Castro is still alive (hee hee)

Politics International Politics
1

The conservative primitive mind needs enemies… Russia… Satan… Chomsky… Axis of Evil… Islam… and Castro. They somehow remain fascinated with beating the drum of the terrible threat these pose. Fred seems to be getting his rocks off lately about an article criticising Chomsky. Thought I’d rub his nose in the fact that Fidel is alive and well…

[quote]These are prosperous times for the economy of the Republic of Cuba, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez does indeed have a lot to do with it. Gross domestic product grew at 12 percent last year, according to Cuba’s Economy and Planning Ministry, the fastest rate since President Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and turned the island into a communist state.

Though reliable data on the Cuban economy is hard to come by, and government figures are often out of date and impossible to confirm, anecdotal evidence backs up the Cuban claims.

The Cuban economy is doing OK,'' says Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who spent 25 years as a U.S. diplomat focusing on Cuba. I see it moving forward. I see important improvements.’’ Smith last visited Cuba in September.

The government says foreign investment was up 39 percent in 2005. Officials say tourism is booming: A record 2.5 million visitors will fly into Cuba in 2006 from Europe and from other Latin American nations.

Wages have more than doubled in the past two years to an average of 398 Cuban national pesos ($21) a month, Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez says, and the subsidized monthly allotments for every Cuban citizen of staples such as rice, eggs and cooking oil have been increased.

The government has even added chocolate to the food package for the first time. The Ministry of Construction had plans to build 150,000 new housing units in the year ended on Sept. 30 and to remodel another 280,000. [/quote]

bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= … n_america#

Note that I can quote from Bloomberg and not the Moonie owned Washington Times Fred is one of the 3 subscribers to…

2

Writers and journalists and artists and homosexuals and political opponents must be clanging their fetters in joy at the news.

Oh, and I’m a liberal and believe in socialize medicine and big government as a force of good. :raspberry:

3

Since when did being a leftist change from fighting for freedom against fascism (circa the Spanish Civil War) to defending evil dictators just because they’re anti-American?

After Argentina, Cuba was the most prosperous country in Latin America in the 1950s. Now, after Haiti, it’s the least prosperous country in Latin America.

Like Mucha Man, I am a liberal who believes in socialized medicine and big government (sometimes and within reason :slight_smile:. Let’s try to be a little bit objective here. Objectively speaking, Castro’s leadership for the past 40 years has been an abject failure - worse for Cuba than Bush has been for the U.S. How can you defend a man who, when he inherited Cuba, Cuba had a standard of living equal to Portugal and Greece, and 40 years later it has a standard of living equal to Zimbabwe and Indonesia?

4

The only thing I like about Castro is the way he makes US conservatives comically apoplectic. Otherwise he’s another tin-pot dictator who has been running his country into the ground and abusing his people.

5

That’s a piss-poor reason to like Castro. Hitler and Stalin made the US conservatives apoplectic. You like those guys just because they were anti-American?

6

Did you see pictures of Castro on TV? He’s getting olllllllllld.

7

Um, uh huh, yeah, Butthead, that dude, he’s like, getting OLD.

Do you have anything constructive to add?

8

Mucha Man, Quentin, Chris, Arion:

You guys are all missing the boat on this one so far. You are not giving Toe Tag enough credit for what is actually a very clever post.

Read the first paragraph of Toe Tag’s post again.

-H

9

Quite so Hobbes -
Not to mention 47 years without human rights in Cuba. The real Cuba.

It takes a special kind of person to revel in this longevity…real…uh…special.

10

Yeah, Tainan Cowboy’s link isn’t the most objective of links, but it’s pretty right on.

I guess as a “liberal”, you’re totally down with executing “faggots” by the death squad, huh?

That’s basic “morals” policy in Cuba, don’t you know.

So…

…do you approve of kiling faggots or not?

A simple question. Answer it with a simple “yes” or “no”. There is no grey area within this black and white. Either you approve or disapprove of Castro’s handling of Cubans’ sexuality.

11

:no-no: In my opinion, some people are still not getting the point of Toe Tag’s post.

Here is a hint…

Get it?

Okay, maybe the Austin Powers picture by itself is not the clearest of hints. My bad. Here’s the thing – There is a line in that film where a character says:

“There’s only two things I hate in this world: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures… and the Dutch!”

:slight_smile:

Do you see where this is going? When used effectively, irony can not only make for a good laugh, but can also make a point in particularly sharp and biting way.

Now look back at Toe Tag’s post. It is not a celebration of dictatorship, torture, censorship, murder, and the impoverishment of a nation. Quite the opposite.

Read it again, and look below the surface. The key is to understand that it is written in a “code” of a sort, a code that employs the intelligent, insightful ink of irony.

[code]POSIT: Conservative primitive minds need enemies.

POSIT: They focus an irrational (often dangerous) hatred on these enemies.

POSIT: Blinded by their hatred, they are willing to sacrifice the very values they profess to champion if they think they can hurt their enemy by doing so. (Witness the death and destruction they have wrought in Iraq in an effort to destroy of one of their so-called enemies. Witness the elimination of freedoms they have brought to the United states in their delusional effort to protect those very freedoms.)

