Viva Chavez! Viva Castro!

[happydreams]

Cheers to both of them.

They are simply doing what they have to do to keep their countries from turning into multinational vassal states, or worse, toxic dumps for multinational corporations.


The Western Imperialists are now going to put the squeeze on Chavez from multiple levels: internally trying to undermine his government through sedition, internationally with the banks and oil prices, IMF shit. Go ahead Hugo shut down the fascist media being financed by a fascist foreign government. I certainly won't quibble about the way you do it. George Washington and friends gave the tyrants of their day the boot, even seized their property; a violation of a most sacred thing. :sarcasm:. Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus for the sake of national security and history has vindicated him. Bush has done it for his own power and history will not be kind to him.

Chavez should do what Castro did and kick the fascist slime out of the country. He got a good start with the firing of 3000 oil company people a few years ago.



When Chavez called Bush "El Diablo" a number of opinion polls of the US public gave him very high marks compared to others at the UN. The US public now that it has had a few years to absorb some of the truth about what is going on got this one right.



Few know that Castro booted drug dealing, prostitute pimping Cuban Mafia friends of Poppy Bush out when he took power. Hell, Batista's right-hand man, Felix Rodriguez, was a close friend of Poppy. That is the sole basis of anti-Castro sentiment among these reptiles. There is little doubt in my mind that the Cuban Mafia and the CIA operated together in the Kennedy assassination. When Kennedy indicated an interest in cooling relations between Cuba and the US he died shortly after. Kennedy's attempts here were similar to what Nixon did with China a decade later. You never know, if Kennedy had lived he may have made the Cold War look allot different.



Castro was hated because he broke up the international illegal drug trade that had key transshipment points in Cuba.



I am convinced after all I've read that the US international terror network forces smaller less powerful countries to take extreme measures to preserve their sovereignty. Chavez was elected by a healthy majority and the US still tries to destabilize the country--a country more democratic than the US. The US wants to destabilize Venezuela because Chavez is trying to help his people like Castro was. The terror campaign by the US fascists starting with the Bay of Pigs forced Castro's hand and he had to place his country under quasi-martial law.

When you look as these situations you MUST consider the socio-political environment that these two leaders are operating in. Judge them by the results of their actions, not by legalistic mumbo-jumbo that the fascists throw up an demand others abide by to the letter, but which they hold in utter contempt.



How many palaces has Castro built for himself? Compare that to the Right-Wing puppet regimes the US backs like Somoza of Nicaragua who hauled ass with nearly the entire treasury, ditto for Indonesia's Suharto, Pinochet of Chile was a vile scoundrel.

If you really give a damn you will educate yourself to the issues and you can begin by looking at a book written by Alfred McCoy called the "Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade". In it he details the story about Castro's Cuba and how it screwed up the international drug trade run by organized crime thus forcing the crooks to switch over to Asia. Suddenly their were Corsicans in Vietnam. Viola! the Vietnam War.

Western monopoly capitalism is like a blood sucking leach only it sucks the very soul out of people, then poisons them in mind and body with chemical toxins and consumerist swill, people piss their money away on with little or no satisfaction. This beast demands total control.

That is what it demands. It demands that you accept such things as the lies Bush told to get into Iraq and then demands that you find a nice neat solution to the slaughter he has wrought and present it to him with a smile. It's like somebody stealing your car going on a murder spree using it for the weapon then you get stuck trying to right the matter to the car thief's/murderers satisfaction.



Bush doesn't want a solution, he just wants you to try one so that he can say: "See, :shrug: I told you so....you/they don't have a solution either."



It is even worse.

Multi-nationals demand that they be allowed to dump their toxic waste in your country and if you try to curtail this process with legal action they will sue your government for damage to their proprietary interests. Right to work? That would be nice, but I'll settle for the right to live for now thank you.
This is one dirty little secret of NAFTA none of the Neo-liberals want to talk about.



Diablo indeed! Chavez, like Castro knows the true cost of dealing with the likes of Bush.

That is why Castro never gave up. He knew that to do so would mean death to him and his people. What good are rights if you don't have the right to live??



"If there is a conflict between property interests and human interests, human interests prevail"--Abraham Lincoln





It is mind boggling. The fascists move the goal posts so fast and often that nobody knows what game it is, what the rules are, how ALL OF THIS SHIT STARTED!!

Today I watch Ted Kennedy, one helluva smart, compassionate human being, fielding questions from Tim Russert. Russert asked tough questions today and made McCain look like the anemic ass he is. Ted, according to JFK, was the best debater of the trio of brothers. He handled the questions well, but I was thinking why doesn't he slow things down a bit, take control and said something like: "Tim, there are no good solutions in Iraq. There are seldom good solutions to criminal acts on this scale."

Of course Kennedy would then have to state, unequivocally, that he thinks Bush is a criminal.
When the original premise for an action is a lie who can expect a nice squeaky clean solution?

THE SOLUTION IS TO STOP THE WAR!!



That is because war is what keeps the beast going. The ends are the means for the beast: perpetual war for perpetual profits.

[Lord Byron]

1. I don't think that's a very wise post

What does this serve? Neither are friendly to the US. Neither are liberals. Both are Marxist socialists.

[happydreams]

4. Sorry My "Lord"...hee, hee

:eyes:

You didn't read it. Your post came within a minute of mine.

[cool user name]

15. Castro is NOT a Marxist socialist ...

He is a dictator that has employed some socialist ideals but I do not, as a socialist, support Castro.

Chavez on the other hand was democratically elected. His recent usurpation of power, however, makes me very, very uncomfortable and I hope he doesn't go down the Leninist track.

[generaldemocrat]

18. You're a very pragmatic socialist. n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. Isn't Hugo a Roman Catholic?

[roody]

68. Yes.

[Joe Chi Minh]

166. But then, that arch Commie-lover, Pope John Paul II had a lot of time for Fidel and his regime;

where, incidentally, people are now, I believe, free to attend Christian worship; though I dare say, not the blasphemous misrepresentation of it represented by the televangelist "fundies".

[Lord Byron]

33. Castro is a Marxist

Just because he's not YOUR type of Marxist doesn't mean he's not a Marxist. Marxism has many different schools of thought. Respect that.

[cool user name]

49. There's nothing in Marxism that advocates for a one man dictator ...

... nothing.

You may call him a Marxist. He may call himself a Marxist, but doesn't make it so.

:shrug:

[Fovea]

100. Is he more or less a Marxist than Mao?

Just wondering where you would rank him.

[Critters2]

260. Mao wasn't a Marxist. Mao was a Maoist. Different critter completely. nt

[Swamp Rat]

101. Define "Marxist" and make sure you delineate all the subcategories implied by your post.

We will be waiting to see if you actually know and understand what "Marxism" means, and how *exactly* Castro is a Marxist.

[Fovea]

105. Respectfully, No

I find your comment about schools of thought to be so vague as to not be factually correct.

Maoists, for example, may be Communist, but they are certainly not Marxists, as they virtually did not address the radicalization of the industrial workers. China had almost none of the factors that made Marxism appealing to late Victorian Imperial Russia.

Cuba's situation was more like China's than Russia's because it was a 'developing nation' which is to say that it was not being developed as much as exploited for agricultural products. To the extent that it had industry, it supported agriculture. Service industries it did have. Indeed, the final wave of 'development' was by the American Mob, to turn Havana into Las Vegas with a beach.

Cuba's model has been a Communism that has tried education and socialization in ways that have been more successful than many other Communist movements, save those that exist within a multi party parliamentary framework.

It would be dangerous folly not to acknowledge that they have done so under a unique degree of American opposition for a nation without its own nuclear program or oil reserves. But it would also be a dangerous folly to say that the Cuban regime is not repressive when its hot button issues are involved.

Cuba, long after the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Missile Crisis were over, even after the Soviet Union had drastically curtailled aid and involvement with Cuba, was being punished by US policy. Push something long enough, hard enough and it will move, but not always in a way you expect.

[happydreams]

40. The labels don't matter. What they do for their people matters. ...

and, under the circumstances I describe, they are doing one helluva job.

When you think about it our Chimp has only been held back from becoming a dictator, if you want to argue he isn't already, by some stubborn people in the US who don't want democracy to die.

[eridani]

106. They certainly ARE friendly to the US

That is if by "US" you mean the majority of us poor saps who actually live here. If the "US" consists entirely of our elite neocon sociopathic rulinng class, well, of course they're unfriendly. Quite a few of the total population of American citizens are equally unfriendly.

[rman]

155. "friendly to the US" as in "hand over the resources and the cheap labor

to US corporations".

Which is why they are not "friendly" to the US.

At least both liberals and socialists are to the left of the RW and the neocons. That's a definite plus.

Not to mention that Chavez' socialism is more akin to European style mixed-market socialism than it is to classic "Marxism".

[generaldemocrat]

2. Viva Castro? There's an awful lot of poverty in Cuba.

[happydreams]

5. You did not read the post. ....

L :eyes: :eyes: k at how fast you replied.

[LittleClarkie]

11. Why were there so many boat people?

Trying to get out of Cuba?

And can you deny how rundown and poor many parts of Cuba are?

And when was the last time they had an election? Is there any doubt that Castro will choose his successor?

A dictatorship from the left is no more spiffy than one from the right.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LittleClarkie]

65. Ya know I don't like it much even when Kerry folks react that way to detractors of the man

It's not much better when Chavez folks say it.

[zeemike]

46. You might want to rethink that

Under Castro the Cubans have one of the lowest child mortality rates of any country. Why? because they have health care for everyone unlike under Batista where there was practically none for the poor and most cubans were poor.
Less than 10% of the land was owned by Cubans, the rest was owned by American Sugar Companies that cut down 90$ of the standing forest by 1950
Havana itself was owned by Myer Lanski and the mob where they ran it like a whore house for rich americans.
The reason they are still poor and driving 1950s cars is because of the embargo we put on them
And I could go on and on about the facts, but the only fact some people want to recognize is that Castro is a communist, and that is not necessarily that bad a thing, so was Jesus and his disciples.

[happydreams]

51. Thanks for that information. Cuba also known for excellence in

the medical field. The US pharmaceutical Co's are deathly afraid of Cuban medical facts and practices getting out and possibly becoming competitors IMO.

zzzz...Out competed by a bunch of Commies....what's wid dat?? :sarcasm:

Fear of a good example.

[Mika]

53. A little more info.

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

No one can say with any credibility that universal education and universal health care needs to be forced on any population. Castro didn't give it to them either. Together, nearly all Cubans worked hard to create the infrastructure and systems that they felt were essential for any progressive system.

The Cuban people wanted universal health care for all Cubans, and they have it. They pushed for government that represented their ideals, and organized and formed infrastructure that enabled Cubans to create a fair and complete h-c system.

The people of Cuba wanted universal education for all Cubans, and they have it. They pushed for government that represented their ideals, organized and formed infrastructure that enabled Cubans to create a complete and world class ed system, and they have it.

Cubans want to assist the world's poor with doctors and educators, instead of gun ship diplomacy.. and that is what they have done WITH their government, not at odds with their government.

Can Americans make this claim about their own country? I'm afraid not.

[roody]

78. I was in Habana Province last summer at a party

hosted by a neighborhood civil defense committee. A woman said to me, in Spanish of course, "I was a girl before the revolution and I was not poor, but I saw around me and it was very bad. We are not rich now but we do not have the suffering that I saw."

[Judi Lynn]

220. Some of us have heard and read about the unbelievable poverty of the vast majority.

It's no surprise that the "exiles" who fled in fear of retribution from the revolution would deny it in the states, while it's well known by everyone who was there.

Unchecked racism, as well. Many people under the old system simply didn't have a chance.

[katsy]

87. Just one thing I'd like to add:

Hurricane Wilma.

790,000 Cubans were evacuated to safety.

Hurricane Michelle.

576,000 Cubans were evacuated to safety along with over 625,000 animals.

Hurricane Dennis.

600,000 Cubans were evacuated to safety, 10 dead.



New Orleans drown.

[Mika]

89. OXFAM: DISASTER PLANNING ESSENTIAL FOR MINIMIZING RISKS (Cuba sets example)

DISASTER PLANNING ESSENTIAL FOR MINIMIZING RISKS
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/emergencies/asian_floods_2004/background/cubalessons

It might seem that a thorough, well-funded disaster plan is a luxury an impoverished country cannot afford, but there are cases of individual communities and even entire countries that have overcome lack of money and created effective ways to reduce risks and save lives. For a small investment in planning, millions of lives can be saved.

Oxfam America recently studied the experience of Cuba in its development of disaster prevention and mitigation programs. Situated in the Caribbean Sea, Cuba frequently stands in the way of serious hurricanes. While its neighbors are battered, losing lives and property, Cuba is unusually good at withstanding these calamities, and suffers much fewer dead.

Oxfam’s report, entitled Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction in Cuba cites a number of attributes of Cuba’s risk reduction program that can be applied by other countries. Three in particular are transferable to Asia and other regions:

* Disaster Preparedness: Cuba was especially good at mobilizing entire communities to develop their own disaster preparations. This involves mapping out vulnerable areas of the community, creating emergency plans, and actually simulating emergencies so people can practice evacuations and other measures designed to save lives. When disaster strikes, people know what to do.

* Commitment of Resources: Cuba’s strong central government prioritizes resources for its civil defense department. This helps the country to build up a common understanding of the importance of saving lives, and the citizens trust that their contributions to the government are well used for this purpose. Their collaboration on developing emergency plans helped build confidence in the government, so people trust in the plan they helped develop.

* Communications: The communications system for emergencies in Cuba builds on local resources. Using local radio stations and other media to issue warnings on potential hazards also reinforces the disaster preparations. Since the local population is already involved in mapping risks and creating emergency plans, they are more inclined to act on emergency bulletins. Good communications, packaged simply, and built on existing, commonly used resources, is another way to build trust in disaster preparations.

Cuba is a unique example. There is a strong central government committed to protecting all its citizens, even the poorest and most isolated who are typically the most at risk. The most common natural disaster in Cuba is a hurricane, a threat visible for days and even weeks in advance. Yet building a culture of disaster preparedness, and involving local communities in mitigating risks, are strategies that can be applied in many other places, regardless of how rich or poor a country might be.

