quote:

---

What the international press has emphasized most in its reports on Cuba in recent days is the statement I made on the 17th of this month, in a letter to the director of Cuban television's Round Table program, where I said that I am not clinging to power. I could add that for some time I did, due to my youth and lack of awareness, when, without any guidance, I started to leave my political ignorance behind and became a utopian socialist.

---

Address to the Cuban National Assembly

But I think I like this the best. It reminds me of an expression by English poet and radical, William Blake, who wrote: To see a world in a Grain of Sand ... as the first line in one of his most famous poems.

quote:

---

Fidel Castro Ruz: (Jose) Martí taught us that "all of the world's glory fits in a kernel of corn". Many times have I said and repeated this phrase, which carries in eleven words a veritable school of ethics.

---

It is typical of dictatorships that the Great Leader's every thought is SO PROFOUND, but really, does this Deep Thought contain ANY content at all?

What would we think if Steven Harper said something so vapid:

quote:

---

"all of the world's glory fits in a kernel of corn". Many times have I said and repeated this phrase, which carries in eleven words a veritable school of ethics.

---

"Many times have I thought" that SOME of the world's glory does NOT fit in a kernel of corn!
Like, Shakespeare? Mount Everest?

And what "ethics" is really found in a kernel of corn? Which moral decisions are illuminated by thinking about kernels of corn?

People pay more attention to celebrities, period. And when celebrities say something not expected from them, it's news.

(P.S. I agree with you. I just read it in context of his speech to see whether he was using it to make an analogy, and it makes just as little sense as you say it does. There isn't much sense in repeating something all your life if you don't bother explaining what you mean by it!)

That said, I think generally when people use seeds as an analogy, they're talking about boundless potential, or small things yielding enormous bounty. It's not really that difficult to interpret. He was clearly not being as literal as you're being, Jeff.

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

Your link doesn't explain the supposed meaning of the Leader's Thought at all.

quote:

---

Stream of consciousness is, I suppose, the most polite way to describe Fidel Castro's message to the Cuban National Assembly, read at his request by Ricardo Alarcón yesterday. A less kind evaluation might characterize it as the incoherent ramblings of someone suffering from dementia who thinks that his precious words will resonate with all the world's peoples and be carved in stone someday.

---

quote:

---

"My hearts are with the Jeffcoats right now. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about people whose lives turned upside-down." -- president Dubya

---

But I knew that any criticism of Castro I posted here on babble would lead to me being insulted.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
I dislike the kind of politics which lead to the waving of the Little Red book of Mao, or the posting of the Wise Sayings of Great Leader Fidel.

---

We are discussing whether any meaning can be attributed to the idea that "a veritable school of ethics" can be found "in a kernel of corn".

We are discussing whether any meaning can be attributed to the idea that "a veritable school of ethics" can be found "in a kernel of corn".

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
We aren't discussing a tv show.

We are discussing whether any meaning can be attributed to the idea that "a veritable school of ethics" can be found "in a kernel of corn".

Over to you....

---

It's a TV broadcast shedding new light on just how many times each U.S. presinut has rubber stamped the shadow gov's plans b to z to murder Fidel. What kind of vicious empire tries to murder another country's leader, Jeff?

Yes, the US has been pretty disgusting about Cuba and Castro. But that's no reason to treat Castro as above criticism.

Castro is, I think, liking his new role as social commentator and, thankfully, his remarks are much shorter these days. Ha ha. Sometimes these remarks are interesting and sometimes they're off the wall. However, I have enough confidence in myself to separate the wheat from the chaff. Do I need to explain that metaphor to you? It means I don't pay much attention to remarks that aren't useful or interesting and try to remember the more interesting or useful remarks.

Lots of intelligent people have observed that behind apparently simple things lies great complexity. Perhaps you've even read the expression, "It takes a whole village to raise a child" ? This conveys a similar idea to the one expression by Marti as quoted by Castro. I'm actually personally fond of these pithy little expressions that convey a lot.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Yes, the US has been pretty disgusting about Cuba and Castro. But that's no reason to treat Castro as above criticism.

---

For other babblers, here's a bit of the "interview" which Red Dolores linked us to.

