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JCG
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between a rock and a hard place
Feb 2002
time: 00:31
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Castro's not as bad as the extreme rightwing pretends, but likewise not as good as the extreme leftwingers think...
So, if there can't be any sort of "free elections" due to possible US involvement, then it's better to let one guy and his top aides/family in power for 40+ years, crushing all attempts at reform because they might be (and in some, but not all cases, are) "US plants", and allow all this just because the government is reasonably popular/has done good stuff?
Well, plenty of other monarchs/dictators around the world think/thought likewise, why not let them do the same? Why should any of them hold elections at all? If the people seem to be "happy" with them, everything's "OK".
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by JCG
Castro's not as bad as the extreme rightwing pretends, but likewise not as good as the extreme leftwingers think...
So, if there can't be any sort of "free elections" due to possible US involvement, then it's better to let one guy and his top aides/family in power for 40+ years, crushing all attempts at reform because they might be (and in some, but not all cases, are) "US plants", and allow all this just because the government is reasonably popular/has done good stuff?
Well, plenty of other monarchs/dictators around the world think/thought likewise, why not let them do the same? Why should any of them hold elections at all? If the people seem to be "happy" with them, everything's "OK". |
Well, if the US stops hassling him Castro would have no reason to be so paranoid and his record would surely improve.
There are millions of street children in the world - not one of them is Cuban.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:31
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Let's look at Castro's crimes. This is from a "Free Cuba" website (newspeak if ever it existed).
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Fidel Castro's regime is guilty of numerous documentable crimes stretching from the jungles of Peru to the deserts of Ethiopia. Documented reports exist of Cuban troops in cahoots with the Ethiopian government denying food to starving Ethiopians because of their political ideology. In Latin America, Castro funded guerrilla groups throughout the hemisphere generating terror and fear for decades. |
An unproven report that Cubans did horrible things in Ethiopia aside, this is completely laughable. To be sure Cuba has supported revolutionary guerilla movements in Latin America. The point of these movements is to overthrow repressive US dominated regimes which impoverish their citizens.
Of course put this besides the US record of sponsoring murder and terror in Latin America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, etc.) and Fidel looks like a saint.
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At home Castro's regime has created the most repressive police state apparatus in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba is an Orwellian nightmare set in the tropics with Big Brother sporting a beard and cigar. |
But the vast majority of Cubans genuinely love the guy. You can go there and see for yourself.
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Cuba has refused to ratify any major international law enshrining fundamental human rights. It has refused to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. |
What? Shock horror! Cuba refuses to sign international treaties! Need I remind you of the country that is absolutely worst in this respect. 
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Castro formed Committees for the Defense of the Revolution(CDR) which operate on almost every block in Cuba. Spying on neighbors and reporting back to the regime. Negative reports can land one in jail. |
This is a deliberate misrepresentation of the CDR.
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Talking to foreigners invites questioning into your loyalty to the regime. |
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Large numbers of individuals are incarcerated in Castro's prisons for political crimes ranging from speaking against the regime to trying to leave the island. |
Says the country that imprisons people without trial, imprisons them for petty offences like drug use; and has by far the highest rate of imprisonment in the Western world.
There is more stuff after this, but no proof.
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Castro's achievements bear mentioning and we shall list them here. First, his regime has had the longest serving political prisoner in world history: over 28 years. |
Presumably this guy was working for the enemy.
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Cuba, in 1959 was economically self sufficient, and did not have the tourist-Apartheid of today. |
In 1959 Cuba was run by a criminal in cahoots with the US.
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Tourist-Apartheid is the situation in which Cuban citizens don't have equal access to certain beaches or restaurants that Tourists do. Reminiscent of the system of segregation of the South, or of Apartheid in South Africa these conditions have been labeled "tourist apartheid." |
Is this any different from the fact that I can't go to certain beaches because they are privately owned?
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In forty years Fidel Castro took an island with pre-existing progressive healthcare and drove it into the ground. In 1959 Cuba had 337 hospitals in 1989 the number had decreased to 264. Increases in other areas of Cuban healthcare did not manifest themselves on a per capita basis. Disease in Cuba has steadily increased since 1959. Suicides in Cuba more than doubled from a 1,011 figure for 1970 to 2,220 in 1989. |
Cuba has one of the best healthcare systems compared to most nations (it's one of the things that has worked well). For example, it is widely known that Cubans have the best teeth of anyone. It's also a fact that US companies have been itching to employ Cuban medical researchers because they provide excellent research at a limited cost (again, another reason why dumping the embargo would be good for both sides).
Where are the Stalinist massacres? Where are the purges? Where is there anything more than Fidel jailing people whose agenda is to return Cuba to another Batista like dictatorship?
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DanielXY
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Germany
Dec 2002
time: 05:31
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So is Cuba (the average citizen) better off than most other Caribean or Latin American Countrys or not?
