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Cuba Jails US Worker Handing Out Laptops, Cellphones
eldavojohn writes "An American citizen working as a contractor for the United States Agency for International Development has been arrested for giving away laptops and cellphones in Cuba. The intent was to enable activists to connect with each other and spread information of what's happening inside Cuba. From the article: 'Cellphones and laptops are legal in Cuba, though they are new and coveted commodities in a country where the average worker's wage is $15 a month. The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year; they are used mostly for texting, because a 15-minute phone conversation would eat up a day's wages.' A Representative on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the arrest was 'no surprise' while a human rights watch group cited a report outlining the Cuban Criminal Code offense of 'dangerousness,' which is most likely the one for which this individual was detained. There is at present no way to contact the individual nor official word on why he was detained." The article quotes an actvist with Human Rights Watch who said that "any solution to the contractor's case would probably be political" and that "the Cuban government often provokes a negative reaction in the United States just as [the two] countries begin to move toward more dialogue."
There is at present no way to contact the individual nor official word on why he was detained.
He should have kept one of the phones or laptops for himself.
Oops.
You are forgetting - they had a revolution for the PEOPLE. All the poor people in Cuba benefited. It's a fine thing that Jimmy Carter went to visit there too (without the permission of the US government?)
Had it been lifted many years ago, perhaps Cubans would have already overthrown their dictatorship and established a free way of life.
Yeah, just like the Chinese have.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I really did not know that the USA was the only country in the world that makes cell phones. Since there is nothing to stop an NON-USA country from trading with Cuba.
Tim S.
"Revolution for the people" is irrelevant. Single party systems inevitably lead to human rights abuse.
The message that such concentrated power is for the benefit of "the people" is pure propaganda.
"Raul Castro's government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime, on the suspicion that they might commit and offense in the future. This "dangerousness" provision is overtly political, defining "dangerousness" as any behavior that contradicts socialist norms. The most Orwellian of Cuba's laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government's repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential thread, and thus worthy of punishment."
Reading this, it's no wonder to me that I walked out on the movie Minority Report about 10 minutes in, because it's exactly like that. My sympathies to the poor bastard and his family, they'll probably never see him alive ever again.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The government of Cuba is evil.
In other news, water is wet and fire is hot.
Purchasing power per person, 2008:
Cuba: $9500
People's Republic of China: $6000
So, the average Cuban is still richer than the average Chinese. In ten years it might be different, though. But all this is irrelevant to the parent's point: dropping an embargo doesn't necessarily lead to political liberalization, even if the people do become better off. You can be very rich and still dictatorial.
...to keep its nose of other people's business. The US government's "freedom" fighters can't wait to destroy Cuba. What right does the US have to be there trying to create chaos?
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
So here he was, an American in a foreign country who was providing material means for people to rebel, overthrow, dissent, terrorise their legal government. One does wonder what would happen if an Iranian or Iraqi came into America and provided material means for people to rebel, overthrow, dissent terrorise the American government? Maybe a book on how to achieve things? Would said Iranian or Iraqi have been imprisoned under American laws? Maybe even sent to a place where torture was the norm like Guantanamo or one of the secret CIA prison camps on European soil?
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Well, we do business with China and Saudi Arabia. Just Saying....
You don't have to like the laws of other nations, but when within their borders you have to follow them or face the consequences.
When visiting the U.S. would I not be expected to follow U.S. laws. If I have a problem with this my choices are not to go to the U.S.
If you went and did the same thing in Australia you'd be charged as well, granted you'd only get a fine and not jail time the only difference is that we'd charge you under our tax and import laws (nice and civil like). The person in question went there with the express purpose of undermining the government, whether you agree with it or not it is illegal, not to mention ill thought out given the relative ease this person was caught.
Now if handing out technology to a developing nation's people was this persons goal there are many better, legal methods of doing it. There are literally dozens of charities dedicated to this goal.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"Animals?" Come on now, if Taliban agents were caught handing out darknet cellphones and laptops through a mosque in NYC, you just know the same thing would happen. Heck, we recently arrested some midde-east looking people just for taking home videos at Disneyland.
Without those cell phones and laptops (paid for by the USA), how are people meant to use their training in democracy and civil society (paid for by the USA) to organize spontaneous demonstrations and peaceful non-violent provocations (paid for by the USA) to install a new democratic leader (paid for by the USA)?
It is instructive to note how many useful idiots keep calling to normalize relations with the sort of barbarians that lock people up for passing out cell phones.
Normalize travel and trade with these animals? Really?
Seriously, would YOU travel into such a hellhole? Do business as usual with such a morally bankrupt regime and expect them to honor contracts like civilized people?
Yes, really. Why? Because you nominally care about the vast majority of normal people who live there. You may disagree with the ruling class, but that doesn't necessarily justify an embargo.
Also, let's keep in mind that these people locked up someone who was effectively an agitator. Or is sedition only bad when it's being done against the US standards? The Cubans locked up a man who was disruptive to their country's stability, like it or not. And again, if the embargo wasn't in place, the sheer contact between the normal citizens of each culture would have done a lot to educate both sides. People learn from contact. Leaving a country in isolation does nothing for them.
Depose or do not depose. Those are the two reasonable courses of action. The embargo at this point is nothing but pride.
"Oh no... he found the
> Well, we do business with China and Saudi Arabia. Just Saying....
Yea. Which is why I'd like to see us get off the imported oil habit to the point we could tell the House of Saud to pound sand.
And some of us objected to MFN status for China based on their horrid human rights record. Too bad the 'progressives' formed an unholy alliance with the big transnational corporate interests on that issue.... But no we probably can't just treat China as the total pariah they would be in a more perfect world. People who say size doesn't matter are just deluding themselves.
Democrat delenda est
In ANY democratic country an agent of a foreign power financing political groups would be declared persona non grata and kicked out. Apparently Cuba can't do it because then they are dangerous communists that eat children for breakfast.
Remove the absurd and illegal embargo you have on Cuba and then let's all talk about democracy. No country can be democratic with another country's boot crushing it. And we're talking about the USA, it's a HUUUUGE motherfucking boot.
Theirs is not the only system that needs replacing/overhaul. Dual party systems also lead to human rights abuse.
The message that a two party system is a "democracy" (or "republic" if you want to ride the irrelevant semantics bandwagon) is pure propaganda.
Mod me down but while I think Cubans should be able to access the internet and communicate freely I think they should be left alone to work out their own problems. Cuba has been under attack (sanctions etc) for a very long time and you have to bear in mind the US relationship with central and south America hasn't exactly been hmmm how shall we say very fair. The US has been happy to triain death squads at the school of americas http://www.soaw.org/ and fund the over throw of democractically ellected goverments (Chile, Nicuragua, Guatmala most recenly the atempt in Venuzuela and not to mention Syrian and Iran) so you could see the leader ship in Cuba might be a little paranoid.
"I'm thinking that most ordinary Cubans aren't (in a socioeconomic sense) too far above that point."
Yeah, it'd be nice if they had some rich country many times larger than them nearby to trade freely with. I imagine that within a few decades their standard of living will double or triple.
People in this country were arrested and detained for the possession of cell phones during the previous two administrations. (Bush , Clinton)
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Dissent/Crackdown_Dissent.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/aug2000/phil-a08.shtml
The US does extend their reach on export control. If you want to sell technology to the US you have to agree not to sell to countries they embargo.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yeah, it's not like the US imprisons people for years without charge ignoring their human rights under the Geneva convention for political reasons (in Cuba no less).
He's not only an agitator, he's an employee of a known CIA front company, Development Alternatives Inc, which worked in Venezuela on the failed coup. Last year Congress designated $40 million to "promote transition to democracy", i.e. provoke dissension, and DAI was the prime recipient of that money. Afraid that I can't feel very sorry for someone who knowingly attempts to rile people up so that they can get shot down in front of cameras.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Not just hot, VERY hot!
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
In ANY democratic country an agent of a foreign power financing political groups would be declared persona non grata and kicked out.
Ah yes. In that case, it should be no problem for you to point to a case where an individual was jailed in, say, the United States, for handing out free stuff to political groups.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Oh, and while you're trying to think of a way to back-pedal out of this one, you should probably stop and think about just how despicable you look to every person who actually gives a damn about human rights. You're offering excuses on behalf of an oppressive dictatorship, just so you can squeeze in a cheap shot at nations which guarantee you freedoms that Cubans can only dream about. I don't know how you live with yourself.
I am sure the American view of a free way of life means a corporate monopoly on the tourism industry, corporate corruption of the politicians to serve their needs, the creation of class inequality, and "servant" status for the natives like in most of the tropical destinations Americans go to.
Because the Cuban governmental monopoly on the tourism industry, corrupt politicians enriching themselves at the direct expense of the people, vast inequality between the nomenklatura and ordinary peasants, and forced labor in the sugarcane fields for schoolchildren is so much better. ....
In two cases, a one-party dictatorship took control of an island with a history of colonial exploitation and an agriculture-based economy. It happens that both islands are at about the same latitude, and both are subject to tropical cyclones. In both cases, the island was off the coast of a country ideologically hostile to it, which imposed a thorough embargo on its goods. In both cases the island received support from a superpower for three decades, which then was seriously reduced.
Socialism has left one poor, and it has no imminent prospects of democratization. Capitalism has made the other one wealthy, and it completed a full transition to multi-party democracy thirteen years ago.
Reverse it. Suppose foreigners had come here and started handing out goods we labeled contraband but were perfectly legal in their respective countries. We would likely react accordingly and arrest (or at least detain and deport) them. How about we change our attitudes regarding other nations to something like this: mind our own damn business. Thank you for reading.
Ask and you will receive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Laws_and_arrests
Now how are You going to back-pedal out of this one?
I have one question. If the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture is not in charge of Gundam, then who is?
China is very large, and parts of it that you probably didn't visit are very very poor. Technology of any sort, including cell phones, are rare in those parts. Talking to coworkers in China, I got the impression that they're considered rich because they have jobs that pay 1/2 of what I get, and they're all within Beijing.
I wonder how somebody doing the same kind of thing would have been treated in Chile under Pinochet, or one of the other countries where the US has installed its own bloody-handed dictators. Actually, I don't wonder at all. At least in Cuba the guy has a chance of getting out alive. If Pinochet or one of the other US puppets got hold of him, he'd already be missing some body parts and rotting in a shallow grave somewhere.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
You're aware that only 8.5% of US oil imports come from Saudi Arabia, right?
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
60% of U.S. oil imports are from non-OPEC nations; OPEC nations. The single largest supplier, by volume, is Canada, followed by Mexico.
Of the OPEC nations, the biggest supplier is currently Venezuela, though they were edged out by Saudi Arabia for a couple months this year (last April and July).
Basically, if it was about the oil, we could tell them to pound sand today; we simply aren't getting that much oil from them. What the U.S. gets of of the relationship is a more or less stable Middle East.
-- Terry
Yeah, scroll up and this time actually read what I wrote, ok? Then try to draft a response which addresses it. Thanks!
"Seriously, would YOU travel into such a hellhole?"
Hell yes, it's a stunningly beautiful country with great food, gorgeous women, wonderful climate, great music, and friendly people. It's also extremely safe, the crime rate is next to nothing, and very cheap. That's why tens of thousands of Europeans travel there every year. Wish I could go without being labeled a criminal by my government.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
How much 15 bucks is worth depends on what it buys you. 15 bucks in any country labeled "developed" is a dinner. There are countries where an US minimum wage would allow you to live like a king.
Recently there was a report of people on German social wellfare living in Thailand because what's barely enough to live in Germany pays for a quite comfortable living standard there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In ANY democratic country an agent of a foreign power financing political groups would be declared persona non grata and kicked out.
Ah yes. In that case, it should be no problem for you to point to a case where an individual was jailed in, say, the United States, for handing out free stuff to political groups.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Please read this.
Some parts are very interesting:
This law defines the agent of a foreign principal as someone who:
(. . .)
