having spent 2 whole weeks travelling arround Cuba and semi-talking to the locals, well naturally I am an expert, right? Not.
But the country is a jail, and people are impoverished by one man. He is a nut case. I go along with the sentiment expressed above.

I watched Dubya's speech on Cuba policy yesterday.... powerful and packed with honest concern about the potential for failed outcomes in the wake of Fidel's demise.

I've just been watching Ed Stelmach, dictator of Alberta. He just shot the whole oil and gas sector in the head.

In the midst of a credit crunch and a US economy about to tank, Eddy decides to jack the royalty 4x on oil that isn't even out of ground. AND break his word on oil contracts that are in force until 2011. That's not just illegal, its STUPID.

This is the kind of thing I'd expect from maybe Hugo Chavez, not an Alberta Conservative. Even Dalton the Sly hasn't done anything this spectacularly idiotic.

All you Alberta separatists maybe want to phone up Fidel and see if he wants to come up and replace Eddy. It'd be an improvement.

Cuba will become a free 1st world nation when it resumes normal trade relations with the the western world and not before...it will help to embrace freemarket capitalism and allow its citizens to benefit directly from their labor/skills/risk in international free trade...but let's not hold our breath...stone age Marxism is slow to respond to anything the people really want.

And yet those Americans (and Canadians) who routinely support Castro's tourist industry (how much of your money spent in Cuba goes to the individuals you meet?) continue to call Bush a dictator. I suppose they make this accusation from a hell-hole of a jail cell, right? No, that can't be...you mean it's Castro that throws his detractors into jail? But he means well.

/Leftist useful idiot

Far be it from me to say anything good about a dictator, and I fundamentally oppose Castro and Marxism. According to a comprehensive report from around 2000, Cuba ranks fairly well among Latin American nations in education according to UNESCO [UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization].

According to a study that tested language and math skills among children in primary school, Cubans scored better than their Latin American counterparts, which is strange given that educational reform projects which were strategized as a means of creating an inter-American system since 1963, excluding Cubans from participation.

Yes, Cubans are poor, placing ninth of eleven Latin American countries in GDP according to UNESCO. Chile had the highest GDP, placing second in education. What this means is that when Cuba finally reverts to capitalism, the knowledge they have received from socialized education will place them ahead of their Latin American counterparts in order to begin raising their quality of life and taking a lead role in Latin American development and prosperity. Just as socialized education in Russia created a wealth of highly skilled workers, Cubans are poised to do the same. So there's some hope for the future after Castro.

Life will not improve for americans under their current system of government. It will not improve by exchanging one dictator for another. It will not improve if we seek accommodation with a new tyranny in the interests of "stability." Cuba will have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime victimizing its own people. We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains. The operative word in our future dealings with America is not "stability." The operative word is "freedom."

Cubans are educated in language (to acommodate the tourist trade) and many other areas, but are actually quite ignorant about world affairs etc (the only news they get is from government sources). They become educated because they get better living conditions while they are in school and post grad, but when they graduate they are unemployed or work as field labor,bartenders, etc. Some are traded (eg doctors to Venezula) to other countries in return for produce (oil), all government controlled and managed. Basically, the people are OWNED by Castro, and he hands out the dole if they behave.

*
"jeffy bugboy davidson says... Life will not improve for americans
under their current system of government."

geez, jeffy... i'm ready to take up a collection for your one-way
airfare to some socialist paradise... just to be free of your constant
whining about our horrible north american way of life.

maybe fidel would be able to find you a nice 12 hour a day gig
cutting sugar cane. you best watch your mouth down there though...
i hear fidel's got a temper.

maybe you could do us all a favour and take those pinko trudeau
boys with you.

*

Jeff - that has got to be a joke, but it's not funny. On the off-chance you are serious, then you're insane. Either way you lose.

Funny how people who keep wailing about fascist America under Bush the Nazi still live there. Free. Not in jail. Even with awards on their shelves for their "bravery" in dissing their president in front of massive, cheering audiences who never have to worry about government thugs firing into the crowd and beating them up (Dixie Chicks, Michael Moore, yawn and on and on -- oooh, they're soooo brave . . .)

Mass exodus? Not. "Persecuted" Muslims fleeing in droves? Not. Even Muslims would rather live in America than under Muslim rulers in the Middle East.

Oh, our hearts bleed for those groaning in travail under the much-maligned Patriot Act, watched night and day by Big Brother -- they're fleeing America in droves, right? Not.

Question for safe and radically-hip, group-thinking American-haters: WHICH DIRECTION ARE THE BOATS GOING??? You know, the ones filled with refugees fleeing a totalitarian regime. The ones in between Cuba and Florida.

Hey, metrosexual Jeffie makes an appearance after along absence. Where'd his brain go?

Hey, jeff, if you are going to do snark make it wittier. It was dumb.

I thought you were banned from here.

OT...A question for Sask folks...just watched K. Newman on Global from Saskatoon, saying how wonderful the economy is, house prices increasing, jobs for all, etc. This doesn't square with what I read here about the province. What gives?

there's always new photos at www.therealcuba.com

... but no photos of american refugees landing at Havana desperately fleeing the evil tyrants in Washington.

not even in Mr.Moore's wettest dream is that possible.

90% of Cubans are happy so leave them alone. Not even Canada can claim that.

Is that a fact ok4ua? I'm not buying. Evidence please.

90% of Cubans are smart enough to shut the %up because they don't feel like being rented out as slave labour to one of Castro's friendly countries.

Perhaps the US and their chimp should STFU about the democracy of other nations until they get it figured out for themselves.

He just shot the whole oil and gas sector in the head.

What I can't figure out is what's to be done will all the theoretical new money. Yearly EdBucks for all Albertans (since they "own" the resources)?

Alberta already has a huge annual budget surplus, why claw for more - power and greater influence/interference from politicians?

It seems as though albatros39a has forgotten to take his meds again....

And the progame A PORTIAT OF CASTROS CUBA was nothing more them lots of left-wing liberal poppycock just like that crappy movie REDS i mean hollywoods liberals are big fans of castro and stalin

ok4ua says "90% of Cubans are happy so leave them alone. Not even Canada can claim that."

That must expain all the americans fleeing Florida in sinking tubs to escape the evil American regime and make it to the free Cuban paradise.

The best sign of the quality of life in a country is to look at the border guards. If most are facing outwards to keep people out, it is a good place to live but if more are facing inwards to keep people in, I wouldn't want to live there.

Now a question for ok4ua.
As you are an under 65 retiree who can't afford more than $15.00 for a prescription, what is stopping you from moving to this socialist paradise?

I guess he doesn't want to be happy.

Jeff has not lived in either Cuba or the US...Jeff's opinion on same is deeply limited...Jeff has the world view he can see from the picture window in his Mom's Ajax condo...Jeff is a cloistered putz of the first order and really hasn't a valid opinion first hand on anything except the experiences of a condo-dwelling urban recluse who lives externally only through the internet and TV news..

Jeff posts on FD to get traffic for his blog, which generally has 1 reader who is naive enough to find what Jeff posts to be "information".

It's amazing how utterly cretinous alby, jeffie, ok4ua and the rest of the leftist brain trust are. Gents, some education would benefit you immensely, unless, of course, you're mentally retarded, in which case an NDP membership is about as good as it gets

America should fix its own democracy first?

What's to fix? Bush will leave office at the end of his term, and someone new will be in office. Hordes of foaming-at-the-mouth lefties constantly berate him and his government, and they are free to continue to do so. A crazy lady can rush up to Rice with fake blood on her hands, and she's neither shot nor jailed. And a previous commentator is right: guards at the borders are trying to keep people from getting INTO America, not from escaping out of it (who wants to? Not even Muslim want to get out of the Great Satan).

America is functioning as a democracy does: lots of good ol' freedom and prosperity. Even for the idiots who think Moore and Chomsky have the Truth.

Cuba? Dictator-for-life Castro. Dissidents in jail. No meetings more than 3 people allowed. No free press. No gov't opposition parties. Etc. etc. etc.

Someday all the Bush/America-haters will get their wish and America will collapse under all the inner enemies it has to fight (who take advantage of their country's very freedoms to bring it down). Then, as they slave in gulags for whatever dictator has taken over, they might finally realise America was a great democracy. Even under Bush.

"You spit on freedom because you've always had it." Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Please spare me Bush's insight on Cuba. I somehow doubt he gives two sh*ts for the people of Cuba, no matter what there situation.

It's duplicitous bullsh*t and we all know it.

Raphael Alexander, thanks for your informative and posting something which I find rare at SDA. Too many knee jerking, me-to reactionaries…..

Question 1: The US government supports many countries which are undemocratic and commit significant Human Rights Abuses politically and economically (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel, China) why would it choose to single out Cuba?

