Castro retires

Cool, now the right-wing bloggers searching for pro-Castro posts won’t come up empty-handed.

Hope you weren’t planning a visit to the US, Chris- this ought to be enough to put you on the no-fly list. ;)

Way to show your support for human rights and the rule of law there, Chris. Not to mention your support of the divine right of kings, since it seems Cuba is about to become a hereditary monarchy.

Lots of places have universal literacy and decent standards of health care, and they aren’t dictatorships. I think you even live in such a country. Why should we let Cuba off the hook?

those obviously aren’t as important to you

Wow, where can I get some of that mind-reading potion that franck seems to have scored? It would come in handy for all sorts of things.

But I find it hard to celebrate a regime under which about one sixth of the population emigrated to escape political oppression and economic catastrophe.

I’ve always thought that if Cuban emigration was mainly driven by political opression and human rights, you would see a lot more Cuban refugees showing up in Jamaica and in the Dominican Republic, which are about the same distance east of Cuba as Miami is to the west. Actually, it looks a lot more like the sort economic migration you’d expect to see in a small poor country geographically close to a big rich country to me; Irealand had net out-migration of about 400,000 compared to a population of c3m in the 1950s.

By the way, our new Republican friends, given what you’ve tolerated over the last five years in terms of restrictions on civil liberties, I wonder what your man George Bush would have done if the USA had a neighbour ten times its size which had financed two or three attempts at coup d’etat.

“Wow, where can I get some of that mind-reading potion that franck seems to have scored?”

According to CB, AJP Taylor had some which helped him understand why anti-Stalinists ‘really’ didn’t like the USSR, but he’s dead, so it may not help.

Cuba has been a nation at war. Compare its repression to other nations which consider themselves beleagured: the US in the past six years perhaps.

Which is *not* to say I approve.

ajay’s right. Look at how many Chileans ended up in France after Pinochet instead of Spain, even with the language barrier.

steve labonne, the best answer to this is provided by nicolas weininger – just do a search and replace and it sounds exactly like the National Review.

Shame on you, lemuel. Don’t you know that Cuba is PURE EVIL with no redeeming features whatsoever? Just as George Bush’s America is the very definition of all that is righteous.

My point is that the cuban involvement triggered a lot of things. And sure, Mandela and South Africans can think it was decisive in the chain of events that led to the end of apartheid but angolan civilians who actually were the victims of the war may not think it was worth it.

And remind me, how many of them escaped over the Irish Channel clinging to makeshift rafts? How many drowned along the way?

I suspect someone may have been inhaling a little propaganda. “Makeshift rafts” ye gods. The vast majority of Cuban emigres to the USA get there the sensible way; via people-smugglers.

Cuba’s achievements in social development are impressive given the size of its gross domestic product per capita.

Meh. What is the point of education and literacy if you don’t have an economy to participate in? Well, I can see some merit, but it’s just not the same thing. Yeah they have good health care, but that low GDP per capita is a big part of why it’s so cheap! The doctors aren’t paid much. So maybe Cuba achieves a decent minimal quality of life, but it’s not an economically prosperous society and they don’t have any political freedoms. I’m not sure how this lesson could be applied elsewhere and it doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to me.

“I’m not sure how this lesson could be applied elsewhere and it doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to me.”

It’s true that Cuba stands out compared with other dictatorships in the region, but it is so often represented as much better than that. All Fidel has proved is that you can provide adequate social medecine if you sacrifice politcal and economic freedom and are prepared to live in poverty. But surely we could all have guessed that? Imagine a UK party running on that ticket.

The majority of the commentary on this thread just goes to prove Chris’s point about “posts in the blogosphere saying “good riddance” to Fidel Castro (especially from “left” US bloggers like Brad DeLong who never miss the chance to distance themselves).”

Well, I can think of somebody who would not have been surprised:

Je ne connais pas de pays où il règne, en général, moins d’indépendance d’esprit et de véritable liberté de discussion qu’en Amérique.

All Fidel has proved is that you can provide adequate social medecine if you sacrifice politcal and economic freedom and are prepared to live in poverty. But surely we could all have guessed that?

Um, no.

Most of humanity lives with as little or less political freedom as Cubans, and with far worse education, housing and health care. The tradeoff you describe is evidently quite difficult to achieve, at least in a poor country — like most — with a weak state — like most.

Imagine a UK party running on that ticket.

From the U.K. to Cuba would be a big step backward, for sure. But how about Haiti, or El Salvador, or the Phillipines, or any of dozens of other countries that have enjoyed the benevolent tutelage of Washington and the “international community” for the past 40 years?

“Most of humanity lives with as little or less political freedom as Cubans, and with far worse education, housing and health care. The tradeoff you describe is evidently quite difficult to achieve”

It is easy enough to achieve if the political administration is powerful and wills it. Fidel did, and that is to his credit. You could say the same for Pinochet. But if Fidel changed his mind, the whole system would change to. That is because he is (or was) a dictator and that is to his discredit.

And let’s not get too excited about Cuba’s achievements. Housing in Cuba is awful, crowded, insanitary and very dangerous (in the cities anyhow), and education for most is rudimentary. The state will tell you that there is zero illiteracy, but the smallest non-official contact with Cubans gives the lie to that.

“A sizable minority of people trying to get to the US from Haiti and the Dominican republic are on makeshift rafts. A sizable minority of people trying to get into the EU from North Africa are on makeshift rafts. How exactly is this any different?”

The difference is that the states they are fleeing from are not being apologised for on CT.

From the U.K. to Cuba would be a big step backward, for sure. But how about Haiti, or El Salvador, or the Phillipines, or any of dozens of other countries that have enjoyed the benevolent tutelage of Washington and the “international community” for the past 40 years?

I’d be willing to grant that Cuba may have ended up better off under Castro than the plausible alternatives, but I’m not much presuaded by the rest of your argument. Cuba is a very strong state. Okay, great. In a strong state you can trade off poverty for social medicine. You could also do a lot of other things with a strong state. So we get the lesson that having a strong state is good, not that there’s anything special about Cuban health care. But we already knew that having a strong state was one of the most important preconditions for a successful society.

The problem with people like CB et al is, that they make it impossible for the left to establish an uncompromising, credible and consistent position on human rights.

If you do not place a high value on political, social and economic freedom. Liberals used to think those things were quite important.

Thank God there’s no such hypocrisy from conservatives in the US, who have made it quite clear that they don’t care about (or actively dislike) the first two items on that list.

brautigan,

That’s not true. The vocal, politically active (usually right-wing) Cuban exiles are almost all white. But there are a lot of Cubans in Miami who are not white – they just tend to be less politically active, less well-educated, poorer, and more willing to engage with the larger community around them, including the African-American part. (There was an interesting series of articles in newspapers a while back that followed two Cuban exiles in Miami, one white and one black, who were friends before they left and have drifted apart since then and race was a big factor. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link.)

Cuba is not 100% black, either, unless you believe in the one-drop rule, and anyway, surely the white Castro family qualifies.

The problem with people like CB et al is, that they make it impossible for the left to establish an uncompromising, credible and consistent position on human rights.

Because more groupthink is always a good thing.

“Thank God there’s no such hypocrisy from conservatives in the US, who have made it quite clear that they don’t care about (or actively dislike) the first two items on that list.”

Surely we shouldn’t be taking our ethical bearings from such types, though.

What made this action particularly unacceptable to Washington is that Cuba is only a few miles from Florida, very much in the U.S.A.’s “own” backyard. As such, Cuba has posed a particularly intolerable threat—what Chomsky has called “the threat of a good example”.

Or alternatively, most Americans don’t particularly give a toss one way or another, Cuban refugees in Miami feel very strongly about the issue (because they want their land back), Florida is a swing state in US presidential elections, and most American politicians feel very very strongly that they themselves should get reelected.

On Cuba’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector:
http://www.ats.agr.gc.ca/latin/3722_e.htm

If you do not place a high value on political, social and economic freedom. Liberals used to think those things were quite important.

If you’re poor and live in a third world “representative democracy” you’re unlikely to have much access to any of those things. Political freedom is only meaningful if you can exercise it on things that you care about, and free of threat of violence (the violence of rich men’s thugs is no better than that of the state. Anti-union violence is just as deadly) and where there is no corruption. Economic freedom is meaningless if you’re poor, with no access to education or capital. And there’s often very little social freedom at the bottom of the heap.

I agree that all these things are important – but plenty of western liberals seem to think that voting is a magic wand that cures everything, or the only thing that really matters.

And the Cuban pharmaceutical export industry? Please.

Your point being?

Did you really think their was such a dangerous lack of anti-Castro comment out there that Chris had some sort of duty to provide more of it than he already did in the second goddamn sentence of his post?

No. I did think that singling out the Angolan civil war as a Good Thing was frankly pretty stomach-turning, though. As I hinted above, if I were writing an obituary of Richard Nixon I might well mention the bad (Watergate) along with the good (EPA, diplomatic relations with China, arms-reduction talks) but I wouldn’t call for three cheers for the bombing of Hanoi.

Viva Fidel.

ET is certainly blameless. I’m not so sure about Al…

Novakant:

The problem with people like CB et al is, that they make it impossible for the left to establish an uncompromising, credible and consistent position on human rights.

The hard question is, which human rights? Political rights to vote, hold office, etc., or social rights to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, education, etc.? Both kinds of right are asserted, for instance, by the UN Universal Declaration. Trade-offs may be unavoidable. Is it so troubling that Chris Bertram thinks the second kind worth celebrating, at the same time as deploring the loss of the first?

However, the correct expression I believe is “Chris Bertram and his ilk“…

Just to add something to what ajay is getting at, something like 500,000 people died in the Angolan Civil War. It was one of the major proxy wars of the Cold War.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/angola/001109.htm

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9909/25/angola.legacy/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_civil_war

Meh. What is the point of education and literacy if you don’t have an economy to participate in?

Seriously? See, I would have said the exact opposite: who cares about economic prosperity if you aren’t healthy, educated, and so on. That’s because I think that education and health are intrinsically valuable, whereas ‘participating in the economy’ is mostly just instrumentally valuable. But if free-market economic activity is the point, then I suppose Cuba seems pretty evil.

Part of the reason people are keen to defend Cuba is that the American position is just so, well, pathological. The US has no problem trading with China or Saudi Arabia, but they maintain a 40 year trade embargo on Cuba? They threaten to jail Canadians who invest in the country? That’s just crazy, and completely out of proportion. So defenders of Cuba see themselves as sticking up for the little guy who’s getting unfairly picked on. If America were a bit more rational towards Cuba, maybe people would be less inclined to give Castro’s regime a free pass.