Here's a hardball question!

quote:

---

Tomas Borge, interviewer and Nicaraguan communist :

" You know something about the amazing avalanche of light that surrounds you, Fidel. That is why I ask you, what does the assurance of your immortality produce in you?"

12. [Castro] Before I respond to your question, I must say that I have
listened with great interest to your words; I am truly marveled by your
capacity to express yourself, by the beautiful manner in which you speak, by
your poetic manner. It is said that the poet is born and that the speaker is
made. I made myself somewhat of a speaker. You are even a better speaker than
I. You have an advantage, you are a born poet and a born speaker. I was not
born a poet and I made myself a speaker.

---

All Cubans are rightly proud of Marti. They are proud that such a strong political figure also had a romantic side. Guantanamera. Blake and the English romantics.

quote:

---

What drivel.

---

You are so into making your narrow little universe that it turns you into an idiot.

There is nothing drivel at all to what Castro said and you are supposedly referring to.

Gushy you could call it.

• one socialist leader was removed from power in Haiti by the CIA and with Ottawa's help, but that has nothing to do with the vicious empire's terrorist attacks on Cubans since backing a mafia regime in Havana
• another one is a dictator in Caracas because the people there foiled the CIA's botched attempt to remove their democratically elected leader on at least three different occasions
• and Fidel is a dictator because the people have rejected U.S. colonialism since Bay of Pigs and dozens of CIA campaigns to interfere with Cuba's sovereign democracy

But if you think, as I do, that no "school of ethics" can be found by contemplating "a kernel of corn", why, you must be an idiot! You must have a "narrow little world"!

"I'm the war presinet" -- the war president

quote:

---

Paule Robitaille: But we have a little question. We want to know: the
elections in the U.S. are in a month's time, who is the best president
for the Cuban people, Bush or Gore?....

Fidel Castro: Although they told me you were going to talk of Trudeau, I
suspected you were going to ask me something like that. And I'm going to
try and answer you as elegantly as possible.

I don't like either of them, and I'm thinking of doing the same as the
majority of Americans on election day: going to the beach, and not
voting, I'm not going to vote on election day. I am absolutely neutral;
no, not neutral, I'm against both of them, I´d like another candidate.
But there are only these two and my position is this: I don't like
either of them.

---

nah, Castro never says anything of value.

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: farnival ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
Jeff they defend the leader because he represents the cause - Communism - if Castro and Cuba were not perfect and any of the problems with Cuba or Castro's leadership were not the fault of the US - than Communism would not be perfect - and that's not possible.

---

Now that's brilliant

If it wasn't for the vicious empire, all those little countries within a few day's drive of Texas might not be the human rights shitholes they are, too.

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

And yet, Jeff wants to avoid talking about the vicious empire and its less than brilliant leader at all cost.

---

Wow, you certainly do lie a lot. Why do you always insist that everyone who opposes Castro is therefore a Bush supporter? Perhaps you can't defend your positions on the merits, so have to make up associations which don't exist.

You must know perfectly well that I have been critical of US imperialism in dozens of media interviews.

Here's one:

quote:

---

House is convinced that Hinzman has a strong case. He cites the Geneva Conventions on War and the Nuremberg Principles, which maintain that soldiers have an obligation to disobey illegal orders and to refuse to participate in war crimes. The U.S. war on Iraq, being neither defensive nor approved by the United Nations, is illegal. Therefore, orders to fight in Iraq are illegal. Soldiers who refuse these illegal orders are obeying international law and U.S. law too, since the U.S. Congress has ratified these international laws and treaties.

House has provided Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board with reams of documentation confirming that the U.S. military has engaged in a widespread pattern of systematic war crimes in Iraq. “If Hinzman had gone to Iraq, he would likely have been put in a position of committing or supporting the commission of war crimes.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Images/condon0705.html

---

And you have stated that the Cuban Five should be released and sent back to Cuba here on babble as well. Very good, Jeff. Meanwhile they are still biding their time in the largest gulag system in the world.

But what about the anti-Cuban terrorists and murderers living free lives in the United States?

One of Pol Pot's henchmen was living freely in the U.S. until last year when he passed away peacefully without fear of international law catching up with him.

