Cuba & Tourists

[Capitalist]

Check out this website on Cuba.

http://www.123cuba.com/Cuba-Facts-Photos.html

Propaganda or Truth?

[CommieBastard]

propoganda, the worst parts of havana put against the best parts of havana...
i bet people dont even live in most of the places shown there.

Additionally, take photots of the worst and best parts of the USA and the contrast would be even more startling.
Land of the free?
land of my arse more like...

[CommieBastard]

Also the banner at the top of the page claims it is cubaweb, the official website of cuba..
i will think you will find that is actually at www.cubaweb.cu (http://www.cubaweb.cu) not www.123cuba.com (http://www.123cuba.com)

[El Commandante]

I agree with CB, purely propaganda, note that no where on the site did it state what the money from tourism is spent on. For the record the majority of it has been spent on the regeneration of down trodden areas of cities, on the health service and the education service.

Couldn't you just look at this site and say that Castro and his government are using the tourists, taking their $$$ and using it for the benefit of his people. If tourism is what is needed for the country to survive then so be it. What was Cuba expected to do with the collapse of the USSR, roll over and day? No, the country used what it could to help itself out of problems and it seems to have worked.

[Capitalist]

So in other words...

Cuba is resorting to Capitalism to survive and rebuild?

[CommieBastard]

no, cuba is using other country's capitalism for the benefit of it's socialist system.
to put it in simple terms you might comprehend...

[Capitalist]

So in other words....

Cuba is resorting to Capitalism to supports it's failed Totalarian Socialistic System.

By the way - speaking of Capitalism supporting Socialism:

GLAXCO and MedAid = giant U.S. medical companies are sending shipments of Zofran (helps alleviate the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy) to Cuba. Enough to treat every cancer patient in Cuba for an entire year. Absolutely Free! - 3 million dollars worth of medicine!

Imagine That!

An American Capitalistic Medical Company based in Texas (The most right winged united state) pays millions to invent new medicine and then turns around and gives it to Cubans for free.

Perhaps Capitalist and Right Wingers care for more than just money.

[Guest]

Perhaps Capitalist, the distinction can be made, that Capitalist and right-wingers are not exclusive to each other. Right-wingers, like the people on this board, are idealogues. Capitalists are pragmatists.

[RedCeltic]

Here are some photos of New York

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/john_pic...icts/jonbrn.htm (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/john_picts/jonbrn.htm)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/john_pic...icts/jonred.htm (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/john_picts/jonred.htm)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/kevin_pi...icts/kksit.html (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/kevin_picts/kksit.html)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/michael_...ts/mhsleep.html (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/michael_picts/mhsleep.html)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/michael_...icts/mhsub.html (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/michael_picts/mhsub.html)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/charles_...icts/cwbaby.htm (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/charles_picts/cwbaby.htm)

http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/charles_...picts/cwbag.htm (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/charles_picts/cwbag.htm)

http://www.tiac.net/users/gneils/ch2.html

http://www.gratefuljoe.com/photos/nyc6.html

http://users.aol.com/tagsound2/locstills5.html

[CommieBastard]

Yes, that is correct, in 'other words' i.e. completely inaccurate and twisted words...
Cuba is surrounded by capitalism, and no country can survive by looking in on itself, like the US currently si doing (and finding it hard to survive).
All nations trade with other nations, even communist-communist nations, that is not 'uncommunist'. They are trading with other nations, that is because resources have to be exchanged in order for a nation to function.
That is not capitalism.
it is international trade.
The same thing happened with Soviet tourists before the USSR fell.

anyway, aside from your peculiar and perverse assertions founded on political myopia and ignorance...

i find it hard to beleive that there is no ulterior motive for those companies, but i am willing to accept that there may not be one.
The fact of the matter is that even if that what you are saying there is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then that would make those companies massive exceptions. I would commend their owners, but it would be foolish to take them as a common example of capitalist ventures.

after all, many 'companies' that are set up are nothing more than loose trading groups with a moral basis, such as the co-operative shops and banks here in the UK< or the Body Shop.
Are GLAXCO and MedAid true capitalist businesses? or are they loose moral trading organisations?
The very fact they are donating that amount of money would be one factor in their possible redefinition, and i cannot help but feel that whenever you speak i don't get the full story, especially since i have seen you do it in the past.

[Moskitto]

OK about this "Tourist Aphartheid" you speak of.

I've been to Egypt, likewise a third world country. And guess what. It's even worse.

Tourists - Security Guards on every corner devoted to them

Natives - Constantly considered a threat

Tourists - Evening and Morning buffet with more than enough food for everyone

Natives - Get paid Nothing except tips to guide them on camels round the Pyramids

Basically you can say this about every third world country and to some extent every rich country.

Tourist companies aim to improve the hotel conditions of Tourists so that they'll come again.

I don't think you'd call Britain "Tourist Apartheid" but if you compared some of the hotels in London with downtown Luton (only 50 miles away) It looks just like some of those Photos of Havana.

Annother thing. This site calls itself "The Official Website of Cuba" However as stated before this isn't the official website of Cuba and thus embarrases itself by having to resort to plagurism.

[Guest]

RedCeltic, I was perusing your pictures and wondering why you posted them here when I noticed that in one of them (http://users.bestweb.net/~vagrant/charles_picts/cwbaby.htm) I noticed Riverside Church in the background. How many of your pictures are from Morningside Heights, the fourth most expensive neighborhood in New York City? It was absolutely heartwarming to see some of my neighbors portrayed as bums and vagrants, especially a man holding a baby in front of a graduate school.

[Capitalist]

Cuba was not a third world country before Castro.

That is the difference between Cuba & Egypt.

Those New York Pictures do not prove anything. Everybody and Everything in New York looks better than living in Cuba. A picture of a trash bag and "Sanford & Son's" house sitting in a scrap yard? New Cars and fully clothed people (some of them overweight). I don't see your point. Look at the Cubans in the pictures! Notice how thin the school childrens' arms are. Notice how malnourished the people are. You won't find a bag of trash so full of goodies in Cuba like that trash bag in New York.

[RedCeltic]

Say what? What was Batista the leader of a Superpower? Cuba has always been a third world countery

[Guest]

Cuba, as capitalist pointed out, has not always been a third world country. It had a large middle class, and some generous (made by a socialist) estimates state (ref: check cuba & racism thread) that it had the largest bourgoise in the world, 20 percent of the people being owners of large scale productive capital.
Moreover Egypt illustrates yet again the failure of socialism. In this nation's case it was Nasser that began the failed experiment in socialism, the government nationalized all industry and the egyptian nation has been dependent on American foreign aid ever since.

[Moskitto]

Cuba was not a third world country before Castro.

That is the difference between Cuba & Egypt.

1. Yes Cuba was level with Spain before Castro, So what, Spain was ruled by a rather corrupt 1 party dictatorship and was considered a backward country compared to the rest of Europe not a major economy like the rest of the developed world.

2. Like I said, Compare Oxford Street London to slums in Luton and you'll see the same things that you saw in Havana. Trust me I live there. And compare the touristy partys of the USA to areas of New York.

And like I also said Guest, It's the same in every third world country, Brazil, Kenya, South Africa.

[Guest]

so despite socialism cuba is still a third world country. Yet other countries that were comparable like spain, or worse off like S.Korea, Taiwan or Greece, have become better off thanks to capitalism. So I had it right all along. thanks.

[CommieBastard]

Actually, Cuba is a second world country.

For the amount of resources they have available they are doing very well for themselves.
As a geographer, i can tell you that statistically speaking Cuba is overpopulated for it's available resources (thanks a lot to the US embargo), there should be a hell of a lot more people starving there than there are. Some international organisation, i cant remember which now, once praised castro's policies as being one of the greatest humanitarian achievements of the twentieth century.
That guy has saved most of that population from death, no thanks to ole Uncle Sam.

[Moskitto]

Quote: from Guest on 9:53 pm on Dec. 20, 2001
so despite socialism cuba is still a third world country. Yet other countries that were comparable like spain, or worse off like S.Korea, Taiwan or Greece, have become better off thanks to capitalism. So I had it right all along. thanks.


So you continue to complain about nice facilities for tourists but crap for the general population yet it exists in every other country.

BTW of course S.Korea, Taiwan and Greece are richer than Cuba. They were at risk of going communist so the US poured money into them. Remember the Marshall plan in Europe?

What's Cuba had? A blockade.

[Capitalist]

AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN - Quite blaming the blockade for Cuba's economic problems.

