Even though it's not the usual party line, I think it's worth reading.

quote:

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Chávez lacks a revolutionary party and instead depends on a fragmented political structure rife with different ideologies. To his right is the military, to his left some intellectuals and below him a politically diverse base. Converting this into a unified party would mean butting heads with a lot of local bosses who like to disagree. Chavismo has accomplished something important by giving power and identity to thousands of Venezuelans who had been marginalized, but it is not cohesive, either ideologically or historically. Rather, it is held together by petrodollars.

Nor does Chávez have a revolutionary army. On the contrary, the army has defeated him twice (1992 and 2002). The complicity of the army with Chávez today rests solely on weapons purchases, and that is much more about corruption than about preparing for war. It's exactly this sort of privileged corruption that closes the path to authentic revolutionary change. The Venezuelan military will neither kill nor die for Hugo Chávez.

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[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Hugo Chávez has committed a grave error in closing down the opposition TV station, which has been on the air a half-century. Like it or not, this was not a frontal attack on the economic elite but rather a blow to the cultural identity of millions of Venezuelans--and it will have severe consequences for the government.

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Actually, this part I agree with. That sick-ass TV station is a US-backed lies machine that produces outright slanderous invented "news" items produced in the US and aired as if they were shot in Venezuela.

It is an insult to journalism and an enemy of freedom of the press.

None the less, Chavez' move to pull its license and close it down simply gives it and the corporatist opposition a rallying point to play victim and to make Chavez look like an authoritarian intolerant who can't handle a bit of bad press.

The fact is, in these cases, simply proving them the liars they are and airing this on other networks, along with dismissals, ridicule and talk-down would do more to help Chavez than "getting tough" with a TV station that apparently has very little credibility as a news source already.

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Trying to replace popular soap operas and game shows watched by the poor with pathetic "revolutionary" programming is as bad as leaving them without food.

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It is if it is not respectful of the viewers and tries to provide factual, well-produced and interesting non-dogmatic content that tries to inform and spur debate and discussion. I haven’t seen any of it, so I can’t say.

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What Chávez has got wrong is his belief that he has made a revolution when in fact he's simply won some elections.

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This is where this guy goes off the rails. The Bolivarians never said they have made a revolution, but that they are setting out to make one in the form of developing a democratic socialist economy. Given the fact they have won so many elections shows that their platform and many of the reforms they have made so far have general popular support (at least to the degree that most people aren’t voting against them).

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In Venezuela there has been no revolutionary rupture, as there was in Cuba and Nicaragua, two countries where there was no democratic history.

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Who says there needs to be? Throughout many parts of the world, especially at local and regional levels, there are all kinds of successful socialistic economic developments and ventures that got off the ground in part via some sort of support from democratically elected governments.

The most successful so far are in Scandinavia (Chile was also a good example, until the US-backed military coup), where socialist development within a capitalist-dominated economy have been far more successful than in places where governments were shot into power by violent armed struggle and civil war (Russia, China, etc.).

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And to date there is no real Cuban opposition--nor are there real elections, freedom of the press or private property

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But this is exactly what the Bolivarian movement wants to steer away from. Chavez likes Castro a lot personally. But it's clear the Bolivarian reforms are not at all the same as the Castro ones.

In Cuba, there are election and press restrictions by the government, but private property relations are still very much dominant--the major difference being is that most of the larger commercial property has been nationalized and placed under the control of centrally regulating capitalistic bureaucracies.

In Venezuela, there are also press restrictions and dominant private property relations. But most of these are imposed by the corporate capitalist opposition to the Bolivarian movement.

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Forty years of peaceful transitions of government power created a democratic culture among Venezuelans that has, fortunately until now, made violence unnecessary.

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What this so-called "social democrat" doesn't get is that this is a situation that can provide a powerful opportunity for socialistic change, not a barrier to it.

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Anticapitalist revolutions are fueled more by dictatorships than by poverty.

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He's got it backward. All dictatorships, regardless of what they call themselves, are inherently capitalistic, since they are based on the subjugation and exploitation of working people to the capital accumulating/market monopolizing agenda of undemocratic rulers or bosses.

Every revolution I have ever read about has been by working people, including those in poverty, against such institutions, not the other way around.

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Chávez lacks a revolutionary party and instead depends on a fragmented political structure rife with different ideologies.

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That, in the long run, isn't a weakness in relation to the Bolivarian movement's goals and values. It's a strength.

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Nor does Chávez have a revolutionary army. On the contrary, the army has defeated him twice (1992 and 2002).

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News to me. Chavez is still the president, right?

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Maybe he will be able to make some more changes in Venezuela. But he will never be able to get rid of elections.

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This guy's out to lunch. Since when did Chavez ever want to get rid of elections? In fact, free elections are seen as the key to success for the Bolivarian movement, at least from what I read learned.

The whole idea that freedom of expression is under attack in Venezuela is a joke to anyone who has been there in the last eight years. Most of the media in Venezuela is still controlled by people who are vehemently (sometimes violently) opposed to the government. This will be true even after RCTV switches from broadcast to cable and satellite media. All over the broadcast media you can hear denunciations of the president and the government of the kind that you would not hear in the United States on a major national broadcast network. Imagine Rush Limbaugh during the Clinton impeachment, times fifty, but with much less regard for factual accuracy."

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The whole idea that freedom of expression is under attack in Venezuela is a joke to anyone who has been there in the last eight years.

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I suppose the overall level of freedom of expression in Venezuela is cold comfort for those who find their specific television station curtailed.

As far as I can tell, press criticism is still robust there. But once the government BEGINS assigning frequencies based upon the adherence of the station to a political programme, then other stations may begin to pull their punches.

It is true that we shouldn't fetishize press freedom. I remember well all the criticism of the Sandinistas for censoring La Prensa (which basically supported the contra rebels fighting the elected government). Yet, immediately after 9-11, the US passed laws saying that Al Quaeda assets in the US were all seized, and that they can't own any media of communication.

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The station has also fabricated accusations of murder by the government, using graphic and violent images to promote its hate-filled views.

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Yes it has, and it has literally hired US production houses to produce "news" items in the US and then aired them as if they were stories about Venezuela in Venezuela.

The down-right anti-journalistic conduct here is even worse than Global CanWest or even most of the state propaganda networks of totalitarian regimes.

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The whole idea that freedom of expression is under attack in Venezuela is a joke to anyone who has been there in the last eight years.

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SO far, most of the attacks on freedom of expression and similar fundamental democratic rights have come from the corporatist opposition and its media lying and censoring and backing the failed military coup in 2002.

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Imagine Rush Limbaugh during the Clinton impeachment, times fifty, but with much less regard for factual accuracy."

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Being worse than Rush Limbaugh on lack of concern for the facts does deserve some kind of prize

Jeff house wrote:

quote:

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As far as I can tell, press criticism is still robust there. But once the government BEGINS assigning frequencies based upon the adherence of the station to a political programme, then other stations may begin to pull their punches.

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This is the point, though, that we all need to consider. It's obviously clear that Chavez isn't interested in shutting down press freedoms. The move against the BSTV network was clearly a reaction to its outright slanderous behaviour.

None the less, given the huge political pressure on that government (and on many other governments), shutting down media--even shitty US-backed dishonest slander-fests like BSTV--can put it on a slippery slope that can compromised its principles and jeopardize its own agenda. Censoring the press is something the Bolivarian movement organized against. Compromising this now would be crippling to the movement.

Chavez, I think, could do better by investing some of the oil and other revenues in developing an independent critical-but-honest working-class oriented democratic media--much like the Bolivarian government is doing in many other economic sectors via cooperatives and similar democratic socialist enterprise.

RCTV, from what I have read, already has very little credibility among the public on its "news" reporting--as most people watch it for its scandalous entertainment shows.

quote:

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:


None the less, given the huge political pressure on that government (and on many other governments), shutting down media--even shitty US-backed dishonest slander-fests like BSTV--can put it on a slippery slope that can compromised its principles and jeopardize its own agenda.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SteppenwolfAllende:
In Cuba, there are election and press restrictions by the government, but private property relations are still very much dominant--

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Cuba has the highest rate of home ownership in the western hemisphere. ... Cuba law also permits the collective ownership of agricultural cooperatives.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton

Read the web comments on this guy. It was also translated by Marc Cooper, a liberal imperialist and rabid Chavez-baiter.

[ 28 June 2007: Message edited by: ceti ]

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Chavez, I think, could do better by investing some of the oil and other revenues in developing an independent critical-but-honest working-class oriented democratic media--much like the Bolivarian government is doing in many other economic sectors via cooperatives and similar democratic socialist enterprise.

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Incidentally, this is what he is doing with TVes and a whole host of community radio and television.

Ceti says he's a "turncoat", but that implies that there is some Correct Political Line in the Sky, and that Ceti is capable of discerning it.

Time will tell whether the revolution in Venezuela will turn out to be something reactionary and undemocratic, or not.

quote:

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It was also translated by Marc Cooper, a liberal imperialist and rabid Chavez-baiter.

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Ah yessss...Our Mark...he's been the Next Big Neocon To Come for several years now down below 54` 40` (sorry, can't find a "degree mark" key on this thing...)

Cooper was the biggest and ugliest cheerleader for the Pacifica Radio board when they were trying to kick all the leftists OFF of Pacifica and close down Pacifica's flagship station in Berkeley, KPFA, during the big board vs. staff civil war of a few years back(during this conflict, Amy Goodman was actually kicked off of Pacifica for a time and forced to produce Democracy Now! independently for a time for her support of the pro-free speech camp).

Cooper also sees himself as the keeper of the macho tradition in what passes for the U.S. left, bashing feminists, folksingers(he wrote an article in The Nation a few years ago calling for the left to use more non-folk music at its events, a reasonable position, but he spent most of the article not arguing for that as much as denouncing Pete Seeger and Si Kahn-I dunno, maybe the kidnapped his dog or something) and in general displaying open contempt for anyone who doesn't believe the greatest thing in life is drinking heavily and playing the slots in Las Vegas.

When Cooper shows up, you know it's gonna get ugly. Butt-ugly.

quote:

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Similarly, throwing around the muddy and unprovable allegation "he killed Roque Dalton" doesn't tell us anything about Venezuela, either.

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When a guy starts killing Central American Marxist poets, it's a pretty good sign the guy isn't on the left anymore.

[ 28 June 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 28 June 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

And see this:

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The Nation and the Assassin: A Shameful Blunder

By JACK HIRSCHMAN

As the translator of Roque Dalton's CLANDESTINE POEMS, one of the truly great books of revolutionary poetry published in the Americas in a generation (CurbstonePress), I must strongly protest the inclusion of the article by Joaquin Villalobos, the man who brutally killed Dalton, in the pages of The Nation, an ostensibly progressive magazine.

Villalobos, so far as El Salvador and the yearnings of the peoples of all central and south American countries, has been the peoples' nada. By contrast, the eminence and importance of Dalton have grown and deepened through the years in the place from which they wre born and which he served comsistently and passionately to the last of his assassinated breaths---the heart of the people of the world beating for revolutionary change.

The Nation should hang its head in shame for such a blunder. Despite widespread attempts to alzheimerize revolution and its authentic voices, the people remember and always will defy the lies of the pimps of capitalism with the truths of both the past and the future.

Long Live Roque Dalton!

Adamantly,
Jack Hirschman
Poet Laureate of the City of San Francisco

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So what does Villalobos want? A more violent revolution where class enemies are eliminated? Surprising that you would endorse such views

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Let me explain something to you. It is a dishonest mode of discourse to provide your interpretation of Villalobos, and then claim I "endorse" those views.

I didn't even endorse HIS interpretation. I said it was interesting, and worthy of discussion, given his actual experience as a guerilla commander, which I consider more valid than experience as a "revolutionary" on babble.

I would have thought that, with the demise of the former Soviet Union, the techniques of Comrade Vyshinsky would have been put aside as unworthy of emulation.

Yanqui imperialists are busy trying to expand empire in Central Asia and Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld announced increased military aid to Latin American countries several months ago. And the military higher ups are usually on the side of the privileged elite who still maintain their grip on vast tracts of the most fertile lands granted to their families under Spanish colonial law.

[ 03 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I skimmed thru that amateurish site, and it seems more of a humorous spoof museum of the Stalin Era. Perhaps the trial details and some of the propaganda seem genuine. Anyway,
If at least it would provide different stories from different topics of the SOviet Era. USSR actually lasted for 38 years after paranoiac Stalin croaked, BTW.
Since then, the soviets have sent the first sattelite, the first man and the first woman into space. The totalitarian nature has mellowed out significantly during Krushchev, and later during the perestroika.
The Soviet foreign policy has shifted towards massive aid for the third world, including generous education apprenticeship programs, among other things. These goofs on the site simply act as if USSR is only associated with Stalinism, death, show trials and nothing else.