[katsy]

93. Interesting Mike. Thanks. nt

[LittleClarkie]

66. And what, the boat people were all fleeing Republicans?

What about all the boat people? That was my original comment.

[ProudDad]

112. Because they were free to see U.S. TV

they really believed in the bullshit and wanted to get rich...

[LittleClarkie]

117. Nice broadbrush of a group of people

Do you have reasons for saying that, or are you ASSuming?

[Divernan]

152. When you include your candidate's name in your user name . . . .

you do not do your candidate any good by posting glib, insulting comments. ("ASSuming") Posters have replied to you with facts, which you consistently ignore. I haven't made up my mind about a favorite candidate for the next presidential race. Wes Clark is someone I would still consider, but not because of any information you have provided. What is General Clark's position on Castro, Chavez, the Cuban embargo? If this topic were raised in a candidates' debate, I am sure the General's position would NOT be, "Well, what about the boat people? Are they all running away from Republicans?"

To put it another way, the minute I put a candidate's sticker on my car bumper, I know that if I drive in an aggressive manner, abruptly change lanes without a turn signal, cut someone off from a parking space, etc., that the other drivers would associate my candidate with my rude behavior. I don't drive like that anyway, but I've seen a lot of people with Bush stickers who do - and it simply reinforces my low opinion of his supporters. As for my driving habits, I don't honk at the person who's daydreaming when the light changes to green, or is poking along well below the speed limit, etc. - which I might normally do, because of my candidate's bumper sticker on my car.

[Mika]

236. Of the '04 prez candidates, only one was calling for an end to sanctions on Cuba..

.. and that was Dennis Kucinich.

All of the other '04 candidates maintained some kind of US embargo and US travel sanctions in their platforms.





__________________________________________________________________________________

[zeemike]

122. They wanted new cars like their cousins in Florida have

It was for economic reason that they left there families for the most part. And the promise of material abundance in the States.
But if you think that the majority of Cubans are worse off now than under Batista you are wearing blinders.
Most of the people that fled Cuba after Castro took over were the supporters of Batista and they took the money they stol from the government with them.

[eridani]

107. Because they could, unlike far poorer and more desperate Haitians

They get automatic citizenship and piles of freebies. A major incentive, and very different from being clapped into prison immediately if caught, like every other immigrant from south of the US>

[ProudDad]

111. Why are there so many poor people in the U.S. of A.?

Why were so many "democrats" trying to get to Canada?

Can you deny how rundown and poor many parts of the U.S.A. are -- have you checked out New Orleans lately?

When was the last time the U.S. had a clean election? Is there any doubt about who bush I chose as his successor?

A "dictatorship" from the left is more likely to take care of the people than one from the right. I'd prefer working with a "dictatorship" from the left...

[Judi Lynn]

121. People trying to get out of Cuba, with some strong incentives from Uncle Sam, in the form

of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which assures any Cuban who arrives on American soil free legal status, work visa, social security, food stamps, Section 8 U.S. taxpayer-financed housing allowance, medical treatment, financial assistance for education, etc., etc., etc.

All others from other countries are hunted down whenever possible by U.S. agents and deported.

How are the economic immigrants coming from Cuba different from the immigrants coming from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, some coming by boats from Haiti on trips over 700 miles, as opposed to the 90 miles from Cuba, and those coming up from Mexico dying by the hundreds EVERY YEAR in their attempt to make it across the border.

If the people of other countries were GUARANTEED THESE BENEFITS which await Cubans, as political assets, we'd be jammed in here like sardines.

Please take time to inform yourself. It can only help.

[Vidar]

130. Basically, everything we deny the Mexicans, from whom we

stole half a nation.

[treestar]

238. Thank you for shedding some facts on that

Some people condemn the Mexicans or Haitians for entering illegally, but the fact is they are doing nothing different than the Cubans, the law just does not favor them the way it does the Cubans.

Even the Haitians were getting political asylum for awhile, and have the HRIFA, too.

Yet you don't hear any whining about Cubans taking jobs from Americans - it's just that they can do it "legally" and that makes it OK.

[rman]

187. there are far fewer boat people than there are non-boat people

[mike_c]

8. that's largely the result of U.S. actions against the Cuban economy...

...which Cuba has withstood for 60 yrs. Fidel didn't make Cuba poor-- the U.S. government has made Cuba as poor as it possibly can.

[Squatch]

10. The fact that Cuba is a communist dictatorship has *nothing* to do with it.

:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rman]

157. Cuba is not a communist dictatorship

Where heck do people get the idea that it is a communist dictatorship, if not for listening to the corporate US mainstream media?

[eomer]

174. Cuba IS a dictatorship.

And where the heck I get that idea is from Cubans who have lived there until recently, not from the media.

Also, the fact that Fidel has been "President" for more than 4 decades should be a bit of a clue.

[otherlander]

178. Imperialist.

Why do you hate the revolution?
:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[rman]

185. It's amazing how many Castro haters know recently migrated Cubasns

You'd think Cuba would be practically empty by now.

How come you Cuban friends don't know Castro's title of "president" is mostly ceremonial, without much real power?

[BestCenter]

244. ...

'How come you Cuban friends don't know Castro's title of "president" is mostly ceremonial, without much real power?'

what.

[Andromeda]

192. Yes it IS.

The fact that Castro is a communist and a dictator apparently hasn't sunk into your psyche yet.

Corporate MSM has had nothing to do with it. They didn't create Castro---Castro did. He's all ready appointed his successor---his brother.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Utter low-lifes, who don't even know it!

[Selatius]

12. That might be more the fault of the US embargo on Cuba than Castro himself.

But, I'm just saying.

[generaldemocrat]

16. U.S. embargo doesn't matter......

because that only applies to US-Cuba commercial relations. Cuba has been free this entire time to do business with the EU, China/Asia, Latin America, the entire world, etc. It's the same as the embargo we have on Iran, it only applies to American business. Other than that, the rest of the world is doing business with Iran.

Cuba was a client state of the Soviet Union and it's economic well-being has largely been conditioned on that relationship. Beyond that they have failed to adopt to new international realities the way China and Vietnam have.

[happydreams]

19. Origin of the specious.

Embargoes don't matter. :eyes:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

23. What you said.

"Embargoes don't matter".

:shrug: MKJ

[happydreams]

26. It's what generaldo said. I shoulda put it in quotes.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

28. I was actually tagging onto "origin of the specious" which perfectly described

generaldo's post.

I was struck by those words as well, you just had a better response than anything I could dream up. :-) MKJ

[generaldemocrat]

31. Embargos only matter if they are universal....

The embargos we have against Cuba aren't, they are bilateral. The point is that Castro could have gone to the Chinese, Europeans, etc and asked for development-based assistance and funds, but he chose not to and that is why his country is falling apart.

[happydreams]

35. Like Castro went to the Russians? My friend there are far bigger

games going on if Castro had sought relations with China than the exchange of goods. It would then place China in the US's "backyard".

China, as a matter of fact was vehemently opposed to the Soviet Union being in Cuba and went ballistic when the Cuban Missile Crisis galvanized the West's fear of the Soviets so carefully cultivated by Cold Warriors.

But the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have happened if the US had been sensible and continued to back Cuba's Independence movement. The US's corporadoes did not want an independent Cuba for the reasons I mention in my OP

[generaldemocrat]

37. You need to update your info....

My friend there are far bigger games going on if Castro had sought relations with China than the exchange of goods. It would then place China in the US's "backyard".

That's already happening, the Chinese are a major economic power in Latin America.

[happydreams]

42. Not presently . I'm talking about in the past during the Cold War

Isn't that obvious?

But even today China would be violating the spirit of the US embargo.

[otherlander]

179. But America wouldn't do anything

because China owns us.

[ProudDad]

114. The embargo against Cuba is different

The U.S. has applied a secondary boycott in Helms-Burton!!!

http://web.syr.edu/~vpaf103/docs_HBA-ILSA.html

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=939790


and even the blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn...

http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-11-96.html

"The Clinton administration's decision to suspend U.S. lawsuits against foreign companies involved with expropriated Cuban property did not solve the key problems in the Helms-Burton legislation. The enforcement of that law and similar laws is already harming American companies and U.S. commercial relations with our major trading partners.

Imagine what would have happened if during the Cold War West Germany had forbidden American companies from doing business in East Germany, or if China entertained lawsuits against U.S. firms that invested in Taiwan or denied entry visas to the U.S executives of such companies. Members of Congress and the president would have justly considered such actions affronts to American sovereignty and retaliated. This is how other nations are reacting to the Helms-Burton Act, particularly the denial of visas to executives of a Canadian company operating in Cuba earlier this year.

Passed quickly in the wake of Cuba's shooting down of two airplanes flown by Cuban-Americans, the Cuban Liberty & Democratic Solidarity Act, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), bars entry to CEOs of companies that engage in commerce related to properties seized from Americans by Cuba 35 years ago. It also allows Americans to sue those foreign companies for triple damages in U.S. courts.

Canada and Great Britain already have laws against obeying another country's imposition of a "secondary boycott," and other nations, such as Italy, are preparing such legislation. The United States actually has passed its own law forbidding American companies to observe the Arab League's secondary boycott of Israel.

The effort to sanction companies from other nations is an admission that unilateral U.S. sanctions simply do not accomplish their goals. That is why more recent legislation has sought to compel multilateral support. However, nations throughout the world are not only refusing to support U.S. sanctions against Iran, Cuba and other potential targets, they are actively opposing them. (Because of Helms-Burton, a coalition of Canadian groups is even urging a tourist boycott of Florida, putting at risk some of the $1.3 billion spent there each year by 2 million Canadian travelers.)"

[Divernan]

160. "China, Cuba agree to expand cooperation"

Castro/Cuba and China have had full diplomatic relations since 1960, and have been working together to expand cooperation for years, as anyone with access to the internet well knows. Two way trade between the countries has been about $400 million US annually.

Try googling the subject and you will come up with pages of links on the topic.
Here's just one start your re-education:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/23/content_2250498.htm



HAVANA, Nov. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and Fidel Castro, president of the Cuban Council of State, agreed here Monday to expand bilateral cooperation in political, economic and other areas. Hu Jintao arrived here Monday afternoon for a state visit. He met with Castro soon after his arrival and they agreed to work together to expand mutually-beneficial cooperation.

China and Cuba established full diplomatic relations in 1960. Hu said in the meeting with Castro that China-Cuba relationship has withstood the test of time and the change of international situation. "We have helped each other and treated each other with sincerity," Hu said. "We are friends and brothers. A better relationship between China and Cuba will serve not only interests of our two countries, but also world peace and common development."

Hu proposed that China and Cuba increase exchange of visits by leaders of the government, the parliament, political parties, and non-governmental institutions. China and Cuba can also expand cooperation in areas of tourism, aquatic products and bio-technology, Hu said. In addition, China and Cuba can strengthen cooperation in international arenas to safeguard the interests of the developing nations and world peace, said the Chinese president.

Two-way trade between China and Cuba has been about 400 million US dollars annually over the past three years. The trade volume reached 401 million dollars from January to September this year, up 36.7 percent. China mainly imports sugar and nickel from Cuba and exports machinery and electronic products to Cuba. Castro told Hu that he has paid great attention to China's development and been reading a lot about China lately. He said he was glad to see China's fast growth and the expansion of Cuba-China cooperation.

Castro said he agreed with Hu's proposals. He said Cuba hopes to purchase about one million more color TV sets from China as the 1.3 million sets Cuba previously imported from China were "very good" in quality. Hu briefed Castro about China's socio-economic development and China's new development strategy characterized by the concept of human first and balanced and sustainable development.

Following their conversation, China and Cuba signed a number of agreements on their cooperation in plant quarantine, bio-technology, education and economy. Cuba is the last leg of Hu's Latin America trip. Previously he visited Brazil, Argentina and Chile, where he attended the annual APEC leaders' meeting. Enditem

[Selatius]

25. Your argument simply doesn't fly.

Let's discount the fact that it's simply more taxing economically for an island nation to trade goods with nations separated by an ocean than it is to trade goods next door. Let's also discount the fact that a trade ship that docks in Cuba is prohibited for the next six months to dock in the US. Yes, let's discount the effect that has on Cuba's economy and their international trade.

:eyes:

[generaldemocrat]

36. Doesn't matter......

You think the US would compromise it's hundred-billion dollar trade with the EU and China because some of their firms did business with Cuba?
You've got the Chinese and Russians selling arms to the Iranians, eventhough the US has "sanctions" against that country and eventhough that country is perceived as being a larger threat to American interests than Cuba's case.

[Selatius]

41. The EU and China don't trade much with Cuba precisely because of the embargo.

Unless they want many of their trade ships blacklisted as not being allowed into US ports for the next six months. This is why the UN General Assembly has been condemning the US embargo on Cuba since 1991 because nations want to trade with both the US and Cuba and not one without the other.

You compare apples and oranges when you mix commercial trade with the arms trade. After 1979 the US imposed a trade embargo on Iran. However, the trade embargo specifically prohibits American companies from engaging in commercial trade with Iran and American companies from selling weapons systems and spare parts for those systems to Iran. The embargo did not apply to foreign weapons systems from China and Russia.

[roody]

39. incorrect

Any ship that docks in Havana will not be allowed to dock in the US for six? months. The crappy law if full of punitive measures like that.

[happydreams]

43. Now that's an interesting tidbit. Thanks. It shows that

the embargo is not just one by the US but also being forced on other countries by the US.

:hi:

[roody]

The things Cuba buys like food from other countries

have to go through a third party because of the punitive US embargo, so the price doubles or more. Yet they are still making it. Nobody is dying of hunger in Cuba.

[happydreams]

77. Isn't that amazing. How come the people don't revolt?

They don't because Castro gives them the straight skinny on what is going on. People can put up with alot of shit if they are told the truth.

Someday the truth about Cuba will get out to the world. I'll bet they have medical practices that could cut medical costs in the US tenfold.

[roody]

79. Cubans know more about US foreign policy than US

people do. They know who is screwing them.

[happydreams]

85. Interesting. I was talking to somebody about why people from

the poorest countries know so much about the world and the US public doesn't.

"It's because they have too know, they are on the recieving end of Imperialism."

