Cuba and USA to normalise relations

[Sentinel]

Obama and Castro have both separately announced an attempt to normalise relations between the countries. Embassies will be opened, prisoners have been released etc, and the aim is to lift the 50-year old embargo:



Obama hails 'new chapter' in US-Cuba ties

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79797000/jpg/_79797726_obama17.jpg
Continue reading the main story (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30516740#story_continues_1) Related Stories


Cuban TV hails announcement' Watch (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30520628)
Why was Alan Gross jailed? Watch (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30522256)
Profile: Alan Gross (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30520325)
US President Barack Obama has hailed a "new chapter" in US relations with Cuba, announcing moves to normalise diplomatic and economic ties.
Mr Obama said the plans represented the "most significant changes in US policy towards Cuba in 50 years".
The US is looking to open an embassy in Havana in the coming months, he said.
The moves are part of a deal that saw the release of American Alan Gross by Cuba and includes the release of three Cubans jailed in Florida for spying.
Mr Gross arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington from Cuba on Wednesday. Footage showed him disembarking from a US government plane onto the tarmac where he was met by a crowd.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79797000/jpg/_79797723_b4f02b77-fc57-4525-ae99-23b715747bcf.jpg
Mr Gross, facing the camera in a blue shirt, flew back from Cuba on a US government plane

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79793000/jpg/_79793882_79793881.jpg
Obama and Castro met a year ago at the Nelson Mandela funeral

The 65-year-old spent five years behind bars after being accused of subversion, for trying to bring internet services to communities in Cuba.
He was freed on humanitarian grounds.
His arrest and imprisonment had undermined attempts to thaw diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The US president announced measures that he said would end an "outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests".

The plans set out in a White House statement (http://www.bbc.com/news/v) also includes:

Reviewing the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism
Easing a travel ban for US citizens
Easing financial restrictions
Increasing telecommunications links
Efforts to lift the 54-year-old trade embargo
Full BBC Article (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30516740)

Discuss!

[Sasha]

Obama has resigned himself to trolling the GOP and FOX for the rest of his term?

[Creative Destruction]

The increasing telecommunications links will have an interesting impact. For so long in America, it was surmised that the Cuban government just up and restricted Internet access because they were horrid dictators, when a lot of it had to do with the lack of available bandwidth in the country, mainly due to the embargo itself. I'd like to see how Internet access will begin to be introduced into the country once those cables are connected (if they ever are.)

On the other hand, I am skeptical that the Congress will even go near taking up the issue of lifting the embargo completely. However much shit the Democrats deserve to be heaped onto them, the Republicans are just a bunch of spiteful babies.

[Sentinel]

Apparently, three of the prisoners released by the US belong to the so called 'Cuban Five'. They have been jailed since 2001, convicted of spying and there have been numerous international solidarity campaigns to get them freed to no avail.

[Creative Destruction]

Obama has resigned himself to trolling the GOP and FOX for the rest of his term?

It's good political theater, if nothing else.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Communism finally triumphs in the USA red salute comrades

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

this is clearly a reaction to cuba's liberal economic reforms. i belive that it's already been agreed that the us will be involved in the free trade zone of port mariel

[motion denied]

Is there any chance Congress will end the embargo, though? It would be beneficial to both parts, but the "obongo muslamic communist"-Republican idiot would not let it happen, I think.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

theyre already gradually lifting the embargo

[The Intransigent Faction]

this is clearly a reaction to cuba's liberal economic reforms. i belive that it's already been agreed that the us will be involved in the free trade zone of port mariel

Oh, I'm sure that's just a coincidence. :rolleyes:
But seriously, yeah. It seems like those liberal reforms were happening anyway, so why not use that as an excuse to 'reward' Cuba and paint oneself as 'progressive' and all that nonsense in the process? Knee-jerk American hostility wouldn't speed up that process. It makes sense.

[Per Levy]

hardcore conservatives and socialists everywhere are in tears now, so much fun.

[RedSonRising]

m6MgATBZMII

So far a summation of the reforms seem to be

-A gradual increase in travel
-An establishment of formal embassies
-An increased access to telecommunications and US-produced commercial goods
-A collaboration to fight Ebola in Africa


That all sounds well and good but I'm sure we're all aware of the very real danger of neoliberalism coming in and dismantling the gains made and preserved by the Revolution. So far, to my eyes, most of the reforms have not reintroduced normalized capitalist relations, in the sense that there is no surplus extraction through wages entitled by right of property ownership. Private licenses for individual labor and collective cooperatives are the extent, aside from the special economic zones that have opened up for foreign investment. Perhaps I'm naively optimistic in thinking that a decentralization of production doesn't necessarily indicate a return to a capitalist class system but I hope that's the case, and despite whatever grievances Cubans may have, I'm sure they don't want a return to that either. Although, even though the connection between Cuba's reforms and the US's open arms are readily apparent, one also has to consider that the principal reason the embargo hadn't been lifted, the exile community, has recently been abandoning its hard line stance in favor for normalization that allows for more regular contact.

