Tainari88 wrote:I think all societies have to be measured according to the conditions that the people live under Xog.
Exactly, and by that measurement Cuba is a dump.
There are achievements that Cuba has done that are good.
Such as what? How to destroy a country. I pass.
That is a fact. Why is there violence in Mexico?
Tanari, there is violence everywhere. We are savage animals that happen to live in cities and drive cars. Our animal behaviors didn't completely disappear, and the countries that tend to have a decent balance they are mostly the more developed nations of Europe, Australia, japan, the US and Canada. To a lesser degree Mexico, chile, Argentina, south korea and a couple more.
That is a fact. Why is there violence in Mexico?
So what? I got over it, honestly, I don't care. That's the past, and the past is ugly, and it is ugly EVERYWHERE. Those Europeans that conquered the Americas were in turn descended from conquered territory from the Roman empire. Tanari, it is time to move forward and not backward.
I can put in quotes of what the politicians in Washington DC were discussing at the time that the Spanish American war was raging. They wanted sugar. Sugar and power. Expansion.
Again... so what? How is a quasi-imperialist from one and a half-century ago justify that Cubans today have to live and die in misery because of a dynasty of Castro and a handful of plutocratic, corrupt liars? At least in the US, the liars in power live and let live... in cuba, the liars in power live and fuck the rest.
In a historical context Cuba was a jewel in the crown. For their ambitions. It would be a quick war...and they would be able to set the conditions of how to run Cuba from afar. From Washington. You must remember that US foreign policy in Latin America has never been about mutually beneficial relationships But about one way dominant imperial relationships.
I don't see how this is relevant.
For different reasons sure....but we agree it is not working well as is. It caused insularity in Cuba.
Well i think that was the point. It worked at what it was supposed to do, the problem is that it did not change the view of the Cuban's government not created a situation for rebellion. Lifting the embargo is fine with me, in fact I hope it is done so that those assholes in charge cannot keep complaining about that is the reason they are a failure... hopefully open the eye of the cuban people that the goverment is the reason why they are a failure... but I am sure the government will find a way to blame it on the US regardless, so I don't have my hopes up.
Where Cuba has been in a serious disadvantage commercially with other nations in the Americas.
Cuba is at a serious disadvantage commercially because they are bankrupt. Nobody wants to trade with people that have no money and no goods to sell.
Cuba had two choices. Just have a puppet dictator of the US banks and sugar centrales and who controlled electricity, and infrastructure projects in Cuba and let the USA decide who to trade with, and who got power or not in Cuba. Just let them run Cuba and decide all major economic and political decisions in Cuba. If another Batista came along? Good. Just as long as he said yes to the powerful actors there in Washington DC. That was their policy by the way for all of Central America and if you study the history of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama and Nicaragua, it is a history of total manipulation by all of the Central American nations that favor the US business and military elite. There is no controversy about that at all.
You are right, how could I be so dumb... an oppressive dictatorship for 60 years in which the people progressively lost more and more rights and became more and more of a 2nd class citizen is better. Please.
Tell me... under what regime the following laws/regulations belong. The options are Batista or Castro.
Cubans cannot enter hotels, thats reserved for foreign tourists.
Cubans cannot have internet
Cubans cannot kill their own cow and eat it. However ok for the goverment to kill it and serve it to the tourist (e.i. this is not to protect the cow).
Cubans cannot buy or sell their cars or houses
Cubans cannot leave their country
Cubans are slaves of their country and minors are put to work on a potato field and doctors are sent to practice slave medicine in a 3rd world country for the sake of propaganda and money.
Piss off, I'll take my puppet goverment and enjoy it. I rather have a puppet goverment that is corrupt in traditional manners than this repressive neo-slavery nonsense that is going on on cuba. You are so focused on labels "puppet", "colonialism" that you miss the elephant in the room. What matters is not who is in charge, and who is ultimately controlling the strings. What matters is results, and how your people live. If martians come to our planet and start a neo-colonization that improves the lives of humans, their access to food, to energy, to education, peace... i don't fucking care if the world's goverment serve as puppet masters to the martians. Better is better.
Unfortunately, most puppet dictators are people who are without real principles in this life Xog.
And most dictators don't have them either, or when they do they don't care to put them to work.
There would be no Cuban revolution if the Cubans were happy with the status quo back in the 1950s.
You know that is not true. The fact that some people don't rebel does not mean the society as a whole is happy or that the system is good and just. North Korea is a prime example. Likewise, rebellions can happen in otherwise cohesive and peaceful countries via the influence of various forces, including external forces. But even under your premise... what happened then does not justify what happens now. Hittler won democratically and destroyed europe. Lenin and Mao let revolutions... look how it ended up. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The fact that Fidel fought a despot dictator does not make Fidel more friendly or less of a dictator himself.
Why doesn't the USA just invade and kill the entire Cuban government and dismantle it today? I can imagine the reasons why Xog, can you? Figure out why that is not being done?
