No problem, Mein Herr. Roughly speaking, it means you're a purile idiot who needs to consider the healing benefits of some form of sexual intercourse as an urgent priority. There, I even gave you a platform for your next bout of gayschmack. I'm not so much kind as saintly. Have a nice day!
Having worked in the migrant camps at Gitmo, I've had first hand experiences. The suicides when people learned they were being sent back across the fenceline or the camp riots. Most of the migrants were happy staying right where they were in a tin shed with a concrete floor sharing a room with 5 other people than going back to Cuba. Harbor Patrol picked up a migrant one night who had left Cuba with his brother and made the swim around the fenceline. Only half of his brother made it through the shark infested waters. You guys think socialism is a freakin' cakewalk. Stop kidding yourselves. Let's have all the Cubans on this board tell us how it really is.
Let's see how awful it is: *** Infant mortality rate: Cuba: 7.15 deaths/1,000 live births. US: 6.75 deaths/1,000 live births *** Life expectancy: Cuba: 76.8 years US: 77.14 years *** Per capita GDP Cuba: $2,300 US: $37,600 From the economic efficency's standpoint, the wasteful capitalism, not socialism, should be the target of harsh criticism.
Oh, I get it now. You're a gay socialist. Why didn't you just say that in plain English the first time.
Re: Re: cant stand socialism If its so great why doesnt anyone want to live there? Why are people miserable there living under a dictatorship, why havent youi moved there? Have you ever been there, do you not realise that it is NOT a free country fool?
While we do that, however, let's be honest about what Cuba was, for the vast majority of Cubans, when Castro was supported by the vast majority to overthrow the military government. Indeed, since well before the 20th Century imperial powers (mainly the United States) has attempted to establish not democracy, nor any other government that springs from the people, but rather peppet regime change, for the general interests of the U.S., and the specific interests of US economic/plutocratic elites. There is no question that the Revolution of Castro, Chibas, Pazos, Guevara and Cienfuegos was 100% about the Sierra Maestra Manifesto; but don't forget it was also about the Platt Amendment and foul shite like that, down through the U.S. imperial?Monroe Age. Indeed, the Sierra Maestra Manifesto submits, in part, thus: "...Do the Sierra Maestra rebels not want free elections, a democratic regime, a constitutional government? It is because they deprived us of those rights that we have fought since March l0. We are here because we want them more than anyone else. To demonstrate it, there are our fighters dead in the mountains and our comrades murdered in the streets or secluded in prison dungeons. We are fighting for the beautiful ideal of a free, democratic, and just Cuba. What we do not do is to agree with the lies, farces, and compromises of the dictatorship. We want elections, but with one condition: truly free, democratic, and impartial elections. Is it not nonsensical, a deception of the people, what is happening here daily? Can there be free, democratic, and impartial elections under a tyranny which represents antidemocracy and partiality? Of what value is the direct and free vote, the immediate counts, and other fictitious concessions if on the day of the elections no one is allowed to vote and the ballot boxes are filled at bayonet point?... ...Elections should be presided over by a provisional, neutral government, with the support of all, that will replace the dictatorship in order to induce peace and move the country toward democratic and constitutional normalcy..." Now there is also no question that no less than a year after the revolution, Castro had positioned himself in a non-democratic role, and had abandoned the vision he had crafted in the mountains... Why? Alot of reasons...see Commandante, by Oliver Stone...unless you are in the U.S., of course, where your freedoms thave kept you from witnessing Castro speak for himself (and, in many moments, indict himself). But for me, being American and being about keeping my/our own house clean and just and appropriate before going and shitting in someone else's bed, there is no question that we didn't alienate Castro's Cuba because it had strayed from a democratic vision into a totalitarian one; we alienated Cuba because of two reasons: (1) Castro's Cuba started off giving the nation back to the people (e.g., March 3, 1959, when the Cuban government nationalized the Cuban Telephone Compnay, an affiliate of ITT, and reduced telephone rates for Cubans, and May 17, 1959, when Castro signed the Agrarian Reform Act, which expropriates over 1,000 acres of farmlands and forbids foreign land ownership (and thus foreign exploitation). (2) Castro's Cuban government had the audacity to, during the Cold War, try to enter into trade agreements with both the USSR and the US, as might be expected by a nation striving to exemplify both the sensibilities of a nation totally free and a reflection of the shackles of the Platt Amendment totally, finally shaken off, for good. While (on February 6th, 1960), Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan came to Cuba and immediately established a trade agreement (in which the Soviet Union agreed to purchase 5 million tons of sugar over a five-year period, supply Cuba with crude oil and petroleum products - as well as with wheat, iron, fertilizers, and machinery - and provide Cuba with a $100 million credit at 2.5 percent interest), U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles rejected, on February 29th 1960, an offer from Cuba to begin negotiations on a similar trade agreement (because of Cuba's condition that the U.S. take no unilateral action that could damage the Cuban economy while the talks are in progress), and, on March 17th, 1960, President Eisenhower approved a goddamned covert action plan against Cuba that included the use of a "powerful propaganda campaign" designed to overthrow Castro. The plan included: a) the termination of sugar purchases b) the end of oil deliveries c) continuation of the arms embargo in effect since mid-1958 d) the organization of a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles to invade the island. So let's just be honest; it was never about Castro, it was never about democracy, it was never about the Cuban people. It was always about short-term greed and long-term fear...fear that others will act in the same way that we act...violently. Problem is, not everyone thinks with the American Mind. Castro failed, but not because he failed to live up to any American standard. He ended up accurately reflecting the American (global - except for a few nations) functional governmental philosophies...rule - or expand rule - with violent power. Castro failed because he simply balked when it came time to LIVE the change he - and others, most of whom were killed for standing fast - said he wanted to see in his world, as articulated through the Sierra Maestra Manifesto. The one failing of the Stone docu-drama is that he fails to fully call Castro to task on this very issue. If Stone puts you off, try Chomsky.
This makes no sense. Which hardly needs saying, admittedly, but a trend is a trend and these things are there to be talked about.
Re: Re: cant stand socialism A better question might be: why do the Haitian boat people bypass Cuba, right next door, and risk death to make it to the US? Answer: they know that the island is one big prison, and few people want to go to prison to get free health care. In fact, the only people who do think that Cuba is a great thing are left-wingers in the US/Europe who are too deluded to see the obvious truth that even ignorant Haitian peasants see.
The only thing I'd really like to point out is that Socialism, as an abstract concept, really doesn't have the capacity to be "gay". Its lack of a physical being is the most obvious hinderance to a defined sexuality. I, for one, fail to see how a catagory of sexuality can be applied to something that is not a sentient being. Furthermore, it troubles me as to whom/what socialism's mate would be? Then again, if you were using the term "gay" in its traditional sense as meaning "happy" and such you may have a point. I know at least several contented socialists. It's a bit of an unusual observation but could indeed have merit. in short: boner