The Angola component of the post bothers me a lot, for reasons stated above. How is this different from saying, “Well, the Iraq War did get rid of Saddam Hussein, after all”? The Cuban intervention in Angola played a crucial role in turning the country into a major proxy theater. It’s not as if the lack of such an intervention spared other African nations from being caught up in the Cold War, I’d agree, but there was a difference of magnitude and type in Angola that had grevious consequences for Angolans themselves, which are still very apparent there. Given that at best, the impact of Cuito Cuanavale on the South African regime was no more than one contributing factor in the end of apartheid, arguably a minor one, I don’t know how that can be said to stack up as a marvelous achievement for Castro. Particularly given that it wasn’t what the Cuban intervention in Angola was originally intended to achieve.

Sam C

“The hard question is, which human rights? Political rights to vote, hold office, etc., or social rights to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, education, etc.? Both kinds of right are asserted, for instance, by the UN Universal Declaration. Trade-offs may be unavoidable. Is it so troubling that Chris Bertram thinks the second kind worth celebrating, at the same time as deploring the loss of the first?”

????

Why would we need to trade political rights to get social rights? Evidence overwhelmingly indicates that it is only when those in positions of less power (esp. economic) get political rights that their social rights are recognised/satisfied. Existing practice in the vast majority of liberal democracies shows that a well ordered political system can simultaneously respect political rights and provide all or nearly all its citizens with access to health care and education. What is special about Cuba is that it is a rare case where political rights are not respected but some measure of social rights are satisfied, but this rare case gives us no reason whatsoever to think of Cuba as representative of a choice we might have to make between different kinds of values (as you seem to imply).

Count me as another on the left who feels quite happy to distance herself from Castro, or any other dictator claiming to be communist. Sorry Chris, but your post does sound a bit “yes he does bad things but…”.

Note that there is a Nixon blog.

http://www.nixonblog.com/

While they don’t wish to minimize Nixon’s blah blah it must be acknowledged that blah blah.

I made much the same argument recently, on this forum, WRT Suharto’s Indonesia.

Well, there are two important differences. First, the scale of bloodshed in Suharto’s early years was orders of magnitude worse than anything Castro perpetrated. And second, the position of the US government has been diametrically opposite in the two cases, which leads those of us on the American (and developed world generally) Left emphasize different parts of a complex picture.

On the other hand, I think lots of us who are in agreement with Chris B. here also really appreciated your Indonesia comments. I did, anyway.

Might the question not also be posed of whether Castro’s regime would have been all the things it was if the USA had not shown a determination, from the first hour, to destroy it? Though it would have to be said that, after 1963, such a determination was rather more rhetorical than actual… Since it’s still there, ‘World’s Only Hyperpower’ notwithstanding…

Certainly Castro wasn’t the worse tyrant who has ever lived.

I would almost certainly prefer being an average Cuban to say being an average Haitian.

Just providing some sort of stability and rule of law Castro has provided Cuba with more than many other nations.

Chris Bertram certainly isn’t any kind of apologist for human rights abuses. In any way shape or form.

And providing education and health care is certainly an achievement.

If Cuba is any kind of economic model for Socialist Democracy then, we should say, No Thanks, to the economics of Socialist Democrats.

Trading away inequality for dismal growth is a losing proposition.

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/SelectionCountry.asp

Look at the growth rates for Chile and Cuba since 1974. Starting from fairly similar levels.

I would rather be an average Chilean and in the future that will only be more true.

Cuba is a political and economic failure. Not the worst sort but still a failure. And Castro is too blame.

random african–

This webpage contradicts your version.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/

South Africa invaded, then Cuba sent troops.

“Following the 1959 revolution, Cuba’s communist government embarked upon a pervasive effort to rid the nation of homosexuality, which was seen as a product of a capitalist society. Through the 1960s and 1970s this campaign included the frequent imprisonment of lesbians and gays (particularly effeminate males) without charge or trial, and confinement to forced labor camps. Parents were legally required to report their gay children. This period was dramatically documented by Reinaldo Arenas in his 1992 autobiography, Before Night Falls, as well as his fiction, most notably The Color of Summer and Farewell to the Sea. While many have argued that Arenas overstated the abuses — and even the most devoted of his readers agree that he used dramatic license to underscore his arguments — it is widely acknowledged that during this period, Cuba was engaged in active persecution of homosexuals on a scale not seen in the Western world during the same period.[17] Homosexuality was formally decriminalised in 1979, and a year later the Castro government tried to purge Cuba of “anti-social” dissidents, criminals and homosexuals by allowing them to emigrate to the US in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.” – WIKI

But look at the improvements in health care, which made this OK.

I’m not going to let the Bush administration skate for creating the Northern Hawaiian Islands Reserve. Why should you let Castro skate for literacy and health care? Yes the embargo and travel ban are stupid, stupid, stupid. It doesn’t make the quarantining of AIDS sufferers right or denying your citizens the right to petition their government (The Varela Project) in violation of your own constitution.

Honestly, it’s all about the power. Change occurs through ideas and the establishment of institutions. No one should have to stay in power for fifty years.

You seem to ignore the Cuban Missile Crisis. I grew up left-liberal in Miami. I remember going to school with National Guard troops accompanying us and the sheer terror of nuclear annihilation seemingly imminent. I honestly cannot understand why anyone could praise a man who let his nation become a client state of the USSR.

Cuba is the only nation in the Americas that refuses to allow the Red Cross to visit its prisons. It has refused AI and HRW representatives admission for fact-finding visits since 1989. Yes, the US policy towards Cuba has been stupid. Why this means Castro must be praised is asinine.

I read it. And it’s incredibly vague.

Like I said S.A. was involved on and off during the independence war. They did invade the South to fight off SWAPO and create a border area.
However what Castro did, 7 days before the official independence was to openly send troops to back one movement. That led to more direct intervention of SADF and not just raids on the border area. It also made the conflict last a lot longer since now the US and the USSR were pouring guns and ammunitions in what could have ended in a standing-still and negotiations a lot earlier.

And shit, SA wasn’t even close to ever do anything in Cabinda. Why were there cuban officers invading it from Congo and cuban troops protecting Chevron instalations ?

Fucking tag-impaired site. Italics for that second bit, I wrote the third.

However, Savimbi showed more hostility toward the other indigenous freedom parties

Please. The 3 factions fought against each other as much as they fought the portugese (and collectively fought separatists).

Randy, the point of the comment you relied to is that Cuban emigration is economic rather than political in nature. The existence of Cuban Adjustment Act seems to provide supporting evidence for that argument; they go to the US because of the economic opportunity the Act provides. Are you disputing this?

Abb1,

Why would the existence of Cuban Adjustment Act make it merely economic? If one nation granted you permanent residence one year after your arrival and allowed you to enter without restriction, wouldn’t you go there regardless of your reasons?

Haiti is even closer to Cuba than the DR, but no one is making that argument here.

Beryl,

Good point.

BTW, Ronald Reagan did actually announce: “we start bombing in 5 minutes.”

I hate Ronald Reagan, but that’s a pretty dishonest way of putting it.

“The majority of the commentary on this thread just goes to prove Chris’s point about “posts in the blogosphere saying “good riddance” to Fidel Castro (especially from “left” US bloggers like Brad DeLong who never miss the chance to distance themselves).””

It depends on what you mean by “Chris’s point”. The sentence you quote really should have been finished. “… especially from “left” US bloggers like Brad DeLong who never miss the chance to distance themselves”. Chris couldn’t finish that sentence because it would be self-evidently silly.

Distance themselves from what, Chris?

Castro puts people with AIDS in camps. Castro locks up playwrights he doesn’t like for decades. Castro imprisons and tortures people for being gay.

The reason lots of people will say “good riddance” is because that is a perfectly appropriate sentiment to have.

The question is: how many of them would’ve emigrated if the US was putting them into internment camps for a couple of months and then shipping them to Haiti or Jamaica.

“Castro puts people with AIDS in camps”
He put them in camps under quarantine, where they get better care than in any other 3rd world country at the time. It was a policy based more on fear than logic, but as far as the history of “camps” and “gulags” it was modest.
The question is not whether to criticize or “condemn” Castro as to understand who and why some people choose to condemn him. I’d call myself an opponent of the Castro regime, but I’d rather live in Cuba than Gaza, and no one’s mentioned Israel yet, certainly not the author of this post.

“where they get better care.”
I meant to use the past tense.

What Randy Paul said – thanks for that.

I’m tired of compartmentalization in these matters (and I’ve been hearing the same cr@p for twenty years from both the left and the right)- CBs post was indicative of that and anybody who can read will see it.

Human rights are by definition universal, inalienable and absolute. Dictatorships are bad, even if they make the trains run on time or whatever. The hypocrisy and hysteria on one side doesn’t make the abuses of the other side any better. Is that so hard to understand? Is that too much to ask?

Call it simple, but it’s better than making endless excuses or ‘providing context’ for human rights abusers – let alone praising them.

Wow — PowerLine et al. are going to have to work hard to come up with a stupider post than Bertram’s here.

“Still, I’m reminded of A.J.P. Taylor writing somewhere or other (reference please, dear readers?) that what the capitalists and their lackeys really really hated about Soviet Russia was not its tyrannical nature but the fact that there was a whole chunk of the earth’s surface where they were no longer able to operate.”

Doesn’t the corollary to this practically write itself? I.e., wht the leftist academics and their lackeys, er, ilk, really really liked about Cuba was not its literacy rates or healthcare or its anti-Apartheid work but the adverserial stance towards Uncle Sam?

If you took away the US-thwarting part, would the rest of Castro’s legacy get even the tiniest amount of applause?

Dsquared,

Fine, I misread the republicans comment and apologize for it.

As for my carrying water for the Miami republicans, if I recall correctly, they support the embargo and travel ban which I specifically called “stupid, stupid, stupid.” How that mkes me carry water for the Miami republicans defies logic.

Perhaps you can find it in yourself to acknowledge that you missed my comments against the embargo and travel ban and realize that I am not carrying water for the Miami republicans. You might also acknowledge my comments about the significant number of Cuban immigrants who went to Spain. Why would they go to Spain and Florida instead of Jamaica and the Dominican Republic? Because of the welcome they received due to the existence of Cuban-American communities already there.

Much for the same reason that many Vietnamese immigrants went to Los Angeles, as did Salvadoran immigrants in the 80’s and Iranian immigrants after the fall of the Shah. Your failure to acknowledge that as a simple possibility is, well interesting. Don’t worry, however: I won’t refer to you as Daniel the Disingenuous.

As for Chris’ mention of human rights abuses, so what? It has as much credence as the Pinochet defenders mentioning his miserable human rights record followed by disputable favorable claims of his economic record. Increasing literacy levels and providing for health care have as much relevance as a defense against crimes against humanity as does creating a market economy.