Question 2: Why does the US have such an irrational approach to dealing with Cuba? They have normalized trade relations with Vietnam and China but not with Cuba. I find this perplexing.

The mantra against Cuba is a bait and switch technique to take the focus off other issues dogging the government. Standard political jiggery pokery. I concede, Cuba is undemocratic and has significant human rights concerns but the level rhetoric significantly outweighs it's prominence.

Let's not forget that the creation of the current situation did not come out of a vacuum. Rampant American commercial exploitation of Cuba and its people caused the initial backlash against the US and it was a very popular movement. Things have degenerated significantly since then.

A number of American politicians are campaigning for a more open policy with Cuba currently. Cuba has made many efforts to approach the US government in an attempt to normalize relations which have all been rebuffed. Normalized relations and the opening of the Cuban economy (much like what is being done with China) is the first step to bringing down dictatorship and bringing in democracy. Look at all the freedoms being enjoys by those in the econmic zones in China. I would argue that normalized relations with Cuba would be more likely have serious political impact that those with China.

My opinion.... Castro p*ssed off many rich people and key politicians that have put him in the dog house in perpetuity. This is why I think the US has no real interest in any relations with Cuba until Castro is out of the picture.

Where those radical islamic extremists went when they were killed they had better not say anything bad about the great satan when their in his presents

Fotis - Cuba is 90 miles off of our coast, for starters. The attempted installation of Russian missiles decades ago by Castro hasn't been forgotten.

Take a look at the world, my friend, there just aren't that many functional democracies that US national interest can sustain its economy(oil, trade) and security exclusively within. And, the EU doesn't "support" any undemocratic countries?

You are very naive. Statescraft and friendship are two different things. Countries have to work with the cards dealt them.

"Rampant American commercial exploitation of Cuba and its people caused the initial backlash against the US"

Come again? Specifics, please.

Penny.... I find it curious that in one breath you call me naive and in the next you ask me to explain neo-colonialism fof Cuba to you. It makes me think your not very clear of the facts of the situaiton. The historical record id out there and after 40 years it's pretty clear....

--------------
"Rampant American commercial exploitation of Cuba and its people caused the initial backlash against the US"
Come again? Specifics, please.
A couple of links of interest (no chance for a full investigation, only time for quick Google which I think you could have been able to do)

[These are NOT definitive but representative]

From a political perspective:

http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/US_Perspectives_on_the_Cuban_Revolution

Batista was the guy in Cuba who ruled through repression and torture with US support.

"Batista government was overthrown because of the corruption, disintegration from within, and because of the United States and the various agencies of the United States who directly and indirectly aided the overthrow of the Batista government and brought into power Fidel Castro"

They put him in power, they provided arms, and let him do what he wanted without the support from the states he collapsed making way from Castro.

From an economic perspective:

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/cuba.htm

The cartels were well funded by US companies to maintain the status quo which meant unemployment and poverty for most Cubans for a large part of the year.

"The social and economic contradictions of the island then were typical of nearly all Latin American countries that had been exploited historically by imperialism.

The Cuban economy was based on export agriculture. The main crop was sugar, followed by tobacco, cattle and coffee. Agricultural resources were underutilized. For the hacienda owner, this was no problem…. For the farm worker, this meant unemployment and suffering. In 1954, for instance, Cuba's 424,000 agricultural wage earners averaged only 123 days of work; farm owners, tenants and sharecroppers also fared poorly, averaging only 135 days of employment. "

"It can be primarily explained as the inability of capitalism to provide rapid development in a neocolonial society, no matter what the intentions are of reformist regimes. In Cuba, this meant that Batista could not break the power of the cartels, which exercised political power. It also meant that specialization in export commodities gave the Cuban economy a distorted aspect. Land and labor were utilized poorly. A mixed agriculture could lift the technical skills of the workforce. A plantation economy based on sugar cane condemned rural Cuba to backwardness.

In addition to the straitjacket imposed on production by the Cuban bourgeoisie, there was the additional penalty paid by Cuba's dependence on the United States. The volume of sugar that entered the United States was set by the US Congress and subject to the whims of the American economy. Cuba needed economic independence but there was no motivation for the native ruling classes to fight for it."

“Take a look at the world, my friend, there just aren't that many functional democracies that US national interest can sustain its economy(oil, trade) and security exclusively within. And, the EU doesn't "support" any undemocratic countries?”

I don’t think we are friends…. Your point is that economics and politics make strange bedfellows. You admit that will support tyrants and dictators (economically and politically) as long as it supports their interests. This is what I’m saying…. They need nothing from Cuba so they have no interest in working with Castro.

The attempted installation of Russian missiles decades ago by Castro hasn't been forgotten.

Don’t you think it should? Given the collapse of global communism and 40 years of quite peace with Cuba is this really relevant anymore? This reason for continues inaction in opening doors with Cuba is irrational. It was likely the single worst incident of the cold war but it was resolved with a shot and was diffused very quickly. Cuba was really a proxy in this incident. The real driver was the Soviets.

You are very naive. Statescraft and friendship are two different things. Countries have to work with the cards dealt them.
I’m not naïve… The US approach is irrational in and of its own and with respect to it’s consistency with its other foreign policy objectives. As you indicate they will tailor their argument/support to what ever suits their purpose (economically and politically). I see no reason to validate their opportunistic approach to foreign relations by accepting their rants on Cuba at face value.

Fotis, a few paragraphs on Castro's wonderful island. By the way the US is Cuba's 10th largest trading partner. The US demands cash on the barrel head for any products. Many countries including Canada are very leary or have stopped trading with Cuba as Castro wont pay.

Castro's regime has excelled in only one area, as seen in statistics from independent agencies such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The government claims it takes no political prisoners. The numbers provided by human rights agencies -- an estimated 500,000 since 1959, with thousands executed -- tell a different story. In Castro's Cuba, it is a crime to meet to discuss the economy, to write letters to the government, to report on political developments, to speak to international reporters, to advocate human rights, to visit friends or relatives outside your local area of residence without government permission. Cubans are arrested without warrants and prosecuted for "failing to denounce" fellow citizens, for general "dangerousness," and, should some crime not be covered by these criminal code provisions, for "other acts against state security."
The courts, under Cuba's constitution, are formally subordinate to the governing elite and cannot protect the innocent. Neither can lawyers, who lost their right to work in private firms in 1973 and have been forced to work either for the government or in collectives. Lawyers who had defended dissidents were refused membership in the collectives.

The American embargo on Cuba did harm the Cuban economy, but to a modest extent -- the most comprehensive study of its economic effects showed a mere US$84-million to US$167-million a year in lost exports. The real harm to the Cuban economy was self-inflicted: The economy collapsed shortly after Castro took power, partly because Cuba lost a staggering number of managers and professionals who fled the country and partly because Castro's central economic plan -- The First Economic and Social Plan of a Socialist Nature of 1962 -- was ruinous, as Castro would later admit. Food rationing began the same year.

Cuba, once an important rice producer, now produces less than it did before the Revolution, its rice fields half as productive as those of neighbouring Dominican Republic. Cuba also produces less sugar than before the Revolution because, admits Castro, it costs more to produce than it's worth. Because Cubans can no longer efficiently grow food -- not because the United States won't provide Cuba with food exports -- Cubans consume less food today than before the Revolution, and less food than citizens of any other Latin American country.

Castro and others who argue that the embargo hurt Cuba point to Cuba's shortage of food, medicines and other necessities, as if these could not be readily imported from Canada, Europe and other nations.

These economically confused people, perhaps, are the greatest dupes of all.

"Fotis - Cuba is 90 miles off of our coast, for starters. The attempted installation of Russian missiles decades ago by Castro hasn't been forgotten."

But Russia and Vietnam are all now forgiven.

David. Thanks for the intelligent response. It's a shame I can not see more like them here. It gives me something concrete to understand.

Albatros: I should have been more clear. That statement was from someone else (penny). I was just responding to it.

Re:ann at October 26, 2007 10:03 AM

"America should fix its own democracy first?
What's to fix?"

"America is functioning as a democracy does: lots of good ol' freedom and prosperity..."

This should be required watching for all Americans and perhaps maybe, just maybe it will spur them on to look deeper and notice what is really going on. It wouldn't hurt Canadians to see it too.
youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTfcAyYGg

Ok Albatross, I watched it (finally got back to the screen after two days of misery slaving for my capitalist owners . . . oh the humanity).

You, dear lad, are using this sap as an excuse for failing in life. ("I'm not successful because it's all THEIR fault!!!")

Go anywhere else, under any other system of gov't that's not America's (or basically "Western") and try to succeed. Try not to be "owned". You have no clue who "The Man" is if you think Bush and Rockefeller are tyrants but the imams and Putin and Castro are just misunderstood fellas.