It's just funny seeing so called progressives who pretend to have principles about rights and freedoms, and judicial process and all these things and then throw it all away when Cuba comes up.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
Why do they do this? see my last post

---

Yep, no one attempts to apologize for the basic human rights violations occurring in Haiti, El Salvador, Belize, Honduras, or Colombia - all U.S. friendlies and trading freely with the vicious empire today.

Your record, "Fidel", on babble is to slavishly support every goddamn Communist Party sloganfest that comes along, while never uttering a peep of criticism about them.

Here's a deal I'm offering to "Fidel" and the other apologists: You don't START threads about Castro, and I won't then be forced to RESPOND to the b.s. you post.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Again I am called an idiot! Yet no one of the Castro sycophants can tell us WHY the Glorious Leader's musings are SO brilliant!

But if you think, as I do, that no "school of ethics" can be found by contemplating "a kernel of corn", why, you must be an idiot! You must have a "narrow little world"!

Either that, or the Emperor has no clothes, and his minions are reduced to insults because the ruminations of Castro have no particular value to anyone outside the Cult.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Your record, "Fidel", on babble is to slavishly support every goddamn Communist Party sloganfest that comes along, while never uttering a peep of criticism about them.

---

Okay, let's start doing so now. I think the Cubans could do a lot better wrt observing gay rights, and so could the vicious empire.

I think Cuba should spend a lot less on military to protect itself from the vicious empire menacing Cubans dozens of times since Bay of Pigs. And I think the vicious empire could do with spending about $400 billion dollars a year less on military industrial complex - close down 730 military bases and illegal occupations of several countries - and remove its nuclear weapons from several sovereign countries and shove'm up Uncle Sam's fat ass sideways.

And I think Fidel should have quit smoking cigars long before he did. By the same token, I think presinet Dubya should never have taken up snorting coke and abusing booze in the recent past and who knows if he hasn't fallen off the wagon. I don't think his state of mind affects the running of the U.S. like a banana republic, because we all know dubya's not in control of much of anything he's supposed to. He's just a puppet, a cosmetic leader for outward appearance sake. The vicious empire is a lot like its terrorist wing of the CIA, al Qaeda. They have no real leader elected by the people. Dubya's not even a good mouthpiece for the powerful special interest groups he represents.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
I wasn't talking about Spector in particular.

---

----

Castro being interviewed by Oliver Stone:

quote:

---

I always try to be rational in my thinking. I have an idea how relative glory can be. Look (José Marti) said in a phrase "All the glory of the world fits in a kernel of corn."

I have never thought about glory, I have never thought about how I want to be remembered. History is relative. The human species could become extinct, the sun could die out. So what is fame and celebrity worth? One day none of that will exist. - CBC

---

The meaning is unmistakeable: personal glory counts for nothing - in the long run it is as worthless as a kernel of corn. That was José Martí's observation. Only the wilfully blind would fail to see the ethical and moral dimensions in it.

Castro is saying that what he does is not done in pursuit of personal glory. It's his way of expressing modesty.

DUH!

Why is it that people who defend Castro against petty and ignorant attacks get accused of hero-worship?

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

However, Fidel Castro stopped smoking cigars on August 26th, 1985.

I am afraid that criticising Castro on cigars is like criticising George Bush about his drinking and driving.

But critize a communist country like Cuba about anything in any kind of a serious way?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
But critize a communist country like Cuba about anything in any kind of a serious way?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
they defend the leader because he represents the cause - Communism - if Castro and Cuba were not perfect and any of the problems with Cuba or Castro's leadership were not the fault of the US - than Communism would not be perfect - and that's not possible.

---

We have discussed Cuba's accomplishments toward socialism on dozens of babble threads. And there are many.

Public health care in Cuba an international success story Harvard School of Public Health

Lowest infant mortality in Cuban history - Only Canada has a lower rate for IM in the Americas Granma

Focus on Cuba’s accomplishments - Canadian Family Physicians

Cuba Ailing? Not Its Biomedical Industry Yale

Cuba's world class education system - UNESCO

Sustainable agriculture in Cuba - David Suzuki

Looking for bioterrorism in Cuba

"Cuba has the highest rate of home ownership in the western hemisphere" - answers.com

---

From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged

Did you know that it's illegal to sell your home in Cuba?