I nearly vomited at the "good intentions" bit and the glorification of the Miami exile community. Yeah, invasion and the burning of sugar cane fields and the explosion of a factory and civilian airliner are real gems and signs of good faith :rolleyes:

[consuming negativity]

this is great news if you like cigars

not so much if you're a god-fearing american patriot opposed to the homosexual agenda of comrade obamao

in 2 years we'll be living in the USSA and speaking arabic, just you wait

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

this is great news if you like cigars


and rum!;)

Also, eagerly looking forward to the reactions of PSL, WWP and their brethren over this.

[Halert]

I'm surprised it took so long seeing both countries have things to gain from restoring relations. I guess internal politics kept this from going faster. In the cold-war the anti-cuba policy made sense, but that is over.

[Sewer Socialist]

I'm surprised it took so long seeing both countries have things to gain from restoring relations. I guess internal politics kept this from going faster. In the cold-war the anti-cuba policy made sense, but that is over.

I think that this is not so much about economic gains, but preventing losses. Specifically, preventing Russia from having an ally so close to the US; Russia seems to be the primary target of US foreign policy lately. This isn't us finally getting over the cold war, but continuing it.

[Teacher]

The increasing telecommunications links will have an interesting impact. For so long in America, it was surmised that the Cuban government just up and restricted Internet access because they were horrid dictators, when a lot of it had to do with the lack of available bandwidth in the country, mainly due to the embargo itself. I'd like to see how Internet access will begin to be introduced into the country once those cables are connected (if they ever are.)

People in Cuba have access to the internet though.. it just isn't as widespread as here. When I was there last year every person I met on the street or at a bar wanted me to add them on Facebook or email them.

[RedGuevara]

Hopefully this will help revitalize Cuba's country. They have a high supply of medical doctors and if Cuba were to get updated medical equipment I could only imagine what they could do for the rest of the world.

[motion denied]

Yeah but these new supplies of medical equipment would be developed by joint-ventures or 100% private enterprises (principally near Mariel Port), in the SEZs. Multinationals and transnationals are licking their chops with the impending end of the embargo. Same with the internet. (Oops: Doc Penis already said much of this :p)

Cuba becomes less isolated, some shortages would possible disappear etc. On the other hand, it will progressively be subject to these "partners". How much until the conquests of 50 years ago become ashes?

[RedWorker]

In that case, the life of Cuban people may very well improve with economic liberalization, which proves the failure of Stalinism. Arbitrary restriction of the 'free market' is not socialism.

[motion denied]

Consumption should probably rise, but the liberalization, for one, will expand Real Estate. With the increase in the amount of money allowed to be sent to Cubans from abroad (which is important to Cuban commercial balance) the differences in the standards of living will sharpen, since dollars are much more valuable than pesos.

Of course there has never existed socialism in Cuba. On one thing I can agree: how can anyone, with a straight face, still babble socialism in one country?

[KurtFF8]

I posted this elsewhere but I presume this will be a big part of the conversation in this thread:

One thing I keep thinking about as everyone keeps saying things like "this might result in the restoration of capitalism!" is that Cuba has endured and successfully combated US-backed invasions, terrorist attacks, hundreds of assassination attempts, decades long attempts to isolate them economically and politically, internal subversive measures (like the recent revelations about the fake twitter and hip hop infiltrations), etc. yet the US opening an embassy in Havana and the potential for the embargo to be removed is what the biggest threat is?
Not only has the Cuban experiment in building socialism survived the above mentioned events, but they've constantly asked for the embargo to be removed (which hasn't happened yet of course) and for the US to have normal relations.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

In that case, the life of Cuban people may very well improve with economic liberalization, which proves the failure of Stalinism. Arbitrary restriction of the 'free market' is not socialism.


what makes you think that economic liberalization will improve peoples lives? since when has liberal capitalism been understood in terms of quality of life?

[RedWorker]

what makes you think that economic liberalization will improve peoples lives? since when has liberal capitalism been understood in terms of quality of life?

Take a look at China, for instance. It's a hellhole now, yet it was even worse under pseudo-socialism. Progress in any way was unheard of until the liberalization.
It's pretty obvious Cuba's economic policy is holding the country back.

[KurtFF8]

Take a look at China, for instance. It's a hellhole now, yet it was even worse under pseudo-socialism. Progress in any way was unheard of until the liberalization.
It's pretty obvious Cuba's economic policy is holding the country back.

This is such a strange position for someone posting on a revolutionary anti-capitalist forum to hold.

[RedWorker]

This is such a strange position for someone posting on a revolutionary anti-capitalist forum to hold.

I'd say supporting a capitalist dictatorship [Cuba] is more strange.

[KurtFF8]

I'd say supporting a capitalist dictatorship [Cuba] is more strange.

So you criticize Cuba by (incorrectly) labeling it a "capitalist dictatorship" and turn around and say the solution is that it should implement capitalist reforms.

[Creative Destruction]

People in Cuba have access to the internet though.. it just isn't as widespread as here. When I was there last year every person I met on the street or at a bar wanted me to add them on Facebook or email them.

Well, that's why I said "restricted." I understand that people have access to the Internet, but access is restricted. Last I read, it was because available bandwidth was tight and expensive (at least it was up until they laid cable with Venezuela) largely due to the economic blockade.

[RedWorker]

So you criticize Cuba by (incorrectly) labeling it a "capitalist dictatorship" and turn around and say the solution is that it should implement capitalist reforms.

Yeah, because the mode of production is determined by policies. Not.

Not only is Cuba capitalist by Marxist standards, it's also capitalist by Stalinist standards. Someone working in the private sector can earn 2500 times the amount the average person does. It's also slowly implementing the China model, which the Castro brothers have already praised.

[brigadista]

When I visited there was some sex tourism - no doubt this will increase now

[Teacher]

This is such a strange position for someone posting on a revolutionary anti-capitalist forum to hold.

What he said.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

All of the Stalinists in this thread: I Want To Believe

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Take a look at China, for instance. It's a hellhole now, yet it was even worse under pseudo-socialism. Progress in any way was unheard of until the liberalization.
It's pretty obvious Cuba's economic policy is holding the country back.

like i and others have already said, what's happening in cuba is a huge increase of foreign investment in the economy namely in the special economic zone. this has fuck all to do with quality of life and it will only signify progress in terms of greater accumulation of capital. right now the trans national corporations involved in port mariel are celebrating washington's move. and the fact that you honestly think that the cuban people stand to win with this is frankly dumbfounding.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

All of the Stalinists in this thread: I Want To Believe

there are no stalinists in this thread i believe. only people critical of liberalism. like, you know, communists. meanwhile, there are also a handful of people who believe that liberal capitalism is good for workers

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

If you don't think Cuba is already practicing a fucked up form of liberalism you probably aren't a communist. But yeah I'll go out on a limb and guess that the dude with the che avatar is a stalinist

[consuming negativity]

Yeah, because the mode of production is determined by policies. Not.

Not only is Cuba capitalist by Marxist standards, it's also capitalist by Stalinist standards. Someone working in the private sector can earn 2500 times the amount the average person does. It's also slowly implementing the China model, which the Castro brothers have already praised.

but actually the mode of production is determined by policies; it's just social relations

like no, it's not policy in the sense that you can have obama simply go "okay let's have some welfare" and now we're communists

but it is in the sense that policies are just the legislated morality of the existing ruling class

when the proletarian is the ruling (and only) class, our policies will be those of communism; that is, the way our society works will be stateless and classless and we will adhere to "laws" voluntarily which make up our society

plus, in honesty, while i agree that cuba is obviously capitalist, there is a difference between capitalism run by capitalists and capitalism run by people who want socialism but understand that socialism isn't something you can just have congress vote on and viola

like yeah it's the same thing but it actually isn't

subterfuge and using the state machine for good purposes actually is possible; not everybody always acts in their immediate interests. there are plenty of capitalists who, once revolution is going on, will probably throw their hands up and go "okay you're right i don't really want to be beheaded let's appropriate this shit and be friends" in the same way that marx and engels and the rest were not at all proles

[Tim Cornelis]

So you criticize Cuba by (incorrectly) labeling it a "capitalist dictatorship" and turn around and say the solution is that it should implement capitalist reforms.

You two are talking past each other. From his perspective it is implementing liberal reforms. This is because the discussion of what mode of production Cuba has is bypassed.

As I remember it, the last time we discussed it you kept repeating the same nonsensical arguments and I kept knocking them down until you stopped repeating. The crux is that all Leninists, and particularly Stalinists, have a conception that is contrary to Marxism. Which was already exposed by Plekhanov sometime ago. The superstructure precedes the base in the Leninist narrative and therefore nationalisation of the economy constitutes a revolutionary transformation. Legal relations precede a supersession in the social relations of production. In a Leninist (Trotskyist) narrative, therefore, it's possible to have a workers' state without corresponding and preceding change in the relations of production. This leads to absurdities, contemporary China being a workers' state for instance. Stalinists, of course, are worse.

