We were discussing Cuba a few weeks ago. The thread has since disappeared, but I found this today: http://www.reuters.com/article/dome...Type=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true So apparently, Cuba still sucks...
my friends went to Cuba for one of those 1-week all inclusive tourist packages last month. they're completely apolitical. they just went to relax. when they came back they said that they've never seen such devastation (and they're talking about Havana!). they said "what did those people do to deserve living like this?" all the while Che is still the symbol of Cool and Good
My uncle runs a newsletter about Cuba, he says pretty much the same thing. It's a very poor country, doctors run food stands or sell paintings to the tourists, no one has any house paint (this alone contributes to a run-down appearance). Meat is in short supply, there's an underground economy based on the dollar, there are few new cars (particularly American cars), prostitution is common.
my friends took lots of videos of Havana. i saw soviet cars (Lada, Chayka) from the 60's and 70's, and American cars from the 50's (!!!) they are STILL running ... when u gots no new cars coming in u gots to maintain what you do have. when i was in Cuba last year i saw an old Soviet chopper still in service. i won't get inside one even if my life depends on it, and they use it to howl tourists around. it's a fucking 30 yr old death trap!
Don't worry. Someone will pop up to defend the blighted isle and blame its condition on the US. I have no doubt of that...
The sanctions and blockades and terrorism and military threat against Cuba, by the world's most powerful and dominant political system, military, and economy, appear to have had significant effects. The only thing keeping Cuba afloat for much of that time was Soviet aid, which vanished. Apparently about the only thing worse, for Cuba, than having the US as an enemy for fifty years, would have been having the US as a friend for fifty years - compare Haiti.
Probably out of spite for the Cuban missile crisis. If we started to trade with Cuba (like we trade with China), they wouldn't be so poor.
Well, it's true. I suppose you could argue that it's Castro's fault for alienating western powers, but the cold war is long over.
it's castro's fault for imprisoning his entire population. the West refuses to have anything to do with him and his Cuba.
You know, despite our natural inclanation towards polarizing the issue and blaming one party or the other, it is JUST possible that MORE than one side is at fault: Castro's an oppressive dictator who cares only for his own power over his people and the USA is an oppressive bully for a neighbor who needs to hold the moral high ground and stop helping Castro starve his people. ~String
It goes back to before the missile crisis. Cuba revolted against a corrupt and oppressive government approved by the US, and installed a government not approved by the US; that government refused to cooperate with the important US backed business and criminal interests who regarded Cuba as within their legitimate sphere of control. It's not just that the US refuses to trade with Cuba - the US has sponsored military invasion of Cuba, backed terrorist attacks against Cuba, attempted assassination of Cuba's dictator and other officials, blockaded Cuba, threatened and carried out retaliations against others who trade or deal with Cuba, maintained a military base on Cuba in defiance of the Cuban government, and so forth. Compare Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, the DR, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, etc - who were largely unable to establish independence from the US backed business and criminal interests who regarded them as within their legitimate sphere of control. The flood of refugees from these countries to the US has been in the news, occasionally. Their poverty is also well known, and not attributable to blockades and sanctions and deliberate economic assault. Over the years, Cuban policy has become entrenched in the US economy - my home state of Minnesota would take a hit if Cuban sugar were to hit the US market, for example, and Las Vegas would have serious competition. That and the electoral influence of the refugee Cuban business and criminal syndicate in Florida has stuck us with an absurd situation that most people hope will fall apart when Castro dies.
