As a former smoker who is mentally sound and who knows many smokers, I've seen no evidence of mental illness in any of the tobacco consumers that I know.
That's not very scientific. The people you know are likely in a fairly narrow socioeconomic group, for example, perhaps living in a particular area, etc. Just as an example which might demonstrate a different skew, try checking out the smokers in the nearest trailer park.
Um, when you see a pair of sword fighters battling it out in mid-air, why on earth would you expect the physics to be normal? They're flying, for pity's sake! Without wings, or engines! How do you know the physics aren't perfectly correct, for sword fighters with flying superpowers?? You may as well complain about the physics of Superman!
Both Anakin/Vader and his mentor Obi-Wan die to save Luke, and Luke goes on to help save the galaxy and as you say, develop a less stuffy Jedi ethic. It seems as though any prophecy should have been more interested in predicting Luke than Anakin.
Then again, the Oracle in The Matrix told Neo what he needed to hear. If the prophesy was truly about Anakin, that may have been what was needed to bring about the desired chain of events. But that would imply some interesting things about the creator or source of the prophecy -- was the prophecy "merely" a matter of foreseeing the future, or was it a case of manipulating destiny by an entity with godlike powers who could foresee all outcomes? Either way, what does it say about free will in the Star Wars universe?
No, I am just saying that there must be a reason why communism became popular, why Castro became popular, and why they Castro is still popular. ...
And it's not just because Castro is good at controlling Cubans with an iron fist.
Then why is the iron fist necessary? It isn't necessary in many other countries. It's necessary in Cuba because it's more important to Castro and his regime to retain their own power than to act in the true interests of the Cuban people. Castro and his regime's tactics are holding the Cuban people back, it is not a question of them getting a government that is suited to their situation.
Regarding elections in Cuba, I followed the April election with interest, but if you believe that this is an example of what participatory democracy is about, you don't understand democracy at all. I grew up in a country which had joke elections, and I know all about it. All the signs are that Cuba's are worse. It's like the old Ford line about being able to have any colour you like as long as it's black. You can have any president and party you like as long as it's Castro's Communist party. If a candidate for local office arose who differed significantly from the party position, he'd be arrested as a dissident, for crimes which are not considered crimes in any free country. The courts in Cuba are not independent, they're controlled by the executive government. According to Amnesty International, Cuba has one of the highest rates of political dissidents, i.e. "prisoners of conscience", in jail. To achieve this, Cuba shares one of the worst characteristics that the old South Africa had: informing by ordinary people on their neighbors. That might seem relatively benign to the uninformed, but it forms an important part of some of the most repressive social control tactics imaginable. I imagine you have some experience with that, I'd be interested to hear your spin on it.
You pointed to Cuban propaganda about their elections, but that's just as silly as if I pointed you to American propaganda. That's why the link I posted in my original message was to an international human rights organization based in Germany. However, you say you have a problem with the position of Western governments in general, and presumably by extension, the various human rights organizations. So let me ask you this: what relatively independent organization can you point to which analyzes the Cuban situation in a favorable way? All I see when I look are human rights organizations, many of which are often thorns in their own governments sides, like Amnesty International, which make the same criticisms of Cuba. Here's Amnesty's Cuba Summary, and a summary of the 2003 dissident crackdown. Amnesty hasn't been allowed in Cuba since 1988, but that itself is a sign of a problem. The UN Human Rights Commission has to pass resolutions to force Cuba to allow human rights investigators to visit. Even many of Cuba's Latin American allies vote in favor of such resolutions, much to Cuba's anger. Why the anger, why the attempt at secrecy? Evil flourishes in the darkness.
Perhaps this discussion ultimately comes down to irreconcilable political differences about attitudes to human rights and the importance of the state vs. the individual. You call what the Western governments say about Cuba "lies", but some of those "lies" are things which I believe deeply, starting with the importance of human rights that go beyond just the basic necessity, and extend to rights of political and intellectual freedom. By my definition, a healthy state cannot exist when its people aren't allowed to exercise such basic freedoms. Many Cubans feel this way too, and are simply having such rights suppressed. That's what I say cannot be tolerated. Such repression is a sign that something is seriously wrong. You can put all the political spin on it you like, and it still stinks.
