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Show us your Jill Stein card or GTFO out. You don't deserve McDonalds.
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Fidel Castro is dead
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Lithose
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Cooperatives that used American machinery, American built infrastructure, American trade contacts and contracts, and American human capital that showed best practices given the technology used. When the U.S. was warning Cuba? It was 'warning' them in the sense that it believed Cuba wouldn't outright steal hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and technology. Without that? No, those cooperatives could not have been run at the same level.
Lets put it like this...You're a movie reviewer or something, right? Lets say you're taking an apprentice under your wing, and he's pretty poor, he has nothing so you let him work in your office, you pay him and you allow him to use the space, computers, internet and access to your publishers and connections to get articles out. One day he says "you don't pay me enough". And you respond with "well...I'm sorry you feel that way, maybe we should part company...." and he responds with "No, this? All of it? Is mine now.....Look, with all of your equipment and connections I can do the job just as well as you did, so why do I need you?"
How would you analyze that Szli? Think that defeats the argument that said apprentice was and is dependent on you? Of course he's still dependent on what you did, he just shit on you and isn't paying you back for your massive expenditures. Wealth isn't made from nothing Szli, once you're past the most basic of agrarian societies--it requires other wealth to reach the production levels modern society allows. Castro stole BILLIONS of dollars of advancement and then tried to say "hey, we can do it just as well!'---Well fuck me dude, if everyone had that attitude I wonder what the world would look like? Would YOU want to live in a world with that kind of 'socialism", Szli? Would you want people to come into your home and take anything they want because they can 'use it just as well'.
Your entire outlook on this is naive to the extreme. And that's exactly what Castro preyed upon, naivety. Which is how his people ended up in such dire straights that almost 8% of the population chose to brave deadly waters and absolute poverty with few family connections in the land of those "evil capitalists" that apparently DRINK THEIR MILKSHAKES, then stay with the 'great magnanimous liberator" who 'shares' milkshakes. Because even the WORST here is better than there because we adhere to principles that actually respect the amount of resources someone has to put into something in order to reach the quality of life that we do (Oh we may quibble and argue about how much is justified, which is what JFK brought up--BUT that respect for the work that went into cultivating and producing at high levels? Is always there; its the bedrock of ownership). Which is why Cubans know they can actually have a nice life here.
Again, only for people who don't understand how investment works--only for people predisposed to not educate themselves on the subject. The "Cuban people" got hundreds of millions of infrastructure improvements along the entire stretch of infrastructure needed for these operations, from roads, to bridges, to new ports, to the actual facilities and technology to make these operations work. They also had massive human capital investment--want to know WHY those co-ops could run those industries once kicking out the 'evil capitalists'? Because the evil capitalists trained them, gave them the machines and built the infrastructure to use it. In addition to that, as said the QoL was skyrocketing, wages and other 'bleed off' capital was flowing into Cuba from these industries.
You act like when a company employees thousands; somehow those thousands don't benefit. Unlike the U.S. where those thousands are still paying for the military and intelligence complexes which allow those companies to prosper globally? Cuba doesn't have any of that overhead, those companies were a net gain by any measure. Beyond that though, because the U.S. government was interested in Cuba, and because Batista and Prio were interested in long term wealth (You know, thanks to be evil Capitalists) they forced many concessions that allow them to give up liquid profits (Taxes) in order to gain longer term investment--this is how the Niceo processing facility got built, for example. The U.S. and the company controlling the plant didn't want to spend the money to process Ore in Cuba, the U.S. already had facilities for processing in Louisiana. But both those presidents forced the concessions and got the Americans to build the process IN CUBA, so Cuba could sell to the world, not just to parts of the world which could process (Which was around 8 countries at the time.) The expertise and human capital and machinery for these plants is not cheap or easy to come by, its highly technical and difficult--which is why it was an 80 million dollar windfall.
Castro convinced a bunch of people that all that mattered was the most simplistic form of liquid wealth--when in reality, Cuba was benefiting a great deal from American involvement in ways that he specifically didn't talk about because it punched huge holes in his argument. I find it particularly hilarious the same Liberals that say 'you didn't built that', to illustrate how a society comes together to allow for wealth to be made--also can't see how those corporations were the impetus for Cuban advancement and wealth.
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Kiroy
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iannis By a number of metrics, such as alphabetization, life expectancy at birth, peasants ownership of the land they work, price of electricity, of telecommunications and of rents, the cuban revolution markedly and quickly made things better for the people of the island. On other fronts, such as political freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly... not so much.
What the fuck is the point of the former without the latter?
I love these musings from your euro ivory tower, which is bathed in more colonial blood than America could muster in the in the previous or next 100 years if it tried.
ZyyzYzzy
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That ivory tower is gonna be Muslim honor raped so hard though while we, atop of our Trump tower laugh
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Lithose
you are wrong about the brutality on which batista ruled. Fidel Castro was not the only only to rise in arms, but only the actual sucessful one, in fact it took him 2 tries, the first time he was captured and exiled to mexico.I'll give you the analysis from the us perspective, but from the layman perspective, they didn't saw the benefit of the capitalist dictatorship batista had. Specially the country side was forgotten and that countryside supported Fidel, he also was a native to the mountain side of the island. This gave him local support in the east side of the island, the farthest posible from the capital.
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Lithose
Batista, since 1952 canceled all the elections, and established himself as a brutal dictator, making deals with the US companies, even the US mafia got a piece of Cuba, and most important, the US provided military support to the Batista dictatorship.
That last part is where I and others find fault in the USA, you are correct, the US was not responsible for Batista getting to power, but the USA was responsible for keeping him there.
Now look at the remarks, made by Kennedy. Do not look at them as who is at fault, look at them as a descriptor of the situation.
John F. Kennedy: Speech of Senator John F. Kennedy, Cincinnati, Ohio, Democratic Dinner
Speech of Senator John F. Kennedy, Cincinnati, Ohio, Democratic Dinner
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The answer is fourfold.
1)First, we refused to help Cuba meet its desperate need for economic progress. In 1953 the average Cuban family had an income of $6 a week. Fifteen to twenty percent of the labor force was chronically unemployed.
Only a third of the homes in the island even had running water, and in the years which preceded the Castro revolution this abysmal standard of living was driven still lower as population expansion out-distanced economic growth.
But instead of holding out a helping hand of friendship to the desperate people of Cuba, nearly all our aid was in the form of weapons assistance - assistance which merely strengthened the Batista dictatorship - assistance which completely failed to advance the economic welfare of the Cuban people - assistance which enabled Castro and the Communists to encourage the growing belief that America was indifferent to Cuban aspirations for a decent life.
....
2)Secondly, in a manner certain to antagonize the Cuban people, we used the influence of our Government to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which dominated the island's economy. At the beginning of 1959 U.S. companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands - almost all the cattle ranches - 90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions - 80 percent of the utilities - and practically all the oil industry - and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.
2b)Of course, our private investment did much to help Cuba. But our action too often gave the impression that this country was more interested in taking money from the Cuban people than in helping them build a strong and diversified economy of their own.
The symbol of this shortsighted attitude is now on display in a Havana museum. It is a solid gold telephone presented to Batista by the American-owned Cuban telephone company. It is an expression of gratitude for the excessive telephone rate increase which the Cuban dictator had granted at the urging of our Government.
3)The third, and perhaps most disastrous of our failures, was the decision to give stature and support to one of the most bloody and repressive dictatorships in the long history of Latin American repression. Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in 7 years - a greater proportion of the Cuban population than the proportion of Americans who died in both World Wars, and he turned democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty.
Yet, our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror.
Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista - hailed him as a stanch ally and a good friend - at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.
3b) We stepped up a constant stream of weapons and munitions to Batista - justified in the name of hemispheric defense, when, in fact, their only real use was to crush the dictator's opposition, and even when the Cuban civil war was raging - until March of 1958 - the administration continued to send arms to Batista which were turned against the rebels - increasing anti-American feeling and helping to strengthen the influence of the Communists. For example, in Santa Clara, Cuba, today there is an exhibit commemorating the devastation of that city by Batista's planes in December of 1958. The star item in that exhibit is a collection of bomb fragments inscribed with a handshake and the words: "Mutual Defense - made in U.S.A."
Even when our Government had finally stopped sending arms, our military missions stayed to train Batista's soldiers for the fight against the revolution - refusing to leave until Castro's forces were actually in the streets of Havana.
4) Finally, while we were allowing Batista to place us on the side of tyranny, we did nothing to persuade the people of Cuba and Latin America that we wanted to be on the side of freedom. In 1953 we eliminated all regular Spanish language broadcasts of the Voice of America. Except for the 6 months of the Hungarian crisis we did not beam a single continuous program to South America at any time in the critical years between 1953 and 1960. And less than 500 students a year were brought here from all Latin America during these years when our prestige was so sharply dropping
For we have not only supported a dictatorship in Cuba - we have propped up dictators in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic. We not only ignored poverty and distress in Cuba - we have failed in the past 8 years to relieve poverty and distress throughout the hemisphere. For despite the bleak poverty that grips nearly all of Latin America - with an average income of less than $285 a year - with an exploding population that threatens even this meager standard of living - yet our aid programs have continued to concentrate on wasteful military assistance until we made a sudden recognition of their needs for development capital practically at the point of Mr. Castro's gun.
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you quoted this.
"The speech was illustrating how private investment, while it did make the Cuban people richer--needed to be viewed in the light of a corrupt government, and how America was set to do more to ensure equality among the Cuban people. However, another tyrant preyed upon people only looking at flashy numbers and not the actual effects of how expertise and investment which lead to those numbers was the thing providing Cubans with jobs, human capital and the start of a middle class life that they were on the way to before Castro took power. He was effectively saying Cuba had just started going in a bad direction and we reacted too slowly to it (But that bad direction was from YOUR OWN corrupt government), but the LOOKS were more important than the facts, and those looks? Especially how audacious the golden telephone? Were terrible and easily taken advantage of. "
I think I'm done arguing with you ever. You read Kennedy four points, and choose to ignore everything but 2b). Your intellectual ego doesnt let you see that maybe the USA shares SOME of the blame of the Batista atrocities.
The idea of Kennedy's speech, was that propping up dictators in foreign countries, just so US companies can benefit from the corruption and contracts been awarded, is counter-productive to the image the USA wants to give as a good neighbor.
Cubans in the 50s hated the USA because of the reasons outlined by Kennedy, specifically reason 3 and 3b.
What I find hilarious is that I'm not quoting anything from the Cuban regime. This whole thread, hasnt been the USA scholars said this, vs the Cuban scholars. It has simply been you vs the word of the Past presidents of the USA.
I have quoted, I think 4 different presidents on this thread, to support my arguments.
Here are my two points.
The USA wanted at a point in time mid 1800's to anex cuba as a state. (fine, not a colony)
The USA is NOT responsible for the current cuban condition. It was partially responsible for the situation during the 50's, due to propping the dictatorship regime.
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I'm not defending Castro. I'm providing historical context, to why he rose to power, and why the anti-american feeling. He can burn in hell for turning Cuba into a shithole.
Kiroy
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Lets be honest, no one would want to live under Castro rule.
But at least he didn't help Apartheid but fought against it, and so against USA that wanted to keep Apartheid in South Africa.
He didn't kill the elected Chile president to put an horrible dictator.
So hey, from someone outside of Cuba and USA, who is the worst offender?
But at least he didn't help Apartheid but fought against it, and so against USA that wanted to keep Apartheid in South Africa.
He didn't kill the elected Chile president to put an horrible dictator.
So hey, from someone outside of Cuba and USA, who is the worst offender?
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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this is why we can't have nice things.
You are honestly not expecting an answer, right?
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TJT
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TrollfaceDeux
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iannis
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Especially when the state department issues terrorist travel warnings. That's got to drive down the price of airline tickets.
lol. They issued a travel advisory for europe a few days ago, and they used a picture of Munich. "crazy derkas live here".