A child of five starts school, but a blog of the same age has already taken more daring steps. Today I am making an effort to remember that quiet and fearful woman, from before April 9, 2007, who created Generation Y. But I can’t. Her face disappears, dissolving among all the beautiful and difficult moments I’ve experienced since I posted my first text on the web. I can no longer imagine myself without this accidental and personal diary. I have the impression that I have always, in one way or another, been writing a blog. When the indoctrination and the injustice reached intolerable points, my childish head glossed the reality–from the fringes–in ways I could never say out loud. The evasive adolescent I became did the same thing: narrating her daily life, trying to explain it and trying to escape it.
The truth is that when I left home that morning to hang my virtual page on the Internet, I never could have imagined how much this action would transform me. Now, whenever the apprehension that the Cuban political police are “infallible” assaults me, I exorcise this thought by telling myself that “they didn’t know, that day, they couldn’t even guess that I would create this site.” What happened afterwards is already well known: the readers arrived and took over this space like citizens take over a public plaza; many others knocked on my door wanting help to create their own spaces of opinion; the first attacks appeared, as did the recognitions. Along the way I lost that 32-year-old mother who only spoke about “complicated issues” in a whisper, I misplaced the compulsive woman who barely knew how to debate or listen. This blog has been like experiencing — in the time and space of a single life — an infinity of parallel existences.
I have never again been able to walk the streets incognito. That gift of invisibility that I boasted of possessing fell by the wayside, between the hugs of those who recognized me and the attentive eyes of those whose job it is to watch me. I have paid an enormous personal and social price for these little vignettes of reality and yet I would do it again, taking my flash memory to the lobby of that hotel where I launched my inaugural post on the great world wide web.
Generation Y 
…and you are wrong about every society having carpenters, at least private carpenters. Working for yourself or having one more penny than your neighbors could get you killed under Mao or Pol Pot.
I know several Cubans who were denounced and arrested for making a bit of money on the side. Communists got away with a lot more and could get their houses fixed and they’re the ones who got all the new apartments.
The trouble is Fidel was in love with “pure socialism” as practiced by Mao and thought all “private enterprise” was evil. So while loyal to the Soviet Union who was paying his bills, he wasn’t as smart or practical as they were.
Un Sori, it is because you lived in the richest part of the socialist world. Your part of the world wasn’t as “purely” socialist, especially after Khrushchev.
There was something of a middle class and a small business class and thriving black market in many Eastern European countries, like Czechoslovakia and Hungary. While Eastern Europe was becoming more liberal, Fidel was going the other way and destroyed Cuban small business during the 1960s.
Any type of private initiative by a non-communist could mean prison or being thrown out of work and having your rations cut. Being a communist meant a license to steal and exchange “favors” with politically reliable black marketeers. So most people just shut up and tried to survive on their rations while their houses crumbled around them.
You shouldn’t be surprised people starved to death in Cuba and that the country crumbled. You know that millions starved under Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin. So why should Cuba surprise anyone? Especially after the Soviet Union cut off welfare.
Cubans are deeply scarred by Castro and now have zero initiative to work except in Cuba’s black market or pockets of legal private enterprise like tourism, or do nothing but wait for their next cash delivery from their family in Miami.
Help… the more I listen to you guys… the more I have to believe you I guess… I don’t know I haven’t been there… but there is always a but … even at the end of communism in Eastern Europe no one had it so bed!! it was bad …. in winter especially because of the power cut… but you still could buy a bed or fridge …. So the question is how things can be so bad ..because fridges I am sure Venezuela and Brazil produce enough to export to Cuba…. Soemthing doesn’t add up somewhere! And to produce a bed is something every nation on this planet does.. and there are carpenters a lot in every society who can fix one! So how come??
Un Sori, re: your reply to Freud. Yes, what you heard was mostly propaganda and people who believe it are ignorant. It’s not their fault, they just hear the Castro side of the story.
I have talked to enough Cuban old-timers to know that Cuba was no Haiti before the revolution. Most preferred Batista, even those who fought against him. Walk around Havana and you can see just how big the Cuban middle class was in those days.
I have a close friend whose father was a factory worker. He lives in the same modest family home, in those days a workers’ neighborhood.
In 1959 the house had running water, indoor plumbing, bathroom, kitchen, refrigerator, reliable electricity, and everybody ate well. There were two rooms, the children in one, the parents in the other, everybody in comfortable beds.
In 2012, it has none of these things, not even beds, just filthy mattresses on the floor. The stove rusted away and the frig stopped working and was thrown out decades ago. Then the roof of the kitchen caved in.
They haven’t had running water or a functioning toilet in 25 years. He has to haul in water and there is one big barrel for 4 generations to share their washing and bathe in. Some of the family starved to death during Castro’s “special period”.