Now pay close attention as I illustrate the point with a “parody-post”, if you will. Here’s the message:

***** Primitive minds need enemies (see above).

***** Fred Smith is my needed “enemy” (loosely defined) on this internet forum.

***** My dislike for this enemy bizarrely compels me not only to spend my valuable time creating a new thread intended solely to annoy him, but also to celebrate the health and continued rule of a man who tortures and murders his political opponents, a man who jails his citizens for speaking their minds, a man who has brought massive corruption, horrific poverty, and economic ruin on his country.

***** Do any of Castro’s crimes sound familiar? They should, because they are some of the very things that I hate about George W. Bush. Would you honestly imagine that I could hate these crimes any LESS in the case of Castro, a man who personifies the same kind of crimes, only committed to a more egregious degree, and perpetrated over a span of 40 years rather than 6?

***** And yet I AM willing to celebrate Castro. I AM willing to gleefully embrace decades of repression and violence and abuse. Why? Because I am hopeful that by doing so I might annoy my “enemy”.

BEHOLD, Forumosans: the pathetic absurdity of the primitive mind.

BEWARE, Forumosans, the danger of allowing the primitive mind’s need for an enemy to corrupt you into embracing a greater evil as a result of your hatred of a lesser one.[/code]

The beauty of Toe Tag’s post was that he/she did not actually need to spell all that out. The message was delivered in a far more elegant manner, through the adroit use of irony.

I thought that it was very well done. But perhaps –given some of the responses so far-- it was a just little too subtle. Oh well. :idunno:

12

:bravo:
You tell 'em Hobbes.

13

That’s a piss-poor reason to like Castro. Hitler and Stalin made the US conservatives apoplectic. You like those guys just because they were anti-American?[/quote]

I never said I liked Castro - I said I liked only one thing about him. That means I don’t like anything else about him.

Hitler and Stalin horrified everyone. Kim Il-Sung is horrific today. Conservatives (and liberals) react(ed) to them with seriousness, not comical, red-faced, steam-shooting-from-ears apoplexy.

14

Nice attempt to salvage your dignity but I would say:

  1. You got owned.
  2. You got your ass handed to you.
  3. You are eating crow.
  4. You have been revealed as having inconsistent, incoherent, incomprehensible messages.

Beautiful post Hobbes. I really enjoyed that.

Fredfest V.: Check out the details on the Restaurant forum.

15

At least Cuba has a bill of rights. That’s a lot more than I can say for Australia.

Fidel might be a dinosaur and I’m opposed to all tyranny. However, it is pure ignorance to think that Cuba is at the bottom of the pile economically or on many indices that measure human well-being.

According to the World Bank it is a Low-Middle Income economy ranking along side Brazil, Thailand, China, Bolivia, Columbia, Egypt, Philippines, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador etc.

According to the WHO (2002) it has the highest life expectancy in Latin America and the lowest infant mortality rate in the Americas including Canada and the US.

According to UNESCO (1998 study) Cuba has the highest math and basic language skills for primary school age students in all of Latin America. This test also indicated that the lowest half of tested students was significantly higher than the highest half in all other Latin American countries.

Castro did a lot of good for the people of Cuba. He might be a bit of a dinosaur these days and I’m all for liberal democracy, but I don’t hold that it is the only system that can bring about good for people.

For example there is Foxocracy which serves my people well.

16

OH my sweet Jesus. Is this MORE irony?

Given that Human Rights Watch gives Cuba 7s, the worst possible scores on civil and political rights while Australia scores 1s, the best, I think that we can assume having a Bill of Rights is not the equivalent of actually granting and protecting those rights.

???

It is now one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. It used to be one of the richest. Are you saying that because its descent has not been total that there is reason to celebrate? Hey, it ain’t Africa or Haiti yet so Fidel must not be all that bad?!!!

Are those figures INDEPENDENTLY verified?

Sorry, but to my understanding, these figures have NEVER been independently verified. I am not sure about the WHO figures but I am almost positive that the UNESCO figures are NOT independently verified. We had this discussion before on Nicaragua and Cuba and this came up. These glorious literacy “figures” were in fact NOT true.

Compare Cuba’s standing in the world PRIOR to Castro and then compare it now. Only a fool would fail to admit that Cuba has regressed considerably.

Oh. I guess you got me. This was all about irony after all. My mistake. I simply knew that no one could believe such nonsense, such bilge, such hogwash. You got me on that one! haha

17

The point is Fred having a great economy meant didly to the majority of the population prior to the revolution. They were worse off on all basic indicators from housing to education to health.

You like to poo the figures but you simply can’t source your own figures. You being almost poistive about something isn’t quite the same as UNESCO or WHO giving the figures. Sorry they couldn’t be independently verified by you. What? Do you think these organizations don’t have standards?

[quote]Compare Cuba’s standing in the world PRIOR to Castro and then compare it now. Only a fool would fail to admit that Cuba has regressed considerably.
[/quote]

Total arbitrary nonsense. People who make statements like that are fools by definition.

