White House Factsheet - Cuba

Oh my friend, you are so naïve..

I would like to know how in the world a Capitalistic society (aka Free market) doesn't allow one to improve themselves or develop as a human being? From what I see around me there are plenty of people expanding their minds simply because of the fact that they have the individual freedom to do so.

And please don't start lecturing me on how I am misled by the mass media, I have family in Cuba, I am allowed to visit them, and I do, that is hardly a free society.

Ah, so because you have family in Cuba, you understand how all cubans feel and can speak for them here? I live in the US, and my understanding of america is massively different and contrary to many of my friends, who ALSO live in the US. Most of the people i know who live here with me have no clue about their government, what it does, and who it represents. I have middle class friends here, and i have poor friends here (mostly poor) and i have people who think it is the best system in the world, and i have people who think its far from it. What most of them lack, however, lovers and haters, middle class and poor class alike...is any true education on our history or our policies.

reply to post by vkey08

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How about the human rights violations we did and are doing to our people? The terrible Tuskegee experiments, the founding of LSD and it's trails, not to mention the CIA and their nefarious plots.

Cuba has one of the best medical coverages in the world, they have to be something right. The US is still mad that they let russia stash icbms there, nothing more or less, we still let commies run other countries..its time for the US to get it's grown man on and actually try to solve things diplomatically rather than relying on the CIA to start a coup, uncle sam tried to snuff him like 3 times i believe.

Mexico is rippin itself apart because of the drug trade and yet we stand and do nothing, what about them? Why don't we storm over the border and give them a hand?

We can't police the governments of other countries even though we try and want to.

Anyways, great post though..i see where you are going.

reply to post by cenpuppie

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Oh I agree the United States is far FAR from innocent in it's own treatment of people, my problem comes and you said it best... We support other communist countries but have a different stand there.

If we support one, support them all, if we do not support one do not support them all. Maybe my take on this would be different if the standards were the same across the board but they aren't.

As for speaking for all Cubans, no I cannot, I can only speak for what I experience there when I am there, nothing else. I do know I cannot check my e-mail from where I go because there is no internet access allowed for the "common folk" without a special license. The news is just like the US, censored and hardly free press.

Going back to the other communist countries we support, China is a good example, we look the other way simply because (IMO) they have a military that could give us a run for our money. I'm no bigger a fan of the US's treatment of China in that manner.

And you mentioned the Tuskegee (I know I spelled it wrong, I'm way too out of it right now to look it up and fix it) and along those lines I think the uS was probably as bad as if not worse than the Germans when it came ot internment camps during WW2.

In the end though, replacing our democracy with socialist/communist philosophies will not solve our problems, it will just give one more person the ability to gain too much power over others. Our republic (READ R E P U B LI C) may not be perfect, and it certainly needs some change and some overhaul, but it is far far better than some of the governments that exist out there, especially if we return to the roots that the nation was founded on and not this convoluted ghost of what it was.

I was reading a some letters my older brother left on his laptop he let me use to watch some dvds he has from when he was stationed in Korea. He's is currently an Army Major stationed in Colorado.

In one letter he is explaining his concern about another mass exodus of Cuban refugees. He casually mentions the death of Fidel Castro in 2006/2007 and Raul Castro assuming power, he references his source of this information as "CIA FACTBOOK".

I read it and thought, "Oh, I guess I missed his death on the news", and I vaguely remembered my father (A retired US Navy Captain mentioning this to some one).

Any way, days later I am watching CNN and they are running old stock footage of Fidel Castro in a track suit and talking about US officials meeting with Fidel to discuss foreign policy.

I am staunchly against this kind of secrecy- it only creates the kind of cultural neurosis evidenced in the OP calling Obama a communist dictator because he wants to open up talks with Cuba.

And to any FBI/CIA/NSA or private employee waving the Patriot act around: I found no evidence that this letter was classified and I hope you like the fat granny porn I stream constantly.

it amazes me how naive the left is. you all think that bush was the cause of world hate toward america. AND THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

rest of the world has not liked or "hated" america for decades.

how many times has us presidents reached out their hands to countries only to get it slapped back.

cuba is not a great place i am sorry to say because if it was why for 50 years have cubans fled??

not to mention this was all started by democrats and almost blew up into armageddon.

