Gobama! Gobama! Yes! Ease Travel Restrictions to Cuba!

[Coito ergo sum]

[
coito:

Since 1992, the policy of the US has been that the embargo would remain in place until Cuba made concrete moves toward democratization. And, a key factor here is that Cuba has not done so.

democratization coming from the US..hahahaha. I like that, a two party corporate system telling someone else to " democratize". Classic. Maybe when you finish high school you'll see the problem with that.

That's two personal attacks that I've let pass. I'm not going to respond in kind. I'll just point out that you can't seem to talk to people without making it personal, which is a sign of weakness.

We elect our leaders in the US. In Cuba, Castro jails people engaging in political opposition. The fact that you can't see the difference demonstrates, yet again, your blinkered view of the world. You grew up in a relatively free country, where you can speak out harshly against the government - as you do - and you long for a system like Cuba, where you would be among the first shut down if you dared say the things you say about THAT government. You live in the lap of luxury compared to Cuba, and yet you long for an economy that gives you rice and beans every day, and denies you the right to work to improve your condition.

[sandinista]

[
coito:

Since 1992, the policy of the US has been that the embargo would remain in place until Cuba made concrete moves toward democratization. And, a key factor here is that Cuba has not done so.

democratization coming from the US..hahahaha. I like that, a two party corporate system telling someone else to " democratize". Classic. Maybe when you finish high school you'll see the problem with that.

That's two personal attacks that I've let pass. I'm not going to respond in kind. I'll just point out that you can't seem to talk to people without making it personal, which is a sign of weakness.

We elect our leaders in the US. In Cuba, Castro jails people engaging in political opposition. The fact that you can't see the difference demonstrates, yet again, your blinkered view of the world. You grew up in a relatively free country, where you can speak out harshly against the government - as you do - and you long for a system like Cuba, where you would be among the first shut down if you dared say the things you say about THAT government. You live in the lap of luxury compared to Cuba, and yet you long for an economy that gives you rice and beans every day, and denies you the right to work to improve your condition.

what personal attacks? Sign of weakness You "elect" your leaders...OK, keep believing that. The more you speak, the deeper the hole you dig.

coito

I've spoken to people from Cuba, and I can tell you they absolutely, positively agree with me, and would tell you that you've talked to some of the privileged. They would tell you that you are a white foreigner who has been snowed by the regime.

People from Cuba...in the States...oh that'll give you a rational view of Cuba. How would you know who I've spoken to in Cuba, privileged? No. Average Cubans. I am a white foreigner? haha. You are the white foreigner...american at that, who has been snowed by US propaganda. That would be the view given by the Cuban people.

http://www.zcommunications.org/health-c ... y-don-fitz

Health Care in the US and Cuba
When Americans spend $100 on health care, is it possible that only $4 goes to keeping them well and $96 goes somewhere else? Single payer health care advocates compare American health care to that in Western Europe or Canada and come up with figures of 20–30% waste in the US.

But there is one country with very low level of economic activity yet with a level of health care equal to the West: Cuba.

Life expectancy of about 78 years of age in Cuba is equivalent to the US. Yet, in 2005, Cuba was spending $193 per person on health care, only 4% of the $4540 being spent in the US. Where could the other 96% of US health care dollars be going?

[Coito ergo sum]

what personal attacks? Sign of weakness You "elect" your leaders...OK, keep believing that. The more you speak, the deeper the hole you dig.

Just read your last couple of posts.

Yes - we elect our leaders - I've participated in the elections myself - you go to the polls, vote, and the congressional candidate that gets the most votes wins - I can, if I want, get on the ballot myself quite easily. If only people knew how easy it was to become a Congressperson... the districts are fairly small, and people can run very easily. Yes, it's best - but not required - to be Democrat or Republican -- but, for State government positions, third party candidates often get elected.

In Cuba - they just don't - there is ONE party - and its name is Castro. If you raise your head in any real way, Castro will shoot it off - or, he'll take your upstart movement and arrest and imprison half its members. There is no equivalence.

And, again with the zcommunications links...dude - they are part of the snowjob - a pro-Castro snow job designed as a public relations boon to Castro.

