quote:

---

Daniel Ortega calls 'The ALBA', a better alternative to the US sponsored economic initiatives implemented by the so called neo-liberals. . . .

Ortega said that during the past 16 years of neo-liberal governments, banks never provided any kind of credit facilities to farmers in order to increase their productivity or facilitate their integration into the economy.

---

Chavez of Venezuela has also done the same.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Daniel Ortega recently regained power through a free, fair, multi-party election. I expect that he will run for re-election in four years in another free, fair multi-party election.

---

No, they still weren't free and fair elections in the truest sense. Not when cold warrior Oliver North haunted Managua leading up to elections. That's called attempting to taint democracy. Russian democracy was tainted by the west in the 1990's. The Yanks can't keep their big eagle beaks out of other countries affairs, otherwise there might be a suddent occurrence of free and fair elections. Nicaragua is an example of what they are afraid of happening.

quote:

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Chavez of Venezuela has also done the same.

---

But only after suriving a CIA-fomented coup attempt in 2002.

Still waiting for your answer as to why 70 percent of Haiti's electorate cannot vote for socialist Jean Bertrand Aristide if they want to ?. Haiti was the Hawk's opportunity to let democracy shine across the Caribbean. They blew it for the 20th something odd time in Haiti with yet another CIA-led military coup.

They are afraid of allowing Latinos to choose freely and fairly. That's been the deal with the USSA's intervening in Latin American affairs for quite some time now. What would go some way toward establishing a sense and test-drive feel for democracy in the Americas in general would be to close down the SOA, the world's foremost school for terror and torture, once and for all.

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

These countries have all had free, fair multi-party elections and have elected leftwing governments. Why won't Cuba join the club and legitimize it's government?

Democracy has to be supported all the time - not only when the people you like stand to win. The process is way more important than the outcome.

You also have to stop arrogantly assuming that the people of Cuba are illiterate imbeciles are not capable of choosing their government freely and fairly in an election where they have the option of voting for any party anywhere on the political spectrum.

If the shadow gov and CIA wanted democracy for Latin America, they would have closed down the SOA, and they would have shutdown the the gulags for torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba a long-long time ago.

The USSA, Canada's largest trading partner and recipient of massive amounts of fossil fuels and lop-sided trade with Canada, has been a rather negative influence on democracy in this hemisphere in particular over the years. It's time that these significant obstacles to democracy in Latin America are removed, once and for all. Because, and as I'm hoping you'll understand and agree with at some point, I think exporting torture and terror are incompatible with democracy. Wouldn't you agree, Stockholmer ?.

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

That meant something once, Stockholm. But you've turned it into nothing more than a buzz phrase. You repeat it over and over again as if mere repetition proves your point.

And nobody was implying that the Cuban people were illiterate or imbecilic. Where the hell did you get that?

All I'm saying is stop the meaningless repetition and stop the redbaiting. There's no such thing as Stalinism or Stalinists anymore.

And in any case, the main point of this thread was that working people were rising throughout the hemisphere. Why not focus on the good in that, rather than in your petty dissatisfaction with one small country that has never done YOU any harm?

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
You also have to stop arrogantly assuming that the people of Cuba are illiterate imbeciles

---

Cubans are not illiterate. Cubans own the best mortality and literacy rates in Latin America. It will take countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela two to three generations to achieve Cuba's social progress on several fronts. That's if they don't run into fascism again in the meantime. And that's a big IFF considering that Donald "the don" Rumsfeld announced increased military aid to Latin American counrtries several months ago.

quote:

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Why should Canadians be allowed to vote in elections while Cubans cannot?

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I think we should elect you to go to Cuba and tell them how wonderful Canadian-style multi-party elections are. And I'm sure they'll tell you all about their experiences with multi-party elections that gave them a repressive U.S.-backed mafia regime in Havana for too long. Just don't mention Brian "on the take" Baloney or the more recent Libranos in Ottawa, because that might harm your case somewhat.

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by John K:
And Fidel, Stockholm said the Cuban people are NOT illiterate imbeciles, but capable of choosing their own government in a free, fair multi-party election.

---

quote:

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And I'm sure they'll tell you all about their experiences with multi-party elections that gave them a repressive U.S.-backed mafia regime in Havana for too long.

---

There were never any elections in Cuba prior to Castro taking power - just a series of military coups.

I have a solution to all this. Why doesn't Cuba have a national referendum with two choices on the ballot:

Option A: Free, fair, multi-party elections every four years and all people have complete freedom to criticize the government anywhere and everywhere

Option B: One party Communist Party rule in perpetuity with all dissent punishable by imprisonment.

Let's see what the people choose.

No parties allowed to run for elections. No way for the US to pump millions into Cuba to interfere with their country. I know that just makes you want to scream. Scream away, minion.

Instead, no bourgeois campaigning allowed at all. No way for money to make a difference. Doesn't that just piss you off? It should. It means no repeat of the atrocities like the ones against the people of Nicaragua. Too bad, minion.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:

There were never any elections in Cuba prior to Castro taking power - just a series of military coups.

---

Sure there were. The CIA was known to have rigged elections around the world in order to maintain fascist regimes friendly to U.S. interests. Allan Dulles, head of the CIA at the time, encouraged Generalisimo Fulgencio Batista to create the Bureau for Repression of Communist Activities or secret police.

Oh, the elections were just a formality to provide an outward appearance of democracy, like the rigged elections in Florida and around the States when Republicans in that last bastion of political conservatism in the world had to resort to stealing a FPTP election at the beginning of the decade. Free and fair elections have been more a rarity than the norm around the world throughout the cold war.

Has Canada ever had an SOA graduate lead a military coup or even the government in Ottawa ?.

Hundreds of CIA spy planes for torture on-the-fly landing in Canada over the last several years aside - does Canada have anything like Gitmo Bay setup on our soil and menacing democracy in general ?.

The deal is, we hand over massive amounts of fossil fuels and energy supplies on the cheap, and our colonial administrators in Ottawa get to report on the big GDP's every year. When all that stuff runs out, we can do whatever in hell we want up here in this Northern Puerto Rico. That is, we'll do anything we want besides go communist.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger (aka "the doctor")

quote:

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"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger (aka "the doctor")

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In many countries around the world, most people would rather have vital budget and campaign moneyt spent on public housing, jobs and education.
Like Ken Burch said above, whats the point of free speech if youre just gonna yell while youre staying hungry?

quote:

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Like Ken Burch said above, whats the point of free speech if youre just gonna yell while youre staying hungry?

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[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go capitalist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Cuban voters to be left to decide for themselves." — paraphrasing "Fidel"

---

You are the babbler choosing to ignore what is an established history for U.S. imperialism throughout Latin America, not me.

quote:

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"I don't see why Cuba shouldn't open up to North American-style plutocracy, even though I'm at a total loss as to why approximately 70 percent of Haiti's electorate can not vote for Jean Bertrand Aristide if they want to just 60 miles from Cuban shores" -- Stockholmer, babbler and Henry "the doctor" Kissinger's alter ego

---

An easy-breezy six point plan for fomenting an outbreak of democracy in Uncle Sam's backyard.

1. Close down the notorious School of the Americas,, the world's foremost school for the export of terror and torture
2. Close Gitmo Bay's torture gulags and remove the military presence, all representing a threat to democracy
3. Release the Cuban Five Anti-terrorists held in American gulags, the largest gulag population in the world
4. Extradite Louis Posada Carriles and other murderers because, “If You Harbor Terrorists, You Are a Terrorist”
5. Bring an end to the dated cold war embargo nonsense
6. Put the kibosh to the CIA agenda of trying to murder and overthrow popular socialist leaders of foreign countries, with several attempts in this decade

"Because some of us view the exporting of terror and torture as being completely incompatible with democracy." -- F

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
What's the point of a socialist revolution if it leaves no room for self expression?

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

---

Well, free speech seems to be doing fine in Venezuela and Bolivia. Wasnt what my argument meant anyway, its just the attempt to dispel the paradigm that Western-style liberal democracy trumps everything else, right there right now,

I just find this annoying Cuba-trolling by liberals repulsive, here on babble.
And BTW, yes this topic was supposed to be about entire Latin America, not about an island of 11 million people.

Doug,
not at all, Cuba is important in our discussion, because we all know its such a world superpower

quote:

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Originally posted by Doug:
Maybe this argument over Cuban democracy or the lack thereof should be hived off into its own topic, considering that this was supposed to be about the whole region.

---

And we should "hive" it off along with that debate as to whether U.S.-style plutocracy, with billionaire commercial interests selecting presidential candidates, is representative democracy or bought and paid for autocracy.

quote:

---

An easy-breezy six point plan for fomenting an outbreak of democracy in Uncle Sam's backyard.

1. Close down the notorious School of the Americas,, the world's foremost school for the export of terror and torture
2. Close Gitmo Bay's torture gulags and remove the military presence, all representing a threat to democracy
3. Release the Cuban Five Anti-terrorists held in American gulags, the largest gulag population in the world
4. Extradite Louis Posada Carriles and other murderers because, “If You Harbor Terrorists, You Are a Terrorist”
5. Bring an end to the dated cold war embargo nonsense
6. Put the kibosh to the CIA agenda of trying to murder and overthrow popular socialist leaders of foreign countries, with several attempts in this decade

"Because some of us view the exporting of terror and torture as being completely incompatible with democracy." -- F

---

quote:

---

I agree with you on each and every one of those points. Now will you also agree that Cubans should have freedom of speech and the freedom to choose which system of government they want in an election where ALL choices are on the ballot? If they are deliriously happy with their current government then the status quo will win - end of story.

---

Cuba farms hint at future reform

quote:

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It was 31 July last year that a sick Fidel Castro issued a proclamation naming his younger brother Raul as acting head of state.

Only now, one year on, are there signs that caretaker President Raul Castro may be preparing the country for a dose of Chinese-style economic reforms.

So far, one of the very few legal forms of private enterprise allowed on this Caribbean island is the farmers' market.

. . .

The produce comes from nearby co-operative farms and smallholdings. Once they have met their state quota they are free to sell everything else they grow in the market.

It is only in the past 15 years that such capitalist-style activities have been allowed here - a limited concession forced by the collapse of the country's former benefactor, the Soviet Union.

While the state shops are half empty, there is no shortage of food in the farmers' market. But it is expensive.

The average wage in Cuba is around 100 pesos a week. I bought two mangos, four green peppers and a pound of cucumbers and it cost me 60 pesos - roughly three days wages. Although, with access to hard currency it is less than $3.

. . .

In a televised speech last week, before a crowd of one 100,000 people, Raul Castro acknowledged that all was not well.

"To have more, we have to begin producing more... To reach these goals, the needed structural and conceptual changes will have to be introduced," he told the crowd.

Winds of change

He also said that the country may have to turn once again to foreign investment.

Many Cubans and Western observers believe this to be a signal that Chinese-style reforms are finally on the way - an opening up of the economy while maintaining political control.

And it is agriculture which could be the first to feel the winds of change.

Some farmers already own their land.

Men like Xavier Perez, who employs four people on his two-hectare smallholding just east of the capital.

He grows bananas, mangos and guavas and once he has met his state quota, the rest goes to the market in Havana.

About 60% of farms are still run by the state. But according to government statistics published online, it is the co-operative and small private farms which provide almost 90% of all the food grown here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
I'm sure the people of Cuba will be happy to know that the guardians of ideological purity in Canada have decided that, if and only if, American foreign policy changes 180 degrees, the people of Cuba MIGHT be permitted to have freedom of speech and be allowed to vote in an election someday.

---

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Tell you what, Stockholm, prove to the Cubans that Western Democracy works. Run, yourself, for Canada's PM on a platform of radical change.

---

I predict that at that point you will conveniently claim to have been proven right.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Free_Radical ]

quote:

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Democracy is a process. It is not an outcome. All I ask is that people be allowed to make choices and that there be some form of accountability.

You're argument seems to be that democracy doesn't work - just because people don't feel like making the choices you want them to make. How arrogant.

---

quote:

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And what if Canadians don't want to vote for someone advocating radical change?

I predict that at that point you will conveniently claim to have been proven right.

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**Edited to add: So, just so I'm clear, Free_Radical doesn't really advocate radical change? Or just the Disney version?

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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Arrogance is dictating to others how they should live. You would impose poverty and servitude on Cubans in the name of a false God democracy.

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I have no interest at all in telling anyone how they should live. But I do have an interest in letting people CHOOSE how they should live. All I ask is that there be a free election in Cuba and then if the Cuban people don't want "poverty and servitude" - all that has to happen is for a majority of them to place an "x" beside "Communist Party of Cuba".

quote:

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All I ask is that there be a free election in Cub

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[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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In representative democracy, Cuba is clearly ahead. Cubans have open elections for their National Assembly (as well as their provincial and local assemblies); this assembly then elects the ministers, including a president of the Council of Ministers.