Thats rediculous neo. Im pretty center of left, and i dont blame Bush for the troubles we have. I have educated myself on american history, and know that both parties are equally responsible for our current situation. I think you mistake the "left" with democrats. The fact of the matter is our problem cannot be blamed on "the republicans" or "the democrats" seperately because in actuality they are both part of our single corporatist party. They are paid by the same lobbyists, and in general their policies only differ slightly, and usually only on fringe issues. We are not ruled now by democrats just as we have not been ruled for the past 8 years by republicans. We are ruled by our corporate oligarchy.

As to america reaching out a hand to others and getting slapped....please tell me when we have ever reached out a hand in good faith? The IMF? the World bank? organizations that we put into power so our bankers could confiscate the natural resources of third world nations? Perhaps you are talking about the 16 wonderful dictatorships we installed around the world, or the many despots we support at great expense to their own people? Perhaps you're talking about the hand we extended to vietnam when they wanted to declare independence from France, or the hand we held out to the philipines, nicaragua, hawaii? Oh, i know, its the hand we held out to Pinochet, Suharto, Mogabe, papa doc and baby doc, chiang kai shek, Saddam Hussein, the Shah. Or perhaps its the steel, oil, and weapons we provided to Nazi Germany and Japan during the first half of WWII. Maybe they should be more appreciative of the training we gave Osama bin Laden when we wanted him to fight afghanistan, or the gases and nerve agents we gave Saddam to use against Iran.

Please give me some examples where america reached out and helped another nation at expense to themselves, without expecting anything in return, and without demanding enormous concessions.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by pexx421]

no offense but you dont sound center of left. only thing i have issue with all of what you said and its off topic i know. my understanding of ww2 japan started the conquest of other countries because it did need natural resources. so when you say "we provided" during the first half show me the proof.

your pretty rare tho for being a person who doesnt blame bush from everything

obama isnt lifting the ban of cuba out of the goodness of his heart either.

my problem is the left in general villifying the right for all the ills in the world.(not saying you personally)

and i do agree with you on the major point here both sides are colpable but to demonize one side and not the other is a diservice to the real history of our country.

having siad that johnson and kennedy were the 2 major players in how the cuban policy was dictated-both democrats.






[edit on 14-4-2009 by neo67]

Japan first invaded Manchuria, a Chinese province, in 1931, and by July of 1937 Japan had overrun northern China, despite protests by the U.S. and the League of Nations (from which Japan, like Germany, simply withdrew). FDR was uncertain how best to deal with Japan. On the one hand, the U.S. was supplying arms to China, but on the other hand the U.S. continued to sell large quantities of scrap metal, steel, copper, oil, lead, and machinery to Japan.

Our support of japan did indeed end earlier than our support to germany, however, none of the aggression of germany or japan was completely unexpected, and yet we still continued to supply germany and japan, but also brittain, italy, russia, etc during the early war. Making money coming and going, as it were.

Well it's not that it doesn't allow you to develop as much as it imposes a great many restraints ( taxation for one + 10 odd hour work/travel days) on accomplishing any personal growth after spending the majority of your energy every day on enriching the same old people black slaves and the wage slaves used to. It's not that it's capitalism is all bad (what we experience in most places is about as close to what the capitalist thinkers had in mind as that which the Marxist/socialist thinkers did) but the fact is that wages in even the US are stagnating and work hours increasing thus making it ever harder to be free to do anything but consume goods/services to dull the pain resulting from emotional and mental stagnation; why do you think Americans ( Edit : and many, others) are so unhappy and so easily fooled into wars of aggression?



And are what they are expanding their minds with accurate or are they learning a trade in or after school which will mostly serve to enrich the same old people? Why must personal 'development' always yield more of a profit to others than it does you? If so how can the process be trusted to be actual development of anything but your wealth creation potential for others? Why were house slaves allowed to dress and live better( even read ) if not to better serve their masters?

Admittedly your chances for learning ( Edit : or becoming more or less as totally misinformed as so many in 'free' western societies are) anything you wish isn't fantastic in Cuba, China or many other places but how much does that have to do with the fact that those governments can present very legitimate reasons for controlling information given the past conduct of the western imperialist nations? Isn't it time we stop blaming them for trying to prevent their countries from succumbing to the same American propaganda, with briberty, fraud, assasinations and worse to support it, that prevented Italy and France from taking very different and directly socialist routes post second world war?

It's not that i trust leaders who claim to want to bring about more socialist leaning systems any more than i trust those who claim to work towards capitalist but i know which cause i have far more sympathy with.



