Cuba, Mas
I’m still buried under a flu attack. But in a feverish moment I thought I would bring some of the steamy debate from the comments thread in the post below up here to the front page.
We’re having a little dustup over what freedom means. To some on the thread, as you will see, every sort of violation of basic human right and civil liberties we would decry here — lack of habeus corpus, lack of freedom of expression and of the press, arbitrary detention, a politicized judiciary, an unelected 48 year old one-family dictatorship– is just fine as long as it happens in Cuba. Please wade thru the comments to see what I mean — it’s worthy reading.
Central to the dispute is the sorry fate of a couple of dozen Cuban civilians some doing prison sentences for 27 years. Their crime: distributing written material –openly, publically, out of their living rooms mostly– that wasn’t to the liking of the dictatorship. In addition, some of these Cubans held a very public meeting with U.S. diplomats in Cuba and some received some financial support to publish their material. These critics run the span from democratic socialists to conservative christians.
The defenders of Castro in the thread below argue while Amnesty International declared these victims to be prisoders of conscience they are, in fact, “sabotuers,” “agents of an enemy state,” as they were working, through the power of the word, to overthrow the Cuban regime. By this standard, of course, such Marxist-Leninist organizations — such as the Workers World Party and the SWP in England– both committed to socialist revolution, should also be locked up in their respective countries. (Though I would think that to be cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on their cell mates).
There is one difference, of course; with whatever flaws and at least relative to Cuba, there is ample freedom of expression in both the U.S. and the U.K. allowing oppositions and even fringe groups to pretty much say or print whatever gets them off.
So let’s not be disingenuous about Cuba. There are NO legal channels open for even the most respectful, mildly dissenting views. If someone can point us, for example, to a single Cuba-based web page that takes any sort of dissenting view, please send us that link now or callate la boca, pendejo. Nor are there any critical, oppositional journals, magazines or newspapers. And more to the point, no political opposition is tolerated whatsoever (nor are any independent workers’ unions, consumer federations, or independent NGO’s).
Under these draconian conditions in any other country, I would think, the same fundamentalist lefties defending Castro, would be supporting armed insurgency against a regime as closed as his. I mean, isn’t that how we often explain violent upsurges? When you bottle up dissent and provide no channel of outlet, then you indeed often must become saboteurs, guerrillas even terrorists. You’ve been left no other way out. Isn’t this what the ANC did under apartheid rule? Was Mandela a terrorist saboteur (financed by the way via the Communists and Soviets) or was he, in fact, a freedom fighter? I think the latter.
These poor Cubans rotting in jail did a lot less than Mandela to challenge their system. Some were members of the Paya Project: the collection of 11,000 signatures calling for a constiutionally mandated national election in Cuba. They’re also in the clink.
Does the U.S. finance these dissidents? Answer, most but not all. But Im afraid to say that is also a secondary point. If a true democratic dialogue and debate were permitted in Cuban in which ideas had to fiercely compete, I would hope the adherents to Cuban socialism would have enough faith in the people to make the right decisions. If you don’t, wel, the next best thing is a dictatorship that makes all the decisions for you.
Further, if the Cuban government permitted the emergence of a civil society, if it didn’t ban books, banish writers, jail poets, tightly control the media and the press and arrest oppositionists, there would be no need to create subterrenean forms of communication and expression.
Yes, the U.S. has maintained an aggressive and hostile stance toward Cuba from the onset. The economic embargo has greatly damaged the Cuban economy, much the same way Fidel did when he nationalized everything — right down to the boot blacks– in 1965.
There was a time when the U.S. government was more actively involved in trying to unseat the regime. That posture has shifted to a more passive stance, to mostly isolating and freezing the regime. George W. Bush is quite happy with Fidel in power, keeping the plug on 3-4 million Cubans who would otherwise be heading for Florida. And in any case, what better way to discredit socialism but then to have its public face be an 80 yr old dictator?
Also, the great Cuba defenders here have not been keeping up with history. U.S. policy is much more multi-facteted than in the past, due mainly to growing agro/industrial interest in Cuba.
How many of these apologists know that the United States is currently the number one supplier of … food...to Cuba? This is a business not humanitarian venture. But to deny that it alters the overall U.S.-Cuban dynamic is more or less to equate freedom with slavery. But then again, some of you have proven a real talent in that Orwellian field:
Deseret Morning News, Monday, March 26, 2007
U.S. is Cuba’s main food supplier
Associated Press
HAVANA — Since 2003, one country has been the main supplier of food to Fidel Castro’s Cuba: the United States.
Many Americans think their government’s 45-year-old embargo blocks all trade with the communist government, but the United States is the top supplier of food and agricultural products to Cuba. In fact, many Cubans depend on rations grown in Arkansas and North Dakota for their rice and beans.
Since December 1999, governors, senators and congressmen from at least 28 U.S. states have visited Cuba, most to talk trade.
Washington’s sanctions choke off most trade with Cuba, but a law passed by Congress in 2000 authorized cash-only purchases of U.S. food and agricultural products and was cheered by major U.S. farm firms like Archer Daniels Midland Co. interested in the untapped Cuban market.
Cuba refused to import one grain of rice for more than a year because of a dispute over financing but finally agreed to take advantage of the law after Hurricane Michelle in November 2001 cut into its food stocks.
Since then, Cuba has paid more than $1.5 billion for American food and agricultural products, said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council of New York.
The $340 million in exports in 2006 represented a drop of about 3 percent from 2005, which was down from nearly $392 million in 2004. Kavulich said the decline was caused mostly by generous subsidies and credits from Venezuela and China.
The main U.S. exports to Cuba include chicken, wheat, corn, rice and soybeans — much of it doled out to Cubans on the government ration. The United States also sends Cuba brand-name cola, mayonnaise, hot sauce and candy bars, as well as dairy cows.
Kirby Jones, founder of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association in Washington, said Cuba’s food import company Alimport has an entire department dedicated to American purchases.
Jones was in Cuba this month with Arkansas chicken exporters, Nebraska bean growers and officials from the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas.
“Hundreds and hundreds of American executives have come down here,” he said. “(Cuban officials) know how to talk to us.”
An assistant to Pedro Alvarez, Alimport’s chairman, said the company could not comment without authorization from Cuban press officials.
But Cuban parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon has said Havana does not expect the U.S. embargo to be eased under President Bush. The current administration tightened restrictions in 2004, further limiting U.S. travel and imposing stricter rules for Cuban payments on U.S. goods.
Don Mason of the Iowa Corn Growers Association agreed, saying he was “less than optimistic” Washington will make it easier to trade with Cuba any time soon. He said the association ships on the order of 450,000 metric tons of corn to the island each year.
Any significant change in U.S. policy would be difficult under the 1996 Helms-Burton law, which prohibits normalization of relations with Cuba as long as 80-year-old Fidel Castro or his brother Raul are in charge. Fidel temporarily ceded power to Raul after emergency intestinal surgery in July.
Despite repeated moves in Congress to ease or eliminate the sanctions, the embargo still has supporters from both parties in both houses.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, introduced a bill in February seeking to promote American agricultural sales to the island by letting Cuba directly wire payments to U.S. banks rather than route them through third countries. But a similar measure introduced in 2005 was not approved.
Some believe American interest in Cuba’s new oil exploration efforts could change the political tide.
The island plans deep-water drilling, searching for deposits of crude oil less than 100 miles from Florida’s coast. Energy companies from China, India, Spain and elsewhere are interested in investing, but American firms are shut out.
U.S. senators Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, and Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, introduced a measure this month that would open Cuban waters to U.S. oil and natural gas companies.
“If that passes, the embargo goes out the window,” Jones said. “We’re not talking about mayonnaise now. We’re talking about million and millions of dollars.”
March 28th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
On the Cuban dissidents, from the previous thread:
“With words and books they are sabateurs.”
March 28th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
No, I didn’t know the US was selling food directly to Cuba. Rather, US corporations are. I sometimes wonder whether there is one set of laws for the vast majority of Americans, and another for a select group of corporate citizens. Archer Daniels Midland is one of the permanent select.
Last week I was watching McNeil Lehrer Report discussing ethanol issues. The primary source of “expertise” was an industry insider with the usual mix of corporate and oversight experience. At the completion of the segment, a promo for ADM was heard. We should give ADM credit…at least they buy “time” on news programs with some intellectual focus.
As for your viewpoint on Cuba, it seems to me you are simply applying principles of liberal democracy even-handedly to Cuba, Fidel and fidelistas. I guess a part of me empathizes with that group…Fidel is at once a big personality and, as a character in one of my favorite movies, “Last Days of Disco” says, “the world needs more big personalities.”
Fidel and the revolutionaries are/were at the same time true underdogs in their half-century long struggle with the US.
The point is, though, is that the Cuban people are people, and they are born, therefore, with certain theoretically inalienable rights, which rights have been denied most of them from birth. I don’t see how one can legitimize that deprivation of rights by trying to “explain” it.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Apparently the U.S. has become the second largest source of Cuba’s imports overall. I’ve thought that developing a joint sugar-ethanol industry – which could well be state-run on the Cuban side, as long as the management was competent and the workers’ rights were respected – would be a win/win for both countries when the time-worn hardliners on both sides of the divide finally lose their grip. I’d much rather import fuel from Cuba – a non-threatening country with an entirely compatible culture – than Saudi Arabia. I’m not one who wants to see every aspect of Cuba’s social system dismantled so that Elliot Abrams can swing his dick. But the place clearly needs serious liberalization on both the political and economic fronts. The most revolutionary thing that Cuba could do at this point in its history is to prove that it’s possible to sustain low levels of infant mortality, high levels of literacy and some minimal “safety net” of nutrition, health care, etc. for the poor in a Latin American country without resorting to a police state or one-party politics. Is this too much to ask fifty years into Fidel’s “experiment” ?
March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Were it not for the Miami Mafia of Cubans, we would have opened trade with Cuba, created a middle-class and democracy would have seeded itself thirty years ago. The Miami types are just waiting for Cuba to fall so they can go back to their autocratic kleptocracy for which they were not quite brave enough to stay and protect.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Which won’t happen. They will find their reception in Havana to be as warm as those exiles in the Iraqi National Congress.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
That is to say as the exiles of the INC got in Baghdad.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
This is totally off-topic, but this grilling of the GSA Administrator over quite patently illegal politicization of GSA tasks by a freshman Dem congressman is a beautiful thing to see. Also hilarious.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002896.php
March 28th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Saboteur is a morally neutral term. Mandela and the ANC’s sabotage was heroic. The NED crowd is not. Be all of that as it may, to contextualize – and criticize- people who take money from a torture-state – does not at all endorse their treatment or the type of state under which they live.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I hope folks don’t mind another OT, given how thoroughly we have discussed the Cuba situation, but the current impass over Iraq funding between Bush and Congress seems like a very positive thing to me. Although Bush says this (from NYT today):
“Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely,†Mr. Bush told an audience of cattlemen and ranchers. “That’s not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.â€
In fact, this is a chance for the Democrats to pull the plug on funding the war in Iraq by letting Bush veto the bills and leaving it at that, unless I am missing something about how these things work, and would be happy to be corrected. But if so, will the Democrats have the courage to do it? btw, if Bush left the troops without armor, food, etc etc on the front lines, I think most Americans would know who to blame for that, and for not simply conceding defeat in the political process and bringing them home.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:05 am
“In fact, this is a chance for the Democrats to pull the plug on funding the war in Iraq by letting Bush veto the bills and leaving it at that, unless I am missing something about how these things work ….”
You’re clearly missing something, Balter. The only way such a veto would be an Congressional opportunity for anything would be if it pissed off enough Republicans to generate a supermajority in both houses opposed to Bush’s handling of the war. And then it’s only an opportunity for some kind of bipartisan management of the war, not a bipartisan front in favor of pullout, which you won’t find even among Democratic legislators. (Or to put it another way, it might be an opportunity for you to eventually accuse the Dems of yet more spineless waffling.)
Speaking of spineless waffling, these esteemed legislators are only reflecting a rather tepid, divided and ambiguous “Will of the People”. Public support for this war is obviously low. However, public support for blocking funding for troop *increases* (let alone blocking funding for the status quo) is not popular — 61% are against that, as of this week. And that’s up a couple points from earlier in March.
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq
Deal with it already. A solid majority want out, immediately if not sooner. BUT: a solid majority don’t want to see the White House denied the power to expand the effort. How many times have I pointed this out? Have you figured out what it means yet? Have you even face it as a fact? *Can* you? Apparently not.
I’d far rather that Congress said to Bush, “Plan a pullout or you get no money”, OR “Push it to the hilt — we’ll back conscription if necessary.” But you’re not going to get either demand unless the American people themselves, as a whole, start talking that way. When? I’m not holding my breath.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Um, having little or no dog in this fight, I’ve got to say I’m a little surprised at the level of double talk Coop’s friends here are allowing to pass: “Does the U.S. Finance these disadents? Answer, most but not all. But I’m afraid to say this is a secondary point.”
Well, you shouldn’t be so afraid to say it that you then let said point compleatly vanish, and bleed into some highly dubious speculation on how W is really happy with Fidel(!). When our host works himself into this kind of lather, you can put rational judgements in the back seat; you’re simply being hectored and screamed at is if you were watching this blog’s friend Chris Matthews. Check out Wolcott on Matthew’s amazing shows explaining to American that the people want “legislation, not investigations.”
March 29th, 2007 at 3:12 am
Oh, and by the way: Marc, you should get a touch of the flu more often — a very nice, lucid piece here.
The Deseret News headline is clearly misleading however: Cuba’s main food supplier must still be Cuba itself. U.S. food exports to Cuba average to about $25 per person per year, if the above figures are correct. How far is 25 bucks gonna go, at U.S. prices?
As for Archer Daniels Midland being the member of some “select” club of exporters to Cuba, well, I have no love for Big Agribiz, but a perusal of the site for the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association
http://www.uscuba.org/
reveals that anybody who has a product that can be legally exported to Cuba (including, laughably, *cigars*) can join the association for its benefits, and even those who don’t have a product like that but who would like to look at eventual opportunities.
From their FAQ
—-
Who can join?
Membership will be open to any and all companies and organizations wishing to support the goals and objectives of USCTA. An outreach program will be initiated to bring into membership firms not involved in current trade in agricultural products but which are looking to undertaking other business with Cuba and support the lifting of the embargo for other products and services. The more companies and the more sectors represented will lead to greater influence.
—-
OK, admittedly if you’re a small time operator, you might bridle at the $1500 membership fee, only $500 less than what the big players pay.
A quick scan of “Agricultural Products Allowed to Sell in Cuba” is so incredibly detailed that it almost has to include goods produced only by small specialty companies.
Wanna get into the booming aromatherapy market in Cuba? Here’s your chance! Caviar? Beeswax? Capers? Sell to Cuba — you can!
How about “mosses and lichens of a kind suitable for bouquets or for ornamental purposes, fresh, dried, dyed, bleached, impregnated or otherwise prepared”? Are they gonna say, “sorry, entry restricted to Big Moss companies only”? I don’t think so.
How about “badger hair and other brushmaking hair, bristles and hair and waste thereof.” Could it be that entry is restricted only to companies running one of those colossal badger rendering plants in Minnesota? You know, the ones that sprawl over several acres and stink up the countryside for miles around? I rather doubt it.
At first I thought there must be some restrictions on fish livers and roes, because almost all fish categories pointedly exclude them, repetitive to the point of inanity. Until I hit this, in the fish category, at the end of that list:
0302.70 Livers and roes
What a relief! I can sell them my fish-farmed organic caviar!
You can sell Cuba macaws and cacatoos. You can even sell them live whales and dolphins.
And you can sell them any damned thing made of wood, from bulk pulp to inlaid jewelry cases.
(I must admit I’m not sure what to make of “opium saps and extracts”. Hm. But I guess it means if you’re a legal supplier of morphine, you can sell it to Cuba. Think of the possibilities, Comrade!)
uscuba.org is not exactly Venceremos Brigade. Its board of directors includes a former Undersecretary of Commerce under Clinton, and the Chairman of its Board of Advisors is also Vice-chairman of Kissinger & Associates. But let’s face it — it may be a small club, but it doesn’t appear to be very exclusive. If its membership list is small, it’s probably only because, unless you’re selling rice, beans and frozen drumsticks to Cuba, your market there would necessarily be pathetically small. But hey, you can go on a nice cruise and a guided tour of Havan, tax deductible as a business expense, so your $1500 membership fee would hardly be wasted. Just don’t try to claim your bar tab under “researching the nascent Cuban umbrella drink market”. The IRS might take exception.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:00 am
You want fear?
I’ll give you fear…and rap lyrics to censor
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/28/bush.broadcasters.ap/index.html
March 29th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Click on the link to the end of the piece. The dance moves and poses come from Public Enemy. It is one of the most offensive things I’ve ever seen.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am
“Check out Wolcott on Matthew’s amazing shows explaining to American that the people want “legislation, not investigations.—
This could only be amazing to K….and maybe J. Amazing that anyone would be dumb enough and clueless enough to think there is ANYTHING more important than exposing Hitler and his Reichstag in their evil attempt to conquer the free people of the world.
Marc and Mathews could even have been part of the orignal conspiracy that created the ‘incident’ on August 9, 2001 that started their dastardly quest.
There is just nothing more important for the future of our garranteed freedoms to be radical if we want, comrades.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:49 am
That would be September 11, 2001 of course.
Bush’s planning began on August 9.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Michael Turner’s nailed it. The polls say give up so give up. While we’re at it, the polls also give Gulianni a lead in ’08, so the Democrats should just save us all a lot of time and money and skip that one too. Oh, and somebody should do some polling for 2010 to maybe save a little time on going after congressional seats. The only other option is inventing some kind of process by which to make people change their minds. Michael Balter, a report on the scientists working on this project!
March 29th, 2007 at 9:32 am
It appears my posts are not getting through. I trust it is an adminstrative problem…
Thought this review of Havana’s “Sixth Review of New Filmakers” – ie. those without much or any State sponsorship – would be pertinent. Here’s an exerpt featuring the comments of film professor and critic Gustavo Arcos Fernández-Britto focussing on the content of these new Cuban films:
MS: Do these young people seem to you disconnected from, or not interested in, the social project undergone by Cuba?
GAR: Judging from their works, I would say they are totally interested in Cuba’s social project, not to praise it or deliver the classical TV apology that is so annoying, but to question it, to the degree that [their films] reflect complex, harsh and bitter complexes felt by our society.
Apathy, the double standard, frustration, boredom, the lack of horizons, escapism, the daily miseries, family breakup, losses, emigration, or the lack of material and cerebral resources to solve decades-old problems are examples of a preocupation with the present and the future of the nation.
In that sense, for example, a documentary like “De-Generation,” by young Aran Vidal, says much about the subject. So do other films, like “Monteros,” by Alejandro RamÃrez, “Seeking Havana,” by Alina RodrÃguez, “Model town,” by Laimir Fano, and “The empty beds,” by Sandra Jiménez.
MS: What are the themes most often broached in the films that were shown?
GAR: There were several documentaries about the grave problems of housing in the country, about domestic migration and the poor outlook about a substantial improvement in the quality of life of people.
That same existential precariousness seen in some movies was accompanied in other movies by a spiritual precariousness. We saw people who live like zombies, who are resigned to their fate, without any hope, resigned to repeat — over and over — a poor and lamentable life cycle.
In the fiction films we find loneliness, escapism and infelicity as recurrent themes. It’s remarkable how most of this “alternative cinema” distances itself from the pompous and false official speech so plagued with promises, slogans and ideas about the star-bright future ahead of us.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Let me less fascitiously point out that
a. 78% of the public believes congress should have influence over war policy
b. Almost ever other question regarding Iraq shows dissatisfaction with Bush’s policy and a desire for congress to give us something new.
c. Since we’re talking crass political benefit, let’s note that among those likely to vote for Democrats, the number rejecting ongoing war is very high and likely supports restrictions on troop increases. Restriction or ending the war is extremely popular with the base and it’s very, very likely that those who want to get out of Iraq, but are initially unsure about restrictions, will come around to Democratic perspective. Even a slavish reader of the polls should be able to figure that out.
Great posts on Cuba, Marc. As some one who grew up in a liberal-leftist tradition, but wasn’t exposed the more “radical” types, the visitors you’re attracting are distressingly educational.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Good points about Cuba, Marc, but not only am I one of those people far more concerned about violations of civil rights and habeas corpus in this country than I am about Cuba, I am unapologetic about it. I don’t live in Cuba. The United States cannot be the beacon for change in Cuba or anywhere in the world if it becomes a tin horn banana republic ruled by an unaccountable executive branch bent on overturning the bill of rights.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:06 am
The polls show that a majority of bloggers think Turner’s do-nothing and watch the polls stance is morally inferior to Balter’s let Bush veto the bill and the money run out on its own suggestion. The polls also say that Mavis Beacon makes more sense than most of the bloggers here, but that Balter is unlikely to come up with a scientific solution to how to change people’s minds.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Thought I’d also share the first writings of Fidel Castro in 8 months. It appears Fidel, in his resting time, increasingly sees environmentalism as an important part of his legacy (Cuba was called the only sustainable country on the planey by WWF last year). Here are his partial remarks on President Bush’s new ethanol policy:
More than three million people in the world condemned to premature death from hunger and thirst. That is not an exaggerated figure, but rather a cautious one. I have meditated a lot on that in the wake of President Bush’s meeting with U.S. automobile manufacturers.
The sinister idea of converting food into fuel was definitively established as an economic line in U.S. foreign policy last Monday, March 26.
….
I believe that reducing and moreover recycling all motors that run on electricity and fuel is an elemental and urgent need for all humanity. The tragedy does not lie in reducing those energy costs but in the idea of converting food into fuel.
It is known very precisely today that one ton of corn can only produce 413 liters of ethanol on average, according to densities. That is equivalent to 109 gallons. The average price of corn in U.S. ports has risen to $167 per ton. Thus, 320 million tons of corn would be required to produce 35 billion gallons of ethanol. According to FAO figures, the U.S. corn harvest rose to 280.2 million tons in the year 2005.
Although the president is talking of producing fuel derived from grass or wood shavings, anyone can understand that these are phrases totally lacking in realism. Let’s be clear: 35 billion gallons translates into 35 followed by nine zeros!
Afterwards will come beautiful examples of what experienced and well-organized U.S. farmers can achieve in terms of human productivity by hectare: corn converted into ethanol; the chaff from that corn converted into animal feed containing 26% protein; cattle dung used as raw material for gas production. Of course, this is after voluminous investments only within the reach of the most powerful enterprises, in which everything has to be moved on the basis of electricity and fuel consumption. Apply that recipe to the countries of the Third World and you will see that people among the hungry masses of the Earth will no longer eat corn. Or something worse: lend funding to poor countries to produce corn ethanol based on corn or any other food and not a single tree will be left to defend humanity from climate change.
Other countries in the rich world are planning to use not only corn but also wheat, sunflower seeds, rapeseed and other foods for fuel production. For the Europeans, for example, it would become a business to import all of the world’s soybeans with the aim of reducing the fuel costs for their automobiles and feeding their animals with the chaff from that legume, particularly rich in all types of essential amino acids.
…
All the countries of the world, rich and poor, without any exception, could save millions and millions of dollars in investment and fuel simply by changing all the incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent ones, an exercise that Cuba has carried out in all homes throughout the country. That would provide a breathing space to resist climate change without killing the poor masses through hunger.
…
March 29th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Cuba is the only sustainable country on Earth according to the WWF? I didn’t know the World Wrestling Foundation conducted such surveys!
March 29th, 2007 at 11:26 am
There is no one in the world as green as Gorilla Monsoon.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Cuba also does it’s part for the environment by shutting down the power grid periodically.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Bob, you might be interested in knowing Cuba has cut the amount of blackouts by more than 90% since last year. They are basically history in most of the country for most of the year. They bought tons of huge electric generators rather than build new (unclean) power plants… and are saving tons of energy with their new efficient lightbulbs in every household – and the new Chinese refrigerators and electric cookers – most Cubans are getting financed by the government.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:53 am
You mean they’ve changed from incandescent lightbulbs to flourescents in Cuba ? That’s incredible. Completely changes my mind about their political system. Fidel’s critique of corn-based ethanol production is also pathbreaking. Who knew ?
March 29th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I am disappointed that leftside did not link to an audio clip of one of Fidel’s speeches. I’ve got a pretty high speed connection and it would be no trouble to listen to a seven-hour discourse.
March 29th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Has anyone been having flashbacks to the way arguments with Woody work ?
March 29th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
They bought tons of huge electric generators rather than build new (unclean) power plants
Yes those generators must be running on solar and wind power as clearly running them off say, petroleum supplied to you by another friendly oil-rich power would pollute the air . . .
No doubt when they need to slaughter pigs for food, the pigs just go voluntarily, filled with revolutionary spirit and the fish probably just jump into the fishermen’s boats screaming “¡Patria o muerte!”
Or better yet, to power the generators, perhaps the fish, instead of being eaten power a water wheel to turn the turbines, or the pigs run in circles tethered to a pole to power the turbines.
March 29th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
What powers their electric generators? Electricity?
March 29th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
My point exactly.
March 29th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Jim R, I hate to get between a man and his Jack Daniels breakfast, but you’re a bit all over the map today. But that’s cool. I supose “amazing” wasn’t the right word, if it suggested surprise. You’re watching a feeble attempt of the MSM to cover for a White House which is taking to accountablity like tooth picks stand up to a blow torch. It’s a thing of beauty, and watching the clowns over on Matthews show squirm only heightens the enjoyment.
March 29th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
You guys are a hoot… since my initial comments last night providing lists and links to dozens of Cuban blogs and opposition websites did not go through (per Marc’s polite request), I guess we’ll stay on the environment.
Reg, you can scoff at the lightbulb replacement program all you want. But if the US followed Cuba’s lead it would be the equivalent of building a nuclear power plant or everyone driving a Prius rather than what they have. But go ahead and mock it, even though such a thing is not even possible in the US. The best we can hope for is California democrats passing a bill to prevent regular bulbs to be sold in stores – but nothing to help the poor install them, nothing to ensure compliance, and nothing to prevent a huge black market from developing.
Fidel’s critique is not a new concept. But he humanized the issue, calculated the consequences and in my knowledge, is the most prominent leader to stand against the Bush announcement. Of course the US does not care about how it meets its energy needs, nor the impact it will have in the developing world. But it is nice to hear you at least, implicitly agree with him.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Still haven’t said how they power the generators.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
And oh yeah Randy and Bob, it sounds like you are questionning the simple fact that small generators are more efficient than large thermoelectrical power plants? Are you serious? Of course diesel and fule oil is used, but it is more efficient that the thermoelectrical plants, which most countries still build. That was not my point in even mentioning them… I can go on and on about Cuba’s environmental friendly policies in wind power, agriculture, preservation, etc.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Ok Randy, since you really need to know, here is some more detail from the lips of Fidel:
As of January 15, we have installed 205 power generators with a capacity to generate 253 500 Kw/hour. This new concept of energy generation has the following advantages:
· minimum amounts of fuel per Kw/hour generated consumed: 210 gr./Kw/hour, on average, for Diesel or Fuel Oil, depending on the motor type and its purpose.
Or maybe this will do the trick.
Hundreds of smaller power generators have been installed across the island. Their overall capacity is equivalent to building almost four thermoelectric plants like the Antonio Guiteras facility, the largest on the island.
Once the installation of all the generators is concluded, the country will be able to produce 1,320 megawatts per hour, thereby saving $100,700,000 in investment, at least 40 tons of oils a day and six years of hard work.
This is not to mention that only 10 percent of all generated power will be lost through the distribution networks, as the transmission distance is considerably reduced. At the same time, a province like Pinar del Rio will not be without power for as long a time after being battered by a hurricane….
Otherwise look it up yourself…
March 29th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Gee, so it will be more efficient for me to go off the grid and fire up the Honda generator my Dad bought me for Y2K?
March 29th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Ok Randy, since you really need to know, here is some more detail from the lips of Fidel:
Oh wow. That must make it ipso facto, true!/snark>
Diesel, by the way is one of the dirtiest burning fuels. Here in NYC, the city is moving away from diesel buses, promoting natural gas and hybrid buses.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
No Bob, we are talking huge generators that power whole towns and neighborhoods. They are more energy and economicly efficient (and better for hurricanes) for Cuba than building new plants.
Randy, isn’t diesel more energy efficient that regular?? Cuba is converting many of its electric plants to natural gas as well…
March 29th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Holy Geeze, Im gonna start a new post and thread. Reading this stream of crap is keeping me from recovering from the flu. Cafe revolutionaries like Leftside and Smith ought to get their asses of the web and do something useful.. like fly down to Havana and spend a lot of time convincing every Cuban they can not to trust their lyin’ eyes…. not to believe that caloric intake is often under 1200, not to believe that the ration card provides about 1/4 of basic and everything else must be bid for on savage black market, that’s there’s NOTHINg to read in the news kiosks, NO news on the TV, that all those vaunted free hospitals for some years now lack basic medicines (unless you are a medical tourist paying dollars), that the only productive sector of the economy are those operated as joint ventures by foreign multinationals who are rented out a domesticated and union-free cuban work force at a couple of hundred bucks per head, that for the last 50 years there are are two men =two brothers– who have any official voice in politics, that in the past, drafted Cuban soldiers were sent abroad to fight with NO prior national debate… other than a propaganda line. Oh yes, fighting So Africa is one thing. But giving military support to Mengistu? That was worth one cuban life? ANyway, boys, you will have ample opportunity to convince all around you how lucky they are that they aren’t Haitian or Guatemalan. I’m sure you will find a warm grateful audience.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Hey Marc, find my link filled post from last night that I suspect too closely met your challenge (to find dissent, opposition web sites and open opinions on the Cuban web). Otherwise I’ll repost tonight….
But until then, you gave me some more totally incorrect facts to run with. That is all I’ve really been doing here. If correcting everyone’s misconceptions is defending Fidel, then I am guilty. But hopefully your readers aren’t so closed minded.
As for calories, I suspect you are referring to something done in 1992, at the height of Cuba’s Great Depresssion (they lost 40% of GDP – twice as bad as ours). Today the UN reports Cuba is the ONLY country in Latin America to have “come close to abolishing severe malnourishment.”As for the ration book – that is credited by the UN for the good numbers. They report that the ration book provides Cubans 53% (not 25%) of their total caloric and nutritional needs – for next to nothing. There are many other options for food than the black market, such as produce stands for goods grown on vacant lots in the neighborhoods of Havana (as sustainable as can be).
Nothing to read in Cuba? I guess you are not as impressed by Granma and Juventud Rebelde as I was. They only seem skimpy because there are no ads filling it up (the web version is only part of what is printed). The artists and writers have got Bohemia and la Caceta, those looking for humor have Dedete, their Time magazine is Trabajadores. i even saw a monthly English language mag when I was there… nevermind the dozens of local presses in every province and city. No news on TV? I can’t even believe you wrote that. Cubans complain of too much news, if anything. There are also top notch documentaries, up to date hollywood movies, I even was told the Simpsons are shown. For having no sources of information, the Cubans I met were quite up to date on things… much more than Americans for sure.
“Lack basic medicines” is an old refrain, without much truth. I am sure the odd US produced commercial products are hard to find (advil, mylanta) because of the embargo, but for a place with no medicines, they sure are healthy (we’ve already discussed their better health than ours). That is because for every pill of Robotussin they don’t have, they have something else that works as well. Plus lets not obscure the more basic fact that Cubans have FREE access to every essential piece of medical equipment you can find to treat anything.
As for productive sectors of the economy, head CIA honcho in Cuba for decades Brian Lattel, goes out of his way in his “After Fidel” book to argue that Raul’s armed forces have been running ran the most productive sectors of the economy – in areas of tourism and agriculture. The Cuban army is totally self-sufficient, ie. gets no state subsidy. Cubans have plenty of representation at work, to improve conditions (more than Americans at least). I’ve already tackled the issue of Cuban pay, which has doubled and at hotels is shared with the rest of the population.
If you went to Cuba you may get some agreements on some domestic criticisms, but I doubt many would feel anything but great pride in their foreign policy. First off, all Cubans abroad were volunteers from the army. With these heroes Cuba single-handedly stoppped the spread of racist regimes in southern Africa. They changed history without Soviet endorsement – or help. They alone countered the CIA wherever they were in Africa and Latin America, assisting democratic anti-imperialist governments in Algeria, Congo, Guinnea. Mandela claims apartheid would not have fell when it did without the Cuban assistance. Scholars go further and say Cuba is the only modern example of a truly idealistic foreign policy that worked. As far as Ethiopia goes, experts agree that without the critical injection of 15,000 troops to repel the Somali invasion, a good portion of Ethiopia would have been carved off, and the plans for a Greater Somalia, including attacks on DJidibuti and parts of Kenya, would have moved forward. It was not about Mengitsu, I don’t think he was even in power yet… it was about helping a helpless state from foreign invasion. Cuba gained nothing but the prestige of the world. Americans may find that worthless, but Cubans are a perhaps different breed.
Your last comment is perhaps the most troubling. While this one can
t be proven, I would say to imply that ANY Cuban on ANY street thinks people have it better in Haiti or Guatemala shows ignorance of toda’s Cuba. Cubans know they have difficulties, but they would not give up their solidarity, their justice, their equality, nor their first world social and cultural achievements for anything. I met several Cubans who believed their life is better in Cuba than it could possibly be in the US. They like to play hard and don’t work too much in Cuba you know… there is no worry about not paying rent like they hear from family in Miami.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
You know, leftside, I’m not scoffiing at lightbulb replacement – I’ve replaced all of mine. I’m scoffing at your digging stuff like that out as somehow rebutting the substance of the criticism that Cuba has a terrible history of incarcerating and otherwise sanctioning critics of the regime, that there’s no free press or other above-ground media that isn’t state-controlled and that organized political expression that challenges the one-party system is not tolerated.
My biggest problem with Castro isn’t that he stood up against the United States, but that his “revolution” did exactly zilch to provide anything remotely resembling a viable alternative development model for Latin America. The country has been walking on crutches for decades. They’ve wrapped any actual social achievements in areas like education and access to doctors for the poor in such an unattractive political package that virtually no one on the Latin American left would point to the Cuban system as a model – despite all of the bullshit rhetoric that Fidel spouted when he initiated what has amounted to a highly restricted project, founded on a bankrupt ideology and overseen by a caudillo.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
“there is no worry about not paying rent like they hear from family in Miami”
But without those remittances, they’d be screwed. Or is that more misinformation ?
March 29th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Most Cubans get no remittances. Cuba gets far less in proportion to GDP than others in the region (no more than 2% of GDP vs 12% in El Salvador, 10% in Dominican Rep). Remittances are of course helpful to buying international goods in the dollar stores. but Cuba has quite a good system of using remittances for the good of all. It takes roughly 18% off the top of all dollars in the country (though its 1.08 CUC exchange rate and a 10% fee) to redistribute. Cuba also marks up prices of consumer goods in those stores by at least 20% to further capture these dollars. In other words, they do not end up in the coffers of McDonalds and Walmart.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Reg, like most of the stuff I’ve responded to here, I did not bring up the lightbulbs. It was in Fidel’s first “editorial” released today. Someone else commented on it and I responded.
As for Castro not being an inspiration, you are simply incorrect. Check out the earful Andres Oppenheimer got when he tried to tell Indian economics students that Fidel and Chavez were bad models. or listen to what the leaders of the 100+ countries of the Non-Aligned movement had to say about Fidel. Or just pay attention when even Calderon in Mexico and Uribe in Colombia tell Bush to shove it when he tells them to play a harder line vs. Cuba and Venezuela. In 1991, you may have had an argument, but the world is changing. Fidel has to look around the world and feel pretty vindicated in 2007 (his friends now run Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua – just missing Peru and Mexico by inches).
Look, only we Americans have this anti-Castro fetish. We are taught it at a young age and it is instilled everywhere. The reason our insitutions have done this is not because Cuba is a failure. It is because Cuba was and still is a remarkable example – a cancer to be removed as the US national security literature put it for 30 years (Chomsky). We don’t have covert terrorist and propoganda wars for 47 years because we want democracy so bad. I hope you can concede at least this much. You may not think so, but our best and brightest were scared sh*tless of a rising Cuba until the Soviet Union fell.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
I’m scoffing at your digging stuff like that out as somehow rebutting the substance of the criticism that Cuba has a terrible history of incarcerating and otherwise sanctioning critics of the regime, that there’s no free press or other above-ground media that isn’t state-controlled and that organized political expression that challenges the one-party system is not tolerated.
Reg didn’t you know that replacing light bulbs is an affirmative defense against crimes against humanity?
Nothing to read in Cuba? I guess you are not as impressed by Granma and Juventud Rebelde as I was.
I remember in film school we studied the flourish of excellent films by directors like Andrezej Wajda, Miklos Jancso, Milos Forman. They were a refreshing break from what we called “the boy meets tractor” school of Soviet doctrinaire realism.” Granma and Juventud Rebelde are cut from the same cloth.
As for diesel and gasoline, as Cuba gets much of its fuel from Venezuela, it’s worth noting that Venezuela is a major producer of sour crude oil, which has a high sulfur content, smells like sulfur and is a major producer of hydrogen sulfides.
Yummy
March 29th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
his friends now run Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua
None of whom appear to be emulating his political model either.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Anyone who doesn’t understand that neither Fidel or Chavez has constructed a model for the developing countries is, to put it bluntly, ignorant. Cubans can’t survive without remittances from exiles nearly fifty years after Fidel siezed power and Chavez’ economic model is about as relevant to most other underdeveloped countries as Kuwait’s. These arguments you make aren’t serious. I’m underwhelmed. Castro may have a bunch of nominal “friends” but he’s not got many comrades, other than Hugo. No Latin leader in their right mind would put forward the Cuban system as an alternative.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
“I hate to get between a man and his Jack Daniels breakfast,…”
You read me pretty close K. But your wiskey is about a ’10′ too ‘High’.
March 30th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Due to technical difficulties I trust, my original response to this posting still has not gotten up. I am going to link to it on my blog, if anyone still cares about Cooper’s challenge to find any Cuban “web page that takes any sort of dissenting view.” I went and turned on google translation and had a good look. In 20 minutes I found dozens of interesting, free blogs as well as some prominent oppositional web sites. This was not being able to be posted here, so I have to link on that site, so I have to link it here:
March 30th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Leftside, poor thing. Thanks for your valiant efforts. Im pleased to find that I have been wrong these paqst 48 years and to now learn of such broad freedom of expression in Cuba. As a token of my appreciation I will be sending you a framed original copy of the 1937 Stalin Constitution — the most democratic in the world.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:04 am
No fair, Marc, some of us have been on this blog for years and you’ve never sent us anything.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:13 am
From a profile on Harvard Professor Paul Farmer, the AIDS physician who has written a number of books on Haiti, that appeared in the July 3rd, 2000 New Yorker magazine:
Leaving Haiti, Farmer didn’t stare down through the airplane window at that brown and barren third of an island. “It bothers me even to look at it,” he explained, glancing out. “It can’t support eight million people, and there they are. There they are, kidnapped from West Africa.”
But when we descended toward Havana he gazed out the window intently, making exclamations: “Only ninety miles from Haiti, and look! Trees! Crops! It’s all so verdant. At the height of the dry season! The same ecology as Haiti’s, and look!”
An American who finds anything good to say about Cuba under Castro runs the risk of being labelled a Communist stooge, and Farmer is fond of Cuba. But not for ideological reasons. He says he distrusts all ideologies, including his own. “It’s an ‘ology,’ after all,” he wrote to me once, about liberation theology. “And all ologies fail us at some point.” Cuba was a great relief to me. Paved roads and old American cars, instead of litters on the ‘gwo wout ia’. Cuba had food rationing and allotments of coffee adulterated with ground peas, but no starvation, no enforced malnutrition. I noticed groups of prostitutes on one main road, and housing projects in need of repair and paint, like most buildings in the city. But I still had in mind the howling slums of Port-au-Prince, and Cuba looked lovely to me. What looked loveliest to Farmer was its public-health statistics.
Many things affect a public’s health, of course—nutrition and transportation, crime and housing, pest control and sanitation, as well as medicine. In Cuba, life expectancies are among the highest in the world. Diseases endemic to Haiti, such as malaria, dengue fever, T.B., and AIDS, are rare. Cuba was training medical students gratis from all over Latin America, and exporting doctors gratis— nearly a thousand to Haiti, two en route just now to Zanmi Lasante. In the midst of the hard times that came when the Soviet Union dissolved, the government actually increased its spending on health care. By American standards, Cuban doctors lack equipment, and are very poorly paid, but they are generally well trained. At the moment, Cuba has more doctors per capita than any other country in the world—more than twice as many as the United States. “I can sleep here,” Farmer said when we got to our hotel. “Everyone here has a doctor.”
Farmer gave two talks at the conference, one on Haiti, the other on “the noxious synergy” between H.I.V. and T.B.—an active case of one often makes a latent case of the other active, too. He worked on a grant proposal to get anti-retroviral medicines for Cange, and at the conference met a woman who could help. She was in charge of the United Nations’ project on AIDS in the Caribbean. He lobbied her over several days. Finally, she said, “O.K., let’s make it happen.” (“Can I give you a kiss?” Farmer asked. “Can I give you two?”) And an old friend, Dr. Jorge Perez, arranged a private meeting between Farmer and the Secretary of Cuba’s Council of State, Dr. José Miyar Barruecos. Farmer asked him if he could send two youths from Cange to Cuban medical school. “Of course,” the Secretary replied.
