We've been doing business with the Chinese Communist party for decades now, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. One must ask oneself, wtf is so special about Cuba that we can't do a dime's worth of business there?
― oh no! must be the season of the rich (Aimless), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:38 (nine years ago) link
the young ones and those who've benefited from the loosening of remittance limits and travel restrictions in the last five years
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:38 (nine years ago) link
our next presidential aspirant, English collapsing:
"My understanding is that the influence that His Holiness had was on the release of Mr. [Alan] Gross, which I've not criticized. As I said, I'm happy that he's with the Cuban people [sic]. I would also ask His Holiness to take up the cause of freedom and democracy, which is critical for a free people — for a people to truly be free," Rubio, a Catholic whose parents immigrated from Cuba to flee the Castro regime, told reporters.
"I think the people of Cuba deserve the same chances to have democracy as the people of Argentina have had, where he comes from; as the people of Italy have, where he now lives. Obviously the Vatican's its own state, but very nearby," the senator and rumored 2016 presidential hopeful continued.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:39 (nine years ago) link
The Cuban exile community's once wizardly sway over Congress and the White House? It's not hard.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:40 (nine years ago) link
last sentence of Rubio's is really a beauty
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:40 (nine years ago) link
plus, our history with Cuba is more tangled than any country not named England. Jefferson wanted it. Southern Congressman forty years later sought to make a slave state out of it. We got sugar, rum, the best beaches in the Caribbean, baseball players, cigars, Watergate burglars, and George W. Bush out of it.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:41 (nine years ago) link
Shit, we've even normalized relations with the butchers in Myanmar, fer chrissakes.
― oh no! must be the season of the rich (Aimless), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:43 (nine years ago) link
"...as the people of Italy have, where he now lives. Obviously the Vatican's its own state, but very nearby," the senator and rumored 2016 presidential hopeful continued.
lmao really putting the knife in. who's the writer here? I can't get that quote to come up on google
― goole, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:44 (nine years ago) link
man, wait til the Pope announces he's moving the Vatican to Pinar del Rio
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:47 (nine years ago) link
I hear the beaches are especially beautiful.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 18:48 (nine years ago) link
I believe it's where I saw a rooster mascot do what looked like a Santeria dance around home plate.
http://www.que.es/archivos/201111/4219565w-640x640x80.jpg
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:04 (nine years ago) link
the young ones and those who've benefited from the loosening of remittance limits and travel restrictions in the last five years― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 17, 2014
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 17, 2014
younger cubans really support liberalizing US-Cuban relations? not doubting it so much as observing how behind-the-times i must be.
― Daniel, Esq 2, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:19 (nine years ago) link
oh yeah -- the older ones too. The women who clean my grandmother's and take care of her are my mom's age. Most people who came after Helms-Burton support normalizing relations.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:24 (nine years ago) link
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 17, 2014 1:41 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
That's real nice for Canada.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:26 (nine years ago) link
why didn't we recruit a burglar from Canada?
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:27 (nine years ago) link
I'm glad I've been to Cuba multiple times before the Starbucks and whatnot. I wish there was a middle ground between people having basic freedoms and not being rampaged by lots of Wal Marts.
― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:40 (nine years ago) link
Can anyone link to anything genuinely interesting/informative about what Gross was actually doing there and whether there was actually any basis for his arrest?
― man alive, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 19:43 (nine years ago) link
seeing all this preemptive righteous anticommercialism is nauseating
― goole, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 20:19 (nine years ago) link
Shepard Smith, who worked in Miami and Naples for years, is practically trembling with excitement. He also repeated the cliche regarding the definition of insanity -- that's how FOX can claim it's Fair and Balanced.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 20:32 (nine years ago) link
how soon till i can get some havana club on the reg?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 20:37 (nine years ago) link
haha. why's shep "trembling with excitement," e.g., the opportunity to pander to a well-known fox-leaning demographic?
― Daniel, Esq 2, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 20:44 (nine years ago) link
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/12/authorities_hope_thaw_in_cuban_relations_will_aid_capture_of_nj_cop_killer_joanne_chesimard.html
― goole, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 22:24 (nine years ago) link
My thoughts on the matter.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 03:09 (nine years ago) link
Very happy, and poised for a comeback.
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100426143902/godfather/images/7/74/Vlcsnap-2010-02-25-19h21m17s23.png
― clemenza, Thursday, 18 December 2014 03:34 (nine years ago) link
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 17, 2014 9:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
that is a moving and smart piece of writing, Alfred.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 18 December 2014 04:35 (nine years ago) link
i imagine rubio continuing to ramble in this circumlocutions manner for minutes as the media and then his staffers leave one by one and finally a janitor comes by and turns the lights off. "…i mean, you know, the vatican isn't really a democracy either, but uh, pope francis should know, uh, I mean, that democracies are all around, and…"
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 18 December 2014 06:51 (nine years ago) link
― Vic Perry,
thanks, Vic!
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 13:02 (nine years ago) link
― Vic Perry, Wednesday, December 17, 2014 11:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
agreed Alfred, enjoyed that post a lot
― marcos, Thursday, 18 December 2014 14:04 (nine years ago) link
since the tourism ban can only be lifted by Congress, we can expect to see that go in...?
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 December 2014 15:32 (nine years ago) link
sadly we'll always have Congress, Morbs.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 15:35 (nine years ago) link
I would suggest you all become humanitarians or educators if you want to go, meantime.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 December 2014 15:37 (nine years ago) link
Essay on TPM:
It happens pretty much every time I meet someone new and they find out I’m Cuban. Have you been? is usually their first question—generally just a way to attempt a polite transition to their own inevitable Cuba visit story. I brace myself for these stories, plaster a polite smile on my face, and try to change the subject as quickly as possible. Many of them come with a sentiment similar to Jeremy Scahill’s tweet yesterday—a kind of perverse, nostalgic desire to witness things “before they change.” I can’t keep track of the number of times someone has recounted this sentiment to me. Last year, it happened at a week-long training I was participating in, and it was the first time there was another Cuban-American present, with whom I could exchange a weary, knowing glance.
I’m sure there are hundreds (thousands?) of people right now trying to figure out if they can visit Cuba before the inevitable surge of change. Miss seeing the crumbling buildings? The fifties-era cars? The Castro government propaganda? I’ve never understood these sentiments. I find them to be so tone-deaf, like this place that has shaped my entire existence is just a type of disaster tourism, a fun stop on a political nostalgia to-do list. They’re sentiments that gloss over and negate all the suffering and loss that has shaped what Cuba is today.
It gets to the mixed reaction of someone my age hearing about deprivations secondhand yet recoiling from the unintentional crudeness from those who haven't witnessed either.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:38 (nine years ago) link
when I was in Russia right after the wall fell the biggest tourist draws were Soviet memorabilia/buildings etc
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link
Maybe it was partly due to the structure of the group visit I went on, but I'd say you have to be pretty willful, sheltered and/or insensible to overlook the deprivation in Cuba.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:44 (nine years ago) link
I imagine something similar is going to happen here - aw communist dictatorship detritus, ain't it cuet
xp
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:45 (nine years ago) link
This triggered her article:
jeremy scahill ✔ @jeremyscahillFollow
I'm very glad I was able to visit Cuba several times before US tourists try to turn it into Cancun
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:46 (nine years ago) link
tbf Cancun is p fucked up
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:47 (nine years ago) link
I un-followed Scahill a few years ago after a photo he posted of himself and Fidel inspired commments like "WOW, YOU GO!" and "SO JEALOUS" and "YEAH EL JEFE!"
(I still read his books)
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:47 (nine years ago) link
of course for Americans there's no middle ground really between Communist-regime-induced squalor and capitalist-induced-squalor + RESORT LIVING
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:48 (nine years ago) link
Communist-regime- and moronic-American-blockade-induced squalor
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 December 2014 21:57 (nine years ago) link
hey plenty of credit to go around
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:02 (nine years ago) link
I did not eat in any of the paladares citizens operated in Havana 10 years ago, but I talked to people (who knew English) in the parks and the streets and usually gave them money when I was panhandled. I think most of the people in our group did the same. I'm sure we all were partly guilty of gringo complicity, but I don't think "disaster tourism" is the sum total of such travel.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:02 (nine years ago) link
Link: http://forums.talkingpointsmemo.com/t/discussion-why-i-don-t-want-to-hear-about-your-nostalgia-tour-through-cuba/14589/30
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:03 (nine years ago) link
is there possibly some residual "oh what might have been" leftist nostalgia for the Castro regime at play here? (which was obviously from p early on an unqualified disaster, from a marxist/leftist perspective) Like oh they almost had a socialist paradise, look at how many doctors they turned out etc.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:13 (nine years ago) link
that forum link is ... interesting. I'm not really sympathetic to arguments that American corporate hegemony does a great job of increasing the standard of living wherever it goes tho.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:16 (nine years ago) link
I'm glad she made the point though: you can't find any goddamn clean needles in this socialist paradise.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:18 (nine years ago) link
Other than the tourist sector, which is reasonably mature already, and sugar is there anything particularly notable for US corporate hegemony to influence? It's not as though Cuba is likely to get a massive increase in revenue in the medium term or that the U.S. is the world's sole purveyor of commercial tat.
