Cuba is a curious topic of conversation, and one that has come up again as Obama seeks to “normalise” relationships with the communist island state after nearly nearly 6 decades of a trade embargo.
The country has cultivated an image of being a sort of nice, slightly eccentric left wing enclave, run by Fidel Castro for decades who was a funny bloke with a beard – could have been an art teacher or some sort of liberal journalist, and now has now been handed over to his brother, who was also part of the revolution along with the dashing Che Guevara. This mythical land is well run with world class healthcare and is only poor because of the wicked Americans and their sanctions, according to this view, but they stand their ground and stick to their principles, and earn the admiration of middle class western liberals throughout the western world for it.
It’s all complete rot. Cuba is by any measure a nasty dictatorship run by a cabal of gangsters who exploit and even sell their own people, who are essentially prisoners not allowed to leave the country, living on meager rations, paid in a worthless currency and isolated from the outside world. It was propped up for years by the evil Soviet regime as a strategic and symbolic dig at Washington, and Castro’s request for Soviet nuclear missiles brought the world to the brink of an all out nuclear war.
On it’s apparent merits, in particular healthcare if the statistics are to be believed and anything read into them it proves the lack of any link between health spending and outcomes, but little else. If Cuba has a good healthcare system then fine. It doesn’t excuse political repression, forced labour and the myriad other abuses the Cuban regime visits on it’s population.
People will tell you that you should go and visit Cuba to see it for yourself rather than just relying on the news. I’m all for this but there’s only so much a holiday there will tell you even if you do get off the beaten track and into the “real” country. Try instead to express any criticism of the Cuban government, try to earn a living there or try to communicate with your friends and family overseas, not from an international hotel but as if you were a normal Cuban. These things are every bit as real as the friendly people and the timba music which persist in spite of, not because of the despotic regime.
The US is far from blameless, and it seems likely that it’s interference in Cuban affairs has only served to increase the determination of the Cuban regime to defy Washington. The right also have their pet dictatorships and they’re not generally any better, but they tend to be seen, wrongly in my opinion, as a necessary evil rather than something actually desirable. You don’t see students with Georgios Papadopoulos T shirts.
I’m generally against sanctions because I don’t believe governments should tell private citizens what they can buy from whom abroad, and because they are usually counter productive anyway and actually strengthen oppressive regimes hold over their population. While I do think the sanctions should go, it should be made very clear that this is not an endorsement of the Cuban government.
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The Cuban regime is indeed vile (Mr “Rantwell” is correct). As for “normalising” trade with Cuba – what private companies, and so on, are there to trade with? In Cuba, only a bit less than North Korea, the state is “all in all”. So the argument “we do not like the government, but we wish to trade with the people of he country” does not apply. Still one should not be too angry about this – as I suspect that Mr Obama’s objective is to provoke (as he so often does) to see if people lose their tempers and say things the left can exploit.
“They poke you and poke you and poke you, and when you finally lose your temper and hit them in the face – they scream SEE CONSERVATIVES ARE BEASTS”.
This move is really about domestic American politics – and playing to the gallery of Latin American regimes (mostly elected ones – which says lots of bad things about Latin American voters, although United States voters are not exactly knowledgeable).
By the way, both Castro brothers were always Marxist socialists – they did not “gravitate” to the Soviet Union because of American pressure. Indeed the United States (the New York Times, the CIA and so on) supported the Castro brothers in the 1950s – partly because Batista was seen as “common” (uneducated and lower class – his racial background did not help him either). People who tried to explain that the Castro brothers were Marxists (and thus even worse than the social democrat thug Batista) were ignored by “the experts” – just as “the experts” had sneered at anyone who supported Chang’s Manchurian offensive against the Communists in China in 1946 – demanding that the offensive (the last chance to defeat the Communists) be called off, and that there be “talks” with the Communists.
How many of “the experts” were Marxists themselves, and how many were just idiots, is hotly debated.
As for dictatorships that are presently supported by “the right” – I can not think of any. There may be some in the world today – but I can not think of them off hand. After all the Gulf monarchies are not supported by “the right” any more – as the nature of these governments (backing enemies of the West around the world) has become rather obvious.
Indeed Paul, agreed.
Also, I’m not quite sure what the “Gulf Monarchies” are actually supposed to be for. Can anyone tell? They don’t actually pump much if any oil now – most of what still comes out of that God-forsaken hellhole of a rock-desert being from the Pre-capitalist-SaudiBarbarian-Headhackers.
I wonder sometimes, how little force, or even just gentle diplo-pressure, it would take to take-down the “House of Saud” fully and entirely, and release “its” people into what passes for mostly-normal culture? Didn’t the original old warlordgangster King Saud-someoneorother have “at least” 22 wives plus concubines, or summat? I feel a sort of Lego toy kit coming on….
I did initially put up the details of this toy (no pictures) but took it down from my own comment before publishing, in case it caused heightened interest in this organisation’s officers by the thought-police-departments of the British authorities.
Cuba comes into my orbit in the North of England really only when nice cultured leftist academics I get to know, announce that they’re flying there for a “really really good value sunshine holiday”.
Now, I accidentally typed “sinshine”, and only corrected it because the sort of people I know that trumpet about going there aren’t really those ones that are interested in shagging poor wretched Cuban girls for the price of a Pepsi.
My strictures to them about poor Cubans having to keep a few dozen ’57-Chevvies going by making brake-fluid out of palm-oil or washing-up-liquid fall on suddenly-deaf ears.
Breitbart:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/12/19/castro-to-pocket-92-of-worker-salaries-from-foreign-companies/
NOTE. The Breitbart story links to a piece in Granma. Google (ugh) provides the translated page at
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.granma.cu%2Fcuba%2F2014-12-15%2Fnuevas-disposiciones-sobre-pago-a-trabajadores-vinculados-con-la-inversion-extranjera&edit-text=
Shorter piece at the Havana Times:
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=107948
From Michael Totten (boldface type mine):
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/cuba-embargo-or-not
Further down, he writes,
As they say, read the whole thing! It’s interesting. And follow it up with Mr. Totten’s fascinating two-part article “The Lost World,” which describes his travels in Cuba in, I would assume, 2013:
Jan. 20, 2014 — Part 1: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/lost-world-part-i
Jan. 27, 2014 — Part 2: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/lost-world-part-ii
. . .
I am just a little bit, a tiny bit, and eensy-weensy-teensy bit incensed by certain GOP politicians who seem to think that ending the “embargo” is going to push Cuba over the edge into capitalism. There is the argument to be made that at least officially ending it would remove Cuba’s excuse for her horrible situation, and Michael Ledeen does point that out, but what would REALLY be helpful would be for our leaders and their various sorry excuses for a government would call a spade a spade and quite propping up psychopathic dictators who are our avowed enemies by their own words and deeds.
The only way the people who feel sorry for the world’s “underdogs” — Cuba, N.K., China, Viet Nam (formerly, at least), Saddam’s Iraq — are going to be made whole again is for the rest of the world to turn itself into an even worse s***hole than those, under even more vile regimes.
But, be patient and fear not. The Sith worketh diligently day and night to turn the U.S. into Zimbabwe and himself into Mugabe Springsteen.
Oops, correction. My comment was about Michael Totten on Cuba, not Michael Ledeen. In particular:
“There is the argument to be made that at least officially ending it would remove Cuba’s excuse for her horrible situation, and Michael TOTTEN does point that out….”
David – democratically elected regimes would, most likely, be worse than the Gulf monarchies. Although I would like the see the back of the monarchy of Q (that family fund terrorism in many different places – they are worse than the Saudis).
Julie – the Cuban regime is still a threat (it funds the killing of Americans and American allies), but it is funded, in large part, by Cuban Americans (good people) sending money home to their families.
Such are the contradictions of life.