I do think though that the US public has been victimized by the biggest Psy-ops in history. They are reacting to the world differently than they were 4-5 years ago thanks to unfiltered information from the Internet.



:hi:

[eridani]

108. For the same reason that your cat knows more about where your feet are--

--than you know about where its feet are.

[Judi Lynn]

206. Absolutely! They get news from everywhere, and they're unusually literate.

[katsy]

91. Here's a bit of that "skinny"

http://www.maebrussell.com/Health/CIA%20Pig%20Virus.html

San Francisco Chronicle
January 10, 1977 Front page

1971 Mystery

CIA Link to Cuban Pig Virus Reported, New York

"With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.
Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.
A U.S. intelligence source told Newsday last week he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at a U.S. Army base and CIA training ground in the Panama Canal Zone, with instructions to turn it over to the anti-Castro group.
The 1971 outbreak, the first and only time the disease has hit the Western Hemisphere, was labeled the "most alarming event" of 1971 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. African swine fever is a highly contagious and usually lethal viral disease that infects only pigs and, unlike swine flu, cannot be transmitted to humans.
All production of pork, a Cuban staple, halted, apparently for several months.
A CIA spokesman, Dennis Berend, in response to a Newsday request for comment, said, "We don't comment on information from unnamed and, at best, obscure sources."
Why the virus turned up in Cuba has been a mystery to animal investigators ever since the outbreak. Informed speculation assumed that the virus entered Cuba either in garbage from a commercial airliner or in sausages brought in by merchant seamen." more at link


No one hates us for our freedoms... they hate us because our government is hateful. Our foreign policy isn't just hawkish... it's immoral and unconscionable.

[scarletwoman]

96. "Our foreign policy isn't just hawkish... it's immoral and unconscionable." Well said!

Thank you for your informative post.

sw

[ProudDad]

113. No other country has been subjected

to secondary boycott as Cuba has. Helms-Burton added U.S. sanctions and penalties against ANY company from ANY COUNTRY that traded with Cuba.

[Judi Lynn]

119. It would do you obvious good to know something about the embargo, wouldn't it?

Cuba Report To UN On Why USA's Blockade Must End
Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 10:15 am
Press Release: Cuba Government

Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly

“The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”

August 15, 2005

INTRODUCTION

The economic, commercial and financial blockade impose by the United States against Cuba is the longest-lasting and cruelest of its kind know to human history and is an essential element in the United States’ hostile and aggressive policies regarding the Cuban people. Its aim, made explicit on 6 April 1960 is the destruction of the Cuban Revolution: (…) through frustration and discouragement based on dissatisfaction and economic difficulties (…) to withhold funds and supplies to Cuba in order to cut real income thereby causing starvation, desperation and the overthrow of the government (...)”

It is equally an essential component of the policy of state terrorism against Cuba which silently, systematically, cumulatively, inhumanly, ruthlessly affects the population with no regard for age, sex, race, religious belief or social position.

This policy, implemented and added to by ten US administrations also amounts to an act of genocide under the provisions of paragraph (c) of article II of the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and therefore constitutes a violation of International Law. This Convention defines this as ‘(…) acts perpetrated with the intention to totally or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’, and in these cases provides for ‘the intentional subjugation of the group to conditions that result in their total or partial physical destruction’.

The blockade on Cuba is an act of economic war. There is no regulation of International Law which justifies a blockade in times of peace. Since 1909, in the London Naval Conference, as a principle of International Law it was defined that ‘blockade is an act of war’, and based on this, its use is only possible between countries at war.

Although the total blockade on trade between Cuba and the United States was formally decreed by an Executive Order issued by President John F. Kennedy on 3 February 1962, measures that are part of the blockade were put in place just a few weeks after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January 1959.

On 12 February 1959, the US Government refused to grant a modest credit requested by Cuba to maintain the stability of the national currency. Later, other measures were applied such as the restriction of the supply of fuel to the Island by American transnational companies, the halting of industrial factories, the prohibition of exports to Cuba and the partial, and later total, suppression of the sugar quota.

By virtue of the blockade, among other restrictions, Cuba cannot export any product to the United States, or import any merchandise from this country: American tourists are prohibited from visiting; the dollar cannot be used in the country’s transactions with foreign countries; the country has no access to the credit, and cannot carry out transactions with regional or American multilateral financial institutions and their boats and aircrafts must not enter American territory.

The blockade has a marked extraterritorial component. In 1992, with a view to intensifying the effects of Cuba’s loss of 85% of its foreign trade after the Soviet Union and the European socialist block fell apart, the United States passed the Torricelli Act, which removed Cuba’s ability to purchase medicines and food from US subsidiaries in third countries which stood at US$718 million in 1991. The Torricelli Act placed tight restrictions on ships sailing to and from Cuba, thus making formal its serious extraterritorial provisions. A ship from a third country that docks in Cuban waters cannot enter a port in the United States until 6 months have passed and said country has obtained a new permission permit.

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act made the effects of the blockade worse, increased the number and scope of the provisions with an extraterritorial impact, instituted persecution of and sanctions on actual and potential foreign investors in Cuba and authorised funding for hostile, subversive and aggressive acts against the Cuban people.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0510/S00197.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Denial of Food and Medicine:
The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo
On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba"
-An Executive Summary-
American Association for World Health Report
Summary of Findings
March 1997

After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.

A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked havoc with the island's model primary health care system. The crisis has been compounded by the country's generally weak economic resources and by the loss of trade with the Soviet bloc.

Recently four factors have dangerously exacerbated the human effects of this 37-year-old trade embargo. All four factors stem from little-understood provisions of the U.S. Congress' 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (CDA):

1. A Ban on Subsidiary Trade: Beginning in 1992, the Cuban Democracy Act imposed a ban on subsidiary trade with Cuba. This ban has severely constrained Cuba's ability to import medicines and medical supplies from third country sources. Moreover, recent corporate buyouts and mergers between major U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies have further reduced the number of companies permitted to do business with Cuba.
   
   2. Licensing Under the Cuban Democracy Act: The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments are allowed in principle to license individual sales of medicines and medical supplies, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons to mitigate the embargo's impact on health care delivery. In practice, according to U.S. corporate executives, the licensing provisions are so arduous as to have had the opposite effect. As implemented, the licensing provisions actively discourage any medical commerce. The number of such licenses granted-or even applied for since 1992-is minuscule. Numerous licenses for medical equipment and medicines have been denied on the grounds that these exports "would be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests."
   
   3. Shipping Since 1992:The embargo has prohibited ships from loading or unloading cargo in U.S. ports for 180 days after delivering cargo to Cuba. This provision has strongly discouraged shippers from delivering medical equipment to Cuba. Consequently shipping costs have risen dramatically and further constricted the flow of food, medicines, medical supplies and even gasoline for ambulances. From 1993 to 1996, Cuban companies spent an additional $8.7 million on shipping medical imports from Asia, Europe and South America rather than from the neighboring United States.
   
   4. Humanitarian Aid: Charity is an inadequate alternative to free trade in medicines, medical supplies and food. Donations from U.S. non-governmental organizations and international agencies do not begin to compensate for the hardships inflicted by the embargo on the Cuban public health system. In any case, delays in licensing and other restrictions have severely discouraged charitable contributions from the U.S.

Taken together, these four factors have placed severe strains on the Cuban health system. The declining availability of food stuffs, medicines and such basic medical supplies as replacement parts for thirty-year-old X-ray machines is taking a tragic human toll. The embargo has closed so many windows that in some instances Cuban physicians have found it impossible to obtain life-saving medicines from any source, under any circumstances. Patients have died. In general, a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive public health system is being systematically stripped of essential resources. High-technology hospital wards devoted to cardiology and nephrology are particularly under siege. But so too are such basic aspects of the health system as water quality and food security. Specifically, the AAWH's team of nine medical experts identified the following health problems affected by the embargo:

1. 
   
   Malnutrition: The outright ban on the sale of American foodstuffs has contributed to serious nutritional deficits, particularly among pregnant women, leading to an increase in low birth-weight babies. In addition, food shortages were linked to a devastating outbreak of neuropathy numbering in the tens of thousands. By one estimate, daily caloric intake dropped 33 percent between 1989 and 1993.
   
   2. Water Quality: The embargo is severely restricting Cuba's access to water treatment chemicals and spare-parts for the island's water supply system. This has led to serious cutbacks in supplies of safe drinking water, which in turn has become a factor in the rising incidence of morbidity and mortality rates from water-borne diseases.
   
   3. Medicines & Equipment: Of the 1,297 medications available in Cuba in 1991, physicians now have access to only 889 of these same medicines - and many of these are available only intermittently. Because most major new drugs are developed by U.S. pharmaceuticals, Cuban physicians have access to less than 50 percent of the new medicines available on the world market. Due to the direct or indirect effects of the embargo, the most routine medical supplies are in short supply or entirely absent from some Cuban clinics.
   
   4. Medical Information: Though information materials have been exempt from the U.S. trade embargo since 1 988, the AAWH study concludes that in practice very little such information goes into Cuba or comes out of the island due to travel restrictions, currency regulations and shipping difficulties. Scientists and citizens of both countries suffer as a result. Paradoxically, the embargo harms some U.S. citizens by denying them access to the latest advances in Cuban medical research, including such products as Meningitis B vaccine, cheaply produced interferon and streptokinase, and an AIDS vaccine currently under-going clinical trials with human volunteers.

http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html

[Mika]

134. Thanks for taking the time to post that, Judi Lynn

Reading the misinformation and Cubaphobic assumptions can be irritating. Thanks for the straight dope.

[Divernan]

161. JudiLynn is a treasure trove of pertinent factual info.

nt

[ProudDad]

110. There's not as much poverty

in Cuba as there is in ultra-capitalist Mexico. And the Cubans aren't saddled with the ultra-rich oligarchy...

[rman]

186. "poor" in Cuba means you have food, healthcare, education, housing

"poor" in the US you don't have at least one of those.

Now, Who's poor again?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

Well, I can't blame either for avoiding any political deals with the U. S. government.

Our government is notorious for rigged agreements. MKJ

[Squatch]

3. Yeah...they're real champions of The People (TM)

114 and 151

[eridani]

109. Hey, if 9 kids get no allowance, and the 10th kid gets $10--

--the "average" GDP per kid is $1. To say that this has any relevance to their real spending power is a pile of steaming bullshit.

[mike_c]

136. your posts in this regard are full of meaningless jingoism and hatred...

...yet curiously devoid of actual substantive content. Would you care to respond to any of the information posted up-thread about the real effects of the primary and secondary embargoes?

[mike_c]

6. I think it's an EXCELLENT post and I'm proud to recommend it....

BRAVO!

[malaise]

7. Add Marcos to the list

and of course the queen of shoes Imelda.

[rman]

188. and Allende, Aristide and a whole string of others,

who were replaced by RW military dictators with support from the US.

[Pharaoh]

14. Bravo! K&R

And well said....................

[Nimrod2005]

17. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I like what Sweden has to offer, not these two's system and/or history.

[OxQQme]

29. Yeah! Damn Injuns

look the other way and they'll have your scalp and your woman............sarcasm

I don't understand how any person can not see that Chavez is the polar opposite
from the bushco. All that I've read of him is his desire to get his country back
from corporatocracy.

How are we to do that here in this country?

Consider the anger of the elite to be informed they were going to lose those perks that allowed
the elite-ness.
With no promise of going back to the greedy old ways, I would bet they would be very angry
at the administration just like all the rightwingers are going to be now that we have some
semblance of a 'democrat' power base that's making valiant attempts at setting right the wrongs
of the last six years of corporate malfesance here in this country.

I say, We need a Chavez.
But not a dictator.

[SanCristobal]

102. I don't understand how any person can not see that Chavez is just a socialist Venezuelan Bush.

Attempted coups, media restrictions and making up Constitutional law as you go along does not leave me particularly impressed with a presidents democratic credentials.

[ProudDad]

115. Then edjumacate yourself

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801329.html

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/09/richard_gott.html

http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2003/4403.html

Among other sources of truth rather than right-wing talking points...

[SanCristobal]

159. So I should just accept the left wing talking points and ignore facts?

I don't buy into either sides arguments. I don't think Chavez is a dictator, and I don't think he is the second coming of Christ. He is just a president with an base willing to ignore his anti-democratic tendencies so long as they get the fruits of his "21st century socialism". I question which can go for longer, overzealous wealth redistribution or a government losing it's concern with rule of law. If history is any guide, the latter always wins that race.

[happydreams]

67. Interesting comparison. Sweden is the beneficiary of

something that Venezuela and Cuba aren't. Sweden is absent a hulking imperialistic country on their doorstep threatening them.

[rman]

199. I don't like the history of US foreign policy in Latin America either

But hey, it's reality

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. A quite magisterial post. I am totally in awe of you, happydreams.

[happydreams]

172. Thank you. Your DU name is interesting.

:hi:

[Joe Chi Minh]

203. Thank you. Yes, a bit like the sound of one hand clapping.

Preferably, to John Foster's ilk, as it was taught to a sneering Zen teacher by Hunter S Thompson. A fierce whack round the ear.

Maybe the Cabots are just the decent type of "old money" toffs.

Here are a couple of nice quotes from today's Prayer of the Church, very much on the theme of your post. I think you'll like them, though you may be familiar with them:

Before Noon
Jer 22:3

"Pracise honesty and integrity; rescue the man who has been wronged from the hands of his oppressor; do not exploit the stranger, the orphan, the widow; do no violence shed no innocent blood.

Afternoon
Pov 22: 22-23

"Do not rob the poor because he is poor,
or crush the afflicted at the gate;
for the Lord will please their cause
and despoil of life those who despoil them."

[k_jerome]

27. why? are they dead? nt.

[scarletwoman]

30. Wonderful post! Thank you, happydreams! k & r!

That was a truly righteous and beautiful rant!

sw

[happydreams]

45. Thanks SW. I just got sick of all this anti-Chavez

gibberish floating around lately.
I've been researching alot on US Foreign relations. Cuba has been raked over the coals since at least the Spanish-American War. It is horrendous. A phenomenol little book that's big on facts is "The Tragedy of American Diplomacy".

[Name removed]

55. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[scarletwoman]

74. Oh, that's always gone on around here. Thank you for fighting back.

It's not an easy task. You did a beautiful job!

sw

[MistressOverdone]

32. I will agree that Castro

has a love for his country and his people have managed incredibly well considering their isolation, but please don't forget he IS still a dictator. I just can't follow you into this admiration society. Chavez? Depends on who you talk to. No, they aren't Stalin and Pol Pot, but they make our right wingers (in my opinion) look like champions of rights and freedom.

[Jim Warren]

34. You my hero

and I mean that. Rec'd*

[BayCityProgressive]

38. Viva Chavez and Castro! I agree!

[Tatiana]

44. We fail to realize that the United States is responsible for the positions of both Castro and Chavez

Chavez's recent actions are a response to an attempted coup and continued threats upon his life. He's consolidating and strengthening his power. I don't agree with these actions, but can certainly see how they have come about.

How can you have stability in our nation economically when you are faced with the things the opposition (funded covertly by the U.S. through entities such as the AFL-CIO) did such as sabotaging oil production facilities, forcing violent confrontations, and murdering campesinos supportive of Chavez? Housing, health, and education are Chavez's main areas of concern and he's actually addressing those issues. However, it is my opinion that no matter what the circumstance is, you must not subvert or bypass the legislative process. If Chavez has such a great policy, then he can find a legislator who can introduce the bill and let everyone vote on it.

It's wrong to rule by decree.

[happydreams]

47. Ideally yea, it is wrong to rule by decree, but this is not an ideal

situation. The US and Venezuela are moving to polar opposites and I see nothing that Chavez has done up until now to provoke it except to want sovereignty
The US with its immense power is forcing the situation into what exactly Bushie types want IMO.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

48. Actually, Fuck Them Both. They're Both Pieces Of Garbage.

[burythehatchet]

52. Well of course they are

They are critical of Israel. Anyone who does that is Garbage.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

63. Actually, They're Both Pieces Of Utter Garbage For Far More Reasons.

But then we all know that.

[barb162]

98. Yes, we do know that

[barb162]

99. I could have sworn this thread was about Chavez and Castro

[happydreams]

64. What about the people who want to turn their countries into toxic

waste dumps? You are mysteriously silent about them.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

70. They Weren't Being Worshipped, Were They. See? No Mystery At All.

But sure, they can go fuck themselves too.

[happydreams]

73. No, but more probably groveling at their feet for

your meager wage.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

76. Hmmmm.

Well if that doesn't rank up there with one of the dumbest replies I've ever received.

:dunce:

[happydreams]

83. Well, how did I know they paid you in Cheetos?

Most of your type get paid minimum wage then buy the Cheetos.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

84. Not Sure I've Ever Seen Logic Stand So Far Away From Someone Before.

Thankfully, since it stands so close to me, I'm within earshot to enjoy the sound of its laughing at your premise.

:rofl:

[happydreams]

86. and modesty as well.

[scarletwoman]

69. Ah. We can always count on you to offer your always astute and considered analysis.

Bravo! Well Done! I breathlessly await your next round of vituperation for those fail to merit your most coveted approval.

sw

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

71. As Always, I'm Just Callin It Like It Is. Sorry If That Bothers You, But No Biggie!

:hi:

[scarletwoman]

75. Did I say it bothered me? I was merely acknowledging your area of expertise. (nt)

[Greyhound]

124. Correction; you are calling it like you believe it to be, not how it is. n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

144. No, No. I'm Right. That's Simply How It Is. Both Pieces Of Garbage. Yup. Fuck Em Both.

:hi:

[burythehatchet]

72. .

:dunce: :rofl:

[Warren Stupidity]

127. Brilliant insightful post!

Your devastating analysis can withstand any response.

[burythehatchet]

242. You know I am so friggin sick and tired of him and his ilk

coming onto a thread taking a frsh steaming dump and trying to pass it off as insighful commentary.

[Greyhound]

245. I'll second that. No insight, no reason, no logic, not even anything that

could be described as an argument, just mental diarrhea spewing all over the board.

[Mika]

50. A little background on Cuba - now.

http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

--

Representative Fidel Castro was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of District #7 Santiago de Cuba.
He is one of the elected 607 representatives in the Cuban National Assembly. It is from that body that the head of state is nominated and then elected. (Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Carlos Large, and Ricardo Alarcon and others were among the nominated in 2003.) President Castro has been elected to that position since 1976.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/do/Dorticos.html

Dorticós Torrado, Osvaldo

1919–83, president of Cuba (1959–76). A prosperous lawyer, he participated in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement and was imprisoned (1958). He escaped and fled to Mexico, returning to Cuba after Castro’s triumph (1959). As minister of laws (1959) he helped to formulate Cuban policies. He was appointed president in 1959. Intelligent and competent, he wielded considerable influence. In 1976 the Cuban government was reorganized, and Castro assumed the title of president; Dorticós was named a member of the council of state.

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,

Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections
Arnold August
1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books





on edit: Some more info .

[happydreams]

54. Why is it that the pro-Castro people here are so much better informed

about the reality in Cuba than these reactionary bozos?

Thanks for sharing that Mika. :hi:

[Mika]

56. I am not "pro Castro"!! I am pro Cuba!

They are not one and the same.

:hi:

[Tatiana]

60. Well said.

I am for Cuba as well. When Castro is long gone, I don't want to see the island return to being pillaged by the likes of Bacardi and other corporate entities.

And I'm for repairing our tenuous relations with Venezuela as well. Chavez can be a decent sort but I just think he's been forced into a corner. The country is rich with oil. Corporate interests would prefer to get their hands on those profits instead of seeing oil income benefit the native and poor citizens.

[happydreams]

61. OK, I should have said

"pro-Castro and pro-Cubans (excluding Cuban Mafia)". :evilgrin:

[Bushknew]

169. K&R

[Greyhound]

125. Careful now, if you insist on bringing facts into the discussion it may be interpreted as

an assault on the bigoted ideas that so many amerikans hold so dear, and you know what happen to those that challenge cherished delusions.

[Vidar]

131. Damn those democratically elected "dictators", lol.

[peacetalksforall]

57. THANKS HAPPYDREAMS - for telling it like it is. Well done.

The truth hurts. Thanks for the lead about the book.

[Wiley50]

58. K&R Look how Well capitalism treated Me and Most other US Citizens

[stillcool]

59. Viva happydreams!

It's just so damn irritating ...regardless the target, when people post knee-jerk reactions with no substance or validity. It is not surprising..considering our political puppets and the fractured logic and twisted meaning given to such weighty matters as life and death to millions of people. Little by little, the awful truth is seeping out...look out when the damn breaks!
http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.cfm

[demrabble]

62. Great Insight.

I just read your post.

It shows great insight.

Viva Castro. Viva Chavez. And Viva happydreams!

[happydreams]

173. Thanks and welcome to DU.

:hi:

[GreenTea]

80. Cheers to Hugo Chavez from a true left-wing radical...Bring down the right-wing

corporate fascist!!

[Phoonzang]

81. Gee I forget...

can people vote in Cuba? If they wanted to vote Castro out of office could they? :eyes:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

82. Well, No. But Thankfully For Many, He'll Be Dead Soon.

[Name removed]

92. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Phoonzang]

95. We did fine ths past election.

I was convinced that they'd cheat again but they didn't.....I guess. At least we did well enough to turn Bush into a lame duck.

[GreenTea]

103. They still stole several races this past election, but thanks to Dean's 50 state strategy

and Dems coming out in droves to vote & donate to races that normally wouldn't have the necessary funds, on & on, the Dem's just overwhelmed AGAIN THANKS TO DEAN...but still the Rove & the republicans stole races and cut their losses so as not to be as bad as it should of been...

[ProudDad]

116. The short answer is YES

They have that right they've just not felt the need of exercising it...

[UTUSN]

88. Don't stop at BLOCKING me-------- just KILL me-------NOW!!!!!!111

[nam78_two]

90. As an aside Cuba's environment apparently really prospered under Castro

Whether it was intentional or noy, it worked out really well..

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060804-castro-legacy.html

Castro the Conservationist? By Default or Design, Cuba Largely Pristine
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

August 4, 2006
Will Cuban President Fidel Castro be remembered primarily as a man of the people, an authoritarian tyrant—or a conservationist?

Castro handed power to his brother last week to undergo emergency intestinal surgery. His health remains uncertain, fueling rampant speculation about his legacy.




Some experts say his environmental policies may be among his greatest achievements.

Though Cuba is economically destitute, it has the richest biodiversity in the Caribbean. Resorts blanket many of its neighbors, but Cuba remains largely undeveloped, with large tracts of untouched rain forest and unspoiled reefs (map of Cuba).

The country has signed numerous international conservation treaties and set aside vast areas of land for government protection.

But others say Cuba's economic underdevelopment has played just as large a role.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union—its main financial benefactor—Cuba has had to rely mostly on its own limited resources. It has embraced organic farming and low-energy agriculture because it can't afford to do anything else.

And once Castro is gone, the experts say, a boom in tourism and foreign investment could destroy Cuba's pristine landscapes.

Eco-Legacy

"I think the Cuban government can take a substantial amount of credit for landscape, flora, and fauna preservation," said Jennifer Gebelein, a professor at Florida International University in Miami who studies environmental issues in Cuba.

More than 20 percent of Cuba's land is under some form of government protection. The island's wetlands have been largely shielded from pesticide runoff that has destroyed similar areas in other countries.

[Jcrowley]

94. K&R

Anyone who mentions McCoy's book gets a K&R from me.

Read that, "Killing Hope" by William Blum and "Thy Will Be Done" by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett and you'll be well armed to see through all the BS.

[druidity33]

97. long live...

the Bolivarian Revolution!

and lest we forget, our neighbors just to the South are facing Crises as we speak. In Mexico, there has been a 'hostile' takeover of the Gov't and a people's voice is being stifled. Kicking for the APPO and the TRUTH to power! Viva Obrador!

R too!

[RB TexLa]

104. My thoughts

Oh, wait, I'm posting within 4 hours of the OP, I haven't "had time to read it"

[bananarepublican]

118. Viva Morales! Viva Noriega!

It's good to see that South America is pushing back.

happydreams, I'm surprised you left these two guys out of your post.

[Vidar]

132. Viva Morales! But did you possibly mean Ortega (Nicaragua)

rather than Noriega (former CIA stooge from Panama)?

[bananarepublican]

184. Yep! I meant Ortega. Thanks. I can't believe my Bushidity!!! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

120. You have given us a tremendous serving of food for thought, happydreams!

Reading your remarks on Somoza, Suharto, Pinochet, I remembered this very interesting collection of U.S.-supported fiendish dictators, and I need to underscore something I saw recently for the first time I'd like to share on your thread, because it's so unforgivable, so outrageous, so EVIL, everyone needs to know about it:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia

In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.
(snip)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html



Banzer and Pinochet in the first photo....

On August 18, 1971, General Banzer Suárez, at long last, masterminded a successful military uprising that erupted in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where he had many supporters. Eventually, the plotters gained control over the La Paz garrisons, although not without considerable bloodshed. The roles of the United States and Brazil in supporting the coup have been debated. In any case, Banzer emerged as the strong man of the new regime, and, on August 22, was given full power as president. Interestingly, he received the political support of the center-right Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) of former president Víctor Paz Estenssoro and the conservative Falange Socialista Boliviana of Mario Gutiérrez, considered to be the two largest parties in the country. For the next seven years, and with the rank of Army General, Banzer ruled Bolivia as dictator. The ensuing anti-left crackdown was severe, and the ruthless little general from Santa Cruz became one of the most feared presidents in recent memory.

Frustrated by the political divisions and protests that characterized the Torres and Ovando years, and, traditionally an enemy of dissent and freedom of speech, Banzer banned all the left-leaning parties, suspended the powerful Central Obrera Boliviana, and closed the nation's universities. "Order" was now the paramount aim, and no means were spared to restore authority and stifle dissent. Buoyed by the initial legitimacy provided by Paz and Gutierrez's support, the dictator ruled with a measure of civilian support until 1974, when the main parties realized he did not intend to hold elections and was instead using them to perpetuate himself in power. At that point, Banzer dispensed with all pretenses and banned all political activity, exiled all major leaders (Paz Estenssoro included), and proceeded to rule henceforth solely with military support.
(snip)

Hugo Banzer was the president during the ever going water wars created by privatization of companies. Water was privatized and therefore affected Bolivia's low income residents. On February 4, 2000 Bnzer sent a police force upon unarmed cochabambinos who walked to the city's central plaza in a peaceful march. Tear gas was thrown killing and injuring many. Water even became illegal if a cup was left outside to collect rain water. This Bolivian water issue is an act of socialism upon its people.
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have to wonder, WHERE WAS THE U.S. OUTRAGE OVER THE GENOCIDAL, VICIOUS RIGHT-WING DICTATORS? There wasn't any. Not ever. They were absolutely beloved by right-wing U.S. Presidents: the salt of the earth, the little European-descended, elitist, racist, murderous puppets who were so useful to our own Republican Presidents. We NEVER heard one word of disapproval toward any of them.

[happydreams]

175. Thank you for all of that information Judi. Your research has

helped thousands learn the truth about Latin America.

[AnOhioan]

123. Thanks for posting

Much better to read a thoughtful post on Chavez and Castro than the ones who regurgitate RW talking points.

[cigsandcoffee]

126. No thanks. I can do without Communism.

Authoritative governments of any kind give me the creeps. Chavez isn't a Communist, you say? Yeah, OK, fine. Sure.

[rman]

189. where the evidence that Chavez is a communist?

BTW it's interesting how the Chavez haters disagree with one another about why Chavez is supposedly a bad guy.

[Warren Stupidity]

128. Pirates of the Caribbean

Tariq Ali

Out recently, available in bookstores. A pretty good unrepentant new left ancient's view of what is going on in Latin America right now. Yes of course Castro's Cuba has problems with the right of free expression, but it is also one of the very few nations left standing that are in opposition to the hideous new world order of unchecked imperial capitalism. You choose your side, I know where I stand, I stand as always with the people of this planet and not with the insufferable elites.

