Cuba: Here we go again?

Cuban: 'My govt is unable to provide for me and uses police brutality to suppress dissent, I'm fearing for my security'
Non-Cuban on the internet: 'Yeah but life in the west is sorta the same! Gotcha!'

Don't light a cigarette so close to your strawman.

I don't see anyone expressing hostility to protesters... except for people dismissing the possibility of pro-government protesters upthread. (Weird!)

What gets push back from 'the left' is when people like you, openly hostile to Cuba and who've yet to find Latin American regime change they won't cheerlead, decide that they've derived some great meaning from protests they aren't actually involved in, and that great meaning is that the "shitty, dictatorial govt" must be toppled (and that this obviously has mass support among the population). To be suspicious of the roots of protest or to not (again) preface all statements with a blanket condemnation of the Cuban state is obviously unacceptable.

I don't feel like justifying the meaning I find in seeing the end of Latin American dictatorships, nor do I really feel it is necessary to explain why such regimes are bad, or that anyone needs your approval for assessing the wrongs of that particular regime. And I too, shouldn't have too make blanket statements about the evils of the West.

Fact is, an actual Cuban posted an article written by an actual Cuban about the protests and you felt compelled to make it about... police brutality in the West? That's what's unacceptable to me. Either you are a psychopath unable to give the benefit of the doubt to someone with the slightest different world view than yours, or you are suffering from heavy paranoia and decided that any resistance to your ideology has to be a CIA conspiracy. None of these things put the protesters, or the welfare of Cubans at the center of the debate, all agency has been erased, and I'm not saying any of this because we both disagree, but because of how you answered that particular article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/black-lives-matter-misses-point-about-cuba/619471/

Does she "love the bomb"?

I am Black & Cuban and deeply hurt by the #BLM statement on Cuban protests. They are blind and deft to the Cuban ppl, to their demands. With whom is their solidarity? Certainly not with the people in the streets. LISTEN to us. #SOSCuba https://t.co/UHHDngeBWa

— Dr. Odette Casamayor-Cisneros (@odettecasamayor) July 15, 2021

She's from Cuba and wrote the article Alfred said. I'm sure xyzzzz can explain to her why she's wrong

You gotta be suspicious!

The bit I quoted from the Cuban-American academic is clearly wrong. Vaccines aren't just "for the people". The achievement of training Cuban ppl to be doctors and scientists that are able to develop a covid vaccine doesn't come from the sky. No other Latin American country has done this! Without the revolution the island would be Tourism with bits of agriculture. And no one here would bother about whether Afro-Cubans get a fair treatment or human rights.

No one is stopping Alfred, the one Cuban-American in the board I know of, from posting here.

And posts aren't going to stop the Cuban Revolution from either carrying on or unravelling and the US gradually taking over or whatever so I'll carry on.

I don't see anyone expressing hostility to protesters... except for people dismissing the possibility of pro-government protesters upthread. (Weird!)

milo z, if this is directed at me (which I suspect it is): that’s not what I wrote. I wrote this:

these are government-ordained counter-protests to the actual protesters (or “worms” in government parlance)

this was in response to the first post on the current situation, the tweet xyzzzz linked about Cubans chant(ing) "I am Fidel!", as thousands flood the streets in defense of the revolution, without providing any context

what I said was that these counter protests to the actual/original protests were government-ordained...

(to quote the president himself**: « ¡La orden de combate está dada! ¡A la calle los revolucionarios! » / « The order of combat is given! To the streets the revolutionaries! »),

...not that the protesters were forced to participate in them. I’m perfectly aware that most regimes have plenty of virulent supporters, authoritarian ones included.

** https://www.presidencia.gob.cu/es/presidencia/intervenciones/comparecencia-ante-la-television-cubana-11-07-2021/
(hope this source is trustworthy enough for you)

Don't light a cigarette so close to your strawman.

You drew a line between the “actual protesters” (the ones you like) and the counter-protests. The use of actual there implies that the pro-government protesters aren’t real. (there was also the post right above you that loled at the idea of pro-government protesters.)

so nice that we care about human rights violations except when they happen in Cuba, then it's just hysterical misguided people whining. or that we assume people critical of the Cuban government are clamoring for the US to come in and topple them.

xpost he didn't say "to actual protesters", he said "to the actual protesters", clarifying that these protests were a response to the original protest, not something that spontaneously happened on the streets. this isn't hard to understand.

but you're always fishing for gotchas, so you do you I guess.

xyz and milo all think the protests in Cuba are bots and that all protesters are paid though so guess *case closed*

Without the revolution the island would be Tourism with bits of agriculture.

