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A communist country will never be allowed to exist in a capitalist society because if it did the world would see just how much better things are when you don’t have greedy millionares running the show.
Yep. And crapitalists know this.
Which is why they don’t play fair.
If their production methods are so superior why can’t they produce enough food for their own people? Shortages of manufactured goods I can understand—many require skilled labor or high-tech industries, or rare metals that may not be available on the island. But surely they should be able to grow food with this superior system. All that takes is seeds, soil, and sun.
For the record I agree that capitalists running the economy and treating everyone like slaves is bad. But it doesn’t then follow that the Cuban model is automatically better.
The “Cuban model” has worked well considering the decades-long embargo it has placed on a country that hasn’t been a material threat to the US since the Cuban missile crisis.
That being said, a modern economy simply cannot function without international trade: what of things like medical supplies that require metals and chemicals only found in some countries? What about fuel? What about semiconductors?
Not only that, but Cuba has to pay a LOT more than other countries to access those basic necessities of modern living, because the US embargo essentially bans OTHER countries from trading with the US if they dare to dock with Cuba first.
Yes, the embargo is harmful but that’s not what I’m curious about.
That’s why I asked specifically about agriculture. There are plenty of examples of people sustaining their own food needs with minimal technology. Without industrial equipment or inputs, there may be a need for more human labor but it should still be doable.
My sense is that the embargo provides a convenient excuse to blame external conditions for the failings of a flawed, authoritarian production model. But I am really not very knowledgeable about Cuba so I am open to being convinced.
Responding to the State Department’s comments, Díaz-Canel said: “They’re always looking for justifications and turning things around. The most absurd thing is that they have applied a criminal blockade against us for more than 65 years. That is the absurdity.”
Not a blockade. An embargo, which is the US itself not trading with Cuba.
A blockade is when you militarily-force everyone else not to trade with them as well. If the US had blockaded Cuba, nobody would be coming in or out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are legal barriers to trade rather than physical barriers
The wording is irrelevant.
It’s an antiquated, devastating and unwarranted sanction against a non-aggressive country.
The US stops itself and other countries from trading with Cuba because they are “communists”, which is a ridiculous and hypocritical reason to cripple a country when the largest US trading partner is China.
If other countries trade with Cuba, the us has passed laws so that the us can sanction other countries, companies and individuals.
Every country votes every year to end the US’ vindictive, barbaric globally coercive embargo artist Cuba except for the US and Israel.
It’s less just because they’re communists and more because the ruling class are all still traumatized from that time Castro nearly got us all killed
I like this idea of trauma being the driving force, although I would argue wording is relevant here and lean toward the phrase “pearl-clutching” myself.
Porqué no las dos?
People are complicated things capable of many motivations for single actions and yet also single motivations behind many actions.
I’m just pointing out that we do need to consider more that the current ruling generation has significant mental health hangups that their own intolerance of such issues has seen fit to attempt to impose on us as generational trauma.
We need to understand more that ours isn’t a movement to just make things better, it’s to break the cycle before it makes things even worse, and then to build something better.
Because the idea of trauma implies an unearned sense of victimhood to a very small group of elites that doesn’t make a lot of sense in this historical or international context.
Cuba agreeing to Russian missile sites didn’t seem to scar any other nearby countries for two generations.
I don’t see why we should bestow the Americans with a special sense of victimhood.
I do agree that anybody of an older generation probably has more mental hangups than the younger generation, and I think the younger generation is breaking that cycle by going to therapy while the older generation refuses to acknowledge or take responsibility for their mental health even though they have the capacity and resources to.
Empathy is helpful to a point, but you have to recognize that point.
“didn’t seem to scar any other countries nearby for two generations”
Because the doom bringing missiles weren’t pointed at them.
I will naturally be less traumatized witnessing a hostage situation than the actual person who has a gun pointed at their head will be, that does not negate their being traumatized.
Also, small ruling elite, there’s over 70 million of them at present. You keep trying to ignore the whole “generational experience” part of what I’m describing.
You make too many tenuous subjective assumptions to address directly with too many tractable goal posts to avoid.
I specifically addressed your “generational experience” concern.
"I do agree that anybody of an older generation probably has more mental hangups than the younger generation and I think the younger generation is breaking that cycle by going to therapy while the older generation refuses to acknowledge or take responsibility for their mental health even though they have the capacity and resources to.
Empathy is helpful to a point, but you have to recognize that point."
Nah, it was because they were butthurt that the cubans kicked them off of their island.
Keep in mind that the establishment were at the oldest teenagers at the time of the crisis
The Turko-Cuban missile crisis was the kind of formative early years trauma to the ruling generation what 9/11 and the great recession have proven to be for the upcoming generation, even worse because it really nearly was the end of the world at several points.
These people didn’t know a day without the sword of Damocles over theirs and everyone else’s heads for almost 50 years, and to them Cuba is the locus of all of that, especially since China managed to bungle things so spectacularly that Vietnam and the US are technically on “now play nice” terms now.
So you are saying that the reason they havent lift the sanctions is because they were traumatized by the “red scare” and the cold war as teenagers? Because the cuban missile crisis lasted less than a month.
9/11 lasted less than 2 hours. From first impact to last fall.
I can still remember most every detail of that day.
Mass trauma is like that.
The threat of a tragedy is not the same as the tragedy itself. Also, that part of my comment was in response to Phlubba stating that the US was threatened by Cuba for 50 years. That is not true. I dont dismiss or minimize the trauma that the cold war might have caused on some people, but Cuba’s role in it is tiny when compared to that of the US and URSS. Using it to justify 80 years of embargo is absurd.