[Vidar]

129. Magnificent post, happydreams. You have my vote.

[TZ]

133. Desperate people

While there is no doubt in my mind that Castro's Cuba does do certain things right, ie Hurricane preparadness, it must be really bad there for people to risk their lives on really dangerous floatation devices to leave. Don't give me any crap about people just wanting to be rich. People don't risk their lives like this unless there are very compelling reasons. See East Germany in the cold war. As bad as things are here do you really think Americans would do the same thing? No. As for Chavez, he is a wanna be dictator that is saying all the right things to consolidate his country and become a larger influence in South/Central America. I have a friend from a socialist country nearby (Guyana) believe me neither place is exactly a model of democracy or even honest government.
Marxism is a failed type of government. In theory its wonderful and idyllic but in practice it is very succeptable to corruption. See Orwell's Animal Farm for a great illustration of this point.

[Mika]

135. The reason is the US's 'Cuban Adjustment Act"

Cubans are granted special immigration perks that are offered to no other immigrant group seeking entry into the US. Its called 'The Cuban Adjustment Act".

Immigrants come to the US from all over the world - from democratic countries. They come here for opportunities to earn more money than they could back at home. They come to work so that they can send a little of their earnings back to their relatives. It has little to do with "despotic' regimes, it has more to do with earning power.

Cuba is a special case though, in that it is the US's Helms-Burton law (and a myriad of other sanctions) that are intended to cripple the Cuban economy. This is the stated goal of the US government, as evidenced by the Bush* admin's latest 'crackdown' on family remittances to Cuba and increased sanctions on the island and US & foreign corporations that seek to do business with Cuba.

The USA currently offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush has announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. The US interests section in Cuba does the required criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits all Cubans, including Cuban criminals and felons, who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US even those having failed to qualify (or even apply) for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks)

For Cuban migrants ONLY - including the aforementioned illegal immigrants who are smuggled in as well as those who have failed a US background check for a legal visa who make it here by whatever means - the US's Cuban Adjustment Act instantly allows any and all Cuban migrants who touch US shore (no matter how) instant entry, instant work visa, instant green card status, instant social security, instant access to welfare, instant access to section 8 assisted housing (with a $41,000 income exemption for Cuban expats only), instant food stamps, plus more. IOW, extra special enhanced social programs designed to entice Cuban expatriation to Miami/USA.

Despite these programs designed to offer a 'carrot on a stick' to Cubans only, the Cubaphobe rhetoric loop repeats the question "why do Cubans come to the US then?".

First the US forces economic deprivation on Cubans, then open our doors to any and all Cubans illegal or not, and then offer them a plethora of immigration perks and housing perks not even available to native born Americans.


But yet, more immigrants come from Mexico and the Latin Americas than do Cubans, and they have no such "Adjustment Act" like Cubans do. But they still pour in.


Plus, Cuban immigrants can hop on a plane from Miami to Havana and travel right back to the Cuba that they "escaped" from for family trips and vacations - by the hundred of thousands annually (until Bush's recent one visit every 3 yrs restrictions on Cuban expats living in the US).

Recognizing the immorality of forced starvation and forced economic deprivation is a good reason to drop the US embargo on Cuba, the US Cuban Adjustment Act, and the US travel sanctions placed on US citizens and residents. Then the Cuban tourism economy (its #1 sector) would be able to expand even faster, thereby increasing the average wage and quality of life in Cuba. It would make products, goods, and services even more accessible to both Cubans and Americans. It would reduce the economic based immigration flow from Cuba. And it would restore our own constitutional right to travel unfettered to see Cuba for ourselves.

[earth mom]

139. People leave Cuba because it's human nature for people to think the grass is greener elsewhere.

They hear stories from relatives that may or may not be true and they get stars in their eyes. They don't have a clue as to the reality that is the U.S.of A-the corrupt government, the poverty, the illiteracy, the lack of health care, the downsizing and outsizing of jobs, the Class War, etc.,-all of the ugly nasty underbelly that is the reality of the U.S. of A.

FYI-Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" if you want to understand just exactly how the U.S. government operates in regards to other countries.

p.s. Great OP Happydreams! K & an R if there's still time! :thumbsup:

[cigsandcoffee]

150. Maybe you've fallen victim to the "grass is always greener" syndrome...

I sure don't see a lot of people lining up to move in to Cuba.

[Joe Chi Minh]

165. Ther are many more millions of people who consider Western-style

winner-take-all style capitalism the ultimate failed type of government; unfortunately, numerous as they are, there are probably still greater numbers who have died in the meantime as a result of its imperialist predations, always driven by open-ended greed.

And pending the next invasion of a foreign country, the working people of their own countries constitute the last of the colonies they possess, which are not represented by puppet leaders/viceroys, at least as openly as they are abroad. Well, since the beginning of the war in Iraq, they've been running on both tracks, haven't they?

[Judi Lynn]

221. What I wrote in my post #121 has been written by other posters time after time,

and is absolutely true, no matter how many visitors attempt to rewrite the facts:

......People trying to get out of Cuba, with some strong incentives from Uncle Sam, in the form
of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which assures any Cuban who arrives on American soil free legal status, work visa, social security, food stamps, Section 8 U.S. taxpayer-financed housing allowance, medical treatment, financial assistance for education, etc., etc., etc.

All others from other countries are hunted down whenever possible by U.S. agents and deported.

How are the economic immigrants coming from Cuba different from the immigrants coming from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, some coming by boats from Haiti on trips over 700 miles, as opposed to the 90 miles from Cuba, and those coming up from Mexico dying by the hundreds EVERY YEAR in their attempt to make it across the border.

If the people of other countries were GUARANTEED THESE BENEFITS which await Cubans, as political assets, we'd be jammed in here like sardines.

Please take time to inform yourself. It can only help.
(snip/)

Why don't you explain what is driving all the thousands of OTHER PEOPLE who face far worse obstacles than the trip from Cuba to come to the U.S. ANNUALLY? Are they fleeing "communism," or "Fidel Castro" too?

If you've bothered to do any reading in the last few years, you almost would have HAD to notice that they have started referring to the Cuban immigrants as IMMIGRANTS, not "refugees," not "defectors," in newspapers, which have been heavily loaded on the side of propaganda all these years.

[Balbus]

137. Viva Amin! Viva Hussein! Viva Kim Jong-il! Viva Gaddafi! Viva Mugabe!

How many more third-world, asshat dictators can we give kudos to in this thread?

[brg5001]

141. Agreed, balbus. Brutality in the name of socialism is still brutality.

EOM

[smoogatz]

138. Viva Chavez; Castro not so much.

I have no problem with nationalizing natural resources, or with land reform in what was essentially a corporate vassal state prior to 1959. But Castro went way too far in his brutal suppression of "counterrevolutionaries" and other "undesirables," and in appointing himself dictator for life. The revolution was a good thing; Castro's forty-eight years in power since then have been remarkable mostly for Castro's routine and often brutal oppression of his own people. You have to ask yourself--if Cuba's so great, why aren't America's poor and oppressed flocking there in rafts, instead of the other way around?

[brg5001]

140. Agreed, smoogatz: Castro has done some bad stuff in the NAME of socialism

To paraphrase the OP, since our Banana Republican thugs did some really horrible stuff, Castro's crimes can be overlooked.

Not so. Turning the island into a prison camp has not won him any friends nor has it cured the problems of the people. I recognize that the U.S. boycott has done great harm to the Cuban people, but the Castro model is not the answer. Chavez and Castro need a fascist American regime to rail against just as the Republican right wing needs oppressive so-called "socialist" dictators to rail against. Castro and Chavez engage in the RHETORIC of anti-corporatism but the answer is not to flush democracy, declare oneself President-for-Life and essentially engage in the same kind of tactics as the worst of the U.S.-backed regimes.

And what was the meeting with Iran's Abudinijad all about? The guy is an Islamic Fundie, unpopular at home, and almost univerally reviled. What specifically does that do for the needs of the Venezuelan people?

Embracing Castro and Chavez is like shooting heroin in the hopes of warding off cocaine addiction.

[smoogatz]

154. You're wrong about Chavez.

He may be a demagogue, but you can't call a guy who's been elected, re-elected and re-re-elected by overwhelming margins--in internationally monitored elections--a dictator. If he becomes one, it will happen largely in response to the U.S.'s belligerent attitude toward him--we created Castro the dictator, and we seem currently determined to repeat all of our worst foreign policy disasters of the past fifty years.

[Critters2]

261. I'm suspicious of Chavez, too

I have a friend who's Venezuelan. She's a progressive, a lefty, but tells stories of Chavez quite literally paying people to vote for him, and threats against those who don't. She's no fan of Hugo, and I have to take her word for it, since she's been there and I know no one else who has. And no, she isn't wealthy. Her family lives in a slum with no running water, etc.

Otoh, I agree that we created Castro the dictator with our policies.

[Judi Lynn]

264. Maybe you can get more detailed information about how Chavez PAYS

people to vote for him, and how he THREATENS people who don't. If you're going to do one, why bother to do the other?

Seems one would be enough!

Threaten everyone who won't vote seems good enough!

I don't believe it.

[Mika]

142. Maybe you should read the posts in this thread that explain why Cubans come here.

Also, please post some factual links to back up your claim of Castro's 'brutal repression of "his own" people'.

BTW, Mr Castro has been Head of State of Cuba since 1976. He was elected to that position by the Cuban National Assembly (Cuba's parliament).

[brg5001]

143. Oh, pullllllease. I won't spend one minute arguing with you.

Denying the reality of severe political repression in Cuba is a non-starter. I'm done with this thread. This has obviously become a religion with you and I'm not going to get into it...Have a good day

[Mika]

145. I've got no argument with you. I just want some facts to back up your claims of brutality.

Why post blather here if you're "not going to get into it"?

I've been to Cuba many times, so your pronouncement that "Denying the reality of severe political repression in Cuba is a non-starter" just doesn't ring true to me.

I've seen a broad range of political activity in Cuba, from hard line Stalinist, to mainstream socialist, to libertarian, to right-wing neocon capitalists - all of it legal and un-harassed.

The so called "dissident" groups that have ben harassed or arrested/indicted and jailed (after a trial) are the groups that are working in the employ of the US interests section and US gov/Miamicuban exile groups in Miami & Washington - aiding and abetting the declared enemy state of Cuba (that state being the US government) and terrorist groups (mostly based in Miami). Political activity on behalf of, or on the payroll of, declared enemies of the Cuban system of government is illegal in Cuba just as it is in the USA.

[Divernan]

148. Good, solid, substantive posts, Mika.

I did my master's thesis back in the 70's on the Cuban "revolution". Ever since then, I have tried to keep up to date on the island and its people. I put "revolution" in quotes because there was no big military battle - Batista - the last in a long line of robber-baron/dictators - abandoned Cuba when he had transferred the last of its gold bullion into his off-shore/Swiss accounts. According to my research, the uniformed "palace guard" Cuban military were left leaderless, and decided to "surrender" to Fidel. Cuba's (white) elite (who had made their fortunes as front men for exploitative corporations and the Mafia - profiting from the labor of uneducated, with-no-medical-treatment, darker-skinned Cuban masses) abandoned their country. In other words, they took what ill-gotten gains they could and fled. Having exploited and maltreated the vast masses of their countrymen, they were smart to leave.

As the OP, JudiLynn and others have overwhelmingly documented in this thread, Cuba and Cubanos are far better off now than they were under the despotic rule of Batista, the Mob, and the corporations who were ripping off Cuban agriculture.

I envy you having been able to visit Cuba numerous times. I have been to many countries in the Caribbean, but Cuba has always been the one I most wanted to visit. I almost got there once on a humanitarian educational trip, but then W's state department revoked approval for it.

[Mika]

197. Cuba is NOTHING like the place that the US MSM describes it as being.

The only way that the Cubaphobic propagandists can get away with their mewling lies is because Americans can't easily go to Cuba to see it for themselves. There is a near total information blackout on Cuba as it is NOW (other than the knee jerk anti Castro frothing available in the MSM).

Once I had been to Cuba for an extended period of time, the veil of lies about Cuba, their system of government, and the Cuban people had been lifted.

I was in Cuba during an entire election season ('97-'98). I witnessed the entire process from completely open candidate selections, nominations, elections, to ratification election for their seats on the parliaments.

I am always amazed at just how cock-sure the Cubaphobes are about what Cuba is like, but yet they have never set foot nor done any real study on the place. Cuba is NOTHING like the place that the US gov & MSM (and the Cubaphobes on this thread) describe it as being.

:hi:

[cigsandcoffee]

151. Putting aside why they come here for a moment....

...who emigrates to Cuba?

[Divernan]

156. Who emigrates to ANY poor Caribbean island state?

I've visited about 20 islands in the area - a number of them poorer than Cuba. About the only people who emigrate there are retirees taking advantage of cheap housing and cheap domestic labor. I do know Europeans, Mexicans and Canadians who love to go to Cuba for holidays. I think the US embargo and the uncertainty of what will happen when Castro dies, keeps people from buying 2nd homes there and/or retiring to the island.

[Judi Lynn]

222. Phillip Agee, former CIA lives there now, for one. More would go, for their retirement

years, but the U.S. government will refuse to send their social security checks to them if they live in Cuba.

Cuban "exile" Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo has moved to Cuba to start his own political group, "Cambio Cubano," (I think that's the name) and he has been harrassed and threatened by the _Bush administration, and told he faces harsh legal measures if he doesn't leave Cuba immediately.

If the U.S. ever drops the ban on travel to Cuba, you'll see "who emigrates to Cuba" like you won't believe. It would be silly now, however, considering they're even breaking the law to go there for a simple vacation, like the Miami "exiles" used to do on a regular basis before the _Bush administration took over.

[smoogatz]

153. Castro has routinely jailed, exiled and executed his political opponents.

The Cuban people have no right to free speech, no free press, no right to petition, no right to protest, no free elections. When these rights are eroded in the U.S., we all scream bloody murder. But if Castro takes them away from the Cuban people, he's a hero. Go figure.

[brg5001]

162. Castro is a god to his apologists

It's like arguing religion with these people. They always act as if there's no evidence...that's what Holocaust deniers say, too. Or that it's a democracy and we're just brainwashed. The right way to build a just society is not to excuse any behavior simply because it's purported by the perpetrators to be anti-American or anti-fasist or both. I think Che would have puked had he seen what Castro turned into.