Most of us are trying to make a point that the US, the glorious land of the free, is pulling some of the same shit that you'd only expect to happen in a banana republic.
I can't tell if that's because you're all self-absorbed Americans, or self-absorbed non-Americans who hate the US. The subject here is Cuba, and I was talking about Cuba. What the fuck does the US really have to do with this?
It seems to me that the point that's being made is Cuba's behavior should be tolerated because America also does bad things. What kind of moronic logic is that? Neither should be accepted! But that doesn't mean that you can't have a discussion about Cuba without dragging every other country in the world into it.
I don't know for sure, and that's the point. By preventing a true democratic choice, Castro's regime demonstrates that it's more interested in retaining its own power than in allowing the Cuban people to participate in their own government. That's precisely what makes Cuba's government wrong, and why it shouldn't be tolerated any more than any other self-appointed government.
The difference with Cuba is that Cuba is imprisoning its own citizens unfairly, so that its self-appointed government can retain control. The American government may be committing crimes, but as a government, it's about as legitimate as human governments get. Cuba's is not.
I'd like to know what your real point is: are you saying that the US is as bad as Cuba, and thus Cuba should not be criticized, but rather simply accepted as is? Surely not.
Well, as others here have pointed out it makes the US look rather hypocritical in much of the rest of the world. ...
All this doesn't really look very good, does it?
Right, but I still fail to see what this has to do with my original post, in which I, a non-American, responded to a point about how Cuba wasn't so bad, by linking to an international human rights site in Frankfurt, Germany. The only mention I made of the US is that I said if anything, the US media was too soft on Cuba. I think it can similarly be argued that the US media isn't tough enough on the US government, but that's an unrelated issue.
Apparently, what happened is that I inadvertantly stumbled into an ideological dispute between America and the rest of the world. However, all I wanted to do was point out that Cuba's problems shouldn't just be accepted and ignored. That has absolutely nothing to do with the US.
Now if we could use all this to improve the situation in the US.
The way to do that is to get ordinary people to recognize that ultimately, they are responsible for the government they get, and by simply accepting countless small injustices and wrongs, they ultimately participate in that those wrongs.
But it's very difficult to get people to take that much responsibility. They think, why should they? In the US case, I think in large measure, the apparent dichotomy between what the average person wants and what the government does is about as calculated as such things can ever be: the average soccer mom or dad can drive around in their SUV, safe and secure, knowing in the back of their mind that somewhere out there are scary people with guns and planes and bombs, making sure the oil continues to flow. They can even rationalize this by thinking that it's all about keeping them safe from terrorism. They may even say they're against the invasion of Iraq, but they're not enough against it to do anything about it.
Cuba is the way it is because of the reality it is in. The relatively minor repressions, certain limitations of freedom of speech are not caused by the evilness of Fidel - they are a natural result of Cuba's situation, just like they were in the Soviet Union.
Nonsense. What aspect of "Cuba's situation" makes this "natural"? The same applies to the Soviet Union. You speak as though these repressive governments are a natural force which should just be accepted, like the weather, but that's absurd. It's true that repressive thugs such as Castro and many of the leaders of the Soviet Union are just one aspect of human nature, along with the status-quo-loving people such as yourself who support them via inaction. However, there's plenty of evidence that it's possible to do better. By far the strongest reason for Cuba's situation is the existence of Castro's regime and the repressive laws which allow them to maintain control.
If you do not tolerate Cuba the way it is an do something stupid like asassinate Fidel, support dissidents, invade Cuba and plant a puppet government, etc., the most likely outcome will be more suffering.
Of the things you mention, the only one I would agree with is supporting dissidents of good character and motive. The people of a country have to achieve freedom on their own, it cannot be imposed from the outside. When I talk about "not tolerating", I'm talking about the attitude which you yourself display: ignoring or justifying Cuba's bad behavior by saying "it's not so bad" or "it could be worse". That is what I call tolerating repression.
There are many people who tolerate repression like this, but they're almost never the people directly affected by the problems. This only works for as long as those who are affected can be successfully repressed. Sometimes, that's a long time, which is a direct function of factors like how successful at repression the regime is, and how much the rest of the world cares about it.
