Cuba: Here we go again?

The partial solutions for Cuba's future: lifting the embargo, let the people decide the system under which they wish to live, and read ILX for counsel.

I hope we can all agree that lifting the embargo would be a good thing in general for the people living in Cuba. If or when the Cuban government stands or falls should only become a consideration only after the embargo is gone. Even if you think the Cuban regime is bad and criminal, the fact remains that the embargo hasn't removed it after six decades, so keeping the embargo won't do anything to remove that government; the embargo only inflicts pain and misery on the Cubans to no good end.

Regardless of the embargo, some terrible economic decisions have been made and they have been compounded by the pandemic. And at one point I think it's also important to allow Cubans living on the island to parse terrible economic policies + authoritarian injustices from problems stemming from this horrific embargo. Alfred is obviously otm when he says it's not all about America.

To be clear, the regime was authoritarian regardless of the embargo.

Yes, I meant those are two separate sets of problems.

Glad we all agree part of the solution for Cuba's future is more trade with capitalist economies.

― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 17 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

It's not the gotcha you think it is

I don’t mean to excuse any particular actions of Castro and his successors, but an authoritarian regime is a pretty logical thing to have if the United States is trying to kill your president and overturn your government. How long would a left-liberal government that implemented radical land reforms and redistribution have lasted? Would the regime that followed be democratic, or non-repressive?

You're right. The embargo has been as much a propaganda triumph for the Castros and successors as for the Cuban AM radio commentariat. It still doesn't justify labor camps, etc.

Sure, there are reasons why the revolutionary Cuban government became so authoritarian. The same was true of the USSR. It's hard to argue that the Russian Federation is objectively better or worse for its people than the USSR was, but at least the present US sanctions against the Russian Federation are better targeted and less harmful than the Cuban embargo. Getting rid of the embargo is a no-brainer, imo.

Russia has taken almost 30 years to get life expectancy back to USSR levels so on one (rather important) measure it's pretty easy to argue it's been worse.

No one with the slightest bit of compassion wants Cuba to become an illiberal oligarchy state like Russia, and the spectrum of the possibility is much wider than what the USSR and the present Russian Federation presents.

The same way there is no excuses for this embargo, there are basically no excuses for authoritarian regimes.

Man, if this is true -

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRYawauDBpS/?fbclid=IwAR0ONtKr7b9xkE23tX47SaSJSzBSOeJtidtFzA_bS2_LGXv6UNmY2EnkxmU

Would be nice to have any sources for what he’s saying.

kinda distrust anyone who needs to emphasize that this definitely has nothing to do with the embargo.

The embargo has existed for a very long time and doesn’t explain the hyperinflation problem Cuba is facing at the moment.

Didn’t Trump recently put new sanctions in place though?

US inflation is above 5% - global shortages are going to impact Cuba much harder thanks to the embargo.

It would help if the govt knew how to deal with a currency, especialy in a world in which tourism has died out.

Heck, Miguel Diaz himself is acknowleding Cuba’s role in the hardships.

So yeah, sure, end the embargo, it sucks, but not everything is about the US, other countries have enough agency to take shitty decision on their own too.

Yes but most other countries haven’t had the most powerful country on earth working to limit their agency for 60 years. Anyway I just have to take with a grain of salt a report on what it’s really like in Cuba that comes from a former investment banker who has never lived there and insists that the embargo has nothing to do with the problems there.

To be fair, trusting ‘a former investment banker’ never seems to be a good idea.

Btw if anyone knows of good sources on the situation in Cuba that are somewhere in between “the poor oppressed people just want freedom in the form of US airstrikes” and “gusano scum get the wall” I’d appreciate it!

Al-Jazeera has been balanced imo

I did notice the gentleman in the link provided by Raymond thought it was an especially telling indictment of Cuba that uneducated people made the same daily wage as educated people.

In a nation that is fated to be poor, both by its lack of resources and by the embargo, the fact that the burden of such poverty is mostly equally shared is no indictment. There clearly are ways in which the powerful can get around this, but it's still FAR more equality of means than in any capitalist nation.

