In a vacuum sure, but the communists replaced Batista, who was arguably as bad or worse at the time of the revolution. In the long run they'd have probably been better under Batista because being America's bitch is better for the health of Caribbean nations than being the bitch of USSR/China and the enemy of America while you haul your goods home in a donkey cart like it's the 19th century. But it wasn't knowable at the time the die was cast.
The situation was also something created by the US: After taking power, Castro visited the US to try and set up friendly relations with them. The US president refused to meet him, sending the VP (Nixon, ugh) instead and generally giving them the cold shoulder and squeezing Cuba more and more. Khrushchev saw the opportunity the US had handed him on a silver platter, and the rest is history.
Important to point out that Batista was installed by the US.
There are only 2 countries in all of South America that DON'T have the experience of having a democratically elected leader ousted in a US-backed coup and replaced by a dictator.
Right because if we trade with the communists near us then people will start to realize that our government is made up of communism for corporations. Which is totally fine because we hide those communist ideas under “capitalism”. Let’s encourage the fed to buy more Intel shares and bailout big business (banks and PPP giveaways) but continue to wag the finger at communism in Cuba because it’s “bad” and the 1950s boomers got red scared!
Cuba let 20% of the population leave in 2020-24 so that they would have fewer dissenters in the country who might overthrow the government. Thats a higher rate of population per year than the peak of the great Irish famine
if they don't let people leave to prevent total state collapse then they're starving their own people (by means of the american trade embargo); if they do let people leave, it's to tighten their stranglehold on the country.
> i'd love to see america "manage" the conditions america has imposed on cuba.
The single biggest problem would be rebuilding the US manufacturing base. Once that happens, the US would be fine. America's probably capable of autarky: it's got the natural resources, population size, and technology.
Where does one go with one of the weakest passports in the world, no assets, no family connections, and probably only sporadically any skills capable of getting a work visa? I need to get on speed dial whatever immigration lawyer those people had.
I can't find the article but I did read a few years ago most had left to either Mexico or the US. The US had a very favorable program for cubans to enter, work and stay in the country under the Biden admin.
The cuban government via National Office of Statistics and Information admitted it fell by at least 10%, but have not done a census in 15 years. Independent estimates range form 18-24%.
No. The fact that the Cuban authorities s decided that further impoverishing Cuba is worth preserving their single-party communist regime demonstrates that it is indeed a bad government.
after a failed invasion to overthrow the cuban government, we spent a lifetime doing covert operations and using our economic dominance to try to starve cuba to death, but the problem is that cuba has resisted. i wonder if that'll still be your tune if america finds itself on the receiving end of that kind of treatment.
A boycott is a crime? The US has decided not the trade with Cuba, that's it. Cuba is still free to trade with any other country that's willing to trade with them.
5 minutes before this post you were saying it's an embargo, not a blockade. Now it's a 'boycott'. I don't trust people whose arguments constantly shift to meet the rhetorical needs of the moment.
You don't like the Cuban government because they're communists, OK fine. I don't like the American policy of starving people for years on end while making high-minded sermons about the moral imperfections of the Cuban government.
I should have been more explicit that I was using boycott as an analogy to an embargo, in contrast to a blockade which unilaterally prevents countries from trading through military force.
An embargo is analogous to a boycott: you and your friends decide not to shop at a given store. But people who disagree and still want to shop have the ability to do so.
A blockade is like people standing around the store with batons and pepper spray, promising to apprehend anyone who tries to shop at the store.
The latter is obviously a much more forceful move. In fact, it's an act of war.
The USA, like all serious countries, seeks to defend and advance its interests. Those interests include the suppression of self-declared enemies like Cuba and Iran, or seeking regime change so they cease being self-declared enemies of the US.
The irony of your claim that the US is starving the Cuban people is that in fact, the US could go that far and it would actually end the enmity from Cuba. But they haven't and they won't. It would harm other interests, possibly engender enmity elsewhere, and outside of total war Americans don't play the game that dirty.
But if people widely believe that's what the US is doing anyway, and they're "doing the time" without having actually having "done the crime", then considering that actually doing it would end the enmity from Cuba, it starts to look awfully attractive to Just Do It. So claiming that they are, when they actually aren't, only makes it more likely that they will.
Anyway, given that both ex-communist states China and Russia have demanded economic reforms from the recalcitrant Cuban regime--which have not been forthcoming--and that food is not embargoed, I think the impoverishment and hunger of the Cuban people can't credibly be blamed on "el bloqueo".
Cuba now imports their sugar--from the US of all places! You really think that it's American policy starving Cubans?
i remember during covid china sent its vaccine to cuba and america captured it and siezed it. that's why cuba developed their own vaccines. another point on the "maybe the cuban communist party isn't so bad" tally.
This comment shows that you do not understand the basic facts of the situation or are willing to lie about it. No one should engage you until you put in the bare minimum effort to at least know what you're talking about.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
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