Instead it's tourism... and catastrophic agriculture... and an inability to provide vaccination (it itself developed) to its own citizen because the govt can't deal with basic currency policies. Thank god for Fidel!

Can you point to where I said that?

We'll never know what would have happened without the Castro brothers, but if the history of the region is any indication it wouldn't have been much different.

xyz and milo all think the protests in Cuba are bots and that all protesters are paid though so guess *case closed*

― making splashes at Dan Flashes (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Does case closed mean you won't be posting again?

Instead it's tourism... and catastrophic agriculture... and an inability to provide vaccination (it itself developed) to its own citizen because the govt can't deal with basic currency policies. Thank god for Fidel!

― Van Horn Street, Monday, 19 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

This is why lifting the embargo are important.

The embargo doesn’t prevent Cuba from trading with countries that actually produces syringes (Germany, Japan, South Korea). Nor does it prevent Cuba from importing medical devices from the US itself (since 2000). The embargo obviously must be lifted, for a whole bunch of reasons. The reason why Cuban are lacking in vaccination rates despite an exceptional medical tradition has more to do with incompetent officials who want to score propaganda points and triggered an obvious hyperinflation.

Xyzz, are the protestors CIA plants?

Let me avoid confrontation: what motivated last week's protests?

I haven’t said a thing about paid protesters, I’ve said I’m suspicious of the American media narrative and the meaning liberal interventionists have derived from the very possibility of protests and that I don’t believe we can draw meaning from them.

Why would I be suspicious or skeptical at all, as neanderthal has tut-tutted about? We’ve routinely astroturfed protest in states we’re hostile toward. (for instance, in Cuba itself - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/cuban-hip-hop-scene-infiltrated-us-information-youth)

You drew a line between the “actual protesters” (the ones you like) and the counter-protests.

My partner is Cuban (and most definitely non-American! Now living in Scotland, previously in Spain, and in Cuba until she was a teenager, and part of her family, including some she is close to, still live there). She'll never post on ilx though, I'm afraid, and I struggle to express my own views coherently, let alone hers. I've been passing many of the links on though, thanks for those.

Jaruzelski had to do what he had to do, US hands off Poland!

Xyzz, are the protestors CIA plants?

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 19 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Lol.

That thread ufo linked is a nice enough analysis but it's an analysis. At the end of it:

So whose line will win out? That's a question that becomes especially vexing when you add back in the other actors: the Cuban neoliberals, the Cuban far right, the Miami exiles, and the security services of Cuba and the US.

— JMC 🌹🏴 (@red_dilettante) July 13, 2021

If the old lennists go it's a good chance the people you all care about won't get the chance to decide on anything. But at least lifting the embargo without any interference from white ppl, as well as Cuban Americans who don't live there, is a start. This is the thing that won't happen either, but it would allow for a better chance of survival to those that most need it in the first place.

How hard is it to imagine that one could be critical of the present govt but also wants the embargo lifted and want the Cuban people to determinate their political future without foreign intervention? Like does it actually hurt you to admit people can think outside some either/or narrative presented by political leaders? Or are you just going to continue assuming that Cuban writers and Cuban posters in this thread don’t know or even want what’s best for their nation and family?

President Joe Biden on Thursday plans to slap targeted individual sanctions on Cuba regime officials, bucking the progressive voices in his own party who called for an end to the embargo.

Biden’s response to Cuba — which also includes measures to bring increased internet access to the island and calls for more international pressure on the totalitarian government — was outlined Wednesday night in a call with Democratic Cuban-American activists in Miami who had been calling for more action ever since the July 11 uprisings on the island.

But it’s the proposal to extend the targeted sanctions of the Magnitsky Act, originally passed in response to Russian government oppression and then extended to governments such as Venezuela, that has most encouraged activists who want more pressure on Cuba.

“This is huge,” said Sasha Tirador, a top Miami political operative who was briefed on the plans Wednesday night.

“No administration has ever announced that they will hold each individual who violates human rights on the island of Cuba accountable,” she said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/22/biden-sanctions-cuba-500534

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond tbh

🇨🇺 Let Cuba Live! Over 400 politicians, intellectuals, clergy, artists, activists & ex-heads of state call Biden to immediately lift Trump's 243 sanctions on Cuba.
Full page ad in the NYT tomorrow @answercoalition @codepink

Visit https://t.co/jQTKHAcwQ1 to sign the petition. pic.twitter.com/4X068AgqzL

— The People's Forum (@PeoplesForumNYC) July 22, 2021

Like does it actually hurt you to admit people can think outside some either/or narrative presented by political leaders? Or are you just going to continue assuming that Cuban writers and Cuban posters in this thread don’t know or even want what’s best for their nation and family?

― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 20 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

You can make up as many narratives you like but it isn't about narratives. Do you want the current leadership to go, is the question. What happens then? And who is going to get involved in those decisions? Give what we've seen in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela in the last few years.

You've not been shy in talking out of arsehole about any of these countries so don't tell what I can or can't say.

Yes the current leadership has to go. Anyone who considers otherwise cares very little for democracy and human rights.

And who is going to get involved in those decisions?

Cubans? Is it hard to imagine that Cubans would be able to build a democracy if given the chance? And sure some Cubans who are more right wing will be given a larger voice than before but hey, in life it happens that people disagree with you on some matters and despite that they should have a voice too.

By the way, I don’t see a problem with what happened in Bolivia since the people have clearly and democratically elected the leader and party of their choice. Same as Peru. Same as Mexico. Same as Panama. And allow me to remind you that the US does exercise economic and political pressure on these nations too.

But if you think Maduro is the ideal for the future of latin american politics and that he should stay put, you care more about your ideology than actual human lives.

'but hey' if Cuba is turned into a backwater ruthlessly ruled by gusanos and Afro-Cubans get nothing then so what?

Lol liberals and their 'human rights'.

Cuba is a backwater ruthlessly ruled by white authoritarians.

Backwaters don't produce covid vaccines.

Just go there and talk to people.

yeah I suppose that could count as "importation of information" or maybe "professional research"

Been going to classes and practicing yoga for nearly a decade, will start yelling about the benefits of Chakras to troll ppl.

My friend wrote this:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-cuba-protests-pay-attention-20210722-53kjtzv2izab5gxe6zagidqany-story.html

Liberal!

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

lift the embargo!

By the way, I don’t see a problem with what happened in Bolivia since the people have clearly and democratically elected the leader and party of their choice.

Ok, if Trump had stayed in power citing false claims of voter fraud, and there were massive protests resulting in dozens of people getting killed, and he finally agreed to new elections and left office in 2022, would you say the same thing? (It’s not a perfect analogy, Anez wasn’t even the choice of a sizable minority.)

Trump even developed a vaccine, see

No the whole situation is so vastly different and so any analogy is useless. Especially since Anez made it clear there would be new elections, that she acted in an interim capacity, and that she and her party kept her word on that. Especially since Anez worked in concert with the opposition party to ensure fair and sound elections. Plus you did not mention the abuse of Morales presenting himself for elections despite losing a referendum to allow limitless terms. Plus Anez would have not gotten the role if MAS didn’t just allow her (a qorum would have been enough to stop her ascending, considering MAS had a big majority of seats, but they did not participate). Plus the unions, usually very left leaning, also called for Morales resignation. None of that could be mapped into American politics.

And also, the point remains: Cubans have a right to free and fair elections, untainted from any foreign influence.

xp

Didn't she claim that she wouldn't run in the new elections, then announce her candidacy anyway, repeatedly postpone the elections, and then only end her candidacy to try to defeat the MAS candidate? And yes, Morales's actions were questionable, but he did win the election, and the evidence of widespread fraud turned out to be false. And you didn't say anything about the dozens of people killed.

Regarding MAS "allowing her": The MAS delegation argued that the parliamentary session's first obligation was to elect its own new leaders (including replacing Salvatierra as president of the Senate), prior to replacing Morales.[45] It declared the session and its vote for Áñez's succession illegal.

And who is going to get involved in those decisions?

Cubans? Is it hard to imagine that Cubans would be able to build a democracy if given the chance?

"If given the chance" doing Sisyphean work there. If you believe the US wouldn't interfere (to the detriment of the Cuban people), you most likely also believe in Santa Claus.

If the western hemisphere's imperial hegemon can go five years without sponsoring a right-wing coup, we can start talking about states being "given a chance" at democracy and self-determination.

Because that govt indeed killed people, but I just don’t see how it relates to a hypothetical involving american politics. Also,a year of interim is pretty fast considering the pandemic situation that developped. Also, I don’t remember Anez making such a promise (but I might be wrong!). It remains that in 2020, the Bolivians chose a governement to their liking and that it worked, and I don’t understand why Cubans shouldn’t be allowed the same democratic exercice.

If anything the Bolivian experience should make a pretty good case that latin americans are able to stick to their principles and autonomy despite foreign interference or the existence of right wing politics.