Because of this one should not be to quick to say "we will not tolerate repressions in Cuba", but instead ask himself a question: "Can I suggest a better way for Cuban society to work?" It's fine and dandy to pretend that capitalism, free market and liberal democracy are universal tools with a 100% success rate applicable everywhere, but reality is not like that.
I can suggest a better way for Cuban society to work. It involves the Cuban people taking responsibility for their own government. They aren't some backwards African nation led by a brutal tribal leader, such as Zimbabwe. They are capable of doing this. The reason they don't is that they are prevented from doing so, by the repressive laws and tactics of Castro's regime.
However, these situations have a natural corrective, which is that people who object to the situation will fight against it, and will keep doing so until the conditions are right for their success. However, if one is to avoid replacing one repressive regime with another, the way to do that is to encourage people to take government into their own hands.
I think that anything that the US government may say about human rights issues should at least be taken with a grain of salt, but preferably just dismissed as imperialist propaganda.
I can show you with figures, facts, references and cross-references how what the US was telling about the Soviet Union was disingenuous lies and distortions.
Duh. Disinformation is a large part of what the cold war was about. What's your point? None of this really has anything to do with Cuba.
Soviet Union was a very different country from what you may be accustomed in the US. Contrary to what most Americans believe, in many regards it was a country of free and happy people.
Sure. You could have said the same thing about apartheid South Africa, where I grew up, as long as you ignored the black people (and even some of them would defend the system!) That doesn't mean that the bad things going on there should just have been tolerated. It's easy to live your life in almost any country if you're just willing to look the other way and ignore problems that other people are having. But that makes you a coward. You may be happy, but you also may as well not exist when it comes to your impact on the world: in fact, your impact is negative, since your inaction implicitly endorses the bad behavior of others.
You've got some kind of beef with the US, which you're inflicting on me (who is not even an American) and others to the exclusion of the actual facts in the case of Cuba. The US is irrelevant to the situation in Cuba. Even if the US was a horrible dictatorship, it wouldn't change the facts about Cuba. You mention another repressive regime, China, which I would criticize at least as much, if not more. I'm not the one singling out Cuba - for some reason, it seems you are, presumably because it is "the enemy of your enemy". The result is a very irrational and unfocused argument from you.
Because the government jails some people that work to illegally overthrow the social order?
Who imposed that social order? Did the Cuban people as a whole have any say in it? If you held free elections in Cuba, would they elect the same sort of government?
You're simply being an apologist for repression, and you remind me of many of my South African (ex-)countrymen. Here's the deal: as long as you're willing to ignore the injustices around you in favor of a more comfortable life for yourself, you will come in for attack from people who aren't as lucky as you. What happened in the Soviet Union wasn't America's fault, just as what's happening in Cuba isn't America's fault. The people who have the power to change a country are the people of that country. If you sit around and claim that change isn't necessary, when all the facts are against you, chances are you're going to come into conflict with world history. It sounds like that happened to you, and now you're trying to blame America, but not yourself or your fellow countrymen. What you have experienced is karma, pure and simple.
For the record, I've been to Cuba, toured the countryside ~alone~, and have been invited into people's homes and had dinner with 'normal' people. They're not living in constant fear of the Gestapo
The people who are willing to criticize and fight from within a repressive regime are always a minority. The majority want to live their lives in the situation they find themselves in - that doesn't mean they like it, or don't wish things were different. By their inaction, these people passively help to perpetuate the conditions they dislike.
There's another minority who is willing to defend such regimes, and thus actively help perpetuate them. Congratulations, you appear to be one of these people.
Close, but I think you meant to say "ordinary white citizens".
Yes, you're right.
This is something to keep in mind when Americans congratulate themselves on their free and open society.
I agree. However, when you get down to it, what does any of this have to do with criticism of repression in Cuba? Repression should be criticized and fought wherever it is found, including in the U.S.