Cuba has open trade with everyone but the USA - why would trade with one more country matter? Cuba trades with Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, China, etc. The USA is not to blame.

Fidel Castro & Che Guevara chased off the USA - now Fidel Castro wants the USA back. What a HYPOCRIT.

Besides the USA has ended the blockade for food & medicines.

USA has open trade with China. Yet China still has the worst human rights records in all of the world. Open Trade has done nothing but increase China's government and military power, while keeping the Chinese people supressed under Communism.

The Money does not go to the people - it goes to the communist government.

[Moskitto]

Cuba - Blockade

S.Korea, Taiwan, Greece - Aid

who do you think's going to be richer then?

It's not blaming the blockade on Cubas economic problems, It's showing the differences between what's happened to Cuba and what's happened to S.Korea, Taiwan and Greece. It's fairly normal for countries with aid poured into them to be richer than countries which can't trade with the worlds biggest economic power.

[Kez]

What the fuck capitalist,
you claim that some yankee company is giving free medicine to the cubans, but you forget that every time there is a disaster in the world our cuban comrades come to help, sending free medicine and doctors.
Yankee fuckheads send aid once, cubans send them 10 times, and yet they are so much less prosperous than you fat yanks.

comrade kamo

[koba]

anyone can take pictures of the shittiest parts of a big city and pass it off as if the whole country was like that.

[ArgueEverything]

capitalist - if you want to know what cuba looks like, why dont u go there and see for yourself?

oh, sorry, i forgot, the US government forbids it.

a type of apartheid in itself, dont u think?

[Discipulo]

That is an excellent point--why don't you go there? I am a Mexican citizen and I have been there. I was in Havana just this last summer. Let me begin by saying that I belive in the socialist cause and the original aims of the Movimiento 26 de Julio. However, some of what Capitalist says is true. The photos on that site are bunk. I saw places like that in Havana, but people don't live there. Whether the photos are real or not doesn't change the fact that tourists are treated better than Cubans in their own country. It is a travesty and it goes against what Fidel was about in the first place. I was able to go into any store I wanted (since I don't look Cuban) and purchase any items I desired: purified water, cookies, coffee, etc. There were really only a few shops that had stock of this stuff because it had to be payed in cash, not cupons. Plus, there were more guards inside than in any other Mexican market I've ever seen because they want to make sure that the Cubans don't shoplift. I thought it was to every person accoring to his need. Where the hell did that tenet go? I could walk into these "minisupers," get what I needed, and leave, and outside there was a line of Cubans just wanting to get in and another group of Cubans wanting to see the petty items I got. This does happen, and I have seen it with my own eyes. No one here can say otherwise unless they have been to La Habana. Then they will know that tourists are sometimes treated with disdain by Cubans around them and rightfully so. They get what the citizens of Cuba can't. I know that Fidel is probably using the money from tourism to help his country, but there is something very wrong with the level of prefferential treatement given to tourists and the level of suspicion the government has for its own citizens.

[Moskitto]

that is actually just like egypt was.

security guards everywhere, but they're there to protect tourists and make sure natives don't go anywhere they shouldn't.

[Renegade]

The fact that you call the China we know today, the China that the US trades with communist is a show of your ignorance capitalist. The china that we know today, is just an asian USA, abominable human rights, false democracy, imperialist attitude, I don't see much difference and I do'nt see much socialism. Shanghai is one of the most capitalist cities in asia.

I think moskitto put it perfectly when pointing out that the only reason the countries you list are better than socialist countries like cuba are because of the assistance provided by the united states to avert the otherwise inevitable change to communism and the strangulation of the existing socialist states.

Finally I'd like to question why a capitalist ventures onto a socialist web-community. If the answer is 'to show that capitalism is right' you've been failing in every single one of your efforts. You are just showing us how right we are to fight for socialism.

[bauver de sang]

The U.S.A government probably prohibits the medecines from reaching Cuban mouths anyway due to the sanctions. That would be an accurate assumption wouldn't it? Perhaps the reason why the company was so 'generous' was that they knew they would not have to give away their product anyway, but could still get the perks of the good publicity and fool people like capitalist.

[Capitalist]

Enough Communistic Propaganda Bullshit!!!

Bullshit # 1 - "Cuba gives 10 times foreign aid, more than USA"???

How can Cuba afford to give ANY foreign aid when Cuba itself can't even help itself? The country is so poor - what does it have to offer? Nothing. I'm still waiting for all the medicine Cuba promissed the victims of Sept. 11. I never laughed so hard when Fidel Castro promissed the USA economic & medical aid for the Sept. 11 attacks. The USA doesn't need Castro's help.

Cuba doesn't aid USA - Other Way Around!

USA aids Cuba. Like Glaxco, the Capitalistic American Medical Company that just sent over 3 million dollars in free medical aid for every cancer patient in Cuba.

USA has ended the Cuban blockade on all food and medicines!

Bullshit #2 - "The china that we know today, is just an asian USA, abominable human rights, false democracy, imperialist attitude, I don't see much difference and I do'nt see much socialism."

Perhaps the China of Yesterday that invaded Tibet is a better example? (The one Che Guevara admired so as the ideal socialistic state). Especially considering that the China of yesterday was basically the same then as it is now. China hasn't changed. The only difference now is that America uses China has it's horde of slave labor (Cheap Chinese Goods). China has always represented communistic slave labor.

Communists have the worst human rights. They make the Nazis look like a girl scout troop.

Approximately 100 million killed under communism! Not to mention the billion more enslaved in the walls of communism.

Revolution for the people?

Revolution for American Hatred?

Or just Hatred, Hatred, Hatred, Hatred, .......

[Moskitto]

Capitalist.

China promotes Free Enterprise. It isn't that communist.

Annother thing is Capitalism has caused 300 million deaths since the industrial revolution. Read "Le Livre Noir de Capitalisme" which you can buy on amazon.fr

Annother thing is, While there's FOOD MOUNTAINS 1 person dies every 3.4 seconds.

And guess what, That's 100 million every decade Not 83 years which is how long "Communism" has been around. Just because you don't send people to gulags.

No you do something worse. You IGNORE PEOPLE, YOU SEE SCREAMING KIDS WHO ARE HUNGRY AND YOU IGNORE THEM. YOU SEE IT ON TV. AND YOU DON'T GIVE A FUCK. IF YOU DO CARE. WHY DON'T YOU THINK THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM THEN?

[Capitalist]

I agree with your point Moskitto.

Capitalists can be evil.

Doesn't mean all Capitalists are evil and perhaps not all Communists are evil either.

[RedRevolutionary87]

how else kan cuba survive. it failed because it has been raped by the usa over and over, they cannot legaly buy tylenol. the government still kares about the people. if fidel wanted power and money he didnt need to fight for it, he was born into a well off familly and was a lawyer, he fought because he wanted whats best for the people

[Guest]

Cuba offered US aid, USA said NO.. they aren't waiting for anything, they never accepted the offer.

I've been to cuba, many times, and yes, tourism is a VERY important part in their economy, but don't say 'the school kids arms are so thin' cause thats bullshit.. look how damn obese most the kids in the US are.. is that good? the majoirty of children in cuba are (and this is by my own family in cuba's experience, and my own) very well nourished and get EXCELLENT medical care. I broke my hand the second time i was in cuba, i was an american citizen with no insurance in cuba or anything and NO CASH, they casted my arm gave me medicine and sent me on my way.. i re-broke that same hand about 8 months later in the U.S.. i had insurance so i got it re-casted, but i still had to pay the 15 dollars for the doctor visit, 50 for emergency room visit, and 175 for the specialist who fixed my hand, and i cant remember how much the x-rays costed..

i'd have to say.. not only does cuba have a far more superior healthcare system then the u.s. but they have a far better society..

[poncho]

Cubans can go into "tourist shops". I sent my cuban friend to buy my smokes because Cubans are charged less than tourists(2.00 tourist 0.68 Cuban).The Cuban stores and bars like in the pictures do exist but they are not as bad as they where made out. Cubans also eat in restraunts that could be considered "touristy". I've also travelled in Mexico semi non tourist places Nogales for one and was disgusted at my surroundings, never felt that way in Cuba no little kids "chicklit Senor".

Also seen Cuban only workers social clubs as nice or nicer than any Bally's....They'll sneak a tourist inside looking for internet.

I will grant that most stores are not stocked to the raftors like a 7-Eleven but nobody goes without the essentials. My Next trip I plan on doing a compare and contrast photo essay. In particular American farm workers and living conditions compared to the Cuban counterpart....