I'm happy for her.

No society can afford to maintain insatiable rich people who work with foreign countries against their own people. And no one has attacked the Cuban people in this thread more than you - a former large colonial. :lol:

LOL, you are nonsensical. First, I never attacked the Cuban people, I attacked the repressive Cuban GOVERNMENT. People are the victim. I was part of those people, I was a victim myself. My family had to cater to tourists like yourself and rent our own bedrooms to make some shitty $$ to survive. My mother had to drive tourists to the airport in our Lada to get $5 so she could spend it in a couple of pounds of beef to feed my US, risking her own neck to have her car confiscated and herself put in jail because killing cows, dealing beef or eating beef in Cuba for Cubans was (and possibly still is) illegal.
#14990411
XogGyux wrote:...treating cattle like cattle is inhuman...

This is what the rich in any society say when they're forced to do the normal things that everyone else has already done.

The rich will happily treat their servants like (neglected, abused) cattle, but when forced to live like everyone else in an idealized egalitarian existence that improves the mean average opportunity for a good life for all, they feel like they're "being treated like cattle" instead of being worshiped like the ersatz gods they thought they deserved to be treated like. Class systems create pretentious, callous monsters at the top.

Class systems aren't real. They're fake. Upper classes are an unsustainable human atrocity like scalping and slavery.
#14990449
Sivad wrote:yep, that's what any conversation with an ideological fanatic seems like. You think to yourself these fucking people gotta be fucking with me, but nope, they're for real. :knife: :lol:

You both are sides of the same coin. Extremists of your twisted unrealistic ideology so don't throw stones when your house is glass...
#14990460
I really like these 2 posts, I happen to agree with both of them and consider both of them to be true at the same time. I am also currently in Cuba and will be posting my impressions some time next week. I completely understand your point of view as a Cuban and can totally see the truth of what you write about Cuba. Cuba is not a succesful experiment and one being here can clearly witness the poverty, smell, dirt, lack of basic goods, lack of basic foods, and general issues that plague this country, however it is obvious that people are happy, they are well-mannered, despite all that and they are safe. I would expect that countries with such poverty would be far more dangerous, but Cuban people have culture and they have morals and they keep on living with their heads up high, I can very clearly see that Cuba with a few political and economic tweaks can be a great country, so QatzelOk has a point in idealising this social & cultural success compared to people in the west who have more than Cuban people but western cities can be and in many cases are far more dangerous than Havana despite the wealth and in this sense Cuba is indeed a success because western casino-capitalism is not a successful experiment either. We could be arguing about which one is better and yes I would rather live in the west, though west for me is Cambridge and Greece and not Detroit, or some trailer park, for a guy in a trailer park I am not sure if he is better off there or somewhere in Cuba, I would be guessing that Cuba is much much better for such a person.

XogGyux wrote:Did you really need evidence that humanity could exist outside of civilization? Do you really think that such question requires experimentation with people's lifes to see if its possible and you think this is justified that happened in cuba because now you know?
Why do you ignore that humanity did not evolve in this planet as a civilization... so yes, we could live in caves and eat grass and hunt animals.... We didn't need to bring this dictatorship to cuba, see it be destroyed to make the statement "see? cubans can survive with a tiny fraction of the resources that we use..." this is silly and cruel.
If you care about humanity that much, I suggest you re-focus your strengths into finding ways to make our resources more plentiful rather than trying to reduce our ambitions. Go ask for your politicians and put some pressure on research on nuclear fusion energy production, in genetic modification and on artificial mass produced lab-grown food. Attacking the demand for these things resources rather than finding ways to provide a supply of those resources is impractical.
You are suggesting that Thanos snap half of life out of the universe (reduce demand) when he could have snapped into existence twice the resources just as easily (increase supply).



QatzelOk wrote:Civilization is what "allowed" humans to consume far more than the earth can actually produce. And this over-consumption is going to hurt billions, and maybe drive humankind to extinction.

And you are still pining for MOAR consumption?

I think this demonstrates how out of touch your worldview is with ontological reality. The entire planet needs to consume LESS if humans are to continue to exist. And so much of what we consume (SUVs, tonnes of meat) are easily eliminated without any pain, and lots of gain.

You just need to ba adaptable... if you don't want to go extinct. Cuban society has demonstrated stellar adaptability to extreme changes. Brazil lived under military-dictatorship-capitalism for most of its independence and doesn't have any doctors for its rural regions., and its cities are no-go zones of homeless kids sniffing glue under bridges.