In the US, there is a directly elected Congress and a president indirectly elected through electoral colleges. This president of state then appoints ministers. Yet a majority of the elected US Congress cannot block many presidential “prerogatives”, including the waging of war.

So even when the majority of the population and the majority of the Congress oppose a war, the president can still wage it. In the US, then, the elected assembly does not really rule.

In Cuba, the Constitution (Art 12) repudiates wars of aggression and conquest, and all ministers are accountable to the elected National Assembly. The president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers (falsely called a “dictator” by the imperial US president) is not above the National Assembly and has no power to “veto” a law passed by his country’s National Assembly. In the US, the president can and does veto Congressional laws.

---

quote:

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One chapter in this sad saga of utmost folly seems about to conclude. Fidel Castro soon must pass from the scene, leaving his tiny island nation enticingly adrift just 90 miles off our coast.

What a burr under the saddle he has been for our scheming strategists and foaming ideologues.

What, we wonder, does the CIA plan?

Cuba might have taken a different course. When we declared war on Spain in 1898, Cubans had been in continual revolt against colonial rule for more than 30 years.

Contrary to the racist, jingoist views of the time and the simplistic history of school textbooks now, the Cubans fought hard and successfully to defeat the Spanish.

The United States immediately confounded their aspirations -- and our clear promises -- for a new nation when it set up a puppet government friendly to U.S. economic interests, the new colonial power.

"When people ask me what I mean by stable government, I tell them 'Money at six percent,'" the newly installed U.S. military governor wrote in a note to President McKinley in 1900.

Stephan Kinzer tells of the exchange in his excellent book, "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" (Times Books, 2006). Dictatorship, turmoil, oligarchy, poverty, extraction of wealth and an offshore center for organized crime dominate the next 50 years of Cuban history.

Stripped of secrecy, the false claims of threats, the patriotic mumbo-jumbo and the appeals to American goodness, we see a century-long drive to deny democracy and to control people for our own economic purposes.

---

quote:

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Run and get elected and change our government. Prove "the process" works.

---

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:

I agree with you on each and every one of those points. Now will you also agree that Cubans should have freedom of speech and the freedom to choose which

---

Cubans have already voted on what system they want, and voter enthusiasm in Cuba for this constitutional amendment to embrace socialism was as high as is typical for all Cuban elections. The country is run by and for Cubans, not for a monarchy or a financier elite and commercial interests. There are elections happening in Cuba all the time, and participation rates reflect Cubans enthusiasm for Cuban-style democracy.

Cuba enjoys international prestige because of Cuba's large contingent of aid workers and export of medical training to poorest of poor African and Latin American nations where socialist leaders were overthrown and assassinated by imperialists powers and U.S. shadow government during cold war. And Cuba respects every other country's right to pursue whatever political and economic ideology is dictated to them by powerful transnationals and international banking cabal.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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If you don't show up at the polls in one of these North Koreans style frauds that they call an "election" in Cuba, the local "Stasi-type" informer on your block reports you to the party HQ and you get no ration coupons for the rest of the month.

---

Look at that! Fear propaganda direct from the Heritage Institute. Of course, here, they don't care if you vote. You can vote for the corporate capitalist party against your own interests, or you can vote for the corporate capitalist party against your own interests. Ah, choice. What the Cubans are missing ...

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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If a majority of Canadians don't want that i think it's because the half dozen or so dyed in the wool Communists in all of Canada waste all their time posting on babble when they should be out doing political education among the masses.

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Ooooh! Now we have red baiting. Excellent.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
We know who Canadians want in parliament. They want the people who they gave the most votes to.

---

And Canadians gave the most votes to politicians who do not represent our superminority government in Ottawa.

