Hacker News Reader

Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

The actual elephant in the room is 60 years of brutal communist dictatorship.

"elephant in the room" refers to something that is huge but that nobody talks about. Everyone agrees with the fact that marxism doesn't work, and everyone talks about it, so I don't think we can call it an elephant in the room. there is far less discussion (especially in the US), about the impact of the US sanctions

the same discussion applies to venezuela

I was referring to the recent trend of blaming USA for Cuban poverty. Characterizing it as "elephant in the room" is somewhat en vogue for leftist types. And I was turning it back on them. The real "elephant in the room" is the failings of the brutal communist ideology that failed the Cuban people in nearly every possible way.

Good old times of right wing dictatorship, when cuban dictator was USA friendly. No embargo. Nobody cared.

yep. Everyone here crying out "dictatorship" apparently has never heard of Fulgencio Batista.

wonder why you're being downvoted, The American ambassador literally presented Batista with a golden telephone (that's where the symbol comes from) as a reward for having essentially sold the country out to a few chosen American companies (in this case the telecom industry)

Not true, US had a weapons embargo against the Batista regime in 1958, this helped Castro to oust Batista.

And strict regulation of the economy along Marxist lines, which we know doesn’t work from the multitude of other failures.

The brutal communist dictatorship that the embargo has helped to further entrench. Simple fact is, all these years later, both exist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com