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JCG
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between a rock and a hard place
Feb 2002
time: 00:31
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Well, if the US stops hassling him Castro would have no reason to be so paranoid and his record would surely improve. |
Perhaps so....but well, all those "horrible, horrible" regimes in past and present South America would surely improve if the local communists and foreign lefties would stop hassling them, since they would have no reason to be so paronoid, no? Same line of thought.
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There are millions of street children in the world - not one of them is Cuban. |
I wouldn't be so quick to say that "not one of them is Cuban", but you're right in the sense that their number is probably insignificant.
That is one of the good things of Castro's Cuba, surely, but then again, managing an island nation is so much easier, and more so if the government is totalitarian.
Yes, the average Cuban is probably better off than the average Latin American, but then again, it's a much smaller and controlled environment. Even an enlightened monarch could do the same, given those conditions.
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. If you removed the threat of a hostile superpower I think you would find that Cuba would become a more liberal place quite quickly |
Pretty much, it's true that the embargo's not helping any, though that doesn't mean we have to "applaud" and quietly accept the "errors" that Castro's doing in the meanwhile.
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The point of these movements is to overthrow repressive US dominated regimes which impoverish their citizens |
Those movements appeared in a wide range of countries with totally different situations and specific conditions, can't put them all in the same bag, as both their opponents, methods and goals differed.
And in any case, this is just another example that shows that the ends do not justify the means.
If they did, then all the US involvement in Latin America (military, economic and otherwise; plus going into Irak, Afghanistan, et al) has just been looking out for its own interests and prosperity, nothing wrong with that. That end perfectly justifies the temporary "collateral damage" to foreign nations and peoples, from a US-centric perspective.
No, can't agree with that. Neither with the equivalent reasoning used by many of you communists.
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Of course put this besides the US record of sponsoring murder and terror in Latin America, Fidel looks like a saint. |
So just because the US is a bigger bully then we are to ignore or forgive Castro's offenses, even if they are lesser?
They should be critized according to their own weight, which is arguably smaller, but definitely not something that can be conveniently "forgotten".
Castro's better than Batista? Yes. But far from perfect. And doing some reforms now wouldn't necessarily lead back to Batista's times.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by JCG
Perhaps so....but well, all those "horrible, horrible" regimes in past and present South America would surely improve if the local communists and foreign lefties would stop hassling them, since they would have no reason to be so paronoid, no? Same line of thought. |
Hardly. They are worse as is proved by the cases of Nicaragua and Guatemala.
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That is one of the good things of Castro's Cuba, surely, but then again, managing an island nation is so much easier, and more so if the government is totalitarian. |
But it doesn't make that much of a difference.
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Yes, the average Cuban is probably better off than the average Latin American, but then again, it's a much smaller and controlled environment. Even an enlightened monarch could do the same, given those conditions. |
The reason the average Cuban is better off is the revolution. Guatemalan peasants would have been better off if the Arbenz government had not been overthrown. The real truth here is that regimes that serve the interests of the US over their own people do not provide well.
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Pretty much, it's true that the embargo's not helping any, though that doesn't mean we have to "applaud" and quietly accept the "errors" that Castro's doing in the meanwhile. |
My point is that these are chicken feed and are caused largely by Castro having to protect the revolution against a neighbouring superpower that has tried to kill him and subvert it numerous times.
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Those movements appeared in a wide range of countries with totally different situations and specific conditions, can't put them all in the same bag, as both their opponents, methods and goals differed. |
That's not true. In almost all cases the idea was to overthrow a corrupt and pro US government which was impoverishing its own citizens in favour of foreign interests.
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And in any case, this is just another example that shows that the ends do not justify the means. |
What justifies any means, if not an end?
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If they did, then all the US involvement in Latin America (military, economic and otherwise; plus going into Irak, Afghanistan, et al) has just been looking out for its own interests and prosperity, nothing wrong with that. That end perfectly justifies the temporary "collateral damage" to foreign nations and peoples, from a US-centric perspective. |
If you think that killing people is OK because it serves US interests then 9/11 is OK because it served Al Quaeda's interests.
If you really think that it's OK for a country to commit mass human rights violations against other countries in order to look out for its own bottom line, then you don't strike me as understanding what "human rights" means.
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No, can't agree with that. Neither with the equivalent reasoning used by many of you communists. |
Not much of an argument.
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So just because the US is a bigger bully then we are to ignore or forgive Castro's offenses, even if they are lesser? |
Because Castro's hand is forced by the US. If the US wasn't determined to oust him, presumably he wouldn't need to crack down on fifth columnists.
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Castro's better than Batista? Yes. But far from perfect. And doing some reforms now wouldn't necessarily lead back to Batista's times. |
Who do you think the Miami Cubans are, if not the pro-Batista folk who fled Cuba?
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11-10-2003 22:13
JGG
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