Current Events > It's been odd seeing leftists be critical of the Cuban protests.

(+) Yeah! (+)

If its not their dismissal of the protests as CIA manufactured, then its criticizing the U.S. for its embargo on Cuba. Like not much criticism of the authoritarian government or the police abuse thats been unleashed on the demonstrators.

And even then theres the misinformation that an embargo on food led to a shortage and caused the protests but there hasnt been an embargo on food or humanitarian supplies since 2000.

And when a Chinese-state news Twitter account posted a headline about the Cuban governments mismanagement, a bunch of leftists started demanding it be removed and it was. The f is going on

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I have no idea what you're saying.

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I... don't know, TC. What's going on with you?

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Once you realize there's no such thing as a Democratic socialist it's not too odd.

Every time you see political activists - and yes, this 100% applies to the right too - acting in a way that doesn't seem to align with their proclaimed values; consider whether it might make more sense if you assume they're operating under more of a "follow whatever our guy says" mentality.

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Cuban government is now flying fighter jets over neighborhoods to intimidate the population.

https://twitter.com/cristiancrespoj/status/1415734068684234752?s=21

ChocoboMogALT posted...

I have no idea what you're saying.

CyricZ posted...

I... don't know, TC. What's going on with you?

You guys/gals not on social media & following whats been going on in Cuba?

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How'd they get American flags? You think you get that shit from Chiner?

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Unsugarized_Foo posted...

How'd they get American flags? You think you get that shit from Chiner?

?

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Now AOC is being called stuff like gusana & social fascist for her statement. She supports the Cubans protesting for their rights, condemns the anti-democratic actions by the Cuban government, & criticizes the U.S. embargo & wants it lifted.

https://twitter.com/repaoc/status/1415825886981545992?s=21

So that statement right there is somehow not liberal or leftist enough and shes being attacked not only by the right but also the left. Is this the horseshoe theory in effect?

And I thought Fidel Castro and his supporters were the ones that started using the word gusano towards the other Cubans. It looks like LatinX people who are not considered leftist/liberal enough are now being called gusano/gusana, even if theyre not Cuban or of Cuban descent.

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dems like AOC want Cuba to be controlled by Chy-na or Putin, and it's no secret why

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I know this seems opposite of my hyper liberal anti conservative posting history, but the far far left on twitter are unironically on the same page as the alt right

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imagine being a cuban refugee publicly denouncing Castro and getting called a gusano by a bunch of sheltered white kids

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Why do communists end up having to build walls to keep people from leaving?
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So many alts itt

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metallica846 posted...

Why has the US embargoed a country for 60 years?

Why would the U.S. trade with a communist country?
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Djijdjs62hs posted...

Why would the U.S. trade with a communist country?

You mean like China?

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hockeybub89 posted...

You mean like China?

Yes, we shouldn't be trading with them either and should embargo them too.
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metallica846 posted...

Thats very true. Why would we ever do that? Oh wait, Vietnam is communist and we trade with them.

Djijdjs62hs posted...

Yes, we shouldn't be trading with them either and should embargo them too.

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Djijdjs62hs posted...

Why do communists end up having to build walls to keep people from leaving?

There's no wall around Cuba, it's an island. Though basically no one was allowed to leave until 2012, and it's still hard to leave for most (if you are a doctor or someone else they can't afford to lose, you can't leave). I wouldn't really call their system communist though (I realize they call it that, but what a country calls itself and what it actually is aren't the same). Communism refers to a classless, stateless, moneyless society and it has all of those. Socialism also usually implies worker control of the means of production and it doesn't have that.

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Basically, we should be embargoing most of the world, tbh:

https://youtu.be/yoVgQ82QcXY
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ssjevot posted...

Communism refers to a classless, stateless, moneyless society

This is such a nonsense idea, but with this you can say that Communism hasn't ever been done, and never will.

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shnangyboos posted...

This is such a nonsense idea, but with this you can say that Communism hasn't ever been done, and never will.

It's not my idea. Read the Communist Manifesto. You don't have to agree with it or think it's possible, but that's what it is. A lot of power hungry people have used it as a front for their authoritarian regimes, but that doesn't mean it means an authoritarian regime is what communism is.

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If that truly is what Communism is, I don't know why it's discussed as even a possibility. We might as well form an economic system around replicators.