This guy you linked to is delivering commie platitudes of the worst kind. Any immigrant from an ex-commie country or a failed state that suffers under true tyranny would want to get up on that stage and whup him one.

People are richer than you. Get over it. People have descended from old families that have built up their wealth over generations. Get over it.

Are you starving? In jail? Shot for dissenting? Look at the books on your shelf. Can you display them without fear? Can you visit whom you want, meet whom you want, phone whom you want, travel everywhere? (Except for military bases, understandably so).

Can you sip your coffee or wine by your lamplight or firelight and enjoy safety? Do you have a full fridge?

Of course you can and do. And you, thanks to big capitalist goons, can thus do and thus have what billions all over the world, thanks to failed revolutionary crap, can't do or have.

Grow up, you childish, privileged, incredibly lucky offspring of the Free West.

Ann you misguided fool, you have no idea. You don't realise your nation is crumbling around you. You are living in ignorant bliss just like a good little consuming robot should. You assume because you are not "starving, in jail, or bring shot for dissenting" that you are living that great democracy. Where exactly do you think that billion dollars came from that paid for your last two party election? What kind of a return of investment do you imagine those that paid that billion dollars expect? The fact is coercion comes in more than one flavour Ann and you live in the great land of manipulative corporate fascism. A system that is far more insidious than simply threatening someone to keep control of them. You are kept in control through your debt, your healthcare your religious leaders and of course manufactured fear. The reality is you are a nation of slaves and you are happily ignorant of it. Your nation is the biggest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. You willing let the few in charge destroy your land for you and your children sacrificing your health and the health of your children in the process. You are sold cheap trinkets that you don't need, that will wear out far sooner than they should or have a built in obsolescence so you can repeat the purchase. Those goods you buy were once quality items made on your own soil by your neighbours, but that wasn’t profitable by those in charge. You stand by while you are ignorantly content as your average standard of living declines. It seems you let those in charge take away the good paying jobs that employed your neighbour and ship that job overseas, but that too is ok because you get to save a buck on that fourth flat screen TV you keep in the laundry room. You threw away the system that made your country great and now it is in decline. You are one of the ignorant robots Ann and you don't even realize it.

"Capitalism is unequal blessings. Communism is equal misery."
Ronald Reagan

If this is torture, chain me to the wall.

Life is good here, Albatross. It's why everyone wants to come here.

So you have to drive by some uber-mansions of the uber-rich, and covet their $500 000 cars. Big deal. Count the blessings you have.

I think you, albatross, would be an incredibly changed man if you won a big lottery, and could buy everything you covet. You would think life is more "fair" then, because you got yours.

You, albatross, are an envious little prick who has swallowed platitudes spread by cynical people with agendas of their own. You are the quintessential "useful idiot."

If my society crumbles, so be it. Societies rise and fall. But just read history and you might decide that this society we're in now is one of the best this world's ever had. Don't try to knock it down to create your commie distopia that has caused nothing but misery. Why was the Berlin wall built? To keep people from ESCAPING the capitalist-free society you want.

You weep for all the people exploited all over the world to create the society we're in now? Check out what happened to the luckless nations overtaken by commies: Eastern Europe, Tibet, North Korea . . . drained of all production and talent, plundered, full of fear and poverty, corrupt, handful of rich at the top. The "poor" in capitalist countries would never want to exchange places with the poor in those lands.

There always will be rich and poor. Question is, where are the poor best off? The answer is as obvious as the mass graves of the victims of communism.

Oh what's the use. Whatever caused your indoctrination, you've got it baaaad.

Vive le revolution, comrade. Enjoy your visions of capitalist heads rolling.

"Your nation is the biggest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet."

I assume you mean the U.S., but I'm Canadian.

As for pollution, I'm sure breathing the air in Beijing and in the factory cities of Russia might teach you a thing or two.

Oh, wait, they're only horrible polluters because the EVIL WESTERN CAPITALISTS make them that way. Yeah, that's it. Smoke some more, maaan.

You don't realise your nation is crumbling around you.

Like stopped clocks, socialists have been saying the same thing for years. The irony is that it's only the socialist nations that have crumbled.

Well Ann the way you were defending the American version of pseudo-democracy one had to assume you were wrapped in the stars and stripes.
So let me get this straight. You believe it's ok for a person to spent 20 million dollars for a 5 day joyride into space and wave at all the impoverished people on the planet who can unable feed themselves or their children?
Ah the pollution in China. American companies building for western consumers.