Fidel Castro dies

[Zorral]

The US was wanting to eat Cuba long before this, starting with the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.

1860 even as the CSA was declaring itself the governor of Mississippi had to resign because he was organizing yet another filibuster to take over Cuba, something like the 3rd or 4th attempt by US forces to do in the last 10 years. This one failed too.

 

[maarsen]

Scot, due to family problems and work, I did not give you an answer to your second question. What does Cuba do to its dissidents? Pretty much what any other country does. As much as they can get away with. Cuba is hugely dependent on tourism, mostly Canadian tourism. For the most part we are placid unassuming people but peace , order and good government are what turns our crank. While visiting Cuba we can be quite vocal about our desire to see fairness and democracy take root. I have never had any travel restrictions while there or any attempt to limit my interactions with people I meet. We Canadians talk openly about the system of government Cuba has and Cubans listen. I think this has probably done more for dissent than 50 years of embargo has done. I am pretty sure that the Cuban government tolerates dissent a lot more because a crackdown would directly affect their tourist economy.  When friends come to visit, everybody is on their best behaviour.

[Red Tiger]

23 hours ago, Commodore said:

we need to revive the Radio Free Europe model and give people in these repressive regimes uncensorable internet access

get with Elon Musk or whomever and make it happen (near-Earth satellites, mesh networks, etc.)

In theory I'm all for free trade with the Cuban people, but what Obama did is bankrolling Raul's military police state (stupidly bailed out by the US after Cuba's sugar daddy Venezuela went tits up). Raul takes a cut of everything. There has to be a better way. 

Can you answer my question?

[Commodore]

37 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Can you answer my question?

not seeing it

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 hours ago, Commodore said:

we need to revive the Radio Free Europe model and give people in these repressive regimes uncensorable internet access

get with Elon Musk or whomever and make it happen (near-Earth satellites, mesh networks, etc.)

In theory I'm all for free trade with the Cuban people, but what Obama did is bankrolling Raul's military police state (stupidly bailed out by the US after Cuba's sugar daddy Venezuela went tits up). Raul takes a cut of everything. There has to be a better way. 

There are certainly a number of better ways of going about normalization, but doing something in the right direction is better than continuing the embargo, which has proven to be an absolute failure. And let's not forget, we don't have the moral high ground here. Most of the Western Hemisphere views us as being in the wrong on this issue.

[Commodore]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

And let's not forget, we don't have the moral high ground here. Most of the Western Hemisphere views us as being in the wrong on this issue.

That's a bad standard for defining the moral high ground.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Commodore said:

That's a bad standard for defining the moral high ground.

It's only one of several reasons why we lack the high ground. 

[Zorral]

It remains as baffling as ever how many people are so concerned about the fate of political dissidents in Cuba in the past, and present, while caring not at all about political dissidents' treatment anywhere else, particularly in the U.S.  We are seeing it televised right now at Standing Rock, when the native people are fighting against having their own treaty lands destroyed by Big Oil.  They are being treated like the invaders when its just the other way around.  These aren't even public lands that the Bundys decided belong to them. This is treaty land that belongs to the tribe!

It's also baffling how many people sneer at Cuba for not being "able to feed its own people and depends on imports", and use that is an irrefutable argument that the nation is a failed one,  when not a single island nation in the world that has ever been able to feed its own people.  And that includes Britain.  Maybe, New Zealand? Well, when the island nations were populated only by their indigenous populations prior to 1492 they, mostly, managed to do so.  In fact even regions like Scandinavia can't feed it's own people -- and never could -- thus invasions for more land and lands that ere more fertile.

There is so much islands simply cannot do due to the fact that they are islands! with very limited resources, most of which by now have already been extracted by colonial rulers -- and that includes the destruction of the limited arable land by sugar, logging and mining.

 

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, Commodore said:

not seeing it

Your inbox.

[Rippounet]

29 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It remains as baffling as ever how many people are so concerned about the fate of political dissidents in Cuba in the past, and present, while caring not at all about political dissidents' treatment anywhere else, particularly in the U.S.

A classic case of "manufacturing consent."

[maarsen]

On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 11:10 AM, Zorral said:

It remains as baffling as ever how many people are so concerned about the fate of political dissidents in Cuba in the past, and present, while caring not at all about political dissidents' treatment anywhere else, particularly in the U.S.  We are seeing it televised right now at Standing Rock, when the native people are fighting against having their own treaty lands destroyed by Big Oil.  They are being treated like the invaders when its just the other way around.  These aren't even public lands that the Bundys decided belong to them. This is treaty land that belongs to the tribe!

It's also baffling how many people sneer at Cuba for not being "able to feed its own people and depends on imports", and use that is an irrefutable argument that the nation is a failed one,  when not a single island nation in the world that has ever been able to feed its own people.  And that includes Britain.  Maybe, New Zealand? Well, when the island nations were populated only by their indigenous populations prior to 1492 they, mostly, managed to do so.  In fact even regions like Scandinavia can't feed it's own people -- and never could -- thus invasions for more land and lands that ere more fertile.

There is so much islands simply cannot do due to the fact that they are islands! with very limited resources, most of which by now have already been extracted by colonial rulers -- and that includes the destruction of the limited arable land by sugar, logging and mining.

 

I just got back from Cuba after spending a week there on vacation. The surprising thing about Cuba is the amount of arable land that is fallow.  That and the number of fruit and vegetable stands at the side of the roads.  There seems to be one every hundred meters. I do not think Cuba has any trouble feeding itself.  Depending on sugar as a cash crop is the problem. 

My wife and I also took a trip to Santiago to see Fidel Castro's grave. Considering some of the other gravesites in the same cemetery it was rather understated.  There was also a steady stream of people coming to pay their last respects. It was very touching. The people do seem to have a lot of respect for him.

When we were fling out from Holguin,  there was an American Airlines  and a Jetblue plane on the runway dropping off and picking up passengers.  Both were flying out of Fort Lauderdale.