So who should I believe regarding Castro’s rule: You and Chris or AI and HRW? I’ll go with the NGO’s, thank you. After all, there should be but one standard for judging human rights.

Sheesh, my dog gets excellent health care, is well fed, and by dog standards is highly educated, but I wouldn’t want to live a dog’s life. It’s pleasant on some crude level to have one’s predjudices about political opponents verified, but I could have done without it in this instance.

Geo,

Bear that in mind the next time someone praises Pinochet.

Talk about the soft bigotry of lowered expectations.

What relativist nonsense. Why would nations ratify the UDHR?

So propose to us a government, now or in history, that has never committed any forms of human rights abuse ever.

re#121: There you go again, Randy. Chris wasn’t simply praising Castro; he was praising and criticizing him. And more significantly than either, he was reminding us of the hypocrisy of most official American criticism of foreign human rights violations.

If Pinochet deserves credit for anything, then he’s welcome to it. By the way (though I don’t want to get off the thread), my impression was that Pinochet’s extreme monetarism and privatization was by no means an overall economic success. See Naomi Klein’s recent Shock Therapy for details.

Chris wasn’t simply praising Castro; he was praising and criticizing him

Yeah that’s some harsh criticism:

And, of course, Castro ran a dictatorship that has, since 1959, committed its fair share of crimes, repressions, denials of democratic rights etc.

That’s about as namby/pamby as it comes to criticism.

#128: Yes, Brian, the Grenadans are certainly better off now than under the NJM lunatics. But do take the long view. The US government did not have UN sanction, and therefore it was committing aggression, a serious violation of international law. If the world’s hyperpower consistently disregards international law (as it does), then eventually international law will lose force. Governments disposed to aggression (eg, the US in 2003 and doubtless many, many future examples) will feel less and less constrained. This is a very, very bad thing, and may in fact lead to a global military holocaust someday. So “good riddance,” yes, but don’t overlook the downside.

But see, I said “like Allende who refused to be overthrown and murdered“? Get it?

BTW, according to AI there are currently exactly 69 political prisoners in Cuba. That’s rather paltry, isn’t it? Where do you get all these “torture his opposition” and “execute his opposition” things?

Abb1, apparently your love of the revolution blinds you to my use of the past tense. Read Armando Valladares book Against All Hope. See the film Nobody Listened by Nestor Almendros, the late cinematographer.

Pinochet’s worst abuses took place in the first five years of his rule.

That’s rather paltry, isn’t it?

Apparently it’s a number you seem comfortable with.

No, but what’s the alternative? No such conventions?

No, but what’s the alternative? No such conventions?

No, I’m for ’em.

To be honest I’m not sure why you were asking the question, but you seemed to be fishing for one answer when there are more out there.

Does anyone really believe that Castro personally made the decision to retire? I tend to doubt that there’s much of Fidel left.

I’m surprised no one has thought to mention Castro’s enthusiastic support for Soviet military suppression of the Prague Spring, his equally warm support for China’s brutal repression of the Tiananmin Square demonstrators, or more recently his rambling messages expressing solidarity with Slobodan Milosevic (published last year in the official Cuban media). However much one may condemn the US embargo – and I certainly always have – these unequivocally reactionary policies should be given their due weight in any balance sheet.

The comparison between Pinochet and Castro seems wrong to me — the benefits of Pinochet are questionable at best, and Pinochet’s level of evil seems to be qualitatively higher. “Sure, he implemented a policy of torturing average citizens basically at random, apparently just for its own sake, but at least he privatized the Chilean version of Social Security!” I’m not convinced.

Randy, if you’re going to pick fights, not bother to read posts properly and adopt this holier-than-thou attitude to all and sundry, I’ve no idea why you would expect the kid gloves treatment in return. So I reiterate; this Manichean, Castro-demon view of yours makes little sense as history and only makes sense politically as providing political ammunition for reactionaries and red-baiters. Cuba has run about the kind of society you’d expect from a Latin American society under constant threat of invasion, and has achieved genuine development gains which can’t be hand-waved away. Singling it out as one of the worst regimes in the world makes about as much sense as singling out Israel for the same treatment.

PS: it was also pretty stupid when you were preaching the same sermon about Hugo Chavez during the last Presidential elections in Venezuela, when I seem to remember you also pretended to be unaware of the sort of people you were siding with.

Apart from the achievements in health care and education, Cuba also has a relatively good human rights record – compared to the other countries in the region. Nothing Castro did can compare the (US supported) contra terror attacks on schools and hospitals in Nicaragua, the (US-supported) Guatemalan genocide, the (US-supported) torture program Operación Cóndor, the (US-supported) death squads in El Salvador, the (US-supported) Papa & Baby Doc dictatorship in Haiti, the (US-supported) murderous paramilitary groups in Colombia, the (US-supported) dirty war in Argentina, etc.

I’ve just noticed, by the way, that “javier” in comment number two tried to get away with the claim that “a sixth of the population” of Cuba emigrated. As far as I can tell, this number must be the result of adding the annual migration figures (which average about 35k/year) over 40 years and dividing by 12m. On the basis of similar arithmetic, I would strongly suspect I could prove that the population of Ireland was negative.

Lesson (for CB): some people believe that saying anything good about someone who has done anything bad makes you an apologist for the bad the person has done. The thing is, you knew this, and we all knew that you knew this, and then there is this staggering thread of people who seem not even to know that they are just proving what you already knew!

I’m somewhere nearer to being an atlanticist than a third camper myself these days (as I suspect most CTers are, despite the predictable determination of some of our readers to attribute hard line stalinism to us). And I’d never have written, or felt, what you wrote; but you abusers have managed to provoke in me the only good feelings about Fidel I’ve ever had.

Wow, it’s the invasion of the decents. Comparing Castro and Suharto? Claiming South African intervention in Angola was a reaction to, or somehow provoked by, Cuban support of the MPLA? Neglecting the fact that the Central American nations that didn’t stand up to the US usually ended up with genocidal fascist dictators? Blather about the universality of human rights? Are you kidding?

Now I’m a Trotskyist and not a fan of Castro’s state capitalist, repressive regime. But there’s no doubt it transformed Cuba for the better, and was a signal of hope to many throughout the world. For that, Castro deserves credit. Thanks to CB for giving it where it’s due.

You know, there is a reason Castro stayed in power for fifty years. And it isn’t all those fond memories Cubans have of being America’s Whorehouse under Batista.

Adam,

Allende was no more “the” government of Chile than George Bush is the government of the United States. Allende held the executive function of a tripartite government. By September 1973 Allende had lost the support of both the judiciary and legislature of Chile to the point that the legislature passed a resolution calling on the military to intervene and restore order. The judiciary expressed similar sentiments. And thought you don’t want to acknowledge it there is an implied constitution in almost all Latin societies that demands that the military intervene when chaos is at hand. Nothing unusual about Pinochet. I’m grateful that he left peacefully and left a functioning and fair government in his wake.

If you want to have an understanding of how the bodies piled up in Casto’s Cuba consult Jon Lee Anderson’s excellent and sympathetic biography of Che Guevara. Amongst other duties, Guevara was tasked with overseeing show trials of alleged war criminals. In the first year of the “revolution” hundreds went to the firing squad after the briefest trials that usually began at 9:00 p.m. with final appeals heard at 1:00 a.m. the following morning. Executions took place the same dawn. Revolutionary Justice. Castros reign is soaked with blood.

Jeff,

Batista’s whorehouse! Castro is the biggest pimp in the world. Cuba’s major source of hard currency is the twisted tourism industry that caters very much to male sex tourists. Castro has even bragged about the virtues of Cuban woman as consorts for that very jaded European. All over Cuba women are “moonlighting” as prostitutes. Housewives, sisters, doctors, lawyers, mothers, dauthers, accountants…….women from all social and racial backgrounds are resorting to prostitution to supplment that $15 dollar/month state income. Whorehouse indeed.

Daniel, What about the fucking torture?!

To the Editor:

“Cuba’s Ills Encroach on Health” (news article, July 16) describes Cuba’s sanitarium for those infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, without mentioning that the residents are there because of a compulsory quarantine policy. Indeed, mandatory H.I.V. screening to identify the H.I.V.-infected, with forced isolation of the infected, have earned Cuba the unenviable honor of having the world’s most repressive AIDS policy.
Hence, it has been Cuba’s commitment to quarantine, and not, as you report, the free distribution of condoms, that is the centerpiece of Cuba’s AIDS prevention program.
When compulsory isolation began, it was to be lifelong, mitigated only by periodic, accompanied home visits. Only now, after years of international criticism and under the pressure of a collapsing economy, has a liberalization been announced. Those judged responsible and trustworthy after six months of compulsory isolation will be able to leave the sanitarium.
However one judges the quality of care provided to Cuba’s H.I.V.-infected medical inmates (by most accounts it is superlative, given Cuba’s resources); however the condition under which most of the inmates live puts to shame the squalor in which the United States confined H.I.V.-infected Haitians at Guantanamo, and however one judges the effectiveness of Cuba’s approach to stemming the spread of H.I.V. infection (by many accounts Cuba has been spared the kind of epidemic witnessed elsewhere in the Caribbean), the price paid in liberty must never be lost sight of.
A question that cannot be answered is what Cuba, with its superior health care system, might have done to prevent the spread of H.I.V. infection if it had chosen not to resort to the medical incarceration of men and women whose only crime was H.I.V. infection. RONALD BAYER Professor of Public Health Columbia University New York, July 20, 1993

Wow. sounds just like El Salvador, Guatamala or Argentina.

Daniel, you are a right pearler. I particularly love this:

Allende was no more “the” government of Chile than George Bush is the government of the United States. Allende held the executive function of a tripartite government. By September 1973 Allende had lost the support of both the judiciary and legislature of Chile to the point that the legislature passed a resolution calling on the military to intervene and restore order.

It stands alone as a brilliant testimony to your compassion. And what a great follow-up to complain about Castro running a massive brothel. One moment Castro’s a bastard for suppressing free markets, the next he’s a bastard for allowing a tourist market which (surprise! oh the woes of communism! it would never happen here!) is accompanied by prostitution. Tourism goes hand in hand with prostitution? Who knew!

Sebastian, you said

You’d almost think that Cambodia had never been invaded, Tibet was free, Korea and Vietnam had been free of the destructive influence of the USSR and China, and that Lebanon wasn’t often under the thumb of Syria.

but I think you mean

You’d almost wish that Cambodia had never been bombed by the US, Tibet was not under the thumb of America’s biggest creditor, Korea and Vietnam had been free of the destructive influence of the US, and that Lebanon hadn’t been invaded by Israel, the US’s closest ally in the Middle East

But you don’t really wish that at all, do you? The biggest wish you have is that you could just ignore it all and pretend that Castro really had nothing to fear from his big neighbour…

Comment 149 ends the thread. “He’s our asshole” indeed.

Well, my comments are awaiting moderation, but I’ve answered you Daniel Squared. that’s my last word on this.

Oh, by the way, where are all the strident denunciations of Alpha 66, Jorge Mas Canosa, Luis Posada Carriles and other US-funded anti-Castro terrorists? Our rightist interlocutors sure don’t seem to have many qualms about supporting terrorism, as long as it’s directed against the people of Cuba.

Oh, by the way, where are all the strident denunciations of Alpha 66, Jorge Mas Canosa, Luis Posada Carriles and other US-funded anti-Castro terrorists?

It’s called Google.

I’m sure you don’t mean me as I’m not a rightist, but in the event that I’m wrong, please click the above link.

I do think it’s funny how many people seem to think there is some kind of logical contradiction in anyone’s holding a different opinion of Castro than they do of Pinochet or Suharto.

That–patently ridiculous argument–appears to be the basis of about 90% of the comments on this thread…

odd comments. and as i read them, it seems as if there is no historical memory.

so let’s consider the history……

by and large, for most of the 20th century, cuba was an amerikan colony. and was ruled by amerikan commercial interests.

and it was ruled by a hefty bit of racism. few want to note that colonial cuba had a majority of the population that was quite noticeably of african-american descent[these were cuba’s slaves]. and it had a minority that were of whiter coloration, mulatto, criolo. status, opportunity in cuba was linked to skin color: the whiter the better[just as an aside, it was this whiter segment of cuba that fled to the usa when racial status ceased to become the arbiter of who belonged to the cuban aristocracy].

but what happened in cuba after ww2 that really changed the equation. it was the oss/cia and its alliance with the mob. after the mob assisted amerikan intell in destroying the french and italian trade union movements after the great war, after it was allowed to refine indochinese opium in marseilles with impunity as the quid part of the quo, habana became the entrepot for the refined opium[heroin] into the northern territories of the western hemisphere.

and fulgencio batista and his goons became the private army of the jewish-sicilian-neapolitan gangster syndicate. cuba became the country/island virtually controlled by the luciano, lansky, trafficante, marcello mob.

narcotics trafficking, white slaving, crooked gambling was the hallmark of post ww2, pre-castro cuba. oh, and lots of murdering of those that opposed the mob and its goonsters[led by fulgencio batista].

everything was very sweet until batista decided to exact a larger tithe from the mob in 1957. that is when the mob and the outfit decided that batista the extortioner had to be defenestrated. that is why it was that the mob and the outfit armed and supported fidel and his little band, and went even further in advancing fidel’s military successes.

some day the files will be opened. and you will learn in excruciating detail how fervently the outfit worked to enable fidel to oust the gouger, fulgencia batista.

if you will recall, after fidel’s victory, it was going to be business as usual. the mob was going to still be empowered. to use habana as the transhipment point for marseilles-refined heroin into the usa. to continue to run the crooked casinos. to continue to run the brothels, the white-slaving.

for 6-12 months, fidel functioned as the new general manager for the mob in cuba. and then, i think, it dawned on him that as long as he allowed the mob[also the outfit] to operate in cuba, cuba would continue to be enslaved. as a colony of the mob and its associates[the outfit].

fidel’s epiphany was that unless cuba was managed as a garrison state, then the jewish-sicilian gangsters and its allies[the skull&boners] would continue to enslave cuba.

fidel was the only manager of any country that defenestrated the mob[and all its testicles, or is that tentacles?]. and realized that he had to cordon off cuba from the mob and its acolytes[the bush family, for instance].

that the usa has worked so hard to topple fidel should inform you how deeply the jewish-sicilan mob controlled/controls the amerikan political system. and how much the heroin traffic meant to so many[especially members of the russell trust and the black budget of the outfit].

as some of you may know, once cuba was lost as the western hemisphere’s entrepot for heroin trafficking, the traffic moved to panama.

and that, of course, was the reason for the george herbert walker bush invasion of panama. there were family and skull&bones financial records that had to be retrieved.

the principal player in this panama traffic was a cambio known as deak perrera. an outfit/mob joint venture dedicated to narcotics revenue money laundering. similar to the australian nugan hand bank. all the records of that perfidy were in panama. that was what the bushit’s invasion of panama was all about.

viva fidel.

Cuba has run about the kind of society you’d expect from a Latin American society under constant threat of invasion

It seems a bit odd to defend Castro on the grounds that Cuba has faced a threat of an invasion or a coup sponsored by the US. Which Latin American countries haven’t been threatened with invasion over the last 50 years?

After all, as the same people who are defending Cuba have pointed out, the US has launched coups and sponsored proxy wars in lots of Latin American countries. Cuba seems considerably worse to me than, say, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. Are we to believe that if Allende had stayed in power, he’d have been as bad as Castro? Venezuela and Bolivia also don’t seem nearly as bad as Cuba: should be expect them to slide into dictatorship soon?

It seems a bit odd to defend Castro on the grounds that Cuba has faced a threat of an invasion or a coup sponsored by the US.

Actually as part of the agreement toremove the missiles, Kennedy agreed to the following:

The U.S. will make a statement in the framework of the Security Council in reference to Cuba as follows: It will declare that the United States of America will respect the inviolability of Cuban borders, its sovereignty, that it take the pledge not to interfere in internal affairs, not to intrude themselves and not to permit our territory to be used as a bridgehead for the invasion of Cuba, and will restrain those who would plan to carry an aggression against Cuba, either from U.S. territory or from the territory of other countries neighboring to Cuba.”

While a convincing argument could be made that the pledge not to interfere in internal affairs and not to intrude ourselves has not been upheld, the part about carrying on aggression against Cuba (please don’t try to parse my meaning; aggression means military action) has been upheld.

Are we to believe that if Allende had stayed in power, he’d have been as bad as Castro?

Isn’t the question, rather, if Allende had been as bad as Castro, would he have stayed in power?

“Let’s hear it for Elian Gonzalez”??? His mother died leaving Cuba and risked her young son’s life as well. And though he should have been returned to his father, the handling of the case and the subsequent narrow election in Florida in 2000, it can be argued that the Elian issue propelled Bush into the White House.

Is it too late to complain that his hat made him look silly? Nobody else wears anything like that any more.

I have to say that I admire Castro personally—since he seems to me funny, bright and brave—as well as the usual (real) achievements that are wheeled out at times like these. But it isn’t really the socialism of freedom and plenty that we dreamed on, is it?

I had no idea that 69 was the acceptable number of politcal prisoners.

John M, yes, one political prisoner is one too many.

However, a claim was made here that the Castro government is executing and torturing its political opponents, eating live puppies and so on.

There are, in fact, according to the AI, exactly 69 political prisoners in Cuba. There is censorship. Dissidents are being harassed, sometimes detained overnight. That’s about it.

That’s the factual material available to you to convince me and others here that Cuba – politically – is Intolerable Tyranny and Hell on Earth. I’m not convinced so far. Your population-size arithmetics didn’t do it for me, sorry. We can compare and discuss the US human rights record (or Israel’s, as Seth suggested) against that of Cuba. Do you really want to go there?

What an enlightening discussion. The thing it has taught me is that, apparently, anyone who has done some Really Bad Things (which means pretty much all states, right?), cannot be praised for having done Some Good Things too. And this doesn’t mean ‘praised overall’, which is not what Chris was doing, very clearly (we can all agree that overall, Cuba was a bad state, worse than many others). It means they cannot be praised for the few Good Things they did do, considered separately. This interests me, because I had not previously realised, for instance, that the Swedish policy of eugenics meant that the bolstering of the welfare state was also not a Good Thing. But now I know, which is good.

John, yes, it seems paltry when you match it against the picture painted by anti-Castro propaganda. See, when you hear about all those (unspecified) unspeakable horrors every day of your life, you expect something a bit more impressive than 69 prisoners and some dissidents sometimes detained overnight. Do you see what I mean?

At the start of his (Castro’s) reign there was a revolution there, you know. That’s a pretty radical thing, you know. People get killed in that kind of situation every time, as a rule. What do you suggest – no revolutions? Every revolutionary is a terrible person? I’m not sure what you’re saying there.

Well goodness me – who’d have thought that according to AI, Cuba is a minor abuser after all – 69 political prisoners in Cuba. There is censorship. Dissidents are being harassed, sometimes detained overnight. That’s about it. – good god, is that it? What are they complaining about? Wimps.

What AI actually says is that Cuba has a bad record in the following areas: freedom of expression and association, prisoners of conscience, arbitrary arrests, detention without charge or trial, unfair sentences, harrassment and intimidation of dissidents and critics and the death penalty. They also call for an end to the US embargo.

Now, remind me again how providing social welfare and staving off invasion by a neighbouring superpower necessarily requires any of the above?

I’ll start having a better opinion of Castro’s Cuba when those little boats start travelling in the opposite direction. Any country that does not allow its citizens to freely leave is a prison. No sophisticated political rationalization is required.

Now, remind me again how providing social welfare and staving off invasion by a neighbouring superpower necessarily requires any of the above?

Look, I’m no friend of Castro. As an anarchist, I’m just as opposed to him as I am to anyone else who presumes to “lead”. But the above statement is breathtakingly foolish in its political naivete and the double-standard which it implies. There is a large, well-funded reaction which has as its stated goal the overthrow of the current government of Cuba. There are spies in Cuba itself, paramilitaries training in the Florida swamps, huge propaganda efforts, etc. etc. The Cuban government has every reason to suspect that dissidents, even left dissidents, are receiving aid from these various US-backed conspirators. Of course, it would speak much better of Castro and his government if their response was to open up Cuban society to a diversity of ideas, but if they did that, there’s a pretty good chance that the US would simply come in and buy back the populations’ affections just long enough to re-install a kleptocratic puppet regime like the one Cuba had before the revolution. And then, then you would see some human rights abuses. Castro’s Cuba may not be a paradise for free inquiry on some objective level, but relative to what many US client states are like in their treatment of dissent, it practically is.

All of this Cuba-bashing is pretty rich, given that many of the people commenting are apparently from the US, where the security forces regularly detain hundreds of people without charges (or on fake charges that are never pursued in court) for the crime of vocally opposing the regime and its wars. Not to mention using electro-shock torture as a routine method of controlling internal subject populations and sending agents provocateurs to spy on dissident groups. The US record on domestic human rights is no better than Cuba’s, it just happens that there’s a larger contingent of bought-off people like yourselves who know it’s in their interest to pretend that everything is okay. 2 million behind bars, folx.

Last thing and then I’ll shut up: minneapolitan makes a good point when they point out that the US’ human rights track record is certainly not much better than that of Cuba.

