Questions on Cuba

[Pretty Flaco]

It's hard for me to tell what's true about it and not, so can anyone hook me up with some links that answer these two questions:

1. To what extent is Cuba socialist? Is there any level of worker's control.

2. Is Cuba oppressive? Are the US's arguments for the Cuban gov. being oppressive null and void?

In case if you can't tell, I know jack shit about Cuba.

[John "Eh" MacDonald]

Here you go, i don't know how well it answers your questions but i found it pretty interesting.

http://socialistworld.net/pubs/Cuba/cuapp3.html

[Morpheus]

Workers control in Cuba is very limited. It is a centrally planned economy; the state runs the economy.

Cuba is oppressive, but not as oppressive as the United States. The U.S. just hates on Cuba because Cuba defied the U.S. and mostly got away with it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

2. Is Cuba oppressive? Are the US's arguments for the Cuban gov. being oppressive null and void?I'd say their criticisms are null and void regardless on where you come down on the question of if Cuba is socialist or not (I think not because there is only "technically" worker's control over decisions but none in practice or effect). With the US's criticisms, even if they are factually true, the US is not interested in criticizing lack of worker's democracy or lack of democracy in general for the purpose of promoting popular control of Cuba and increased democratic decision making (workers or even bourgeois democracy). They are not interested in criticizing abuses or repression in Cuba for the sake of better treatment and freedom of expression. After all, the US houses quite a number of people without charges and without legal recourse on the Island of Cuba itself (Gitmo) not to mention that the US has the highest per capita prison population of anyone ever!

So with criticisms like this it's important to know who is doing the criticism and for what ends. There are abuses and imprisonment, repression, some racism, and homophobia still in Cuba and workers do not run society there, so there is a lot to criticize from a radical socialist perspective, but these criticisms are not genuine when they come from the US ruling class because their goal is not freedom for Cuban workers and others, but freedom for the US to control Cuba like it does to the rest of the region.

[4 Leaf Clover]

It's state of social justice , centrally planned economy , social security , with anti-imperialism , socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies with internationalist character. Female and LGBT rights are recognized

[Cane Nero]

It's state of social justice , centrally planned economy , social security , with anti-imperialism , socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies with internationalist character. Female and LGBT rights are recognized
I think that Fidel living in a mansion in the middle of the ocean while the working class live in suburbs isn´t really a communist way of life.

[4 Leaf Clover]

No one said it

[Pretty Flaco]

I have some other questions as well:

3. Does Cuba plan on transferring more power directly to the workers?

4. What is Cuba's connection to Venezuela? If the answer to #3 is yes, does Chavez' recent small spree of nationalizations have anything to do with this?

[Tifosi]

4. What is Cuba's connection to Venezuela? If the answer to #3 is yes, does Chavez' recent small spree of nationalizations have anything to do with this?

Best place to start would be the Wikipedia page on Cuba-Vanezuela relations (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba–Venezuela_relations?wasRedirected=true).

[Ocean Seal]

Here is a thread about lies against Cuba.
As for your 3rd question which is unanswered, Cuba has been becoming more democratic. Since 1991 it has been cutting down bureaucracy, to what extent I don't know.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3338

[Cane Nero]

No one said it
Dude you said "It´s a state of social justice" and "socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies".
I totally agree that Cuba is better without a US puppet in power, but just because Cuba uses a communist flag doesn´t mean they are really communists.

[4 Leaf Clover]

Dude you said "It´s a state of social justice"
It is , since no one represents exploited or exploiter


and "socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies".

well they are. read Cuban constitution and you will see

but just because Cuba uses a communist flag doesn´t mean they are really communists.
again , no one said it. OP asked for an opinion what kind of state Cuba is. Cuba is Socialsit state, with communist leadership

[Cane Nero]

It is , since no one represents exploited or exploiter

No, Exploiter= State (CCP)
Exploited= Cuban workers



well they are. read Cuban constitution and you will see


Read the U.S. Constitution and you will read that all men are free. Is this really true?



again , no one said it. OP asked for an opinion what kind of state Cuba is. Cuba is Socialsit state, with communist leadership
Well My opinion is that Cuba is a state that exploits the working class in a even bigger way than the capitalists ones.

[RadioRaheem84]

My uncle is marrying a Cuban woman who left Cuba in the 90s. She tells me horror stories about the troubles in Cuba and I for the most part believe her.

I know that since the Special Period, Cuba has suffered massively.

But I asked her, "if capitalism were to enter again, would Cuba be a country like the United States or Haiti, Dominican Republic"?

She looked at me and said, "honestly, I couldn't tell you".

Even she knew that there was the possibility that Cuba could descend back into the periphery of global capitalism and return to client state status.