[quote]It is now one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. It used to be one of the richest. Are you saying that because its descent has not been total that there is reason to celebrate? Hey, it ain’t Africa or Haiti yet so Fidel must not be all that bad?!!!
[/quote]

More ignorance. Cuba’s development model prior to the revolution was intensely localized around Havana and large farms. It had pockets of huge wealth and vast slabs of backwards poverty, only a fool would find that something to be proud of.

18

Well, you bandy the “fool” term about quite a bit but we had a discussion before on this. To my knowledge none of those figures were independently verified and this led to great criticism of these organizations (particularly UNESCO) since any nation could submit whatever information it wanted. So, er, if that is the case, are we to believe a dictatorship (one that even you will not disagree has scored 7s in terms of political and civil rights) on these matters? And given that it IS a dictatorship and that dictatorship is the ONLY source of information on health and education standards, er, where exactly do you think independent statistics would come from? AND how would you know what the status of true development is in Cuba? I think that you are just smarting by the total ass-handing you got when you tried to compare Cuba and Australia because (and this was really kinda cute) the latter did not have a “bill of rights…” haha

Well, here are some interesting statistics… There are many more. Let me know when you want to cry “uncle.”

19

Also your statistics on toilets etc are interesting but not relevant if they do not take into consideration “comparable” standards of living in other countries of the region THEN. Comparing Cuba in 1958 with the US in 2006 for example would be ludicrous. So let’s look at those comparisons and wonder whether Cuba remains the “leader” in so many areas that it once was. Read it and weep…

[quote]Cuba was NOT a one crop country. In 1957, sugar represented only 27% of total agricultural income. Growing crops were only PARTIALLY listed above. Cattle raising, (per 100 head) increased from 3884 to 6000 in 1958 (University of Miami Studies)
…before Castro, Cuba was one of the richest underdeveloped countries in the world, with Gross National Product, per-capita income in the mid 1950s of $360, Cuba was well ahead of Japan ($254 per-capita) and Spain ($254 per-capita)… (Robert Blackburn, quoted in the anthology Fidel Castro’s Personal Revolution: 1953-1973; New York, 1975, p. 134)
Cuba had one automobile for every 39 inhabitants, compared with Argentina’s one for every 60 and Mexico’s one for every 91 people.
Cuba had one radio for every 5 people, second in Latin America only to Argentina with one for every 3 inhabitants.
the wage rate for industrial workers in Cuba was the highest in Latin America (as of 1957) and 9th highest in the world.
agricultural wages were the highest in Latin America
Cuba’s mortality rate of 7 per thousand was the lowest in Latin America. Its infant mortality rate was by far the lowest.
Cuba had one doctor for every 1,000 inhabitants, exceeded only by Uruguay with one for every 800, and Argentina for every 760 people.
Cuba ranked fifth in Latin American manufacturing.
Though living standards were much lower than in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, Cuba’s was the third highest in Latin America, and almost as high as Italy’s.
Cuba had more railroads per square mile than any other country in the world.
Its one telephone for 38 persons was exceeded only by the U.S. with one for every 3 and Argentina with one for every 13; way ahead of Russia’s with one for every 580 people. [/quote]

dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Ar … pter7.html

20

Not to throw cold water on what could potentially develop into an entertaining argument, but are you two talking about the same thing when you say “independently verified”?

I think that when Fred asks whether the Cuba numbers have been independently verified he is not talking about whether anyone at UNESCO faxed him the data to check on himself. I think me might be asking whether UNESCO itself was able to independently verify the data.

I have no idea how the 1998 study you referred to was done, but I did go to the UNESCO website and noticed that many of the studies seem to go something like this:

—1. UNESCO creates a questionnaire asking for the data that they want on Country X (“What percentage of 10 year olds in your country can read the following passage and answer basic questions about its content” etc.).

—2. UNESCO sends the questionnaire to the people in charge of Country X (actually the governments can just download them these days).

—3. The government of Country X fills out the questionnaire (presumably --if the government is honest and thorough-- after administering a bunch of objective tests to their kids) and sends it back to UNESCO.

—4. UNESCO puts all the information it has received from the national governments together and puts out a report.

[quote=“UNESCO Institute for Statistics”]The questionnaires are to be completed by National Governments (either Ministries of Education or National Statistical Offices). They are accompanied by an Instruction Manual which provides guidelines on the coverage and definitions needed for completing the questionnaire.

uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=507 … 2=DO_TOPIC[/quote]

If that’s what Fred is asking, it seems like a fairly reasonable question right? The question is whether UNESCO is actually putting tens of thousands of their own observers in the classrooms and watching the kids take the test, or whether they are essentially asking Castro:“Are you giving Cuban kids a top-rate education? You are? Good for you! How many 10 year-olds in your country can read? Wow, 90%!? That’s great! Thanks for filling out our survey for us!”

As I said, I have no idea whether that’s how the 1998 study was done. But it does seem to be how many of UNESCO’s statistics on individual countries are generated. To that extent, it just doesn’t seem like such an unreasonable question to ask whether that’s how they did it in Cuba. :idunno: