Why is the Cuban economy so terrible?

[Blanquist]

They got up to several billion $ in aid a year from the SU for over 30 years.
That's not including buying their sugar at well-above market prices and sending
countless professionals to Cuba and receiving countless Cuban students.

This is more than enough to off-set the blockade. Even by Castro's own math.

Now they trade with just about anyone and get subsidized oil from Venezuela.

Why are people arrested and thrown in prison in Cuba simply for saying they are hungry?
How can anyone support a regime that throws a man in prison for simply saying he is hungry and can't find food to feed himself?

It's sounds like a terrible place to live.

So Castro comes to power, and 50 years later the same cars are in the street, prostitutes are
EVERYWHERE and completely legal. They have a dual-currency system, open blatant inequality
and Castro's solution is to lay-off half a million to a million people to fend for themselves? And allow speculation in real-estate.

So what exactly is Castro needed for if its just a more brutal version of Batista-ism?

A man goes to prison for saying he is hungry but I'm sure there will be people who will come up
with an excuse where the man deserves prison. Probably someone will happily call him a 'worm'

Cuban people should support a mafia-like tyranny because their 'leader' pays lip-service to 'anti-imperialism?'

The same man who spent 3 years writing a highly publicized weekly blog where he never mentions the word "working-class"
but lavishes countless praise on such 'anti-imperialists' and 'heroes' like Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Hu Jintao and yes,
even for a long while, Barack Obama.

If I was Cuban I would be on the next make-shift boat to Florida, so the fake-left in America can call me a traitorous worm
while they sit on their laptops googleing the latest police chase in america to cry about america's brutal police tactics.

The Castro brothers and their senile coterie aren't just a leadership with flaws, they are truly foul people, class enemies of the highest order.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Trollolol, people on Cuba are not starving, certainly not worse of a regime than of Batista. Matter of fact, the housing situation is about as bad as in the US, but besides this, Cuba looks to have just now taken a path to social-democracy along with the rest of Latin American countries. The future looks very grave for US Imperialism and very much positive for social Latin American ex-colonies.

[Blanquist]

Trollolol, people on Cuba are not starving, certainly not worse of a regime than of Batista. Matter of fact, the housing situation is about as bad as in the US, but besides this, Cuba looks to have just now taken a path to social-democracy along with the rest of Latin American countries. The future looks very grave for US Imperialism and very much positive for social Latin American ex-colonies.

They aren't starving but they are thrown into prison for saying they are hungry.

Should a person be thrown in prison for simply saying he is hungry?

Don't side-step the issue. I dare you to justify this.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Fact is that Cuba has constant immigrants come over on boats from Haiti who are actually starving, forced to eat mudpies. Cuba has surplus for high quality medical, they also have enough production for giving every cuban two loafs of bread a week, something like six eggs, two sticks of butter, flower, toothpaste, and other items from the favela at subsidised prices. Also, they can work and go to a restaurant. This is actually a problem on Cuba, people don't like to work so much, therefore the market reforms for material self interest seeking.

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

They aren't starving but they are thrown into prison for saying they are hungry.

Should a person be thrown in prison for simply saying he is hungry?

Don't side-step the issue. I dare you to justify this.

Would you mind providing a source for these claims?

[Blanquist]

Would you mind providing a source for these claims?

Two years in prison for this video

tLLAh2yTqu0


A Cuban appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence for "public dangerousness" against a man who became an internet celebrity after his drunken rant about hunger on the island was captured by a film crew.

The court rejected Juan Carlos Gonzalez Marcos's plea for leniency in central Havana yesterday, according to Richard Rosello, who observed the hearing on behalf of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a leading rights group.

Gonzalez Marcos, known by the nickname Panfilo, appeared obviously inebriated when he burst into an interview for a documentary on Cuban music, waving his arms and screaming: "What we need here is a little bit of chow!"

He continued for more than 90 seconds, telling the camera about how Cubans are going hungry in a country where the communist system is supposed to provide for all citizens' basic needs.

A video of the tirade ended up on YouTube and was viewed more than 450,000 times after being posted in April. It became a rallying cry for exile groups in Florida, where some hailed Gonzalez Marcos as one of the few Cubans who dare speak frankly about the difficulties of daily life on the island.

In a second video posted on YouTube, Gonzalez Marcos expressed regret that his outburst was used for political ends – but that was not enough to sway the appeals court. Rosello said Gonzalez Marcos was returned to a prison outside Havana after the hearing.

Two western diplomats who tried to observe the proceedings said they were asked to leave before they began. The diplomats, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be named due to their governments' rules, said court authorities told them the hearing was open only to the Cuban public.

Cuba tolerates no official opposition to its single-party system, and the island's dissidents and political activists have little organised following, though infighting and disputes among their minuscule ranks are common.

The government did not respond to requests for comment on Gonzalez Marcos's case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/cuba-internet-hunger-rant-marcos

[ArrowLance]

Two years in prison for this video


It's unfortunate that such things happen but they aren't completely without reason. Also that's hardly a denunciation of a government or nation. Besides what could be used to justify it I'm not aware of any nation that has a flawless legal and security system.

As with all socialist projects it isn't a matter of putting them on pedestals and declaring them the perfect model. We look at them and can call socialist and support them and celebrate to the extent that they are socialist but of course nothing is perfect. The problem is when we are up front with our criticisms of these projects publicly it portrays a very bad image of the leftist movement. It's even worse when we completely deny that these socialist projects were/are socialist. The uneducated have been told otherwise and the educated know better. Why would anyone be attracted to a movement that boasts no successes and is only associated with terrible tragedies?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Did the guy look like he was a member of the +1.3 Billion humans that are permanently severely undernourished, unable to have a social life, work because of their dire state of starvation? No, go give me a video showing one of the 25 Million Americans that are hungry, they don't do that because the capitalist state has kept them uneducated and brainwashed them to believe it's their fault for not having a job and starving. Over 47 Million Americans are on food stamps, and food stamps often do not cover the whole families' needs. What about the 100,000 that die of starvation a Day, are you going to post a video in indignation at the crimes of the capitalist system? No, you are spreading anti-communist propaganda, it's ridiculous, Stop.

[Neoprime]

They got up to several billion $ in aid a year from the SU for over 30 years.
That's not including buying their sugar at well-above market prices and sending
countless professionals to Cuba and receiving countless Cuban students.

This is more than enough to off-set the blockade. Even by Castro's own math.

Now they trade with just about anyone and get subsidized oil from Venezuela.

Why are people arrested and thrown in prison in Cuba simply for saying they are hungry?
How can anyone support a regime that throws a man in prison for simply saying he is hungry and can't find food to feed himself?

It's sounds like a terrible place to live.

So Castro comes to power, and 50 years later the same cars are in the street, prostitutes are
EVERYWHERE and completely legal. They have a dual-currency system, open blatant inequality
and Castro's solution is to lay-off half a million to a million people to fend for themselves? And allow speculation in real-estate.

So what exactly is Castro needed for if its just a more brutal version of Batista-ism?

A man goes to prison for saying he is hungry but I'm sure there will be people who will come up
with an excuse where the man deserves prison. Probably someone will happily call him a 'worm'

Cuban people should support a mafia-like tyranny because their 'leader' pays lip-service to 'anti-imperialism?'

The same man who spent 3 years writing a highly publicized weekly blog where he never mentions the word "working-class"
but lavishes countless praise on such 'anti-imperialists' and 'heroes' like Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Hu Jintao and yes,
even for a long while, Barack Obama.

If I was Cuban I would be on the next make-shift boat to Florida, so the fake-left in America can call me a traitorous worm
while they sit on their laptops googleing the latest police chase in america to cry about america's brutal police tactics.

The Castro brothers and their senile coterie aren't just a leadership with flaws, they are truly foul people, class enemies of the highest order.

You do realise Cuba gets sanctioned right?

[Franz Fanonipants]

if that shit about the trial is true and i have my doubts its unfortunate

but that fool was talkin shit and drunk i mean come on i say some fucking crazy shit about the usa when i'm talkin shit and drunk

[WanderingCactus]

Trollolol, people on Cuba are not starving, certainly not worse of a regime than of Batista.

Gee, that's just grand.