Although the act was designed to broadly apply to any foreign agent (and was first used against German Nazi and Soviet propagandists), in practice FARA is frequently used to target countries out of favor with an administration (such as Venezuela or Iraq during the George W. Bush administration).
Oh, and while you're trying to think of a way to back-pedal out of this one, you should probably stop and think about just how despicable you look to every person who actually gives a damn about human rights. You're offering excuses on behalf of an oppressive dictatorship, just so you can squeeze in a cheap shot at nations which guarantee you freedoms that Cubans can only dream about. I don't know how you live with yourself.
Yeah, when the richest super power on Earth illegally embargoes and violently harasses a small, poor country of 11 million for decades those people that give a damn about human rights rejoice. But that's not news, you did it to many small poor countries before, this one is still resisting, that's all. You come talk about human WHAT??? If Castro sucked the American cock, even if he had babies for breakfast, you would love him, like many other oppressive dictators.
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php
Switzerland is 2nd and WELL below the US in total cost. The Cuba point is also well illustrated on those charts. It performs well above the curve, the US well below. Canada btw is spending a bit over half what the US is. Honestly, follow ANY modern country other than the US and you will be doing well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_burton
Democracy vs. Republic is not an irrelevant semantics bandwagon. While dictatorships reinforce the rights of a small minority against the majority, pure democracy leads to the majority oppressing the minority. This is why a republic is necessary to protect the rights of the minority as well.
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
I wonder when is the US going to do anything serious about the democracy deterioration in latin america.
The list of countries where democracy is falling apart is growing year by year. First it was only Cuba, but then Venezuela's Chavez joined the club. Chavez is so determined in exporting his ideology that he has successfully used the country's wealth to build alliances and undermine democracy in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and in less measure Argentina, and now he is trying really hard in Honduras, Peru and Colombia.
The US have done a lot about what you call "democracy deterioration" in Latin America, mostly in the seventies.
I assume you really mean they should do something about those f'n commies.
They did something back in the seventies, do you remember? A bit from the wikipedia:
From wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor )
Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor, Portuguese: Operação Condor), was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the governments of the Southern Cone of South America. The program aimed to eradicate alleged socialist and communist influence and ideas and to control active or potential opposition movements against the participating right-wing governments.[citation needed] Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths directly attributable to Operation Condor will likely never be known, but it is reported to have caused over sixty thousand [1], possibly even more.[2][3][4]
Condor's key members were the governments in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. The United States participated in a supervisory capacity, with Ecuador and Peru joining later in more peripheral roles.[5]
I don't think the US should do anything outside their borders. We are fine as we are right now.
Bolivia is a healthy democracy that recently confirmed its government. Ecuador is also. Saying that Chavez can influence Argentina is an insult to Argentina as a regional power.
About Honduras... I don't know what you think about Honduras, but Chavez is very much in line about that issue with Brazil and the rest of Mercosur. And I hope you are not trying to say that Chavez is forcing his interests on Brazil.
Boy, that Chavez really must hate democracy. Imagine getting elected by 70 percent of the population in a ballot declared 'Free And Fair' by international observers, the nerve of that guy! Now he's promoting Free And Fair elections in other countries too? Well, we just can't have that!
I take it you approve of the military coup in Honduras then, with its sham elections conducted in complete violation of the country's constitution? Maybe we should just let the Pentagon decide who gets to be president of the Latin American countries again, like in Reagan's reign of error. Those people can't be trusted to elect someone who supports the interests of the multi-national mega-corps over their own citizenry like the Americans do.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Representative democracy (what Americans usually actually mean when they talk about "democracy vs republic") does not guarantee protection for the rights of the minority. There are various examples of that in history, but the most famous one is Weimar Republic, and the state into which it ultimately transformed. Another very famous example is historical USA (remember, it was a republic while slavery was legal, and later on when Jim Crow laws were in force).
The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year; they are used mostly for texting, because a 15-minute phone conversation would eat up a day's wages.
Ironically, in order to get the same information as a 15 minute phone conversation takes 2 hours when texting, and eats up 3 days wages.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Why don't you scroll up to your own post and actually read what you yourself quoted in your post. Then try to draft a response that refutes the link that I provided.
I can add more links to the House Un-American Activities Committee, the hollywood blacklist and the Japanese internment camps if you like. That's just a small listing.
I have one question. If the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture is not in charge of Gundam, then who is?
You have no idea where Little Havana is, do you?
As far as the actual Havana, no, you're completely wrong. Try talking to the really old Cubans, the ones who came over before the revolution to work because it was the only way to keep their children from starving to death back home. Unlike what Gloria Estafan says, the majority lived in squalid poverty at the mercy of of the overseers who worked for the sugar companies, United Fruit, and the Mafia. People were quite literally killed just for complaining that the hacendado's kid or the factory manager had raped their daughter. There is a reason that when the Bay of Pigs invasion happened the people ran to the local armory to fight the gusanos, they didn't want them back.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
In the U.S., you can't be charged with a conspiracy to overthrow government willy-nilly. Just because you do something, and declare that your ultimate reason for doing so is "overthrowing the government", doesn't make it sufficient. Case in point: if you print a bunch of Marxist propaganda leaflets explaining Marx economic theories of exploitation, and hand them out to people on the streets, you won't be jailed, even if you walk down to the nearest police station and tell a cop that your leaflets are intended to bring closer the revolution.
Now, if your leaflets contain explicit calls for violent uprising, then you may be charged. But this isn't what happened in this case. Furthermore, a country may well be within its rights to forbid distribution of certain items that it seems as harmful on its territory, and may equate a crime of distributing those to incitement of riot. For example, in North Korea, it is, apparently, illegal to own, assemble, or provide anyone with a radio that is not locked into the government frequency. We may argue whether such laws are good or bad, but the point is that they are laws, written on the books - you know that you're not supposed to do that, or else you face penalties. In a similar vein, Soviet Union had a written law for "anti-Soviet propaganda", and that's what you'd be charged with if you smuggled Solzhenitsyn into the USSR.
In this case, however, the guy apparently didn't broke any written law: he merely distributed laptops and cellphones, which are legal to both possess and to transfer to another person. I'm sure Cuba has some of its own "anti-communist propaganda" laws, but so long as he didn't provide any materials that could be considered that preinstalled on those laptops/cellphones, it shouldn't be applicable to him, either.
So the fundamental problem, as I see here, is that Cuba didn't consistently apply rule of law in this case. It's one thing if a state has oppressive laws on the books (U.S. itself still has plenty, and just a few years ago had absolutely barbarous stuff such as anti-sodomy laws); I can still familiarize myself with the laws of that particular state before coming there, and know what I can and what I cannot do (or decide that I cannot abide by those laws, and therefore not come there in the first place). It's much worse when there are things that aren't codified in laws, but doing which can still lead to legal prosecution and harsh penalties, with no way to find out in advance as to what they may be.
Normalize travel and trade with these animals? Really?
Oh yes. Because this is the Land of the Free, and therefore your citizens have no business going to all those un-Free countries, and should be severely punished for daring to do so, or - God forbid - trying to buy anything from those animals. After all, they're already Free, and they live in the most Free place on Earth; clearly, if they travel to that evil un-Free country, they mock the very idea of Freedom. Right?
It really illustrates how easy it is to believe anything about your enemies once you regard them as "morally bankrupt animals."
That single party system is the problem we have in America as well.
Hypocrisy doesn't make it any less wrong, or give him less of a right to criticize it.
Text messaging is much cheaper outside of the US, even in western Europe. We're getting the short end of the stick on this one :(
"It also says it opens the door to arbitrariness, and it was used in that way by the USA and all the others. Cuba shouldn't be bashed for using the same."
So please, if it's such a perfect example of the US doing the same thing, point to the cases where people were arrested for it rather than simply required to identify themselves. Go on.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
yes yeah yeah.
What with all the embargo shit going on, cuba doesn't have a big chance to improve the economy much, do they now? Suddenly the US comes in and hands out stuff for free to only those people who are in opposition of the government.
Yes ok, so they have (or had) laws against owning a cell phone, maybe there's a good reason for that in their current situation.
I'm most definitely not a communist, but if you think cuba is the bad guy here you most certainly are deluded.
Really? According to Duverger, majoritarian systems will always lead to 2-party systems, and Downs has shown that, in majoritarian systems, the 2 parties inevitably gravitate towards the center of the political spectrum in terms of ideology. G. Bingham Powell shows that majoritarian systems have greater levels of accountability, because in the lack of coalition governments it is easy to identify who made what decisions. He also shows that majoritarian systems are more representative of the values of the median voter. And, as long as the state utilizing the 2-party system has universal suffrage (as the US does), and has a large number of government positions that are open to competition (again, as the US has), then it in fact IS a democracy (or to use the technical term developed by Dahl, a polyarchy). Sure, you may sound all hip, cool, and so "against the system" by saying that 2-parties systems as democracy is "propaganda", but when you are put up against scholars who have studied and written on this subject for decades, your assertion falls completely apart. The sad part is that it was modded +5 Insightful when everything about your response was completely wrong.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You are either displaying very subtle sarcastic humor or a MASSIVE amount of IGNORANCE here. Being /., I'm betting on the latter but apologize if it is the former.
Cuba provided "advisors", training, arms and money for thirty-plus years to SEVERAL communist revolutionary groups around the world, in such places as Angola, Bolivia, Congo, Nicaragua and Grenada just to name a few. These actions were a legitimate part of their government. Does Che Guevara not ring a bell?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"Animals?" Come on now, if Taliban agents were caught handing out darknet cellphones and laptops through a mosque in NYC, you just know the same thing would happen. Heck, we recently arrested some midde-east looking people just for taking home videos at Disneyland.
I love how things are distorted to serve an agenda. People are dehumanized by referring to them as "animals". And situations are distorted by describing them in the most innocent terms ("taking home videos at Disneyland" - the defendants were being prosecuted for a collection of material to include the aforementioned video of Disneyland) and presented as "recent" when they actually occurred over 8 years ago.
If you only look at cost, sure. Except that the US costs the most because we train the best doctors, have the best research institutes, and develop most of the new medicines -- all of which cost a metric shit ton of money.
If you'd rather pay less and have crappy treatment, be my guest. I'm crazy enough to think it's worth spending more money if it means I get top of the line medical treatment.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
A quick google reveals:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml
"The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment."
Imagine how your government would react if it finds that a foreign nation (eg China) has been funding the opposition party.
I think Cuba's reaction is quite normal. Cuba does have human rights violations, but I'm not sure if this is one of them.
You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
Or like....well right now, with gays not having equal rights and all.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Boy, that Chavez really must hate democracy. Imagine getting elected by 70 percent of the population in a ballot declared 'Free And Fair' by international observers, the nerve of that guy!
In fact, Chavez loves democracy, because when it doesn't work for him he can just twist it to his wishes.
See, at the beginning he was so popular that it was easy to win elections cleanly. But now that he lost support he rigs elections, politically persecutes his opponents, or simply disregards its outcome.
In Venezuela you can't get a job in any of the state controlled companies if you have voted against Chavez.
This is a serious problem in a country where the state controls the oil industry, electric companies, banks, telecommunications and most of the media, and where all the powers are subjugated to one man's desires. After such a precedent, how can anybody expect the people to participate freely in any elections against Chavez?
Now he's promoting Free And Fair elections in other countries too? Well, we just can't have that!
I don't think that sneaking suitcases with millions of dolars of Venezuelan money to his favorite candidates in Latin America counts as promoting Free And Fair elections.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1654511,00.html
http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/11/26/en_pol_art_venezuelan-businessm_26A3120691.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maletinazo
I take it you approve of the military coup in Honduras then, with its sham elections conducted in complete violation of the country's constitution? Maybe we should just let the Pentagon decide who gets to be president of the Latin American countries again, like in Reagan's reign of error. Those people can't be trusted to elect someone who supports the interests of the multi-national mega-corps over their own citizenry like the Americans do.
I never even mentioned Honduras, in fact, I don't approve the coup, so try to keep your current job, cause mind reading is not your thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Discuss.
America, land of the free. As long as you agree with the party-line. As ex-soviet reporters have commented, the differences between the soviet union and the US are not all that big. Tell me, do they still have camps for the homeless in the US? Food stamps? Waiting in line for the food kitchen?
The US has created a very smart system, it is similar to what religious groups use. Sure you can criticize, HERETIC! Just see what happens if you dare to protest against copyright... how many hundreds of millions are you fined with? No, it is not the same as being tortured and shipped to some re-education center. It is far better. People are willing to die for freedom, spend the rest of their life in poverty, not so much.
You can see the true freedom in the US with cases such as the Dixie Chicks. Freedom should be MORE then just being able to say what everyone else says. What westerners often get wrong about dictatorships like Cube, Russia, Soviet Union (Russia today is not free), China etc is that they are NOT what you see in McGuyver episodes. There isn't a commisar on every corner, not everything is monitored and controlled. Rather, they use the fear of being noticed when you dare to stand out to stop you from standing out. And they "use" a few who are allowed to stand out but are slapped down from time to time to remind everyone what happens.
Same as western society when you dare question things. Copyright, mod-chips, they might seem like minor issues but it is what the powers that be care about in the west, and if you question them, you are slapped down. For that matter, what have all dictarorships got in common? Repression of the rights of homo-sexuals (true communism would give full rights to everyone). What western country is most repressive of gay-rights? Thank you.
Be very careful about thinking you are free just because they allow you to certain freedoms. A free-range chicken still gets eaten.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"the average worker's wage is $15 a month" - No it isn't. Cuba does not use the dollar.
This is the usual bullshit propaganda from the kind of people that want you to believe that third-world workers on two dollars a day can't afford to eat. They arrive at this rubbish by pricing first-world food at first-world prices (herb ciabatta from a New York delicatessen at $4 a loaf, instead of flat bread baked by the family where the ingredients are grown by the local farmers and sold at market for less than quarter of a day's wages).
The developing world does not price its goods in dollars, nor do they shop at the deli counter. Get over it.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Erm, can you clarify which the other nation was and did said nation have an embargo from the biggest economy in the world on it for the same period? Did it also get attacked by said superpower? Was it victim of multiple plots at coup d'etats from said superpower?
Besides, Sweden and many other European nations are socialist, Cuba is communist. At least understand the difference between political ideologies and realise that correlation is not causation before trying to discuss such things.
Your assumption that a country is somehow better under democracy does not hold either. Iraq was more stable and had a stronger economy as a dictatorship even post first gulf war than it does now.
Different things work in different places for different people, the attitude of the American way or the high way is the reason the likes of Vietnam and Iraq ended up such bloodbaths for America and the reason Afghanistan looks like it may well end up the same.
If you only look at cost, sure. Except that the US costs the most because we train the best doctors, have the best research institutes, and develop most of the new medicines -- all of which cost a metric shit ton of money.
If you'd rather pay less and have crappy treatment, be my guest. I'm crazy enough to think it's worth spending more money if it means I get top of the line medical treatment.
Yah, you go on believing that. The real reason it's so expensive is not because of expensive doctors, but because these days your chief national product seems to be lawyers.
I wonder if it's possible to base an entire economy on constantly suing one another...surely if you fudge the numbers enough it'll work?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
That is not entirely accurate. From wiki ...
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I believe it's you who is deluded. The US has placed very large restrictions on how Cuba can trade with the rest of the world, much to the detriment of the Cuban people. They really can't conduct fair and open trade with the rest of the world -- in Cuba, this embargo is thought or more as a blockade, since it effectively has the same result. It means they can't import a lot of goods, so the average Cuban goes without unless tourists bring it down and give it to them.
Oh, that and the fact that at one time America imposed an amendment to the Cuban constitution which gives the American government some control over Cuba that Cubans don't want and which violates their sovereignty.
Maybe you should learn a little more about Cuba instead of just spouting what you've heard and don't understand.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.