: If Cuba isn't a dictatorship, why did they have the support of the dictators?That doesn't amke any sense. Which dictators are you talking about? The Soviets? First of all, the post-Stalin USSR was a party-state, nota dictatorship. Secondly, Cuba also had the support of the world's largest liberal democracy (India). Does that make it a liberal democracy according to your logic?
: Uhh, huh. They like it so much that they make little rafts to escape and the Cuban military forces them to stay in the country. That's real love, man.
1) what percentage of the Cuban people attempt to escape? Something miniscule I would think. This is purely anecdotal. In any system you're going to have people who don't fit in. But there are less of those in Cuba than in other countries. In general, socialist societies have done away with alienation.
2) the reaosn why the US takes more Cuban refugees is because it ahs a policy of favoring people escapingfrom communsit countries. The Guatemalans, who were in danger of being amssacred in their own country, were summarily turned away at the door. The right-wing dictatorships of Latin America produced more refugees than Cuba, but these refugees were turned away by America.
3) how many of these 'refugees" are leaving for political reasons, and how many of them just can't stand living in a society where they are equal to everyone elze, rich, poor, white and black?
4) you haven't even addressd my substantive point- if they were dissatisfied, mroe of tehm would turn in spoiled ballots.
: : 3) Cuba has a measure of participatory democracy in that people's input is tken into account in making decisions.
: In what way does peoples input count?
Cuba has a degree of participatory democracy. The people elect candidates to the national assembly, and also control economic decisions through their presenbce on decision-making councils.
: : 4)Cuba's free speech record has markedly improved in recent years, revisionist communsim is now legal over there.
: Uhh, OK.
Is this a response?
: : 5) Cuba has never had death squads, genocide, etc. unliek otehr Latin American countries.
: THa's cause it's a small, isolated country. Not too many different groups inhabit Cuba, and it is not nationalist.
1) Cuba is neither small nor isolated. It has more people than Somoza's Nicaragua or Rios' Guatemalla, both of which carried out repression or genocide. It has more people than Uruguay, which was at one point possibly the most repressive country in the world.
2) Cuba is possibly the least isolated country in the world. more Cuban volunteers serve overseas than almsot any other country. Cuba sends doctors to South Africa, and has volunteered in the past to send medical relief to the deprived people of Harlem.
: : 6) On the question of libertarianism, did you knoa that Cuba has no laws agaisnt homosexuality, whereas many American states do?
: What laws against gays? In the US, gays arfe generally more protected than regular people.
you evidently are not familiar with the anti-sodomy statutes that are on the books in many states? In Bowers vs. Hardwick (mid-80s) the Supreme Court ruled thet Georgia had the right to ban gay sex. My home state of Massachusetts forbids fornication, either hetero- or homosexual. I think oral sex and/or fornication are also illegal in about a dozen states.
Cuba's laws say taht homosexuality is just as natural as heterosexuality. Can you seriously imagine ANY American state government conceding that? I think not.
: : 7) Castro has killed an absolute MAXIMUM of 12,000 people in 40 years, while his right-wing predecessor killed 20,000 in seven years.
: Right wing, yes. Capitalist, no.
He was capitalist in the same sense that Stalin was a communist. He was capitalist in the sense that he served teh interests of the US business class. Why else do you think the US continues its shameful embargo on Cuba?