We have discussed it before, and your argument is based on a conflation of individual and private ownership. In Cuba, the immediate producers confront the objective conditions of their labour as alien property, or non-property. They are subject to the decision-making of the functionaries of the owner of the means of production, whom hire and fire labour, and buy labour-power on the labour market. The workers continue to produce commodities, which are exchange, thus constituting a market. Consumer goods, capital goods, all are commodities -- generalised commodity production. This evidences that labour is executed privately.

It is an absurdity to claim that Cuba has surpassed the capitalist mode of production when we very well know that the corollary of Marxist theory is that post-capitalism necessarily means social ownership and control and therefore the directly social character of labour, and therefore the absence of money, the absence of value, the absence of the value-form, and value production, and commodity production. To deny this is to bin Marxism, which is exactly what Stalinists do, which leads to silly idealist concepts of peaceful moving back and forth between modes of production (an absurdity from the perspective of Marxism) through subtle reforms by a country's leadership (an absurdity) because of bad ideas in that leadership (revisionism = idealism).

[Rafiq]

While I agree, Tim, it's important to remember that Stalinists consider these states, as (former) proletarian dictatorships. Meaning that to them, history being created by men and women as they please has begun, such states manifesting the historic will of the proletarian class. Certainly, the revolution will be a willfull act - and a dictatorship of the proletariat would necessarily hold a degree of conscious responsibility. The non-political predispositions to a new mode of production do not exist in capitalism .

For them, these revisionists are merely bad apples in the divine caste of historical agency, objects of scrutiny (as a result of their responsibilities, or failures to see to them). This is why Stalinism is both more - and less ideological than liberalism. An anarchist, for example, wouldn't care about Jimmy Carter's mistakes. Such mistakes are the mistakes of another ideological bloc, and to call them mistakes implies a point of reference or allegiance (Mistakes to what? in carrying out what? On behalf of whom?). The same stalinsim that perceived itself as a legitimate instrument of historical necessity was not abolished, but inherited by the forces of revisionism. The same pathology of anti-revisionism which holds accountable the corruption, filth and dishonesty of people like Deng Xiaoping is the pathology that allows people like Deng Xiaoping to have ideologically justified their reforms. As representatives of the will of the proletariat, when they adopt capitalist reforms they do not do so "bound" by the forces of capitalism. They remain on top, "outside" of it all able to tame and self consciously introduce capitalism - uncorrupted by the wild poison of the superstructures of other capitalist economies.

But alas, eppur si move, capitalism cares not if you are conscious about it. This very illusion of mastery becomes an irrevocable part of capitalist production with greater legitimacy than even liberalism. Belief can be expressed in actions, not just conscious identification. You can believe without knowing it.


This is why the best managers of capitalism are ex-Communists. Their corruption, degeneration and dishonesty doesn't make them good cynical nihilists, on the contrary, it solidifies, and renders invincible their unwavering faith in capitalism while both superseding or overcoming the movement to supersede present conditions - Communism.

[Prof. Oblivion]

I think that this is not so much about economic gains, but preventing losses. Specifically, preventing Russia from having an ally so close to the US; Russia seems to be the primary target of US foreign policy lately. This isn't us finally getting over the cold war, but continuing it.

I don't think the US would care if Cuba was allied with Russia, it has no impact on global politics.

[FSL]

In that case, the life of Cuban people may very well improve with economic liberalization, which proves the failure of Stalinism. Arbitrary restriction of the 'free market' is not socialism.

There has been "economic liberalization" with 10% of the labor force now being self-employed and some sectors having a bigger say in their decision making (the sugar industry for example).
The results shown are poor to say the least, Cuba comes short of its own estimates regarding growth.


This isn't a cuban reform by the way, it's an american one. The embargo was negatively seen by everyone except old pre-1960 cuban exiles and Cuba's geographical proximity and influence in latin and central america are some of the reasons why this policy changed. Another reason is that the US probably thinks that more trade will help the private sector more than it will help cuba's general economy and they are probably right.

Still easier trade, a huge new market for exports and millions of tourists will do enough to increase 2015 growth.

[FSL]

As I remember it, the last time we discussed it you kept repeating the same nonsensical arguments and I kept knocking them down until you stopped repeating. The crux is that all Leninists, and particularly Stalinists, have a conception that is contrary to Marxism. Which was already exposed by Plekhanov sometime ago. The superstructure precedes the base in the Leninist narrative and therefore nationalisation of the economy constitutes a revolutionary transformation. Legal relations precede a supersession in the social relations of production.
The establishment of a workers' state and the legal ratification of socialist ownership are changes in the superstructure that follow workers organizing in councils, electing recallable officials, arming themselves and chasing away the capitalists.

This is how social ownership in a socialist state differs from nationalized property in a bourgeois state.