The Enemies of the Revolution
Elio Delgado Legon
HAVANA TIMES — Assuming openly counter-revolutionary stances or disguising themselves as left-wingers who claim to want to save the revolution, some people criticize everything in Cuba.
They criticize the country’s health system, which is held up as an example for the rest of the world and has been praised by the highest health authorities in the UN. They criticize the massive rallies held on May Day, admired by all foreigners who witness and take part in them, because the workers do not demonstrate holding banners demanding social and labor reforms, as is the case nearly everywhere else in the world.
Quite simply, Cuban workers, even the increasingly fewer workers who have low salaries, put forth their complaints and express their needs at the appropriate places, because they know their opinions are taken into account and that, as the country’s economy begins to recover, worker salaries and pensions will gradually rise, because the revolutionary government is just as interested in seeing wages fulfil the needs of worker and their families as the workers themselves.
These critics refer to the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the Party and Revolution derisively, when these 313 guidelines were analyzed and discussed by the entire population and the thousands of suggestions made were collected, before the document was approved at the 6th Party Congress. This Congress, whether our enemies like it or not, represented the entire working people, save, of course, for that small group of people who disagree with everything and only support those measures dictated from the north.
The guidelines, however, have been praised more than once by personalities who sympathize with Cuba and visit us, as a very comprehensive plan that will push the country’s economy forward, despite the international economic crisis that is affecting all countries and the economic, commercial and financial blockade that Cuba has suffered for more than 50 years, a blockade the enemies of the revolution never mention.
To go against the revolution, they support anarchist positions. Yes, anarchist positions, in the 21st century. Positions that call for the abolition of the State and all power and the free association of individuals, that is to say, anarchy.
Another issue criticized by these individuals is our electoral system, which they call anti-democratic. What they propose is nothing other than a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, tailored to their wishes.
However, they forget that the constitution which governs the country was also analyzed and discussed with the population, as is the case with all important documents and laws, and that thousands of proposals were collected and incorporated into the document, which was later subjected to a direct and secret vote – a veritable referendum which revealed people’s support for the revolution, for the constitution was approved by more than 97 percent of voters and there is no reason to do away with it.
They also want to change the electoral law to go back to a multi-party system, as though that were the guarantee of democracy. The multi-party system and its politicking are well known by our people, at least those of us who suffered that stage of our history. What a multi-party system guarantees, rather, is the opportunism of those who want to control the State’s and people’s resources and have no interest in the wellbeing of society. It would be tantamount to returning to the past, which is what the ultra-Right up north and all of the enemies of the revolution want. That is why they criticize everything, to confuse the youngest with their siren-songs.
Classic Gomezz observation. Crude as usual, but undoubtedly based on his study of such matters.
Au contraire, mon frère,
As a democrat I feel that everyone has an absolute democratic right to their own stupid opinions.
What they do not have is a right to manufacture their own facts .
My ongoing mission in life is to both validate and/or invalidate my thinking on various matters of deep interest
to me .
I invite you to demonstrate with solid proof i.e. fact where you are correct and where I am incorrect because that is my modus operandi .
There is nothing I love more than being shown where I am wrong and I mean this sincerely .
If you could consistently prove me wrong, then I’d be the idiot wouldn’t I ?
Likewise, I will stay on point and chew on subject matter I enjoy discussing… endlessly and/or until resolution of the point of contention.
If I post a fact and it is rejected out of hand, without fact-checking by my debate opponent and it is something I am dead sure about I feel entitled, at that point, to regard the opponent as an unthinking clod afraid to test his/her own beliefs.
I fully understand that fear because I see a lot of it in what Rush Limbaugh calls the “low information” U.S. public who cannot back up their beliefs with anything factually solid.
When confronted with info that would undeniably show them to be incorrect, they turn a blind eye towards that info and retreat ever deeper into the thinking they have come to be comfortable with.
This has been borne out by several large studies .
Look , I’m a crabby old man ….so deal with the facts I present rather than the distracting manner in which they are presented .
I’m just looking for information .
John, I give an opinion but in the long run, the Cuban people must decide which direction to go. I no longer am a revolutionary and in fact believe that systems, as in political entities and economies, need to change continuously.
My faith is not my generation, 50-70 year olds but the 14-26 years olds in all countries. What changed my mind was Ireland’s pro gay marriage vote. As an Irish citizen, raised 100% Irish, this was revolutionary. The peace treaty with the North and South of Ireland was also mind boggling. I’m not too far from your thinking but miles apart as well.
I’m confused. Is this article a sarcasm? Elio, do you really believe our opinions are taken into account? Just a few examples: Labour code. Although it was wildly discussed at work places, none of the aspects raised by the people were taken into account when approving the new one i.e. to reduce week hours to 40, to formally encourage all employers to compensate employees for the over time; to have equal opportunities for the gay community, to reduce the mandatory retirement age. Constitution: unless it is approved by secret and direct vote it doesn’t count, I was one of the more than 8 million people who signed at the CDR for the amendment and I’m fully against it. The union, do you really believe the CTC represents and stand for our workers needs. Name one Cuban who believes electricity rates are affordable. Name one Cuban who believe telecommunication rates, rents, vehicles… are affordable for a common worker…POR FAVOR!
Why do you feel the need to insult anybody who disagrees with you? People are not idiots simply because they have different opinions than yours.
Do you see the irony of claiming to be an anarchist & a democrat while holding such a narrow point of view which rejects all others as idiocy?
Kropotkin invented his theories about how primitive societies were formed. He was no anthropologist had based his notions on his political prejudices, and not on any actual data.
In 2014, about 25,000 Cubans arrived in the US after leaving Cuba illegally, whether on a raft across the Florida straits, or walking across the Mexican border or like the baseball players who defected while playing an exhibition game in the US. On top of that figure, the US Interest Section in Havana hand out 20,000 visas for Cubans to emigrate to the US legally. Add to that figure the thousands of Cubans who leave for Europe, Canada or elsewhere in Latin America. That represents a huge demographic hemorrhage. You can toss accusations about as to what is to blame for this massive population flow, but you cannot ignore the fact that the Cuban government has failed to offer the Cuban people hope and trust in their future in Cuba. Over 40,000 young, bright, hardworking Cubans are leaving the island every year, hoping for a better life than they can find in Cuba.
Unless and until the Cuban government can offer the people hope, the Cuban nation is doomed. They cannot survive a demographic collapse like this.
By the way, Canadians are free to move to the US or anywhere else in the world. We don’t have to ask the Canadian government for permission to travel abroad.
Compadre, this is really not a “luxury”, it’s being clean, “pulcro”, a can or container of water is not difficult to find, I always have a plastic jar, about a liter (>quart) in my small travel case; then I only use the soap on my hands, carefully counting “Fidel Castro uno, Fidel Castro dos”…, and so on until I get to 25 and then I rinse (it takes19 seconds for the soap to dissolve the cell wall on any bacteria, I count to 25 to make damn sure and to get rid of any odor). Soap is no longer a luxury in Cuba, you are talking Periodo Especial time.
By the By, I keep a separate soap for the bath/shower and another for the bathroom sink, the “sanitary”soap I keep inside the diamond encrusted, plastic jar that sits innocuously invisible on the bathtub rim against the wall. However, be certain that bacteria cannot live on soap unless it’s totally dry.
Because not everybody likes hot condiments, I make each one of my 5 products in a Not-Spicy version, a Medium with just enough piquancy to satisfy northern tastes and a Hot that will register fully but not overwhelmingly. Two of them also come in Exxxtra Hot, the tomato (“Pancho’s Revenge”, with a photo-extracted image of Pancho Villa) and the salsa verde (“Dead Gringo Salsa”, with my original image of a red sun & saguaro cactus behind an old tombstone bearing the Name, a bullet holed, cowboy hat perched on a corner and two worn-out cowboy boots laying askew on the grave).
I use no sugar, oil or anything that contains gluten, nuts or animal-source products (vegan). My vinegars are natural and fruit based (grape, pineapple or apple), never white or pickling. I use natural-source Ascorbic Acid (Vit. C) to acidify and preserve naturally, and only fresh-squeezed lemon and lime juice, fresh vegetables and fruit plus concentrated, sugar-free mango and guava juice plus spices.
We make a thick, mango sauce ideal for glazing fish, chicken or lamb(Tropical Mango); an unctuous guava and tomato BBQ sauce for beef, pork, sausages, smoked meats and root veggies (Cuban BBQ Sauce), and a sharp, pineapple/mandarin jerk-sauce for chicken, shrimp, crab-cakes, tuna and ham (Hawaiian Sun). All 3 of these also go on cheeses and many veggies. The mango and guava have no salt so you may use it to marinate.
The tomato (Mexicali Red) and tomatillo (Salsa Verde) salsas in all 3 levels of heat are truly Mexican culinary sauces, not that cooked “pico de gallo” crap “they” try to pass as “salsa” in gringoland. Both are made complex by the use of traditional, non-piquant spices besides the chilies and are recommended for meats, veggies, soups, pastas, sea-foods, Mexican dishes and dips.
We make it by hand with the aid of two, 12-quart, kitchen food-processors in batches of 200-250 liters every week and it takes 38 to 45 total man-hours over two days to make it, cook it, can it, label it and put it away depending on the volume. I charge $8.00 per jar of 250 ml or just bigger than a cup and I sell it all pretty quickly but don’t want to make any more, really. There is no excess like success and it quickly goes to your head.
Does that answer your question?
Those same authors you refer to also hedge their bets as to when true AI will appear. Also, do not confuse processing capabilities with true AI. They ate not the same thing. There has also been a late call, by some brilliant minds, about the inherent dangers of AI. All of which leads me to believe that I am correct in my time frames. Of course, I hope I’m wrong.
Amen, brother!
Any and all of the so-called communist countries were in fact, state capitalist.
