What do you all think of Cuba and Fidel?

:popcorn:

Don't see anyone other than Fidel being able to hold the Communist Party control. There will be some infighting and then the people will stand up.

I have a friend from the Bahamas who lived there and went to school, and had no problems. I would agree that he's better than Batista...but he's still a dictator.

While health care and education are really good in Cuba...in fact, better than Mississippi...things that we think of as First Amendment Rights aren't respected there.

:shrug:

If you were upper class in Cuba it was horrible. The poorer people are certainly no worse off then they were before.

I'm far too distracted by the loss of American lives in Iraq, the widening wage gap, dismal employment statistics, the rising cost of gasoline...

What do you think of Cuba and Batista?

w/.

:)

The main people from Cuba that are victimized are the former rich and those are the most that have left Cuba.

Furthermore, Castro, to my knoweldge, hasn't cashed a damn check for Gitmo.

The people have jobs, they have health care and they have homes from what I understand as well (though of course this is all disputed). People don't make a lot, but I have an interesting quote for a person that lived through the East German years and the fall of the Berlin Wall. "When I was an adolescent, I was obsessed with having many commercial things, cars, clothes, stupid things. Now that I have all that, I include/understand that the superfluous things can turn to you into a very stupid idiot-type. In East Germany there were very few things, but there was also a feeling of solidarity that no longer exists. Now we are up to the neck in consumption, the ego, the individualism. Now before friendship, it is merchandise." - Till Lindemann

I believe most of what comes out from the US is anti-communist propaganda, plain and simple. Beyond that fact, I think Cuba has been somewhat successful at being a state CLOSER to Marx's idea of how the communist state would emerge. That's about all I know about the "red island."

but as far as I'm aware you cannot. I'm English. Lots of friends have been there and I've never had any adverse remarks. I've also known musicians go over there to record and they also speak well of the place.

Is pretty impressive.

As for Fidel... who knows. I don't know how much I've learned about him has been false propaganda and how much is truth.

under difficult circumstances. Anyone in the bottom half of the population is probably better off in Cuba than any other Latin American country.

That is like asking What do you think of US and Bush? What is the connection??

Cuba is a very beautiful island with mountains, white beaches and the blue, blue clear warm Caribbean Sea. The people are friendly, love Americans, there's plenty of music and dancing. Havana has incredible historic buildings and is a wonderful city for walking. Cuba is generally very safe (except for purse-snatching) and many people depend on hitch-hiking to get around.

School is mandatory and free and students wear uniforms. There are no homeless, housing is inexpensive and provided for all. The citizens there feel they are free and think the Miami "exiles" are crazy for obsessing about Fidel.

We Americans are not free because we can't even go see for ourselves what a fantastic country Cuba is. Miami propaganda would be useless if we were allowed to travel there!

I think Fidel's birthday is coming up . . . I didn't care for Batista - wasn't he just a puppet? I like what Fidel has done with their literacy rate-...isn't it higher than ours?

I confess, I don't know as much as I should about it, but I've always admired the Cuban culture. I don't understand why the sanctions are in place. And I hate like anything that we can't simply fly there anytime we want to.

I'd like to see them be feer to express themselves, and I'm sure they wish for a better economy.(We wish that here!)

Here's the piece on him. Some of his aides were speaking out - don't know if any of that fuss is true, but I enjoyed the speculation about his next-in-line.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/14163977.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

:applause:

hightailed it down there and started building Wal-Marts and Starbucks on every corner, and exploiting his cheap labor.

;)

I'd like to visit the national parks in cuba
:)

The Miami Cubans who want to return to Cuba in order to regain their elite status and exploit the poor and people of color just like they did before Castro rose to power. It's no accident that they're mostly republicans.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

As far as I know he hasnt been taking away my liberties, listening in to my phone calls, jumping into everyone elses business, leaving my future grandkids with debt, and trying to ruin social security.

I have more respect for the way the Cuban government is run than the way the Chinese government is run. I suppose if the Cubans could supply as much crap to Walmart, things might be different, eh?

From Cubans who were not exactly Castro-worshipers. But they weren't professional exiles. They were artists who visited the US, back before we shut the door on cultural exchange. Their work sometimes critiqued the system--usually the cumbersome bureaucracy--with the usual Cuban humor & charm. But they realized that they'd received good artistic educations for free; in Old Cuba, they would not have been of the right "class" to have been educated.

Our country is friendly with worse guys than Castro. The embargo is ridiculous.

The Cuban people should decide what they want to do after Castro. I don't think they'll toss the whole system out the window. Let's hope they can retain the good parts.

The old professional exiles are getting old & dying out. I know some of the younger generation. They would love to visit Cuba but have good lives here--they don't dream of invading & putting a neo-Batista in power.

Fidel is a better leader than Bush. Cuba is currently better governed than the US. The embargo is pointless. Cuba has better literacy rates, healthcare, and hurricane preparedness per capita than we do.

who tried to assassinate him. That tells me a lot.

is that Fidel has a very effective police state. His dismal record on human rights, freedom of the press and his gulag is the main reason why he has survived so long.

He's not only a totalitarian dictator... unlike most, he is a smart, effective totalitarian dictator.

almost anywhere in the world except the US and be greeted warmly. Not so with our dictator. And for a "dictator" his country has a higher literate rate than the US, much better health access for the poor, and lower infant mortality rate than the US, and free education through college. Of course, the US has done a very effective job through embargo of keeping the economy surpressed but look what they have accomplished despite this. Given half the chance as Iraq, Cuba would be a glowing, humane nation. Of course, we want to criticize any head of state who tries to surpress the overthrow of his government unless it's dictator we like or like to use...like say Musharaff and the UAEs and Saudis.

"President for Life" form of government.

But at least when he's gone they'll have an exhaustive search for the best possible replacement, and they'll hopefully find a gem. But then his brother will take over instead.

As one who has been to Castro's Cuba (granted, a little over 20 years ago), I can agree with some of what has been
posted, and disagree with some of the rest. This was back in the days when the Soviet Union financially propped the
place up, so things must have changed since then.

They may have universal education, but at the expense of getting a LOT of propaganda in their education. It's the
equivalent of having all schools and colleges free in the USA, but only with the curriculum of Bob Jones University.
Is that what we want?

The people are NOT universally happy. The government functionaries I talked to (fluent Spanish here) were of course
happy as a clam. They ate in good restaurants and could travel abroad. I was followed just about everywhere I went
when not with government people. The people I talked to in those rare moments when no domestic spies were peering over
our shoulders were unhappy and despised Castro and his elitist government. As with every well-established dictatorship,
there was a distinct attitude of you're either with us, or you're a traitor (sound familiar?)I had a conversation with
a guy whose relatives had left for the USA (he had no such intention). His relatives sent him care packages regularly
that included medication he needed, among other things. The government regularly confiscated everfything in the package.
If that's how they manage to feed the people and provide their health care, it's not an impressive way to do it.

I had one fun time in a hard currency shop where only elite government people with dollars and foreigners could shop.
There were some Russians trying to buy something or other, and they spoke no Spanish, where the girl at the cashier
spoke no Russian. I was waiting to buy some postcards, so I stepped in and interpreted for them. The grateful Russians
then left, and I was up. When you shop at these shops in Cuba, you have to show your ID, and she freaked when I showed
a US passport after just switching back and forth from Russian to Spanish. She must have reported the presence of a CIA
agent the second I had left the shop (I'm not).

Batista was a real bastard from what I hear, and I'm sure Castro was a true idealist when he took over. He soon went over
to the dark side, though (granted with some inept US foreign policy, guided by mafia interests), and all his propaganda
of being a man of the people falls flat being supported only by carefully staged PR stunts with supporters (also sound
familiar?).