What I’ve seen over and over again in these sort of discussions is that because Cuba is presented as a dictatorship, any and all human right abuses are classified as inherent to the system, while our own, because our countries are official democraties are explained as incidents.

For example, the Netherlands does not have any official political prisoners, but our government does lock up minors in prison for no other crime than being “failed asylum seekers”. And this has been going on for five years or longer. Yet any suggestions that the Netherlands is a serial human rights abuser because of this are met with disdain.

Neither the exiles nor the US has the best interests of the Cuban population at heart, so I’m wary of any leftist who spents too much time attacking Castro when there are so many more deserving targets around, which are actually supported by our governments. (Mubarrak frex)

Ah the zero-sum argument on discussion of human rights abuses. Usually that gets advanced by those on the right who believe that criticism of Buh’s abuses means you’re not criticizing the likes of Mugabe. Poppycock.

Somehow I’ve never had the problem of criticizing human rights abusers regardless of their political leanings. It’s called consistency.

to john m

Two words – Mordechai Vanunu

You know, someday we’ll find out how many people Fidel and Raul actually had executed throughout the years. Then I’ll come back here and read some rationalization about making omelettes while resolutely standing up to Yanqui.

What, no good word for Pinochet around here? He had a much better tailoring, and his social security plan actually worked.

Two words: “Jesus wept.”

Come see the violence inherent in the incidents.

Um, let’s not. I was involved in that operation, on the US side. 19 US servicemembers died in it.

Though shit!!!

Don’t forget the 49 Grenadians who died defending their country against foreign invaders or the 29 Cuban Workers whom you killed not to mention the hundreds of wounded.

How my criticisms of Chavez put me on the side of those who advocated the Caracazo is merely more of yout strained “either with us or against us” orthodoxy.

You were advocating a vote against him in the referendum on midterm elections, and specifically a vote for a coalition that was supported by Carlos Andres Perez.

“Staving off invasion (or, rather, intervention, including covert actions) by a neighboring superpower certainly does require most if not all of it.2

But it doesn’t. As pointed out above, other states have managed to build stable prosperous democracies while facing security threats as great or greater than Cuba. I agree with the rest of what you say, though, about the heavy-handed US position being a gift for a dictator like Fidel.

“Chris Bertram isn’t worthy, to write on this blog,
Doesn’t hate Castro, he’s a communistic cog!”

Gee, I don’t recall saying that. On the other hand, you’re still dodging the substance of my posts. I’m not an anti-communist; I’m an anti-human rights abuser.

Dsquared,

It was also supported by this man who had absolutely nothing to do with the Caracazo and whose influence in Venezuelan political life is far greater than CAP’s is. No points for trying to smear me.

“Is this about Israel? You’ve gotta be kidding. They have tens of thousands of political prisoners, practice torture, assassinations, and, basically, randomly murder people on a regular basis.”

Weird, though, isn’t it, that no Israelis act as if this is the case. My friends are openly oppositional of the government and organise against them and yet they are are still free to publish, travel, leave and enter. Amazing really. Of course, thIsrael commits its ‘fair share’ of abuses on the territories, but surely everyone is entitled to a fair share?

“Cuba, by the way, does have democratic institutions”

No, an institution isn’t democratic just because it is called democratic by the state. Remember the GDR?

Abb1,

Try Costa Rica.

A.J.P. Taylor also said: ‘Without democracy Socialism would be worth nothing, but democracy is worth a great deal even when it is not socialist’.

Human rights abuses in democratic Jamaica are far worse than in Cuba (and its a far, far, worse place to be gay). Human rights abuses in democratic Columbia are far worse than in Cuba. At various points they’ve been far worse in Brazil and Haiti (they currently still are, if Haiti is considered democratic still), the Dominican Republic, etc. Plenty of African countries have combined democracy with serious human rights abuses. There are human rights abuses in the Philippines.

The idea that representational, or liberal, democracy is somehow a bulwark against human rights abuses has always seemed a strange argument, as there’s little evidence for it. There are good arguments for democracy (in all its forms, not just those known by good Bourgeoise westerners), but I’m not sure that’s one.
And yes, sure, dictatorships often commit human rights abuses to stay in power, but then so do democracies.

Not that this is a defence of Castro particularly. From my own libertarian-marxist perspective, Cuba is not something to aim for – on the other hand I have a sense of perspective. There are far worse places, and Cuban development has to some degree been constrained by historical and geographical realities. I suspect Castro is the kind of control freak with dictatorial tendencies, but then he came of age politically in a S. Africa which had seen a mildly reformist, and democratic, government overthrown in Guatemala. It was hard to see then (and until recently) how a progressive government could withstand the US from within a democracy.
As for the human rights abuses. Well no, its not good. The executions post-revolution I’m pretty relaxed about – the regime they overthrow was pretty revolting, and those guys were dangerous. But I don’t think subsequent arrests, and censorship was particularly justified in Cuba, any more than in much of the rest of the world where these things happen.

On the other hand, my cynical side suspects that intellectuals get worked up about places like Cuba because its people like them who are locked up, beaten. Whereas in much of the rest of the world (including to some extent the US) its the poor, the invisibles.

As for democracy. I think the best argument against Castro as dictator, which oddly one rarely sees made, is that it was very inefficient. It was also a weakness structurally, as things had to go through Castro. This didn’t matter until the Soviet subsidies ended – and its interesting that Cuba became much more pluralistic and democratic when the country had to scrabble to survive – and this seems to have made a big difference. For those interested, there are some interesting lessons about democracy from the ground up there, which could be copied in less authoritarian societies. I think the achievements of Cuba during the Soviet years are largely unimpressive, but post-Soviet achievements in things like agriculture (largely without fertilisers, or much in the way of energy inputs), pharmaceuticals – as well as keeping their education and healthcare systems are impressive. Whether its sustainable is an interesting question – and I hope that they will be able to move away from the sex/tourism model that countries in their position are normally forced into due to the need for foreign currency. Pharmaceuticals might be one answer.

Don’t be silly. Israel has had to counter all the local military powers militarily.

It hasn’t faced attack since 1948 (or do we still believe the propoganda about 1967, just as some believe that Iraq was a war of defence), and the armies that face it are pretty pathetic. Israel on the other hand has the best military equipment in the world and a professional, well disciplined, army – and the US has its back if all else fails.

“It hasn’t faced attack since 1948 (or do we still believe the propoganda about 1967”

pPrsonally I think there was a real threat in 1967, and, as far as I can tell, so do most others. There will always be deniers, of course.

In case you are wondering why your ears are burning Cian, Abb1 and Chris, it may be because Norm is talking about you:

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/02/the-better-left.html

Sigh. I forgot one has to deal with the language police. Yes I should have been clearer, but I doubt I could ever be clear enough to satisfy such policeman of the left as John M.

To be (tediously) clear I am bracketing moral concerns, not because I don’t think they matter, but simply because they are not relevant to the point I am making.

I mean the strongest argument against dictatorship of the type experienced/endured/enjoyed/suffered by Cuba being used as a method towards economic/social development, is that it would have been much more effective and successful in Cuba, if Castro had not been the sole leader from on high. The major weakness in Cuba’s development until comparatively recently, when this has changed for pragmatic reasons, is that it was managerially inefficient.

As for questions of political and social freedom. Well I guess all Cuba shows is that most people (and certainly the poor) can have more of both of these in a dictatorship, than in many a third world liberal democracy. I would consider this more a critique of liberal democracy as a form of political structure, than praise of Cuba. I don’t think Cuba is admirable on either of these criteria, though I don’t think it deserves special censure. Most of the world is probably worse, sadly.

As for Cuba’s development. I have a suspicion, given its geography, history and natural resources – that what has happened is the best that could be expected. I could be wrong, though I’ve yet to see a serious argument to convince me otherwise.

Or to be more specific. The serious comparison is not with western democracies, but liberal democracies in countries mired in undevelopment, with powerful elites, huge inequalities, etc. A comparison that Norm dodges, probably because it would never occur to him.

Sorry, that first paragraph after my name should be in itallics too. It’s from comment #210 above.

“of the possibilities realistically open to Cuba in the late ‘50s, the one realized under Castro was among the best possible for the vast majority fo the Cuban population”

But presumably the vast majority of the Cuban population would disagree. That must be castro’s view or why prevent them from forming political parties and contesting elections?

#229: My friends are openly oppositional of the government and organise against them and yet they are are still free to publish, travel, leave and enter.

Now, see, I find this amazing. You clearly prefer a state with thousands of political prisoners that is tolerant of token dissent/opposition to a state with 69 political prisoners that is not tolerant of token dissent/opposition. This doesn’t make sense to me at all. As someone (possibly you) said above: what if you are one of these prisoners? When they attach electrodes to your testicles, does it make you happy knowing that internal critics of the regime are allowed to publish, travel, leave and enter?

why prevent them from forming political parties and contesting elections?

Again, other have answered this question, but:

– Because given the resources the US was willing to put into restoring the old regime in Cuba, free and fair elections were impossible?

– Because defense against the US meant alliance with the USSR, for which a major quid pro quo was a monopoly of power by the Communist party?

– – Because the personalities and institutions encessary to overthrow the quasi-colonial regime just weren’t comaptible with it?

“So it’s all Washington’s fault?” you skeptically ask. Yes. Yes it is.

of the possibilities realistically open to Cuba in the late ‘50s, the one realized under Castro was among the best possible for the vast majority fo the Cuban population.

Like John M says, presumably it would have been foolish for the Cuban people themselves to have had a say in what was the best possible outcome for the vast majority of them. Y’know, with freedom of expression, and political parties and elections, that kind of thing.

presumably it would have been foolish for the Cuban people themselves to have had a say in what was the best possible outcome for the vast majority of them. Y’know, with freedom of expression, and political parties and elections, that kind of thing.

Yes, that’s right. Given the commitment of the US to restoring the old regime in Cuba, and the vast resources it was willing to devote to this, it would have been foolish to hold elections in Cuba.

(The identification of “political parties and leections” with “the people having a say” is foolish in its own way.)

What about all the pro-Castro screeds in the U.S.A.?

God, yes. I for one am outraged by the daily “Greetings from the Glorious Revolution” program on CNN, not to mention the dedicated Castro column in the New York Times.

To #262, random african.

I do need to remind you that if we are talking about villages naplamed (not to mention carpet bombing, deadly hebicides, etc, etc) then the US certainly has no leg to stand on.

I have always found it rather insane that we embargo Cuba.

And as for Elian’s mother…her boyfirend was the coyote who smuggled people into Miami for money. It was a tragedy, but do not make her out to be some sainted individual looking for freedom for it’s own sake.

Finally, will the folks who have created a comfortable existence in Florida really want to go back if the property they once had is not returned to them? And how would the people who have stayed feel about that? What’s the Spanish word for carpetbagger?

I mean, look at Mozambique. No Cuban troops there, I don’t think. The place was a paradise–no South Africa backing Renamo, nothing bad happening at all, cuz those nasty Castroites minded their own business.

I’ll try one more time:
The US is responsible for more deaths in the past 5 years in Iraq than Castro’s government is in 50. But the US is a democracy with freedom of speech for its citizens. The world is a complex place.

This “debate” is rooted in taboos concerning the state, as the horror over suicide bombing is rooted in taboos about the state and the body. The corollary of all this is that some leaders deserve to be worshipped as heros. But Lincoln wasn’t a hero to the people who’d been fighting for abolition for 50 years, his reactions were as slow as molasses. Finally the good deed got done, because Lincoln was a mediator, and mediators don’t have clean hands. Can a mediator be a hero?
Man, life’s so complex!!

It’s all just silliness.

There’s been a lot of fancy swordplay on this thread, which I enjoy as much as or more than the next lazy and narcissistic intellectual. I do *not* mean to disparage it by asking: what is the practical upshot of our disagreements? I can’t imagine anyone who’s posted here signing a public letter in support of American military intervention in Cuba or failing to sign a public letter demanding that the embargo be ended. And I’m not sure what, besides signing a public letter, any of us will ever have an opportunity to *do* (not that signing a public letter amounts to doing much of anything). Can anyone suggest some policy measure, something non-verbal, that Chris Bertram and Randy Paul, Cian and John M, Katherine and abb1, et al would actually take different sides about?

“And as far as Savimbi, SA, the US having their way, you’d have to prove that SA was backing UNITA from day one.”

Why, unless you want to take “no one” very literally?

The US is responsible for more deaths in the past 5 years in Iraq than Castro’s government is in 50.

And you won’t get any argument from me there. But the X hundred thousand dead in Iraq doesn’t make the hundreds in Cuba any less dead. Nor does it make of those individuals any less important. Bad versus worse doesn’t make bad any less bad.

Does anyone know a reliable figure for literacy in Cuba before Castro?

A quick googling gives me anything between 27% (the pro-Castro), 50% (but only in urban areas) to 84% (the anti-Castro). I find no way to see whether the progress of literacy during the Castro regime is a myth or if the progress of other Latin American countries was indeed relatively impressive.

Having been trapped in the not-so-cryptofascist hell of South Florida & La Exila for the past quarter-century, all I can say is thanks for the post! To borrow the wording from an earlier post, no “pass” for Castro’s crimes – – – But no pasaran for the Posadas & Boschs who we (in the USofA)harbor & immunize, the GWOT to the contrary notwitstanding. Beware the Exploding Cigars.

So what was the excuse for the remaining decades?

Sorry, the remaining decades since when?

The case of e.g. Palestine would certainly make me think twice about holding elections, if I were in the leadership of a national liberation movement in a country the US took an interest in.

It would be wonderful to live in a world where the US government allowed small, vulnerable countires to hold free elections even if the results might run contrary to its domestic or imperial goals. It’s hardly Castro’s fault that we don’t.

#274: No, no, I meant with respect to Cuba.

In the above discussion of African freedom fighters that Fidel helped why is there no mention of Mengitsu (sp approx) in Ethiopia. By any standard, even African or Communist standards, he was a particularly brutal dictator, and Fidel helped him take power. Also,during the Cuban missle crisis we have the word of a Soviet military attache that Castro recommended a preemptive nuclear strike on the USA. Why doesn’t anyone hold that against him? No one would judge Bush a success because he expanded Medicare prescription coverage. Why do you judge Castro a success because of Cuba’s health facilities? Why are there more black faces in a Republican cabinet than in the Cuban politburo? Why do you consider equality a better metric of happiness than freedom?

let’s hear it for universal literacy and decent standards of health care

Let’s hear it for the high probability that, after the Castro regime’s fall, neither turns out to have been true about Cuba.

So let’s hear it for universal literacy and decent standards of health care.
I don’t hear you cheering for Pinochet, who had a better record in reducing Infant Mortality than Castro. Sources: UCLA’s Statistical Abstract of Latin America, and various ECLA yearbooks. Who got Infant Mortality below 20 faster, and with fewer MDs per population to boot? Check it out.

In 1957, Cuba had ~ 1000 inhabitants per MD, comparable to the US and Western European countries, better than many countries in Europe and all the “Third World” countries with the exception of Argentina, Uruguay, and Hong Kong.(UN, World Health Organization yearbook) While Caudillo Fidel may have contended that he inherited a banana republic, those bananas were pretty good.

In 1959,Cuba’s literacy was 76% , fourth in Latin America. Not perfect, but not bad, either.

Perhaps one way of looking at Cuba under Caudillo Fidel is to look at how Cuba kept up with technological progress. Back in the 1950s, TV was the next big thing. In 1957, Cuba’s number of TVs per 1,000 inhabitants was first in Latin America and fifth in the world . We fast-forward a half century, where Internet access is now the next big thing. For 2004, Cuba was last in Latin America and 171st out of 211 countries in Internet access per 1,000. (World Bank Development Indicators)

It is amusing hearing posters trying to compare emigration from Ireland in the 1950s to current emigration from Cuba. What makes it amusing is that before 1959, Europeans immigrated to Cuba. What does that tell you?

Renaissance and Decay has information on TV, medical, and literacy data for Cuba, pre and post 1959.

Perusing this cornucopia of opinion over the last couple of days, I am astounded at the fecundity of our race’s indomitable self regard. Not at all offended, but astounded by the certainty of it all. Still though, I continue to harbor a bit of affection for Castro – who came to power when I was just out of grade school – because of his staying power, because of the wonder of his at-one-time-often-twelve-hour-long speeches, because of the probability that he was always concerned with the poor more than his own enrichment, that no one suggested – nor has even on this thread – that he in it for material gains rather than the Cuban people. Yes, he may embody a form of vainglory but I still have admired the wonderful hubris he has embodied that has said that Cuba exists, with or without the approval of the United States, in its own terms, with its own culture. I have always understood that it was about Cuba and the Cuban people and in a world of delusions, at least it has been a vision with something on the line. Hasta la victoria siempre!

Yeah, A.L., it takes real “courage” to criticize Castro in the comments section of a blog, if you define “courage” as a willingness to get into some mildly unpleasant argument with someone online.

This is sorta like the use of the word “brave” that one often sees in book reviews at the NYT. I do not think the word means what some people think it means.

Let me show my guts. I think that in an ideal world Castro would be imprisoned for his violations of human rights. God, I can hardly believe the suicidal risk I just took.

Hyperbolic nonsense from dsquared as usual. Restriction of civil liberties he says! Which is hilarious, since the UK and most of Europe actually have tighter surveillance laws than anything in the United States. The facts simply do not bear him out, and he will not be able to support his hyperbole on a factual basos.

And as Kevin P observes, the characteristic sneering! Which is amusing, because it is clearly a defence mechanism , a preemptive dismissive, just in case he gets rumbled, as he usually does. :)

Donald #186 I may not have explained it very well and it wasn’t primarily directed at you, but I don’t see why it is much of argument against A saying of dictator X ‘he did some very bad things but also did some very good things’ that when B said the same thing in a similar context about dictator Y, A would have found this objectionable. The two cases might in fact be very different, so while a mixed judgment like this might be appropriate in the one case, it might not be in the other. It seems clear to me that when we speak of Hitler, say, we feel that the bad he did so much outweighs any possible good as to make the latter seem–in most contexts–unworthy of mention. But it seems equally clear that this is not always the case. It depends on the details…

According to Abb1, Israel has “tens of thousands of political prisoners” and Cuba has 69.

Abb1 cites Amnesty International, which does indeed report 69 “prisoners of conscience” in Cuba. So, how many “prisoners of conscience” are there in Israel? “Several,” according to AI, all Israelis who refused to serve in the military. AI calls no Palestinians “prisoners of conscience,” which makes sense, since almost all jailed Palestinians that AI mentions are accused of violent crimes, not nonviolent political crimes.

Now it’s true that AI also says “hundreds of Palestinians were held in administrative detention without charge or trial.” But of course if we applied the same standard to Cuba, and called every prisoner denied a fair trial a “political prisoner,” we’d have to count pretty much every imprisoned Cuban as a political prisoner, which would be tens of thousands.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Israel, which really does face constant threats and real attacks, is a lot less repressive than Cuba, which faced a bunch of ineffectual attacks from the US in the 1960s. And it would be easy to name dozens of countries that faced a more serious threat of external attack than Cuba, and still less repressive.

The reactionaries are still going. Amazing. All in a tizzy because someone doesn’t agree with you guys? Too bad.

Ragout, you seem to claim that hundreds or even thousands of Cubans are held in administrative detention. Care to supply any evidence? Or is it just another one of those stupid circular arguments where anyone jailed in Cuba is jailed unjustly because Cuba is bad which in turn proves that Cuba is bad – while Israel is good so if it imprisons thousands (it’s usually around 8000), mostly after convicting them based on evidence supplied by the IDF that must be all right, showing that Israel is good?

A.L.: you complain about reading skills? How about looking in a mirror? You quote someone saying that it takes no courage to condemn Castro in the US. But then you proceed on the assumption that this same person had claimed that it does take courage to defend Castro on a blog. How is that supposed to make sense? I didn’t get the feeling that any of us here feel particularly heroic.

This is just about the dumbest thread I have ever read on this site.

I’ve spent more than an hour reading this thread and at my age, that is an hour I could have used more productively.

I’m feeble minded, so bear with me. So..Castro is bad, but not all bad because of health care adn standing up to nasty Yankees in Grenada. Or..Casrto is bad because of repression, intimidation, refusal to provide democratic elections. I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but looks pretty heavily weighted toward Castro being an autocratic dictator with little to no regard about the real human rights of his people. As for saying good things about him, it happens with every leader. After all Hitler developed the autobahn and gave the world the Volkswagen, not to mention the Wagnerian opera.

Dsquared accusing someone else of being “holier than thou” gave me the best laugh of the year.

And with Prof Bertram’s dislike for “capitalists and their lackeys” I’m surprised he allows Dsquared – who works for

[… where do I work for? A mystery! Only those capable of basic search engine skills can find out! Here’s two clues: a) it’s a bank, b) whether I worked there or not, it would be libellous to claim that Fidel Castro had “billions stashed away” there.

If anyone else wants to discuss my workplace, that’s fine. But you will have to supply a work email address for that one, so I can know where the discusants work. Fair’s fair – dd]

““Can anyone suggest some policy measure, something non-verbal, that Chris Bertram and Randy Paul, Cian and John M, Katherine and abb1, et al would actually take different sides about?”

Israel”

Erm, what now? I know I’m only a minor player in that list, but I’m pretty sure that you don’t have a damn clue of my opinions on Israel, Seth.

Also, I believe the question, which is a pertinent one, was in relation to policy measures re Cuba and Castro. And I think it is probably true that when it gets right down to it, we’re splitting hairs somewhat. Castro is dictator. This is generally considered bad. He is not the most evilest dictator on the planet or in the whole of time. Hysterical US coverage of Castro stupid. Does that about cover it?

And I think it is probably true that when it gets right down to it, we’re splitting hairs somewhat. Castro is dictator. This is generally considered bad. He is not the most evilest dictator on the planet or in the whole of time. Hysterical US coverage of Castro stupid. Does that about cover it?

Thank you! That’s what I’ve been trying to say throughout with regard to this whole bloody thread, and I don’t think anyone has said anything that deviates from that into outright “Castro is a great man, we shall praise him for all time”, even Bertram.

Now can we all just bloody move on from this ridiculous hair-splitting before we’re no longer worth it? I’m sure we all have much better things to do than measure the millimetres between respective moral high grounds.

#311 seems roughly right to me except, well, I get the impression some people totally discount decreases in life expectancy if they are caused by a Bad Man. It’s as if only certain categories of rights matter–the right to live longer isn’t regarded as a right, so if someone contributes to that one it doesn’t really matter.

Though I hasten to add I’m in the camp that thinks that in a better world all the abusers of human rights, from Bush to Putin to Olmert to (trying to remember a Hamas guy’s name, but one could substitute a Fatah guy also) to Suharto to Castro would all be in jail, though we could still talk about their positive accomplishments and argue about who is worse.

This f’n thread is the epitome of why us liberals lose elections, don’t control any judicial institutions and cannot shape any meaningful policy.

So to that I say – the parts of liberal philosophy – healthcare, education, etc. that Castro adopted – worked out great, and everything else – brush it aside for the greater good.

So be it! If winning elections means disregarding or playing down the importance of human rights, let alone supporting or even praising human rights abusers, then I’m simply not interested and I will oppose those elected by making a pact with the devil no matter what they claim their ‘larger goals’ are. And before you call me a ‘decent’, a reactionary or whatnot, please bear in mind that this is exactly the position of such venerable NGOs as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

And I agree with tom that this is the dumbest CT thread ever, starting with the original post, but it has been educational in correcting my naive belief that the left/liberal spectrum has been converging towards a consensus regarding the fundamental importance of human rights and has gradually been discarding the hoary old chestnuts of leftwing dogma. This does not seem to be the case (what’s next? a eulogy praising Ulbricht, Honecker and Mielke?), so my only hope is that it is largely a generational thing.

Look Abb1, you proposed the metric (69 “prisoners of conscience” in Cuba). I merely pointed out that if you judge Israel by the same standards, they have at most “several” political prisoners. Now you respond by changing the standards and pointing out that Israel has killed a lot more people than Cuba. True, but perhaps there’s a reason?

You’re awfully good at making excuses for a dictator like Castro, such as

Castro had to fight that superpower – the Bay of Pigs, dozens of assignation attempts, the blockade, etc. He’s got a good excuse to be a
dictator.
In Cuba it’s to preserve their independence and the principles of their popular anti-imperialist revolution. In Israel it’s – what?

Well, Israel was also invaded several times by the clients of a superpower and actually fought Soviet troops controlling ground-to-air missiles. Israel suffered a blockade for decades, not weeks like Cuba, and still suffers from the Arab boycott. And of course Israel is also fighting to preserve their popular anti-imperialist revolution.

But even if Abb1 thinks that this kind of decades-old history is enough to excuse a dictatorship, I don’t. Most importantly, Israel “excuse” is that it, unlike Cuba, is fighting back against people who are trying to kill its citizens every day.

All right, Ragout. You made your point, fine.

Not that it will matter, 322 comments into it, but I have experienced the “universal health care” system up close. Not the one they show invitees and self-important Hollywood types. I’ve visited the small village clinics, seen the empty shelves of the pharmacies in La Havana, the asylums for Cerebral Palsy patients (who are still seen as retarded), and the inadequate facilities that they proudly praise.

I’ve drunk agua ardiente with the local doctors, carefully discussing what the need is without actually admitting a need. And while the Cuban people are the most beautiful and wonderful to be found anywhere on this planet, they have NOTHING. Nothing you want for yourself, your family, or your country… unless you LIKE despair. Despair is funny, because it brings about really funny and cynical jokes about Castro. The Cubans tell the best ones as they down another shot of rum, or divorce their spouse just to have something different happen in their life.

They have NOTHING. Castro took it all from them, and gave them paved streets in their slums and electricity most of the time. They’ve done without for so long, that some insignificant infrastructure comes across as miraculous. Like “enriched bread” he takes all the wholeness and gives back a bit of manufactured goodness and everyone is somehow better off because they are 100% literate about NOTHING.

Yeah, yeah. I’m a voice in the wilderness here…

What an inordinate number of comments!

At any rate, it seems to me that Chris Bertram gets things precisely right — something like “two-and-a-half cheers for Castro!” is spot-on. He’s not perfect, and not above criticisms, but has achieved incredible things in Cuba under the most difficult circumstances.

Hasta la victoria siempre!

Fine, it’s a free country (wonder why that is).

Get back to me the next time we face a maniac hellbent on world domination who’s in the process and capable of conquering three continents while eliminating millions of people using industrial methods of genocide. And even then the issue of human rights will not cease to play a role as indeed it did not in the example you provided.

And what are you actually arguing for: because we did a dirty deal with Stalin 60 years ago any criticism of human rights abusers and their supporters is hypocritical per se and we should go on making dirty deals with human rights abusers whenever we see fit?

He is evil, through and through. There is such a thing as Evil, and he comes closer than most in achieving it.

What Cuba has is a deal with the Devil, and if the Devil treats his own a little better in Cuba than in Haiti, why, he’s a swell guy!

There is absolutely no need to work this hard to find something good to say about the man, unless it’s just a pet political ploy. He really doesn’t deserve the effort, and could care less what you or anyone else thinks; least of all, what his starving people think.

Look, the real stuff people want to say is that it’s possible for Castro to be bad but still better than Guatamala, and that there are other social metrics beyond a potentially hollow committment to “democracy” on which to judge a country. Fine. But overall? The guy is lousy. But still better than some. This is a situation one runs across often in everyday life.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to this doctrinaire leftist. Would AL, Ragout, Randy Paul, Novakant, John M, and other Decents disagree?

Is there a corollary to Godwin’s law regarding altered blog names? I refer specifically to comment 300, where Seth Edenbaum lays out his most erudite criticism of Armed Liberal. N-Naughty b-b-boy!

Well, at least the opposite ends of the spectrum are speaking. Isn’t all ‘dialogue’ constructive?

This is a better link for Farmer’s views on Cuban medicine–

http://www.pih.org/inforesources/essays/state-of-the-poor.html

Mr. Johnson, I have no reason to lie. It affords not one iota of food for a poor Cuban family if I’m lying.

Persistent propaganda purporting anything good or useful about Castro is to be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. One should ask, “what harm is there in saying good things about Castro?” Just as one should ask, “what good is there to be gained in telling the truth, ugly as it is?”

I know, it doesn’t fit the narrative.

To say more is to endanger those I visited, if I haven’t already. I’ve already deleted two more paragraphs. I wish it were a Clancy novel, to sound so dramatic. I really wish it was what so many imagine while safely ensconced in their cozy comfort of idle liberty.

“Look, the real stuff people want to say is that it’s possible for Castro to be bad but still better than Guatamala, and that there are other social metrics beyond a potentially hollow committment to “democracy” on which to judge a country.

The real issue is how the “we” the US et al. should have responded to Castro and other nationalist movements that put their interests above our own. I don’t like Castro, but what alternatives would the US have imposed, if it had the chance? We can only guess, but history leads us to believe it would probably have been worse. That was CB’s point and it’s a valid one. But it was tinged slightly, and only slightly, by what could be called “fandom” and that’s what caused all the trouble.
But even fandom has its uses. What has been the effect around the world on other nationalist movements, of seeing Castro face down the US? That in itself has a value, even a “universal” one. The problem on this thread has been pedantry.

Didn’t they basically sell their country in the 80s to be used as a CIA base for various operations in central America?

Luis Monge, the president who preceded Arias caved in to Reagan. When Arias was elected overwhelmingly alrgely in reaction to Monge’s policies, he did a 180 degree turn and put an end to that.

So if you want to say Luis Monge sold his country, you’d be accurate. Ignoring Arias’s role cetainly gives an incomplete picture.

The problem is, joan, I can find other people who say they’ve been all over Cuba and compared to other countries in Latin America, the poorest people in Cuba are much healthier than those in other countries.

Do I know this to be true? No. Do I know what you say to be true? No.

Monge was the same one who moved the embassy, btw.

As for Iraq, the former president, Abel Pacheco on his own decided to let Bush add his name to the “Coalition of the Willing,” notwithstanding the fact that he had no soldiers to contribute as they have no military and he did little more than add his country’s name to the list.

Of course the public was angered and the Supreme Court ruled against Pacheco, ordering him to have the nation’s name removed from the list.

So, if you want to say that Costa Rica has some occasional bad leaders, that’s fine. I don’t believe anyone who has lived under Bush, Mulroney, Thatcher, Fortuyn, López, Kohl, Sarkozy, Salazar, Howard or Berlusconi wants to throw stones in that glass house.

In a region where the military has all too often served as Praetorian guards rather than defenders of the constitution, the fact that they got rid of their military puts them ahead of the game IMHO.

Precisely!

I don’t know anything about the model hospitals in Cuba, or what’s shown to foreigners. My information comes from people who’ve seen medical care all over S. America, and they say that if you’re poor, Cuba’s healthcare is pretty damn good. Which is really the only comparison that oounts quite honestly.

As for Cost Rica disbanding its military. That’s not an option for most S. American countries. The military is a major power base after all…

Castro replaced the United Fruit-Batista kleptocracy with his own. He threw the poor a bone after he stripped it of meat.

“If it worked for Costa Rica, there’s no reason why it couldn’t work elsewhere.”

Hmm, and how would you prevent a coup? The main problem with the military in most countries in S. America (and Africa) has not been that that they are a drain on resources (although they are), but they have the power to end a government at any moment they choose. This places a limit not only on what governments can achieve, but also gives the elites a huge veto over policy.

as a policy suggestion, this is rather like suggesting a civilian government in Pakistan disband the military – incredibly naive.

Hmm, and how would you prevent a coup? The main problem with the military in most countries in S. America (and Africa) has not been that that they are a drain on resources (although they are), but they have the power to end a government at any moment they choose.

