What would you change?

[nightandthecity]

First, you would already be assasinated.
Secondly, what rights are you willing to give up for getting something back?

Regards,

J

First, I‚Äôve changed my mind about assassination, I was making the na?Øve and fundamental error of thinking that removing the head changes the system. After I‚Äôve gone someone else would take my place. Why, it might even be you James! So my single act as Dictator/God would be to abolish Dictators and Gods.
Secondly - none.

 

[nightandthecity]

CUBA?lol lol lol lol And the left talks about Pinochet.fftopic:

They are quite right to go on about Pinochet. Many of them go on about Castro too. As one of the latter I am more taken by the total failure of the right to recognize the Catholic Fascist Castro as one of their own.

Indeed, the Conservatives on this forum ought to love Cuba. The place is stuck in a mid 20th century time warp. Everyone drives classic 1940s and 50s American cars. The towns haven’t been smothered with post-war glass and concrete. Wonderful Art Nouveau and Deco buildings abound. Fedoras and sharp suits are common. The patriarchal family is strong, homosexuality is repressed, leftists are imprisoned, independent trades unions outlawed, and the crime rate is extremely low (not surprising when about 1 in 300 of the adult population is in prison).

 

[jamespowers]

They are quite right to go on about Pinochet. Many of them go on about Castro too. As one of the latter I am more taken by the total failure of the right to recognize the Catholic Fascist Castro as one of their own.

Indeed, the Conservatives on this forum ought to love Cuba. The place is stuck in a mid 20th century time warp. Everyone drives classic 1940s and 50s American cars. The towns haven’t been smothered with post-war glass and concrete. Wonderful Art Nouveau and Deco buildings abound. Fedoras and sharp suits are common. The patriarchal family is strong, homosexuality is repressed, leftists are imprisoned, independent trades unions outlawed, and the crime rate is extremely low (not surprising when about 1 in 300 of the adult population is in prison).

Leftists are in prison?! I thought they were in power. [huh]

Regards,

J

 

[Lincsong]

They are quite right to go on about Pinochet. Many of them go on about Castro too. As one of the latter I am more taken by the total failure of the right to recognize the Catholic Fascist Castro as one of their own.

Indeed, the Conservatives on this forum ought to love Cuba. The place is stuck in a mid 20th century time warp. Everyone drives classic 1940s and 50s American cars. The towns haven’t been smothered with post-war glass and concrete. Wonderful Art Nouveau and Deco buildings abound. Fedoras and sharp suits are common. The patriarchal family is strong, homosexuality is repressed, leftists are imprisoned, independent trades unions outlawed, and the crime rate is extremely low (not surprising when about 1 in 300 of the adult population is in prison).

Let's see; hmmm Pinochet stopped an extreme leftist Castroite, named Salvador Allende from enslaving the Chilean people like Castro did the Cubans. He left the nation with one of strongest economies in Latin America. Castro on the other hand has made the Cuban economy a tasteless joke.:eusa_doh:
Castro was a Roman Catholic, true. He was schooled by the Jesuits but, like many Jesuit schooled he became an atheist. There's a patriarchal family structure in Cuba? Where? Everyone is taught that Fidel is the father of the country and that the state will provide for everyone. Not very conservative there. Now we've gonefftopic:

 

[Senator Jack]

Isn't this where I walked in on this picture?

 

[G. Fink-Nottle]

I'd re-build Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds and bring the Dodgers and Giants back home.

I'd re-organize boxing back into eight divisions and do away with the alphabet championships.

I'd force Nabisco to bring back the Marshmallow Sandwich Cookie.

Finally, I'd put my feet up on the coffee table any time that I darn well please.