There are several neighbors in this row house. One house is similarly crowded but the lady of the house bought a black market water pump that steals water from her neighbors, so they have the most running water. Being on the CDR and a communist means her house is full of stolen goods. So they go to all the communist rallies and meetings though none of them believe in it. She denounces her neighbors too.
Another neighbor is doing good. She has a son in Miami who gives her 5000 US a year and buys her gifts when he visits. Her house has been completely renovated and is beautifully furnished. She also has a water pump that steals water. She and the communist are the only families with running water.
Outside of those two houses, most families on the bloc are like my friend’s. What was once a working class neighborhood where everyone lived comfortably is now a slum where only a few families live decently, thanks to US dollars.
That is why Castro could never hold elections.
By the time he wiped out all his opposition within a year of taking power, he had become extremely unpopular. By the time he drove Cuba’s economy into the ground, only privileged communists still supported him. After the Soviet collapse, most communists stopped believing in him too.
Freud@170 Thank you for your reply. I won’t add much since we are approaching whatever truth there is from different angles… you from a very nationalistic and maybe patriarchal perspective, myself… from a more internationalist position that I have gained… It is surprising and speaks volumes to me that every guys who condems communism has these days a list of thing their societies were before ‘communism’ happened.. as if communism was an accident… You describe Castro as someone who sort of stole the revolution when no one was watching or.. better everyone was busy at work!!… My view now is that communism was no accident… or at best an accident waiting to happen and in some respect whether you like it or not our societies share that regardless of how much lower on the scale of things you see EasternEurope and some of the countries there!… Good luck with your change of regime…and with restoring Cuba to what you say it was… if that society would exist I would definitely move there by any means!!!… so I won’t trouble you with what we Romanian have heard of Cuba before Castro and why we thought of Cuba in the same pattern as you would think of Haiti.. maybe it was just ignorance!
Yeah right Help… as if drug cartel are not the fruit of capitalism… What best enforces the free market law of demand of supply but drugs??? Well they supply and you demand… and like in capitalism if demand drops.. they send the boys over to ensure demand would never drop again!
What’s happening in much of the world is a regression towards fascism, as American influence disappears and brutal empires like the Chinese and the Iranian extend their domination.
While it’s thanks to US influence and pressure that all the “rightist” fascist dictators in Latin America finally stepped down, the fascists are back in power dressed in anti-American “leftist” clothing and trying to bring back the days of terror and rigged elections. Both Chavez and Ortega have already stolen elections, which will encourage all the other demagogues to follow.
The USA is seen as weak, while brutal empires like China, Iran and Cuba are seen as strong. Strength is what fascists respect.
Hopefully the Chinese, Iranian, Cuban and other dictatorships will give way to democracy one day. And hopefully, democracy has deep enough roots in Latin America to survive. But none of the drug cartels, criminal gangs or Marxists want it to.
If you’re a thug, taking power by force is easy and honest elections are always risky.
BLOOMBERG NEWS: Obama Faces Latin Anger on U.S. Cuba, Drug Policies at Summit- By Matthew Bristow and Eric Martin
On Cuba, Obama will insist that the government’s human rights record and respect for democracy improve if it wants to participate in future summits, Restrepo told reporters yesterday. Obama will use his second trip to South America to push for open markets that benefit American exports, he said.
The Summit of the Americas began as a gathering of 34 heads of state in 1994 to promote free trade. That goal has since receded as Latin America has prospered and become more assertive, meaning this weekend’s sixth edition in the Caribbean city of Cartagena is likely to be marked by grandstanding of the sort seen in 2009, when Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega slammed “Yankee troops” and Chavez gave Obama a book about the U.S. “pillage” of the region’s resources.
“In the absence of an agenda, this has become a forum for the lowest common denominator,” Christopher Sabatini, senior policy director of the Council of the Americas, said in a phone interview from New York. “The story becomes Ortega’s harangue and Chavez’s book club. And people like that can’t pass up the spotlight, so they’ll do it again.”
Trouble flared even before this year’s summit began, with eight nations led by Chavez threatening a boycott over the exclusion of Cuba, the region’s sole dictatorship. Diplomacy by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who flew to Havana to meet with President Raul Castro, managed to keep the event on track and only Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa will now stay away.
Still, he remains Latin Americans’ favorite leader, with a rating of 6.3 out of 10 in a 2011 survey of regional political trends by Santiago-based pollster Latinobarometro. Rousseff came in second, at 6.0, in the annual ranking with Chavez near the bottom at 4.4. In 2009, Obama had a 7.0 percent rating.
