Though the Cuban regime was hardly friendly to dissidents, journalists, or activists, and hardly democratic (to say the least), their actions are nothing compared to the fascist police states backed by the US up through the 1980s throughout Latin America.
It’s really not until the 1990s when the US stopped worrying quite so much about Communism and focused our attention elsewhere in the world that most of Latin America was able to start acting more autonomously and solving their own problems. US relative non-involvement for the past 25 years has seen the growth of democracy, checks on the power of militaries, de-escalation of border conflicts and increasing economic cooperation.
One can only wonder what would have happened if the US government hadn’t spent the several decades before that installing and propping up puppet dictators, and overthrowing democratic governments.
And Cuba likely still would have done better without the US embargo.
And Costa Rica may be an exception because their lefties (or liberals) were smart enough to keep their eyes on the price.
The countless dictatorships, puppet governments, and US/European interventions didn't start when Castro and Che came down out of the mountains in 1956.
Myopia means excessive focus on one aspect at the neglect of the whole picture.
I would consider many things in deciding where to live. Each person has different priorities, but for me the most important measure is liberty (political, economic and social).
Chile is one of the freest countries in the world (usually in the top 10 of such rankings) and Cuba is usually amongst the bottom 10.
I'd really be interested to see a link to a ranking placing Cuba at the bottom 10 countries in the world.
Chile is #7 and Cuba is #177 (only North Korea is worse, at #178)
Nonetheless, I don't think this would conform to the experiences of the vast majority of Cubans, wrt individual liberty. I know several Cubans myself who fled the Castro regime.
The UN charter on human rights also includes the right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, for political action etc.
Take a scale of 1 to 10. Spain may be an 8/10 when it comes to equal treatment wrt sexual orientation. For the sake of argument, let's say Cuba is 10/10 in this measure. For reference, Saudi or Iran (where you can be executed for being gay) are 1/10.
In most measures of freedom, Spain (and Chile) would be 8+ while Cuba would be 1-2/10. Here's another rating (considering political and civil liberty) where Chile/Spain come out perfect and Cuba is one of the worst: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world#.VDQw...
If it's the latter (which I'd guess), then it's not really a restriction on individual freedom.
That perhaps is the main source of our disagreement :) 'Freedom' (or similar concepts like justice) an be approached from to angles. The first is the deontological, or institutional approach, e.g. freedom is what the laws provide. The second way is the consequentialist approach: freedom is what the individual actually experiences. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. I personally lean more towards the latter, because that approach makes it possible to differentiate between classes of people inside a society.
Another anecdote :) I live in the eastern part of Germany, which as you know was socialist 25 years ago. People could not really vote, dissidents didn't have it easy etc. The current Germany is definitily more free from an institutional viewpoint. Yet, when I look out my office window, I can reguarly see people searching for food in the dumpsters. In the dumpsters! Thats a thing that was unthinkable in the former Eastern Germany. We now have children coming to school without having breakfast because of poverty and mismanagement of their parents. That, too, was unheard of before (schools provided breakfast in those cases, there was no mass unemployment -> way less parents were like that, without hope and self-regard etc.)
People like me definitely practically profit from the new institutional freedom, people like them don't. From a consequential viewpoint on freedom, their score dropped significantly.
I've read a really nice book about the theories of freedom and justice from Amartya Sen, it's called The Idea of Justice. Highly recommended, it's both informative and approachable.
I don't care what anyone says about their medical care - I've seen more amputees in that country than anywhere else on the planet. Crushing poverty, a brutal regime that interferes with daily life in large ways, absurdly low education even in the capital.
I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers we see about Cuba come from the government and thus should not be trusted.
The point is that there is a powerful clandestine and covert effort by the Cuban government to manipulate American influencers to present the image of Cuba that is so frequently transmitted. It's exceptionally effective; just read some of the comments posted on this very thread. However the reality on the ground is much different than Michael Moore would have you believe.
