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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Castro's legacy
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model. Castro was not this, but maybe closer than many. Definitely closer than Saudi or Korea. ...
One often hears people say this. Can you name any actual example?[/QB]
Paul Kagame?
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model.
Is there such a thing? Castro enriched himself while the Cuban people suffered a drop in their standard of living.
The daughter of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator, is the wealthiest person in Venezuela.
The problem with benign dictators is that we are all fallen selfish individuals.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model.
Is there such a thing? Castro enriched himself while the Cuban people suffered a drop in their standard of living.
Have they? I thought that was the point of debate?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model.
Is there such a thing? Castro enriched himself while the Cuban people suffered a drop in their standard of living.
Have they? I thought that was the point of debate?
I thought Cuba's GDP per head is the same now as it was in 1959.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model.
Is there such a thing? Castro enriched himself while the Cuban people suffered a drop in their standard of living.
Have they? I thought that was the point of debate?
I thought Cuba's GDP per head is the same now as it was in 1959.
That may be so, but if it is spread around then more people are better off: not just Castro.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I still think a benign dictator is a good model.
Is there such a thing? Castro enriched himself while the Cuban people suffered a drop in their standard of living.
Have they? I thought that was the point of debate?
I thought Cuba's GDP per head is the same now as it was in 1959.
That may be so, but if it is spread around then more people are better off: not just Castro.
Trying to find the upsides to 50 years of economic stagnation is quite bold, I think.
And of course Castro (net worth $900,000,000) was rather more better off than others.
[ 29. November 2016, 13:40: Message edited by: Anglican't ]
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Stagnation in large part caused by the 58 year US embargos.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
A lot of left-wing idealists say wonderful things about "the will of the people", but when the will of the people runs counter to what they think it should be (Tories elected, Brexit, Trump elected, etc.) their opinions about it seem to change very quickly.
This links in very interestingly with their praise for Castro, who was a textbook example of a dictator who didn't give a shit about the will of the people other than when he told them what it was. One can't help but think that their real position is that democracy and individual freedoms are a small price to pay for better healthcare and education.
You make an interesting point about "giving a shit about the will of the people. It it too jaded to suggest that not giving a shit about the will of the people is general characteristic of governance today? That the rightwing tout nationalism, freedom, individuality by which they mean the least restrictions possible so as to make money. That the leftists also tout nationalist, freedom, replacing individuality with collective responsibility by which they mean that they will control the money and redistribute it so as to promote themselves. Neither being very interested in actual democracy or the will of any one besides themselves.
The current tendency of the rightists to lump anyone in the centre and left all together as a grand left corresponds with the prior age of socialism calling out the middle as rightwing.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought Cuba's GDP per head is the same now as it was in 1959.
That may be so, but if it is spread around then more people are better off: not just Castro.
That's an interesting comment. If the GDP is the same but spread around more people, then it follows that some people must be worse off.
If the bottom 10% are better off, the next 20% or 30% are about the same, and everyone else bar the top 1% is worse off, then does that average out to more people being better off?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You make an interesting point about "giving a shit about the will of the people. It it too jaded to suggest that not giving a shit about the will of the people is general characteristic of governance today?
Not at all. The advantage of a democratic system, however, is if they piss us off or take us from granted too often then we can vote them out and give someone else a try. And as a pleasant bonus, it means they have to have policies that enough of us want to vote for.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The left likes decisions made by the will of the majority of a well-informed populace. When the media is owned by and controlled by a handful of wealthy plutocrats a lot of people are not going to be well-informed. ...
So different, so very different from those places where the media is owned and controlled by the state and pumps out what the dear leader tells it to pump out.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The advantage of a democratic system, however, is if they piss us off or take us from granted too often then we can vote them out and give someone else a try. And as a pleasant bonus, it means they have to have policies that enough of us want to vote for.
In practice it means that the PTB manipulate us differently and we are participatory in that manipulation. Yes, we do have a choice, but that choice is not completely open.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The left likes decisions made by the will of the majority of a well-informed populace. When the media is owned by and controlled by a handful of wealthy plutocrats a lot of people are not going to be well-informed. ...
So different, so very different from those places where the media is owned and controlled by the state and pumps out what the dear leader tells it to pump out.
Yes, The BBC take direct orders from the PM. And PBS from the president. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
The BBC isn't controlled by the state. Pretty much all the media in Cuba is. I think the latter was the sort of thing Enoch had in mind.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
The BBC isn't controlled by the state. Pretty much all the media in Cuba is. I think the latter was the sort of thing Enoch had in mind.
Exactly. And it's not the only example.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I thought Cuba's GDP per head is the same now as it was in 1959.
That may be so, but if it is spread around then more people are better off: not just Castro.
That's an interesting comment. If the GDP is the same but spread around more people, then it follows that some people must be worse off.
If the bottom 10% are better off, the next 20% or 30% are about the same, and everyone else bar the top 1% is worse off, then does that average out to more people being better off?
The maths varies, but wealth inequality is very pronounced and has got more so in the last thirty years. If you start from a point in which the top few percent own a highly disproportionate amount of the nation's wealth then if that is spread around a lot of people are better off while relatively few are worse off. In Britain for example the poorest 50% of the population own less than 9% of the wealth while the situation is reversed at the top where the wealthiest 10% own nearly 50% of the wealth.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You make an interesting point about "giving a shit about the will of the people. It it too jaded to suggest that not giving a shit about the will of the people is general characteristic of governance today?
Not at all. The advantage of a democratic system, however, is if they piss us off or take us from granted too often then we can vote them out and give someone else a try. And as a pleasant bonus, it means they have to have policies that enough of us want to vote for.
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
At least in an open society (pluralistic democratic) we can't kid ourselves. We can't hide behind the dictatorship of the proletariat enforcing classless equality, equal shares of less; it's down to us, not some always inevitably power corrupted and abusing, unjust, unequal, hypocritical chairman like Castro. It's our choice. A pretty feckless, deterministic, central tendency, chaotically complex, constrained kind of choice that, for the likes of us here, ends up with helpless guilty privilege.
That's the choice.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
Up to a point Lord Sioni Sais.
It often feels like that, and the ability of one mouse to change anything is small when there are so many elephants, But.
One really big difference between the UK, say, and Castro's Cuba, is that in the UK, you can try to do something about it. You may feel, 'I'm not going to succeed. It's a waste of time. I've better things to do. I don't think I'll bother'. But each of us are free to try and to combine with others to try, to persuade and even perhaps to get somewhere.
However limited you may feel those freedoms are, in Castro's Cuba, none of them exist at all. The state has a complete monopoly on the lot.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
The BBC isn't controlled by the state. Pretty much all the media in Cuba is. I think the latter was the sort of thing Enoch had in mind.
The post I quoted from was contrasting private media vs state media. I was illustrating the alternative. It did not appear to me that Enoch was representing this.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
You make an interesting point about "giving a shit about the will of the people. It it too jaded to suggest that not giving a shit about the will of the people is general characteristic of governance today?
Not at all. The advantage of a democratic system, however, is if they piss us off or take us from granted too often then we can vote them out and give someone else a try. And as a pleasant bonus, it means they have to have policies that enough of us want to vote for.
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
Off the top of my head, a victory for Ed Miliband in the UK in 2016 would have meant no bedroom tax, the introduction of the mansion tax and no EU Referendum. In the US Donald Trump has just beaten Hilary Clinton to the Presidency. Now I know that Hilary is seen as being a bit establishment in some quarters but they are hardly interchangeable. If you support policies outside the narrow range of issues contested by the two main parties (who between them hoover up much of the popular vote) this may be depressing but it doesn't follow that there is simply no difference between the parties. During my adult life the Prime Ministers have been Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May. I'm not a particularly massive fan of any of them but there was a major change when Major handed over power to Blair and another major change when Brown handed power to Cameron. I'm always slightly bewildered when people say there is not. Representative Democracy has its flaws but we are not living in The Village and a General Election does not merely end with the installation of a New Number Two.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Paul Kagame?
There are elections in Rwanda. Although it is true that Kagame has amassed a lot of power and dictatorial tendencies, and in keeping with that has been making political opponents disappear, reducing freedom of the press, and suppressed freedom of speech and of association. He's not quite a dictator, but far from benign.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Adding to Callan's latest post, I was not then adult but can clearly remember a change in attitude and action when Wilson came in. Not the same degree of change during the 70's, perhaps because of the odd pattern of elections. There was an enormous change from Callaghan to Thatcher in 1979. Within days, again a major change in attitude and no doubt that Thatcher would see that the anti-parliamentary tactics of Militant Tendency ultimately came to nothing.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Anglican't--
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
And of course Castro (net worth $900,000,000) was rather more better off than others.
??? Please explain, and give a source. Thanks.