[jsamuel]

146. I do not embrace dictators.

Just because they are "socialist" or "communist" and you agree with their policies doesn't mean that they are not dictators. Stalin was one too. So was Hitler. Hitler was a dictator on the right and Stalin was a dictator on the left.

[Joe Chi Minh]

204. Oh really? How about the puppet monsters such as Saddam Hussein, Pinochet,

Marcos, Noriega, Somosa, Videla and countless others, installed and protected by the US to the detriment of the poor all over the world?

Why do you think South America has been a hell-hole for the poor throughout the last century, and to a large extent, right up to the present day? You will pay, just as sorely as they will, if you don't condemn them unreservedly - and much more roundly than you evidently condemn Chavez and Castro. If it takes dictators to protect the lives of the poor, so be it! They won't be held to blame by almighty God. YOU will!

Jer 22: 3
"Practise honesty and integrity; rescue the man who has been wronged from the hands of his oppressor; do not exploit the stranger, the orphan, the widow; do no violence shed no innocent blood.

Afternoon
Prov 22: 22-23

"Do not rob the poor because he is poor,
or crush the afflicted at the gate;
for the Lord will please their cause
and despoil of life those who despoil them."

[John Gauger]

147. I would disagree on several points.

I certainly understand your love of Chavez, as he is my favorite world leader. And I know that Castro is not nearly as bad as the government wants us to think. But I believe it is time for both of them to go. While it pains me to say it, Chavez has overstayed his welcome, so to speak. He is becoming too authoritarian; remember, power corrupts. He is getting a little too fond of power. It's not that I don't trust him: I think he is definitely taking the country in the right direction. But I just don't believe that anyone should have that kind of power. I am also concerned that his successor will not fight the internationals quite so effectively, but I would be willing to take that risk. The people are still very much opposed to corporate dominance of their country. As for Castro, he has most definitely overstayed his welcome. While he must be commended for expelling organized crime and Chiquita, he is too regressive when it comes to human rights. I totally understand his alliance with the Soviet Union; the US intentionally drove him in that direction because they wanted to overthrow him. And I know he has created remarkable education, healthcare, and disaster resonse/relief progams. I know he liberated the people of Angola from imperialist domination (that would be us.) But Cuba needs to be taken in a new direction. Chavez has opened up many opportunities for them to reenter the world market, where they can further advance the rights and interests of their people, not to mention those of other Latin American countries. I think those countries should continue to battle greed and destruction of the only state ever condemned for international terrorism by the World Court (that would be us.) But those two men need not be at the helm.

Further, Abraham Lincoln did not deny habeas corpus because it was in the national interest; he did it to save his own neck. The people he illegally detained were the members of the Maryland state legislature. The were about to vote in favor of seccession. DC would then have been between two Confederate states. There was a good chance that vote would have resulted in Lincoln's death. I suppose there is an argument that the hasty flight of the nation's capital out to sea would have been detrimental to the national interest, but I'm sure that that was not what was primarily in Lincoln's mind at the time.

Your belief on the Kennedy assassination is interesting. We know that the CIA did have working ties with the Cuban mafia at that time with the aim of killing a president (Castro, of course.) And we know that the mafia was trying to kill Kennedy at that time. On November 20th, the Secret Service foiled a mafia hit attempt on Jack in Miami. Surprisingly, just the previous week Kennedy had stood up in his motorcade and thrown out his arms, as if to say, "Bring it." This is said to be an innuendo to Cuban counter-revolutionaries, saying to them, "I'm not afraid of Castro killing me. You shouldn't be afraid of him either." Because Castro at this time was also attempting to kill Kennedy in retaliation for the several attempts on his life that Kennedy had made. I know the CIA is capable of committing just about any crime, but killing their own president does not seem to be within their pattern. They usually commit crimes for him, not against him. But these things don't always make sense. John Wilkes Booth's diary lists railroad baron Jay Gould as among the conspirators to kill Lincoln. Lincoln had been a friend to the railroads. Last year my history teacher and I could not think of any reason why Gould would have to kill Lincoln. But there is evidence there. And I suppose it could just as well have been a small, unauthorized operation by discontents. We know that many at the CIA felt JFK was a threat to the Agency. I've just never seen any direct evidence of a joint CIA-cosa nostra attempt to kill Kennedy. I suppose it is possible.

I certainly agree that the war is all part of the unpleasantness with Chavez and Castro. Hussein was attacked because he was playing fast and loose with the oil market. One week he claimed he was supporting the Intifada and would be severely cutting oil production. The next week he anounced that he would be producing at the maximum OPEC had set for him. He was to unpredictable, and businessmen hate unpredictability. It takes cotron away from them. And that is just what Chavez and Castro have done. They have taken power away from the robber barons. That is why we are told they are dangerous enemies.

[Name removed]

149. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

158. You Are Exactly Right. Like I Said Myself, He's An Utter Piece Of Shit. But He'll Be Dead Soon,

so good riddance to him.

[brg5001]

163. His supporters say that we have no evidence against him and Cuba's a democracy

It's nuts. Hard to believe that there are still people actually waving Castro's flag! True liberals know that Castro is an egomaniacal killer and a control freak. Please, move on and support a future for Cuba and Latin America built on social justice and political freedom. Yes! Resist coporate imperialism but no more dictators who are more interested in thumbing their noses at America and not bettering the lives of the people.

[TZ]

164. very nicely said

[happydreams]

176. And you have nothing to back up your statements. While

those who support Castro and Chavez have supplied an incredible amount of info.

The lack of substance in you and your friends claims is what I hope people see here.

[TZ]

193. why in the world..

would ANYBODY believe anything put out by governments that do not believe in freedom of speech or press? I mean the Bush admin is the same way really and you don't believe them right? Castro and Chavez are just more open about their suppressions of civil liberties.

[rman]

191. You claim you have evidence but you don't show it

Interesting

[ItNerd4life]

202. Scary, isn't it?

I didn't have the courage to say what you said, but it is my sentiments exactly. I think the OP is insulting Liberals. Chavez and Castro are not open-minded.

[rinsd]

167. Castros' Drug War is about as effective as ours is.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/archive/cubaandcocaine.html

[happydreams]

177. Unfortunately I don't have a video capability, but I will tell

you this. Castro kicked drug kingpins like Santos Trafficante out of the country. Trafficante and Carlos Marcello (who had a prostitute ring with Jack Ruby and had been deported by RFK)were cited by the House Assasinations Committee of the 1970's as prime suspects in the plot to kill Kennedy.

You really should read McCoy's book if your interested in this.

[rinsd]

182. Some more info

Here's a link to drug trafficking articles about Cuba

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/drug-trafficking.htm

[beachmom]

168. I dissent from this post. It's just wrong. n/t

[Tom Joad]

170. How dare he call Rice "Missy"! Much more respect than she deserves.

And hell is too fine a place for the people who want to attack the people of Venezuela.

[happydreams]

171. Thanks everybody. What a diversity of opinion on this.

:hi:

[Joanne98]

180. GO happydreams!

:)

[Judi Lynn]

181. Similar patterns of press coverage between Haiti's coup and Venezuela's coup, both Bush productions.

Refusing the Coup: Looking Back at the Mobilization Against the Bicentennial Attack on Haiti

by Guinsly Etienne

Global Research, January 22, 2007
Haitianalysis.com and GlobalResearch.ca

In the days leading up to the end of February 2004 a wide-scale destabilization campaign aimed at bringing down Haiti's elected government was in full motion. In Haiti's capitol, Port-au-Prince, as many as 500,000 to a million people came out into the streets to support the president; but the elite press in Haiti many of whom fed information to the U.S. and international media reported a falsified low number, such as 20,000. When the opposition which comprised of the Convergence & the Group 184 had a demonstration of about 30,000 people, the corporate media reported that it was 200,000 propelling anti-government propaganda. The media and elite opposition's strategy held numerous similarities with the 2002 coup in Venezuela. This was made shockingly clear in the Venezuelan example by a Television crew from Ireland's Radio Telifis Eireann who filmed a coup from inside the Miraflores palace........
(snip/...)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ETI20070122&articleId=4543

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To those posters who haven't had time to start researching the history of U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, you will see there are such stark similarities throughout it ALL, that once you see the pattern, the rest of it will open up to you completely, over time.

All that's missing is your interest, and your time invested in doing a little homework.

[Spiffarino]

183. I don't trust anybody who decides he's the "decider"

It's bad when Bush does it and it's bad when Chavez, Saddam, Putin or any other leader does it. I harbor no illusions about how corporo-fascists influence politics in just about every country, especially our own. That still doesn't give a constitutional officer the right to bestow imperial powers upon himself just because he can.

Let me be clear. I desperately want to see Bush impeached and imprisoned because he broke his oath of office and behaved like a monarch. Tyranny in all its forms - and yes, even in wartime - is despicable. If Chavez is as good an actor as some seem to believe, he can prove it by actually running the corporate thugs out and follow by expanding freedom and democracy in Venezuela. What I fear is that he'll run them out then take all the spoils for himself. That is the way of tyrants.

I truly hope I'm wrong.

[rman]

190. Are you saying Chavez has bestowed imperial powers upon himself?

Where the heck did that come from?

The rule by decree thing is for 18 months and only regarding a number of specific economic issues.

Where are Chavez' wars of aggression to build his empire?

Chavez already has ran out several corporate thugs, which you might be aware of if you'd have informed yourself about Venezuela.
What do you think Chavez should do to expand freedom and democracy in Venezuela? It's pretty free and democratic already.

I see that your argument comes down to the same old prediction about what some people claim he will do at some point in the future. We've been hearing that for eight years now and it has yet to materialize.

[TZ]

194. If Bush did the same thing..

You wouldn't believe him would you? This is another one of those slippery slope things. Its possible Chavez has good intentions but this sounds like a version of a power grab. And as for democracy in action..from what I hear about some of the countries in South America, they sound more like democracies in name only. And thats what scares me about the Chavez regime. He says all the right things but whats his true motivations? We have already seen his influence grow. After all Stalin was appreciated and thought of a hero at first too....

[rman]

196. Bush already has done much worse, and it's not a secret

There's nothing not to believe about that.

With Bush we know he doesn't only not have good intentions, we know what he has done: illegal war, one presidential signing statement after the other to subvert the constitution, no more Habeas Corpus, torture, illegal wire tapping, taking away the very freedoms for which the terrorists supposedly hate us so much.

Quite different from Chavez.
Chavez has been president for eight years, just look at his track record. All you have on Chavez is a bit of scaremongering about what he supposedly will do at some unspecified time in the future.

To say that the fact that someone is seen as a hero "at first" (more than eight years now in the case of Chavez) is evidence that this someone is a tyrant, is just illogical.

[TZ]

201. There is just something about Chavez

that makes me very nervous. He seems very egomaniacal and tempermental and loving of the spotlight. To me thats not a good combination in a state leader...

[rman]

216. Does that mean you agree there's no basis to say Chavez is like Bush?

After with Bush it's significantly more than "something about him".

[Spiffarino]

213. As I said, I hope I'm wrong

Whether his intentions are pure or not remains to be seen. He's young compared to most leaders and potentially has many years left to rule. A president shouldn't be allowed to make laws without benefit of legislative deliberation. Absolute power corrupts even the best among us. If he relinquishes his authority to legislate by decree - and doesn't replace it with something equivalent or even worse - then maybe I'll be a fan.

Until then, I won't trust him.

[TZ]

233. I agree with that 100%

I don't know enough about him to compare him to Bush really I guess I could say logically. But my gut instinct (which is usually pretty accurate about people) is that he is not trustworthy. My instincts make me think he might be a kind of mirror image (a left wing lunatic vs. right wing lunatic) of Bush. Again, that's only my opinion of him and why this thread praising him and Castro bothers me mightily.

[JacksonWest]

195. Viva censorship! Viva Poverty! Viva oppression!

But hey, at least Cubans have health care.

[rman]

198. Poor Americans are much poorer than poor Cubans and poor Venezuelans

Because the poor in those nations have all of food, healthcare, education and housing,
while the poor in the US don't have at least one of those.

[JacksonWest]

200. Sort of a broad statement there, and I disagree.

Children are not allowed to be homeless in any state. IF that happens, the state will take them in and provide food and shelter through foster care. I have worked for some of these organizations. My girlfriend of four years works for the FIA in Michigan(Family Independence Agency) and the crux of her job is taking care of the poor and the abused. It is possible for families that are truly in poverty(that's a family of four earning less then 20,000) per year to get food, health care, education, and housing from the government. Food Stamps, medicaid, section 8 vouchers, and public schools.

The problem with our system is the high cost of health care that is passed onto all of us. We should have a uniform health care system-it would lower costs and be in line with the 21st century. That aside, we do take care of our poor citizens- but we don't insist that everyone be poor and suffer equally. That is what Cuba does-they share and share alike. Everyone has to have the same standard of living, regardless of ambition or merit. I don't particularly like that sort of system. Others do.

Could our country take better care of the poor? Yes, yes they could. We can't eliminate poverty-there are to many traits of human nature that contribute to poverty. But we could work harder to give people a fair shot, by not allowing corporations to outsource, insuring a minimum, livable wage, and providing health care.

A world without poverty would be nice, but it would have to be a world without drugs, alcohol, and the right to procreate. Not that all poor people abuse drugs and alcohol. But a good segment of the population does-and this creates a lot of problems. As I said before, human nature creates poverty, and it's hard to beat human nature. Sometimes you have to serve it before you can get around it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

205. And who do you have to thank for that? Left-wing progressives,

such as Roosevelt, who shared much the same concern for the poor and oppressed people of his own country. The same progressives that your Republicans have been fighting "tooth and nail" ever since.

What's more, the aspect of poverty in the midst of plenty is a particulary bitter pill to swallow, and is indeed routinely used as a prime factor in quantifying poverty.

[Judi Lynn]

207. The wingers are also hell-bent in removing every significant piece of progressive

legislation. They have boasted about it publicly.

God only knows what our condition would be if they seized more control, and hadn't been slowed down through the last election.

