5 ms·

The embargo doesn’t cover medical supplies and Cuban buys what medicine and medical supplies it has mainly from the US. The embargo also doesn’t cover food. Cu

by ch4s3 9mo ago

The embargo doesn’t cover medical supplies and Cuban buys what medicine and medical supplies it has mainly from the US. The embargo also doesn’t cover food. Cuba also does a lot of trade with China and Spain but has relatively little to actually sell because the state controlled industries are so unproductive. Cuba also has the least productive agricultural sector in the Caribbean, despite being the most productive before the revolution. The embargo is no excuse it doesn’t cover other countries, and Cuba has always had European trade partners. In fact they received free oil, agricultural equipment, and technical support from the USSR, and later free oil from Venezuela until a few weeks ago.

thomassmith65 9mo ago
The Cuban economy today is a shadow of what it was before the USSR fell apart, which makes it a moot point to claim they are dysfunctional despite foreign support. The Soviets successfully managed to keep Cuba afloat. Not that that constitutes a ringing endorsement for the Cuban system.
- ch4s3 9mo ago
  That’s part of my point. They were a basket case with a ton of free support, and still are while trading with China and Europe. It’s just ridiculous to blame the embargo as ridiculous as the embargo is. If you read what the Soviets had to say about the Cuban government it’s pretty damning.
  - thomassmith65 9mo ago
    I can well imagine. My disagreement is that, as far as I know, the reputation of Cuba's healthcare system is great, and that, as someone else pointed out, the US embargo has real impact. I certainly agree the Cuban system, excepting a few areas like healthcare and regardless of the embargo's impact, does not work.
    - ch4s3 9mo ago
      That reputation is largely built on fake statistics though. There’s no international and freely published data to support it.
mullingitover 9mo ago
> before the revolution. Man, sounds like life before the revolution must've been super awesome! I bet everyone wants to go back to that standard of living.
- ch4s3 9mo ago
  This is a false choice, but the food supply was much better. Cubans deserve a representative government.
  - mullingitover 9mo ago
    > the food supply was much better Maybe, except for the tens of thousands who were eating US-supplied lead. > The third, and perhaps most disastrous of our failures, was the decision to give stature and support to one of the most bloody and repressive dictatorships in the long history of Latin American repression. Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years - a greater proportion of the Cuban population than the proportion of Americans who died in both World Wars, and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty. - Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960 [1] The Cubans absolutely deserve a representative government, and the US will never lift a finger to give it to them. Not then, and as we can see demonstrated in Venezuela today (the US regime is happy to prop up Maduro's cohort and doesn't care about conducting fair elections), not now. The US would prefer a ruthless dictatorship ruling Cuba that sends all the country's wealth to the US over a representative government that doesn't. [1] https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/cincinnati-oh-19601006-democratic-dinner https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k...

by ch4s3 9mo ago

thomassmith65 9mo ago

The Cuban economy today is a shadow of what it was before the USSR fell apart, which makes it a moot point to claim they are dysfunctional despite foreign support. The Soviets successfully managed to keep Cuba afloat. Not that that constitutes a ringing endorsement for the Cuban system.

ch4s3 9mo ago
That’s part of my point. They were a basket case with a ton of free support, and still are while trading with China and Europe. It’s just ridiculous to blame the embargo as ridiculous as the embargo is. If you read what the Soviets had to say about the Cuban government it’s pretty damning.
- thomassmith65 9mo ago
  I can well imagine. My disagreement is that, as far as I know, the reputation of Cuba's healthcare system is great, and that, as someone else pointed out, the US embargo has real impact. I certainly agree the Cuban system, excepting a few areas like healthcare and regardless of the embargo's impact, does not work.
  - ch4s3 9mo ago
    That reputation is largely built on fake statistics though. There’s no international and freely published data to support it.

mullingitover 9mo ago

> before the revolution. Man, sounds like life before the revolution must've been super awesome! I bet everyone wants to go back to that standard of living.

ch4s3 9mo ago
This is a false choice, but the food supply was much better. Cubans deserve a representative government.
- mullingitover 9mo ago
  > the food supply was much better Maybe, except for the tens of thousands who were eating US-supplied lead. > The third, and perhaps most disastrous of our failures, was the decision to give stature and support to one of the most bloody and repressive dictatorships in the long history of Latin American repression. Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years - a greater proportion of the Cuban population than the proportion of Americans who died in both World Wars, and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty. - Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960 [1] The Cubans absolutely deserve a representative government, and the US will never lift a finger to give it to them. Not then, and as we can see demonstrated in Venezuela today (the US regime is happy to prop up Maduro's cohort and doesn't care about conducting fair elections), not now. The US would prefer a ruthless dictatorship ruling Cuba that sends all the country's wealth to the US over a representative government that doesn't. [1] https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/cincinnati-oh-19601006-democratic-dinner https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k...