[Neoprime]

Also the guy in the video is a probably a lying drunk, of course if you don't work you don't eat, if he got off is butt a got a job then hunger would be solved on top of that the reason I think he was locked up is because he's spreading propaganda against the cuban government, just like any government if they find someone like this that spread propaganda, their going to treat them harshly similar to Jane Fonda.

[Blanquist]

Also the guy in the video is a probably a lying drunk, of course if you don't work you don't eat, if he got off is butt a got a job then hunger would be solved on top of that the reason I think he was locked up is because he's spreading propaganda against the cuban government, just like any government if they find someone like this that spread propaganda, their going to treat them harshly similar to Jane Fonda.

I really hope this post was an attempt at humor...

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

The Cuban regime is the lefts favourite sacred cow:rolleyes:
Even though I would not go so far as to say that the Cuban government is a more brutal version of Batista (Batista was worse) or a mafia- style tyranny, I see no reason to defend that government.
I think it´s only possible to see Cuba as socialist if you consider socialism to be state ownership + universal healthcare. What kind of a workers republic tolerates widespread child prostitution while endorsing real estate speculation?
And no, a US imposed trade embargo (which has never totally isolated Cuba economically) and some sentimental talk about how Cuba is in some ways fairing better than other American countries is not an answer to everything said against the Cuban regime.

[Neoprime]

I really hope this post was an attempt at humor...

No.

[#FF0000]

yeah i am not a fan of cuba but frankly i don't think it's any worse than any other awful place to live in the world.

i'd probs rather live there than a lot of other places in latin america, tbh.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Citizens of Cuba do not starve, they are given food rations of various staples: milk, cheese, meat, sugar, jam, bread, butter, fruit, rice etc., which is heavily subsidised. They are given subsidised rent.

The USSR has been gone for over 20 years. It is over 30 years since there was a USSR that existed in any sort of good economic health. The USSRs aid and trade was nowhere near enough to offset the issue of the embargo, which still continues even after the USSRs demise.

Nobody is thrown in jail in Cuba for saying they are hungry. People like Fidel Castro and the original revolutionaries in Cuba, they do not like the economic system, nor the embargo, and they are fairly free to criticise aspects of the Cuban system they don't like.

Given that it's a 3rd world nation, it's really not that bad a place to live at all. How many 3rd world nations feed their populations properly, house them, have a 100% literacy rate, have a population as healthy as any developed nation and do not erupt into civil war every 5 years?

[AmericanCommie421]

Because they aren't free market Capitalist. Trolololol

[Grenzer]

People like Fidel Castro and the original revolutionaries in Cuba, they do not like the economic system, nor the embargo, and they are fairly free to criticise aspects of the Cuban system they don't like.

Fidel Castro isn't a revolutionary. He and the others were petit-bourgeois adventurists. In fact they never really had widespread support amongst the proletariat, much like the Maoists in China. Many plantations remained privately owned, and the bourgeoisie were never destroyed. In fact it wasn't really a revolution at all, except in the sense that people at the top got shuffled around. Castro did not pursue a policy of vigorous nationalization(which again, left significant portions of industry under the private ownership of the bourgeoisie) until after he allied with the Soviet Union, which was some time later.

Cuba is, and always has been, an ordinary bourgeois state with social-democratic policies. It's bizarre that so many people fetishize the hell out of it, particularly someone who claims to be a "left communist", but I guess I would attribute this to western romanticism and love of the "underdog". Cuba is a bourgeois dictatorship and there isn't really any reason to cheer it on.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Fidel Castro isn't a revolutionary. He and the others were petit-bourgeois adventurists. In fact they never really had widespread support amongst the proletariat, much like the Maoists in China. Many plantations remained privately owned, and the bourgeoisie were never destroyed. In fact it wasn't really a revolution at all, except in the sense that people at the top got shuffled around. Castro did not pursue a policy of vigorous nationalization(which again, left significant portions of industry under the private ownership of the bourgeoisie) until after he allied with the Soviet Union, which was some time later.