Given that coups are usually instigated by the military, abolishing the military would probably eliminate that problem.

Costa Rica, by the way, is not defenseless. They do have a national police force.

Given that coups are usually instigated by the military, abolishing the military would probably eliminate that problem.

And yeah, having a military to prevent coups is like smoking to prevent cancer.

I didn’t spell it out quite so explicitly because I didn’t want to be patronising. Are you both really this naive?

The army might instigate a coup, before you have a chance to abolish them. Given that armies routinely instigate coups in the face of much less threats, this is hardly an idle fear.

I’ve heard it said, and I don’t know enough about Costa Rica to comment, that Costa Rica abolished its army by renaming it something else. A couple of people who do know something about Costa Rica have said that the abolition of the army was more about politics, than idealism/pacifism. Eliminating a rival power base – which was replaced by a more reliable one.

Cian,

Obviously you are unaware of the Inter-American Democratic Charter:

Article 20

In the event of an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state, any member state or the Secretary General may request the immediate convocation of the Permanent Council to undertake a collective assessment of the situation and to take such decisions as it deems appropriate.

The Permanent Council, depending on the situation, may undertake the necessary diplomatic initiatives, including good offices, to foster the restoration of democracy.

If such diplomatic initiatives prove unsuccessful, or if the urgency of the situation so warrants, the Permanent Council shall immediately convene a special session of the General Assembly. The General Assembly will adopt the decisions it deems appropriate, including the undertaking of diplomatic initiatives, in accordance with the Charter of the Organization, international law, and the provisions of this Democratic Charter.

The necessary diplomatic initiatives, including good offices, to foster the restoration of democracy, will continue during the process.

Article 21

When the special session of the General Assembly determines that there has been an unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order of a member state, and that diplomatic initiatives have failed, the special session shall take the decision to suspend said member state from the exercise of its right to participate in the OAS by an affirmative vote of two thirds of the member states in accordance with the Charter of the OAS. The suspension shall take effect immediately.

The suspended member state shall continue to fulfill its obligations to the Organization, in particular its human rights obligations.

Notwithstanding the suspension of the member state, the Organization will maintain diplomatic initiatives to restore democracy in that state.

It’s not perfect, but it clearly calls for the isolation of any nation that experiences a coup.

Moreover, there are ways to gradually reduce the influence and power of the military, as President Nestor Kirchner did in Argentina. President Bachelet could move to have CODELCO, the state copper company in Chile from which the military receives ten percent of its earnings could be privatized or this ten percent take could be eliminated.

I forgot to add, though, Joan, that you show an almost totalitarian mindset there–if I don’t accept your opinion in its totality then I’m a Castroite. You and Fidel seem to think along similar lines in that respect.

#89 pd

““Following the 1959 revolution, Cuba’s communist government embarked upon a pervasive effort to rid the nation of homosexuality, which was seen as a product of a capitalist society. Through the 1960s and 1970s this campaign included the frequent imprisonment of lesbians and gays (particularly effeminate males) without charge or trial, and confinement to forced labor camps. Parents were legally required to report their gay children. This period was dramatically documented by Reinaldo Arenas in his 1992 autobiography, Before Night Falls, as well as his fiction, most notably The Color of Summer and Farewell to the Sea. While many have argued that Arenas overstated the abuses — and even the most devoted of his readers agree that he used dramatic license to underscore his arguments — it is widely acknowledged that during this period, Cuba was engaged in active persecution of homosexuals on a scale not seen in the Western world during the same period.[17] Homosexuality was formally decriminalised in 1979, and a year later the Castro government tried to purge Cuba of “anti-social” dissidents, criminals and homosexuals by allowing them to emigrate to the US in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.” – WIKI

But look at the improvements in health care, which made this OK.”

It’s a real pity when such oversimplifications are cited and the fates of gay people are exploited for propaganda reasons.

Public attitudes towards homosexuality and the state measures that reflect them are often backward and shameful even in countries labelled as advanced “liberal democracies”. Simply depends how a society evolve and contrary to what some may suggest there is no standard in this. For instance, how about UK’s Gross Indecency Act used to destroy innumerable people lives? Although gay sex was partly decriminalised in 1967, many sections of the act remained unchanged and were used up until mid 1990s to criminalise and convict people. It was the court in Strasbourg in year 2000 that had to upheld British citizens right to privacy and consensual whatever, not their own elected Government. In the light of the often articulated dichotomy representative_democracy_as_morally_superior_compared_to_dictatorship this is much worse than Cuba.

I lived in Cuba for 2 years at the end of 1970s beginning of the 1980s, exactly the time when Reynaldo Arenas left Cuba. Well, all I can say is that Cuban people, otherwise wonderful, were deeply hostile towards open display of homosexuality. By “open display of homosexuality” I mean in their own special understanding… sleeveless shirt or shorts worn in public even by an adolescent male were absolutely unthinkable. Apparently such an attire was too provocative in the public eye. And that was in La Habana, almost 2 millions at the time, not in some obscure provincial corner. Women on contrary, would had been greeted if showed half naked even by the police. Not exactly surprising considering the macho attitudes of South and Central Americans. And not exactly surprising if some of this public hostility found it’s way into administrative measures exercised by Cuban authorities.

Anyone who believes the bullshit about
Cuba’s wonderful health system is an idiot.

You wouldn’t trust it to treat an ingrowing
toenail.

What was that old maxim about “useful idiots”?

You qualify.

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

Apparently 40 years of relentless propaganda – and the collapse of public dialogue and a belief in the public good – really do have an effect.

How much “public dialogue” has there been in Cuba in the last half-century? Just wondering.

Apparently “public dialogue” in the US consists only of leftist academics agreeing with each other, and those who are not leftist academics agreeing with the leftist academics.To the degree that someone disagrees with a leftist academic, “public dialogue” has collapsed.

Paul asks Gerd: Is Cuba’s ‘bad’ health system any better than, say, Haiti’s?

Anyone who asks that question is only showing one’s abysmal ignorance of historical context. Anyone who had asked that question a half century ago ago, would have been mocked out of the auditorium.

In 1960, life expectancy in Cuba was 64; in Haiti, 42. From 1960 to present, life expectancy in Cuba and the rest of Latin America has caught up, or nearly caught up , with the US. For 1960 and 2005, here are some life expectancy figures: US: 70 to 78, Latin America: 56 to 73, Chile: 57 to 78, Costa Rica: 62 to 79, Cuba: 64 to 78, Haiti 42 to 53; Peru: 48 to 71.

From 1960 to 2005 Cuba increased life expectancy by 14 years. The increases in life expectancy from 1960 to 2005 for Latin America and Haiti are 17 years and 11 years respectively. (World Bank Development Indicators Online, access through state library license.WBDI has no data before 1960.) While it is true that Cuba’s health care system has improved more than Haiti’s, as shown by the above figures, Cuba’s increase in life expectancy has paralleled that of Latin America. For all the brouhaha about Caudillo Fidel’s great health care, Cuba’s progress in life expectancy parallels the rest of Latin America. Haiti is an outlier.

While the PSFs contend that Caudillo Fidel took over a country with abysmal health care, the figures say otherwise (See my posts #364 and #288). In 1957, Cuba had around 1000 inhabitants per MD, comparable to the US and Western European countries, better than many countries in Europe and all the “Third World” countries with the exception of Argentina, Uruguay, and Hong Kong.(UN, World Health Organization yearbook) While Caudillo Fidel may have contended that he inherited a banana republic, those bananas were pretty good.

Perhaps one way of looking at Cuba under Caudillo Fidel is to look at how Cuba kept up with technological progress. Back in the 1950s, TV was the next big thing. In 1957, Cuba’s number of TVs per 1,000 inhabitants was first in Latin America and fifth in the world . We fast-forward a half century, where Internet access is now the next big thing. For 2004, Cuba was last in Latin America and 171st out of 211 countries in Internet access per 1,000. (World Bank Development Indicators Online, access through a state library system.)

Cubans in the 1950s would have been appalled to be compared with Haiti. That someone today would compare Cuba to Haiti shows how Cuba has deteriorated under Caudillo Fidel’s stewardship, in addition to abysmal ignorance on the part of the questioner.
See my post #288 for link to RENAISSSANCE AND DECAY for sources. While I have repeated some of what I said in my previous posts, I get the impression that they have not been read.

Hey,Gringo-

I addressed gerd, and not you. He didn’t come across as anywhere near insightful as yourself with his stupid cheap shot.

As far as your post #288 is concerned, Pinochet did not have to deal with the embargo and travel restrictions that Cuba did. In fact, all the statistics you’ve vomited don’t take any of that into consideration and therefore are a waste of our time.

Bottom line: if Batista were all that and a bag of chips, the revolution wouldn’t have taken place. People who are generally happy with their lot in life aren’t prone to risking it all. Even Randy Paul, obviously no fan of the man, admits in in this post that maintaining the status quo was unacceptable.

And maybe you should investigate other things besides TVs as far as ‘accomplishments’ are concerned.

#371

“Perhaps one way of looking at Cuba under Caudillo Fidel is to look at how Cuba kept up with technological progress. Back in the 1950s, TV was the next big thing. In 1957, Cuba’s number of TVs per 1,000 inhabitants was first in Latin America and fifth in the world . We fast-forward a half century, where Internet access is now the next big thing. For 2004, Cuba was last in Latin America and 171st out of 211 countries in Internet access per 1,000. (World Bank Development Indicators Online, access through a state library system.)”

A country level of “technological progress” and consumers buying power to get their hands on hi tech goods/services are not the same thing. Using the two as synonymous is incorrect to say the least.

Cuban society had been organised with different set of priorities from the onset and consummate consumption is not one of them.

Cuban society had been organised with different set of priorities from the onset and consummate consumption is not one of them.
A country based on Marxism- dialectical materialism and all that- consumption is not a priority? So they spend all that time in prayer?

OTOH, I see that you are right. The main priority in the last half century has been to insure that Caudillo Fidel controls all he can.

Bertram, as somebody who has experienced communism, as opposed to dreaming about it in an English library I say: shame on you.

Sir, it doesn’t matter how eloquent you are, and what clever (‘jesuistic’ as smby put it earlier) arguments you bring to explain yourself, the fact remains that you are merely another petty addition to the ignoble list of “learned” people who, while taking no personal risk for your beliefs and safely surrounded by the freedoms and materials comforts created by democratic capitalism, chose to support tyrants who provide ample personal risk but neither liberty nor elementary material needs to their subjects.

You could have chosen to stand for the silent and the silenced in Cuban jails or those who nominally not in jails are inmates in the big jail that Cuba is. Yet you have chosen to applaud the tormentors.

BTW you are also wrong about the supposed great health care and education in Cuba, but your failure is not one of data processing, but rather one of very basic human decency.