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It is a miracle they have survived with the US trying to destroy them over the last 60 years with sanctions, blockades, covert destabilisation, etc.
by richrichie 2y ago
It is a miracle they have survived with the US trying to destroy them over the last 60 years with sanctions, blockades, covert destabilisation, etc.
- skellington 2y agoDeflection. Cuba has an entire world they can trade with, and they do. Russia, China, countries in Europe, Canada, Mexico, etc.. Only US companies are mostly blocked (and there are exceptions there too). Nothing about the status of Cuba can be attributed to US sanctions unless you think their problems come from a shortage of Bourbon or monster trucks.
- clayhacks 2y agoThat’s not the whole truth. The sanctions ban any ship from stopping at Cuba then coming to America for 90 days. Yes technically you could go from wherever to Cuba and that’s it, but no company would miss out on the massive American market in exchange for a tiny island nation. They can’t import fuel to run their power plants, nor the solar panels to replace them.
- richrichie 2y agoI have worked in banking. You have no idea how difficult it is to do financial transactions if you are on sanctions list. It affects not just US companies or banks. Sanctions impact is sweeping. It is like async keyword. If you touch US dollar then you cant deal with sanctioned entities without risking criminal prosecution. Easier for narcos to do banking (big banks are guilty of it) than Cubans.
- felipeerias 2y agoBack in the day, people used to emigrate from Spain to Cuba (and Venezuela) in search of a better life. There is a widespread misconception of Cuba as a poor country that has not been allowed to get off its feet, when it was really a wealthy and successful place run down by a catastrophic ideology. In that sense, Cuba is not that different from Eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall: places that had been prosperous for a very long time and which should have remained prosperous if they hadn't been held under poverty and oppression by a terrible economic and political system.
- jltsiren 2y agoSuccessful communist revolutions don't happen in wealthy countries. Every single attempt at a revolution in even a moderately wealthy country failed, because people opposed the revolution. They were only successful in countries that were poor to begin with, or where the wealth belonged to the elite and did not benefit the people. Cuba fell in the latter category. Eastern Europe is a poor comparison. They didn't choose communism, but they were conquered by the USSR. There were basically two kinds of communist countries. Those where one oppressive ideology replaced another. And those where the communism was imposed by a stronger communist country.
- philosopher1234 2y agoThis is totally false. In Indonesia, the communists were winning elections left and right until the CIA installed an anti communist dictator. The same happened in Brazil and Iraq. The CIA has taken major direct action to suppress popular communism across the world
- jltsiren 2y agoAnd those would have all been in the "one oppressive ideology replaced another" category. In wealthy countries, the most effective antidotes to communism were social democracy and social liberalism, which gave the working class something worth defending.
- philosopher1234 2y agoNo they wouldn’t, communists were winning elections. Indonesia was a democracy. Neoliberalism is built on oppression. Communism was denied the right to exist by violence, not by liberation. It’s ridiculous to call it oppressive in that context.
- jltsiren 2y agoIndonesia was a democracy in name only. It had no tradition of peaceful transition of power. Sukarno became an increasingly authoritarian strongman, who tried to balance power between various anti-democratic factions.