Cuba is, and always has been, an ordinary bourgeois state with social-democratic policies. It's bizarre that so many people fetishize the hell out of it, particularly someone who claims to be a "left communist", but I guess I would attribute this to western romanticism and love of the "underdog". Cuba is a bourgeois dictatorship and there isn't really any reason to cheer it on.

yeah, and the maoists in china 'didnt have proletarian support' because everytime they organized they got slaughtered and so their next move was to retreat to the countryside and catch its breath, fight japanese invasions and fend off "red-extermination campaigns", and reconstitute itself. sure as shit doesnt sound revolutionary because they werent just lining up to take a bullet in shanghai.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Fidel Castro isn't a revolutionary. He and the others were petit-bourgeois adventurists. In fact they never really had widespread support amongst the proletariat, much like the Maoists in China. Many plantations remained privately owned, and the bourgeoisie were never destroyed. In fact it wasn't really a revolution at all, except in the sense that people at the top got shuffled around. Castro did not pursue a policy of vigorous nationalization(which again, left significant portions of industry under the private ownership of the bourgeoisie) until after he allied with the Soviet Union, which was some time later.

Cuba is, and always has been, an ordinary bourgeois state with social-democratic policies. It's bizarre that so many people fetishize the hell out of it, particularly someone who claims to be a "left communist", but I guess I would attribute this to western romanticism and love of the "underdog". Cuba is a bourgeois dictatorship and there isn't really any reason to cheer it on.

It has nothing to do with romanticisation or cheerleading the underdog.

That i'm a left communist has no bearing on the discussion. I've never claimed that Cuba is Socialist, or anything that we should strive towards. What I express admiration for, in a limited form, is that as a 3rd world nation they've managed to increase the living standards of their population to a ridiculously high level (relatively speaking), without resorting to forced labour or total societal/cultural immiseration, and in the face of a crazy embargo, and that in the face of that embargo there is still more democracy, at a local level, than there has ever been in places like the USSR, GDR, DPRK etc.

I'm under no illusions about the economic structure of Cuba, but it's certainly something to be defended, for its gains have been real and many for working people in Cuba, over the years. Of course that has changed now with rampant privatisation since 2010, but i'm talking more about before that.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

They got up to several billion $ in aid a year from the SU for over 30 years.
That's not including buying their sugar at well-above market prices and sending
countless professionals to Cuba and receiving countless Cuban students.



Yep, they builded theire entire economy on that aid, which turned out to be not so good, but who knew that then? And I cant see the problem that loads of cubans got free education in the USSR in order to devlope theire country.



This is more than enough to off-set the blockade. Even by Castro's own math.



The Soviet Union does not exist anymore. So neither does the aid.


Now they trade with just about anyone and get subsidized oil from Venezuela.



Yeah, so?


Why are people arrested and thrown in prison in Cuba simply for saying they are hungry?
How can anyone support a regime that throws a man in prison for simply saying he is hungry and can't find food to feed himself?




Because its a dictatorship that are struggling towards a lot of enemies and lies, which leads it to react in a exagerated way sometimes. You should check out "las damas en blanco". Mothers to people that are arrested for several reasons, and are oppenly being anti-regime in a organized way. Theire marches gets police escort in order to protect them against angry, common, citizens.

Ooh! and they can find food. Its called El Bolso and commes to evryone each week.



It's sounds like a terrible place to live.


Wouldnt say terrible, but i prefer to live in Sweden. Still better then the favelas in Brazil, being a miner in Bolivia, living under gang control in the slums of El salvador, starving in Haiti and so on...



So Castro comes to power, and 50 years later the same cars are in the street, prostitutes are
EVERYWHERE and completely legal. They have a dual-currency system, open blatant inequality
and Castro's solution is to lay-off half a million to a million people to fend for themselves? And allow speculation in real-estate.



Yep, Global capitalism reaches Evrywhere, and specially with the countries economy relyaing more on turism today, the entrence of hard cash on the streets ( so to speak) have taken in the worst forms of Freemarket, such as prostitution. Its disgusting i agree.

The car sistuation its called Embargo. The many currencies and the lay offs is a resulte of that nits not easy to being, almoust, alone in a globalized market with few native industries and natural resources. I hope you dont belive that the Castros and Che decided to do like this in the 60s and just did all this according to a plan?


So what exactly is Castro needed for if its just a more brutal version of Batista-ism?


Explaine.