Related topic:
The news coverage said that Batista took most of the Cuban government's money with him, when he left. What if that money had been available to fix/support Cuba?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Anglican't--
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
And of course Castro (net worth $900,000,000) was rather more better off than others.
??? Please explain, and give a source. Thanks.
Forbes made the claim, Castro denied it. Regardless, Castro did not want in the same way his subjects did.
quote:
The news coverage said that Batista took most of the Cuban government's money with him, when he left. What if that money had been available to fix/support Cuba?
Batista took what was there at the time. Castro still had the same resources to make the money again. He took the steps to not do that. He banked on the USSR to support Cuba.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marama
Shipmate
# 330
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Posted
Reminds me of a funny story told me by a Cuban Australian friend some years ago. She visited first her relatives still in Cuba, then travelled -via Mexico - to Miami to see more extended family. (Since she was on an Aussie passport the old American rules didn't apply). Her opinions of Cuba were mixed, but not entirely negative. At a party in Miami there was much tut-tutting about her visit to Cuba, but about half way through an uncle took her aside and admitted he too had visited Cuba - 'but don't tell anyone else'. Half an hour later another uncle made a similar admission. After the fourth such story she wondered what happened when the uncles met on the main street of Havana!
[ 30. November 2016, 09:12: Message edited by: Marama ]
Posts: 910 | From: Canberra | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
Because:
(a) Many people find those outcomes acceptable enough that they will continue to vote for them.
(b) Many people don't care about what the outcomes are enough to either change their vote or vote at all. If you're going to give the people the right to decide who will form their government, then you have to accept that some of them will answer "meh, I don't really care".
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
The news coverage said that Batista took most of the Cuban government's money with him, when he left. What if that money had been available to fix/support Cuba?
He probably took a personal fortune of ill gotten gains numbering in the hundreds of millions. Likely acquired through graft and bribes and not stolen directly from the country's treasury. Not clear to me what was in the coffers when he left, but the post revolutionary government expropriated property that totaled in the billions with a "B".
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Property doesn't count for much if there is no one to buy it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Property doesn't count for much if there is no one to buy it.
Then in retrospect seizing it was counter productive, whatever the initial aims.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Property doesn't count for much if there is no one to buy it.
Unless you can live on it instead of paying rent to The Man.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marama:
After the fourth such story she wondered what happened when the uncles met on the main street of Havana!
If it's anything like what happens when Baptists see each other at the liquor store, they act as if they don't even recognize each other. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
Other examples have been cited, but just watch and see the differences between the outcomes and policies between the Obama administration and the upcoming Trump administration.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Batista took what was there at the time. Castro still had the same resources to make the money again. He took the steps to not do that. He banked on the USSR to support Cuba.
And didn't have a back-up plan when the USSR collapsed.
I don't think anyone's mentioned Castro's support for the MPLA in Angola and its atrocities and the dictator in Ethiopia whose name escapes me at the moment, the one convicted of genocide in absentia.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Property doesn't count for much if there is no one to buy it.
Then in retrospect seizing it was counter productive, whatever the initial aims.
Pure productivity is not the motive of any revolution. Punishing and controlling those who are deemed part of the previous structure is part of it.
But anyway my point was property, whatever the reason it was taken, cannot be counted as wealth for Castro as it was never potentially for sale.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Unless you can live on it instead of paying rent to The Man.
Redistibution is part of the manifesto, n'est-ce pas?
[ 01. December 2016, 06:52: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Marama:
After the fourth such story she wondered what happened when the uncles met on the main street of Havana!
If it's anything like what happens when Baptists see each other at the liquor store, they act as if they don't even recognize each other.
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Can you therefore explain why it doesn't seem to matter who we vote for? We get the same outcomes and the same excuses for not delivering the policies on which governments are elected.
Other examples have been cited, but just watch and see the differences between the outcomes and policies between the Obama administration and the upcoming Trump administration.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Batista took what was there at the time. Castro still had the same resources to make the money again. He took the steps to not do that. He banked on the USSR to support Cuba.
And didn't have a back-up plan when the USSR collapsed.
I don't think anyone's mentioned Castro's support for the MPLA in Angola and its atrocities and the dictator in Ethiopia whose name escapes me at the moment, the one convicted of genocide in absentia.
These are effects, not causes RuthW. The causes being the inevitable failures of the West. The extenuation is that now we know; we have to go down every cul-de-sac of suffering it seems. The MPLA were up against a cannibal army from Zaire in the Angolan Civil War of 1975 following on from the Angolan War of Independence (1961–74) from 400 years of imperialist atrocities.