It's also worth noting that Cuba's per capita GDP in the late 1950s was about the same as Italy of Spain.
[1] http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Cuba/su...
[
The Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund in 2007 identified Cuba as the only sustainable country in the world. The study involved two key parameters for measuring sustainable development, a commitment to "improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems". Cuba was the ONLY country on earth to achieve satisfactory benchmarks in both criteria for sustainable development.
You have to see it to believe it. Every inch of rooftop in Cuba is basically an urban/organic farm. Essentially Cuba represents the best possible outcome when modern society finally runs out of gasoline.
Not being snarky (I know it could sound that way). I'm curious if that's the outcome of sustainable living.
I wouldn't think of cuban culture/society as a primitive way of life. It's just different.
Not sure what you define as substantive but this is what I know about:
There's a documentary about the topic called, The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. You can watch at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWces5TkCA
another dense source: http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1328_web.pd...
google: "cuba sustainability" no quotes for a bunch of stuff.
I had a rather lengthy medical crisis, so I was out of the loop for a long time (and it is essentially the reason my degree was not completed). It is currently resolving and I am trying to get more back in the loop on things.
What kind of comparison is that? The DR is practically a failed state. By any rational metric Cuba is an economic and human rights disaster and continues to be. Its other, capitalistic, neighbor Mexico has 2x that GDP per capita. Heck, its only because of Western pressure that Cuba is only now, after decades of spite against its own people, started releasing political prisoners.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/cuba
>Unfortunately the US ruined the experiment by imposing an embargo for decades out of spite.
Pardon me if I think my nation should tolerate nuclear missiles 90 miles off our coast from a country aligned with our enemies who have a stated doctrine of first strike and tactic nuclear usage with zero warning in advance, held by a dictator who wanted nuclear war.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/meredithjessup/2009/09/24/nytim...
I'm all for lifting of sanctions, but Cuba needs to up its game first. Rewarding the autocratic and oppressive Castro regime makes no sense. Democratic reforms, regime change, freedom of ownership, open elections, multi-parties, the right to sue, the right to travel, a free press, the right to petition, etc must all be respected. You're not automatically entitled to my money.
Sure. You must be demonstrating every day for the same sanctions to apply in about all the Middle East countries the US has bases in, right? Moral arguments don't really mesh with real politics. Sanctions against Cuba are a relic of the Cold War, but the US does business every day with countries with a worse humanitarian track record.
Whataboutism isn't addressing my issues. Sadly, knee-jerk anti-americanism passes for "intellectualism" around here. Funny how an oppressive anti-capitalist state is applauded on a forum dedicated to VC funded startups. Oh, the irony.
This was in 1963. And they sure don't have nukes now, or are likely to acquire them. Not to mention that you're conveniently forgetting US nukes in Italy and Turkey around the same time, or the Bay of Pigs invasion.
> Why must the US reward the Castros?
Why should it punish the Castros while turning a blind eye to Bahrain, who is busy oppressing its population with a brutality the Castro regime hasn't displayed in a long while?
> Whataboutism isn't addressing my issues.
If you didn't address the issue from a moral angle, your position may look a bit more solid than it is right now. Why not admit morality has a very small role to play in international politics, whatever narrative government dress it up in for internal consumption?
> Sadly, knee-jerk anti-americanism passes for "intellectualism" around here.
Oh, I'm not giving a pass to any government, don't worry.
You mean the Russian nukes from 1963? Those that were a response to the nukes the US placed all over Turkey and neighbouring countries? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis
Don't you think people of other nations may have the same intolerance to their enemies' nuclear missiles deployed right on their borders? The Cuban missiles were symmetric response to deploying the Jupiter missiles in Turkey - which is right on the border with USSR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter
"They were all removed by the US as part of a secret agreement with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis."
Do onto others what you don't want others do onto you :)
The US may have been morally superior at home but played just as dirty in large parts of the world.
Sure, the USSR was a totalitarian state. That said, both sides pursued an aggressive, expansionist policy via proxy. The "champion of liberty" installed thoroughly repressive regimes all over South America which had little to envy to the Soviet Union. It didn't prove itself above manufacturing border incidents to trigger the Vietnam war, either. Was the USSR worse? Certainly. But this doesn't make the US the good guy in the story.
And that all gets swept aside by "The USA was a champion of liberty that pursued strategies intended only to defend the free world against the USSR." Read the Wikipedia article on "Covert United States Foreign Regime Change Actions" [0], and see how many of those nations benefited in the long run, and how some incredibly brutal regimes were installed or propped up throughout the third world, simply because they weren't communists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
What's really amazing is that you think your 1960s, nihilistic, self-loathing, theyre-all-the-same cynicism is thoughtful and original, and you assume that the reason I disagree with you is that I haven't heard of such a notion before, and must not be as educated as yourself...
Governments have most often been waving various pretenses to make their actions look good. Manifest destiny, the white man's burden, the necessity to bring the socialist paradise... "Championing liberty" is just one of them. But you don't "champion liberty" by setting up something like the School of the Americas[1], or selling arms to Iran to fund Contras terrorists[2]. This is a different concept, which is "protecting your interests by whatever means available".
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_fo...
* It provided free healthcare
* It provided free housing
* Crime rate was law
* It provided free and quality education (from kindergarten all the way to the highest degrees)
> The USA was a champion of liberty that pursued strategies intended only to defend the free world against the USSR.
Wait, are you being sarcastic. I am confused. Poe's Law in full effect here, ladies and gentlement.
Slavery, like US had up until the mid 1800 and with the following oppression and segregation laws?
Or the country that based itself on ethnic cleansing and genocide of countless American Indians.
> The USA did not conquer any of the western european nations
No but it raped all the South American states and some East Asian states (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia).
Also Middle East. Started Wars.
> We didn't even conquer Cuba.
Sure tried. And send saboteurs to plant IEDs, blow up bridges, plants. Destroy machinery. Can you say "War Of Terror" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project)
> If we had the military power, why wouldn't we?
Ok USSR didn't conquer Australia. They had the military power. Why didn't they. Probably didn't want to. And didn't care about.
mid-20th century significant share (if not half) of the world population was enchanted with the ideas of socialism/communism with those ideas symbolizing justice and freedom (not mass oppression as it ultimately turned to be). In that respect, _back then_, they were morally equivalent or at least close to it. We know better _now_, after observing of many decades of that failed experiments.
>The USSR conquered and imposed brutal slavery on every eastern european nation. The USA did not conquer any of the western european nations.
They all had their respective zones of occupation in Europe, Korea, Japan after the WWII. With time socialist regime in USSR zone turned to be the regime of "conquest and slavery", while capitalism in the western zones, South Korea and Japan happened to be more freedom conducting. For example South Korea wasn't fan of being occupied by US (for example among others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Uprising_of_1946 ) and it took decades for it to ultimately start benefiting from having been occupied by US instead of USSR. Again, back then, it wasn't that clear for huge number of people, and it took decades for the differences to appear clearly.
>We didn't even conquer Cuba. If we had the military power, why wouldn't we?
you think it is easier to fight in Cuba jungles than in Vietnam one or that Cubans would be less fierce fighters than Vietnamese?
Mexico is a giant country with huge (though dwindling) oil reserves, and the advantages of NAFTA (all the Detroit automakers have relocated down there).
Cuba and the DR are similar sized geographically and demographically, and have similar climates and resources.
> The DR is practically a failed state.
Don't know why you say that, DR has been politically stable for decades and is economically similar to many other small Latin American countries.
Initially, I thought... that HAS to be wrong... because Mexico has 10x the resources that Cuba has. But I looked it up... and you're right... Mexico only has 2x the GDP.