Obama’s “star quality” hasn’t halted the U.S.’s decline in the region, said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter- American Dialogue, a policy center in Washington.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-12/obama-faces-latin-anger-on-u-dot-s-dot-cuba-drug-policies-at-summit#p1
170Un Soricel
Abril 12th, 2012 at 10:14
I understand most of the things you guys talk about ‘castrofascism’ because I have seen them done. Not only that but at some point in my life I was very much feeling and experiencing them too and I remember how ‘desperate’ I was for any change or to break away from that society. ………
…………the moral is this is what ‘democratic vote’ and democratic politics did and does in all former communist countries – these guys are the product of democracy and they are corrupt, incompetent and now greedy and big friends with the USA!!………….
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Well, I am glad you are not the fanatic castrofascist supporter I believe but I am sad about the confusion you have in your mind……
First, revolutions in Tunisia or Libya were not revolutions for democracy but to get rid one dictator……. second, those guys making revolutions IN SOME ex communist countries to fail are not product of democracy but communism, the process Romania and other ex-communist countries (Ukraine, Kazajastan, Moldavia) are going through is consequence of communism indoctrination and creation of corrupt elites that knew how adapt to the revolutions in those countries to continue profiting the faith of those peoples….. the process have been very different in other ex communist countries, especially those that was occupied by USSR and for this reason never had a national corrupt elite composed of sons of the country but by Russian occupiers (Estonia, Latonia, Lithuania) or older countries with more experience about democracy and capitalism like Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia…….. I understand your impatient and deception but you are blaming the wrong cause…… it is not capitalism the responsible for the failure of Romania after freedom but it is the deficient work of its people in instauration of a strong democracy I know revolution must going on in those countries in order to achieve the trend in politics and economy that lead those countries to real democracies and capitalism…… You can’t blame capitalism for Europeans racism….. racism is something in Europeans gens….. not for nothing all world wars have been produced in Europe…… I lived in Europe and I know what you feel…… that’s why I left and came to USA that is not a perfect country but is the best in the world to live in …… of course, after a free Cuba.
In Cuba we cannot have anything worst than castrofascism………. that’s why any twist our country takes after we liquidate castrofascism will be better that what we have now…….. peoples cannot be stopped in their development by the fear about what will be later, we Cubans have the experience of raising our country from destruction to welfare, we did it one time in the past when the Spanish empire left our country destroyed……. such experience Romanian never had……… Germans did it, Baltic republics did it too…….. and we will do it a second time after castrofascism disappear of our history….. first time it took 30 year for rebuilding of our country, this time it will take just few years…… you are helping castrofascism with propaganda and you are doing it because feelings of injustice that nothing have to do with the real causes that makes you feel in such way…. you are seeing enemies where it does not exists……. in this site no one is Romania’s enemy or caused this country disgrace….. you are totally confused…… you should fight for your country and for what you want it to be in the way we do about our country…….. to come here to criticize our fight does not change the situation in your country, situation inherited of communism…….. you chose the wrong enemy.
By other side it is up to you to understand in your way a political regime….. we understand that castro regime is not longer a Stalinist one but a fascist, by castro’s history we know fascism was his and his father preferred system, now that casto family saw no reason for keeping them self attached to Stalinism they changed gladly to the doctrine they were arisen in…… castro regime transformed Stalinist and extremely impoverished Cuba in a corporative state in association with international capital keeping the repressive apparatus organization and socialist facade …. this is fascism in spite all efforts you can do to deny the fact……… it is not us who say it is castrofascism but it is castrofascism self who created the horrible been.
Finally you pretend to standardize all ex-communist countries including Cuba and this leads you to be stranded in mistakes……. communism in Cuba never were like communism in Europe, communism in Baltic states were never like communism in China, or Russian were never like Yugoslavian, etc, etc,….. first Cuba was once the riches country in the world….. those cubans that started the independence war on Spain were at their time the riches men in the world….. after independence Cuba recovery it richness and again became one of the world richest countries…… Cubans embassies in Italy, Spain, and other European countries had lists of tens thousands people seeking to relocate in Cuba, all this because Cuba was among world best countries to live, and get rich due the welfare policy and social law suit implemented by successive socialist governments in the country…….. your country and most east European countries including USSR never knew such things….. the experience in democracy and capitalism control we achieved was not in the dominion of Romania or Bulgaria or other ex-communist countries……. this experience is what made cuabns living around the world to be successful businessmen, professionals and politicians……… so you are trying to compare oranges with water melons….. you don’t know nothing about our country and our people to come and give us recommendations you self could not or fight not to avoid in your own country…… but your biggest problem is you want not to see what we see and the reason we want to change and finish castrofascism for:
One of the first disgraces castro brought to Cuba was the capital escape….. and not only castro…… each time a political problem affects a Latin American country like Venezuela under Chavez “clownship” the capitals of this country leave temporary or permanently to a more quiet place….. to where leave the capitals??? Well, they use to leave to a rich and stable country…. in America this rich and stable country is USA. It was the first “present” of castro to USA: Both human and economical capitals left Cuba to USA after castro started his madness same in Venezuela. Then came the turn of the tourism industry…… castro needed to isolate the Cuban people in order to indoctrinate it and keep it away from “bad influences” of foreign people, so he closed the country for more than 20 years and killed the huge tourism industry Cubans had built. It was the second big present of castro to USA. The Cuban tourism industry went to engross the already huge tourism industry in Florida and Puerto Rico. Eventually Dominican Republic, Bahamas and Mexico also got a piece of the pie.
The third present was the commerce industry. Spaniards spent 5 centuries building the Singapore of America in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. When political differences started between castro and USA the huge commerce that went between North America and South America trough Cuba changed route. When castro drove Cuba to the orbit of the soviets and tied the country to the commerce with the communist countries, the huge commerce between Europe and central-south America that went through Cuba changed route too. Then Miami took the place of Havana and became what is today: the center of commerce between north and South America and Europe and America giving to the light the huge ports of Tampa, Miami and Everglades.
Who does not remember Che Guevara saying in a crazy speech: “Cuba’s economy is like a dwarf, with a big chest, big and strong shoulders but short legs and arms….. we need to transform this situation, we can afford no longer to have a big “light industry” fabricating consumption items and do not have an “adequate” “heavy industry” that is the ground of the industrialization…… we can no longer afford to depend of the Sugar industry, the agriculture and some cultivations ……..”
Who the hell said to Guevara he was economy master!!!!!!!
Well, the result of all this madness was 3 or 4 presents more to USA. The huge cattle industry Cubans built working hard along s. XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX and the first half of s. XX is gone. Cuba was the third meat and milk producer in America behind giants like USA, Brazil and Argentina. Cuba even exported meat and milk to USA and other American countries. Cuba produced shoes of international rename and Cuban lather industry was the bigger in Latin-America. But castro believed in his megalomaniac mind he was smart enough to build a better cattle industry …….. he started to import cattle from India and Holland, cattle experts from Europe and tried to build a new race of cattle he dreamed would be the best in the world……. this imbecile destroyed what our people created in centuries to fulfill his ego demands. The result was the vanishing of Cuba’s cattle population and the creation of a new race of cattle that needed air-conditioning, and imported super expensive pastures to survive…….. of course, he never accepted his fault and blamed the imported technician for the disaster, putting them in jail and killing some of them to cover the truth…….. I still remember when we was child how teachers were compelled to teach us at school how our great leader would build a super cow that would give us all milk and meat we needed!!!!
Of course the hole in the market left by the destruction of our cattle industry was quickly filled by USA’s cattle producers.
The Citric industry was once ones of the crown jewels of Cuba’s industrialization process. Huge land extensions in several provinces of the country including Pines Island were involved in the production of citric fruits. Industries derivate of this production like beverages bottling, comfitures, traditional deserts, etc supplied the internal market and production of concentrates supplied both the internal and external market…….. These industries are gone…… of course all of them reborn in Florida where citric industry reached peaks of development never dreamed by their founders just because castro present……. citric derivate industries like beverages production and concentrates found a new beginning in Florida by the hand of same actors that drove them up in Cuba……. Cubans produces in Florida same types of beverages even keeping the old names……. long time favorites of Cuban people taste like Jupiña, Materva, Ironbeer, among other are now exclusive drinks of Cubans in exile……… the only remains of this before huge industry in Cuba are some acres still producing citric in Camaguey and Pine Island, this production is entire bought by the “enemy zionist state of Israel”.
The once mighty Cuban Media Industry is gone. There was a time where every single artist in Latin-America that hoped to jump to the fame had to come to Cuba to be recorded in celluloid or paste…… even European artists that hoped to be heard or seen by Latin-America or Spanish speaking people in USA had to pay a visit to the record studies or radio-TV studios in Cuba. The second country in the world to develop TV was Cuba and we helped the rest of Latin-America to build TV. The inventors of radio-telesoaps, the creators of rhythms and dance styles like Mambo, Cha cha cha, Salsa, etc were long ahead the rest of the non anglo world creating the second bigger media industry in America…… 160 radio stations, 23 TV stations, 14 publishers of international importance, 18 national newspapers and thousands of regional and local newspapers and magazines made Cuba de center of the Latin-American and south USA media.
Of course, for castrofascism this impressive source of art, freedom and richness was a pain in the butt, that’s why this industry was simply killed like a opponent in the fire squad. By 1961 the core of this industry was liquidated and the actors killed, in jail or in exile…… in exile, in Miami, were it was rebuilt and today serve as culture, richness and freedom creator by the hand of Cubans like Emilio and Gloria Stephan.
The Sugar Industry, once the bigger in the world, for centuries the sugar provider of the world is today a bunch of rusted metal scrap assaulted by vegetation like those Science Chanel’s programs that related how will be the Earth after human been pass away. From the bigger sugar producer of the world castrofascism transformed Cuba into a country that depends of USA to supply Cubans needs of sugar. Of course, Cubans traditional sugar producer that escaped castrofascism like Sanjul or Lobo families created huge sugar industries in Florida, Alabama, Central America, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, another spectacular present from castrofascism to USA.
The alcohol industry depending of sugar Industry, the new Ethanol industry born after castrofascism killed Cuban Sugar Industry and so attacked by castro because (of course) Cuba is no longer a producer of importance because castro impoverishing policy!!!!! Bacardi is not today a local rum fabricator in a hot town south of Cuba but of a gigantic American multinational that fabricate since a pen to rockets parts thanks to castrofascism killing of industries in Cuba. All other bigger industries related to sugar industry like Paper Industry, Animal Food Industry (Cuba was the main exporter in and to Latin-America of this important product), Syrup Industry (this one gave life to others Human Food Industries), Artificial Wood Industry (which also generated others Wood Millwork Industries), Alcohol Industry (that generated the Rum-Industrial Alcohol- Industries), and a lot of medium-small industries depending of Sugar industry found their death in castrofascism hands and were resuscitated by Cuban capitalists in capitalism emporium: USA.
The classic Tobacco Industry is on its way of disappearing off Cuba and relocate in Miami. Emigrated Cuban growers smuggled Cuban tobacco seeds and started to grow up the plants in fields with similar chemical composition that Cuban soil in Honduras, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic. In few years these growers got to produce a tobacco ranked among the first in the world. Already those producers are taking niches of market to the inefficient and state controlled Tobacco Industry in Cuba. Very soon they will give the final blow to this last of Cuba’s big industries still “working”. Calle 8 in Miami is full of Offices and Showrooms of the different Tobacco producers of Miami.
What’s next???….. Who knows?
Conclusions……. To those castrofascist apologizers that still pretends to lure people to believe there is an confrontation going on between castrofascism and USA and USA has intentions of destabilize castrofascism I ask the following question:
Why USA would wants to change so beneficial state of things????
I am sure that as long USA continues to get so precious presents “the country of the free” will not allow anything bad to happen to its preferred “enemy”.
Castro, chavez and all others castrofascim bad imitation of Erodes strategy are no anti-imperialist fighters. Facts, history, and statistics show exactly what this new fascism brings on our countries……. Poverty, dependence of USA and Imperialism easy domination over our hemisphere…
You’re right Un Sori, regime change isn’t democracy. Unlike you, I was never an anti-communist (really) and have no illusions about the world.
But democracy can’t exist in a one party police state with no freedom of speech.
Was apartheid good just because South Africans didn’t get what they hoped for afterwards?
Was slavery good because black Americans had to continue struggling?
There are degrees of evil, and slavery is a worse evil than our corrupt capitalist system. Though it’s not nearly as corrupt as the state monopoly capitalist Cuban system, also known as “socialism” or “serfdom” or “slavery”.
It’s no accident the former Communists became the most corrupt capitalists, now their corruption is in the open for all to see. A thug is a thug.
I feel very privileged to live in a time and place where I can criticize my government and change our system, which I’ve done simply by supporting honest business and honest politics. The struggle is far from over and will continue for generations.
I can’t support honest government in the USA and tyranny for Cuba, that would be wrong. And there simply is no way to make the Castro regime honest, it has to go.
Along with all the other fascist tyrannies in the world. Or else it is the end of us all.
Catholic Cuba can not mix with orthodox communist men of South America…and protestant socialists women of North America…because Catholic is universal,but orthodox,protestant are two extreme side…of left-right,communist-nazis(socialists) or mem-women extreme. Cuba is in the center of both Americas mix of both…but why was left out? Isnt now united in the north hemisphere the 3 branches as one of the christianity and the socialist-nazi-communists of Europe? Nothing make sense anymore…but both two europes and now two americas have become a mix union of the two colors; red and pink…purple as the Vatican elite fashion is…
#160 Freud, I am not sure my honesty would earn me any favours but since you’ve asked, my answer is this in simple terms:
I understand most of the things you guys talk about ‘castrofascism’ because I have seen them done. Not only that but at some point in my life I was very much feeling and experiencing them too and I remember how ‘desperate’ I was for any change or to break away from that society.
I have been through that revolution and the ‘cathartic feeling’ when we started shouting against the regime and heard my voice for the first time breaking the fear barrier, then when we burnt Ceausescu’s books and runsacked the Central Committee building – all was unique and cannot be put in words.