And it was Mengistu in Ethiopia, eventual successor of the fecklessly criminally pathetic Haile Selassie I, another puppet of the West.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
These are effects, not causes RuthW. The causes being the inevitable failures of the West.
Nobody in the developing world of the Soviet bloc had moral agency during the Cold War. The only people who were morally culpable for anything that went wrong were the US and UK. Surely you should know this, by now Ruth.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Nobody in the developing world of the Soviet bloc had moral agency during the Cold War. The only people who were morally culpable for anything that went wrong were the US and UK.
And not just the Cold War! Western Imperialism is responsible for every evil the world has ever known! African dictatorships? Western Imperialism. Stalin's purges? Western Imperialism. The bubonic plague? Western Imperialism. Genghis Khan rampaging across Asia? Western Imperialism. Christ being crucified? Western Imperialism. Cain killing Abel? Western Imperialism. The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event? Western Imperialism.
Nothing else has ever been or will ever be responsible for anything even slightly bad.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Although you inflate your points beyond hyperbolic recognition, much of current world affairs is living out the biblical 5 ( or is it 7) generations of border drawing, and organizing of world economy. One has to only consider Africa and the Mid-East for a moment to understand it. Because money has always been the driver of it, it isn't ever solvable, though some arrangements are better than others. Better international regulation would help, but we are on another path just now.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Nothing else has ever been or will ever be responsible for anything even slightly bad.
Going back into mythological pre-history is quite cute, but just to drag you back to the past, say, 150 years.
The list of wars not caused directly or indirectly by Western imperialism and its legacy is going to be quite short.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So the West didn't rape at least two continents, make it four, excluding its own, for 500 years? OK only 3 for 500, 1 for 200. And the odd sub-continent?
And where did Communism originate? Remind me again? In reaction?
And don't go back a thousand let alone two whatever you do. To other reactions. Like Islam.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Western imperialism forced Castro to support atrocities in Angola and Ethiopia? How exactly did that work?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Oh, so it was them that compelled Castro to send troops to Africa?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
Portugal and, um, Ethiopia.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
How long must a country be independent before you will accept that it is responsible for its own actions?
Cuba has, of course, been an independent nation since 1902.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
Portugal and, um, Ethiopia.
I think the combination of words you're looking for is 'Portugal and Italy'.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
How long must a country be independent before you will accept that it is responsible for its own actions?
Cuba has, of course, been an independent nation since 1902.
Great Britain has been more or less extant since the Act of Union in 1707. Can we hold it responsible for its actions yet? And when I say actions, I mean fucking over large swathes of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. North America is possibly a separate (though allied) discussion.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
Portugal and, um, Ethiopia.
I think the combination of words you're looking for is 'Portugal and Italy'.
Portugal and Italy made Castro send troops to Angola and Ethiopia?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
How long must a country be independent before you will accept that it is responsible for its own actions?
Cuba has, of course, been an independent nation since 1902.
Technically independent, but not completely independent in practical terms.
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To the general tone of the thread at the moment:
Communism will always lead to repression. Always.
The difference between Communism and "the West" as far as exploiting, interfering or flat out conquering is minor. Communism must exert resources to control its own people so have fewer to fuck up other peoples. But Godless bless em! They give it the old college try!
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Remind me again which countries used to own Angola and Ethiopia?
Portugal and, um, Ethiopia.
I think the combination of words you're looking for is 'Portugal and Italy'.
Portugal and Italy made Castro send troops to Angola and Ethiopia?
If Portugal and Italy hadn't colonised Angola and Ethiopia, bloody wars of liberation that turned into proxy wars between East and West would never have happened.
The Angolan civil was fought between Portugal, supported by South Africa, against the indigenous freedom movements, supported by mainly Communist regimes. Thereafter, during the civil war, one side was supported again by mainly Communist countries, the other by western powers via South Africa and Israel.
Ethiopia is a different case. After being invaded by fascist Italy in 1935, it was liberated by the British, and after a series of missteps and poor governance, as well as behaving badly towards Somalia, a Soviet-backed Marxist government took over. Who had also been funding the Somalis.
So the answer to your question is, no, of course not. But there is a wider historical context, in which the west - European powers, and the USA, play a very large, and often incredibly grubby part. As is the case in Cuba's history. Denying that this extra dimension doesn't exist or is unimportant seems a little off.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Brit. understatement to the point of litotes.
And the two words ![[Smile]](smile.gif) <- me now.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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