The rich west is extremely brittle and wouldn't last a day without its huge piles of stolen money.
#14990466
noemon wrote:I really like these 2 posts, I happen to agree with both of them and consider both of them to be true at the same time. I am also currently in Cuba and will be posting my impressions some time next week. I completely understand your point of view as a Cuban and can totally see the truth of what you write about Cuba. Cuba is not a succesful experiment and one being here can clearly witness the poverty, smell, dirt, lack of basic goods, lack of basic foods, and general issues that plague this country, however it is obvious that people are happy, they are well-mannered, despite all that and they are safe. I would expect that countries with such poverty would be far more dangerous, but Cuban people have culture and they have morals and they keep on living with their heads up high, I can very clearly see that Cuba with a few political and economic tweaks can be a great country, so QatzelOk has a point in idealising this social & cultural success compared to people in the west who have more than Cuban people but western cities can be and in many cases are far more dangerous than Havana despite the wealth and in this sense Cuba is indeed a success because western casino-capitalism is not a successful experiment either. We could be arguing about which one is better and yes I would rather live in the west, though west for me is Cambridge and Greece and not Detroit, or some trailer park, for a guy in a trailer park I am not sure if he is better off there or somewhere in Cuba, I would be guessing that Cuba is much much better for such a person.

That's a testament to people's resilience. Reminds me of "Life is beautiful" movie. Nobody in their sane mind would defend a concentration camp, though I am sure many people found ways to cope, and perhaps maximize whatever happiness they could while inside such camp. That, would never justify the camp itself, it is simply a show of strength and resilience by people.

I myself painted a grim picture of my own experience but I cannot say I didn't have a happy childhood or even have some fun memories of there (including boarding school which was awful). The real issue is... would I be happier if I was in any other western democracy sooner? and the answer is a resounding yes.

As for Idolizing, I disagree. I think that's how we get in trouble. That is how girls get in abusive relationships with their boyfriends (idolizing them) or how countries end up with dictators. I prefer objectivity. And yes, maybe we could tweak the Cuban system and make a better system... but we could do the same with our system, which is already far better. Why do we have to go backwards to tweak something when we can start from a better position, to begin with?

As for safety? Well this is a mixed bag. I personally felt relatively safe living there but perhaps that was in part because unlike other countries Cuba does not have a culture of journalism like western democracies do. You would not find news of crimes in TVs or newspaper. Everything you found out, you do it by word of mouth which is far less reliable and inefficient. I can tell you that "petty" crime is rampant in cuba and that's why you see chains and padlocks on anything that can be stolen and all windows/doors sealed with metal bars. On the otherhand, homicides are probably (and again, I say probably because there was no system in cuba exposing these) less common.
#14990474
noemon wrote:I am also currently in Cuba and will be posting my impressions some time next week.

That's so cool, noemon!

Did you bring your own bike with you? And if not, are you in Havana, and is it possible to rent a pretty decent bike there? (for my next trip)
#14990524
QatzelOk wrote:That's so cool, noemon!

Did you bring your own bike with you? And if not, are you in Havana, and is it possible to rent a pretty decent bike there? (for my next trip)


Cheers QatzelOk, we were in Havana for a few days, had a wonderful time there, met the very interesting Yoruba family(the father is a Babalawo) of a good friend of mine from the UK and brought some gifts over from their daughter to them. Havana is quite incredible. I did not rent a bike, or a car or anything really, just took a 1-hour old car ride around Havana mostly for the pictures, we got around walking everywhere. I noticed there were a lot of bike rides to hire but you get driven around in a little bike carriage. I think it is possible to rent a bike, but please do check online before hand because I have realised that online prices and availability are much better than doing it in person, in everything from hotels, to rentals to experiences to tours, everything is at least 25% cheaper if you pre-book, either online or by phone rather than doing it on the same day.
#14990609
noemon wrote:Cheers QatzelOk, we were in Havana for a few days, had a wonderful time there, met the very interesting Yoruba family(the father is a Babalawo) of a good friend of mine from the UK and brought some gifts over from their daughter to them. Havana is quite incredible. I did not rent a bike, or a car or anything really, just took a 1-hour old car ride around Havana mostly for the pictures, we got around walking everywhere. I noticed there were a lot of bike rides to hire but you get driven around in a little bike carriage. I think it is possible to rent a bike, but please do check online before hand because I have realised that online prices and availability are much better than doing it in person, in everything from hotels, to rentals to experiences to tours, everything is at least 25% cheaper if you pre-book, either online or by phone rather than doing it on the same day.

Not to upset anyone or anything.... but when you are ready to post more of your impressions of Cuba on this site, could you deposit them in the "Cuba has Proven...." thread (in Political Circus) rather than this thread which is a bout a specific event (Withdrawing doctors) which has already transpired.

It would be better form to include your impression in that other thread, where it will be in the company of mine, skinster's, jimjam's, etc.
#14990618
I thought about it as well(to post in that thread or here) and the only reason I posted in here is because of those 2 posts I quoted in my first post here. I will move these posts in there later.

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