I read the news today, oh boy!

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ooops, sorry!

[Oceansoul]

Oh, I think I misinterpreted your post too, my bad.

[Oceansoul]

Just going to add, I think there is something to be said for fear. I think ISIS/ISIL enjoy seeing the west and different countries reacting in fear towards them, it gives them a little victory knowing they have gotten under someone's skin. Which isn't to say they aren't a serious threat or anything.

[Jerome]

^^^Uh oh. Actually, MH, that editorial is not factual, and I’m about to set the cat among the pigeons – climbing up on my soapbox again … forgive me; I am not inclined to engage in these discussions too much, but I’ve been giving this whole issue some thought. So … at the risk of becoming persona non grata …

Fidel Castro was no saint, that’s for sure – he was a revolutionary, and revolutionaries are militant, brutal and hard-headed, as are many other leaders – they just don’t wear fatigues. I think that there will always be a bias from the point of view of whoever is writing an article – I do not believe that there is any such thing as neutral in these stories and it certainly appears that no-one seeks out facts to substantiate that which they do not wish to see. We all, the world over, see/read filtered information and anyone who bothers to look can usually find dichotomies. So a ‘report’ from Ry Cooder and his experience of Cuba, for instance, just isn’t going to be the same as one from a state endorsed publication.

Heaven forbid Castro’s socialist ideology might actually have worked, at least to a degree (notice the pun) - the socialist/communist ideal looks good in theory, but not always in practice, and in Cuba’s case, it took a long time to get up to speed, which it did, against continuous odds. He regulated a whole lot of things that we’d be miffed about because it would be violating our personal freedoms, but, for example, (and this IS fact as far as I can tell) there are virtually no homeless in Cuba (check your own house USA, you’re not doing so well on that score) and I’ll bet the majority of the population is not in hock up to their eyeballs either. It appears that 85% of Cubans own their own homes and guess what? Their mortgage repayments may not exceed 10% of their combined income – now that makes a whole lot of sense to me. They have a literacy rate of 99.8%, a high school graduation rate of around the same percentage, and a life expectancy that exceeds that of the USA. Cuba has the second highest doctor to patient ratio in the world (after Italy) and apparently provides more medical personnel to developing countries than all the G8 members combined. It is blatantly untrue that healthcare is selective – that much I do have on good authority from a leading professor in the field of urban ecology. Their infant mortality rate is also comparable to the top tier countries, and here’s a thing … “Gun crime is virtually non-existent and murder rates are below those of most Latin American countries” – granted, that last part isn’t saying a whole lot, but you get the gist!

I’d need to verify the following statement, but this is what I have read – “In response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, Castro offered to send a "brigade" of 1,500 doctors to the U.S. to provide humanitarian aid, but was never accepted.” We had a whole fleet of Cuban doctors working here at one point because the ANC, and Nelson Mandela in particular, always had a cosy relationship with Castro … in fact he was accorded very high honours by Madiba himself and had it not been for the withdrawal of support by the western powers for a Castro-modelled twenty point plan to solve the healthcare issues that dog this country, we might have been a whole lot better off (we also might not have – it’s difficult to say, and it’s a moot point); instead we got rapped over the knuckles for consorting with the Cuban enemy, punished economically, and that was pretty much that. So – the USA supported the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa and hailed the struggle’s leading proponent as a hero, but couldn’t reconcile the fact that Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro were very good friends and remained strong allies.

I think that for Castro to have steadfastly defied the USA and their trade embargos for so long, and then to have survived the withdrawal of support from the Soviet Union as well is quite remarkable. Yes the country was impoverished by those trade restrictions, which probably made Castro dig his heels in even further, and yes, he aligned with a communist regime who then dropped him, and yes, he was an out and out revolutionary and atrocities were committed which are never excusable – but show me a superpower/regime/empire/so-called civilisation that hasn’t subjugated and bullied their way into attaining their end. Let’s not even go into the missile crisis which was a many layered chess match of diplomatic note! Again – differing accounts but the outcome was quite phenomenal; that the USA had to promise to leave little ol’ Cuba alone unless they engaged in direct provocation, which they did not. There is, and always will be fallout in a struggle for independence and for the right to autonomy. It’s ongoing … I don’t need to tell anyone where to look ….

There are some aspects of Cuban life that are quite fascinating, IMHO. The cars, for one, which will probably, and sadly, be slowly phased out along with the advent of imports. Great ingenuity was put to work in keeping those 1950’s and 60’s classics up and running, especially since parts would not have been available, at all. The vehicles are, of necessity, a terrible mishmash, and no doubt also have a gigantic carbon footprint, but I can’t help liking the notion of automobiles that can be cobbled together with wire and string, as opposed to an arm and a leg! What this really symbolizes though (to me, at least), is how much society at large has, in the last while, become completely and totally geared toward disposability – the mind-set we’ve all bought into – the need to constantly ‘upgrade’ and throw away and replace everything, and I mean literally everything.

So … Cuba sits in a time warp and we would freak out if we’d had to live there because as I mentioned before, we are used to, and expect, personal freedoms and we are also right at home in a materialistic society – it’s what we know. How much freedom is enough? How much is actually only perceived, as opposed to being real? What is freedom in any case? Does knowing you have a roof over your head and that all your basic monthly provisions are supplied mean freedom? Are we not all slaves to a system? (If not ‘slaves to the rhythm’??! Lol!) All the above said, I’m not naïve enough to believe that Cuba is a utopian paradise, but I do think critical thinking is to be encouraged.

While the thought of a dictatorship is abhorrent to our minds, the methodology employed by Castro worked – it’s just not a model to which most of the western world subscribes. Is it possible that he really did have the interests of the people at heart? He had, and still has, a huge amount of support in his country despite select media reporting to the contrary, and it certainly seems unlikely he was in it all for personal gain. I’m sure those trade embargos fattened someone’s pocket though – they always do.

Anyway – I cannot claim first-hand experience of the place, so am admittedly not in the least qualified to comment which you would never think considering this diatribe!

And I have no particular reason to love Castro either – his military forces were deployed to fight on the Angolan border, a conflict which severely impacted a whole generation of South African men who had no option but to comply and fight a pointless and bloody war, whether they liked it or not, but again - that’s complicated, and it’s another story, from yet another perspective ... if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else I expect. I just wanted to point out that there ARE many different perspectives – and that IMHO, it’s never cut and dried.

Right … I’ll run for cover now :behindsofa:, but before I do, a little light music! …

[video=youtube;INkLVwtIr_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INkLVwtIr_I[/video]

Once again you hit the nail on the head. A great summary Ruby. Especially that last paragraph - everyone seems to have forgotten about that. Just after SA changed hands politically, a shitload of American businessmen arrived by plane load to offer Madiba hundreds of thousands of jobs by setting up multinationals (with preferential corporate tax rates of course). Nelson told them to go away as he was not prepared to let the people pay for the shortfall in tax that the country would incur. The money guys could not believe he turned them down, and they went away with their tail between their legs. And I distinctly remember this not being mentioned in the international press too much. So where did they go next? Ireland. The Irish business model works like this - offer US conglomerates ridiculously low corporate tax rates but tax the local population to death to make up for the shortfall in tax. As an example, a company here made 151million in profit and only paid 1800 (that's one thousand eight hundred euro) in tax. I think Castro had the right idea but was not able to implement it correctly. Anyway, as Ruby correctly states, Cuba's track record on healthcare, education, crime, homelessness and home ownership is astounding. Way ahead of most countries in the world. There was method to his madness after all. If Cuba is now opened up to the regular 'market forces' it will be destroyed in the space of 20 years or less. All those bankers, lawyers, accountants and insurance salesmen will **** it up for sure. They always do.

[bob_32_116]

I just got round to reading Ruby's post in full: very well put, Ruby. I would rather live in a democracy than a dictatorship, but not all dictatorships are the same. Nor are all democracies.

One thing I would add that really made me sit up and take notice: apparently Cuba will be legislating a ban on naming monuments, streets, parks etc after Fidel Castro, because it was his expressed wish that he not be immortalised in this way. He did not want a personality cult; he considered the principles of the revolution more important than himself. How many dictators can you think of who would subscribe to that? To me that says it all. He may have got one or two things wring; he may have used some methods that you and I would not approve of, but he was doing it for what he thought were the right reasons, and not just for himself.

[Oceansoul]

The ends doesn't justify the means even if someone has good intentions.

[Jerome]

But the results speak for themselves. In some cases the ends do indeed justify the means. Human beings are basically incapable of managing things correctly if left to their own devices. Sometimes it takes a strong personality/character/visionary to guide them. They aren't always perfect people, but they have the ability to see a lot further down the road than most. And Cuba's model is a damn sight better than the American one. And I am NOT anti-American but you only have to look at the day to day headlines to realize you are in one hell of a mess - just like most western 'democracies', including Germany, Italy, Ireland, England etc. Capitalism is based on profit. And in order for one party to profit another has to be exploited. It's not sustainable. There is far too much reliance on making money 'out of thin air' - like those trading on the stock exchanges of the world, instead of producing something worthwhile. Globalisation will eat itself. BTW - watch out for the new financial crisis - coming soon to a theatre near you.

[Oceansoul]

But the results speak for themselves. In some cases the ends do indeed justify the means. Human beings are basically incapable of managing things correctly if left to their own devices. Sometimes it takes a strong personality/character/visionary to guide them. They aren't always perfect people, but they have the ability to see a lot further down the road than most. And Cuba's model is a damn sight better than the American one. And I am NOT anti-American but you only have to look at the day to day headlines to realize you are in one hell of a mess - just like most western 'democracies', including Germany, Italy, Ireland, England etc. Capitalism is based on profit. And in order for one party to profit another has to be exploited. It's not sustainable. There is far too much reliance on making money 'out of thin air' - like those trading on the stock exchanges of the world, instead of producing something worthwhile. Globalisation will eat itself. BTW - watch out for the new financial crisis - coming soon to a theatre near you.

And I opened up a philosophical can of worms. Do you think that the outcome matters much to someone who was hurt or persecuted by Castro though? I think actions do matter and they say a lot about a person. And there are Cubans who have fled from there, I'm guessing there is a reason?

I don't think that Capitalism is a perfect system either, exploitation and economic inequality is a problem, and it has excesses that need to be curbed. On the other hand, I don't think it's a good idea to place so much power in one person's hands and not be able to express yourself nor your opinion. That is quite a risk to take.

[GustavoWoltmann]

I read the news today that the MAINTENANCE work on the Bridge of the Americas will be suspended on five days over the seasonal holidays to give drivers some relief from the daily crawl.[FONT=&quot]Work will sto December 23,24,25, 30 and 31 of and on January 1. This is great. thanks for the publishers who posted this news. This is a big relief for those who will travel in Panama. Hope the traffic is good on your town too during holidays.

Regards,
Gustavo Woltmann[/FONT]

[Jerome]

King Crimson - Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind - Where DO people get these titles from???????