why is it good to have 1 ruler like Fidel in cuba - give me

[Droes lee]

give me some reasons becose i can't find my words when I'm debating with my teatcher

sorry for my bad english

[El Che]

You already know it`s good, you just don`t know why yet. I can`t help but smile.

[Droes lee]

dja I can see that it works but i dont know why .
the teatcher says that there can be dictatorship
if only one person has the power but I wana convince my clasmates and maybe my brainwashed teatcher.....
but how.... cuba's economie is fine only the presure of the u$ is a problem .

[Droes lee]

sorry I've goth to take the word problem back but like the travelling thingy to cuba and that stuff and u$ 's media..

[kingbee]

the point id say was that even though cuba is a third world country, it has one of the best education, health and welfare systems in the world.

[Ze]

The US administration itself has imposed dictators and totalitarian governments who were less than benevolent on countries that had democratic governments such as iran, chile, guatemala, afghanistan in the 80's, and indonesia. One leader or ruling party means a more focused, deliberate, and unimposed (quicker) path towards the objectives of said ruling party. If the objective is social equality, quality public education and healthcare, fairer wages, abundant food, and adequate infrastructure without too much suppression of political freedom and internal dissent which is necessary to achieve the above mentioned goals, then it may be 'good to have 1 ruler like Fidel in cuba'. the problem is that power corrupts, and ultimate power corrupts ultimately and the balance of suppressing political freedom without violating human rights is a near impossible task.

[Blackberry]

Castro was elected.

[Nobody]

Actual neutral nation he was the only big revolutionary left alive at the end of the revoltion. The big rebel in the city was shot about two weeks before by a Batatisa killer. Castro was just handed power, which WAS a GOOD THING.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

Your teachers wins the argument because you cannot be bothered to learn for yourself and create your own views and interpretations on things.

[jjack]

Tell your teacher that the freely elected National Assembly is the most powerful branch of the Cuban government.

[IHP]

Socialismo, you have some sort of complex with people learning from this site? while I agree that he shouldn't be told "why it's good" he should learn and make his own interpretation of whether it is goo or not.

But even still, this is a site for debate and learning. You seem to reject anyone trying to do so. such as when I asked from some links about appeasement. If you don't have anything to add, don't post. If you don't like that people come here to learn, then go somewhere else.

--IHP

[crazy comie]

tell your teacher that if cuba had a capitalist goverment half the population would live in shanty towns.

[ComradeJunichi]

Quote: from Droes lee on 9:57 pm on May 28, 2003
dja I can see that it works but i dont know why .
the teatcher says that there can be dictatorship
if only one person has the power but I wana convince my clasmates and maybe my brainwashed teatcher.....
but how.... cuba's economie is fine only the presure of the u$ is a problem .


Brainwash yourself to convince the brainwashed.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

But they guy specifically asked for other peoples reasons. So you agree with me then.

[chamo]

Odd, I thought he asked for reasons why Cuba does well under Fidel, maybe I was mistaken.

As you add he "can't be bothered to learn for himself".
Bit of a contradiction seeing that he came to this community for that very reason.

If you don't care about helping him don't bother saying anything. He came looking for help, not criticism.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

He came here looking for people to give him his argument. A sign of complete ignorance and laziness.

[chamo]

Not everyone is perfect, not everyone has complete knowledge of how to debate, not even you. If you don't want him to learn, add nothing.

As my mother once told me, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.

[Droes lee]

lazines???!!! how do i've goth to learn when I don't geth any aswers?? I surfd to many che and cuba site's but I dident geth any aswers how it commes that Fidel leeds cuba so good ?? I tought that you guys had an idea becose you all have more knowledge of it.....

[sc4r]

Speaking for myself Droes I see no problem at all in you coming here to learn and I can only imagine that some of the guys responding negatively to you must have got a little too much early summer sun.

I would object to someone coming here in order to ask deliberately naive questions so that they can then start slagging off socialism but you seem perfectly geuine to me.

However I think part of the problem is that we dont really understand quite what you are getting at or quite what you asking. Here is my best attempt at what I think you are asking :

1. Fidel is in fact now elected, Cuban democracy is well established. It does not function quite the same way as say, US 2 party representative democracy in that it involves people far more in giving their direct opinion of issues rather than simply agreeing to follow a leader no matter what he does. In short many people woud say that Cuban style democracy is far superior to the US style.

2. Fidel came to power in a peoples revolution against what was undeniably an oppressive disctatorship.

3. He was at all times given huge popular support and it was never at any time remotely in doubt that both the policies he stood for and he himself had the overwhelming support of the Cuban people.

4. Fidel several times suggested that his position of president should be out to the vote and was always shouted down by the Cuban people who insisted that he was completely trusted and wanted by them. As I said even so he eventually insisted that the position be subject to a formal voting procedure.

5. The position of Cuban president is not directly voted on by the people. The people elect local leaders (who are usually well known to them) and ask these local representatives to choose a president from amongst themselves.

6. If you are asking what are the personal attributes that make Fidel so admired and popular I would say it his courage, passion, intelligence, strength of character, and above all his sense of honour. he had to do many things in order to hold Cuba together which I suspect he would have preferred not to; he has had to make hard (perhaps you could call them ruthless) decisions; but few doubt that at all times these decsions were made in the interests of Cuban people NOT for personal gain.

Fidel is a gifted leader who seems to possess far less of the self serving interests which many leaders posess. I am sure he has a large ego, if he did not he would not have been able to sustain his self believe in the face of US antagonism for 50 odd year; but crucially this ego seems to feed off doing right,not off self aggrandisement.

I hope this has helped. If not please explain what you would like elaboration on.

best wishes

[Droes lee]

thank you sc4r, al the answers are good answers !!
now I can go ""deeper"" in the cuban politics...
and slaughter my teatcher in a good debate

[chamo]

1. Fidel is in fact now elected, Cuban democracy is well established. It does not function quite the same way as say, US 2 party representative democracy in that it involves people far more in giving their direct opinion of issues rather than simply agreeing to follow a leader no matter what he does. In short many people woud say that Cuban style democracy is far superior to the US style.

Interesting, comrade. Could you provide some links please because my machine, or prehaps Google skills, are unable to draw up any results that are not Western Propaganda and anti-Casto, anti-Cuba. They would be much appreciated.:)

[IHP]

"But they guy specifically asked for other peoples reasons. So you agree with me then. "

No, to an extent. I think that due to his limited english he was unable to express what he meant. I belive that he is here to learn as about Cuba, using this site as a source.


"He came here looking for people to give him his argument. A sign of complete ignorance and laziness"

I don't think he is lazy, though a little ignorant on this topic he was just wanting some answers.

--IHP

[sc4r]

http://www.uvm.edu/~wmiller/cubandemocracy.htm

http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/raza/1997.10...0/msg00011.html (http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/raza/1997.10/msg00011.html)

http://members.attcanada.ca/~dchris/CubaFAQ018.html

Think of the mechanism by which Castro is elected as president as more akin to the electoral college votes in the states. In theory if even 51% of Cubans everywhere wanted Fidel as president (most polls actually put the figure at 90%) then he should recieve 100% of the presidential vote since the delegates (who are elected directly) are supposed to follow the wishes of the majority of their constituency.

Because Cuba is very much more homogenous as regards the political interests of people their it is not especially surpising that there are no concentrated pockets of anti Castroians.

Castro himself also has to be elected directly though in the first place within a constituency, because only national assembly members can be elected president.

It is very common for those of us brought up in liberal democracies to see our version of democracy as the only valid mechanism and to assess different methods wrongly as a result. The essence of democracy is of course to ensure that the will of people is followed.

AS rousseau famously remarked about representative democracy 'they are free for only one day every 4 years'.

These days I'd say even that is only partly true since while most of us can choose which candidate to vote for, we have almost no say in deciding who will become a candidate in the first place. In other words we usually end up choosing merely between the lesser of two evils.

To answer the frequent charge that Castro has no opponent for the post of president, you only have to look at the mechanism and history to see why this would be. Who would want to oppose him knowing that it was definitely not a popular position and that one had no chance of actually winning ? In point of fact I would imagine that any national assembly member who did stand against Castro would be recalled by his constituents almost immediately and removed (they can do that in Cuba, if your elected representative does not follow your wishes he can be removed, you dont have to wait 5 years).

(Edited by sc4r at 8:08 am on May 30, 2003)