We're almost as divided a nation as the Americans. It's true we can wear anti-Bush T-shirts without being harassed and harangued by police and FBI as has happened in the U.S., a national security state not so unlike South Korea. You won't be thrown into what is the largest incarcerated population in the world as it is in the U.S. for merely protesting our dated and obsolete electoral system favouring a non-elected billionaire elite class and foreign "capital." Other than that you're free to do whatever you want to within the confines of exclusive property laws, personal wealth, and our system that delivers increasingly stagnant class mobility for the paltry few million we do have in the world's second largest country with unparalleled natural wealth siphoned off to the States everyday. They call it freedom when themselves are free.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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"Public political opposition in Cuba is not allowed, and political dissidents are pursued by the authorities. The Constitution and the Penal Code allow for severe sanctions against exercising freedom of expression if the activities of individuals are deemed to be "counter-revolutionary" or a "threat to national security". The human rights situation in the island continues to cause major havoc in its international relations. The EU has issued in the past demarches on concrete human rights issues in Cuba, e.g. death penalty, the trial of dissidents, the "acts of repudiations" against dissidents or families of political prisoners and so forth. Public political opposition in Cuba is not allowed, and political dissidents are pursued by the authorities. The Constitution and the Penal Code allow for severe sanctions against exercising freedom of expression if the activities of individuals are deemed to be "counter-revolutionary" or a "threat to national security."[9]

---

But what does a rebel against that much beloved and benign imperial colonialism say?

quote:

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“What you have in Cuba is a very specific model of revolution. In the grassroots in Cuba, there are constant elections that take place. Is it true that by electing a President or Prime Minister every five years you have democracy? Is it because you have press and TV channels that you have freedom of speech? There’s a lot of cynicism behind that. So many lies behind that. Every country has its own model.”

--Hugo Chavez responding to the favourite poet of tyrannical capitalists everywhere, Havel.

---

Every country in eastern Europe that is a member of the EU joined after a national referendum - all of which passed by gigantic majorities - usually with the strongest support coming from the left in those countries and with opposition coming from a few ultra-nationalist neo-fascists.

quote:

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We could debate this forever, but i think the elephant in the room that many people just don't want to face, is the fact that the moment Cuba has a free election and allows a pluralistic political system, people will vote for change (who wouldn't after almost 50 years of single party rule) and many people on the UNdemocratic left cringe at the thought of an election that might "go the wrong way".

---

quote:

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Every country in eastern Europe that is a member of the EU joined after a national referendum - all of which passed by gigantic majorities - usually with the strongest support coming from the left in those countries and with opposition coming from a few ultra-nationalist neo-fascists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
I don't remember any of those countries having voted to join the Warsaw Pact or the Comintern.

---

And some of those countries have thrown out pro-west democratizers of the 1990's and elected former communist party officials since the disasterous experiment with neo-Liberalization of their economies. Millions have come to the realization that one story shopping malls and the freedom to starve or be homeless in any corner of the free market wasn't worth it.

quote:

---

The Norwegians rejected EU membership by referendum, and so did the Swiss. Greenland left the EU after referendum.

---

quote:

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Look at you ... slobbering over a system of pretend democracy and for elites who wouldn't even have you in the same room unless you were carrying a tray and serving cocktail weenies.

---

I take that to mean that you oppose there being elections in Canada, since i guess you think they are "pretend democracy" and that you would prefer that Canada be a Cuban-style one party state that imprisons anyone who expresses dissent.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

This proves my point. Countries are free to join or not join the EU - there is always a referendum. I think Poland voted something like 90% Yes to joining the EU.

---

And the prime minister and president of Poland are twin brothers! There are no solidarnosc pledges for North American trade unions by our two-faced western plutocrats. Gdansk shipyards are abandoned, and hundreds of Poles die of exposure every year. And Lech's trade union membership has lapsed.

quote:

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And the prime minister and president of Poland are twin brothers!

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I take no responsibility for the poor electoral choices of the Polish people. I'm not some aristocrat who thinks that the masses cannot be trusted with voting in case they elect bad people.

Mostly Serbia, with its nationwide depression and voter apathy for West-prescribed neo-liberal democracy(49% of eligible voters in 2004 elections), but also small nations of Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Actually, none of these countries were members of the Warsaw Pact, and in fact Yugoslavian economy was the envy of Eastern Europe.
That is, before crippilng sanctions, ethnic bloodbaths, and coup de-grace, the 1999 bombing of Serbia and eventual neo-liberalizing of that country.

And I looked up the Polish referendum;

Polish EU referendum

quote:

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I take that to mean that you oppose there being elections in Canada

---

quote:

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I'm not some aristocrat who thinks that the masses cannot be trusted with voting in case they elect bad people.