And how could you have a free society when a openly imperial nation still occupies some of your land despite your best efforts to evict it? What can you do but control the flow of information and people to prevent it's terrorist operations of poison, assassinations, industrial sabotage and even invasion? Why did the Castro regime turn to America for aid first and only towards the USSR when it's socialist agenda ( for Cuba, no one else) were seen as the obvious danger it was to hopelessly propagandized and misinformed people everywhere? What had the US to fear from Cuba beside the fact that their social policies might prove 'infectious' as it tends to be every time around?

Why are people such 'suckers' for socialism and why do they become ever greater 'suckers' the wealthier ( look at how wall street went socialist , by demanding to share in wealth of the nation, the moment capitalism didn't turn them a profit) and better educated they become?

The only thing that seems to set apart your relatively well educated 'capitalist' from the same type of 'socialist' is the apparently overwhelming fear that his fellow man will somehow take all his money; something the corporate capitalist are doing while blaming socialism. If anything i think that might be the thing that is holding up natural human socialist tendencies in America so long after all the progress that has been made in Europe.

I reckon electric universe proved the point quite succinctly with his paranoid mesh of popular propaganda/mythology that managed to find evil in a social order that has not existed in modern times. So much for considering the dictionary definition of system he professes to be the harbinger of all evil.

Logic is a truly uncommon sense.

Stellar



[edit on 15-4-2009 by StellarX]

I am not the naive person here. I actually have experienced that system you seem to love so much.

People like me, those who have lived, and experienced Communism, were saying since the beginning Chavez is a Communist. People like you, the naive ones, claimed he was not, even thou he had castro as his best friend and as his mentor, according to Chavez himself. Not to mention that the same Socialist programs Chavez was/is implementing, were the same castro implemented in Cuba.

Now everyone knows Chavez is a Communist, and he, like many others want a Permanent Revolution to be spread around the world. Permanent Revolution = Communism.

Recently Chavez claimed to the world that China will be at the forefront of spreading the Permanent Revolution around the world, and it would be in power. But hey, I guess people like Barbara Boxer and yourself must be right and "Communism doesn't exist anymore", despite facts which show the contrary, and tells us millions of people are still living under Communist dictatorships and are oppressed... And people like Chavez, the Communist PArty of China, and others want to spread Communism around the world.

Now we have a president in the United States who shows to be at least a National Socialist, if not a Communist, and is implementing programs which are reminiscent of 1930s Germany, yet the Obama youths use bright red jackets to demonstrate their love for their Commander in Chief, and his Socialist programs.

People like me were telling people like you this has been happening slowly for a long time. Yet people like you, like always, have been too naive and believed this would never happen, while some longed for this to happen without any knowledge, or experience in this system you seem to love so much.

BTW, Communism has been the greatest scourge of the world. Over 110 million people have been murdered in the name of Communism, without counting the number of deaths in combat, and for the good of the STATE and the revolution.

Here is a bit of information of what China was actually doing before it began to open to Capitalism to stay afloat, and regain power...instead of your lie that China was great for it's people...


www.hawaii.edu...

Stop your lies, and deception... What are you? a chinese spy trying to propagate lies about your Communist Party?






[edit on 22-4-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

We know better than you because we experienced that dictatorial system...

BTW, the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who have taken to the seas in inflatable boats, in shark infested waters where thousands have died trying to get out of Cuba should tell you something about the dictatorship there, and how people feel....

Not to mention the millions of Cuban dissidents that have been able to "escape" the dictatorship and live abroad...

[edit on 22-4-2009 by ElectricUniverse]

you do realize that Hitlers Germany was not a workers paradise, right? I fail to see how you are connecting Fascism and Nazism to Communism, or socialism. They are polar opposites and come from two completely different Class ideologies.

You do realize that Hitler, and 1930's Germany was National SOCIALIST right?

In their own manifesto HItler, and his whole party proclaim that they, and all germans back then were SOCIALISTS. So you are wrong claiming that HItler's Germany is oposite Communism. Natiolnal Socialism, and Socialism in general has many of the same ideals as Communism does, and in case you didn't know even Marx himself stated that Socialism was but a stage to transform a Capitalist society into a Communist one.

You are tryig to claim that because Hitler, and his whole party in general were against the Communist goals that they are polar oposites?

Stalin, and Lenin, both Communists, could not agree on what goal the U.S.S.R. should follow.. One wanted Communism to be national only, and to isolate their Socialist state, meanwhile the other one wanted to expand the Permanent Revolution around the world, but they both were Communists despite their different ideals, and goals.

In the same manner Hitler was a Socialist, and the entire Germany back then was Socialist too.