Castro Was Not A Great Leader, and Communism/Socialism is Not Great Either.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

As I said in my first post, these people take an academic approach to an issue where real suffering and death is taking place. The experiences of people who have been on the receiving end of dictatorial oppression are lost on them. Even as their theories fail to survive contact with reality.

a reply to: windword

You must be living in some dream world,speak to a Cuban instead of reading media tabloids,he totally destroyed the country,nothing good about any of their system,if you try leaving country will be shot,wake up dude

Castro was a fascist authoritarian. Terrible leader.

Communism, socialism, capitalism are all relative terms.

The US for instance is most definateley not capitalist but an oligarchy. Us citizens have almost no say in public policy especially compared with lobbyists.

Cuba communist? Not so much. Communism was theorized by its founders to come from advanced capitalism when money is consolidated to less then 1 percent and the workers revolt and start to trade with each other. Engels then decides it would take an authoritarian transition into a sort of anarchistic system.

Socialism is a normal aspect to community. It probably shouldn't be a federal position but many local communities are socialist without enforcing it with authority. Especially church heavy areas.

It seems ironic to me the ONLY thing keeping the US middle class alive (and the poor) is communism. If it were not for the communist dictators of chIna who more than double the human rights atrocities of Cuba, the cpi and inflaton would have destroyed all but the elite.

Without China no target, no walmart, no cheap supply lines, less market profits, less retirement and 401k value etc.

Without illegal aliens and their cheap labor for groceries and home building etc, and without slave labor imports your average American couldn't afford to live.

So pick and choose I suppose. But the people get screwed everywhere.

True story cannabis was made an industry by the Brittish empire (grown in India) to pacify slaves.

Now we have technology, much more effective. Can't wait for all the kids to have VR head sets on all day.

I wouldn't be too snide about academics, without them we wouldnt have "Two Treatises of Government, we wouldn't have science, we wouldn't have Voltaire, Roseau, Locke, the French and Glorius revolution etc.

All those things led to the US constitution.

a reply to: luthier

Or the bomb, or zyklon B, Airborne Bird Flu... oh well you get the point..

Yes Academics have brought us good with the bad, there is nothing wrong with pointing out when they are wildly wrong in some areas.

a reply to: Irishhaf

His posts are clearly pointing out its all the liberal crazy academics fault.

Probably while typing on a chinese keyboard.

Only indoctrinated fools cry for his demise.

I will give him something, Cuban education is actually good and so is the healthcare, besides that, bye.

a reply to: suvorov

Lol, drop the vodka!

originally posted by: projectvxn
If you have to escape a place then you are a prisoner.

Or an enemy.

Either way you have an axe to grind.

originally posted by: Substracto
Only indoctrinated fools cry for his demise.

I will give him something, Cuban education is actually good and so is the healthcare, besides that, bye.

cuban education and healthcare is higwash aswell. education and healthcare was great for fidel ,his goons ,and foreigners with money but thats about it.

heck even Fidel snuck out of the country for treatments or brought in dr. its how you roll when you steal billions from a country and its people and are an ahole.

originally posted by: nOraKat
All I can say is that many Cubans and many non-Cubans who lived there seem to speak and feel very fondly of Castro. Ever consider that the US wants you to believe he is a bad guy? I personally don't know much about the guy myself, but just some observations from the news.

having been born in cuba and escaping from there with my immediate family i can tell you that is hog wash.

i still have family in cuba and while cubans love there country they would love to take a sh1t on fidels grave.

also if you think that the USA MSM may be agenda driven and full of BS you havent seen nothing like Cuban news network.

there is a reason why the rafts float one way from cuba to the US and not the other way around.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

I've heard different stories from cubans about Cuba. Some say good things, some criticize and some vilify. I'm sure they all have their reasons but the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

a reply to: interupt42

man, still, kudos for cuban doctors, some of the finest people I have met!

originally posted by: Substracto
a reply to: interupt42

man, still, kudos for cuban doctors, some of the finest people I have met!

Yep , a lot of them left during the 60's .

Although , I personally think that the Cuban Engineers are the finest people. However, I could biased ,


I know its not easy to get a hold of the truth in todays agenda driven MSM, but I can tell you that not a day goes by that I'm not thankful for making it to this country.

We have a lot of problems in this country and I completely believe our gov't has been taken over by Corporate and special interest groups. However, nothing compares to living under a tyrant controlled society with a constant fear of what you say and to whom or the constant internal propaganda that can make the USA and Corporate America look like amateurs.

a reply to: daskakik

The only people who have "something good to say" are the families of high ranking officers in the communists party in Cuba... People in power and their families live like royalty in Cuba. That's it... If you lived as a Cuban you would understand what it really means for the majority of Cubans in the island.

The thing is if Cubans living in the island dare to speak up the government can, and does punish these people for speaking up about the realities in Cuba.

