I’ve discussed things with you before, and it is pretty clear that you are not interested in real facts beyond your spin and adopted positions. So there is no point in responding to your posts anymore.

You still haven’t answered the question I put to you. What do you say? Is the repression justified or not?

Yes, but the son in Taiwan was replaced by Lee Teng-hui, and the opening began with him, in 1988. By 1991, the martial law regulations were gone, and things were progressing rapidly. So the thaw in Taiwan really began 17 years ago. There’s nothing comparable in Cuba today. In fact, even under Chiang Ching-Kuo in the 80s there was a strong movement toward political opening and increased Taiwanization of the government.

Taiwan is a very different case and even there the true multi-party system became reality – what, about 5-10 years ago? After what – about 50-55 years of fascism? Why do you have so much more patience and understanding there?

Btw, IIRC, Chian Kaishek was replced by his son when he died in the 70s, so there you go.

“You’re either with us or against us.”

“All dissent is opposition. All opposition is counterrevolutionary.”

Peas in a pod.

I compare Cuba to Taiwan. Taiwan has an extremely powerful hostile neighbor that claims it in its entirety and regularly threatens to kill many of its citizens. It has trouble with diplomatic recognition and can’t even get into the UN. But it is much more free in its political speech and much more socially developed. There are even legal political parties that almost certainly take money from the PRC.

So why is it that Taiwan is so much more free than Cuba? Why can’t Castro loosen the reins, retire, and let someone else run the place? I think the answer is that he doesn’t trust his own people, doesn’t believe in his government’s legitimacy, and is thus stuck in a prison of his own devising.

The embargo is just an excuse for Castro. For that reason alone, we should get rid of it. But I don’t think that is a sufficient excuse for the repression.

No I wasn’t conceding anything. I was just trying to highlight the absurdity of his claim that all persecution is of US stooges by giving an example that even he would concede. Seems I was wrong about that since Louis is a veritable Dr Pangloss where Cuba is concerned …. No need to pursue this further I think.

By the end of 2004 there were at least 70 prisoners of conscience, most of them held since the 2003 crackdown on the dissident movement. However, 18 prisoners of conscience were released and many were moved to prisons nearer their homes.
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/cub-summary-eng

Apparently there are indeed some journalists among these 70 or so prisoners, but are you sure they were actually arrested for reporting?

At the root of Louis and abb1’s criticisms seems to be the idea that if freedom of speech endangers a government’s existence then that government is justified in suppressing speech. Well, so long as that government is Cuba. I suppose that they do have a case here: with the massive amounts of resources at its disposal, the US government can afford to create really convincing arguments.

Because he was gay, Reynaldo Garcia once was ostracized as a member of “La Escoria,” the official Cuban government term for homosexuals, convicts and the mentally ill. It means “the scum.”

Now Garcia can do something he never dreamed would be possible – walk hand in hand down the streets of Havana with his lover of six years without fear of reprisal.

“I never thought I would see this day. It’s a beautiful feeling,” Garcia said. “I feel like people are starting to see us as human beings, like anyone else.” Cuba is backing away from years of discrimination against homosexuals. Once packed off to work on rural farms alongside dissidents and religious Cubans, or nudged into exile, gays have entered a period of tolerance.

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Bill Berkowitz
WORKINGFORCHANGE July 13, 2001

Viva gay Cuba! Out and married in the increasingly tolerant Communist island

While gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered folks around the world recently finished myriad celebrations of gay pride, an eye-opening report comes from Juan Perez Cabral – dateline Cuba. Cabral writes that while their relatives quietly witnessed, and the neighbors gawked, exercising their curiosity, “two gay male couples made history by publicly holding a gay wedding. Four local boys, Michel and Angel, and Juanito and Alejandro, ranging in ages from 17 to 22, exchanged symbolic vows before their families and friends at a neighborhood recreation center in one of the poorest sections of San Miguel del Padron, a working-class suburb southeast of Havana.”

Full: <a href=”http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=11550″ rel=”nofollow”>http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=11550</a>

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David McReynolds:

Homosexual life. As a homosexual, let me not dodge this. I am told there are gay bars in Havana. I didn’t ask to go – at 71, bars are not that exciting, no matter where they are.(Doubly so for alcoholics who no longer drink!). Yes, a young teen age boy tried to pick me up. At least I think he did – his English was not working and my Spanish is very poor. I assume there is prostitution. You can’t sell tourists on the idea that Havana has a hot night life and lots of beautiful women (and men) without seeing a revival of the sex trade. But are homosexuals repressed? I don’t think so. I was visiting one evening with a gay man who works with the government who asked if I had seen “Gay Cuba”. I hadn’t, he had a copy and put it in his VCR. It was a good video – it documented the genuine repression which had existed not so long ago, and then the sharp change in government policy.

Full: http://www.cc-ds.org/Cuba/mcreynolds.htm

The logic behind that statement is simply incredible , abb1. If the Castro regime cannot withstand the toiling of a few reporters then, well, to jail the reporters must go, I guess.

Oh puhleeze Louis, spare us the crap apologetics.

How about gays in Cuba? Any hassle from the cops maybe? Or only for the ones who “take their marching orders from the USA”.

See Peter Tatchell on this href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/cuba/story/0,11983,712621,00.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.guardian.co.uk/cuba/story/0,11983,712621,00.html

The 1979 penal code formally decriminalised homosexuality, but the legal status of lesbian and gay people in Cuba is still ambiguous. Homosexual behaviour causing a “public scandal” can be punished by up to 12 months in jail. Discreet open-air cruising in public squares and parks is tolerated, although often kept under police surveillance. Homosexuals are still deemed unfit to join the Communist party, and this can have an adverse impact on a person’s career when appointments depend on party membership. Lesbian and gay newspapers and organisations are not permitted. The Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, formed in 1994, was suppressed in 1997 and its members arrested.

Some say that this circumstance justifies a degree of limitation on political freedoms, perhaps the degree of limitation that currently exists there. What do you think?

Now, some say that this regime probably would’ve been limiting political freedoms even if this circumstance didn’t exist, and they might be correct, but how can we know for sure?