They were never worker-run in a bottom up majority rule fashion as is demanded by communism and so can only be termed communist by the unlettered or those wishing to either to deliberately confuse the public as to what communism is and isn’t or actually to defame communism for obvious reasons .
As Noam Chomsky pointed out, it served the purposes of both the capitalists and the totalitarian state capitalists who ran the Soviet economy to call that system “communist” .
It caused the Soviet citizenry to hope for a truly democratic communist future Soviet Union and remain quiescent under Leninism and Stalinism : the antitheses of democracy while serving as a noxious totalitarian boogeyman with which to scare the US electorate into wanting an imperial army to protect it .
IT is deeply wished that once freed from decades of U.S hostility, Cuba will evolve to that promised democracy.
We shall see.
SFB,
And the Democratic Party calls itself Democratic too , doesn’t it and it has no interest in introducing democracy into US government .
The Labor Party has little to do with Labor but that’s ITS name.
The Republicans do not practice representative democracy but they call themselves republican.
If it doesn’t act like a duck or walk like a duck or quack like a duck, it isn’t a duck no matter who calls it a duck.
I fully understand that you and a great many others have no clue as to what constitutes communism, democracy, totalitarianism and a whole host of economic and governmental forms you tend to conflate and the difference between them but that does not compel me to sink down to your base level of knowledge when discussing these things.
You can define a duck as a donkey if you want to appear unlettered but don’t even think of criticizing me for attempting to elevate the level of discourse .
Go read a book
Do you understand the idiocy of your argument now ?
Just so you know:
Back around 55 years ago, the GOUSA instituted the embargo against Cuba for defying imperialism.
The stated purpose of the embargo as devised by then Under Secretary of State Lester Mallory was to impoverish the entire population of the island such that their lives would be so miserable that they would blame their government and overthrow what might become a socialist revolution.
This overthrowing of systems unfriendly to capitalism/exploitation has been US policy since the 1918 invasion of the ne Soviet Union.
So ..while it is very convenient for counter-revolutionaries like you to forget why Cuba is so poor , it is an extreme form of hypocrisy that while natural for you is quite obvious and offensive to the Cubans.
If the embargo were NOT effective, they would have dropped it .
It did impoverish the entire island but what it did not do is cause the people of Cuba to blame THEIR government.
The embargo stays in place because it IS effective and because the die-hards like you hold out hope for a counter-revolution that will never come as long as Cuba remains under attack by the GOUSA.
Meggie,
The past will not be prologue.
Capitalism will totally fall within 20 years .
Pyotr Kropotkin’s ” Mutual Aid; A Factor Of Evolution” shows that primitive hunter gatherer societies , indeed all of humanity helped one another in time of need all through our early existence on the planet and that “mutual aid” thinking only became suppressed with the rise of capitalism and the state.
The U.S. government always has used force when it felt like it to makes its arguments in both foreign and domestic affairs. That’s nothing new .
If you think that the GOUSA is a force for good in the world that makes an occasional horrific mistake , you have it exactly backwards.
U.S. imperialism dictates killing and impoverishing of a huge segment of the world’s population with the occasional well publicized act of charity.
have always voted.
I have never voted for anyone who won.
You might wish to remember this famous quote ( Rosa Luxembourg) ” If voting could change anything, they would outlaw it “. or was it Emma Goldman ?
You’re naïve if you believe that capitalism or imperialism can be reformed..
Again, in the USA you can protest-up to a point where you might be effective – and then you are swatted down.
You can have all the guns, bazookas, drones and tanks you , as an individual may want because the government of the USA has you vastly outgunned .
I would recommend that you read the articles at ZNet daily and get a factual idea of what the U.S. government is and is not.
I.C.
Thank you for that response.
In fact, the time frame difference of which you spoke is the most common thing in the difference in the thinking of those who have the technical knowledge in AI, robotics, computer science and most importantly Moore’s Law and its implications and those who have just an everyday knowledge of such things and how they interact.
Here is a story that will help you and many to understand the power of doubling which is the exponential way AI and computers WILL progress to the point less than eight years hence when we have a computer that can equal the computing power of a human brain: 1000 quadrillion floating operations per second [1000 petaflops}
The story: The poor man who invented chess was brought to the king of the land and was offered anything he wanted as a reward.
The simple man said , I just want to be sure that my family will have enough to eat so instead of bags of gold, I’d like rice.
I ‘d like one grain of rice placed on the first block of the chessboard, Two grains on the next, four on the next , eight on the next (doubling every square ) .
The king gave it little thought and granted his wish .
The problem for the king:
By the time the rice had been doubled from a single grain all through the many squares if the chessboard , the rice total became more than all the farmers in the world could grow. Do the math on your computer and you’ll note that as time passes , the doubling takes on massive size and at present we are -thanks almost entirely to computer aided technologies at the bend of the elbow of the graph line that represents technological advance that is about to go nearly vertical upwards.
The cognoscenti in tech and AI say that we are now entering the second half of the chessboard that involves the doubling of computer speeds and associated technologies and the exponential curve is about to curve ever rapidly to a near vertical climb in maybe 30 years at most.
It is this failure of -I would say- MOST people in the world to grasp the (true) exponential nature, the fantastic rapidity of the advances in technology , that has all of the authors of the four books I’ve read on the technological and very near future beginning each of their books going over and over what exponential progress is and why it is difficult for most people to grasp since humans , by nature, tend to think in a universally linear fashion .
Look, this gets too deep for this forum but if you’re interested I just finished two books: “The Second Machine Age” and “Rise Of The Robots” . “Rise…” is the most recent publication and deals with what automation and smart-as-human robots/androids will do to the world economy. I highly recommend it .
I.C.
You might well have cut your post to the first five words and have been totally accurate for a change
But..NOOOOOOO.!
Again, an excellent and FACTUAL response to bullshit emanating from the imperialists.
I.C.’s response below opens with an ad hominem attack, follows with no denials of the facts in your response(s) and ends with a self-serving , misleading statement on opportunity in Cuba.
Your argument is so sound he has no effective response and so, like his fellow imperialists just makes the same hypocritical misstatements that make up all their arguments.
Good job my fellow ” misanthropic little commie friend ”
or companero, as we would say it.
Well put. Monseigneur
Thank you.
Well said Sister Anne. Those doubting Thomas’ should act the part of the biblical Thomas who placed his hands in the side of the Master to ensure that He was truly crucified. Meggie, Moses and Carlyle should Journey to Cuba to see for themselves and then return to the readers of Havana Times to apologize for the many lies they have been programmed to feed to the unsuspecting readers.
Actually I was at the DC March with my, at the time, 8 year old daughter. They stormed the Air & Space musum (it being a dangerous fascist symbol) and trampled my family and I on their way in, ruining our tour by the way. They were a very interesting assortment of motely characters. I still have the pictures of the fracaso on my phone, too bad we can’t share them anymore on this site. Anyways, after the security drove them out of the building, they camped outside for several days. In NY city they set up camp for one entire year, with toilet and kitchen facilities!!!! In the instances where car and pedestrian traffic was impeded they we’re indeed moved, and forcefully when necessary.
You’ll never see that in Cuba!
Dude, I’m not saying that I disagree with advantages of washing after doing your business, I’m just saying that in most situations, whether visiting friends, on the road, or out on the town, you’re not douching. That’s a luxury for the home. And in Cuba, where a bar of soap is a precious thing, i can guarantee you they’re not using it in that manner.
By the way remind me never use the soap in your home …..its suspect.
By the way, i happen to be a connoisseur of hot sauces, tell me about your sauces again. I like it hot but with flavor. I’m not looking to kill my taste buds with an overdose of capsaicins for no good reason…..it has to have flavor.
Meggie, Have you ever been to any of the May Day parades? I have been to the one of 2015 where over 80 countries were represented; all the workers seemed happy as they passed the podium where Raul and Maduro of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela stood in the rain and, as the people passed, they shouted, Raul, Raul, Fidel, Fidel.Maduro, Maduro. What a spectacle that was?. Are these the people you claim are forced to march? Can you force over 3 million people to march on their own? And this was only in Havana alone! What happened to those persons who went to the Wall Street Park to demonstrate against those robbers? Were they hugged and squeezed lovingly or were they hounded, hunted and beaten with batons by the police? How dare the workers demonstrate against the oligarchs in the so- called land of the free? Meggie, seeing is believing, so, go and see for yourself. Why do you want to criticize a government of which you are a part? A government which seeks out your opinion before they make any vital decisions? You have already made your input, so, why criticize your own input?
The point is,my misanthropic little commie friend, that Cubans are leaving Cuba in greater and greater numbers despite all the praise and accolades you lay on the Castro family throne. That’s because, even with the advances and changes taking place, Cuba is still a miserable place for Cubans. It’s why my wife’s nephew, even with all the advantages he had in Cuba with remittances he receives is looking to move…..opportunity. Something you don’t get in Cuba.
Who the hell are you? And where do you come up with this bullshit that the Canadians go to Cuba because it is cheap and there is a lot of prostitution. When were you in Cuba, and if you were, maybe you should find better places to hang out. I have been there twice this year and was never approached by a prostitute and the last time I checked hotel rates they weren’t cheap.
I actually agree with you, Griff. Communism is simply a word which was created to represent another “ism” philosophy invented by some well to do Europeans, mostly Germans, in the 19th Century in order to improve the lot of humankind. There were past and present examples of egalitarian societies, like the Inuit in Canada, but Marx, Engels, Hegel and their bunch chose to invent a theoretically based “science”, which is not.The Russians created its own version, the Chinese did likewise and it did a lot of good, and bad, as everything always does. It is the sum that counts.
Russian Communism brought the Soviet Union out of WW I, raised serfs out of land slavery, educated people, raised their living standards, industrialized the country and defeated Hitler. Then they helped China achieve liberation, saved Korea from USA domination, Cuba from the same, supported liberation movements around the world, helped to defeat the USA invasion of Viet Nam. Afterwards they supported the defeat of Colonialism and White Supremacy in Africa, built dams, railroads, highways, schools and universities and trained doctors and other professionals in the Third World; what ever else they did, gulags and kulacks and all was well worth it in the end.