When there are protests againts the Cuban government the government does "redadas" (roundups) in jobs in the area and force these people to display pro-castro stances because the Cuban regime knows there will be people filming. This gives the sense to people who have never experienced life as a Cuban that "there are many Cubans who are in favor of communism"... The thing is, as I said, these people were rounded up and they are supervised to see that they repudiate protestors who dare to speak against the communist dictatorship.

If these people who were "rounded up" don't do as they are told and repudiate protestors they lose their government jobs, and the government owns all jobs. To have your own business in Cuba as a Cuban, which is extremely harder to do than in places like the U.S., you need government approval, and guess what, if you don't do what the government tells you in round ups, you don't get any permits to try to start your small business in Cuba. Small businesses in Cuba are hard to maintain because of the lack of resources that plagues Cuban life. Tourists and the thugs of the communist regime have everything they could ever want, but the regular Cuban doesn't.





Here are some interviews of Cubans who have decided to speak up about the conditions in Cuba.





For the next one you have to turn on subtitles for English.



You see...if you ask a Cuban in the streets in Cuba about his/her situation, they might not speak with you because if a pro-communist is in the neighbrohood, or if the Cuban police is close and they see you filming and find out what that Cuban tells you he will get sent to jail "for counter-revolutionary actions"... That Cuban can lose his/her job, in Cuba the government owns all jobs.

Every neighborhood in Cuba has snitches. Most often the regime in Cuba releases real criminals and allows them their freedom with the only condition that they have to snitch their neighbors if they see or do anything deemed "counter-revolutionary".

Cubans who dare to tell the truth in public are beaten, imprisoned, and some are even disappeared if they keep doing it.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You don't know who I have talked to or where.

Cuban rights abuses, jailings up in new repressive wave
Tracey Eaton, Special for USA TODAY 12:17 p.m. EST January 7, 2013

One analyst says the government is using "harassment and hit-and-run tactics" to keep citizens under its thumb.

HAVANA — Political arrests in Cuba jumped to more than 6,600 in 2012, the highest in decades as authorities shifted their strategy for dealing with growing civic resistance, dissident groups say.

Meanwhile, Cuba's communist government said Monday it is moving ahead with plans to ease a travel ban on its citizens.

An official government newspaper Escambray said immigration authorities will allow Cubans to apply for passports to travel abroad Jan. 14. The easing was announced in October.

Dissidents say Cuba's regime may be hoping that government critics will take up the offer to leave the country. Cuba is using more short-term arbitrary arrests to disrupt and intimidate critics rather than slap them with long prison sentences like those used against dozens of Cubans in a crackdown on dissent in 2003.

"The government has changed its tactics," said Elizardo Sánchez, director of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a Havana group that tracks political arrests. Repression is "low-profile, low-intensity" but "reaches more people."

Political arrests in 2012 climbed to 6,602, from 4,123 in 2011 and 2,074 in 2010, Sánchez said. Most people are freed within a few hours or days.

Former math professor Antonio Rodiles is among those subjected to the latest repressive tactics. Rodiles, founder of Estado de SATS, a group that encourages civic participation and debate, said he was beaten and punched in the eye Nov. 7 when he and others went to Cuban state security headquarters in Havana to ask about a lawyer friend who had been arrested. Rodiles, 40, was jailed for 19 days.
...
Héctor Maseda, who served several years in prison for his political views, says authorities are switching to short-term arrests to give the impression of tolerance.

"The government is trying to confuse public opinion. It is trying to show that repression has lessened," said Maseda, 69, a former nuclear engineer. "But that is not happening. Repression is increasing."

Cuba analyst José Cardenas said Cuban President Raúl Castro lacks the "outsized charismatic personality" of Fidel Castro, his retired older brother, so his government must use "harassment and hit-and-run tactics" to manage dissent.

"In 2013, they can't put people in jail and throw away the key anymore. They have to act in a way that doesn't draw international scrutiny," said Cardenas, a former acting assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. "The turnstile jailing of perceived and real dissidents is really the next best way to keep the opposition from growing."
...

www.usatoday.com...

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You don't know who I have talked to or where.

No, but I know life as a Cuban who lived there and who has family there and know what happens in the island, instead of believing some stranger who is not a Cuban, and never lived life as a Cuban but wants to claim things in Cuba are different than the reality Cubans have to deal with...

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You don't know who I have talked to or where.

No, but I know life as a Cuban who lived there and who has family there and know what happens in the island, instead of believing some stranger who is not a Cuban, and never lived life as a Cuban but wants to claim things in Cuba are different than the reality Cubans have to deal with...

You can include me as a fellow cuban who was born there and saw first hand the cruelty and reality of living in cuba as a cuban as well.

There is a reason why raft traffic is from Cuba to the US and not the other way around.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Like I said, Cubans who also lived there, have told me otherwise.