Again and again during our stay, Farmer marvelled at the warmth with which the Cubans received him. What did I think accounted for this?
I said I imagined they liked his connection to Harvard, his published attacks on American foreign policy in Latin America, his admiration of Cuban medicine.
I looked up and found his pale-blue eyes fixed on me. “I think it’s because of Haiti,” he declared. “I think it’s because I serve the poor.”
March 30th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Cafe revolutionaries like Leftside and Smith ought to get their asses of the web and do something useful.. like fly down to Havana and spend a lot of time convincing every Cuban they can not to trust their lyin’ eyes….
—-
Cafe revolutionaries ought to get off their ass? That’s something you should do, Cooper. Your ass is fatter than Jabba the Hutt’s. Nearly as fat as your rightwing, redbaiting mouth.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Why the hell do these people continue to denigrate the notion of insuring basic health and human services by touting them as some kind of justification of a one-party state that severely curbs civil liberties, criminalizes entrepreneurial activity and adheres to a mono-ideology that has proven itself bankrupt and anachronistic at best ? What possible interest could such blather serve ? Certainly nothing I would construe as “progressive”.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Way to raise the level of discourse, Mr. Levine.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
A good article from Marc Cooper’s pacifica ally
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau03292007.html
March 30th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
That one’s already been tossed into the hopper. I don’t get the need to drag Guantanamo or other outrages into the hopper in order to rationalize a totally disreputable legacy of political oppression and systematic – got that ? SYSTEMATIC – suppression of any organized opposition to a one-party state over nearly a half-century. Strikes me as special pleadiing. I can make all kinds of relativistic arguments about who’s worse, when and how – but unless locked-down Leftist folks have the balls to simply state that they don’t have a problem with Fidel-style governance, I don’t get all of the carping and bullshit directed against Corn and other critics. I can construct a “historical” rationale as well as the next person, but the difference is that I no longer believe it and I don’t really respect anybody who peddles that kind of crap at this late date. Bankrupt, mono-ideology – no organized political opposition to one-party rule allowed – nearly all entrepeneurial activity is criminalized – goverment controls the media. What kind of lame shit is that ? Apologists for this stuff simply give me the creeps. They’re politically so irrelevant and marginal that any discussion over a rational policy for the U.S. as regards Cuba will be more productive the farther these folks recede into the margins of history. Along with their crap ideology. It’s not even “marxism”, for that matter. It’s “Leninism” which didn’t even exist as an “ism” until Stalin instituted it as official dogma for a movement that descended into a psuedo “Left” analog of fascism – nothing more and nothing less. Why cling to this crap ? It’s a form of idiocy.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Reg.. more than idiocy it’s a stupid act of self-identification and self-realization. But ur basically right.
Ahmed: Saul Landau is an old friend of mine and is much more than a “Pacifica ally.” One of the many things we disagree on is Cuba.
I particularly do NOT like the piece you have linked to. Of course no one committed to freedom is going to defend what has been done to Jose Padilla. Unfortunately, similar treatment is handed out on, yes, a systematic basis in Cuba to those likewise considered illegal combatants.
I also think is Saul is little too quick to dismiss the impact of the Herberto Padilla piece. Perhaps, indeed, no electro-shock on waterboards were used on the Cuban poet. But I dont know about you, but I think if I were a radical, a socialist, a fighter for freedom I’d be pretty god-damned fired up about putting a leftist poet in jail for 38 days for something he wrote! I dont want to be picky or anything, but if it happened to me I would damn well consider it a form of torture. Especially knowing that Im in a police state with no habeus corpus, no right to a speedy or impartial trial, and in facr no knowledge of what my crime was in the first place!
The Padilla affair in Cuba was cataclysmic and cast a chill for decades afterwards. Is Saul right that the cultural policies of the regime have been liberalized? Of course. This has been the case with most totalitarian regimes as they mature. Once the political opposition is crippled and cowed and there is no instititutional form of resistance available, you let some freaks grow their hair long and write some steamy novels. But as recently as 1992 I stood with Che Guevara’s own grandson on a Havana balcony just moments after his rock group had been tear-gassed off a community center stage because his music was considered degenerate.
Ahmed, it’s easy for you or me or Reg to condemn the inhuman treatment imposed on Jose Padilla. But I dont see that condemnation as some sort of ritual preliminary to state a whole number of equally obvious truths. Like:
1) Cuba is a dictatorship where all power is concentrated into the hands of one family. No organized political dissent — in action or in word– is tolerated.
2) There is a complete and total lack of basic civil liberties and rule of law in Cuba as well as any transparency or independence of the judiciary.
3) The individual Cuban citizen lacks any and all guarantees of security, privacy or redress against the state.
4) And while there is an admirable “social wage” paid to all in the form of abundant social services, it is likewise true that there is widespread economic hardship and ABSOLUTELY no right for workers to organize or bargain collectively.
Man, does this get boring…………………..
April 1st, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Tedium…
That’s probably the best word to describe the comments from the pro-Castro side of the debate in this post and this post. I won’t bore you with the details except to make the following observations that are my opinion and…
November 6th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
You know, leftside, I’m not scoffiing at lightbulb replacement – I’ve replaced all of mine. I’m scoffing at your digging stuff like that out as somehow rebutting the substance of the criticism that Cuba has a terrible history of incarcerating and otherwise sanctioning critics of the regime, that there’s no free press or other above-ground media that isn’t state-controlled and that organized political expression that challenges the one-party system is not tolerated.
My biggest problem with Castro isn’t that he stood up against the United States, but that his “revolution” did exactly zilch to provide anything remotely resembling a viable alternative development model for Latin America. The country has been walking on crutches for decades. They’ve wrapped any actual social achievements in areas like education and access to doctors for the poor in such an unattractive political package that virtually no one on the Latin American left would point to the Cuban system as a model – despite all of the bullshit rhetoric that Fidel spouted when he initiated what has amounted to a highly restricted project, founded on a bankrupt ideology and overseen by a caudillo.