---

quote:

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All we can do is provide people with a democratic process - how people use it is their problem.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
All we can do is provide people with a democratic process - how people use it is their problem.

---

Who's "we"?. I think you mean the transnationals and banking cabal, the superrich oligarchy choose our leaders through their billion dollar political campaign war chests.

You mean like how the U.S. provided the electoral choices in Russia and backed boris yeltsin with tens of millions of dollars in campaign funding. Then when Harvard School shock therapy for neo-Liberal reforms went badly, Yeltsin recast himself as the true champion of democracy and capitalist reforms while millions went hungry and destitute and perished as prices were deregulated and wages witheld from millions of impoverished workers.

The Russian people didn't select Boris Yeltsin after millions of dollars in campaign financing was shoved his way by the CIA, IMF and HIID. And now the Chubais clan's name is mud in Russia. Russians are in favour of the renationalisations of oil and gas and state industries, a departure from the neo-Liberal capitalism of the 90's which also failed millions in Latin America.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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The Russian people didn't select Boris Yeltsin after millions of dollars in campaign financing was shoved his way by the CIA, IMF and HIID. And now the Chubais clan's name is mud in Russia. Russians are in favour of the renationalisations of oil and gas and state industries, a departure from the neo-Liberal capitalism of the 90's which also failed millions in Latin America.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
If the Russians don't like, all they have to do is elect the Communist Party in the next election - and they don't even have to promise to reintroduce Stalinist purges and the Gulag!

---

Meanwhile the Russian's have salted away $113 Billion USD in oil stabilization fund and projected to be worth $141 Billion USD by end of the year. And the oil stabilzation fund was created in just 2004. That's worth more than our CPP and corrupt Heritage Fund in Alberta combined. Add to that the nealry $400 billion in foreign currency reserves, and Russia is looking more like a sovereign nation than colonial Canada as a Ryerson report this month tells us well-educated immigrants have left Canada to the tune of several hundred thousand since the late 1990's.

And the USSA is now the world's number one jailer of its own citizens.

ETA: ... and the USSA owns the largest gulag population on the island of Cuba at Gitmo.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
We could debate this forever, but i think the elephant in the room that many people just don't want to face, is the fact that the moment Cuba has a free election and allows a pluralistic political system, people will vote for change ....

---

If we had a free election and a pluralistic political system here people would vote for change here! But we have neither.

If Cuba set up two or three communist parties and let them compete for votes, would you be happy with that? That's more or less analagous analagous to the situation we have here.

And perhaps they could allow the formation of a couple little capitalist parties, in a context of ceaseless propaganda for socialism, while ensuring that their voices and their ideology were not heard and that the ideas they represented had no place in public discourse except, occasionally, to be villified and ridiculed. If, against all odds, they showed signs of having any kind of effect at all, they would be ruthlessly repressed.

To complete the analogy, the terms of discussion (the "conceptual scheme", if you will) would be imposed and controlled such that it would be almost impossible to propose anything other than socialism. Capitalism would be made very nearly "unthinkable". While this latter is impossible for socialists, it has been succesfully implemented here in Canada, by capitalists.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]

quote:

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If we had a free election and a pluralistic political system here people would vote for change here! But we have neither.

---

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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In a frank account of communist Cuba's most pressing problems, Raul Castro acknowledged last week in his first Revolution Day speech that state salaries were clearly inadequate and agriculture absurdly inefficient.

He said more foreign investment was welcome in Cuba, and that structural changes were needed to produce more food and cut the country's reliance on expensive imports.

"People feel encouraged. The speech shows that Raul is in charge now. Changes are coming," said a Havana maid who asked not to be named.

Her husband was less optimistic. "We've heard the same story for years. I can only afford vegetables on my pay, never meat," he said before his wife shut him up, saying he could be arrested.

An economist working for the government said major reforms in agriculture are being drawn up and changes in property laws are also under study.

With wages averaging just $14 a month, Raul Castro's focus on tough economic issues is a refreshing change for many Cubans after years of long-winded speeches by Fidel Castro.

---

Guatemala: A Country Incommunicado 2004

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
So now you're hailing Raul Castro because after 50 years of failed policies he wants to bring in free market reforms. isn't this exactly what you are denouncing countries in eastern Europe for doing?

---

Not neo-Liberal market reforms as you might understand them. Not with monopoly capitalists running the show, and not with an unelected banking cabal and financier elite effectively controlling the lives of millions as well as our elected officials feigning powerlessness.