I'm not singling Cuba out - what makes you think I am? I responded to someone who made it sound as though things in Cuba were just peachy. Such comments don't help an unjust situation, because people are all too eager to turn a blind eye to injustice as long as it doesn't affect them. I would have responded similarly to a similar comment about any similarly repressive situation.
As for repressive countries, there's a spectrum of such things, and I'll point out for the third time in this subthread, that pretending that all points on the spectrum are equally bad is only helpful to "prove" false points, which usually means the person doing the proving has some agenda. The interesting question in this case is, what is the agenda of all the people who react so strangely to Cuba's human rights issues being highlighted? Are they in favor of human rights violations? It's quite strange!
I would agree with the alleged Canadian position that Cuba isn't "any worse than dozens of other repressive countries, and better than many." Nothing I wrote was intended to imply anything else. However, it's still repressive, and the fact that it's not the most repressive doesn't justify it being excused, ignored, or IMO, even tolerated.
Re pot smokers, I know a number of white American pot smokers, ranging from blue-collar people to lawyers and other professionals. None of them has ever been arrested for it. It seems the war on drugs has a strong racial component, too.
The information you cite is from the anti-Castro loby in the USA
False. The information I cited was from an international, European-based human rights group that studies human rights in many countries, not just Cuba.
Cuba has had a better human rights record than the USA since the late 70s.
Both countries have human rights issues, but that doesn't make either country's violations right, nor does it make them the same. You can't excuse a crime by pointing out that someone else is also a criminal, of a different sort. Cuba's human rights problems certainly affect more ordinary Cuban citizens than is the case in the US.
North Korea is at least as stable as Cuba is, and that was my point. Cuba is also run by a nut.
You're suggesting that North Korea's status could change dramatically in the near future, but so could Cuba's, when Castro dies. The similarities are clear.
"From their way of looking at the world"
Except that "their" refers to Castro and his henchmen. That's the problem here: this is an imposed regime, not something that is willingly accepted by the people of Cuba. If it were, they could hold democratic elections in Cuba, and they would still elect the same sort of government.
Comparisons to a place like Haiti are meaningless: there are too many variables.
Yes, the US anti-terrorist laws are quite different. They can't simply be applied by any local policeman to arrest someone they don't like. As a result of these kinds of differences in laws and enforcement, there's a big difference in the degree to which citizens of each country fear their own government.
As I responded to another poster in this subthread, there's a spectrum of human rights issues, and collapsing the spectrum to make all violations equal to each other is not helpful, except to "prove" a false point.
What I find most amusing is how my original post about how Cuba's human rights issues should not be underestimated results in so many responses about the US. Why is that? I'm not an American, and I didn't say anything about America except to say that I thought the American media was too soft on Cuba.
Re:Are you talking about the US or Cuba?
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Cuba Switching to Linux
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FYI, I'm not an American, and the page about Cuban human rights abuses which I linked to is a European/international human rights group. So I don't think your generalization about other countries is particularly relevant. It's true that many Europeans seem particularly insensitive to issues of political repression, but that's perhaps why they keep getting into trouble along those lines.
I have lived for a number of years in America, though, and my experience is that ordinary citizens there aren't afraid of their government(s) in the same way that they are in Cuba. Any comparison in terms of repressiveness between the two countries is largely silly, even despite the current overreaction to terrorism. There's a spectrum of human rights issues, and no country on Earth is perfect, and particularly no English-speaking country (if there was one, I would live there). Smooshing the spectrum to make all violations equal to each other is only useful as an extremist rhetorical tactic.
I don't buy the pot smoker comparison, either: show me the pot smoker (not dealer) who is in jail for one to four years for mere possession of single-person quantities. At least such a person committed a crime, though, even if it shouldn't be a crime: they get due process under the law, unlike Cubans imprisoned for pre-crimes. You can't have due process when you don't know what actions might trigger your arrest and imprisonment.
Regarding US imprisonment rates, that seems to be largely a racial thing. Amazing how long the legacy of slavery has lasted. So yes, it can suck to be black in America. In Cuba, it sucks to be Cuban.
The strength of a company is not in its products but in the quality of their people, and right now, it looks like Google has the very best.
