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">> What you should take from this is you don't understand the topic and your Spidey sense is imaginary." Is it imaginary though? First, let me congratulate y

">> What you should take from this is you don't understand the topic and your Spidey sense is imaginary." Is it imaginary though? First, let me congratulate you on having enough electrical power, cool fresh air while posting from your high-end/air-conditioned Cuban compound/hotel while the rest of the population bakes and dies. While the embargo isn't a total blockade, Cuba trades freely with China, Canada, Spain, EU, even buys US "food/meds" worth "$500M+" yearly in cash. But that's the point: Helms-Burton deters some deals, yet the regime's communist central planning, GAESA military cartel controlling tourism (55% hotels, $4B+ hoarded while grids collapse), and dual MLC system are why poverty persists. ">> Foreign investment?'" Profits go straight to regime elites/military, not people, hotels are prioritized over food and power, doctors are exported for hard currency (regime takes 80-90%), leaving hospitals short. Locals died from blackouts, shortages, malnutrition in 2024-26 crisis (1M+ fled or died, protests crushed). ">> Literacy and hurricane evacuations?" Real, but irrelevant when daily life starves under totalitarianism that values tourist dollars over citizens. Sigh, poor Dutch! The bottom line is that the regime's policies outweigh any embargo. Lost USSR billions + mismanagement did this, not Philips MRI sales. Don't worry annexation, updated extradition laws and fair public trials will resolve all of Cuba's issues by providing a fair legal system that holds its leaders, businesses and citizens equally, retroactively, accountable and punishes abuses in a court of law. It is clear that the island's hardliners have made the conscious choice to sacrifice the population's wellbeing for foreign tourists and dollars. There needs to be some accountability, some sort of sense of justice in a post-Castro Cuba or the only law that will exist is "The Law of The Jungle," aka "An Eye for An Eye," and nothing will be resolved.

eesmith 7mo ago
> let me congratulate you I don't follow - I've never been to Cuba. I assume this is an ad hominem or other irrelevant commentary? > "Foreign investment" You must be quoting someone else, as I didn't bring it up. > Real, but irrelevant It was relevant evidence of your hyperbolic exaggeration. > totalitarianism that values tourist dollars over citizens Now tell me again that why the US doesn't have a similar economic embargo on communist Vietnam? The US bought the biggest share of Vietnam's exports - and Cuba is a lot closer. Vietnam does not have an extradition treaty with the US. "Vietnamese authorities severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, movement, and religion, and prohibit human rights organizations and independent labor unions, media, and political parties. Under the Communist Party-controlled judiciary, the courts routinely deny defendants their due process rights. Public Security agents patrol the internet and arrest critics they deem threatening to the Party’s monopoly on power." - https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/vietnam https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/vietn... > Sigh, poor Dutch! Sigh. You think that my illustrative example of how your listing of commodity and consumer goods missed the point of the embargo was instead meant as the totality of the issue. Okay, yes, it's horrible on Cuba. Now, how do you demonstrate that the primary issue for Cuba's situation is communism, and not a 60 year US embargo?
- SilentM68 7mo ago
  Yes, life is horrible in Cuba and will continue to be so unless market reforms are initiated by the current regime, which will never happen. There's been too much repression by the hardliners, including killings, imprisonment, torture, separation of family, expropriation (without compensation) of homes, land and personal property. No, the US embargo isn't the main cause—it's a contributing factor, but Cuba's ongoing economic mess, 2024–2025 protests (blackouts, food shortages), and repression come mostly from inside: decades of rigid central planning, slow/limited reforms, mismanagement (e.g., failed 2021 monetary overhaul causing hyperinflation), lost Venezuelan oil subsidies, COVID tourism collapse, and state inertia. Academic views (e.g., Ricardo Torres Pérez, Columbia/others) and reports agree internal structural flaws are primary, with sanctions aggravating but secondary. https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/economic-crisis-cuba-its-causes-and-migration https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/economic-crisi... https://www.foreignaffairs.com/cuba/cuba-brink https://www.foreignaffairs.com/cuba/cuba-brink https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/us-cuba-relations https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/us-cuba-relations https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/jan/comment-economic-crisis-cuba-government-missteps-and-tightening-us-sanctions-are-blame https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/jan/comment-economic-crisis-... Vietnam got normalized relations and embargo lifted in 1995 because it embraced deep market reforms (Doi Moi 1986, private sector now dominant), integrated globally, and became a strategic US partner against China. Cuba kept tight state control, resisted big liberalization, stayed aligned with US foes (Russia, Iran), and poses ongoing hemisphere issues—keeping the policy in place. https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/54364/if-vietnam-and-the-usa-have-normal-relations-why-doesnt-cuba-usa-relationship https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/54364/if-vietna... https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/22/cuba-and-vietnam-whats-the-difference/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/22/cuba-and-vietnam-wha... Unless deep market reforms are embraced and open and fair elections with a fair judicial system are implemented annexation remains the only viable option. You have access to a PC and the Internet in your air-conditioned compound, don't you? Try doing your own research. Maybe you'll learn something. The Wall Crawler FYI: Possible reason for the lack of meaningful change on the island. https://fb.watch/G1pb1cwZsM/ https://fb.watch/G1pb1cwZsM/
  - eesmith 7mo ago