[JacksonWest]

209. Our condition would go from bad to worse. But we need to start turning the tide now

The best thing the congress could do would be to start passing laws that protect manufacturing jobs and keep them at home. Create tax penalties for companies that outsource their work. This is the legacy of the nineties and the Republican tide that swept congress. Minimum wage raises are meaningless if we lost all of the jobs that pay more then minimum wage!

I'm not impressed with the agenda so far. I support the ideas in principle, but their not really addressing economic issues that are destroying jobs in this country. I'm in Michigan. I'm on the front lines, and I'm much more concerned with economic justice and policies then anything else. And frankly, I'm getting nothing so far. Not even a proposal. It would be great if Lobbying was shut down. It would be even better if some of the 200,000 jobs that had left my state were brought back.

[Joe Chi Minh]

211. Precisely.

[JacksonWest]

208. My Republicans?

Tone it down buppy. I support all of the programs I just mentioned, and I advocate expanding all of them, as well as health care. I don't agree with Cuba's system-because I'm not a socialist or a communist. This is Democratic Underground, eh?

I'm not sure what your last sentence is saying. Are you arguing that if everyone is given an equal share of everything that there can not be poverty-since you can't quantify it by comparison?

I've always liked Roosevelt, and I'm not sure why he's relevant to this conversation. My point was I'd rather be poor in the US then poor in Cuba. Both countries provide aid to their poor-the difference is that Cuba gives it's people the same standard of living, and the United States does not.

[Joe Chi Minh]

210. It is very naive of you to suggest that Castro and Chavez believe in

economic equality for all.

You may be sure that they would be all too well aware that poorer people are simply not as venal and materialistic as the more (academically) educated and worldly, and consequently customarily very content with food, board and a modicum of disposable income for themselves and their families.

Marx may have considered, as he once stated, that the tragedy of the poor was the poverty of their desires, but, it is simply not credible that either Castro or Chavez would be unaware that it is only a tragedy in the context of the predatory venality of the aforesaid "educated", to this day, largely driven by worldly ambition in terms of money, power and status.

Neither Fidel nor Hugo would insult the poor to the extent that they believed that they coveted endlessly increasing affluence and its, in the circumstances, often tawdry gew-gaws in the way that the "respectable" monied people of the West strongly tend towards.

Is just the elementary justice that they DO require, and which the Mighty Duo fight for on their behalf, really so hedged with tortuous moral dilemmas?

This, too is the Catholic Church's position - however hideous the failings in this regards of its leadership, historically. When so many popes and saints asserted that when we give to the poor, we are only giving back to them what is rightly theirs, since he made the world and its bounty for us all, they did not have in mind the trappings of opulence. They were talking about people reduced to begging or in otherwise indigent circumstances, the more spiritual people, being better cared for by us worldlings, and not deprived of God's most elementary gifts of food, shelter and modest comfort. If they aspire to more, fine. They should have the chance - though the Gospels strongly suggest that Christ would have been rather saddened by it. Not exactly "selling their birthright for a mess of potage", but somewhat in that direction.

[JacksonWest]

212. It's very rude of you to suggest I'm naive for something I never said.

Maybe rude isn't the best word.

My post was limited to Cuba, and Economic Equality is a different animal than a communist society-or socialist society.

As it stands, I think you have a rather cartoonish view of the "rich" and an idealistic view of the poor. Far be it from me to halt the projection of nobility. My primary objection to any of your arguments is your attacks on me, and your inability to respond in a logical framework to a query or statement.

I aspire for more then food, shelter, and modest comfort. Hopefully this won't upset Jesus.

[Joe Chi Minh]

215. "I aspire for more then food, shelter, and modest comfort. Hopefully this won't upset Jesus."

Don't bank on it, or you might have a long time to regret it. I dare say Jesus will take it as par for the course, but it's not what he'd hoped of us, if we take him at his word, is it? But our Western society has always preferred to take his Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes as wonderfully sublime poetry, and best viewed as such.

But you know some of us get very tired of DUers who don't set the likes of Castro against the alternative. Not an imaginary future one, but the one which actually existed in Cuba. A leadership the likes of Batista and Traficante, the Mafia head. And they were, I suppose, relatively tame in comparison to so many other right-wing monsters the US has installed in South America and sponsored elsewhere in the world. And all you can jib at are the likes of Castro and Chavez, who have done so much good for so many people without anything like the modest comfort you disdain.

Read Christ's own description of the Last Judgment in Matthew's Gospel. The only one in Christian scripture.

[JacksonWest]

218. Judge not lest ye be judged.

There's a fine line between accepting Castro and praising him.

Chavez doesn't strike me as a bad person, or even a bad leader. I think he's a populist, and I also think he's a jackass-as i've said in many threads. I don't agree with his shutting down of an entire network, his relationship with Iran, and I thought the comments he made at the UN were childish and beneath the dignity of a world leader. Aside from that-he a democratically elected Leader who seems to have a good heart. Far be it from me to question how other countries want to govern themselves.

You're thoughts on Cuba are fair minded. Castro has not made the life worse for his people. He guarantees a certain level of existence. It is next to impossible to have more then your neighbor, and the basic needs are provided for. The human rights violations documented by amnesty international

http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/cub-summary-eng

are troubling. I support a free press and free speech above everything. It's just who I am, and what I believe in. I don't like to be told what to do, or what my government will limit me to. I believe that the purpose of a government is to ensure the safety of its population. Safety in health, economics, property, and person. I think the best way to do this is to create a system that allows people to exchange goods and services, while making sure minimum needs are met and that no person or persons can take control over vital areas of the market. I believe vital services, such as health, energy, and education should be controlled by the government to great extents.

If people want to be greedy and live only for themselves, so be it. It's not a virtuous path, and they will sow what they reap. If you make more money, you can do more with it. You can give it away, you can start a business, you can spend more time with your kids...it's up to you.

The US is close to this model, only our government has given to much credence to corporations and this has hurt us. There are some socialist ideas/constructs that would benefit our society greatly.

That being said, I could never live under Castro, in a society that imprisons those that speak out against the government. While some people are convinced the US does this, there are no examples to point to. Just the empty rhetoric of talking heads in the ether of flickering neon that reflects the collective conscious of the cackling sycophants of this idiotic administration. If Sean Hannity calling you unpatriotic stifles dissent, we don't deserve the right to speak. I have always failed to see how the threats of those that we despise can harm free speech. I dare them to actually do something-it won't be done. These are cowards, yes men, and spineless spindles twirling in the void of empty ideas.

[Joe Chi Minh]

243. "That being said, I could never live under Castro, in a society

that imprisons those that speak out against the government. While some people are convinced the US does this, there are no examples to point to. Just the empty rhetoric of talking heads in the ether of flickering neon that reflects the collective conscious of the cackling sycophants of this idiotic administration."

I refer you to the thread about the journalist, Mark Stanford, and his copybook CIA-induced demise - not to speak of the many others alluded to.

But what I would like to hear from you concerning your society, is the opposite to what you are trying put across, namely, that the US could be a model for Cuba in relation to political liberties. Your country's recent history of presidential assassinations, of Martin Luther King, and of such people as Octafish might enumerate at great length, suggest otherwise. Hardly tantamout to Hannity et al shouting, "Boo!" to Democrats. Do you believe the Warren Commission's report?

When Christ said, "Judge not that ye be not judged", he was not advocating that we forbear from using our intelligence. Indeed, it is part of the Christian's vocation to speak to a person's condition, if he evidences behaviour liable to jeopardise his supernatural destiny in the bosom of God's own family. St John the Baptist and the O.T. the prophets didn't shrink from excoriating the respectable, but venal and dishonest rich people of their day, as a class. Nor evidently, Jesus' disciples.

What Jesus evidently had in mind was that people tend never to believe so enthusiastically in Hell as when someone else has really has angered them. In other words, what we have a tendency to do in such circumstances is, to not just want them to go to Hell, but prefer it to their seeing the light and being converted - assuming of course that their offence is indeed seriously sinful.

Why is it that you have left it to this late stage to concede the wonderful work Fidel has done for so many people, and how enviable his social policies are?

And you go on to say, "It is next to impossible to have more then your neighbor, and the basic needs are provided for."

The notion that upward mobility is impossible in Cuba, judging from an article in the UK Guardian, not directly on the theme, is simply not true.

In short, it seems to me that your bottom line is, "I would only countenance measures to improve the lot of the poor and oppressed, provided it doesn't impact on my wealth and upward mobility. Apparently on the grounds of Thatcher's Sermon on the Mound, that the the Good Samaritan was only any use because he had money in his pocket." That seems to me, at best, sad.

[happydreams]

214. Excellent, concisely stated, point.

:hi:

[JacksonWest]

219. The poor in Cuba don't have the right to speak out against their government.

[Judi Lynn]

223. That's what people tell you who have never been there. It's propaganda.

Once you start keeping your eyes and ears open you're going to start hearing different stories one of these days. Don't base your real view of life on propaganda. Try to dig deeper. Take the initiative.

[JacksonWest]

230. Amnesty International is propaganda? Is Cuba's constitution propaganda?

Let's give this the pepsi challenge. Are there any Cuban newspapers or websites, based in Cuba, that criticize Castro? I can't find any. Let's check the Cuban Constitution. Oh, here's a paragraph worth noting:

Article 53

ARTICLE 53. Citizens have freedom of speech and of the press in keeping with the objectives of socialist society. Material conditions for the exercise of that right are provided by the fact that the press, radio, television, cinema, and other mass media are state or social property and can never be private property. This assures their use at exclusive service of the working people and in the interests of society.

The law regulated the exercise of those freedoms.



http://www.cubanet.org/ref/dis/const_92_e.htm

The next article says the right to demonstrate is unlimited, and the right to free speech is unlimited for social and mass organizations. Which are state recognized groups. Based on article 53, how can you possibly say there is a free press and free speech?

And we have another crowd favorite, sort of a catch all:

ARTICLE 62. None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to what is established in the Constitution and by law, or contrary to the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. Violations of this principle can be punished by law.

How would you feel if * tried to put similar language into the constitution? He's put similar language into the recent war act, the one that throws out Habeas Corpus.

Cuba. What a country.

And if you still think it isn't communist, read the first few articles. Let me highlight another one of my favorites:

ARTICLE 5. The Communist Party of Cuba, a follower of Martí’s ideas and of Marxism-Leninism, and the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, is the highest leading force of society and of the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of the construction of socialism and the progress toward a communist society.


Seriously, why is it ok to disallow civil liberties for this form of government? Would you want to live in a country where a site like Democratic Underground couldn't exist?

[Mika]

225. If that were so, then Cubans would have thrown them out decades ago.

Cubans in Cuba have a long history of wielding the capacity and tendency of overthrowing any and all governments that were oppressing them. One would have to hold a pretty low opinion of the Cuban people of the 50's, 60's 70's, 80's, 90's and in this century to think that they, en mass, revolted against a cruel and blood soaked US supported Batista dictatorship only to allow themselves to be dictated to by another dictatorship. For 48 years? Really?

Not likely. Not an actuality.


As posted earlier, Cuba does have a representative democratic parliamentary system.

http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

--

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,

Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections
Arnold August
1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books

[JacksonWest]

227. Not according to Amnesty International.

Link provided in an earlier post.

[Mika]

229. So Amnesty Int supports ramming busses through embassy gates now?

Interesting at the perspective that AI has regarding this violent attack by hijackers who injured people in their goals.

Considering AI's sources regarding Cuba's human rights (Cubanet-->USAID, CANF, etc) its not really suprising.

Did you know that those Cubans who rammed the Mexicam embassy were denied US visas because of a violent criminal background check done by the US interests section in Cuba? I was following this incident in the news as it happened, and afterward, as well as the inciting done by Radio Marti at that time. Did you know that the Mexican government demanded that those bus hijackers be removed from their embassy grounds and prosecuted?

A LOT of "allegedly" and "reportedly" used in that AI report. Sorta like Faux news uses "some people say.." in their "reports".

Its interesting that AI's chief sources of info on Cuba are US bought and paid for "journalists" who grind out nothing but anti Castro disinformation for US gov pay - like Armstrong Williams and other US "journalists" were grinding out propaganda for the W admin. Pathetic, actually.

[JacksonWest]

231. the report isn't limited to the embassy incident.

but, it is semi-subjective, I suppose. The actual constitution outlines the rules and restrictions. It guarantees some wonderful things-like health care, housing, and education-but they do not have the right to a free press and free speech.

[Mika]

232. Please point out where the Cuban constitution denies free press & speech.

I would really like to examine that part of the Cuban constitution with you.

Please post the specifics.

Thanks.

[JacksonWest]

234. Look at post 230. I have links and excerpts. Article 53 specifically.

[Mika]

237. Read on. Arts 54 & 55 guarantee free speech, press, and religious choices

Freedom to assembly, protest, and publishing here..

ARTICLE 54. The rights to assembly, demonstration and association are exercised by workers, both manual and intellectual, peasants, women, students and other sectors of the working people, and they have the necessary means for this. The social and mass organizations have all the facilities they need to carry out those activities in which the members have full freedom of speech and opinion based on the unlimited right of initiative and criticism.

Freedom of and from religion here..

ARTICLE 55. The state, which recognizes, respects and guarantees freedom of conscience and of religion, also recognizes, respects and guarantees every citizen’s freedom to change religious beliefs or to not have any, and to profess, within the framework of respect for the law, the religious belief of his preference.

[JacksonWest]

239. Right. I acknowledged that in my post. It is qualified under article 53 and 62.

If you don't believe they are qualified, do you find them contradictory?

The absolute free speech is reserved for mass and social organizations, which are state sponsored and sanctioned groups.

It's a mixed bag baby. I wouldn't want to live under such limitations, regardless of health care or housing. Or education. Others may find the system the best alternative.

But, at the end of the day, they do not enjoy free speech. If the speech is determined to be against the interest of the state-it's punishable by law. Taken from article 53 and article 62.

Amnesty International hasn't been allowed on the Island since 1988.

I have a friend in Miami who's been there, as well as a former professor. Both said the same thing. It was a nice place, very clean, and the people seemed happy.
So, even though I am appalled by their restrictions, I'm not condemning the country. It's just upsetting when I see people who want to delude themselves or others by claiming things about Cuba that just aren't true. It goes both ways.