A man goes to prison for saying he is hungry but I'm sure there will be people who will come up
with an excuse where the man deserves prison. Probably someone will happily call him a 'worm'



"Worm"? Theire are many ppl who calls him other things, completly oppenly. Like a lot of drunks that that spontaniously will yell that the castros are Hijo de Puta. The cubans are not afraide of saying theire opinion to anyone.


Cuban people should support a mafia-like tyranny because their 'leader' pays lip-service to 'anti-imperialism?'



wut?



The same man who spent 3 years writing a highly publicized weekly blog where he never mentions the word "working-class"
but lavishes countless praise on such 'anti-imperialists' and 'heroes' like Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Hu Jintao and yes,
even for a long while, Barack Obama.



So you read some crazy blog and now youre ranting about it in this thread. I see.


If I was Cuban I would be on the next make-shift boat to Florida, so the fake-left in America can call me a traitorous worm
while they sit on their laptops googleing the latest police chase in america to cry about america's brutal police tactics.



How is this A) Facts. B) Relevant ??


The Castro brothers and their senile coterie aren't just a leadership with flaws, they are truly foul people, class enemies of the highest order.


Ok.. :rolleyes:

[Ismail]

(Reuters) - Cuba (http://www.reuters.com/places/cuba) will move nearly 50 percent of the state's economic activity to the "non-state" sector, a senior Communist party official said at the weekend, the latest signal the island is headed toward a mixed economy. Cuban President Raul Castro has hammered away at the need for the state to become more efficient and get out of secondary economic activity such as farming and retail services since taking over for his ailing older brother, Fidel, in 2008.

China (http://www.reuters.com/places/china) and Vietnam adopted similar measures in the last few decades of the 20th century as they began to shift to what is known as market socialism.

"Today, almost 95 percent of gross domestic product is produced by the state. Within four or five years between 40 percent and 45 percent will result from different forms of non-state production," a long-time Communist party political bureau member, Esteban Lazo Hernandez, said in a speech to the Havana city government.Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/us-cuba-economy-idUSBRE83M19Y20120423?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuter s+World+News%29

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/us-cuba-economy-idUSBRE83M19Y20120423?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuter s+World+News%29

Yes, The Economist was in a wet dream when it wrote the article i talked about earlier "Cuba Hurdles Towards Capitalism". Really is not a time to privatise the economy with the global capitalist debt, banking and production system running into a historical wall. :thumbdown:

[Blanquist]

So you read some crazy blog and now youre ranting about it in this thread. I see.

Ok.. :rolleyes:


That crazy blog was written by Fidel Castro.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Wonder if we can lift 50% of the embargo now? < Great comment on the article.

But still, that is that. State Capitalism transitioned to Market 'Socialism' pretty much, very close to a move to all-out neo-liberalism.

Shame on Raul Castro.

[daft punk]

It's unfortunate that such things happen but they aren't completely without reason. Also that's hardly a denunciation of a government or nation. Besides what could be used to justify it I'm not aware of any nation that has a flawless legal and security system.

As with all socialist projects it isn't a matter of putting them on pedestals and declaring them the perfect model. We look at them and can call socialist and support them and celebrate to the extent that they are socialist but of course nothing is perfect. The problem is when we are up front with our criticisms of these projects publicly it portrays a very bad image of the leftist movement. It's even worse when we completely deny that these socialist projects were/are socialist. The uneducated have been told otherwise and the educated know better. Why would anyone be attracted to a movement that boasts no successes and is only associated with terrible tragedies?
Cuba is not socialist, socialism involves democratic workers control. To answer the OP, the economy is crap because of the bureaucracy which rules. It's like a mini version of the USSR, and going the same way, to capitalism, as Trotsky predicted for the USSR, if the dictatorship was not consciously replaced by a workers democracy.

Be honest, don't call Cuba socialist when it is a deformed workers state. It will go capitalist or socialist, but it wont stay how it is forever. To go socialist the workers have to have power and take part in decision making.

Left Coms will jump in and say Lenin never did that, but this is 2012, not one year after a civil war.

Stalinists and left coms, please think about what you say about Cuba. It should be defended, but honestly.

