Obama to Announce Easing in U.S.-Cuba Relations

originally posted by: jrod
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Also humanity does not need money to survive.
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As for that particular comment...

If you are going to live in a society, you need a market system to be able to trade, or sell and barter your goods and services for other goods, services or with coin.

Contrary to what many people believe many ancient cultures used different types of currency.

The Incas used different beans as currency and they would buy and sell things with beans. The maya also used cocoa beans as curency for small items, and for large purchases they used copper, jade and gold.

In North America even before Europeans came to the new world many tribes used currency known as wampum.

Wampum, ke`kwuk, squau-tho-won; all are Algonquian words for shell beads or string of shell beads. Wampumpeage is a Narragansett word for "white beads strung". Throughout northeastern America, wampum was used for jewelry, gifts, communication, historical record of important events, religious ceremonies, and trade. It was the earliest form of currency known in North America. Its value was derived from the difficulty involved in producing the cylindrical bead from both Quahog and Whelk, and the scarcity of suitable shells. White beads were made from Whelk, purple-blackish from Quahog.
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www.mohicanpress.com...

If you want to live in a society you will need a market, and in a market you need a trading/bartering system. The use of currency makes it easier for the people and the markets .

But again, this is derailing the topic being discussed.

Anyway, back to Cuba. There are many things that foreigners are not aware that happens in Cuba. for example, the Cuban government does not show news about robberies, and deaths of tourists, and much less of Cubans who dare to speak out.

Recently a Canadian born U.S. citizen, who was of Cuban descent, went to Cuba with his mother and died under mysterious circumstances. The government of Cuba claims that the man fell, but he was showing signs of torture, not to mention that the Cuban regime burned his body without the consent of the mother who was in Cuba, and even though the Canadian embassy offered to pay for the transfer of the body to Miami. The burning of the body prevented an independet autopsy. That's how the Cuban regime works to this day.

Mother says son died mysteriously in Havana


By Juan O. Tamayo

01/11/2014 1:29 PM
| Updated:
01/11/2014 1:31 PM



A Canadian-born U.S. citizen died under mysterious circumstances on the roof of Cuba’s famed Hotel Nacional, his mother alleged in Miami Friday.

“He went out the night of Nov. 21, saying he wanted to meet up with his cousin. The next morning, his bed was empty. I called the cousin and he said he had not seen my son,” Onelia Ross told el Nuevo Herald.

The body of Brandon Ross, 31, was cremated immediately by the Cuban government, preventing an independent autopsy, even though Canadian officials offered to help arrange its return home, Ross said.

Ross said she was born in Cuba and met her husband, a Canadian diplomat, when he served in Havana from 1974 to 1976. They live in Canada and Brandon was born in Ottawa but obtained U.S. citizenship after studying in the United States, she added.
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www.miamiherald.com...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Yes. And this happened in Aruba. What's your point?

originally posted by: intrepid
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Yes. And this happened in Aruba. What's your point?

What's the point?... According to the mother who saw the body of her son as she had to identify whether the body was her son, she mentioned injuries that are concurrent with torture and a beating. the Cuban government cremated the body without the consent of the mother.

Even thou the government of Aruba was inneficient, they worked with the FBI and foreign investigators. The regime of Cuba doesn't allow foreign investigators to investigate such cases, or to investigate human right abuses in Cuba...

What's my point? that you, and many others like you simply want to swallow the sugar coated lies that you are being told by a DICTATORSHIP...

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
What's my point? that you, and many others like you simply want to swallow the sugar coated lies that you are being told by a DICTATORSHIP...

No. Me and people like me have done due diligence as to what Cuba is TODAY. There is progress. What we DON'T swallow is old hate from people that would ignore their own people for THAT hate.

originally posted by: intrepid

No. Me and people like me have done due diligence as to what Cuba is TODAY. There is progress. What we DON'T swallow is old hate from people that would ignore their own people for THAT hate.

Yeah, right... I forgot, to those like you telling the truth is "hatred"...

Here is another of those "marvelous changes" that have happened in Cuba... BTW, it's obvious you, and many others have forgotten that castro has visited the U.S. and gave people in the U.S. oil, meanwhile Cubans were starving. But of course, those like you don't see that sort of action for what they really are... a farce to gather support from foreigners.

To this day many Cubans still endure hard labor camps, despite the fact that foreigners like intrepid are completely ignorant of these facts.

Cuba’s forced labor camps
By Ziva Sahl, on August 18, 2013, at 12:57 pm


Cuba's "law of dangerousness" is a useful tool for conscription into slave labor.

