Loren Pechtel

For the most part, I think those who support communism are those who can't succeed under capitalism and blame the system instead of their own failings.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by B. H. Manners
To me it really is the pot calling the kettle black. We are able to make fun of George Bush because he has relatively little impact on our lives day to day whereas our employers do. Go out and criticize your boss in the name of free speech and see what happens to you. There is a reason you are not allowed to criticize your boss in the name of free speech but you can GWB.

My wife still can't believe that you can safely criticize the government in overt ways. 16 years here haven't managed to erase her upbringing under communism.

Loren Pechtel

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.


Poverty is an attitude. It can't be cured by the application of money. Merely being poor can be cured with money but those who are merely poor generally cure themselves in time.

ieyeasu

Because 240 million americans live at or above the standard of living. Capitalists don't end other peoples suffering, they end their own. To those who are poor--overcome the system. Others have done it.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by moon
Castro a dictator? Define what a dictator is. No free elections? That's news to me. No free press? Free for whom, AOL, the CIA? No freedom to dissent? Really?

Free elections? What's the point of an election unless there are multiple candidates on the ballot?

Freedom of speech? Then why did they shoot down the Brothers to the Rescue planes? Cuba knew they weren't attackers. Their offenses were flying without clearance and littering. That doesn't justify a shootdown, especially without giving them a chance to surrender first! Before 9/11 you wouldn't get summarily shot down even for penetrating prohibited airspace. These days they might regard you as a hostile, though.

Freedom of the press: Yes, a free press includes AOL and the CIA! If anyone is prohibited from publishing, it's not a free press.

You do realize that Cuba is under attack by the world's largest superpower, right?

No shots have been fired in 40 years. Not much of an attack.

Gurdur

Isn't this far too much of an over-reaching simplistic statement --- and therefore wrong ?

Poverty has a thousand causes (simple lack of resources being one); you've simply named only one as the one, without any evidence, and contrary to real-world events.

Just to reductio ab absurdum; since when is a person in a geographical area with severely limited natural resources and an overpopualtion problem somehow magically at blame owing to an "attitude problem" for their poverty ?

cjack

Do you think you could say "anti-communist propaganda" a few more times?

I'm guessing that you consider anything that isn't written by the official press of a communist country to be "anti-communist propaganda," right?

I think the problem here is that you consider Castro to be such an object of worship (which is pretty amusing considering where we're having this discussion) that you can't imagine him actually doing anything wrong!

GSH provided links to Amnesty International, and I think that pretty much puts a wrap on the "benign dictator" angle...care to comment? Or is Amnesty just a tool of corrupt oligarchs?

I tend to define "dictator" as an individual who holds ALL the political marbles in a country and refuses to give them up.

As for free elections in Cuba, perhaps you could provide us with a list of the people who have challenged Castro's leadership since 1959? What were the names of the candidates, and what percentage of the vote did they get?

Free press? Where? Show me.

Freedom to dissent? If there were freedom to dissent in Cuba, there would be no political prisoners. If there were freedom to dissent in Cuba, no one would drown on their way to the US. If there were freedom to dissent in Cuba, Miami would look quite a bit different, wouldn't it?

As for the "attack by the world's largest superpower," you forget that until recently, Cuba was defended by the world's OTHER largest superpower. There is an embargo (which I disagree with, btw), but Cuba could at any time between 1959 and 1989 turn to Moscow for support.

moon

I never cease to be amazed at the dishonesty of anti-communists. Casto lives in luxury, the humanist one? You also claimed that Cubans are living in hunger, when in fact Cuba has done an incredible job of taking care of its people.

You produce a link to the site http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/polpr.html , which has a fabricated list of people alleged to be political prisoners. Then, by simply looking at the AA site we can see that this list was basically just made up.

Your real dishonesty, though, is in blaming Cuba for the problems it is facing. Even the AA site explains, "The four-decades-old embargo against Cuba by the USA continued to contribute to a climate in which fundamental rights were denied."

Cuba has done an incredible job with regard to human rights, under the circumstances. Consider the U.S., for example, who is currently holding a couple thousand people in Cuba [!] without charge, and refusing to give them access to lawyers. The U.S. has assassinated (Judi Bari, Fred Hampton, etc.) and harassed dissidents, imprisoned political prisoners on trumped-up charges (Mumia abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier), and consigned millions to hunger and povety. Hell, the U.S. can't even provide basic health care to 40 million of its citizens! When the U.S. was involved in one of its imperialist wars on the other side of the globe, it rounded up an entire ethnic group and put them in concentration camps. And so on...

So, under the circumstances, Cuba has done a much better job than the U.S. in protecting human rights. In comparison to other countries in the region, well, there is no comparison. Compared to Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc., Cuba is orders of magnitude better.

Keep in mind that Cuba has been living under an embargo for 4 decades running, and has been the target of the most sustained terrorist attacks of any country in history. Cuba is basically under siege by the U.S. Under similar circumstances, European states have done much worse. Under much less severe circumstances, the U.S. has done much worse.

You see, the real problem the humanist has with Cuba is not its human rights record. Obviously. Otherwise he would be much more concerned about vastly worse records in other states, client states of the U.S. like Columbia or Turkey or Saudi Arabia. No, what concerns him is that Cuba is not capitalist.

Just be honest, dude!

moon

It's very illuminating to note that anti-communists always have to resort to these kinds of lies.

I'd ask you to stop lying, but your lies merely re-inforce my point: capitalism is indefensible. (Otherwise you wouldn't have to resort to lying so much.)

moon

And one more thing before I go to bed, to clear up one more misconception.

There is no such thing as a "free" press. Presses are very expensive, especially today. In the U.S., only a small minority have access to a press that reaches any significant portion of the population. By comparison, Cuban's have a much greater access to the press. Plus, the doctrinal constraints on those who do gain access to the press are much less severe in Cuba than they are in the U.S. While there is some constraint in Cuba about broadcasting anti-Cuban propaganda (the Miami radio does that already), the Cuban press is much more free than their American counterparts, who adhere with virtual unanimity to the establishment line.