Because you think the USA gives a fuck about Cuba... It doesnt. Cuba is a speck... politically, militarily, economically, demographically. The US only gives a crap when 1. Nukes are being installed there. 2. Dictator is stealing american companies. 3. Immigrants are entering the US. #2 is not happening again since there is nothing left to steal. #1 is highly unlikely to happen again, but who knows with china and russia.... #3 is the only reason the US would even care for anything about cuba. Politicians care for other reasons, the cuban vote in miami. That is the only thing that can move the needle because cuba is mostly meaningless.
The American government keeps saying it is about human rights and lack of free speech and oppression and that is why the embargo has to stay in place. But? the USA has normal trade relationships with the PRC, and Vietnam and other socialist and communist leaning nations. And they also have normal trade relationships with super human rights violator nations.
Let's be clear. Human rights is only a secondary issue, it has always been. Oil? China? happy to look to the other side. Is it right? No, but this is a world problem, the US is not unique on any of this shit. Cuba does not seem to mind China's abuses either... or russia's. Nobody really does anything. The US uses it mostly as a scapegoat when other factors already made the decision for them.
The USA is not without their own set of corruption, lies and anti democratic problems.
Yes! but at least there is a live and let live. There is corruption, but you can still make your life and not be too bothered by that. That is the difference that people don't get. In Cuba, there is corruption, but you are also suffocated out of any aspirations to change your life. In the US you can just ignore all that crap, you don't even have to vote or engage in politics, if all you want is to have your life, you can. In cuba, most cubans are quasi-slaves of their system, prisoners for life of an endless system of corruption and misery.
What you should be evaluating XogGyux, is to serve in your best capacity as you are now. As a doctor in Florida and as a US citizen and as a Cuban American immigrant young man. Who wants a future for everyone to be better. For the Cubans left behind and the Cubans in the USA. Reconciliation.
I honestly don't care that much for what happens there. Seriously, I don't have any immediate family there anymore and lost contact with my old friends from school since internet in cuba just became a thing recently so I was already out of contact for over a decade by the time people started getting a bit of internet. All of that to say that I don't have a particular, cuban-specific hope for the country. I have the general sense of "i wish them well" as I do for puerto ricans, chileans or Somali people. As a fellow human being, I want them to do well for themselves, but I don't have a nationalistic hope for cuba. My main driver to post in here is to dispel the fantasies that some people keep in their head about cuba.
When politicians start using cuba for fear-mongering, and then other politicians start defending cuba for their "accomplishment" my reaction is that both of them are stupid assholes. 1... the one using it for fear-mongering is committing a serious act of misrepresenting cuba... the sort of "socialism" that goes into advanced capitalistic countries (European, nordic, etc) which is usually about some basic social safety nets vs cuba which is an opressive dictatorship that takes advantage of its people for the benefit of the ruling class. On the other hand, when the leftist try to make an argument and defends cuba's goverment, I vomit a little bit in my mouth... because why would they be defending said oppressive dictatorship? At the end of the day, they are both wrongs... the cuban's system should indeed be feared, and if at any point I felt that the US was going in that direction I'd be the first one to sound the alarms!
(fear not, that is not even remotely within the realm of possibilities). When Michael Moore (and characters like him) travel to cuba to make documentaries about how great cuba is... I want to to slap him on the face... the asshole is worth 30million dollars, how about he takes 25million of his net worth and buy a bunch of people to feed in africa or something, he can still be a millionaire with 5 million... instead he is praising the lie of the opressive tyranic goverment and spreading its nonsense. People like this need to shut the fuck up, Cuba is not a place to imitate but a cautionary tale of what not to do.
I do not have illusions like you do about the USA being superior and a better system than all the other ex Empires in history.
But it is.
I saw too many pieces of old Empires who all thought they were the exception to the rule and ruling nations from afar was something that would never end.
We are all pieces of old empires. The US was a colony of great Britain...
Neither you nor I lived or live in an imperial age... that ended up almost a century ago. And the ambers that you see sprout from time to time... they are not America's.... Russia is trying to annex crimea today... when was the last time the US annexed anything? You think the US cannot grab a carrier battle group and take over all Caribbean island if they wished? They could the same way you can flick an ant off your hand. If you had read the book that you recommended me, you'd realize why the US is not interested in that... we can trade, we can get all we want with trade. Empires and colonies existed because empires couldn't get all they wanted... so they needed to grab other people's shit by force so they could get what they wanted. They wanted cotton and sugar? sure lets get a bunch of land in america and put some Africans to get it for us. But that is not needed anymore, it is actually anti-economic to go to war for goods or resources. Russia is finding that the hard way.
America is certainly better than any empire that came before it. By any measure available. The US respects the life of its citizen (and frankly also everybody else) that either the british, spanish, french, russian, othoman, roman, egyptian, aztec, incan, mayan, persian, chinese, japanese empires before. If you disagree, it is simple, just tell me which one was better and we can discuss it.