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

So, you can't buy or sell, but you "own" it.

---

It's a laff-riot, Jeff. It's a tragedy that Canada has more two-by-fours and plywood and old growth forest logs trucked south everyday than Libby's has beans. And we've got Canadians sleeping outside tonight - in rabbit warrens - roach motels - drafty apartments wasting energy - in their cars - on friend's couches and wherever in hell they can find a bed sit. We'd laff our stupid damn heads off if it wasn't for the ridiculousness of our own free markets in homelessness and lack of affordable housing across Canada. Along with our high child poverty rates, homelessness is a national disgrace in this Northern Puerto Rico.

One of the big problems with that in Cuba is that it is very difficult for divorced people to move out of the conjugal home. Though in fairness, that is also true of capitalist countries with a housing shortage.

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:
Isn't that sort of like the co-op I belong to? We own it collectively, and each member must pay a token share, but of course we can't sell our flat. Still, it is very different from being a tenant who can easily be evicted.

---

Yes that's true. A teacher friend of mine lives in a housing co-op, and her only complaint is that they wouldn't allow her to install a larger front window. She said the co-op authority was afraid it was too radical. They don't allow structural changes of that sort.

quote:

---

One of the big problems with that in Cuba is that it is very difficult for divorced people to move out of the conjugal home. Though in fairness, that is also true of capitalist countries with a housing shortage.

---

Cubans are short of many things we take for granted. We live in a rich country, the second largest in the world with unparalleled natural wealth to go around. Home ownership here is a bit misleading with a very large percentage of actual home owners meaning "home buyers." For most Canadian homeowners, the actual ownership doesn't happen for them until much later in life. Many homes in Canada are actually bank rentals and temporary arrangements.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
That last one is really funny! Cuba has "the highest rate of home ownership"?

Did you know that it's illegal to sell your home in Cuba?

So, you can't buy or sell, but you "own" it.

---

That's an interesting assumption: something truly belongs to you only if you can sell it. Well, I guess it's not really interesting - just capitalism. I would suggest that "this is my home" need not mean "I can sell it" and that a society in which something is truly mine only if I can buy and sell it has something fundamentally wrong with it.

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

As bad of the US has been, I don't believe in communism - at least not at the moment ( and yes I know that my call sign name was a communist leader during the Spanish civil war- that's a off topic). I think that people aren't ready to accept those ideas yet, and won't be for hundreds of years if ever. Socialism first ( maybe in a hundred years), communism much later. I do see Castro ads a dictator, and none of us can be ignorant of the human rights abuses there.
P.S I didn't link to the interview, I linked to the blog- if you go to the end of the blog, you'll see and explanation of the quote.

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

[ 02 January 2008: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pride for Red Dolores:
P.S I didn't link to the interview, I linked to the blog- if you go to the end of the blog, you'll see and explanation of the quote.

---

quote:

---

So, you can't buy or sell, but you "own" it.

---

The idea that Cuba comes first, of thirtieth, in "home ownership" is, of course, laughable.

Yes, "ownership" does involve a bundle of rights, including the right to buy and sell.

Lagatta is correct that other forms of tenancy, such as co-operatives, may be sensible ways to organize housing.

In the Cuban case, though, they don't have co-operatives, either.

THE STATE ASSIGNS CITIZENS HOUSING IN CUBA. YOU CANNOT MOVE FROM YOUR RESIDENCE IN CUBA WITHOUT STATE APPROVAL. YOU CANNOT MOVE TO A 'NEW' RESIDENCE IN CUBA WITHOUT STATE APPROVAL.

Of course, as with all things Cuban, there is no possible legal appeal of a denial, by the state, of a petition to be allowed to change residences.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

Yes, "ownership" does involve a bundle of rights, including the right to buy and sell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
Sorry I must be delusional because I actually believe I "own" my co-op even though I can't sell my share in it for a profit. But then I also believe philisophically that property is theft.

---

Any form of exclusive utility right can be called ownership. You can say you own something even if you are prohibited from trading it for something else, though that is obviously a much weaker notion of ownership.