Not really taking any sides here on the whole capitalism v communism thing...
But Mexico has 120 MILLION people, 100 times the energy reserves AND trade with the US... and it STILL cannot even double the GDP of a nation with 11 MILLION people and an embargo (ie - NO trade with the US)... (Cuba: 6,051 Mexico: 10,307)
That's pretty pathetic. I mean REALLY? You have 10x the resources, 100x the energy reserves... and you can only muster twice the GDP ??? Something's not right about that.
I guess that's not really a comment on Cuba as much as it is a comment on Mexico. I didn't realize it was that bad... I don't blame Mexican immigrants for trying to come to the US.
The GDP of Mexico is 20 times greater than Cuba's. The population is 10 times bigger.
Of course as you point out the lack of an embargo, access to oil, etc would lead you to expect that Mexico's per capita GDP would be higher than Cuba's. Whether you'd expect the factor by which it's higher to be 2 or more or less is an interesting question that I'm not qualified to answer. ;)
> Something's not right about that.
Yes, your understanding of the meaning of "per capita GDP".
You've already gotten down voted enough, but wow. DR has had a 7% growth rate for the last 20 years, one of the highest in the Americas...
Your others points are equally off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Republ...
In those cases, I tend to find that things like: The Big Mac Index [1]; the more general World Price Index (a standardized basket of goods) [2]; or the even more general Purchasing Power Parity [3]; are better reflective of the human scale question, which IMO is "for a common wage, what can be purchased, and how expensive is it."
Basically, its great if our per capita GDP is 2x someone else, if our local prices are also 2x, then our actual wage goes roughly the same distance. Another way is: if I had the equivalent of a $1M in Cuba, went to Mexico, and exchanged it with no fee, how would my relative purchasing power change.
Major Caveat: Findings for PPP are heavily dependent on your reference basket of goods.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
However, Cuba can still trade with other countries. They could even buy American products through other countries. They don't do so (in a significant scale) because they have nothing to offer. Cuba offers little of value to the rest of the world.
Cuba has managed to do a lot with very little, especially with regards to education and health care. Their systems are on-par with those in developed, capitalist countries while their per capita income places them among the most impoverished countries on earth.
1. Cuba was historically supported financially by the USSR up until it collapsed; and
2. This belief that the US placed a trade embargo out of "spite" is misguided. Cuba under Castro nationalized assets belonging to US citizens (eg casinos in Havana). Agree or disagree, the US government acted to protect the interests of its citizens.
As to whether that embargo still makes sense, I make no comment on that.
I haven't visited Cuba but it does seem like if I had to be stuck in a communist dictatorship, I'd probably choose Cuba over the alternatives. I'm not sure that's the ringing endorsement one is looking for.
Do you know any such people? I do know a few of them. Not a statistically valid sample, since I don't research such things professionally. But I happen to have a few in my social group, through family and friend connections. And what's most surprising about them is how strongly pro-Soviet they are. The young people are not; they are mostly pro-West. But the older people are much different, much more nostalgic for Soviet times, and anti-West. Especially those who served in the scientific-industrial-military complex, which is many. Congregations of elderly scientists and engineers tend towards a pro-Soviet tone, especially in the form of complaining about how these useless new countries don't do science the way the old USSR did.
It took two years before Castro proclaimed his government socialist, it wasn't until 1965 that his party became the Communist Party of Cuba.
Eventually they became dogmatic Leninist, but substantial parts of the party, including Castro came to Soviet style socialism out of necessity. That's not to say that there weren't many of them that clearly had socialist leanings of various types before that, but the Castro regime was the making of the unholy marriage of rejection by the US and a toxic embrace by the Soviets.
There may have been less of a gap between theory and practice in Cuba than elsewhere, in that the elite appears to have been less greedy and reinvested more in actually making peoples lives better, but it's still an oligarchy with drastic class differences reinforced by the party, rather than fought by it.