 

[nightandthecity]

Let's see; hmmm Pinochet stopped an extreme leftist Castroite, named Salvador Allende from enslaving the Chilean people like Castro did the Cubans. He left the nation with one of strongest economies in Latin America. Castro on the other hand has made the Cuban economy a tasteless joke.:eusa_doh:
Castro was a Roman Catholic, true. He was schooled by the Jesuits but, like many Jesuit schooled he became an atheist. There's a patriarchal family structure in Cuba? Where? Everyone is taught that Fidel is the father of the country and that the state will provide for everyone. Not very conservative there. Now we've gonefftopic:

If we don’t watch it we shall end up helmeted and giving away free ties like poor old Chevalier. ….so I’ll content myself with this:

The idea that the Castro regime is “left wing” is a product of cold war propaganda in which Russia, Cuba and the US found it politic to follow the same line.

The Cuban regime is essentially a Nationalist one and its intellectual roots are as much on the right as the left. Castro himself comes from a Conservative landed family. His primary political influences were “ Social Catholicism” and Latin Fascism – he was particularly influenced by Mussolini and by the writings of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Spanish Falange. Castro’s first political activism in the 1940s was as a member of armed right-wing gangs similar to Mussolini’s “squads” and the death squads of Latin American military dictators.

By the time he helped found J26M (Movement of July26) he had moved away from classic Fascism to the blend of Nationalism, Social Democracy and Caudillismo that typified the post-war anti-colonial movements. Western theorists often have trouble categorizing these movements, which can be hard to straightjacket within our terminology of “right” and “left”. J26M was primarily a Cuban Nationalist movement with an agrarian social programme and a political policy based on the unfulfilled democratic constitution of 1940. It was based on sections of the peasantry and the urban middle-class, received much of its funding from big business, and almost its first task on coming to power was to suppress the Left and tame the Trades Unions. It was initially hostile to the Cuban Communist party, not least because the CCP had supported the Batista regime and had even for a while been in the Batista government.

Like similar anti-colonial movements J26M sought to put the indigenous middle class in power and to modernize their society, and like other such movements this was seen as involving some measure of land reform and nationalization of foreign assets. However, in almost every case these regimes proved willing and able to compromise with the former colonial power. Britain struck deals with numerous such regimes in Africa, and in most cases reached a satisfactory compromise as regards British economic and strategic interests.

There is no doubt America could have done the same with Cuba. Castro made numerous overtures to this effect. It was US intransigence over land reform that created the stand-off that lasts to this day. Cuba had little option but to turn to the Soviet bloc for support. Castro had already reached an uneasy compromise with the CCP and in a breathtaking act of historical revisionism he suddenly announced that he had “always” been a good Communist – though he doesn’t seem to have realized this until after Bay of Pigs.

My observations on the “Conservative “ nature of Cuban society are accurate. I should have perhaps added that unreflecting PATRIOTISM is pretty much mandatory as well. Yes, the patriarchal family is strong, and Castro’s propaganda image as “father” of the nation merely reflects that. Yes, the Cuban Left was suppressed in the 50s and 60s, many of its activists died in prison, others fled the country, and any new resurgence of the left – from Liberalism through Marxism to Anarchism – is rigorously suppressed.

Still, to be fair to the Cuban regime, its human rights record is better than many third world dictatorships (not that that says a lot) and it scores relatively highly on the UN’s “Human Development Index”. This is no mean achievement given decades of US blockade. They also manage hurricanes a lot better than the world’s greatest power. In recent years Castro and the Catholic Church have moved towards rapprochement, and it seems Castro himself often attends mass despite his excommunication. In fact Cuba now has good relations with most leading powers except the US – the one they really need as a market for their sugar and tobacco. However, when Castro dies it is likely that the US will soften its stance (which seems almost ridiculously centred on Castro as an individual) and that the Cuban regime will then embrace the dogmatic “free market” ideology of the moment as opportunistically as they embraced “Communism” in the 1960s. We shall see, it won’t be long now.

 

[Lincsong]

fftopic: Let's not stray into the bizarre realms of leftists ideology. Oh, Castro is conservative, he's not doing communisim correctly. Let's not hijack this thread. I do believe that the Bartender has asked us to keep on topic, notfftopic: