Happy Birthday Fidel

[7960]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

Oh but if i lived in Cuba....

have you ever been to cuba?

[Angus_Aboot]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

They more than kept up for quite sometime and many ways did lead. However, a constant arms race was never going to be possible. There comes a point when such huge expenditure must bring you to your knees. Ih ave said it before and will say it again, no other country could have kept up that level of spending either, it would have bankrupted Britain or France too - would that be proof of the ineffectiveness of capitalism ? I think not.

A constant arms race wasn't necessary, they just needed to outproduce the U.S. and they couldn't. Obviously, the U.S. had a better system than the U.S.S.R. (and France and Britain) if they could out-compete them. Also, what evidence do you have that Britain's system could not have kept up and why are you assuming that the U.S., Britain and France have the same capitalist systems? They have huge differences.

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

Many reasons, manpower for one. The USSR had the human strength to do incredible things. However, the most obvious reason is the USSR was rich in resources. Cuba is not. You only need to look at its oilk and gas production to know this. If Cuba had those it coud do an awful lot more.

Japan has a fairly small population, no resources, they've done very well for themselves - why not Cuba?

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

It was not just a resultof the lack of strategical investment from the USSR, Cuba also lost its number one source of exports. Russia was in no position to buy all the goods it wanted and when the stooge Yeltsin sold the economy to US loving gangsters it would be impossible for any governent to bring in such materials from Cuba.

This drop was due to the inefficiencies of their central economic system. They lost billions of dollars due to the dissolution of the annual Soviet trade and Soviet subsidies, the continued deterioration of plants, equipment, and the transportation system, and the ongoing poor performance of the extremely important sugar sector.

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

You don't need to tell me about the difficulties of the Special Period. It produced a short hell for CUba which it faced and defeated with a steely determinition and upholding the basic principles of the revolution. It not only had to find new trading partners without the socialist block, it had to do without basics for life and the economy becuase of the inhumane policies of the US. These were policies which stopped medical trade with Cuba through third party subsiduaries, which sent away foreign ships which had stopped in Cuba, thus making them choose - either trade with tiny Cuba or the huge US - that itself being against the US supposed love of market forces, it was direct interference in the market they so proclaim to love.

Since the dissolve of Soviet Russia and the loss of Soviet subsidies, the government scrambled to legalize various market reforms. (Opening to tourism, [and "tourist apartheid"] allowing foreign investment, authorization of self and private employment for some fields, and initially legalizing the U.S. dollar) that was hardly upholding the principles.
Also, the U.S. hardly claims to love the free market, just look at the politicians.

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

It helps everyone. In a planned economy you (the planners) do not purchase things which people neither need or can afford, you purchase things which people do need and can afford. Had planners purchased such luxuries they would have to decrease spending in other areas.

Making them illegal helps no one, seizing them at the airport has little to do with central planners. Toasters won't be made a legal until 2010, Cuban's won't "need" toasters ever, why legalize it now, its not like the Economy is anywhere near what it was in the 80's?

[Angus_Aboot]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I don't see how a communist government means that people live longer. Japan has a longer life expectancy that Cuba does. In Fact, Japan, Sweeden, Canda, France and a number of other democratic countries have longer life expectancies than does Cuba. They don't need totalitarian communist regimes to get thier great health care systems. Cuba actually does pretty poorly compared to the rest of the world.

According to the UN, Cuba and the US have almost the same life expectancy.

List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the record, life expectancy alone is not an accurate gauge of a nation's health care system. And Canada has a terrible, terrible system .

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Angus_Aboot

For the record, life expectancy alone is not an accurate gauge of a nation's health care system. And Canada has a terrible, terrible system .

That might be the case but I was just using his argument against him.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by 7960

I did, and I just did again. It still doesn't make sense.

When asked "why can't anyone LEAVE?" your answer revolves around closing the borders so nobody can get IN. Why wont' he let people go? If the worry is that we'll train them and they'll go back.....................WHOA! How about he doesn't let anyone come back?

Want to make it simple? Answer his question.

I already have, numerous times. I can't help it if you do not have the caqpacity to understand this.

Cuba does not need to allow them back in for them to commit acts of terror and treason. I assume you do not need a history lesson, but they didn't allow anyone in at The Bay of Pigs.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I don't see how a communist government means that people live longer. Japan has a longer life expectancy that Cuba does. In Fact, Japan, Sweeden, Canda, France and a number of other democratic countries have longer life expectancies than does Cuba. They don't need totalitarian communist regimes to get thier great health care systems. Cuba actually does pretty poorly compared to the rest of the world.

According to the UN, Cuba and the US have almost the same life expectancy.

List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Communist Party are essential to life expectancy and continued medical and scientific breakthrough. Find me a third world country who does as well as Cuba. Trying to say Cuba does poorly compared to the rest of the world is simply bonkers.

The few countries you can find that do better are all in the first world, there is a clue in why they do slightly better - they have a assive advantage in terms of resources.

If i lived in Cuba i could expect to live 10 years than i currently can, yet i live in a major city in the worlds 6th largest economy, but that's capitalism for you.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by 7960

have you ever been to cuba?

Nope. I'm just a poor student. It will have to wait.

[C4Casey]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

The Communist Party are essential to life expectancy and continued medical and scientific breakthrough. Find me a third world country who does as well as Cuba. Trying to say Cuba does poorly compared to the rest of the world is simply bonkers.

The few countries you can find that do better are all in the first world, there is a clue in why they do slightly better - they have a assive advantage in terms of resources.

Once again you explain away Cuba's deficiencies by saying it is a third world country and therefore cannot be compared to the U.S. I think what some of the members on this thread are trying to say is 1) If Cuba has such a great system, then why is it still a third world country in the first place?, and 2) Cuba wouldn't be a third world country if it modeled its economy off of the U.S or Europe instead of communism.

[Angus_Aboot]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

The Communist Party are essential to life expectancy and continued medical and scientific breakthrough. Find me a third world country who does as well as Cuba. Trying to say Cuba does poorly compared to the rest of the world is simply bonkers.

The few countries you can find that do better are all in the first world, there is a clue in why they do slightly better - they have a assive advantage in terms of resources.

If i lived in Cuba i could expect to live 10 years than i currently can, yet i live in a major city in the worlds 6th largest economy, but that's capitalism for you.

Cuba isn't a third world country, it's a second world country. And again Japan has very little in natural resources.
Also, what scientific and medical breakthroughs has the Communist Party achieved?
Yeah, capitalism's biggest flaw is its cooperation with governments.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

I already have, numerous times. I can't help it if you do not have the caqpacity to understand this.

Cuba does not need to allow them back in for them to commit acts of terror and treason. I assume you do not need a history lesson, but they didn't allow anyone in at The Bay of Pigs.

I have to say that I am trying to read your responses with an open mind, but I'm just having trouble following your logic. Cuba has many deficiencies yet you seem unable to accept them and somehow at the same time manage to rationalize them by blaming the entire world. Cuba has problems. Serious problems. America has problems too, and any person on this forum would be willing to discuss problems within our society. Your responses just seem immaturely thought out and flatly absurd at times.

Q: If Cuba is so great why do they lock them in?
A: So they can have their freedom.

{Huh?}

Q: What freedoms does Cuba have?
A: The freedom to not be part of America
Q: Huh? You realize in Cuba you wouldn't even be able to have this conversion.
A: I wouldn't want to if I were in Cuba.

This whole conversation is beyond absurd and quite frankly extremely laughable. Whatever floats your boat I suppose, but you don't seem to be supporting your views with anything that resembles an ounce of logic. If you're hell bent on the notion of communism and totalitarianism then move to Cuba and enjoy it I suppose. But when having a discussion about Cuba with others you should present your views rationally. There is nothing wrong with loving Castro and wanting to move to Cuba, but the lengths you go to discount the issues being brought up in this thread is getting quite absurd.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by C4Casey

Once again you explain away Cuba's deficiencies by saying it is a third world country and therefore cannot be compared to the U.S. I think what some of the members on this thread are trying to say is 1) If Cuba has such a great system, then why is it still a third world country in the first place?, and 2) Cuba wouldn't be a third world country if it modeled its economy off of the U.S or Europe instead of communism.

1) It is fighting an economic war with the worlds most powerful superpower ever known. Not only have they lost the direct trade from that. Trade that btw was reported by the BBC to be worth around $90 billion. Just imagine what more they could have done with that money. Then there is the indirect loss of trade. By this i am referring to foreign ships that drop off goods in CUba then have to take goods to the US but are refused. The effect is that next time they dont drop off at Cuba but only go to hte more profitable US. The same happens with the tourist industry, with Cruise Ships being forced to choose Cuba or US.

2) If they modelled themselves on capitalism things would be worse. Don't you have any idea that when Bataista was in charge they did as the US told them. People died in their 40's, if they were lucky. Barely anyone could even read. That is what capitalism does to the third world.

You would have them become an Indonesia, enslaved by the IMF and other tools of imperialism.

Here is a little bit on what becomes of third world capitalism. I have made it as short as possible.

In the last five years that I was involved in the affairs of this fourth most populous nation in the world, I had been forced to purchase countless services and appliances. Sad to say, but almost none of them survived more than few months..........

Approximately two years ago, even the pro-establishment English language daily Jakarta Post began the series of investigative pieces (very unusual occurrence in Indonesia) concluding that bakso was occasionally made from rat meat (cats in Jakarta are losing battle and there are entire armies of rats all over the city, mainly due to open sewages and extremely low hygienic standards), fish was sprayed with formaldehyde (chemical used to make corpses in the morgues look fresh) and that colorful soft drinks sold next to school entrances were full of life threatening chemicals.

Needless to say, all warungs are private - nothing to do with the "planned economy". Foreign visitors and those whose stomachs are not yet hardened by Indonesian reality keep suffering from their annoying and severe food poisonings. Indonesians simply live shorter than most of the people in this part of the world, result of appalling quality of food, medical care, air quality, education and hygiene.

Market doesn't seem to correct much, except that local milk now costs US$2 and local yoghurt between US$3 and US$8 per litre, pricing clean dairy products out of reach of ordinary people and children (if it would be Vietnam, the government would be shamed by international organizations, but nobody shames "the market" in Indonesia).

In major Indonesian cities, smaller number of people has access to clean drinking water than in Bangladeshi and Indian major urban centers. Distribution of water had been, certainly, privatized several years ago. Even pro-market British news magazine The Economist admitted that prices of water skyrocketed and quality declined.

Only around 30% of Jakarta residents now rely on "municipal" (private) water distribution. Rest of the people is digging their own wells, taking water from contaminated earth. But the pumps are selling well, pro-market enthusiast would exclaim in delight...........

The poor are very poor, and there is absolutely no doubt that they would be much better off in the Communist country like China or Vietnam, except that they do not know it, as they were told for years that Communism and anything connected to the Left is evil. They have no unions and no politicians willing to look after their interests. They are totally abandoned and vulnerable, defenseless. And no matter what official statistics say, the majority of Indonesians live in misery.

Poor or rich, people have to move around and they have to communicate. Surely here the capitalist system would show its superiority: providing super-highways, modern airports and high-tech Internet and mobile phone network.

Absolutely wrong! Three short sections (the longest being 140 kilometers) of motorways originating in Jakarta are all there is in the country with approximately 250 million inhabitants. So-called highway between Jakarta and Bandung makes Ceausescu-era motorways in Romania look like the space-age engineering achievement. Romanian highways were bad but free, while Indonesian are private and by the local standards outrageously expensive.

And it goes on and on.

Pacific Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times - Hard Core Capitalist Indonesia

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I have to say that I am trying to read your responses with an open mind, but I'm just having trouble following your logic. Cuba has many deficiencies yet you seem unable to accept them and somehow at the same time manage to rationalize them by blaming the entire world. Cuba has problems. Serious problems. America has problems too, and any person on this forum would be willing to discuss problems within our society. Your responses just seem immaturely thought out and flatly absurd at times.

I will substitute the answers below.

Q: If Cuba is so great why do they lock them in?
A: So they can win the war to ensure long term freedom from an aggressive empire, an empire that seeks to dominate them. As i have sai earlier this eerily resembles WW2 UK. An evil empire chapping at the door, freedoms are curbed to prevent that empires victory. Like the UK took control of the media and illegalised supporting the enmy, Cuba has done the same. Yet we idolise Churchill and call Castro a villain.

{Huh?}

Q: What freedoms does Cuba have?
A: The freedom not to be dominated by the empire. The freedom to live long and healthy lifes. The freedom and right to a free and world class education. These are massive things that no other country of similar wealth have.
Q: Huh? You realize in Cuba you wouldn't even be able to have this conversion.
A: That wasn't wuite what was asked. I was told i criticise my government and in Cuba i couldn't do that. All i said was if i was in Cuba i wouldn't want to criticise the government. I would be seeking to join them and singing their achievements from the rooftops.

Originally Posted by JaJae

This whole conversation is beyond absurd and quite frankly extremely laughable. Whatever floats your boat I suppose, but you don't seem to be supporting your views with anything that resembles an ounce of logic. If you're hell bent on the notion of communism and totalitarianism then move to Cuba and enjoy it I suppose. But when having a discussion about Cuba with others you should present your views rationally. There is nothing wrong with loving Castro and wanting to move to Cuba I suppose, but the lengths you go to discount the issues being brought up in this thread is getting quite absurd.

The logic is quite simple really. Churchill set a precedent which Cuba has followed. The only people who cant see the simple logic are victims of the swamp of false conciousness in which they wallow. I do not blame them, i would never blame a victim and that is what they are. They are victims of ideological state and private apparatus'.

[JaJae]

What you're basically saying is that Cuban government is oppressing its citizens to protect them from the possibility of outside oppression. That just makes no sense. You're essentially saying Cubans need to be oppressed by the government to save them from oppression. That's just counter-intuitive.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Angus_Aboot

Cuba isn't a third world country, it's a second world country. And again Japan has very little in natural resources.
Also, what scientific and medical breakthroughs has the Communist Party achieved?
Yeah, capitalism's biggest flaw is its cooperation with governments.

Yes, Japan has done okay from its system, certainly the ruling class have. That is the nature of capitalism though, for every success story there are more and more in misery. For every Japan there is an Indonesia. For every CEO there is a homeless person. It requires an exploiter and an exploited to work and it is often pure chance and an accident of birth what role you will occupy. By an accident of birth dictating your futuire i mean this. A kid born in A Jakarta slum, or in the Smokey Mountain (a place that hell on earth is a kind description of) will not become a doctor or a lawyer. Of course the son of a media mogul in New York or Tokyo can become anything he wants.

As for the breakthroughs of the communist party. Here you go, these are something things that would never have happened if not for their planned economy and state run scientific, agricultural and medical facilities.

Cuba develops 'breakthrough' cancer drug - World Blog - msnbc.com

Cuba Registers New Antibody ( Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering a...)

The Big Green Experiment: Cuba's Organic Revolution

Meningitis B: Cuba's Got the Vaccine—Why Don't We?

GLYCOBIOLOGY: Synthetic Vaccine Is a Sweet Victory for Cuban Science -- Kaiser 305 (5683): 460 -- Science

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by JaJae

What you're basically saying is that Cuban government is oppressing its citizens to protect them from the possibility of outside oppression. That just makes no sense. You're essentially saying Cubans need to be oppressed by the government to save them from oppression. That's just counter-intuitive.

In essence yes i am. The crucial thing is this. The freedoms that are curbed are minor into comparison of what they stand to lose if capitalistic imperialism works its way onto the island.

Would you have said to Churchill. "If we have to curb some freedoms to defeat the Nazis, it's not worth it. We should just surrender".

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

In essence yes i am. The crucial thing is this. The freedoms that are curbed are minor into comparison of what they stand to lose if capitalistic imperialism works its way onto the island.

Would you have said to Churchill. "If we have to curb some freedoms to defeat the Nazis, it's not worth it. We should just surrender".

That's a bit of a red herring. There are no Nazis trying to invade Cuba. In fact, Cuba would have less problems with the outside world if they stopped oppressing their people. On top of that, you haven't demonstrated how oppressing a nation protects their freedoms. It's just rhetoric. It would be better for everyone involved other than the power hungry dictator.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by JaJae

That's a bit of a red herring. There are no Nazis trying to invade Cuba. In fact, Cuba would have less problems with the outside world if they stopped oppressing their people. On top of that, you haven't demonstrated how oppressing a nation protects their freedoms. It's just rhetoric. It would be better for everyone involved other than the power hungry dictator.

There aren't Nazi's seeking to dominate Cuba, but Capitalists in Washington. It's a different enemy but the principle remains.

Restricting freedoms obviously helps. If they have freedom of movement, people like Carriles and Bosch will come back to haunt the Cuban people. The School of the Americas will find willing terrorists. Even though there is probably not even 1 in 100 who would do this, that is enough for another Bay of Pigs or another Flight 455. If they have their way the ordinary Cuban will lose all the great things the revolution has given them. Cuba's future should be determined by Cubans, not by the empire.