The questions about how / when the economic system is going to be reformed and who is going to influence that are much more interesting in the post-Eastern Bloc context, but there doesn't seem like a vast amount to build oligarchies out of.
― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:28 (nine years ago) link
Not that this question is necessarily answerable, plus to make it worse it seems to presume some kind of definite answer where none is possible. Okay, here goes: how is Alejo Carpentier regarded by Cuban-Americans?
Thanks to a tip from Harold Bloom, I discovered his novels about 20 years ago. "Explosion in a Cathedral" is, I'm sure, permanently tied for best novel I will ever read, I am quite sure. Just an unbelievably good book and I don't know one person who has read it, despite or because of my years of nagging (I'm exaggerating....kind of).
I know Carpentier had been imprisoned in the pre-Castro years, and was happy to act as diplomat for Cuba to Paris in the post-Castro years. I could see people doing this kind of "collaborator" thing with him, and with Julio Cortazar (who I also love). Any info on reactions, etc. would be welcome.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:37 (nine years ago) link
unfamiliar w Carpentier myself (my fave Cuban novelist is easily Cabrera-Infante). altho I was unaware there was any connection between Cortazar (who I also love) and Castro...?
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:44 (nine years ago) link
Cortazar made a point of defending left-wing regimes in Central & South America (Cuba & the Sandinistas come to mind), although it clearly made him uneasy too.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 18 December 2014 22:47 (nine years ago) link
It will forever astonish me that people would choose Tiannemen Square over Lee Teng-hui, East Germany over West Germany, Soviet Estonia over Finland.
Wouldn't a better analogy, one that's in this hemisphere and not eligible for social security be Colombia and Cuba, today?
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, 24 July 2021 22:11 (two years ago) link
Alright, so we just need to allow the Cuban people to have their voices heard, but when the Bolivian people vote to give a guy you don't like another term, it's totally fine to ignore their voices and depose him based on false information.
― JoeStork, Saturday, 24 July 2021 22:11 (two years ago) link
"Let’s keep the dictatorship for another 60 years because we couldn’t possibly risk the greatest threat of all … US influence."
Nobody is saying this. If the US care about Cubans they should lift the sanctions they've kept for decades and leave Cubans and their administration to it.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:00 (two years ago) link
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, July 24, 2021 6:11 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Colombia has a better health care system than both Cuba and the US per the WHO. Colombia’s social expenditure is also pretty good, higher than South Korea and about the same as Ireland. I don’t know what you are talking about.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:21 (two years ago) link
...
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:22 (two years ago) link
I have no idea what milo z and xyyz want
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:42 (two years ago) link
I don't think it's necessary to want anything, aside from an end to the embargo (and American imperialism). Interventionists like VHS's fantasy of Cuban autonomy after their desired regime change is risible because of the dishonesty.
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:49 (two years ago) link
So now ‘untainted from any foreign influence’ is interventionism?
― Van Horn Street, Sunday, 25 July 2021 01:27 (two years ago) link
y'all enjoy going in circles?
cos it makes for really shitting reading
― making splashes at Dan Flashes (Neanderthal), Sunday, 25 July 2021 01:41 (two years ago) link
*shitty
No, it's just a fantasy. (Or, more accurately, dishonesty.)
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Sunday, 25 July 2021 01:56 (two years ago) link
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 24 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD8Cz2HOlEc
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 25 July 2021 09:31 (two years ago) link
Today, we are imposing further sanctions against the Cuban police following their attacks on protestors, including young people, religious leaders, and civil society organizations. We will continue to promote accountability for the Cuban regime’s human rights abuses.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 30, 2021
https://t.co/3e23O3AiCo pic.twitter.com/HglTVz123p— by mennen (@ClassHuggle) August 1, 2021
Lmao we're so fucked https://t.co/VqL8BvRvNR— Lisa and the banned one (@LisaA311) July 31, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 1 August 2021 10:25 (two years ago) link
if it wasn’t for Fidel these whiteboys would be owning mansions in Havana rn, shouts out Fidel https://t.co/YvHU0KFBSZ pic.twitter.com/lBHyAnkbIF— SLANK (@DabSquad_Slank) September 12, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 13 September 2021 09:14 (two years ago) link