Every country has laws that limit the extent of property ownership. While I can sell my house, I can't tear it down without explicit permission. I can't substantially modify it without permission, either.

But to pretend that your right to occupy that space is the same as "home ownership" (as the silly Cuba claim does) simply mixes apples and oranges.

Most likely, your co-op corporation "owns" the building, and you have a form of lease which entitles you to stay there as long as you pay.

It may be that your co-op allows you to assign your right to live there to another. Sometimes, this can be done subject to the approval of the Board of Directors. More commonly, when you leave, you don't have a chance to sell your "property" at all. It belongs, as it always has, to the Co-op corporation.

[ 03 January 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by RosaL:
To suppose that "x belongs to y" obviously and necessarily implies that "y can buy and sell x" is to absolutize capitalism. It's blatantly unhistorical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
While I believe property is theft I also believe that we need to have spaces as humans that are for our exclusive use.

---

quote:

---

What it means for something to belong to me depends very much on the economic and social structures in place. To suppose that "x belongs to y" obviously and necessarily implies that "y can buy and sell x" is to absolutize capitalism. It's blatantly unhistorical.

---

Of course, the original claim here was that somehow, Cuban "home ownership" could properly be compared with "home ownership" in other Western countries, such as Mexico, US, etc.

But now, you say that they can't be compared, because it depends on the economic and social structures in place.

That's what I said. It is simply silly to compare the two.

I also say that, when you have no choice over which home you "own", cannot move, cannot sell it, cannot buy another, and cannot remove your ex-spouse who has ALSO been assigned the house, your "ownership" doesn't amount to much.

Lastly, you are using "historical" in the religious sense which offers us all the promised land way off in the future....some day.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
"Property is theft" is a slogan. In the real world, the right to use things has to be regulated somehow. Many systems can be set up, but they all envisage a system in which SOMEONE can tell someone ELSE not to come through the door.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

This may sound like "home ownership" to you, but not to me.

---

Canadians used to pay down home mortgages after 25 years or so. Today they're paying 35, 40 and even 50 years on mortgages. Canadians are pouring sweat, blood and tears into maintaining a roof over their heads. And then there are bank foreclosures when Canada's "flexible" labour market miss a few mortgage payments.

In B.C., families are paying upwards of 74% of gross incomes for mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes. And if Canadians miss paying three months of property taxes, the city can put a lien on their homes.

We don't have home ownership in Canada anymore. We have a new rentier class in Canada, and they rent money to the working class while foreign multinationals siphon off our valuable fossil fuels, hydroelectric power and oceans of timber which could easily be used to build affordable housing in this semi-frozen, and somewhat warmer now, Northern Puerto Rico.

Duncan Cameron says:

quote:

---

The city of New York (population 8.6 million) now provides 600,000 social housing spaces. Canada (population 33 million) has about the same has about the same. How did this happen?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

Of course, the original claim here was that somehow, Cuban "home ownership" could properly be compared with "home ownership" in other Western countries, such as Mexico, US, etc.

---

A number of years ago, the estimated number of street children alone in Latin America was 40 million. Latin America is still dealing with Spanish colonial laws that have a small number of powerfully rich families owning large tracts of the most fertile land granted their ancestral families centuries ago.

NeoLiberal economic reforms throughout Latin America since the 1980s and 90s saw large numbers of peasants moved off of fertile land and into the cities where too many experience homelessness and grinding poverty. In India, an estimated 400 million economic refugees are expected to become landless peasants in the next ten years with the old ideas for cash crop colonialism-capitalism made new again. Globalization amounts to the largest confiscation of the common good since gangster capitalism was perpetrated in the former Soviet Union, and far moreso than occurred in medieval times in England and Scotland leading up to Victorian times.

[ 03 January 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

Of course, the original claim here was that somehow, Cuban "home ownership" could properly be compared with "home ownership" in other Western countries, such as Mexico, US, etc.

But now, you say that they can't be compared, because it depends on the economic and social structures in place.

That's what I said. It is simply silly to compare the two.

I also say that, when you have no choice over which home you "own", cannot move, cannot sell it, cannot buy another, and cannot remove your ex-spouse who has ALSO been assigned the house, your "ownership" doesn't amount to much.