eesmith 7mo ago

> let me congratulate you I don't follow - I've never been to Cuba. I assume this is an ad hominem or other irrelevant commentary? > "Foreign investment" You must be quoting someone else, as I didn't bring it up. > Real, but irrelevant It was relevant evidence of your hyperbolic exaggeration. > totalitarianism that values tourist dollars over citizens Now tell me again that why the US doesn't have a similar economic embargo on communist Vietnam? The US bought the biggest share of Vietnam's exports - and Cuba is a lot closer. Vietnam does not have an extradition treaty with the US. "Vietnamese authorities severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, movement, and religion, and prohibit human rights organizations and independent labor unions, media, and political parties. Under the Communist Party-controlled judiciary, the courts routinely deny defendants their due process rights. Public Security agents patrol the internet and arrest critics they deem threatening to the Party’s monopoly on power." - https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/vietnam https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/vietn... > Sigh, poor Dutch! Sigh. You think that my illustrative example of how your listing of commodity and consumer goods missed the point of the embargo was instead meant as the totality of the issue. Okay, yes, it's horrible on Cuba. Now, how do you demonstrate that the primary issue for Cuba's situation is communism, and not a 60 year US embargo?

SilentM68 7mo ago
Yes, life is horrible in Cuba and will continue to be so unless market reforms are initiated by the current regime, which will never happen. There's been too much repression by the hardliners, including killings, imprisonment, torture, separation of family, expropriation (without compensation) of homes, land and personal property. No, the US embargo isn't the main cause—it's a contributing factor, but Cuba's ongoing economic mess, 2024–2025 protests (blackouts, food shortages), and repression come mostly from inside: decades of rigid central planning, slow/limited reforms, mismanagement (e.g., failed 2021 monetary overhaul causing hyperinflation), lost Venezuelan oil subsidies, COVID tourism collapse, and state inertia. Academic views (e.g., Ricardo Torres Pérez, Columbia/others) and reports agree internal structural flaws are primary, with sanctions aggravating but secondary. https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/economic-crisis-cuba-its-causes-and-migration https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/economic-crisi... https://www.foreignaffairs.com/cuba/cuba-brink https://www.foreignaffairs.com/cuba/cuba-brink https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/us-cuba-relations https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/us-cuba-relations https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/jan/comment-economic-crisis-cuba-government-missteps-and-tightening-us-sanctions-are-blame https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/jan/comment-economic-crisis-... Vietnam got normalized relations and embargo lifted in 1995 because it embraced deep market reforms (Doi Moi 1986, private sector now dominant), integrated globally, and became a strategic US partner against China. Cuba kept tight state control, resisted big liberalization, stayed aligned with US foes (Russia, Iran), and poses ongoing hemisphere issues—keeping the policy in place. https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/54364/if-vietnam-and-the-usa-have-normal-relations-why-doesnt-cuba-usa-relationship https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/54364/if-vietna... https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/22/cuba-and-vietnam-whats-the-difference/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/22/cuba-and-vietnam-wha... Unless deep market reforms are embraced and open and fair elections with a fair judicial system are implemented annexation remains the only viable option. You have access to a PC and the Internet in your air-conditioned compound, don't you? Try doing your own research. Maybe you'll learn something. The Wall Crawler FYI: Possible reason for the lack of meaningful change on the island. https://fb.watch/G1pb1cwZsM/ https://fb.watch/G1pb1cwZsM/
- eesmith 7mo ago