[Delenda Carthago]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/GDP-Carribean.png/800px-GDP-Carribean.png

[daft punk]

I wouldnt say their economy is great just because it's better than Haiti

[Delenda Carthago]

I wouldnt say their economy is great just because it's better than Haiti

I wouldnt say it either. The point is if their economy could ever be "great"? Like what? Be the opposite weight to USA? That is the measure? Like, if they turn capitalist, would that make Cuba a new Canada? There are specific reasons why an economy of a State is how it is. And Cuban economy, a country under an economical embargo that is alone in this fucked up world, with USA sabotageing it in every possible way, still has the best economy in its area. If you consider that 80% of its GDP goes to social programms, that gives you an idea that being a Cuban is possible to be the best thing that can happen to you if you are born around there.

[Tim Cornelis]

It's unfortunate that such things happen but they aren't completely without reason.

If this happened in the US you would be throwing molotovs on all the police cars.


Did the guy look like he was a member of the +1.3 Billion humans that are permanently severely undernourished, unable to have a social life, work because of their dire state of starvation? No, go give me a video showing one of the 25 Million Americans that are hungry, they don't do that because the capitalist state has kept them uneducated and brainwashed them to believe it's their fault for not having a job and starving. Over 47 Million Americans are on food stamps, and food stamps often do not cover the whole families' needs. What about the 100,000 that die of starvation a Day, are you going to post a video in indignation at the crimes of the capitalist system? No, you are spreading anti-communist propaganda, it's ridiculous, Stop.

That's not the point. It is true that Cuba is relatively well off, but the point is that telling you are hungry lands you in jail--whether he was actually hungry is besides the point.

Also, highlighting the errors of Cuba does not mean one accepts the capitalist errors.

Unless Cuba is communist, criticising Cuba is not anti-communist.

[TrotskistMarx]

Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, Honduras are nations of small size just like Cuba and they are full of starving people, hungry people. In fact many people from Dominican Rep. have to risk their lives to travel to Puerto Rico (An Imperialist State of USA), in order to eat. And those nations Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras are capitalists, with free markets, without embargos, and even though, they don't have economic blocks, they are a lot worse than Cuba.

Those nations Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, Honduras and even Mexico have neoliberal-capitalist governments, along with very corrupt pseudo-dynasties, narco-states, they have sort of neoliberal oligarchic cleptocracies. While Cuba even though has a state-capitalist system with a state-capitalist government might have corruption, because we all know all states are corrupt, wether it is a state-capitalist government or a neoliberal-government.

However I think that the state-capitalist system of Cuba and even of North Korea is a lot better than the neoliberal-capitalist system of Mexico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Hondura, Guatemala, and other neoliberal-capitalist governments of comparable size to Cuba.


.





They got up to several billion $ in aid a year from the SU for over 30 years.
That's not including buying their sugar at well-above market prices and sending
countless professionals to Cuba and receiving countless Cuban students.

This is more than enough to off-set the blockade. Even by Castro's own math.

Now they trade with just about anyone and get subsidized oil from Venezuela.

Why are people arrested and thrown in prison in Cuba simply for saying they are hungry?
How can anyone support a regime that throws a man in prison for simply saying he is hungry and can't find food to feed himself?

It's sounds like a terrible place to live.

So Castro comes to power, and 50 years later the same cars are in the street, prostitutes are
EVERYWHERE and completely legal. They have a dual-currency system, open blatant inequality
and Castro's solution is to lay-off half a million to a million people to fend for themselves? And allow speculation in real-estate.

So what exactly is Castro needed for if its just a more brutal version of Batista-ism?

A man goes to prison for saying he is hungry but I'm sure there will be people who will come up
with an excuse where the man deserves prison. Probably someone will happily call him a 'worm'

Cuban people should support a mafia-like tyranny because their 'leader' pays lip-service to 'anti-imperialism?'

The same man who spent 3 years writing a highly publicized weekly blog where he never mentions the word "working-class"
but lavishes countless praise on such 'anti-imperialists' and 'heroes' like Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Hu Jintao and yes,
even for a long while, Barack Obama.

If I was Cuban I would be on the next make-shift boat to Florida, so the fake-left in America can call me a traitorous worm
while they sit on their laptops googleing the latest police chase in america to cry about america's brutal police tactics.

The Castro brothers and their senile coterie aren't just a leadership with flaws, they are truly foul people, class enemies of the highest order.