QatzelOk wrote:
All of these were driven by "enlightened" self-interest. And the inequality and colonialism that mark the END of the Western century are also excellent examples of monsters, and Cuba has been on the receiving end of a lot of very rich and very enlightened monsters.
We were visiting from very different places.
Q, I really liked this bolded part.
Cuba, angered the Masters of the Caribbean. They still view our little islands like slave colonies from the past. Where the slaves do not have voting rights, where they have to obey the ones calling the shots.
They have to be sanctioned. They have to be punished commercially.
The Mexicans go to Cuba all the time Q. All the time.
Mexico is capitalist. They are not paranoid about Cubans being an example to the rest of Latin America of defiance of the Masters of the Caribbean.
The government of Cuba is limping along. It is very hard to create a working economy with such a powerful actor in the UN working against Cuban interests. Basically the US and Israel are the only two nations who think the embargo against Cuba is justified in 2023. It has not worked to get rid of the government and replace it with some American liberal or conservative version of what the right government should look like in Cuba.
People do not like poverty. They have ideas that the Western states that are developed tell them all the time...this is the lifestyle you should have. This is the life you should be living. It is incredibly interesting how people are always somehow told that unless they have a certain lifestyle and consume a lot of material things their lives are worthless.
Why can't the US government let other governments and other cultures and people decide on their own what they think having a worthwhile life for their citizens is about?
Just stop trying to fucking control other societies.
Puerto Rico has way too many malls, parking lots, car dealerships, department stores, banks, pawn shops, and ugly abandoned buildings accumulating trash, roaches, and mice. All in the name of development.
You got these real estate developers from the USA who swoop in buy the deteriorated property and promise to remodel it and bring the abandoned downtown areas of these rural cities and towns in Puerto Rico back from their abandoned states...and they lie. They flip the properties for a quick profit and take advantage of poverty conditions.
https://youtube.com/shorts/u1mQfGHRYR8? ... 02vrumyyOtWhat example are they setting? The Cuban and Puerto Rican governments have a lot of cultural exchanges. They talk to each other all the time. Doesn't the US government realize that the Cubans are noticing how the US government treats the American colony of theirs in the Caribbean? They think? Do we want to lose our independence for the USA to make us a land of no power allowed over our own society, and then have American rich people flipping properties and over-developing everything in order for short-term capitalism to be the only model out there?
The Caribbean has seen the worst exploitation in human history.
Cuba is the biggest island of all of us. And thinking about going back to a time of being controlled by another big power...whether it is Spain or the USA? Is just not going to happen. When will the US government realize this and stop trying to mold Cuban society to suit their selfish purposes? I have no idea.