[Mika]

240. No delusions on my part. I've been to Cuba many times. Now, on to Art 62

Article 62: None of the liberties granted to citizens can be exercised against what is established in the Constitution and laws, nor against the existence and ends of the socialist State, nor against the decision of the Cuban people to construct socialism and communism. The infraction of this principle is punishable by law.

Now, the fact that socialism and communism are mentioned in this Article is really not very surprising or telling since Article 1 of the Cuban constitution states that "Cuba is a socialist State". Therefore, what this Article is actually stating is that any acts against the State (in other words "treason") are punishable by law. Is treason not punishable by law in all states? In fact, isn't treason punishable by law in the US?

In addition, the current Cuban constitution was adopted by referendum (in other words, the Cuban people voted in favor of its adoption). Therefore, it would appear that it was the Cuban peoples' decision to build a socialist nation and that would mean that any act against it would also be an act against the will of the Cuban people.

Article 69 states that the National Assembly, which represents the sovereign will of the people, is the organism of supreme power of the State.

Article 70 states that the National Assembly is the only organism with constitution and legislative power of the Republic.

Article 71 states that the National Assembly is composed of officials that are elected by free, direct and secret vote of the electors.

Article 72 states that the National Assembly is elected for a term of five years.

Article 73 states that the National Assembly elects from its rank its President, Vicepresident, and Secretary.

Artilce 74 states that the National Assembly elects from its rank the Counsel of State which is composed of a President, a First Vicepresident, five Vicepresidents, a Secretary and 23 memebers. The President of the State Counsel is the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Government. The State Counsel is responsible to the National Assembly and must account for all of its activities.

[JacksonWest]

241. I don't think you're delusional. I think you're civil and I respect your viewpoint.

I'm not even sure we disagree.

However, treason is different then
"against the existence and ends of the socialist State, nor against the decision of the Cuban people to construct socialism and communism"

I would argue that treason is included in that phrase, but the phrase is fairly broad. Overly broad.


As far as your thoughts that it was the Cubans decision to build a Socialist nation(with the goal of becoming a communist society, as stated in their constitution), Socialism is a party or an idea. Nothing wrong with that. But in effect, acting against this socialism system could be something as simple as saying "I think I should be able to own my own property." It squashes dissent. Even if there is a majority, it isn't appropriate to make dissent punishable by law. Look at your own words.

"it would appear that it was the Cuban peoples' decision to build a socialist nation and that would mean that any act against it would also be an act against the will of the Cuban people"

Phrase it like this:

It was the will of the American people to elect a Republican President. Any act against him would be an act against the will of the American people.

It's the same principle. Just because the people have a will doesn't make it of to shut off all those that disagree with it. If that was the case, there would still be segregation in the South.

I don't believe that. I don't believe it's right to allow a majority to terrorize a minority. I believe that blocking the free exchange of speech and ideas only means your ideas are weak.

So, at the end of the day, my big problem with Cuba is that they don't grant their citizens the same basic human rights, such as speech and expression, that most democracies do.

It's hard to say the people are content with their government when it's against the law to say otherwise, right?

[Mika]

267. I posted two Articles in the constitution that guarantee free speech.

I have seen political opposition parties operate in Cuba. Legally. Without harassment of any kind.

I've posted links for some information on Cuba political system. Why not take the time to read them since this seems to be a topic of interest to you.

IMO (based on personal experience IN Cuba), Americans who have never set foot on the island who say that Cubans can't speak out against their government or representatives are just repeating US gov/Miamicubano "exile" anti Cuba propaganda.

[Raydawg1234]

246. where's your proof, or are you just making that up?

[rman]

248. what are you disputing?

- that being poor in the US usually means that you don't have at least one of sufficient food, health-care, education or housing

- that social programs in Cuba and Venezuela do provide the poor with the things that the poor in the US are lacking

- both

?

[Raydawg1234]

249. Okay, then do our poor areas look like this?

A woman walks on a dirt road on one of the hills of the 'Barrio La Esperanza,” a slum in the southern limits of Caracas. The structure, at the top, is one of the 300 small clinics built by the government where some of the 15,000 Cuban doctors work and live.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050204.wcaracas0205/PhotoGallery01?slot=5

They live in shacks, but look at that wonderful clinic on the hill! :sarcasm:

[Raydawg1234]

250. here's more pictures:

I highley doubt that our poor have it that bad. Show me some places in the U.S. that look like that.

[rman]

253. That doesn't say anything about how these people benefit

from the social programs.
That wonderful clinic provides free health-care to the poor that live there. There's no such thing in the US, save perhaps a very few exceptions - in Venezuela it's not the exception.
There's probably a state subsidized food store nearby where the poor can buy food at discount prices. For those without money there's free food. Again a rarity in the US.
Same goes for education.
All this is Chavez' policy; the poverty was created by governments that went before his. Getting that many people out of poverty into the middle class takes a while, but already these people's basic needs are being met.

[happydreams]

259. Ludicrous beyond words! Another origin of the specious

moment.


You now require that Chavez, in the blink of an eye, undo the damage of a century of corporate exploitation. How idiotic and self serving can you get!

[Judi Lynn]

262. Omigod! I hadn't seen those pathetic posts. Isn't that hideous?

I've seen a poster attempt that ploy here before. He wasn't a bright man, obviously.

It probably goes back even farther than just the time misused by corporations, too, as other forces were in play before that, which got almost ALL of the land being owned by a very few people in Venezuela, and everyone ELSE crowded onto the hill tops.

How PROFOUNDLY stupid would a man have to be to claim one President could completely reverse the extreme damage done over many, MANY generations of Venezuelans, through extreme exploitation in SEVEN YEARS?

Look how far _Bush has progressed bringing help to New Orleans!

These people have their houses swept down the mountain sides every time there's a gully washing rain storm, in horrendous mudslides which kill them indescriminately. One of the goals of their current administration is to find the open space for some of the people to move out of the hills, as obviously, building new SHACKS isn't going to get the job done.

[happydreams]

265. IMO they (the Righties) are trying to throw up anything to

interrupt intelligent discussion of the topic. In this case they show the pictures of squalor hoping that people who know little about the history of the situation will think its Chavez's fault. In the pre-Internet era this was more effective when the perception managers had the last word, except for an LTTE or something. Now we have discussions like this one to get into the topics in depth.

It's like Cheney who keeps insisting that there were WMD's in Iraq and that the US is having success there.

I have been studying the Muckrakers of the early 1900's. They came onto the American scene in a flash and started countering the even then corporatized media with incredible expos e's on everything from medicine, that was little more than poison, to insurance fraud. They spurred the political sector to action.

What's happening on the Internet today is similar, though people back then read--no TV or radio as a distraction--and also wrote their political representatives.

Teddy Roosevelt, who is the one who coined the pejorative term muckraker, eventually was forced to join in the crusade, albeit superficially. IMHO Roosevelt was a sleaze bag guilty of far worse than what most people realize. He was slick politically and most of his purported "Trust-busting" was BS. It's truly amazing. TR was forced to personally counter claims against him from LTTE writers in the "New York World". He actually wrote his own take on things in response.
A far cry from today, almost unimaginable.

The Muckrakers really had a profound impact on events of that day in many ways setting the agenda for the FDR era. They faded (1910-11)as fast as they came up when the Morgan banking interests destroyed their ability to function financially. Very sad.

[Judi Lynn]

263. You haven't travelled much in your own country, have you?

Las Colonias, Texas, Hidalgo, Texas, Edinburg, Texas, Pharr, Texas

Don't have time for more. Pick a state.

What about the huge HOMELESS population in the States, people who don't even have a shack?

What about Miami, with it's very wealthy elite, which still has managed to ignore the plight of the poor so completely it has been designated "the poorest city over 500,000 population in the United States" time after time by the U.S. Census Bureau? Ever see any photos of the poor neighborhoods there?

Get in your goddamned car and start driving. Drive through the South. Look at the slums of industrial cities in the States.

Of COURSE there are hideous slums in Latin America. It's because THEY HAVE BEEN RAPED. Raped over centuries. Your idiotic insinuation that it can all be swept away in 7 years is utterly beneath contempt.

[happydreams]

266. And those pictures are from Bushieboy's Texas to boot!!

Thanks for sharing those Judi.

[Raydawg1234]

217. Castro, The same guy who hosted Russian nuclear missles

during the Cuban missle crisis.

What is wrong with you?

I think your crazy.

Castro can kiss my gringo ass.

As far as Chavez goes, why do we care what they do in Venezuela?

[happydreams]

254. You, as so many others of your ilk, consistently miss the point I made.

US actions against Cuba forced,and have continually forced, Castro's hand. If you don't agree with that that is one thing but to act as if US hostility toward him is irrelevant is childish.

Castro isn't worried about the labels he is trying to keep his people ALIVE!

[AikidoSoul]

224. Am very disappointed with some of the viewpoints here of those who fail to see the enormous pressure

exerted on Castro and Chavez by economic elites that would, and do destroy or kill anyone who stands in their way of making huge profits. Since huge profits often come from raping countries of their resources and exploiting its populations --the very rich often have blood on their hands --that should not be news to you, but of course they do it quietly very often and it probably doesn't upset you as much as perhaps someone who is a leader, someone quite visible who you can point to and call a "socialist" or other label. Out of your view the super rich elites can and do hire thugs, and create intricate, powerful networks that undermine everyone who stands in the way of their own control over money, resources and labor. In other words, they are naturally against almost everything Castro and Chavez say or do. Or anyone who doesn't do their bidding.

All they want for their behind-the-scenes activities is unheard of riches.

The rich are not like you and me, and it's hard to put yourself in their shoes, or in the shoes of Castro and Chavez who must continually be on-guard for every moment of their lives.

When I lived in Central America there were multiple events that woke me up to how the poor are raped and robbed by the rich and powerful. I'll give you just one of them -- and this is the one that changed my life and views forever.

In Honduras in the early eighties we were renting a very lovely home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and did some work through the American Embassy. We were there off and on for a few years. The owner of the home we rented owned many large homes in this lovely area. Occasionally he would drop in for a chat. For some reason he thought we were privy to behind-the-scenes plans by the American elites and the elite rich of Hondurans, to pull the rug out from under the newly developing Honduran middle class. During the short time we were there we saw a lot of them pulling themselves out of poverty, buying modest homes, and building models businesses. This rug-pulling scheme was completely off the radar for those people, but the rich knew about the plan -- which was to devalue the Lempira -- to knock its value in half -- which would destroy the middle class and the rich then swooped in like vultures and picked off the results of their labors-- their homes and businesses -- for mere pennies. What that asshole landlord and all his rich friends had been doing was making multiple trips to Miami and San Antonio, and buying American dollars. Then when the Lempira plummeted, they made billions on the backs of the poor.

If you remember, the same thing happened in Mexico a couple of years later.

To the critics I ask you -- do you consider it o.k. that Mexico and Honduras are dog-eat-dog variety democracies that ruin the lives of its peoples and purposefully, strategically destroy their dreams and the dreams of their children? And how exactly have these democracies benefited its people?

Norway is a great socialist country with huge benefits for its populace --it's probably the most successful example of a high standard of living for a country's people in the world. Not all socialism is bad.

But anything in the extreme is dangerous... and that includes unbridled, dod-eat-dog capitalism! We have no controls for the kinds of extremes that we are witnessing in our lifetimes of this kind of capitalism. And with the huge advances in technology that enable control as never before dreamed by those who want such control... we have to open our eyes to what is fair and just, and seek it. No matter what other name you might call it.

[Judi Lynn]

226. You know whereof you speak. Very rare, usually.

Some of us are just beginning to awaken from our culture-induced comas. It's going to take a while for some to come to terms with the reality which is more and more visible now than it used to be, before the age of declassified documents, and accessible information for those who are driven to look for the answers!

Thank you.

Really glad to see your posts. Welcome to D.U. :hi: :hi: :hi:

[AikidoSoul]

228. Thank you back, Judi Lynn

Appreciate the kind words

[TZ]

235. you make some good points but...

just because somebody is a socialist and may have things desirous to some of us in democracies does not make these people someone to admire! Just as we have the most freedom in the world does not mean our government is not corrupt!! Far from it. In fact thats kind of the argument that Bush uses to justify spreading democracy, that because of our freedoms we can't do any wrong anywhere. You must take into account that power corrupts absolutely. There are very few people in either Bush's or Chavez or Castro's positions that aren't corrupt. I would say their are some world leaders and democracies that are better than others, just as some socialist countries are better than others. We all agree that its wrong to villify people without reason. Its just as wrong to make people into heroes without reason either. I don't know enough admittedly about Chavez to truly say but just because he opposes Bush does not make him a savior, and I really think that Castro's record speaks for itself there as well.
I think its okay to have differing opinions but when people just jump to conclusions about socialists a lot of times that gives the RW ammo to say that Liberals are dangerous communists to the mainstream in the country,and I think thats part of the reason why until recently conservatives seemed to have an advantage in many places that are traditionally moderate. Thats why this bothers me to this extent.

[rman]

258. It seems you think socialism excludes democracy

Is that so?

If so,
Ever looked into European politics?
Ever looked into what's actually happening in Venezuela wrt "socialism" there?
Ever listened to sources other than US mass media regarding Castro's record?

[happydreams]

255. Yep, This pressure keeps tensions high which is what the fascists

want.
Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[Raydawg1234]

247. How can you admire Castro, a man who made himself president for life.....

This isn't Communist underground

[TZ]

251. right to the point..nt

[Mika]

257. What point?

That it is easy for one to reveal that one did not read any of the posts on the topic being discussed on this thread?

[yurbud]

252. I'm not a fan of Castro, but he did see what happened to Arbenz in Guatamala a few years before

Arbenz was elected, made very mild land reforms, and was lucky to be chased out of his country alive by the rich as opposed to being outright assassinated.

[happydreams]

256. A United Fruit (Dulles) operation overthrew Arbenz. This sent

a strong message to anyone, even a democratically elected leader, of a Latin American country that anyone who doesn't toe the corporatists line that you would get the boot or worse.
Dulles's law office prior to WWII. Sullivan and Cromwell had "Heil Hitler" on their stationary letter head.