Via CubaVerdad:

Workers for the Nomenklatura / Lilianne Ruiz
Posted on August 16, 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, August, www.cubanet.org.- Similar to the theme of Steven
Spielberg’s movie Minority Report, where someone is imprisoned for
crimes they had not yet committed but it was assumed they might commit,
the Cuban Criminal Code devotes several articles to “the state of danger
and measures of security.”

An index of pre-criminal dangerousness is practically nonexistent in the
world. It translates to applying a coercive measure in the present for
something a person “might do” in the future. People call it “the law of
dangerousness.” It’s common to hear, “They applied ‘the danger’ to him.”

Vicente Rodriguez is a former political prisoner who knows the law for
having suffered it firsthand. “Both men and women who are sentenced
under the law of dangerousness, when they get to prison, are sent to the
galleries for 21 days. After that time they are sent to Prison 1580 or
other so-called State ‘settlements’,” he says.

According to Rodriguez, in these “settlements” the prisoners work from
Monday to Sunday, “Building buildings for people in the Ministry (of the
Interior), and other State interests. And with a minimum wage. The
prison has these ‘minimum security’ camps for those charged with
‘danger.’ The ‘danger’ (law of dangerousness) is minimum offense. As
it’s not a crime, you go to prison with a job. As an imprisoned worker.”

Rodriguez says that the law is, “Nothing more than a justification to
find a workforce.” If the prisoner has a good attitude, it’s possible
that a sentence of two years will result in parole after eight months,
or a four year sentence is served in just two years. Analyzing the
phenomenon, it doesn’t seem convenient to leave the barracks empty. “So
if 25 are set free, 25 have to come in. To do the work,” Rodriguez adds.

“A good share of the buildings built after 1959, have been built by
prisoners. Alamar, Barlovento, buildings in Guanabacoa, in Cotorro the
CIMEQ hospital,” says Rodriguez, who claims to have been in the latter
when it was held in Valle Grande in 1983. “There are brigades they take
out and they give them incentives, such as passes to visit their family
every 45 days. If you work hard in the time you’re working, you get a
five-day pass, not three. The slaves are right here.”

In a prosecution for dangerousness, “The person has no right to defend
himself, he has a lawyer who is decorative. It seems that the trial is
already over, you’re penalized because ‘the factors’ [the
investigator/prosecutors] say that you have to be deprived of your
freedom for two years.”

To remove the law of dangerousness from the Penal Code, it is necessary
that the state respect human rights and particularly the right of every
person to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

It’s worth mentioning that in the world there is a post-criminal
dangerousness index, where if a person commits a crime and is found to
be mentally unstable, and so cannot serve a sentence but is potentially
dangerous; it is as if they had already committed a crime as it is
feared they will continue to violate the legal well-being of the
society. In that case, a measure is taken such as placement in a hospital.

Writer Ángel Santiesteban has fallen through the net

Recently, the writer Ángel Santiesteban was transferred from prison
1580, where he was serving a sentence of five years for alleged domestic
violence — which the artist denies — to one of these “settlements.” As
explained above, it is likely that the author of the blog The Children
Nobody Wanted will be used as a construction worker.

Through third parties, his blog is still active from prison, so through
him we could learn about the forced labor caps which are so similar to
the notorious Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP)*, implemented by
the Castro regime its early years.

*Translator’s note: UMAP was a set of forced labor camps where people
the regime considered “anti-social” or “counter-revolutionary” were
incarcerated, including homosexuals, religious believers, and others.

16 August 2013

From Cubanet

Source: "Workers for the Nomenklatura / Lilianne Ruiz | Translating

babalublog.com...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Just curious as to where you were educated. Someone failed when it came to the word "today". No one is saying anything about the past. Raul is making advances in human rights though TODAY. Baby steps sure but moving in the right direction.

originally posted by: intrepid
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Just curious as to where you were educated. Someone failed when it came to the word "today". No one is saying anything about the past. Raul is making advances in human rights though TODAY. Baby steps sure but moving in the right direction.

And I am just curious as to your understanding that i have family in Cuba TODAY, I keep in contact with family and with Cuban bloggers TODAY...

As for your wondering of my education, it really has no relevance on this topic. But I do have to wonder what is it so hard for people like you to understand that many of these so called changes don't really help Cubans...

How in the world does it help a Cuban that he/she is allowed to get a hotel room in Cuba when they only get on average $10-$30 U.S. D. a month? Even doctors who are specialists in more than one field only get around $60 U.S.D. A MONTH...

Here, let me actually help you... What is the price of a hotel room in Cuba?...

From $32 to over $100 U.S.D. A NIGHT...

www.cubatravelusa.com...

Can you do math, or are you bad at it too?

BTW, Cubans do have living expenses. Water, the sporadict electricity, the phone, etc. BTW, yes there are Cubans who do have to pay rent. It depends on the circumstances.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse

originally posted by: intrepid
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Just curious as to where you were educated. Someone failed when it came to the word "today". No one is saying anything about the past. Raul is making advances in human rights though TODAY. Baby steps sure but moving in the right direction.