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shnangyboos posted...

If that truly is what Communism is, I don't know why it's discussed as even a possibility. We might as well form an economic system around replicators.

A lot of leftists advocate for socialism in various forms and communism is simply an ideal state. Some think it can be achieved and some thing it can't. There is a large school of thought in leftism and even some capitalist ideologies that borrow elements from it such as social democracy. That some authoritarian regimes claim to be leftist to maintain power isn't an excuse to throw out the idea entirely anymore than you thinking communism can't be achieved is. There are many things worth discussing within the school of leftist thought.

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iPhone_7 posted...

You guys/gals not on social media & following whats been going on in Cuba?

So, first of all, you keep using pronouns and alluding to people without giving any context or sources.
Second, you're grouping "leftists" with whom, exactly? There's a wide range of opinions on Cuba within both parties.
You posted an AOC tweet to prove your point when she's doing the exact opposite.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say unless you're just trying to dredge up some boogeyman.

ssjevot posted...

Communism refers to a classless, stateless, moneyless society and it has all of those. Socialism also usually implies worker control of the means of production and it doesn't have that.

Yeah, this is ridiculous. I lived on a commune (briefly), that's "communism" as much as Mao-ism or Leninism is. Both Cuban and Chinese societies are classless, means of living provided by the state, and the workers do control the means of production - as much as they do in Animal Farm.

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ChocoboMog123 posted...

Both Cuban and Chinese societies are classless, means of living provided by the state, and the workers do control the means of production - as much as they do in Animal Farm.

That's absolutely not true. China even has you born into an explicit class system with the hukou determining where you can live and work. China has little to no state support for people. It also has a very large income inequality problem (as would be expected from the country with more millionaires and billionaires than any other, but poverty defined at less than $1.90 a day). Cuba had protests due to a lack of support from the state and also explicitly divides people based on where they work and even used to use a dual currency system as part of this. Animal Farm demonstrates a system where people use communist rhetoric to establish an authoritarian state for their benefit. It was written by a leftist by the way.

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ssjevot posted...

Animal Farm demonstrates a system where people use communist rhetoric to establish an authoritarian state for their benefit. It was written by a leftist by the way.

I always took Animal Farm as a warning against traitors to the revolution, the anti-communist George Orwells inaccurate historical comparison aside.

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The weirdest part about this is that these people genuinely believe there has never been anything worth protesting in 60 years of single-party rule. And the more likely scenario is that the CIA has thousands of paid actors in Cuba.

The whole point of Marxism is to be critical tho.

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Why is it the US's fault that Cuba is a communist hellhole

The embargo isn't even what's causing Cuba to be a shithole. It's the governments complete ineptitude at doing anything successful. Not to say the embargo isn't bad, it should be done away with. But maybe blame the anti-democratic one party military regime for the state of the country, rather than it's citizens. Seems kind of sketchy that leftists, who should hate things like authoritarianism, really love to simp for it when it comes to countries they like (China and the Uyghurs, and now Cuba and the protests).

The Cuban people having American flags or whatever is probably due to the fact that most Cubans who migrate to America tend to like it, enough to mostly be conservative. Word gets around, and maybe, just maybe, Cuba is waving american flags because they want to adopt an actual democratic system, much like America's.

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unnamedsoldier posted...

Why is it the US's fault that Cuba is a communist hellhole

It's not, lefties just never have any idea at what they're talking about. They embrace the craziest conspiracy theories just as fast as a Trump supporter if it supports their view point.

It's easier for them to blame the magical CIA, rather than admit that Cuba's government is horrendous and abusive.

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hsvhighlife posted...

dems like AOC want Cuba to be controlled by Chy-na or Putin, and it's no secret why

Tell me you dont understand international politics without telling me you dont understand international politics

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hsvhighlife posted...

dems like AOC want Cuba to be controlled by Chy-na or Putin, and it's no secret why

AOC is actually, surprisingly supporting the protests, and is critical of the Cuban government and also of the embargoes. So no, her take is pretty based.

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Starting to see an interesting trend on CE that whenever someone speaks on leftists, it's always some caricature or strawman

I wonder what the motivation for such behavior could be

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Gwynevere posted...

Starting to see an interesting trend on CE that whenever someone speaks on leftists, it's always some caricature or strawman

I wonder what the motivation for such behavior could be

Starting to see a trend on every social media platform, that when a shitty country does a shitty thing, lefties seem to want to go to bat for them.

I wonder what motivation for such behavior could be

Also, amazing contribution to the topic <:)

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Gwynevere posted...

Starting to see an interesting trend on CE that whenever someone speaks on leftists, it's always some caricature or strawman

It's not a strawman, but you are gaslighting.

Gwynevere posted...

Starting to see an interesting trend on CE that whenever someone speaks on leftists, it's always some caricature or strawman

I wonder what the motivation for such behavior could be

How would you design the perfect, communist state that won't turn totalitarian? I've been told that countries like China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc. are no longer communist. They are considered totalitarian, authoritarian, and sometimes even fascist/right wing/capitalist.

But they were communist at one point, weren't they? If so, how would you set up a communist state that could not be hijacked and turned into a country like the ones listed above?
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Djijdjs62hs posted...

How would you design the perfect, communist state that won't turn totalitarian? I've been told that countries like China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc. are no longer communist. They are considered totalitarian, authoritarian, and sometimes even fascist/right wing/capitalist.

But they were communist at one point, weren't they? If so, how would you set up a communist state that could not be hijacked and turned into a country like the ones listed above?

Cuba's government owns production of most stuff. And labor is mostly state employed

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Samurontai posted...

Cuba's government owns production of most stuff. And labor is mostly state employed

So it's communist?
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Djijdjs62hs posted...

So it's communist?

You'd think, but they're considered socialist.

Honestly, I have no idea what they are. I think their "private sector" is socialist, but eh government siezing everything may just be that authoritarian shit that tends to follow in it's foot steps.

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https://cubaonthehorizon.cofc.edu/the-cuban-economy/

Cuba has a planned-socialist economy. Planned socialism was the economic system of the Soviet Union, the Soviet-bloc countries like East Germany (the German Democratic Republic), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Planned socialism was the economic system of Maoist China. For three decades after World War II, about a third of the Worlds population lived under the planned-socialist economic system. Today, only Cuba and North Korea remain.
Planned socialism and capitalism differ along four distinct dimensions: ownership and control of resources, the structure of decision making and information, the incentives that motivate economic behavior, and the mechanism that coordinates the decisions of economic actors (producers and consumers).
The capitalist system is based on private ownership and control of all resources: labor, capital, land, and entrepreneurship. Planned socialism is based on state ownership of all resources other than labor. While labor is not owned by the state (they are not slave economies!), the planned-socialist state nevertheless exerts a great deal of control over labor and almost total control over all other resources.

Planned socialist, apparently.

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Djijdjs62hs posted...

How would you design the perfect, communist state that won't turn totalitarian? I've been told that countries like China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc. are no longer communist. They are considered totalitarian, authoritarian, and sometimes even fascist/right wing/capitalist.

But they were communist at one point, weren't they? If so, how would you set up a communist state that could not be hijacked and turned into a country like the ones listed above?

The closest thing to an actually existing communist society is the Zapatistas in Mexico. They have abolished private (not personal) property, class, and rely very little on currency based economics within their area (they do trade with the capitalist rest of Mexico and occasionally use currency for that). They have no rulers, things are effectively done as direct democracy.

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ssjevot posted...

The closest thing to an actually existing communist society is the Zapatistas in Mexico. They have abolished private (not personal) property, class, and rely very little on currency based economics within their area (they do trade with the capitalist rest of Mexico and occasionally use currency for that). They have no rulers, things are effectively done as direct democracy.

Would you want to go move there? Because I think I'm good here in America.
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Djijdjs62hs posted...

Would you want to go move there? Because I think I'm good here in America.

No, people think if I talk about ideas it means I advocate them. I have lived in many places. I currently live in Japan, and I support the Japanese Communist Party here, but what they advocate for isn't necessarily the same as that, but they are very opposed to organizations like the former USSR and the modern Chinese Communist Party. Having spent a lot of time in China myself, I certainly don't want to live under that system, but having spent far more time in America I don't like the system there either. Japan has its own share of problems, but it's much safer here and the social safety nets largely prevent the abject poverty you see all over the US and rural China.

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I've been to Asia, Europe, Mexico, and various states in America. I'm happy here in America.
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