There also has never been a real Democratic country. The Greeks who invented it gave the rights of citizenship and the vote to only males with property, ~10% of the population. Today every tin-pot tyrant call his system “democratic”, elections are so easy to throw. In the USA, it’s not the popular vote that elects a President, but the “Electoral College”…Why? Then there is Gerrymandering, Cemetery Votes, Political Machines, Watergates, and many other measures to usurp the will of the People. You don’t live in a Democracy in the USA, but in the Dictatorship of Wall Street; and Cuba is not Communist but it’s trying its best to be just and fair and egalitarian.
But these n39,000 are not rafters, as you claim, these are legal migrants, they don’t risk the waves or their lives, they move to where they already have relatives and where there is $, the USA, and they go by regularly scheduled commercial airline. That’s just fine, thousands of Canadians move to the USA to find work or more $ every year and nobody accuses Canada of forcing or persecuting, or chasing, or starving these migrants; These are the details you leave out to make it seem like Cuba is the hell on earth you would like it to be but it’s simply not. Cuba is poor, there are better opportunities to make $ in the USA, so nobody is holding them back unless they have a criminal record and then is the USA who turns them away at the visa office and forces them to raft in order to take advantage of the “dry foot” option, which is what is responsible for all the drownings and all the dangers of the crossing. So once again there is egg on your face, You talk rafters, I say very few, you say 39,000 a year, I say yeah but not rafters, these are legal migrants. The hundreds of thousands braving the Northern Mexican and Southern USA deserts, the Sahara Desert plus the Mediterranean or the Pacific and South China Sea are illegal and they risk a lot more than 90 miles of ocean…Who is full of BS? Drop the Dead Donkey!
But I don’t understand John. Cubans are fleeing a system (as Anne mentioned above) that provides free health care, free housing, freedom of speech (haha that’s a laugh) and peace to a system that is the opposite! Now why would they do that? …Oh you mean Anne was wrong? Then I agree with you.
John, I actually do agree with you that there can be a future where the poor are not with us. The reference to “Abundance..” is appropriate, and shows us where we can be in the future. Where we defer is in the time frame. I think you are wholly to optimistic. I look out to your future at the century plus mark…and after much upheavals. Your decades outlook is a bit to short given the state of technology at present, and the fact that technology will be adapted to fit into our current economic systems.
you are, as usual, totally and willfully ignorant Monseigneur! ….According to Cuba’s annual demographic reports, greater and greater numbers of Cubans are increasingly migrating permanently to the USA since the more than 47,000 that left the communist-ruled island in 1994 during “Rafter Crisis.”
Over the last five years, Cubans have been emigrating at an average annual rate of more than 39,000, higher than in any other five-year period since the earliest years of the revolution.
These figures, my ignorant commie friend, are not good news for a government facing a demographic crisis where fewer young people must support a growing elderly population.
Bam….drop the Mic!
It is you who is highly offensive with your half-baked BS about “hunter-gatherer societies” and such erroneous platitudes as “raising the standard…” Yep, “Freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose” and “Truth with all it’s far flung schemes in time decides what it should mean, is not the time but just the dreams that die…” Do you wanna some more BS? The USA police shot demonstrators at Ken State, at Watts, at Birmingham, at Fergustan, MO, at so many places I can’t count them; are you stupid or do you live under a rock? Why don’t you first do what you suggested John to do and then sit down and shut up!
The Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, North Korea, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Romania and all the other Communist Parties of the world, all call themselves Communist.
We know you define the word differently, but you really should accept the fact that there are other definitions of the word “communist” than yours.
It’s a shame you don’t realize any of this.
But we have already answered that many, many times: to make money, and they are just a few dozen a year, and many are common criminals, fugitives from the Cuban authorities. Now count the ones fleeing poverty, war and mistreatment from Central and South America, or trying to cross the Mediterranean or the South China Sea. She has plenty to hang her whole wardrobe on; the conditions that she is describing are still current in most of Latin America, Africa and Asia; take a trip sometime and check it out, I know you won’t cause you’ve never been anywhere except in your head, and you had the nerve to call me an “armchair Bolshevik”; when in reality is you who is another Miami Armchair Idiot.
Elio is against “the free association of individuals” I’m speachless.
You should get your head out of your ass and take a look at reality. Even hunter gatherer societies have inequality. Raising the standard of living does not mean that the poor go away; it means the definition of poverty changes. Furthermore, the US government used local policy against protesters in DC once in the 1930’s. The result was an outraged public and the GI Bill. You obviously don’t vote, but that doesn’t mean that the people don’t have a say or cannot protest.
Your final statement is inappropriate and offensive. Since you clearly are not educated enough to frame a real argument you resorted to bulling. Pathetic.