She said that either situation was worth it because it would bring choice and liberty to the island.

The problems on the Island were first due to economic sabotage, terrorism and invasion which caused the Island to rather 'militarize' and later bureaucratize their government. This led to inner corruption and even bad management, but the USSR kept them afloat. The problems of Cuba today are due to the economic embargo and the loss of their major trading partner; the USSR. They're making due with a rickety as hell economy based on things like tourism.

The problems endure, the clampdown on dissent I believe is true too, as is inner bureaucrat corruption (admitted in the National Assembly too).

Despite the misgivings about the Cuban Revolution, I would say that overall, I appreciate the fact that they were able to accomplish so much without resorting to imperialism or massive exploitation. They offer their population at least the minimal for all to survive instead of just opening the doors to global investment and letting people starve in the streets.

[4 Leaf Clover]

No, Exploiter= State (CCP)
Exploited= Cuban workers[/qoute]

Please , explain what kind of capital did the State gather , and in what way does it multiply it , and therefore , how does it make class differences even deeper , and of course say to which class does state belong

[QUOTE]Read the U.S. Constitution and you will read that all men are free. Is this really true?

You are mixing things up. US is by its constitution a country of parliamentary democracy , and biggest value defended by the state is private property. My statement was anyway that Cuba declares itself , anti-imperialist and internationalist



Well My opinion is that Cuba is a state that exploits the working class in a even bigger way than the capitalists ones.

wow wow , you need big backup for this , so better start explaining.

[syndicat]

It is , since no one represents exploited or exploiter

the bureaucratic boss class are the exploiters. because their domination of the workers is a form of oppression, the special benefits -- income, prestige, power -- they receive is exploitative.

[Cane Nero]

Please , explain what kind of capital did the State gather , and in what way does it multiply it , and therefore , how does it make class differences even deeper , and of course say to which class does state belong

Cuba deals with capitalism like any other country does. Who controls the State are bureaucrats of the "Communist" Party of Cuba.

Fidel lives in a fucking mansion in the sea while the cuban people need to live in tenements. Do not assume that all of Cuba is equal to the beautiful tourist attractions.
And he has made a deal of millions of dollars with NIKE to sponsor the Cuban Olympic Committee.



You are mixing things up. US is by its constitution a country of parliamentary democracy , and biggest value defended by the state is private property. My statement was anyway that Cuba declares itself , anti-imperialist and internationalist


What I mean is that no matter what is written in the constitution, what is done in practice does not follow the constitution.

[4 Leaf Clover]

Cuba deals with capitalism like any other country does. Who controls the State are bureaucrats of the "Communist" Party of Cuba.
Minor privilleges do not make class , and certainly they don't make social fissure between ruling and oppressed classes. Of course , your critics about privileged life-style of few persons in top of CCP stay


Fidel lives in a fucking mansion in the sea while the cuban people need to live in tenements. Do not assume that all of Cuba is equal to the beautiful tourist attractions.
And he has made a deal of millions of dollars with NIKE to sponsor the Cuban Olympic Committee.


Morally maybe a bad move , but NIKE only get stupid adds

[RadioRaheem84]

How big is Castro's house? All this talk about how lavishly Castro lives, but how much of this is true?

[mykittyhasaboner]

How big is Castro's house? All this talk about how lavishly Castro lives, but how much of this is true?

According to the Miami Herald:

Fidel Castro and wife Dalia live in a two-house complex in western Havana. The living room of the main house is described by visitors as furnished with simple wood and leather sofas and chairs and Cuban handicrafts.

The only luxury visible to visitors, said Fuentes, is a big-screen television that Castro uses to satisfy his interest in foreign news reports and videos secretly recorded by Cuba's intelligence services.



.....


The houses of Fidel and Raúl are large but simply appointed Fidel and Dalia's compound in western Havana is equipped with one outdoor
tennis and basketball court. It is ringed with pine trees that block off outside views, and surrounded by electronic fences that detect intruders.



All streets surrounding the compound are marked as one-way streets heading away from the house to deter sightseers, Bustamante said. Only official cars are allowed to drive the wrong way into the compound.



An acquaintance who has visited both Fidel and Raúl's homes described them as very large by Cuban standards but relatively simply appointed with Cuban-made furniture, with Raúl's home ``a bit nicer than Fidel's.''

The Castro brothers are known to have had several other houses around the island set aside for vacations or official visits to the provinces. But they handed over most of them for tourist lodgings after Soviet subsidies stopped arriving in 1991 and Cuba plunged into an economic crisis.



http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/fidel/castro-family.htm


Comfortable, certainly better than the average Cuban standard of luxury but incredibly modest compared to the Swiss bankaccount filthy rich dictator image that has been imposed on Fidel by US media.

[RED DAVE]

Minor privilleges do not make class , and certainly they don't make social fissure between ruling and oppressed classes. Of course , your critics about privileged life-style of few persons in top of CCP stay Minor privileges, even some major ones, don't make a class. What makes a class is it's relationship to the means of production. And whether or not the working class has good benefits does not make or break a socialist society.

In Cuba, official rhetoric and ideology notwithstanding, and healthcare notwithstanding, the bureaucracy controls the means of production and the workers do not. No amount of screeching about and scrutinizing Cuba will change this fact. The workers do not control production; therefore this is not a socialist society or a workers state, real, actual, degenerated or deformed.

RED DAVE

[Cane Nero]

How big is Castro's house? All this talk about how lavishly Castro lives, but how much of this is true?
Unfortunately I still can not post pictures and even websites.

[Cane Nero]

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9040/casafideldq8.jpg

[Palingenisis]

It's state of social justice , centrally planned economy , social security , with anti-imperialism , socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies with internationalist character. Female and LGBT rights are recognized

How far is the economy in Cuba centrally planned though?

Dont state companies have the right to hire and fire there? (and didnt a lot of people recently lose their jobs in Cuba?).

A lot of middle class nationalists wrapped themselves in the red flag during the cold war out of more need than conviction.

[Cane Nero]

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_HZm55lfyLqs/S4XWCiqElSI/AAAAAAAAuXY/DLPrNMEKtkQ/s800/100224lulafidelAP.jpg

http://joseagripino.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/havana-cuba.jpg

I don´t share the same political views of this site, but it shows the poverty in Cuba.
http://www.therealcuba.com/page2.htm

[Palingenisis]

http://joseagripino.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/havana-cuba.jpg

I don´t share the same political views of this site, but it shows the poverty in Cuba.
http://www.therealcuba.com/page2.htm

To me what you have shown might be "poverty" but its not desituition and when we consider how "poor" people are we have to take into account their cultural life aswell as their freedom for crime. Also the earth doesnt simply have the resources to give everybody the lifestyle of a middle class north American.

[RED DAVE]

It's state of social justice , centrally planned economy , social security , with anti-imperialism , socialism and communism being recognized as state ideologies with internationalist character. Female and LGBT rights are recognizeWhat you are describing here is the more liberal version of state capitalism. The hallmark of socialism is workers control of production. If this is not present, whatever it is, it isn't socialism.

RED DAVE

[Palingenisis]

Im not the biggest fan of the Cuban regime but I would seriously question the photos on that site because they dont fit in with what I have heard about the place from people who have been there.

It does though seem that prostitution is on the the rise there thanks to the introduction of tourism.

[Cane Nero]

To me what you have shown might be "poverty" but its not desituition and when we consider how "poor" people are we have to take into account their cultural life aswell as their freedom for crime. Also the earth doesnt simply have the resources to give everybody the lifestyle of a middle class north American.
My point here is that fidel lives a life very different from a Cuban worker.
So the working class is NOT in power of Cuba thus the Cuban State isn´t a socialist nor communist.

[Fulanito de Tal]

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_HZm55lfyLqs/S4XWCiqElSI/AAAAAAAAuXY/DLPrNMEKtkQ/s800/100224lulafidelAP.jpg

http://joseagripino.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/havana-cuba.jpg

I don´t share the same political views of this site, but it shows the poverty in Cuba.
http://www.therealcuba.com/page2.htm

If we're going to use pictures to depict the suffering of the people...

Bill Gates' house
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/bill-gates-house.jpg

Opa Locka, FL
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/opalocka.jpg

Gary, IN
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/garyin.jpg

And the happy people of Oakland
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/oakland.jpg

Personally, if anyone successfully starts a revolution, liberates their country from a puppet dictator, and keeps the US out for over 50 years, I think you should live in a house like Fidel Castro's. I would even work there making dinners.

Anything that comes out of Miami about Cuba can be and should be assumed a lie. The US funds a propaganda campaign in Miami to fight against Cuba.

Cubans in Miami are NOT a representative sample of the Cuban population. Those are the people that left Cuba because they did not like it. It would be like basing the general opinion the US population has of the US on people that moved to Canada.

Combine those two factors, a propaganda campaign and a faulty sample, which intensify each other, and you will have a completely distorted idea of reality.

To get a good sense of Cuba, one must go there. Us in the US and Europe are used to strict laws and policies. We think that reading the laws and policies will paint a valid picture, but that is wrong. Cuban culture is extremely "loose" when it comes to following regulations. It is very common to bend rules. Thus, the system we imagine from the laws and the practical system that is in place are different.