Naturally - you link to some half-baked article comparing health care in Cuba and the US. Isn't that discussed on another thread? We've been through that here on Rationalia and it's been demonstrate that this Michael Moore "Sicko"-esque nonesense is just that....nonsense....but, I'll leave that to another thread. But, note that health care is not equivalent to quality of life -- the fact that you can't dispute is that people in Cuba, by and large, are on subsistence level - they are eating rationed rice and beans and meat and veggies are luxuries - they can't drive cars, and when they do they're 25 year old slipshot Russian pieces of shit - they have a hard time putting shoes on their children's feet - that's Cuba. And, that's not "American propaganda."

I love how you act like you have some access to data everyone else doesn't. From what? Zcommunications? You know - we have access to that here in the States too - it's not as if we don't have all the same shit you have in Canada, and probably more. There is no shortage of dissent in the US - it's rampant. That's why our politics is so polarized and vituperative. We are all over each other, and there is no shyness about criticizing the State - people sneak into Presidential events and howl and disrupt the event, and are hardly touched - just escorted out to protest another day. In Cuba, they go to prison.

So, please - let's not pretend that in Cuba people can say what they want - they can't. They can't work for whom they choose - moonlighting is a crime. They can't decide to become a pamphleteer - they can't create a website (even if they happen to be one of the seven or eight who have a computer) and criticize Castro.

You want to laugh at the US - as if we're not really "free" -- it takes me one second to find a million images like this on American based websites:



Are you suggesting that people in Cuba are free to mock President Castro in this manner? Or, do they just all love the Castros so much, they would never think of insulting the bringer of the "glorious revolution" in that manner?

[sandinista]

what personal attacks? Sign of weakness You "elect" your leaders...OK, keep believing that. The more you speak, the deeper the hole you dig.

Just read your last couple of posts.

Yes - we elect our leaders - I've participated in the elections myself - you go to the polls, vote, and the congressional candidate that gets the most votes wins - I can, if I want, get on the ballot myself quite easily. If only people knew how easy it was to become a Congressperson... the districts are fairly small, and people can run very easily. Yes, it's best - but not required - to be Democrat or Republican -- but, for State government positions, third party candidates often get elected.

In Cuba - they just don't - there is ONE party - and its name is Castro. If you raise your head in any real way, Castro will shoot it off - or, he'll take your upstart movement and arrest and imprison half its members. There is no equivalence.

Great, you can vote for corporate ruler number one or corporate ruler number two. In the US there is ONE party, the corporate party, better known as the republicrats. Good stuff, vote away!

[Coito ergo sum]

what personal attacks? Sign of weakness You "elect" your leaders...OK, keep believing that. The more you speak, the deeper the hole you dig.

Just read your last couple of posts.

Yes - we elect our leaders - I've participated in the elections myself - you go to the polls, vote, and the congressional candidate that gets the most votes wins - I can, if I want, get on the ballot myself quite easily. If only people knew how easy it was to become a Congressperson... the districts are fairly small, and people can run very easily. Yes, it's best - but not required - to be Democrat or Republican -- but, for State government positions, third party candidates often get elected.

In Cuba - they just don't - there is ONE party - and its name is Castro. If you raise your head in any real way, Castro will shoot it off - or, he'll take your upstart movement and arrest and imprison half its members. There is no equivalence.

Great, you can vote for corporate ruler number one or corporate ruler number two. In the US there is ONE party, the corporate party, better known as the republicrats. Good stuff, vote away!

Nothing is stopping you, if you're American, from running for local government, and then even State government. I've seen 18 to 25 year olds become mayors of towns. They can then become State representatives, etc.

"Corporate ruler" - lol -- keep on about it, as if it's better in Cuba. If what the US has is "corporate rulers" then I'll take it over "Castro rule" any day of the week. At least here I can go to the supermarket and buy food without it being strictly rationed, and limited primarily to rice and beans. At least we not only have the right to say "fuck", but also "fuck the government." In Cuba, they don't even have THAT right. So, even if you think the elections in the US are shams and we have a "corporateocracy" - how in the world is a one-party rule for 50 years by a brutal dictator who jails his political opponents and keeps the people from raising their own standard of living by imposing rationing and criminalizing commerce?