Well what followed after that revolution was not ‘that we lived happy forever after’ but stangely enough we got pushed out of the country and even stranger no European country actually wanted us and didn’t see us as ‘equal Europeans’…
It is not just I but many who fled out of disappointment and police pressure when we realized the revolution we hoped for had been aborted and most of the people were OK-ish with that – in the countryside they didn’t even bother… Maybe this is the natural fallout of every revolution… maybe not! Now 20 something years later the revolution is still ‘unfinished’..in January the youth was calling to revolt against the present president who by any Western standards is not so bad but he is just corrupt and one of the people who got very rich, very quickly by selling state industry and no one believes he didn’t work for the secret police under Ceausescu as he claims .. long long story anyway…pointless story… the moral is this is what ‘democratic vote’ and democratic politics did and does in all former communist countries – these guys are the product of democracy and they are corrupt, incompetent and now greedy and big friends with the USA!! As you may know MrO would install his anti-missile shield there… probably payback the Russians for the Cuban crisis, though as we all know that may come back to bite him back and when it does we are going down first!!
So in the light of my past and more recent experiences I have to take a deeper breath and look at actually what ‘democratic revolutions’ have accomplished in the past 20 something yrs and how. Tunisia and Egypt are very recent good examples.. do you see them getting what they really wanted??? Have those revolutions walked just one step further than regime change or much further???? Regime change is not ‘democracy’ in my opinion just because Fox News says it is.
You seem to propose the ‘same pattern’ and ‘revolutionary balooney’ for a new Cuban revolution and the result in my opinion as expressed here would be as ‘disappointing’ or serving just a few… This is my main argument.
Moreover, I like many who hated ‘communism’ and called it ‘fascism’ at some point I came to understand that was just revolutionary balooney…We wanted change full stop, we had enough of 1-father-figure-all-mightly guy, full stop. Maybe you should say that and not that you hate ‘castrofascism’ or that you want ‘free vote’. Communism is communism and fascism is fascism and on top of that, as much as there were oppressed people in communism/fascism as much there are oppressed people in the West as well here today and in the East they still exist. So I am trying to ‘apprehend’ and comprehend bigger truths to move forward. I am really happy for you guys if your adopted society, makes you fulfilled. For me the UK/EU and the West is a sweet and sour fruit – and the crisis and how it came about proves that to me beyond doubt. They had accused ‘the migrants’ for breaking the economy.. when it was actually the top echelon called ‘the bankers’ robbing everyone ‘like in communism’ and you didn’t even need a degree to spot that coming. Surprise surprise they got away with it ScottFree cos they are too big to fail which is similar to me to saying Big Brother is always right(not the TV show).
In communism we had yeah just the boring speeches and the bad tv to contend with, that Y talks about. I remember at one time I didn’t have an orange for 2 year because oranges were imports and Ceau wanted to pay all our national debt. But what we had was a strong sense thing should change and the change was right and in our right! Well what change can we have here in the West, Freud?? Where is change in our right – you tell me??? Where do we actually exercise change when the system fails the little guy here too??
So Freud, why is it that you refuse to see too that Cuba after 56? years of one guy is not only in very bad shape.. but in a very very complex situation and things can get much worse before they would get slightly better… and what would that ‘better’ be?? Mireila Castro parlamentarian or big successfull TV station boss featured in Fortune mag or the Economist?? Well I know how that feels and it could happen very easy! My questions being…what have you learnt from other revolutions recent or not so recent?? Have you learnt the just ‘freedom to vote’ is not enough in terms that it changes too little, after 40 or 60 years of dictatorship in such societies as you and I come from??
Cold War game,play and show in the north is replaced with cold war show in the south,but now is not russia buy china,feed.grow,and called a threat…but is it a game to occupy the world with this new trick the same as the old one? Is the same director who lead the players,playing as opposite? Maybe Cuba is not in it as did in first cold war…playing great role,bringing the communism in Americas now both red…
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/NorthAmerica/US-doesn-t-want-to-halt-China-s-rise-says-Clinton/Article1-839215.aspx
in #167 american businessmen wrote, “Nothing make sense.”
You got that right.
Why Cuba is not in the meeting of the communists of all communist countries of Americas?
Even the socialist countries USA and Canada and Venezuela are there as followers or branches of the Cuba’s seed of communism tree in the west? Why not their mama Cuba?
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-12/obama-faces-latin-anger-on-u-dot-s-dot-cuba-drug-policies-at-summit
Is this bad treatment of Cuba because she is now religious and meet with pope?
Are the other countries antichristian,antipope or what? Nothing make sense…because all the countries of the Americas are leftist,communist and socialist now so why Catholic Cuba is left out? It is because of its religion?
Help,
Raul & Fidel must be wondering, “Hell, if a pair of old thugs like us can be on the UN Human Rights Committee, why can’t we join a club for democracies?”