And then again, the site creator Hugh Cunningham speaks for himself
This was copied from his homepage:
"
Gun Prohibition
Are you familiar with the HCI factoid, that if you keep a gun in your home, it is 43 times more likely to harm an innocent family member than to protect you from crime? (Not true, unless you shack up with a habitual violent criminal) This, and other prohibitionist myths, are carefully debunked at the "Official pro-gun FAQ." [990620]

Some other political causes, mostly libertarian, centrist, or conservative"

>>And this delightful personal cause statement:

"Misc. Foreign topics

Robert W. Poole Jr. on Barry Goldwater's foreign policy wisdom [CW]

East Asia--
China benefits from Taiwan independence.
Caution: I am an anti-Communist and Cold Warrior. Articles relevant to the Cold War are followed by the marker [CW].

quote:

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Originally posted by BetterRed:
The Soviet foreign policy has shifted towards massive aid for the third world, including generous education apprenticeship programs, among other things. These goofs on the site simply act as if USSR is only associated with Stalinism, death, show trials and nothing else.

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I think it's possible that Stalin could have been murdered for, of all things, planning a clean sweep of the bureaucracy in the FSU.

The Soviets also aided development in countries like Cuba and Vietnam in the last half of the last century. The Yanks were supposed to help rebuild Vietnam and the Philippines. Not one thin dime was provided for rebuilding what they wrecked and laid waste to.

You will see for yourself when the capitalists take back power and dismantle everything the half witted socialists have done.

If you read Stephens post enough you will understaadn that even though the socialist had a revolution in Russia they tried to control capitalism in a form of state capitalism... They miss calculated in thinking they could us it and also defend themselves form the rest of the world...

Same thing here in Venezula.... and the with the rest of the Social Democrat movement..

the world is connected . The capitalist in other countries will defeat the socialist in Venezula...

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Early Sunday afternoon, a giant crowd dressed largely in yellow gathered in the largest plaza of the capital city of a Latin American country to defend freedom of expression and denounce the closing of a media outlet that has operated for decades. Another opposition march in Venezuela to protest the shut down of RCTV? No, this time the angry protestors weren't in the heart of Caracas but in the famous Zocalo of Mexico City. Thousands of Mexicans gathered to protest the closing of Radio Monitor, home to the popular newscasts of Jose Gutierrez Vivo.

But this story isn't likely to get much traction in the mainstream US media. Unlike RCTV in Venezuela, Radio Monitor wasn't the property of multi-millionaires that regularly denounced a controversial anti-American president. It was a populist voice critical of the political and professional elite and defender of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who was narrowly defeated by Felipe Calderon in a presidential election many still believe was fraudulent.

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Presumably, that can be distinguished from a situation in which the government revokes a licence without a hearing, as occurred in Venezuela.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Well, the story you cite speaks of the closing of thwe station being possibly due to "market forces".

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quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:

Presumably, that can be distinguished from a situation in which the government revokes a licence without a hearing, as occurred in Venezuela.

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Closure of RCTV and media hegemony?

RSF titled their report “Closure of Radio Caracas Television Consolidates Media Hegemony.” The organization’s tone instantly conveys two lies in only one phase. First, RCTV has not been closed and can continue broadcasting via cable or satellite. As the radio spectrum, by definition, is limited, the Venezuelan government decided not to renew the contract of this channel and instead assigned the freed space to another channel in an attempt to democratize the media. Therefore, contrary to RSF claims, RCTV has not “stopped broadcasting.” (2)

The second fallacy is found in the expression “media hegemony.” With this title, RSF expects the reader to believe that the Venezuelan authorities control the media and hold a virtual monopoly over this sector. In order to win over public opinion, Robert Ménard, general secretary of the organization, incessantly repeats the same maxim to the press: “Chávez has hegemonic control over the media.”(3) However, the truth is quite different. In Venezuela, 80% of current TV channels and radio stations are privately owned. In terms of cable and satellite TV, private companies control nearly all channels. Moreover, the 118 national and regional periodicals distributed in the country are controlled by the private sector. “Media hegemony” exists, all right. But private financial groups and corporations are the ones in control. (4)

Arbitrary decision by President Hugo Chávez?