Markets have been around for centuries, since at least the birth of the cradle of western civilization in and around Iraq.

There were market socialists at the turn of the last century telling Liberal economists that their model was deeply flawed.

ETA: And socialist policies are always subject to scrutiny and adjustment, unlike laissez-faire capitalism leading up to the grand swan dive in 1929 and again in 1985 Chile.

Capitalism has suffered a number of insurmountable crises that, in the minds of capitalists, necessitated global war and a series of wars of conquest for resource grabs. Predatory and middle c;lass capitalism based on oil, plastic widgets and endless consumption is a dead end for humanity.

The communists didn't promise things which they not only could not deliver on, highly unequal consumption based on destruction of the environment is against Marxist philosophy. If democracy is allowed to happen in Latin America and around the world, you won't be able to afford capuccino and designer coffee and bananas with today's national income distribution in our capitalist countries. Poor southern countries have never desired to subsidize our standard of living with their sweat and toil under tropical sun for United Fruit, Chiquita or Sunkist's benefit, or for middleman trading companies skimming the lion's share of profits.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

There is a Communist Party of Canada. People don't vote for it because they don't want to live in a Communist system.

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Again, you're missing the point. You can acknowledge the uniqueness of the Cuban situation without being a follower of the CP line.

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You can acknowledge the uniqueness of the Cuban situation without being a follower of the CP line.

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If Cuba is so unique, why can't they legalize ALL political parties, call an election with strict spending limits on each party and then sit back and let the uniqueness of Cuba manifest itself to the world by elected a Communist Party government by a huge margin.

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Otherwise, we have no way of knowing what anyone in Cuba wants because they have never been asked their opinion by anyone.

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[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

You've been a scratched CD on this for days now.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Otherwise, we have no way of knowing what anyone in Cuba wants because they have never been asked their opinion by anyone.

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A socialist leader was elected in multi-party elections just 60 miles from Cuba in Port Au Prince. And you're still at a loss to explain why 70 percent of those voters can not vote for Jean Bertrand Aristide if they want to.

The ones who pretended to be "anticommunist social democrats" when they'd really become just plain old rightwing anti-Red zealots.

Please don't keep getting in touch with your inner Hubert Humphrey, Stockholm. The world doesn't need Cold Warriors anymore.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

They continue to pay. Cuba successfully overthrew its colonial masters only to be invaded by the United States with an imposed constitution and dictatorship. Again, in the name of freedom.

Cuba is more like Haiti than it is like the more subservient Dominican Republic which has been rewarded with mere poverty and deprivation.

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And again, why does having an election in Cuba matter more to you than anything else on the whole freakin' planet, Stockers?

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I keep wondering why NOT having an election in Cuba matters more to some people on babBle than anything else on the whole freakin' planet.

This debate goes on and on because there continues to be disagreement. We don't have endless strings about the war in Iraq because we all agree that it is a mistake.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

II assumed that if there was one thing that everyone on the left could agree on it was free elections and human rights. i guess i was wrong.

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It's because of the particular consequences of imperialism in this particular country.

I'd rather have elections everywhere, and you know that-but for Cuba it isn't as simple.

That's why I take the position that easing repression in other areas is at least as important step on the route to democratic consistency here.

What matters is finding the balance: creating more space for democratic renewal without giving aid and comfort to the reactionary leaders of my country.

I'm not defending the status quo.

You, on the other hand, seem to be turning a complete blind eye to history and assuming that, with "multi-party elections", all's for the best in this best of all possible world's.

You let the U.S. government and the CIA totally off the hook, over and over again, for their misdeeds and for their always-unjustified interference in Cuba, a country they never had any right to try and control. They've treated no other country on the planet as they've treated Cuba.

I'm just saying, let those of us in the English-speaking world show a little humility and flexibility, and let's not invent a moral absolute that doesn't actually exist anywhere else.

Whether or not Cuba has a "multi-party election" is not THE singular test of whether or not a person believes in democracy, and it serves no purpose for you to have derailed the entire Latin American democracy thread on this one small point.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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I'm just saying, let those of us in the English-speaking world show a little humility and flexibility

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I agree and that is why i think it's presumptuous for us to think we know what is best for Cuba. So why not let the Cuban people tell us what they want by having an election. Otherwise, their desires will remain a total mystery.

