Cubans: Personified Warnings of Socialist Evils the Left Loves to Ignore

In 1979 my mother and father, along with 10,800 other Cubans took refuge in the embassy of Peru for 12 days without food and precious little water. The urine would run like streams (my mother's description) as the facilities were grossly overwhelmed. For those 12 awful days, they lived with the very real possibility that the Cuban regime would enter the embassy and murder them all. If it wasn't for Peruvian insistence and the presence of international media, the Castro regime would have murdered my father and mother. My family lost it all. The tobacco farm that was productive and profitable before the regime stole it from my family and sold it to rich Europeans is still operating, with trademarks now owned by people who NEVER stepped foot on our family farm, and do not care that POS commies stole that property to enrich themselves.

There are members here on ATS who have also lived this reality of socialism. Members like ElectricUniverse have first-hand experience with the Castro regime.

Today I read a pretty visceral Op-Ed in the NY Post castigating the American left for embracing socialism as Venezuela and Cuba crumble evermore under the crushing weight of socialist "economics" and authoritarian dictatorship:

Hey, Democrats: Here’s the price I paid for your socialist dream

The house where I was born in Communist Cuba had a dirt floor, a bathroom hole-in-the-ground, which we shared with six other families, and a zinc roof that left us unbearably hot in the summer and shivering in the winter.

We had no running water, no refrigerator and no door in the back of the house. We cooked with charcoal. My mother raised four boys by herself in that “house,” working 12 hours a day to earn 160 Cuban pesos, or approximately $6, a month.

Why didn’t we fix it? In addition to the meager income, we had no access to hardware stores to buy nails or cement to fix our humble house. In fact, the local member of the ­National Assembly was the only person authorized to approve whether we could buy a bag of cement or a roll of roof paper — if they were available.

If you people try to shove this down our throats here it will be the last god damned thing you do on this Earth.

I empathize with your story and understand the evils of government when given to much power and the horrors of communism. That being said....

Many of the people currently fleeing their home countries and seeking asylum have similar sad stories caused by corrupt governments in bed with cartels and "rich Europeans" where is the sympathy for them? I hear them called Invaders and chants for build the wall. Refugees from Cuba, Russia, former soviet and eastern bloc states were welcomed with open arms, these recent immigrants not so much I wonder if refugees from Venezuela will be welcomed w open arms?

The main difference IMO is propaganda. The u.s mortal enemy is communism so we bent over backwards to accept people fleeing miserable living conditions from those countries, serious question why no sympathy or empathy w current asylum seekers?

The refugees of yesteryear enjoyed a touch us soil get refuge policy, current asylum seekers get tossed in cages separated from families and huddled under bridges. Now I'm not saying a free-for-all and to let them all in but we can do better.

a reply to: projectvxn

This is what happens when land gets colonised.

You can go way back and blame The Spanish for the whole sorry episode.

Land should not be stolen from it's indigenous people.

a reply to: alldaylong

Thanks for the dumbest post on ATS.

a reply to: projectvxn

Dumb ?

Without colonisation your family wouldn't have been there in the first place.

Unless your indigenous, which i doubt very much.

That wasn't real socialism. Real socialism is a utopia where everyone is a winner, abiding in a state of never-ending bliss and contentment.

They just had the wrong people in charge, that's all.

But Che is still my hero. Check out my shirt.

a reply to: projectvxn

now lets find democratic countries that are sh!tholes and compare to cuba and Venezuela, and tally up.

two countries under dictatorship is not the best example of anything.

you find the worst examples and use as proof, and use a world power as contrast.

when we're ruled by a single party for decades, then worry about ANY political denomination, not just socialists.


countries flourishing under socialis or socialist-like governments

Denmark
Finland
Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Norway
New Zealand
Belgium

etc...

a reply to: alldaylong

Which happened several centuries ago.

Thanks for doubling down on your idiocy and excusing communism.

No one is impressed with woke bull#.

a reply to: odzeandennz

This is what you sound like:



Government services and welfarism aren't the same thing as socialism.

My parents as well as the author of the article referenced, as well as members of ATS have experienced Cuba Socialista. You're a first worlder with a Michael Moore view of socialism.

Pre revolution Cuba was hardly a model society or economy either.

Authoritarian capitalist governments are just as bad as authoritarian socialist ones.

While I am sure there a few actual communists in the US, I strongly suspect the majority of people arguing for more socialism are talking about looking at successful social democracies rather that communist era Albania.

a reply to: conspiracy nut We don't want to pay for these people forever, 500 million dollars a day. We are already broke and don't need people who are illiterate in their own language here for a free ride. People from the former eastern block states arrived with some skills and were checked for diseases and quarantined if necessary or refused entry. They all didn't hop on the dole. We need to read the riot act to Mexico for facilitating the movement of the illegals and take control of our border. Then we be doing much better.

Let's examine the idea in a classroom setting. In my classrooms growing up, there were always more kids on the bottom than there were kids who worked to earn As. More kids pulling Ds than there were pulling Bs. Then there were the kids firmly in the middle.

Average them all out and equally distribute, everyone will be pulled down because while intellectually, there may be about equal numbers of top and bottom kids and roughly proportional distribution of abilities along each end of the bell curve, but there will not be an equal distribution of work ethic, not even along the top and bottom. It's the plain truth that very few have sterling work ethic and that can be found anywhere along the spectrum, but where it will boost a lower kid, it can only boost him or her so high, and it will drag a top performer down if they don't have a good work ethic. So your relatively even distribution looks less so, and it will tend to skew toward a lower distribution.

Not only that, but once kids get the idea that their hard earned grades will be shaved to be given to kids whom they know full well screwed around all quarter ... they'll be less inclined to work as hard, pulling the whole down even more.

And in the end, you will have a class mired in Ds or possbily worse which is a fancy to say, "Hello poverty!" In the real world.

a reply to: projectvxn

You seem to have the answers...

So, how do we ensure as societies that human beings have decent access to work, basic amenities, education and healthcare? How do we ensure human rights are not abused or neglected?

Because we live in a world based on profit and productivity, a world where 1 machine that requires no wage can effectively replace 100's of jobs.

I'm also told that college and university is a waste of time here at ATS. Yet my words have never landed me a job as a CAD/CAM operator... Seems I need pieces of paper. Seems I need money for college... Oops daddy lost his job down the mine... Oh would you look at that I can't find any manual labour jobs...

Look what your family went through is horrendous but sob stories don't mean jack. The world is changing so tell me some solutions other than commies and socialists are evil. Because I'm not interested in slave labour practices that the likes of China practice, I'm not interested in backwards economic policies practiced by 2nd world nations.

I'm bothered about basic human rights, access to work and the ability to live a comfortable life without a financial burden just because I exist.

I'm all about progress but we won't have progress in society if we leave society behind. Yeah welfare sucks, a lack of personal ambition and productivity sucks too but so does poverty. So give me some answers man, I'm dying to hear them.

a reply to: RAY1990

So, how do we ensure as societies that human beings have decent access to work, basic amenities, education and healthcare? How do we ensure human rights are not abused or neglected?

Wait... You think this equates to communism?

And you want me to take you seriously?

originally posted by: conspiracy nut
I empathize with your story and understand the evils of government when given to much power and the horrors of communism. That being said....

Many of the people currently fleeing their home countries and seeking asylum have similar sad stories caused by corrupt governments in bed with cartels and "rich Europeans" where is the sympathy for them? I hear them called Invaders and chants for build the wall. Refugees from Cuba, Russia, former soviet and eastern bloc states were welcomed with open arms, these recent immigrants not so much

I wonder if refugees from Venezuela will be welcomed w open arms?

The main difference IMO is propaganda. The u.s mortal enemy is communism so we bent over backwards to accept people fleeing miserable living conditions from those countries, serious question why no sympathy or empathy w current asylum seekers?

The refugees of yesteryear enjoyed a touch us soil get refuge policy, current asylum seekers get tossed in cages separated from families and huddled under bridges. Now I'm not saying a free-for-all and to let them all in but we can do better.

Because they are not being persecuted for political or religious beliefs. These "Asylum seekers" are little more than economic immigrants, which is not a criteria for asylum.

I'm bothered about basic human rights, access to work and the ability to live a comfortable life without a financial burden just because I exist.

Well you don't want much do you?

That's a pretty arbitrary definition of what is an acceptable society for you to live in.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: alldaylong

Which happened several centuries ago.

Thanks for doubling down on your idiocy and excusing communism.

No one is impressed with woke bull#.

Just wash your hands of the genocide your ancestors carried out. Sorry guv, it wasn't me.

That's always the easy way out. Isn't it ?

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: RAY1990

So, how do we ensure as societies that human beings have decent access to work, basic amenities, education and healthcare? How do we ensure human rights are not abused or neglected?

Wait... You think this equates to communism?

And you want me to take you seriously?

:l

Is that what I said?

Did I compare what is basically human rights to communism?

Or are you purposefully knit picking my post as to not address anything?

Grow up.

a reply to: alldaylong
OK THIS is the dumbest post on ATS.

Keep em coming.

Your wokeness is amusing.

originally posted by: RAY1990
a reply to: projectvxn

You seem to have the answers...

So, how do we ensure as societies that human beings have decent access to work, basic amenities, education and healthcare? How do we ensure human rights are not abused or neglected?

Because we live in a world based on profit and productivity, a world where 1 machine that requires no wage can effectively replace 100's of jobs.

I'm also told that college and university is a waste of time here at ATS. Yet my words have never landed me a job as a CAD/CAM operator... Seems I need pieces of paper. Seems I need money for college... Oops daddy lost his job down the mine... Oh would you look at that I can't find any manual labour jobs...

Look what your family went through is horrendous but sob stories don't mean jack. The world is changing so tell me some solutions other than commies and socialists are evil. Because I'm not interested in slave labour practices that the likes of China practice, I'm not interested in backwards economic policies practiced by 2nd world nations.

I'm bothered about basic human rights, access to work and the ability to live a comfortable life without a financial burden just because I exist.

I'm all about progress but we won't have progress in society if we leave society behind. Yeah welfare sucks, a lack of personal ambition and productivity sucks too but so does poverty. So give me some answers man, I'm dying to hear them.

First of all, can you give me some evidence to make a legitimate comparison between working here and the slave labor over in China?

Secondly, trade skills are in high demand right now, you don't have to sell a kidney to go to a trade school, and you won't be there for 4+ years before you start working. Yeah, you'll have to get into an apprenticeship for some, but you're still working and getting paid.

Lastly, how much is an individuals life worth? Whats an acceptable living condition? And how do you ensure that everyone is equal, and how do you ensure upward mobility is at all possible?