RSF asserts that the decision was made “by order of president Hugo Chávez” and claims that this is illegal since, according to RSF, there is a lack of a “judicial order [...] in order to deny the channel the right to broadcast for the next twenty years.” Here again RSF uses the double lie, given that the decision is perfectly legal in terms of existing international law. As in most countries around the world, the airwaves belong to the state and are to be used in the public’s interest; Article 156 of the Venezuelan constitution as well as the Organic Law of Telecommunications grants the government the power to regulate access. It is absolutely not a matter of “judicial order” as RSF claims. Besides, as already explained, RCTV continues to have the “right to broadcast” via cable or satellite. (5)

Likewise, it wasn’t Hugo Chávez who decided not to renew the concession, but the National Telecommunications Commission of Venezuela. The concession of RCTV was not renewed for several specific reasons. First, the government wanted to establish a balance between public and private channels. Next, RCTV did not respect their obligations or Schedule of Conditions of License. For example: between June and December 2006, authorities cited RCTV with at least 652 infractions. The channel also systematically denigrated the policies of the government and on various occasions incited the public to violence and rebellion against constitutional order. The proven participation of RCTV in the coup d’état of April 11, 2002 and its seditious participation in the oil sabotage of December 2002, which cost the national economy around 20 billion dollars, were significant factors in the decision. (6)

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So, it may be that the media don't treat the Mexican situation as identical to the Venezuelan one, because the two cases are in fact different.

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The original article says the Mexican closure may be due to market forces. Whatever else can be said about Chavez' decision to close the TV station in Venezuela, it's not due to market forces.

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quote:

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The original article says the Mexican closure may be due to market forces. Whatever else can be said about Chavez' decision to close the TV station in Venezuela, it's not due to market forces.

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Forget it Jeff. It doesn't take an economist to recognize that the term "market forces" is a highly subjective one--especially since most markets are dominated by various capitalistic corporate oligarchies or private or state monopolies of various kinds.

If you read the article, it says:

quote:

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Vivo claims that he was forced to stop broadcasting due to an economic conspiracy led by a collusion of former President Vicente Fox and the media elite.[1] Part of the accusation is that its parent company, Radio Centro has deliberately withheld over 20 million dollars it owes the station as a way of starving it into oblivion. Vivo believes that Fox, a friend of the Aguirre-Gomez family which owns the company, interfered in the legal process to undermine Radio Monitor's financial well being.[2] Current president Felipe Calderon has also been accused of meddling, though he denies any wrongdoing.[3]

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There's one interpretation of your "market forces" in action, and the only explanation being offered as to the nature of those "market forces:" the intentional censorship of a media outlet by starving it of its operating budget--a standard practice in the corporate media.

That’s the main reason why the corporate media around here won’t say much. It’s totally legit in the eyes of the corporate publishers (not to mention the outlet was quite courageously critical of corporate capitalism and the associated power politics).

quote:

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I skimmed thru that amateurish site, and it seems more of a humorous spoof museum of the Stalin Era. Perhaps the trial details and some of the propaganda seem genuine. Anyway,

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Actually, I just skimmed briefly through it as well, and it seems to a be big toungue-in-cheek parody of something else—of what I’m not sure. But I don’t get the impression that whoever runs that site really cares to be taken seriously.

quote:

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USSR actually lasted for 38 years after paranoiac Stalin croaked, BTW….
The totalitarian nature has mellowed out significantly during Krushchev, and later during the perestroika.
The Soviet foreign policy has shifted towards massive aid for the third world, including generous education apprenticeship programs, among other things.

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Khrushchev vs Stalin domestic policies

But most of the basic Stalinist/Leninist nationalized supposedly “transitional” capitalistic structures and modes pretty much stayed in place until the 1991 break-up.

Lenin: Industrial Management under a State Capitalist Monopoly Framework

Progress Publishers, Moscow; Lenin: State Capitalism During the Transition to Socialism (Index)

Nikolai Bukharin--state capitalism and capitalizing enterprises for the transitional economy

Preobrazhensky, Soviet economic development minister--"socialist" accumulation, profit and commodities in the New economy

If you look at various Soviet government documents over the 70-year span of the nation, you see that much of the “aid” they were offering had many of the basic similarities/strings attached of the “aid” offered by the US and other imperialistic powers: favourable guaranteed trade and investment access, monopolization of markets and trade, banking and debt-dependence, appointment of favourable bosses and bureaucrats and corporate executives to various industries and government ministries, influence over profits and other surpluses, etc.

It seems the Soviet elite expanded its agenda beyond its borders via mainly joint stock corporations, known as Foreign Trade Organizations, which were a series of profitable corporations with the Soviet government in control set up throughout the COMECON economies (with the exception of Cuba) and other areas of strategic interest to the Soviet Union.

That of course led to conflicts between the Russian-controlled corporations and their surplus revenues and the local and national governments of COMECON countries.