And I am just curious as to your understanding that i have family in Cuba TODAY, I keep in contact with family and with Cubans bloggers TODAY...

Well it's a bonus to see where you're coming from. Bloggers. Are they political? Hate the Castros? As to your family I'm sorry but I don't take that seriously. If one wanted their family to have a better life one wouldn't post in this manner. Like I said before, live in today. "Screw the Castros" has run it's course.

a reply to: intrepid

Of course, silly me, a foreigner who wants to believe what his rich tourist friends who enjoy the areas reserved for tourists are telling him, and wants to believe what the propaganda machine in Cuba says yet he doesn't want to listen to evidence that dispells his dellusions...

As to my family... You obviously don't understand that the money the regime gets through tourism goes directly to the regime, and it doesn't feed the people... The help Cubans and Cuban-Americans send to family in Cuba is to put food in their tables... Not for the benefit of tourists who simply want to enjoy the best of a communist dictatorship...

intrepid and some others remind me of the pro-Cuban government foreigners who never in their whole life lived as a Cuban yet they disrupted a meeting with Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez in New York to claim that in Cuba people are free...

Oh and btw, that New Yorker went as far as claiming that the people in New York don't have the rights and freedom that people in Cuba have...



The New Yorker, who obviously doesn't know anything about Cuba, wanted to tell Cubans and Yoani Sanchez how life is in Cuba...

Kind of reminds me of some people in here...

As for are those bloggers political and hateful?... If you want to call asking for freedom as political and hatred....

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
intrepid and some others....

And when did I and other thinkers not anchored to old hate become the topic? Attacks and insults. The foundation of a failed argument. Keep digging dude.

a reply to: intrepid

Oh, so typing "Intrepid and some others" is hatred?... Really?...

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: intrepid

Oh, so typing "Intrepid and some others" is hatred?... Really?...

Well, that's my fault. If you can't understand "today" my last post may have been too obscure. I was referring to your hatred of the Castros blinding you from the advances that Raul is making and possibilities for Cubans to have a better life. That's a bad thing iyo.

Yoani Sanchez



Here is another story from Cuba, from last year, about a Cuban who was arrested and imprisoned without cause. If you are actually interested to see the realities of Cuba, watch this video. The man was a human rights activist. That's why he was arrested and is imprisoned to this day.

Like him, there are many, many other Cubans TODAY imprisoned the same manner.

You can put it in subtitles to read it in English.



Here is another video, of various Cubans, even a priest who stated how they were arrested, or put under house arrest while pope Francis visited Cuba so they could not speak with the pope. Also Yoani speaks out about the situation there.



This video is from 2012.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Why don't we ask Edward Snowden's opinion on this. Oh wait, we can't. He's looking at jail if he even LOOKS at a western country. Your point is invalid. People are unlawfully jailed even in the most civilized nations. Have you got another one off thing that happened in Cuba?

Repressive, Communist, devils. Yeah. How about this?

The escalation of the war against the Islamic State was triggered by widespread revulsion at the gruesome beheading of two American journalists, relayed on YouTube. Since then, two British aid workers have met a similar grisly fate. And another American has been named as next in line by his terrorist captors.

Yet, for all the outrage these executions have engendered the world over, decapitations are routine in Saudi Arabia, America’s closest Arab ally, for crimes including political dissent—and the international press hardly seems to notice. In fact, since January, 59 people have had their heads lopped off in the kingdom, where “punishment by the sword” has been practiced for centuries.

www.newsweek.com...

Ohhhhhhhh but the Castros swung their dicks at Uncle Sam 55 years ago. Funny what makes an ally and an enemy.

a reply to: intrepid

Trying to derail the topic much?... Naaaa...

Kind of funny, a "super moderator" derailing a thread... Kind of makes you think doesn't it?

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: intrepid

Trying to derail the topic much?... Naaaa...

Kind of funny, a "super moderator" derailing a thread... Kind of makes you think doesn't it?

Game, set, match. That's the LAST fail in an argument. Thanks for playing. I REALLY hope you learned something.

originally posted by: intrepid

Game, set, match. That's the LAST fail in an argument. Thanks for playing. I REALLY hope you learned something.

I see, so it is just a game for you. Do tell me, how is it not derailing a thread about Cuba when you try to change the topic into Snowden, and Saudi Arabia?...

How are the wrongs made by a country ok by giving money to another dictatorship such as Cuba?... It is obviously an attempt at derailing.

More and more it seems to me that your friends could be part of the Cuban regime. Heck, there are plenty of foreigners who work for castro...