Griffin, the new generation of caudillos have learned anti-American talk, so it’s all good.
If Pinochet called himself a communist instead of conservative, his regime would still be in power and all the Marxists would be screaming “hands off Pinochet” and teach classes about Pinochet’s genuine “one-party democracy”
All he had to do was switch colors a few years into his reign, and all the leftists would be wearing Pinochet t-shirts and calling the military coup a “people’s revolution”.
Let’s face it, Castro was at the right place at the right time, and no dictator in the world ever got better press.
I think Raul should attend the summit after the KKK is invited to speak at the next NAACP meeting.
If Cuba wants to attend the Summets of the Americas, all they have to do is hold free & fair elections and respect the democratic rights of the Cuban people including freedom of the press. Castro refuses to allow democratic elections, saying that would undo the Revolution. So by Castro’s own definition, his dictatorship is incompatible with democracy and freedom.
The Havana Club rum sold in the US is made in Puerto Rico by Bacardi. This product is unrelated to the Cuban made rum called Havana Club. Havana Club is a brand of rum, made in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba. The brand was established by José Arechabala in 1878. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the distillery and company was nationalized by the Cuban government; subsequently, the Arechabala family left for Spain, then emigrated to the United States. Since 1994 it has been produced by Havana Club International, a 50:50 joint venture between Pernod Ricard and the Cuban government. When Castro sold Havana Club to Pernod Ricard the money went straight into his personal bank account and not to the Cuban government.
Havana Club rum is available in the United States.
Dont fight to much guys because the reality…is not as you were programed to see it; right and left,capitalism,socialism,fascism,communism…but globalism and big reduction of the population. So now make sense everything that happened and it is happening and looks evil…because the plan is not good at all but this;
http://greatchange.org/ov-simmons%2Cclub_of_rome_revisted.html
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
and
http://live.simgua.com/World
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
That is the reason of many weapon production and business.They can be used to kill and mostly to starve people soon in long wars…and also the money is not spent for the people’s life growth,but for the opposite… It is a emergency call for the year 2012 that…there may be starting a total martial law (possible) in these countries which cant not last any longer for their critical situation in economy;
CUBA,USA,CANADA,ENGLAND,South of EU,EAST EUROPE,MIDDLE EAST…I hope are just talks
Keep in mind to watch closer and to notice what is prepared.
DEMOCRACY HAS ITS DEFINITION! AND THE CASTROFASCISTS DONT COMPLY, PLAIN & SIMPLE! “LA CHINA” CAN GET DRESSED IN HER FINEST BUT IT WONT HIDE WHO SHE & HER BROTHER “THE MUMMY” TRULY ARE! A FASCIST OLIGARCHY!!
“If the presidents at the Cartagena summit decide to change the rules and do away with the democratic clause, they will be setting a dangerous precedent for the collective acceptance of dictatorships throughout the region”
MIAMI HERALD: Cartagena summit should not reject “democratic clause” – By Andres Oppenheimer
When I asked Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos about the ongoing U.S.-Latin American spat over Cuba’s absence in the 33-country Summit of the Americas that he will host in Cartagena this weekend, he gave an answer that many civil rights advocates find troublesome.
Referring to Cuba’s absence because of a U.S.-backed rule stating that only democracies can attend inter-American summits — an issue that is likely to figure prominently during the weekend discussions — Santos suggested that Washington and Latin American countries should re-evaluate their definitions of concepts such as freedom of the press, elections and democracy.
Under a clause of the Summit of the Americas Declaration of Quebec on April 22, 2001, which was adopted by consensus and is being invoked by the Obama administration today to oppose Cuba’s attendance, participating countries agreed that respect for the rule of law and democracy are “an essential condition of our presence at this and future Summits.”
Now, Ecuador says it will boycott the Cartagena summit if Cuba is not invited. Several other Latin American countries have said they will attend but agree with Ecuador’s stand that Cuba should be there.
During a recent interview, I asked Santos which side is right. “It’s not only Ecuador that wants Cuba to be here,’’ he responded. “A majority of Latin American countries would want Cuba to be at the summit.” He added that the Cartagena summit should “discuss the way” in which Cuba could be present in the future.
Ok, but what about the summit’s democratic clause? And what about the U.S. argument that if Cuba is invited, the summit would not only violate its own rules but would set a dangerous precedent for the elimination of agreements for the collective defense of democracy in the region?
“All of that is subject to discussion,” Santos said. He added that Colombia defends and will continue defending democratic principles, but stated that “each country has its own way of perceiving and defining, for instance, freedom of the press.”
There should be a “discussion’’ about concepts such as freedom of the press, he said, because “there are no values or positions that are totally static, frozen. These things evolve.”
Most human rights and pro-democracy advocates disagree. Fundamental rights are universal values, which were enshrined in the United Nations Charter after World War II to prevent totalitarian regimes from doing whatever they want without violating international rules, they argue.
Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias says it would be wrong to open a discussion on Cuba’s interpretation of freedom of the press and democracy. Cuba “is a dictatorship that has left thousands of Cubans in cemeteries over the past 50 years for having dared to disagree with the government,’’ he says.
Added Arias: “There are things that remain valid over time, such as freedom and democracy. If Cuba wants to call what it has a democracy, that shouldn’t be acceptable. We must maintain the democratic clauses, and demand their compliance.”
Ricardo Trotti, an official with the Inter-American Press Association press freedom advocacy group, says that if countries leave the definition of fundamental freedoms up to each president’s interpretation, “we run the risk of legalizing the violations of the most fundamental human rights.’’
In diplomatic circles, many say that if Cuba were invited to the Cartagena summit, it would amount to a further erosion of the region’s agreements for the defense of democracy. Latin America has already largely turned a blind eye to rigged elections in Nicaragua and crackdowns on independent media in Venezuela and Ecuador, they say.
If the summit’s democratic clause is weakened to invite Cuba, “we would lower the standards even further,” says Peter Romero, a State Department head of Latin American affairs during the Clinton administration.
My opinion: Santos is right in trying to find a way to bring Cuba back into the inter-American diplomatic community. But the way to do it is inviting Cuba as an observer, and urging its military regime to accept some minimum standards of respect for civil, political and human rights in order to become a full member.
If the presidents at the Cartagena summit decide to change the rules and do away with the democratic clause, they will be setting a dangerous precedent for the collective acceptance of dictatorships throughout the region.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/25/2743249/cartagena-summit-should-not-reject.html
152Un Soricel
Abril 11th, 2012 at 16:51
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What I don’t understand is ….. if you know all reasons why those romanians escaped communism (which are the same cubans escapes castrofascism) and you know very well all crimes commies used to commint on people in Romania and other coomunist countries in Europe, why then are you so concerned on people fighting castrofascism and denouncing its crimes??????…… you get paid for your work or it is some kind traditional european racism that give you the idea that white castrofascist elite has the right to kill, repress and exploit the majority of black population in Cuba?????……… can you explain to us…….
On the road in Cuba, tales of woe and yearning
Ostensibly, I was in Cuba to cover Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. But over the week and across the length of the Ohio-sized country, I gave more than five dozen Cubans a “botella” — in Cuban slang, a ride.
My riders gave an unvarnished view of the country. They were farmers, housewives and doctors. They were school kids, half a baseball team, an economist and even a judge, who proclaimed herself to be a huge fan of Jack Bauer in the American TV thriller series “24.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/10/144721/in-cuba-hitchhikers-bemoan-a-host.html?#storylink=cpy
Help,
What you said… Rats jumping a sinking ship.
Un Sor,
Your arguments against capitalism are irrelevant. The economic crisis in Cuba is orders of magnitude worse than Greece or any other country in the capitalist world. It doesnt matter what you think about capitalosm or the bad old USA . The deal is this: The collapse is coming and no slogans from Castro, and no griping from you, can prevent it. What happens next is up to the Cuban people.
Every sector of the Cuban economy is falling, including tourism. They have to import more & more food just to feed the people. Their subsidized oil supply is about to dissapear. Their trade seficit is soaring. Nobody will lend them any money as their credit rating is sh!t Unemployment is at 25%. The duel currency system is distorting the fragile economy. Crime & corruption is rising. The population is shrinking, aging and the young & talented are leaving in droves. Castroism is kaput.
What Freedom Rings says is true, it is the Communist ruling class who have been most successful in getting their families out of Cuba.
Practically every Communist I’ve known in Cuba has either got or is trying to get all their children out. It is the biggest perk of being a communist.
Communists would rather their children live among the “enemy” and the “empire”, than under Castro and socialism.
It would make a great comedy if it wasn’t true.
Un Sori, maybe you didn’t pick it up the first 1000 times, but I’m not selling capitalism, just freedom, equality, honesty and democracy. Actually, I’m not selling those either, just supporting some Cuban friends.
Capitalism and socialism can be defined any old way, so debating these words is useless.
Both Norway and Haiti are “capitalist”, and Cubans would rather have the economy of Norway. Or closer to home, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, or Mexico. Honest, open government will avoid the Haiti scenario, but it’s up to Cubans to make that happen.
On the other hand, “socialism” has been a disaster from Lenin through to Pol Pot and Castro. But if Cubans want to give it another try, they have my full support.
Personally, I think capitalism encourages real democracy, but maybe I’m wrong and I’ve never pushed my opinions on anybody. In fact, it’s the Cuban people who push their hatred of socialism and Castro on me.
So let’s keep our hands off Cuba and let Cubans decide.