Romania's on-going tussle under Soviet Influence

Vietnam's Turbulent Soviet Relations

Soviet Invasion to stop Czechoslovakia socialistic reforms

The list goes on.

Even more interesting is Soviet “aid” going beyond COMECON:

Soviet Commercial Investments/Ownership in Western Europe

Soviet oil investments in the Middle East (especially Iran)

Growing Soviet Commercial Ventures threaten US Imperialism in South America

Now, while I’m always a big fan of anybody undermining US imperialism, the fact is wherever the Soviet Union would shove its state capitalist model the last thing that would result was socialism and democracy.

That’s why I am quite enthused about many of the initiatives of the recently elected left/center-left governments, including Venezuela’s Bolivarian government, since they are, or at least appear to be, actual fundamentally honest democratic socialist reforms and initiatives.

Venezuela Rejects Soviet state capitalist model

Labour-sponsored and democratic development in Venezuela

cooperatives and democratic economic development in Venezuela

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Since then, the soviets have sent the first sattelite, the first man and the first woman into space.

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Well, with due respect, I think, while these were certainly great achievements in themselves, mean little in the big economic/political picture.

The US is still pretty much the undisputed leader in space development and exploration (manned moon landing, Hubble Telescope, deep space probes a la Voyager, etc.) Even the clunky old ride-at-your-own-risk space shuttle was at one time cutting edge technology—and the international space station, initially a joint US-Soviet venture, is still going.

All this doesn’t negate the fact the US government/Corporate America is also the undisputed leader of violent expansionism, brutal oppression and exploitation, global domination, suppression of liberty and ecological and economic destruction of the 20th century—directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of over 200 million people over the last 70 years.

IMF Mass Murder

Killing Hope is US Intervention's Main Goal

Worsening oppressive US domestic policy

US state Terror around the globe

If not mentioned before, here's a Guardian article on the racial dimension of the RCTV hullabaloo.

Here's the interim schedule of the new station TVes.

They are still running telenovelas like Argentina's Padre Coraje!

Imagine if we had a truly public television station? Kind of like a non-corporate fusion of Omni and CityTV?

[ 13 July 2007: Message edited by: ceti ]

quote:

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Imagine if we had a truly public television station? Kind of like a non-corporate fusion of Omni and CityTV?

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excerpt:

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While there are important historical continuities between the democratic socialism of Allende and the 21st century socialism of Chavez, and both reflect important milestones on the road to national liberation, it is clear that Chavez, much more than Allende sees the clear and decisive importance of building a mass base for popular power outside of the strictly electoral parliamentary arena. Where Allende mistakenly idealized Chile’s bourgeois democratic institutions, attributing to them a classless character, Chavez combines the democratic norms of electoral politics with the need to build independent organizations of class power. History has demonstrated, at least so far, that Chavez’ realism has been much more effective in gaining and retaining popular power than Allende’s idealism.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Cubans no longer slave from sunup to sundown for United Fruit Company or Big Sugar while their children sell themselves to tourists and the mafia. If you drink rum in Havana, it will be Havana Club not Bacardi.

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Originally posted by jeff house:

In Mexico, many things occur in a "blurred" way, meaning that it is often impossible to figure out exactly what happened. So, I could certainly be convinced that this station was surreptitiously interfered with. But so far, there's no evidence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doug:

So they slave for the state sugar company instead, yay - big difference. That's why I fail to get massively excited about nationalization in itself.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doug:

So they slave for the state sugar company instead, yay - big difference. That's why I fail to get massively excited about nationalization in itself.

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Yes by the 1950's, U.S. corporationes owned over 80 percent of Cuban land and most of the sugar mills. The U.S.-backed mafia regime and Ciudad La Habana were a conduit for drugs into the U.S. Mafia money laundering was another function as is the case today in neighboring Dominican Republic, Bahamas etc. One of four main CIA departments is world renowned for being a taxpayer-funded dope delivery service today. And they long for the good old days. Haiti is another prospective waypoint for importing drugs from their friends in Colombia, those cucarachas.

quote:

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:

Doug at least they get free health care out of it, before they slaved and got nothing.

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And Cubans were free to break their backs under the tropical sun picking cane from sunup to sundown while their children sold themselves to rich tourists. There was no health care for children suffering injuries from machetes in the gringos cane fields. Tuberculosis was rampant, and rents were high in Havana. Life under the U.S.-backed mafia regime and Batista's repressive secret police was unbearable for freedom loving Cubans.