What bidet, IC? A can with water and a bar of soap was what we, and that is everybody (except the very rich who had bidets and the very poor who had no water), always did in Camagüey and other provinces, what you did/do in Havana is another story. I think wiping your butt is filthy and it leaves lots of “material” + odor behind (literally). I have always considered it another unnecessary product of a consumer society. The only reason you guys think this is a big problem shows your lack of imagination, your consumer mentality and your complete disconnection with Cuban sanitary heritage. I still wash (with a can), my adult children also wash (cans in hand) and my 4 grandchildren are being taught to wash. Water in Cuba is not very cold, nor in Miami, you should try it I C…Here it is cold, but I have hot running water as most Canadians. (Oh, sorry Carlyle, here I go boasting again!).
I do have a confession to make, I took 4 giant rolls of toilet paper to Cuba once, and each 2-ply sheet bore an image of Senator Jesse Helms and the caption “Helms Happens”. I heard one of them reached “El Caballo” himself!
A communist economy and/or society is one in which all decisions are made from the bottom up in one person/one vote majority rule systems.
Cuba’s Leninist ( top-down undemocratic ) systems are antithetical to communist belief .
SO Cuba is NOT communist
The Soviets were not communist.
The Chinese were and are not communist.
The Vietnamese , North Koreans, Eastern European nations were not communist.
Communism has never existed except in theory and in that theory it was intended to be a stateless democratic society which follows a democratic socialist takeover of capitalism . In other words , communism was always intended to be an evolved FUTURE state and as such could not possibly have existed.
What the USA and the Soviets et al chose to call communism suited the purposes of each side but it was never communism, never democratic.
They were all STATE CAPITALIST : run from the top down as in capitalism but with the profits produced by the workers being confiscated by government officials instead of private corporations as in free enterprise capitalism.
If the workers do not make all the important decisions in a DEMOCRATIC way in the society in question, it is not a communist society. PERIOD .
It’s a pity most Americans don’t know any of this .
The Pope is wrong.
The poor will NOT always be with us.
“Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think” is a book you need to read.
And yes, In the USA and Canada you are free to challenge your government much in the manner and effectiveness in which an ant can challenge an exterminator.
The respective governments in the USA and Canada have absolutely no fear of armed uprisings .
They have armies, navies, air forces drones, SEAL teams , National Guard, State and local police, RMCP and
drones .
What’ve you got in your arsenal ?
Sit down and shut up.
You asked a question that I will answer but in a manner which will make you wish you hadn’t been so obviously disingenuous.
.
Cuban’s “flee” to the United Snakes for the same reason most Latin Americans and citizens of the Caribbean nations do : to escape poverty.
Why do so many Cubans choose to “raft” in dangerous rickety craft ?
Some 54 years ago ,The United States imposed the embargo on the entire population of Cuba which was intended to impoverish the entire island and create the fall of the revolution .
It succeeded in impoverishing the entire island BUT failed to cause a counter-revolution.
At the same, the GOUSA passed the “wet foot-dry foot’ law along with very expensive and long legal ways to emigrate to the USA so that any Cuban who chose to risk their lives was granted automatic entrance to the USA .
Were that same law to apply to all nations of the Caribbean and Latin America, you would be able to walk to Florida across the decks of all the boats that would cover the sea .
You damned well know all this and yet you ask that same stupid question that one might hear on Fox or at the U.S. State Department .
I responded just to let you know that .
oy
I’m sure you enjoy the nice warm water flowing out of your bidet. How wonderful. Tell me again how many people have a bidet in Cuba?
….what a pitiful answer to N. J. Marti’comment about a very real problem.
Yes, yes, keep reaching back 55+ years, more than half a century, to justify the Castro repression. You have nothing to hang your hat in so you need to bring out the long dead corps of Batista and the mafia as a justification for Castro’s failed policies. When I read that drivel you wrote about Cubans having housing, health care and education, it makes me want to puke! When was the last time you were in Cuba I wonder?
With all those cool things available in Cuba its a wonder anyone wants to leave. So why do Cubans still risk their lives yo flee? Can you answer me that?
Compulsory parades ? Really. I guess all those dozens and dozens of Cuban workers I know that don’t participate in them just snuck into the CDR office late a night and erased their names from the Round Up and Take to the Gulag list.
Because I and most Cubans don’t wipe, we wash our arse!
And you don’t fool anyone but the fools that believe your verborreah. Your $8.00 USD retirement is just a lie like all the other ones you spout. $200 pesos a month is ~one-half of a normal salary in Cuba and it buys you a lot more than $8.00 would in Canada or the USA. Same with the $20.86, it’s a lot more in Cuba. Nevermind that in Cuba the great majority of old folks live at home with the family, unlike in Canada or the USA. That $200 peso cheque comes in addition to other family income for the whole household, old folks also perform house duties, baby sitting or shopping in as much as they can to contribute by lessening expenses. In Canada or the USA these are services that must be paid for. But we don’t need 56 + years to better those figures now that we Cubans, under the guidance of our Revolutionary Government, defeated all attempts by the USA to bring us down. We survived everything you, our enemies, threw at us, including your BS propaganda and now it’s smooth sailing, specially once the USA Blockade comes down. We got you by endurance, outsmarted you and proved you wrong .
“Up North” did not mean Canada that has never broken relations, set up a Blockade, invaded, sprayed porcine pox, tobacco mosaic virus and dengue fever from airplanes, allowed terrorists to use the country to launch attacks on Cuba and Cubans abroad or set up the misinformation campaign that you are a part of. The USA has now acknowledged defeat in its 54 year quest to extinguish our Revolution and are suing for peace, the EU is dropping its Sanctions, Russia is re-establishing economic ties and China is extending the commercial relations we already have.
Addressing your comments regarding the “Ladies in White”, when Batista was around it was illegal to strike and it was illegal to hold a protest demonstration and the cops shot at such crowds with real bullets and yet we did it anyway. If things were as bad and people so against the Government as you claim, we would had already come out en masse to demand change.
The Ladies in White are but a distraction, the relatives of Cuban “political prisoners” and their friends copying the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina who were demanding to know what happened to their “disappeared” (murdered) children. taken by the military junta there. These Cuban “political prisoners” are people who broke the law, just as in Canada to support ISIS or any “terrorist” group is illegal by law and you will be arrested. One can be a dissident in Cuba, some of my friends are and publicly so, as long as no laws are broken. The beating given to these Ladies was a terrible act of human rights violation and totally counterproductive; if I was the boss of whichever official set this up or allowed it to occur by not acting to protect the Ladies, there would be jail time for him/her/they.
It’s sad that Moses, Meggie, Carlyle, and millions of other north americans simply have soaked up the Meyer Lansky mafia propaganda about Cuba. Of course the Mafia is angry, because the revolution took away the riches Batista and his army had given them and used the resources of the island for the benefit of the Cuban people, instead of the Mafia. I urge Moses, Meggie, and the other victims of U.S. media brainwashing to travel to Cuba and see for themselves how people there live. The Cuban system is not perfect, but the people have health care, education, housing, jobs, free speech, and peace–just the opposite of the U.S.A. where children die of diseases because their parents do not have money to pay for privatized health insurance; grow up illiterate because their parents are too poor to send them to privatized schools; where people sleep on the streets; seek in vain for dignified employment; where universities fire professors who speak against genocide; and their tax money goes for murdering children all over the globe instead of caring for our own. Again, stop swallowing propaganda: go see for yourselves!
Say what? China, Vietnam, Russia, all of Europe, are every bit as capitalist as the U.S.A. Besides Cuba, name one communist country.
People from the US and Canada go to Cuba because it’s cheap and there is a lot of prostitution. Also, you did not address any of Carlyle’s points. Is that because you cannot? Because the parades are really compulsory for all workers and protest is illegal – not like in the US and Canada where we are free to challenge our government. Nobody here claims that our system is perfect. As the Pope said – the poor will always be with us. That doesn’t mean we should all strive to be poor.
Brother Mc Duff, You sound like a fire truck or an ambulance whose battery is dead and so the siren sounds inaudible. If Cuba is that bad, why do the Canadians and the Americans who go through Mexico and the same Canada, flock to the island?. Do you know why? The Cuban people are genuinely friendly; they are safer in Cuba than in America where the prison population there far surpasses the Cuban population of eleven million (11,000,000). In the richest country in the world, in the so-called greatest Democracy in the world, people are sleeping on the streets, people are searching the garbage pans for food. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, people drop down in the streets for want of medical attention. When the tourists visit Cuba, they are in a different world. The Cuban people are happy. It is their very own home grown Revolution. If the American way of life is so sociable, why are so many crimes committed? Every five seconds a crime is committed, Why? Very friendly people the Americans are, Right brother Mc Duff? Give me Cuba any day. Cuba teaches you how to survive in any part of the world. The accumulation of wealth through the exploitation of your fellow man is not the end result of pure happiness. Cuba offers you the Rare and the Real form of HAPPINESS!!
Informed, this is a People’s Revolution and not an USA dictated revolution. The people have their say. They are not lookers on, they are full participants. The vast majority have a say in any advancement in the country. They decide the course or the direction the country must take. This is the truest form of Democracy ever invented. The Voice, the full Participation of the People! It is about The People!, The people! The ordinary People who were once voiceless and who now have voices to make their imput as to how their country must run. Real Democracy at work. America has no Democracy. The Presidentis only a sham, a front. Once the elections are over, the ordinary man and woman are forgotten, never to be heard from again until five years later. Those behind the scenes run the country. It is what these oligarchs want that is taken into consideration. To hell with the ordinary folks who are there to be used only but not to have any say!! Viva Cuba, Viva Fidel and Raul, Viva the 1959 Cuba Revolution, Viva the Heroic People of Cuba, Viva the Cuban Type of Democracy!!