[sandinista]

what personal attacks? Sign of weakness You "elect" your leaders...OK, keep believing that. The more you speak, the deeper the hole you dig.

Just read your last couple of posts.

Yes - we elect our leaders - I've participated in the elections myself - you go to the polls, vote, and the congressional candidate that gets the most votes wins - I can, if I want, get on the ballot myself quite easily. If only people knew how easy it was to become a Congressperson... the districts are fairly small, and people can run very easily. Yes, it's best - but not required - to be Democrat or Republican -- but, for State government positions, third party candidates often get elected.

In Cuba - they just don't - there is ONE party - and its name is Castro. If you raise your head in any real way, Castro will shoot it off - or, he'll take your upstart movement and arrest and imprison half its members. There is no equivalence.

Great, you can vote for corporate ruler number one or corporate ruler number two. In the US there is ONE party, the corporate party, better known as the republicrats. Good stuff, vote away!

Nothing is stopping you, if you're American, from running for local government, and then even State government. I've seen 18 to 25 year olds become mayors of towns. They can then become State representatives, etc.

"Corporate ruler" - lol -- keep on about it, as if it's better in Cuba. If what the US has is "corporate rulers" then I'll take it over "Castro rule" any day of the week. At least here I can go to the supermarket and buy food without it being strictly rationed, and limited primarily to rice and beans. At least we not only have the right to say "fuck", but also "fuck the government." In Cuba, they don't even have THAT right. So, even if you think the elections in the US are shams and we have a "corporateocracy" - how in the world is a one-party rule for 50 years by a brutal dictator who jails his political opponents and keeps the people from raising their own standard of living by imposing rationing and criminalizing commerce?

Of course you would take corporate rule over Castro, personally I want neither. The worlds not so black and white as you seem to believe. Brutal "dictator"? coming from an american? Yah, like the Cuban government has caused even close to the amount of misery the brutal corporate rule of the US has caused, like the deaths of millions for but one example.

[JimC]

CES wrote:

Cuba in the 1920s through the 1950s had a booming economy.

Booming and wonderful for a few Cubans, and the overseas corporations that controlled its economy. Grinding poverty for the majority. It certainly wasn't a pin-up boy for the acceptable face of capitalism...

That is not to say that the lack of political freedom imposed by the Castro regime doesn't deserve criticism...

I wonder if it is possible for Cuba to become engaged with the US when the embargo is finely lifted, have some aspects of a freer economy and a more democratic system, while still preserving the egalitarian spirit and social structures that have meant it is not the usual 3rd world hell-hole of depair for the underclass?

[Coito ergo sum]

[

Of course you would take corporate rule over Castro, personally I want neither. The worlds not so black and white as you seem to believe. Brutal "dictator"? coming from an american? Yah, like the Cuban government has caused even close to the amount of misery the brutal corporate rule of the US has caused, like the deaths of millions for but one example.

As soon as you show me an alternative that's better, I'm with you. You're the one touting the Cuban system, or at least you were. Now you don't want Cuba either. So be it.

I haven't in the least suggested the world is black and white. Cuba sucks ass, though, and nobody in their right mind would move their from Canada or the United States. That says a lot. If the system is better, people ought to want to live there, no?

Without admitting, of course, the nonsense comparison of "amount of misery" -- How many deaths do you think the US would cause if it was ruled by a Fidel Castro for the last 50 years? The power of the US, in the hands of a guy who jails his political opponents (if he doesn't put a bullet in their heads)? You think that system would be better to control one of the largest economies with the largest military on the planet? Or, do you just figure he'd make of the US what he's made of Cuba, and we'd all be too busy waiting in line for rice and beans that the US would have zero involvement with the outside world?

[sandinista]

[

Of course you would take corporate rule over Castro, personally I want neither. The worlds not so black and white as you seem to believe. Brutal "dictator"? coming from an american? Yah, like the Cuban government has caused even close to the amount of misery the brutal corporate rule of the US has caused, like the deaths of millions for but one example.

As soon as you show me an alternative that's better, I'm with you. You're the one touting the Cuban system, or at least you were. Now you don't want Cuba either. So be it.

I haven't in the least suggested the world is black and white. Cuba sucks ass, though, and nobody in their right mind would move their from Canada or the United States. That says a lot. If the system is better, people ought to want to live there, no?

Without admitting, of course, the nonsense comparison of "amount of misery" -- How many deaths do you think the US would cause if it was ruled by a Fidel Castro for the last 50 years? The power of the US, in the hands of a guy who jails his political opponents (if he doesn't put a bullet in their heads)? You think that system would be better to control one of the largest economies with the largest military on the planet? Or, do you just figure he'd make of the US what he's made of Cuba, and we'd all be too busy waiting in line for rice and beans that the US would have zero involvement with the outside world?

Nonsense comparison, perhaps, but only because you refer to Castro as "brutal" when if fact there is no comparison, the US has been far and away more brutal than Cuba, no comparison at all.

[Coito ergo sum]

CES wrote:

Cuba in the 1920s through the 1950s had a booming economy.

Booming and wonderful for a few Cubans, and the overseas corporations that controlled its economy. Grinding poverty for the majority. It certainly wasn't a pin-up boy for the acceptable face of capitalism...

And, what do we have in Cuba today for the vast majority? Something other than "grinding poverty?" Even if we forget what Cuba was like in 1958 and earlier - can we say that Cuba isn't grindingly poor right now?

That is not to say that the lack of political freedom imposed by the Castro regime doesn't deserve criticism...

I wonder if it is possible for Cuba to become engaged with the US when the embargo is finely lifted, have some aspects of a freer economy and a more democratic system, while still preserving the egalitarian spirit and social structures that have meant it is not the usual 3rd world hell-hole of depair for the underclass?

You are suggesting that a country where the vast majority of people are rationed rice and beans, can hardly put shoes on their children's feet, and view meat and veggies as luxuries is not a 3rd world hell hole of despair for the underclass? How do you think the average Cuban lives in Cuba? They go out to dinner a few times a month - take in a movie - go to Cuban Disneyland on vacation - bitch about their Netflix being late - and buy a new car every five years?

[Coito ergo sum]

Nonsense comparison, perhaps, but only because you refer to Castro as "brutal" when if fact there is no comparison, the US has been far and away more brutal than Cuba, no comparison at all.

Brutal in what way?

Yes - the US has been brutal to its enemies - sure - like Nazi Germany - Saddam Hussein's Iraq - Slobodan Milosovic's Serbia -- yes - of course. But, the point was that Castro is a brutal dictator, not how brutal a country is to its enemies.

You'd rather live in Cuba? Yes or no? All things being equal - is Cuba a better place to live than Canada or the United States, generally speaking?

[sandinista]

Nonsense comparison, perhaps, but only because you refer to Castro as "brutal" when if fact there is no comparison, the US has been far and away more brutal than Cuba, no comparison at all.

Brutal in what way?

Yes - the US has been brutal to its enemies - sure - like Nazi Germany - Saddam Hussein's Iraq - Slobodan Milosovic's Serbia -- yes - of course. But, the point was that Castro is a brutal dictator, not how brutal a country is to its enemies.

thats all that can be said about that.

[Coito ergo sum]

thats all that can be said about that.

You won't answer the simple question, will you?

Would you rather live in Cuba or Canada?

[sandinista]

thats all that can be said about that.

You won't answer the simple question, will you?

Would you rather live in Cuba or Canada?

I need more information than that if you want an answer. I've lived in both places, and right now (minus 30 and won't stop snowing) I would rather be living in Cuba.

[Coito ergo sum]

thats all that can be said about that.

You won't answer the simple question, will you?

Would you rather live in Cuba or Canada?

I need more information than that if you want an answer. I've lived in both places, and right now (minus 30 and won't stop snowing) I would rather be living in Cuba.

Sounds good. Nothing is stopping you. You can go there. The State will take care of you - you'll have enough rice and beans to keep you alive, and you'll have the greatest health care system in the world (says you and zcommunications). So, go there and enjoy life in all its many splendors, in Cuba....why wouldn't you? After all, Canada and the US are just shams, and corporate dictatorships anyway - why would you want to live in either of these places?