Why not at least let them vote in a referendum on whether or not to have a free election. If a majority votes for the status quo then i can accept that.

I also think that multi-party election WILL come to Cuba in the next 10 years. People on the left have a choice. They can either dig in their heels and continue to be apologists for the current dictatorship - in which case you will only fuel the inevitable backlash in Cuba and make it even more likely that the first Cuban election will lead to a rightwing victory - OR peple on them left can champion the cause of democracy and hopefully a democratic left can win the first post-Castro election.

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I'm just in a state of shock that on a progressive board that babble there would be people who openly oppose having elections and express support for dictatorship and one party rule. I assumed that if there was one thing that everyone on the left could agree on it was free elections and human rights. i guess i was wrong.

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In fact it is because I believe so strongly in human rights and dignity and a people's right to choose their own destiny that I don't condemn Cuba nor preach like a self-righteous preacher trying to coax the innocent out of hiding for a good thrashing.

Because like your American friends in the single party two name system, that masquerades as a democracy, you would have the Cuban people dispossessed, humiliated, and chained for their own good. The white man's burden rides again.

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In fact it is because I believe so strongly in human rights and dignity and a people's right to choose their own destiny that I don't condemn Cuba nor preach like a self-righteous preacher trying to coax the innocent out of hiding for a good thrashing.

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In Guantanamo Bay people have been held for years, tortured, humiliated, and still have not been charged with any crime. There is Abu Gharib, the torture centres in Afghanistan, rendition, and worse. The US and British armies first starved Iraq taking 1 million lives, half of them children, seeded the entire nation with the slow weapon of mass death call DU, and then killed up to a million more in a war of aggression and now wants to do the same to Iran.

The US, Canada, Britain, all the Western nations keep political prisoners. Often secretly and without trial and under laws that prevent the accused from being able to question their accusers.

The US has the second highest number of executions of any nation on earth save favored trading nation, and new capitalist icon, China.

And with all that it is a few political prisoners in Cuba that keeps you occupied? You are more full of shit than I thought.

If the US and Canada, beacons of democracy in your mind, can jail citizens in the interests of national security when there exists no serious external threat, then why can't Cuba when the external threat is only 90k away and has a long, long history of violence and aggression?

The Communist Party did win the election in Cuba. It was held in 1959 and it pitted the revolution against the US backed dictator (how come democracy didn't matter then?) Batista. The revolutionaries won and the election has continued unabated since then as the US has never, ever accepted the will of the people in any nation.

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The Communist Party did win the election in Cuba. It was held in 1959 and it pitted the revolution against the US backed dictator (how come democracy didn't matter then?) Batista.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
You're argument seems to be that democracy doesn't work - just because people don't feel like making the choices you want them to make. How arrogant.

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And remember, all the Yanqui imperialist shadow guvmint has to do is follow through on the easy-breezy six point plan to stop exporting terror and torture to Latin America and beyond, and stop harboring terrorists.

Because terror and torture are completely incompatible with democracy. Get back to us in this thread when you discover that the easy-breezy six point plan for creating the pre-conditions of democracy in this hemisphere is a reality. Perhaps then you can take yourself seriously about democracy on a small island in the Caribbean just 55 miles from Haiti, that "freest trading nation in the Caribbean", according to hardliners in Warshington, USSA.

[ 31 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

It is irrelevant. Cubans should be allowed to vote. period.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
What the US does in other countries has ZERO to do with democracy in Cuba.

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Well somewhere up there you agreed with me that exporting terror and torture to Latin America violates the preconditional rules for democracy in general. NOW you seem to have fallen off the democracy wagon and reverted back to sounding like Jesse Helms or Tricky Dick. You're somewhat inconsistent with your personal views on democracy.

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People on the left have a choice. They can either dig in their heels and continue to be apologists for the current dictatorship - in which case you will only fuel the inevitable backlash in Cuba and make it even more likely that the first Cuban election will lead to a rightwing victory - OR peple on them left can champion the cause of democracy and hopefully a democratic left can win the first post-Castro election.

Cuba needs a Dubcek, not a Husak.

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Why do you assume that leftists in Canada and the U.S. are going to decide Cuba's future? Do you really think that, if it weren't for us, Cuba would already be "the Sweden of the Caribbean" as you seem to think it's going to be?