Your final paragraph is especially cogent, and reflects the failings of the current multi-party system here in The North. The “choices” we are given, time-after-time, are between “the lesser of two evils.” In reality, the Republicans and the Democrats are just two factions of the ruling class: the “good cops” and the “bad cops!” Since the media and most of the money are in the hands of the ruling elite, alternatives seldom see the light of day. True, with the net the monopoly of the print and broadcast media has been breached. Since most Americans are miseducated, however, ignorant of history, and distracted by the modern equivalent of “bread and circuses,” there is little chance that they will perceive their condition anytime soon, nor their true economic interests.
The Party represents the triumph of an historical process of amalgamation: first the O.R.I. (Organizacion Revolutionario Integrada), then the P.U.R.S. (United Party of the Socialist Revolution), and finally the Communist Party (which was unlike the old opportunistic C.P. of the 1940’s and 1950’s, which even collaborated for a time with Batista), but rather a reborn Party which had gone through an annealing purification). This is not to say that new ideas should not be incorporated into the Party, but that the principles of these new ideas should always be to improve the welfare, productivity and self-actualization of all citizens who are members of Cuban society.
I am not aware of any wide spread anarchy movement. Under Raul Castro the economic reforms have Cuba working again. However much remains in the way of reforms to increase productivity so as to make the nation self sufficient. Cuba will never be fully sovereign until it can free itself of external dependencies such as Venezuela with it’s oil. It is healthy and patriotic for citizens to complain. And they should until the tap water is drinkable, soft toilet paper is a standard and the lights don’t go out regularly.
–
Why is toilet paper in communist countries in short supply ?
Elio, I think the title of your piece says it all. When your premise is that everyone who’s opinion is counter to the Castro revolution is an “enemy” you will forever wallow in the past.
It must be very scary indeed to know that your “revolution” will die with the Castros. Jose Marti was correct when he said (I paraphrase) “one more revolution is needed, one which does not die with its leader”
My grandfather-in-law thinks like Elio. This is the same grandfather-in-law who would likely die without his granddaughter’s monthly care package that includes a high blood pressure medicine generally not available in Cuba or when available in tourist pharmacies, sold at cost-prohibitive prices. Before the Castro bootlickers blame the shortage on the US embargo, it should be stated that a cheap generic of this medication is widely sold in Mexico and easily imported if the Castros choose to do so. The die-hard Fidelistas refuse to allow the truth to change their opinion. Elio appears to blatantly ignore that for the overwhelming majority of the Cuban workers who march in the May Day charade, attendance is compulsory. Elio must realize that Cubans carrying anti-CASTRO or contrarrevolutionary banners will be arrested or worse. Nonetheless, he chooses to see and write only what casts the revolution and the Castros in the most heroic light. He writes in his post about his concern for the youngest Cubans being “confused” . Like my wife’s grandfather, it is Elio who is confused.
The sad thing about Elio Delgado Legon is that he obviously believes what he writes. Thus he exhibits a closed mind and expresses wishful thinking as if it represents facts. For example in the above article he writes:
“as the country’s economy begins to recover worker salaries and pensions will gradually begin to rise, because the revolutionary government is just as interested in seeing wages fulfill the needs of worker(s) and their families as the workers themselves.”
It has taken fifty six long weary tedious years for the revolutionary government (read Castro family regime) to achieve average wages of $20.68 and a pension of 200 pesos ($8) per month, just imagine what it might achieve given a further fifty six years!
Elio Delgado Legon observes that:
“the workers do not demonstrate holding banners holding banners demanding social and labor reforms, as is the case nearly everywhere else in the world.”
That Elio is because such demonstrations are illegal in Cuba – as demonstrated by the Ladies in white.
You Elio are claiming that the political power and control system of the Castro family regime is preferable to that of “the ultra-Right up north”. As a Canadian with a home up north as well as a home in Cuba, I can assure you that if we wanted a regime similar to the Castro family regime and its Communist Party of Cuba adherents, we could elect one. But as free people we prefer a system where the voice of the people freely determines government – hence not one Member of Parliament representing the Communist Party. (Yes there is one).
Cuba benefits enormously from capitalist Canada, over 1 million tourists last year representing 45% of the Cuban total. Canadians don’t visit Cuba because they admire the Castro family regime. Over 90% visit because Cuba offers the 3 “B.s” of the package tour industry – the Beach, the Buffet and the Booze being included in the cheap package. But upon returning home, they frequently mention that the Cubans providing service in the hotels can be doctors, teachers and other professionals because a $1 tip equates to a day’s pay. They feel sorry for the Cuban people having to exist under the Castro family regime.
You don’t fool anybody Elio!
Elio, we need to have the people of Cuba aware of the different ways others in the world live and function. Change is needed with any revolution and perhaps it’s time to understand that perhaps, there are those in Cuba who aren’t exactly happy or content with the way things are run. Sugar, which is your main crop is a disaster and you know it. Cuba should be self sufficient with produce plentiful and homes not in disrepair. I could on for ever but again, let the people decide if they’re happy with the set up you are so much in favor of. I for one think the internet will allow you and the world a picture that could be way different than what you’re seeing. By the way, that will happen so whether you agree with me or not it will happen.