Lastly, you are using "historical" in the religious sense which offers us all the promised land way off in the future....some day.

In that sense, my comments are not "historical". They refer to the actual life of human beings, right now.

---

I was not the one who made the original "claim". But I didn't say different meanings of "belonging to" were incommensurable - I said they were different. In fact, I implied (at least) that one was better than the other, which surely presupposes commensurability.

Of course you regard buying, selling, and ownership as intrinsically related. They are so, in a capitalist system.

I agree that it would be better not to have to share living space with an ex-spouse. I'm sure Fidel Castro agrees. The problem is surely lack of housing, i.e., the issue is practical, not ideological, as is evidenced by the fact that many people living under capitalism are likewise compelled to share living space with an ex-spouse.

I am using "historical" to mean "pertaining to history". I am referring to the past, the present, and the possible future. I am acutely aware of "the actual life of human beings, right now". I just don't regard that as normative. I think we can - and must - do better.

[ 03 January 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
then as I pointed out in an earlier post - the system in Cuba is perfect - any problems with it are caused by outside(US) interference - past and present.

If only the US of A was wiped off the map, Cuba would finally be free to be the paradise on earth it should be.

---

quote:

---

Of course you regard buying, selling, and ownership as intrinsically related. They are so, in a capitalist system.

---

I guess that's because "ownership" is not a communist idea in the first place.

Let's face it, the only reason the various Communists here are even USING the word "ownership" is because of its positive associations.

If you can't buy or sell your own home, if it is assigned to you by a bureaucracy, and if you can be booted out by that same bureaucracy, basically on whim, then you can call that "ownership" but actually offers fewer rights than renters have "under capitalism".

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:

Why do they do this? see my last post

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

I guess that's because "ownership" is not a communist idea in the first place.

---

Yes, TNC's today should all get down on hands and knees and give thanks to Locke and his second-hand argument for exclusive property rights.

quote:

---

Let's face it, the only reason the various Communists here are even USING the word "ownership" is because of its positive associations.

---

No doubt there are more reference books on Locke and his private property rights in our public libraries than there are for Gerard Winstanley who made the exact opposite argument for common rights just prior to Locke's.

quote:

---

Let's face it, the only reason the various Communists here are even USING the word "ownership" is because of its positive associations.

---

To be more precise... it's questionable whether there are any Communists of any kind around here. But if there were, they'd be free to use "ownership" however they want.

On all sides of the fence "ownership" is what you claim it to be, and ALL claims have delusional aspects to the supposed unversal benefits of the particulard ownership in question.

ETA: For what it's worth, all things consdered I'm all for private property, which has to include codified state enforcement of private property rights. I'm just realistic about the costs and benefits of that choice. The claims of universal benefits are bogus.

[ 03 January 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by KenS:
... it's questionable whether there are any Communists of any kind around here.

---

But even then, I wouldn't even privately say that many of you would definitely be pegged as such.

Lots of social democrats who people- even themselves- might confuse as communists or revolutionary socialsts.

quote:

---

I guess you haven't checked under your bed lately.

---

I haven't forgotten about them.

quote:

---

Originally posted by KenS:

I haven't forgotten about them.

But over the last few decades most have either died, or put themselves to sleep.

---

About two percent of Canadians have membership in any political party. That's not an endorsement for private property or even capitalism at the same time. We need electoral reform and to do away with the red chamber in Ottawa.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
I don't think there is a lot of fear of persecution for political association or discussing ideas here in Canada, unlike certain other countries

---

Our's are managed "Liberal" democracies that need modernizing. Our electoral system was invented before electricity. And a non-elected senate has no place in a modern democracy. It's a small number of plutocrats and superwealthy people who fear an outbreak of democracy not the majority of us. Roughly half of Ontarians had no political opinion during the last election. Advocates for the obsolete system suggest this is because 48 percent of voters are so content with things that they couldn't be bothered to show that support at the ballot boxes. Pro democracy groups say this is not true ...

In Cuba, people discuss their political opinions and complain about local politics all the time, same as anywhere really.

[ 03 January 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]