Great article on Cuba

[spartan]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2243764,00.html

This is well worth the read.

Thoughts?

Personally i think that Cuba will change.

How that change will come and what it will entail, i dont know?

But at least there are left leaning countries in Latin America that Cuba can look to and perhaps use as a model for their own changes?

[kromando33]

Nice quoting bourgeois sources, I am not going to read such trash.

[spartan]

Nice quoting bourgeois sources, I am not going to read such trash.

Fortunately i dont aim these kind of articles at people who wont understand them.

In future leave these kind of things for the smart people to discuss;)

[BobKKKindle$]

This article describes Cuba as holding 'cosmetic elections'. And yet you describe this article as 'well worth the read'.

I advise, Spartan, that you try and read a range of different perspectives on Cuba instead of believing everything that you read in the mainstream press. Cuba, despite it's problems, is far more democratic than most bourgeois states. Eighty per cent of Cubans over the age of 14 are members of their local Committee for the Defence of the Revolution – a committee composed of members of about 60 households living in a district or area. These committees serve as important units of discussion and local management, and are responsible for a wide range of different areas, including organizing community social events, debating laws that are proposed by the central government, and maintaining defense against the military threat of the United States.

In other countries, democracy is limited to electing a delegate from a small selection of political parties once every 4 years – citizens have no way of ensuring that these delegates continue to represent their interests and views for the duration of the parliamentary term. The CDRs (in addition to other aspects of the Cuban political system) thus represent a higher form of democracy and allow for the empowerment of local communities.

In addition, all workers have the right to participate in a monthly workers' assembly, which gives workers the opportunity to negotiate wage contracts with the state and suggest changes to the structure of the workplace. The views of workers have always been taken into full consideration when the government develops economic policy, even when the country was experiencing severe economy problems and the threat of political instability. For example, during the reorganization of the Sugar industry in 2002, workers made several recommendations to the central government, including the provision of retraining so that workers could find alternative employment.

Cuba is therefore democratic, and is either a state-capitalist society with progressive features, or a workers' state suffering bureaucratic degeneration. Either way, we should argue for the defence of Cuba against Imperialism.

[kromando33]

Fortunately i dont aim these kind of articles at people who wont understand them.

In future leave these kind of things for the smart people to discuss;)
No, the point is, if you want to be taken seriously, don't use bourgeois-slanted media as your source.

[spartan]

This article describes Cuba as holding 'cosmetic elections'. And yet you describe this article as 'well worth the change'.
I actually said that it was well worth the read.

I advise, Spartan, that you try and read a range of different perspectives on Cuba instead of believing everything that you read in the mainstream press. Cuba, despite it's problems, is far more democratic than most bourgeois states. Eighty per cent of Cubans over the age of 14 are members of their local Committee for the Defence of the Revolution – a committee composed of members of about 60 households living in a district or area. These committees serve as important units of discussion and local management, and are responsible for a wide range of different areas, including organizing community social events, debating laws that are proposed by the central government, and maintaining defense against the military threat of the United States.

In other countries, democracy is limited to electing a delegate from a small selection of political parties once every 4 years – citizens have no way of ensuring that these delegates continue to represent their interests and views for the duration of the parliamentary term. The CDRs (in addition to other aspects of the Cuban political system) thus represent a higher form of democracy and allow for the empowerment of local communities.

In addition, all workers have the right to participate in a monthly workers' assembly, which gives workers the opportunity to negotiate wage contracts with the state and suggest changes to the structure of the workplace. The views of workers have always been taken into full consideration when the government develops economic policy, even when the country was experiencing severe economy problems and the threat of political instability. For example, during the reorganization of the Sugar industry in 2002, workers made several recommendations to the central government, including the provision of retraining so that workers could find alternative employment.
I am not critiscizing their Democracy! (Ill take your word for it that they have all these things that you speak of).

I am just saying that the leadership and its methods needs to change.

Cuba is being left behind and it will be the Cuban people who will suffer the most from this.

I also fail to see why press freedom and opposition to the government etc shouldnt be allowed?

What are they afraid of?

[BobKKKindle$]

I actually said that it was well worth the read.

Yes, I know, my apologies, I tend to not pay attention to what I type...:p


I am not critiscizing their Democracy! (Ill take your word for it that they have all these things that you speak of).

I assumed you supported the article's orientation. As for restrictions on freedom, Cuba has faced the threat of military invasion and political violence (in the form of attempted assassinations on Castro) from the United States since the revolution, and all governments implement various precautionary measures including restrictions of the press when they are faced with the prospect of war. Thus, Is some degree of repression really so unjustifiable?

In any case, the level of repression in Cuba is often exaggerated. According to Amnesty International, Cuba currently detains only 72 Prisoners of Conscience, and all of these prisoners have been found guilty of providing sensitive information to the American government. Cuba has also been elected several times, by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly, to the UN Human Rights Council. In comparison to other countries, including the United States which is currently detaining five Cubans (Link (http://www.freethefive.org)) who infiltrated Miami-based terrorist networks, Cuba's human rights record is superb.

[Kitskits]

Glad to hear all these.

Cuba is the proof that the one-party system (aka no party system) can perfectly work in a democratic way. It doesn't mean dictatorship necessarily just as the bourgeoisie so passionately tries to convince us of...;)

[Wanted Man]

I do not like this guy's writing. I'm sure he is a respected and experienced journalist, but he just doesn't do it for me. He spruces up a relatively uninteresting story with "human interest". He also puffs it up in terms of length by ignoring almost all the hints on writing that Orwell gives here (http://www.transaction.net/web/tutor/text/orwell.html) (the man is useful for some things). I'll quote anything that is useful to discuss below:


Yet even this loyal son of the revolution admits that 'there have been terrible mistakes' and that 'in five years things will be very different. Although the protection of the Soviet Union was essential for survival, it was a terrible economic model'.
Vulliamy seems surprised, showing that he has no understanding of Cuban politics. In October last year, I went to a Cuban solidarity meeting, where all kinds of assorted embassy personnell and others pretty much said the same thing. Still, I have to give credit to Vulliamy, because he didn't have the stupidity to explicitly call this a turn to "openness", "liberalism" or "the Chinese model".


When I visited Cuba five years ago, like everyone else I made for the doyen of opposition, Elizardo Sánchez, surrounded by photographs of him with former US President Jimmy Carter. But Sánchez conceded he was no longer the driving force and directed us to the home of an electrician called Oswaldo Paya in the dilapidated colonial barrio of Cerro. As humbling as he was humble, Paya's narrative, beneath a picture of the Sacred Heart, recalled meetings with Polish reformer Lech Walesa in early 1981.

Despite persistent harassment, he was organising a petition calling for the upholding of specific democratic clauses in the Cuban constitution. It was called 'Proyecto Varela', after a Cuban nationalist democrat. Next thing I knew, Carter was beating a path to Paya's door.

Paya is still in Cerro, his greeting warm but his manner haunted, fastening the door to talk lest our conversation be interrupted by the political police. Castro's Keystone KGB has made life hell since we last met. The signatures for democracy were duly delivered and on Paya's wall is a photograph of the moment. He points out his companions: 'Antonio Díaz, sentenced to 20 years. And Regis Iglesias, 18 years in prison.'

Many were arrested soon after, and others during, the 'Black Spring' of 2003, which no one noticed beyond Cuba because the political police rounded up its quarry on the day the invasion of Iraq began. 'Hundreds remain jailed,' says Paya. 'We have no idea how many.'

There will now be, says Paya, a new movement, the Cuban Forum, for 'the legal institutionalisation of human and civil rights. We don't advocate a loss of those values which grant free public health or education, and we don't want privatisation so that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. We simply say that to force people to choose between social justice and civil and human rights is a false fork in the road. This is not intellectual activity, this is the fruit of people who have suffered repression every day of their lives.'
Vulliamy does not find it worthy of mentioning that the "dissidents" arrested in the "Black Spring" had been found guilty of accepting money from a foreign power for their actions, some of which also included economic espionage and sabotage. I'm not sure why this is swept under the rug by commentators. Maybe they seriously believe that this is necessary because of journalistic values of "objectivity". But the rest of the text is obviously a subjective piece of "new journalism", full of "human interest" stories, so that doesn't make any sense! Besides, first world journalistic values do not apply to the rest of the world, I'd tell him to read Luyendijk if he could read Dutch.

[Xiao Banfa]

Nice quoting bourgeois sources, I am not going to read such trash.


Why would you not read it, because you don't agree with it?
That's childish. Know your enemy.