If you're like me before I had gone, then you wont believe what I'm telling you, so go for yourself and get involved in the population. Stay away from the tourist spots. It's much easier if you know people that live there.

However, if you live in the US and do not have family in Cuba, fuck your asshole with the constitution because all your freedom prevents you from going, even if Cuba awaits you with open arms and a cafecito.

[Cane Nero]

If we're going to use pictures to depict the suffering of the people...

Bill Gates' house
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/bill-gates-house.jpg

Opa Locka, FL
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/opalocka.jpg

Gary, IN
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/garyin.jpg

And the happy people of Oakland
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/oakland.jpg

Personally, if anyone successfully starts a revolution, liberates their country from a puppet dictator, and keeps the US out for over 50 years, I think you should live in a house like Fidel Castro's. I would even work there making dinners.

Anything that comes out of Miami about Cuba can be and should be assumed a lie. The US funds a propaganda campaign in Miami to fight against Cuba.

Cubans in Miami are NOT a representative sample of the Cuban population. Those are the people that left Cuba because they did not like it. It would be like basing the general opinion the US population has of the US on people that moved to Canada.

Combine those two factors, a propaganda campaign and a faulty sample, which intensify each other, and you will have a completely distorted idea of reality.

To get a good sense of Cuba, one must go there. Us in the US and Europe are used to strict laws and policies. We think that reading the laws and policies will paint a valid picture, but that is wrong. Cuban culture is extremely "loose" when it comes to following regulations. It is very common to bend rules. Thus, the system we imagine from the laws and the practical system that is in place are different.

If you're like me before I had gone, then you wont believe what I'm telling you, so go for yourself and get involved in the population. Stay away from the tourist spots. It's much easier if you know people that live there.

However, if you live in the US and do not have family in Cuba, fuck your asshole with the constitution because all your freedom prevents you from going, even if Cuba awaits you with open arms and a cafecito.

First of all: I AM A BRAZILIAN.

Well I don´t know what are your political views , but my view of real revolution is when the working class gets rid of an explorer and not just substitute for another.

You showed pictures of a capitalist country, and everybody knows about on the social imbalance that exists in this system.
I showed pictures of a country considered "socialist" or "communist" where there should NOT be social differences as large as in capitalist countries.
So Fuck the USA government, and Fuck Fidel and his party of liars.
Communism is about FREEDOM.

[Fulanito de Tal]

First of all: I AM A BRAZILIAN.

Well I don´t know what are your political views , but my view of real revolution is when the working class gets rid of an explorer and not just substitute for another.

You showed pictures of a capitalist country, and everybody knows about on the social imbalance that exists in this system.
I showed pictures of a country considered "socialist" or "communist" where there should NOT be social differences as large as in capitalist countries.
So Fuck the USA government, and Fuck Fidel and his party of liars.
Communism is about FREEDOM.


I was not making a direct attack on you. I apologize if it came off that way.

I get upset when people talk bad about Cuba. Cuba is what it is because that's the best it could accomplish with the most powerful country as it's enemy 90 miles to the north. There have been over 600 attempts on the Cuban leader's life and an embargo that costs thousands of lives every year in Cuba...all thanks to the US.

The US is the superpower. When people talk bad about the Cuba, it means that they are indirectly supporting the US because that means they are supporting the status quo. It's like abstaining on a vote when the others are voting for the worst candidate. For that reason, when people start bad mouthing Cuba, I will defend it.

Castro is nothing of an exploiter like those in the US and Europe. When the 26th of July Movement took over Cuba, Castro moved into a little apartment in Havana. I know because I went to the block and people in Cuba told me the story. I do not know the story behind the house above depicted as his, but I know for certain that whatever we hear that is produced by "exiles" or the US government is misleading at best.

[Cane Nero]

I get upset when people talk bad about Cuba. Cuba is what it is because that's the best it could accomplish with the most powerful country as it's enemy 90 miles to the north. There have been over 600 attempts on the Cuban leader's life and an embargo that costs thousands of lives every year in Cuba...all thanks to the US.

The US is the superpower. When people talk bad about the Cuba, it means that they are indirectly supporting the US because that means they are supporting the status quo. It's like abstaining on a vote when the others are voting for the worst candidate. For that reason, when people start bad mouthing Cuba, I will defend it.

No I support the true revolution. I don´t support any State or any party.
I only support the interests of the working class.



Castro is nothing of an exploiter like those in the US and Europe. When the 26th of July Movement took over Cuba, Castro moved into a little apartment in Havana. I know because I went to the block and people in Cuba told me the story. I do not know the story behind the house above depicted as his, but I know for certain that whatever we hear that is produced by "exiles" or the US government is misleading at best.

So he changed a lot since that day.Maybe he really was a revolutionary at first, but probably all the power in his hands corrupted him over time.