Exactly. There was a time when the same was true of Microsoft - they were a group of some of the smartest people in the world. Somewhere in its enormous growth, though, that ceased to be true. The only thing that threatens Microsoft is a large group of smarter, fresher people, and Google right now is a top contender. Expect Microsoft's anti-Google FUD to get worse.
See my response here. You're right, you can "conveniently look only at the good qualities of Cuba", and in so doing, you collaborate in the repression of the Cuban people.
As for US sanctions prolonging Castro's rule, I think that's unlikely. If anything, other countries should be following the US lead. Note that sanctions can be very successful when applied properly, by the world community: the sanctions against South Africa were a major factor in ending the apartheid government there, and having grown up as a South African myself, I appreciated them.
I'm looking forward to the day when Castro dies as that will be a turning point for the country when they have to decide 'what next', and won't have a charismatic leader to prolong communism.
Unfortunately, people who have been repressed for so long don't easily snap out of it.
Re:Are you talking about the US or Cuba?
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Cuba Switching to Linux
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Two points:
First, there's an issue of degree. There are far more ordinary people in Cuban prisons, who would not be imprisoned in any free country. This imprisonment doesn't require national-level exceptions to normal rules of due process, it's a routine thing. That's not the case with Jose Padilla.
Second, I wasn't defending the US, I was pointing out that Cuba is still a very repressive place, and those who want to pretend that everything's cool and its problems should just be accepted with a wink are themselves collaborating in the repression of the Cuban people.
You and those European and Canadian travellers are merely turning a blind eye to the repression of the Cuban people, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
On the off-chance that you'd like to alleviate your some of your ignorance about Cuba, I recommend studying its current human rights record. This page is a good place to start. Note that this is from a European human rights agency, to take the question of American bias out of the picture. Also, see my post here for a summary.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, when you see a pair of sword fighters battling it out in mid-air, why on earth would you expect the physics to be normal? They're flying, for pity's sake! Without wings, or engines! How do you know the physics aren't perfectly correct, for sword fighters with flying superpowers?? You may as well complain about the physics of Superman!
Both Anakin/Vader and his mentor Obi-Wan die to save Luke, and Luke goes on to help save the galaxy and as you say, develop a less stuffy Jedi ethic. It seems as though any prophecy should have been more interested in predicting Luke than Anakin.
Then again, the Oracle in The Matrix told Neo what he needed to hear. If the prophesy was truly about Anakin, that may have been what was needed to bring about the desired chain of events. But that would imply some interesting things about the creator or source of the prophecy -- was the prophecy "merely" a matter of foreseeing the future, or was it a case of manipulating destiny by an entity with godlike powers who could foresee all outcomes? Either way, what does it say about free will in the Star Wars universe?
Here's Google's personal home page offering:
/.
http://www.google.com/ig
It was featured the other day on
Then why is the iron fist necessary? It isn't necessary in many other countries. It's necessary in Cuba because it's more important to Castro and his regime to retain their own power than to act in the true interests of the Cuban people. Castro and his regime's tactics are holding the Cuban people back, it is not a question of them getting a government that is suited to their situation.
Regarding elections in Cuba, I followed the April election with interest, but if you believe that this is an example of what participatory democracy is about, you don't understand democracy at all. I grew up in a country which had joke elections, and I know all about it. All the signs are that Cuba's are worse. It's like the old Ford line about being able to have any colour you like as long as it's black. You can have any president and party you like as long as it's Castro's Communist party. If a candidate for local office arose who differed significantly from the party position, he'd be arrested as a dissident, for crimes which are not considered crimes in any free country. The courts in Cuba are not independent, they're controlled by the executive government. According to Amnesty International, Cuba has one of the highest rates of political dissidents, i.e. "prisoners of conscience", in jail. To achieve this, Cuba shares one of the worst characteristics that the old South Africa had: informing by ordinary people on their neighbors. That might seem relatively benign to the uninformed, but it forms an important part of some of the most repressive social control tactics imaginable. I imagine you have some experience with that, I'd be interested to hear your spin on it.
You pointed to Cuban propaganda about their elections, but that's just as silly as if I pointed you to American propaganda. That's why the link I posted in my original message was to an international human rights organization based in Germany. However, you say you have a problem with the position of Western governments in general, and presumably by extension, the various human rights organizations. So let me ask you this: what relatively independent organization can you point to which analyzes the Cuban situation in a favorable way? All I see when I look are human rights organizations, many of which are often thorns in their own governments sides, like Amnesty International, which make the same criticisms of Cuba. Here's Amnesty's Cuba Summary, and a summary of the 2003 dissident crackdown. Amnesty hasn't been allowed in Cuba since 1988, but that itself is a sign of a problem. The UN Human Rights Commission has to pass resolutions to force Cuba to allow human rights investigators to visit. Even many of Cuba's Latin American allies vote in favor of such resolutions, much to Cuba's anger. Why the anger, why the attempt at secrecy? Evil flourishes in the darkness.
Perhaps this discussion ultimately comes down to irreconcilable political differences about attitudes to human rights and the importance of the state vs. the individual. You call what the Western governments say about Cuba "lies", but some of those "lies" are things which I believe deeply, starting with the importance of human rights that go beyond just the basic necessity, and extend to rights of political and intellectual freedom. By my definition, a healthy state cannot exist when its people aren't allowed to exercise such basic freedoms. Many Cubans feel this way too, and are simply having such rights suppressed. That's what I say cannot be tolerated. Such repression is a sign that something is seriously wrong. You can put all the political spin on it you like, and it still stinks.
I can't tell if that's because you're all self-absorbed Americans, or self-absorbed non-Americans who hate the US. The subject here is Cuba, and I was talking about Cuba. What the fuck does the US really have to do with this?
It seems to me that the point that's being made is Cuba's behavior should be tolerated because America also does bad things. What kind of moronic logic is that? Neither should be accepted! But that doesn't mean that you can't have a discussion about Cuba without dragging every other country in the world into it.
I don't know for sure, and that's the point. By preventing a true democratic choice, Castro's regime demonstrates that it's more interested in retaining its own power than in allowing the Cuban people to participate in their own government. That's precisely what makes Cuba's government wrong, and why it shouldn't be tolerated any more than any other self-appointed government.
The difference with Cuba is that Cuba is imprisoning its own citizens unfairly, so that its self-appointed government can retain control. The American government may be committing crimes, but as a government, it's about as legitimate as human governments get. Cuba's is not.
I'd like to know what your real point is: are you saying that the US is as bad as Cuba, and thus Cuba should not be criticized, but rather simply accepted as is? Surely not.
Right, but I still fail to see what this has to do with my original post, in which I, a non-American, responded to a point about how Cuba wasn't so bad, by linking to an international human rights site in Frankfurt, Germany. The only mention I made of the US is that I said if anything, the US media was too soft on Cuba. I think it can similarly be argued that the US media isn't tough enough on the US government, but that's an unrelated issue.
Apparently, what happened is that I inadvertantly stumbled into an ideological dispute between America and the rest of the world. However, all I wanted to do was point out that Cuba's problems shouldn't just be accepted and ignored. That has absolutely nothing to do with the US.
The way to do that is to get ordinary people to recognize that ultimately, they are responsible for the government they get, and by simply accepting countless small injustices and wrongs, they ultimately participate in that those wrongs.
But it's very difficult to get people to take that much responsibility. They think, why should they? In the US case, I think in large measure, the apparent dichotomy between what the average person wants and what the government does is about as calculated as such things can ever be: the average soccer mom or dad can drive around in their SUV, safe and secure, knowing in the back of their mind that somewhere out there are scary people with guns and planes and bombs, making sure the oil continues to flow. They can even rationalize this by thinking that it's all about keeping them safe from terrorism. They may even say they're against the invasion of Iraq, but they're not enough against it to do anything about it.
Nonsense. What aspect of "Cuba's situation" makes this "natural"? The same applies to the Soviet Union. You speak as though these repressive governments are a natural force which should just be accepted, like the weather, but that's absurd. It's true that repressive thugs such as Castro and many of the leaders of the Soviet Union are just one aspect of human nature, along with the status-quo-loving people such as yourself who support them via inaction. However, there's plenty of evidence that it's possible to do better. By far the strongest reason for Cuba's situation is the existence of Castro's regime and the repressive laws which allow them to maintain control.
Of the things you mention, the only one I would agree with is supporting dissidents of good character and motive. The people of a country have to achieve freedom on their own, it cannot be imposed from the outside. When I talk about "not tolerating", I'm talking about the attitude which you yourself display: ignoring or justifying Cuba's bad behavior by saying "it's not so bad" or "it could be worse". That is what I call tolerating repression.
There are many people who tolerate repression like this, but they're almost never the people directly affected by the problems. This only works for as long as those who are affected can be successfully repressed. Sometimes, that's a long time, which is a direct function of factors like how successful at repression the regime is, and how much the rest of the world cares about it.
I can suggest a better way for Cuban society to work. It involves the Cuban people taking responsibility for their own government. They aren't some backwards African nation led by a brutal tribal leader, such as Zimbabwe. They are capable of doing this. The reason they don't is that they are prevented from doing so, by the repressive laws and tactics of Castro's regime.
However, these situations have a natural corrective, which is that people who object to the situation will fight against it, and will keep doing so until the conditions are right for their success. However, if one is to avoid replacing one repressive regime with another, the way to do that is to encourage people to take government into their own hands.
I'm not an American, and the site I linked to is an international human rights organization based out of Germany.
It's amazing how talking about Cuba raises a minor army of irrationally off-topic anti-Americans.
They're not imprisoning ordinary American citizens who haven't committed a crime. What's your point?
Sure. You could have said the same thing about apartheid South Africa, where I grew up, as long as you ignored the black people (and even some of them would defend the system!) That doesn't mean that the bad things going on there should just have been tolerated. It's easy to live your life in almost any country if you're just willing to look the other way and ignore problems that other people are having. But that makes you a coward. You may be happy, but you also may as well not exist when it comes to your impact on the world: in fact, your impact is negative, since your inaction implicitly endorses the bad behavior of others.
You've got some kind of beef with the US, which you're inflicting on me (who is not even an American) and others to the exclusion of the actual facts in the case of Cuba. The US is irrelevant to the situation in Cuba. Even if the US was a horrible dictatorship, it wouldn't change the facts about Cuba. You mention another repressive regime, China, which I would criticize at least as much, if not more. I'm not the one singling out Cuba - for some reason, it seems you are, presumably because it is "the enemy of your enemy". The result is a very irrational and unfocused argument from you.
Who imposed that social order? Did the Cuban people as a whole have any say in it? If you held free elections in Cuba, would they elect the same sort of government?
You're simply being an apologist for repression, and you remind me of many of my South African (ex-)countrymen. Here's the deal: as long as you're willing to ignore the injustices around you in favor of a more comfortable life for yourself, you will come in for attack from people who aren't as lucky as you. What happened in the Soviet Union wasn't America's fault, just as what's happening in Cuba isn't America's fault. The people who have the power to change a country are the people of that country. If you sit around and claim that change isn't necessary, when all the facts are against you, chances are you're going to come into conflict with world history. It sounds like that happened to you, and now you're trying to blame America, but not yourself or your fellow countrymen. What you have experienced is karma, pure and simple.
The people who are willing to criticize and fight from within a repressive regime are always a minority. The majority want to live their lives in the situation they find themselves in - that doesn't mean they like it, or don't wish things were different. By their inaction, these people passively help to perpetuate the conditions they dislike.
There's another minority who is willing to defend such regimes, and thus actively help perpetuate them. Congratulations, you appear to be one of these people.
I'm not singling Cuba out - what makes you think I am? I responded to someone who made it sound as though things in Cuba were just peachy. Such comments don't help an unjust situation, because people are all too eager to turn a blind eye to injustice as long as it doesn't affect them. I would have responded similarly to a similar comment about any similarly repressive situation.
As for repressive countries, there's a spectrum of such things, and I'll point out for the third time in this subthread, that pretending that all points on the spectrum are equally bad is only helpful to "prove" false points, which usually means the person doing the proving has some agenda. The interesting question in this case is, what is the agenda of all the people who react so strangely to Cuba's human rights issues being highlighted? Are they in favor of human rights violations? It's quite strange!
I would agree with the alleged Canadian position that Cuba isn't "any worse than dozens of other repressive countries, and better than many." Nothing I wrote was intended to imply anything else. However, it's still repressive, and the fact that it's not the most repressive doesn't justify it being excused, ignored, or IMO, even tolerated.
Re pot smokers, I know a number of white American pot smokers, ranging from blue-collar people to lawyers and other professionals. None of them has ever been arrested for it. It seems the war on drugs has a strong racial component, too.
North Korea is at least as stable as Cuba is, and that was my point. Cuba is also run by a nut. You're suggesting that North Korea's status could change dramatically in the near future, but so could Cuba's, when Castro dies. The similarities are clear.
Except that "their" refers to Castro and his henchmen. That's the problem here: this is an imposed regime, not something that is willingly accepted by the people of Cuba. If it were, they could hold democratic elections in Cuba, and they would still elect the same sort of government.
Comparisons to a place like Haiti are meaningless: there are too many variables.
Yes, the US anti-terrorist laws are quite different. They can't simply be applied by any local policeman to arrest someone they don't like. As a result of these kinds of differences in laws and enforcement, there's a big difference in the degree to which citizens of each country fear their own government.
As I responded to another poster in this subthread, there's a spectrum of human rights issues, and collapsing the spectrum to make all violations equal to each other is not helpful, except to "prove" a false point.
What I find most amusing is how my original post about how Cuba's human rights issues should not be underestimated results in so many responses about the US. Why is that? I'm not an American, and I didn't say anything about America except to say that I thought the American media was too soft on Cuba.
FYI, I'm not an American, and the page about Cuban human rights abuses which I linked to is a European/international human rights group. So I don't think your generalization about other countries is particularly relevant. It's true that many Europeans seem particularly insensitive to issues of political repression, but that's perhaps why they keep getting into trouble along those lines.
I have lived for a number of years in America, though, and my experience is that ordinary citizens there aren't afraid of their government(s) in the same way that they are in Cuba. Any comparison in terms of repressiveness between the two countries is largely silly, even despite the current overreaction to terrorism. There's a spectrum of human rights issues, and no country on Earth is perfect, and particularly no English-speaking country (if there was one, I would live there). Smooshing the spectrum to make all violations equal to each other is only useful as an extremist rhetorical tactic.
I don't buy the pot smoker comparison, either: show me the pot smoker (not dealer) who is in jail for one to four years for mere possession of single-person quantities. At least such a person committed a crime, though, even if it shouldn't be a crime: they get due process under the law, unlike Cubans imprisoned for pre-crimes. You can't have due process when you don't know what actions might trigger your arrest and imprisonment.
Regarding US imprisonment rates, that seems to be largely a racial thing. Amazing how long the legacy of slavery has lasted. So yes, it can suck to be black in America. In Cuba, it sucks to be Cuban.
See my response here. You're right, you can "conveniently look only at the good qualities of Cuba", and in so doing, you collaborate in the repression of the Cuban people.
As for US sanctions prolonging Castro's rule, I think that's unlikely. If anything, other countries should be following the US lead. Note that sanctions can be very successful when applied properly, by the world community: the sanctions against South Africa were a major factor in ending the apartheid government there, and having grown up as a South African myself, I appreciated them.
Unfortunately, people who have been repressed for so long don't easily snap out of it.
Two points:
First, there's an issue of degree. There are far more ordinary people in Cuban prisons, who would not be imprisoned in any free country. This imprisonment doesn't require national-level exceptions to normal rules of due process, it's a routine thing. That's not the case with Jose Padilla.
Second, I wasn't defending the US, I was pointing out that Cuba is still a very repressive place, and those who want to pretend that everything's cool and its problems should just be accepted with a wink are themselves collaborating in the repression of the Cuban people.
You and those European and Canadian travellers are merely turning a blind eye to the repression of the Cuban people, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
On the off-chance that you'd like to alleviate your some of your ignorance about Cuba, I recommend studying its current human rights record. This page is a good place to start. Note that this is from a European human rights agency, to take the question of American bias out of the picture. Also, see my post here for a summary.