Lack of resources does not fate a nation to poverty, there are many counter examples. Plus Cuba is a large island with fertile soil with access to the sea, agriculture should not be a problem, except it is because command economies keep failing at it, regardless of the region or era.

It's like its impossible to acknowledge that a shitty dictatorial govt that jail dissidents and can't keep currency issues at bay has had a hand in Cuba's poverty.

Naive to think it's resources would've been shared with the poor had it kept being a capitalist country instead of a command economy.

We don't know what the lifting of the embargo would've done for its economy.

Btw if anyone knows of good sources on the situation in Cuba that are somewhere in between “the poor oppressed people just want freedom in the form of US airstrikes” and “gusano scum get the wall” I’d appreciate it!

To understand what's really going on in Cuba right now -- the massive protests across the country -- you have to grasp three things:

(1.) The Leninist government's years-long crisis of legitimacy;

(2.) the causes of recent hyper-inflation;

(3.) the mixed politics of dissidents

— JMC 🌹🏴 (@red_dilettante) July 12, 2021

(thread, has sources)

there are some material specifics there for once which is most welcome

of course the US condemning authoritarianism, jailing (/torture/execution) of dissidents, suppression of "democracy" etc is pretty rich considering, you know

it's a real problem how rote and programmatic the responses have become for these crises - this is not the same as bolivia which is not the same as venezuela despite some similarities but they might as well be identical judging by how most people in the north talk about them, regardless of their political persuasion. not saying I'm not guilty of this either

lol

pic.twitter.com/UXf3UJ592s

— Phil Lord #BlackLivesMatter #StopAsianHate (@philiplord) July 18, 2021

Excellent thread, Left. Thanks.

otm

aren’t you talking about the thread ufo posted?

yeah, ufo, sorry

We stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and condemn the suppression of the media, speech and protest.

We also call for an end to the U.S. embargo and additional Trump-era restrictions that are profoundly contributing to the suffering of Cubans. pic.twitter.com/Fw6Quv5TAN

— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 16, 2021

^ an unexceptionable statement that sits astride the middle ground, but which the right will call a radical threat to mom, apple pie and baseball

AOC is getting a taste for the bomb.

how did you derive that?

By posting a contrary opinion to xyz of course

Also Canada should do much much more wrt to vaccination in Cuba, considering it has normal trade relations.

https://truthout.org/articles/my-heart-aches-for-cuba-and-i-yearn-for-more-solidarity-from-the-global-left/

"Cuba’s Abdala and Soberana, the first COVID vaccines developed in Latin America, weren’t invented, fabricated and administered by the bureaucrats in the “Palace.” The Cuban people, those that took the streets to change their lives and were repressed by the government, are the ultimate generators of Cuban wealth."

Nonsense. Without the revolution no vaccine would've been developed in Cuba.

anyone who dares to watch could see the patrolling troops running, threatening unarmed people and beating them

Glad that doesn't happen in liberal democracies.

Always love it when Brits take lead on the Convo about what's best for the Cubans. Granted it's not much diff than Americans doing the same. Be nice to hear from...idk...Cuban-Americans.

Twitter is full of ppl talking down to actual non-Revolution Cubans atm

*Cubans or Cuban-Americans

Police brutality is unnaceptable and it must be condemned when it happens everywhere, I don’t see what’s controversial about that.

When it's being raised as a primary reason one must preface any statement with a condemnation of the "shitty dictatorial govt" and that a failure to be sufficiently anti-Cuban state essentially makes you a Stalinist, the universality is quite relevant.

Always love it when Brits take lead on the Convo about what's best for the Cubans. Granted it's not much diff than Americans doing the same. Be nice to hear from...idk...Cuban-Americans.

Because it’s never about Cuba per se, a lot of it is about showing your badges of being a leftist, it’s about showing the world how much outside the narrative and edgy you are.

Showing how edgy I am is really what this thread is about yeah

it’s about showing the world how much outside the narrative and edgy you are.

It seems more likely that in the case of hard leftist ilxors it is a reflection of their true convictions and the ideology they embrace. Whether it is a reflection of the realities of Cuban society and politics is open to question, but there's no need to impugn their motives.