Breaking News Protests across Cuba against the Cuban Regime

[Fahran]

The simple problem here is that the accusations that Cuba is even treating its people poorly are based on the fact that Cuba's still to this day, sixty years after it began, strangled by the USA's act of economic warfare

Except "economic warefare", which is to say not giving Cuba access to commodities produced by capitalist wage slavery, has little to nothing to do with the Cuban government being an authoritarian morass that has engrained corruption as a necessity of life in Cuba, that routinely suppresses political dissent through mass arrests and torture, that has to cut off the internet to rein in demonstrations, etc. The US did not hold a gun to Castro's head and tell him to become an autocrat. The US did not adopt an economic model that is known to contribute to corruption and inefficiency behind a facade of equality that has never actually been realized to a meaningful extent.

Yes, the embargo is a stupid policy that has actively harmed innocent Cubans, but Cuba's problems are not wholly caused by the US. A significant portion of the problem stems from Marxism-Leninism as practiced in Cuba and the USSR being a bad model for long-term economic viability and dictatorships not being especially responsive to the needs of citizens when political elites exist as a distinct class. There's no accountability.

and are pretty much exclusively coming from the country that formerly ran Cuba as a country-wide slave plantation via proxy and is currently running a torture camp within its borders, as well as from the subsection of the Cuban diaspora that's made up of the exiled agents and soldiers of Batista's regime and their kids.

Not everyone who fled Cuba because the communists liked murder and torture is associated with Batista's regime. And, again, this isn't really up for debate. We have people within Cuba saying that human rights are being abused. We have international experts, some with minimal ties to the US, telling us that Cuba has shut off the internet and communication to stop demonstrations. We have Cuban officials asking communists to flood the streets to suppress demonstrations. Not everything has to be an excuse to hate on the US. Sometimes, it's as simple as "corrupt people's dictatorship not good."

[Fahran]

Wait, what? Is this a thing?

Yes. Cuba has intervened quite a lot in Africa and Latin America, usually with the intention of destabilizing non-Soviet-aligned governments.

[Genivaria]

Wait, what? Is this a thing?

Yeah. They pretty much exclusively fought in countries that were decolonizing themselves and especially against Apartheid-era South Africa.

BASED

[Fahran]

BASED

Given some of the governments they supported, no, not really.

[Genivaria]

BASED

Given some of the governments they supported, no, not really.

Fair.

[Fahran]

Fair.

The Angolan Civil War, in particular, made the rift between the Soviets and Chinese nakedly obvious, and nobody involved in that war could really claim a moral high ground. It was peak Cold War, wholly predicated on realpolitik and the cultivation of proxies across national borders. Really, Cuba pretty much participated in what some would call neo-colonialism, albeit as a junior partner to the USSR. Not that the US was much better, supporting UNITA with the Chinese and South Africans.

[Hispida]

Fair.

The Angolan Civil War, in particular, made the rift between the Soviets and Chinese nakedly obvious, and nobody involved in that war could really claim a moral high ground. It was peak Cold War, wholly predicated on realpolitik and the cultivation of proxies across national borders. Really, Cuba pretty much participated in what some would call neo-colonialism, albeit as a junior partner to the USSR. Not that the US was much better, supporting UNITA with the Chinese and South Africans.

OUR JOURNEY TO VICTORY HAS BEGUN
DEATH TO THE MPLA

[Fahran]

OUR JOURNEY TO VICTORY HAS BEGUN
DEATH TO THE MPLA

If we're going to get passionate about conflicts in Africa, it should be the Biafran War. Or that time Ethiopia was Monarchist Antifa.

[Punished UMN]

Consequentialism is bunk, the intrinsic nature of a demand is entirely determined by its motivation.

That's not a logical approach though. It's technically a non-sequitur.

It isn't though. You're saying the demand is moral in spite of the demand being made for immoral reasons, this can only make sense from a consequentialist view of morality. The morality of the demand is only coherent as a function of why the person making a demand is making it.

[Punished UMN]

Consequentialism is bunk, the intrinsic nature of a demand is entirely determined by its motivation.

I take it you've watched The Good Place?

Friend in college made me watch the first couple episodes but I wasn't crazy about it.

[Torrocca]

The simple problem here is that the accusations that Cuba is even treating its people poorly are based on the fact that Cuba's still to this day, sixty years after it began, strangled by the USA's act of economic warfare

Except "economic warefare", which is to say not giving Cuba access to commodities produced by capitalist wage slavery, has little to nothing to do with the Cuban government being an authoritarian morass that has engrained corruption as a necessity of life in Cuba, that routinely suppresses political dissent through mass arrests and torture, that has to cut off the internet to rein in demonstrations, etc. The US did not hold a gun to Castro's head and tell him to become an autocrat. The US did not adopt an economic model that is known to contribute to corruption and inefficiency behind a facade of equality that has never actually been realized to a meaningful extent.

Yes, the embargo is a stupid policy that has actively harmed innocent Cubans, but Cuba's problems are not wholly caused by the US. A significant portion of the problem stems from Marxism-Leninism as practiced in Cuba and the USSR being a bad model for long-term economic viability and dictatorships not being especially responsive to the needs of citizens when political elites exist as a distinct class. There's no accountability.

And what, exactly, do you happen to have as proof that the Cuban government is little more than an "authoritarian morass" that's made corruption a way of life in Cuba? What evidence do you have of Castro being some tyrannical autocrat rather than the revolutionary who led the overthrow of an autocrat that he actually was?

and are pretty much exclusively coming from the country that formerly ran Cuba as a country-wide slave plantation via proxy and is currently running a torture camp within its borders, as well as from the subsection of the Cuban diaspora that's made up of the exiled agents and soldiers of Batista's regime and their kids.

Not everyone who fled Cuba because the communists liked murder and torture is associated with Batista's regime. And, again, this isn't really up for debate. We have people within Cuba saying that human rights are being abused. We have international experts, some with minimal ties to the US, telling us that Cuba has shut off the internet and communication to stop demonstrations. We have Cuban officials asking communists to flood the streets to suppress demonstrations. Not everything has to be an excuse to hate on the US. Sometimes, it's as simple as "corrupt people's dictatorship not good."

Did I say everyone who's fled Cuba was associated with Batista's regime? No. I didn't.

And, yeah, of course there's people within Cuba saying things. Shockingly enough, the people of Cuba aren't a monolith, and, like is the case for any group of humans, there's some willing to take bribes, lie, etc. for their own gain. It wouldn't be the first time paid dissidents started shit up against their own country when it's in the sightlines of a foreign power. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if some of those budgetary "Democracy Funds" that the US Congress conjured up went into the hands of some unscrupulous individuals in Cuba. I should clarify that that's not to discount those who may have legitimately faced abuse from authorities within Cuba, of course. Some certainly have.

[Washington Resistance Army]

ngl turning off the internet and asking your supporters to show up and counterprotest seems a lot better than deploying chemical weapons and other things that maim, wound and sometimes kill people on a large scale like our police do lol

[Fahran]

And what, exactly, do you happen to have as proof that the Cuban government is little more than an "authoritarian morass" that's made corruption a way of life in Cuba? What evidence do you have of Castro being some tyrannical autocrat rather than the revolutionary who led the overthrow of an autocrat that he actually was?

Castro was, by definition, an unelected leader who behaved in an authoritarian manner. Cuba has a state apparatus in place that systematically stifles political dissent and that disallows genuine ideological opposition. In fact, that's rather the point of a country becoming a one-party communist state. HRW has reported on this extensively, as have other human rights monitors. The fact that left-wingers habitually defend Castro by forgetting definitions doesn't really have any bearing on the truth of the matter.

Source

And why can't Castro be both? Yes, he overthrew an unpopular unelected autocrat who committed serious human rights abuses. That doesn't mean he himself couldn't then become an unelected autocrat who committed serious human rights abuses. The two actions aren't incompatible.

Again, I'm not even the type of person who believes democracy is an intrinsic good, but we should at least be honest about these sorts of things. Castro was, by definition, an authoritarian and a dictator, unless we severely mangle definitions to make him a democrat.

Did I say everyone who's fled Cuba was associated with Batista's regime? No. I didn't.

You seemed to be insinuating that Cuban Americans who oppose a one-party dictatorship in their country of origin were all tied to Batista's regime. That's pretty fundamentally misunderstands the composition of the Cuban American community, which can trace its origins to refugees from Batista and other dictatorial figures who predated Castro. It grew to encompass supporters of Batista's regime and other anti-Castro dissidents, not to mention economic refugees in search of opportunity.

And, yeah, of course there's people within Cuba saying things. Shockingly enough, the people of Cuba aren't a monolith, and, like is the case for any group of humans, there's some willing to take bribes, lie, etc. for their own gain.

I don't think human rights activists are lying about the police shooting people to get a few dollars from the Americans. It's a lot more likely that the dictatorial regime that we know has employed repression in the past is at present employing repression.

It wouldn't be the first time paid dissidents started shit up against a country in the sightlines of a foreign power. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if some of those budgetary "Democracy Funds" that the US Congress conjured up went into the hands of some unscrupulous individuals in Cuba.

You're assuming the communists aren't unscrupulous individuals, but, no, there's no reason to conclude that these demonstrations are astroturfed at present. Cuba is struggling with an economic crisis and a medical supply shortage amid a pandemic. Those circumstances would produce unrest in any country, and, in dictatorships, some of that unrest tends to spill into ideological disquiet as the government behaves in an authoritarian way.

[Fahran]

ngl turning off the internet and asking your supporters to show up and counterprotest seems a lot better than deploying chemical weapons and other things that maim, wound and sometimes kill people on a large scale like our police do lol

Given some people have allegedly been shot and beaten by the police in Cuba, I'd be really surprised if the police weren't employing batons, rubber bullets, and chemical weapons to disperse rowdy crowds.

[Genivaria]

ngl turning off the internet and asking your supporters to show up and counterprotest seems a lot better than deploying chemical weapons and other things that maim, wound and sometimes kill people on a large scale like our police do lol

Given some people have allegedly been shot and beaten by the police in Cuba, I'd be really surprised if the police weren't employing batons, rubber bullets, and chemical weapons to disperse rowdy crowds.

Which if true would make Cuban police no worse than American police so far.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Given some people have allegedly been shot and beaten by the police in Cuba, I'd be really surprised if the police weren't employing batons, rubber bullets, and chemical weapons to disperse rowdy crowds.

Which if true would make Cuban police no worse than American police so far.

Yeah even if that is true they're just the same as your average American cop. All this criticism about Cuba just seems wildly hypocritical.

[Fahran]

It isn't though. You're saying the demand is moral in spite of the demand being made for immoral reasons, this can only make sense from a consequentialist view of morality. The morality of the demand is only coherent as a function of why the person making a demand is making it.

The alternative you're proposing is actually an ad hominem. You're not really addressing the demand at all. You're pointing to the people making the demand and making an argument about them that has no real bearing on the demand itself. If the demand were made by someone else, you wouldn't even have grounds to do that. And, trust me, the US government isn't the only group of people making this demand.

[Fahran]

Which if true would make Cuban police no worse than American police so far.

With regard to riot control, I'm actually inclined to agree, though the suppression of communication by the Cuban government isn't really something the American government could get away with at the moment.

Within the prisons themselves, the targeted beatings and torture of journalists and dissidents probably marks Cuba out as uniquely terrible. The Party also seems to be making a point of tracking down and punishing trouble-makers in a systematic way.

[Fahran]

Yeah even if that is true they're just the same as your average American cop. All this criticism about Cuba just seems wildly hypocritical.

In some regards, it definitely is. As is some of the support for Cuba's regime. BLM's support (the organization, not the movement) in particular came across as somewhat hilarious, albeit in an exceedingly dark way, given a lot of the demonstrations are allegedly supported by the Afro-Cuban community. Which means BLM inadvertently supported police beating black people to own the Cons. Because, of course, they did. Just like the Repubs are supporting protestors to own the Commies. Ideology rather muddles everything.

[Torrocca]

And what, exactly, do you happen to have as proof that the Cuban government is little more than an "authoritarian morass" that's made corruption a way of life in Cuba? What evidence do you have of Castro being some tyrannical autocrat rather than the revolutionary who led the overthrow of an autocrat that he actually was?

Castro was, by definition, an unelected leader who behaved in an authoritarian manner. Cuba has a state apparatus in place that systematically stifles political dissent and that disallows genuine ideological opposition. In fact, that's rather the point of a country becoming a one-party communist state. HRW has reported on this extensively, as have other human rights monitors. The fact that left-wingers habitually defend Castro by forgetting definitions doesn't really have any bearing on the truth of the matter.

Source

And why can't Castro be both? Yes, he overthrew an unpopular unelected autocrat who committed serious human rights abuses. That doesn't mean he himself couldn't then become an unelected autocrat who committed serious human rights abuses. The two actions aren't incompatible.

Again, I'm not even the type of person who believes democracy is an intrinsic good, but we should at least be honest about these sorts of things. Castro was, by definition, an authoritarian and a dictator, unless we severely mangle definitions to make him a democrat.

Yeeeaaaaah, nah. HRW, like pretty much any Western NGO, isn't particularly good or trustworthy when it comes to talking about non-Western governments. Especially not Communist ones. That's a huge mischaracterization of Cuba's system of government. This describes how it actually works. Yes, it's a youtube video, but its sources, of which there are plenty, which is why I linked the video instead of each of them individually, are cited in the description.

Not only that, but for a dictatorship, the Cuban government sure is progressive when it comes to allowing the people to decide how dictatorial they are. But maybe this is just another of the many overly-convoluted schemes those dastardly Communists have concocted to deceive foolish people on the internet about their true, conniving nature.

Did I say everyone who's fled Cuba was associated with Batista's regime? No. I didn't.

You seemed to be insinuating that Cuban Americans who oppose a one-party dictatorship in their country of origin were all tied to Batista's regime. That's pretty fundamentally misunderstands the composition of the Cuban American community, which can trace its origins to refugees from Batista and other dictatorial figures who predated Castro. It grew to encompass supporters of Batista's regime and other anti-Castro dissidents, not to mention economic refugees in search of opportunity.

I insinuated that the subsection of Cuban Americans who attack Cuba are mostly tied to Batista's regime or the descendants of those tied to that monster's regime, which is completely factual.

And, yeah, of course there's people within Cuba saying things. Shockingly enough, the people of Cuba aren't a monolith, and, like is the case for any group of humans, there's some willing to take bribes, lie, etc. for their own gain.

I don't think human rights activists are lying about the police shooting people to get a few dollars from the Americans. It's a lot more likely that the dictatorial regime that we know has employed repression in the past is at present employing repression.

Those human rights activists can show their proof, then. There's been plenty of pictures and video freely and easily coming out of Cuba which, shockingly enough, didn't actually cut its internet because a few hundred people took to the street to protest over the miserable conditions caused by the ongoing embargo and sanctions. What actually happened was a simple outage that quickly ended within an hour or so, to my knowledge. I know it might come as a bit of a shock, but a besieged island nation isn't going to have the best internet when an uptick of usage occurs during something like a protest.

It wouldn't be the first time paid dissidents started shit up against a country in the sightlines of a foreign power. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if some of those budgetary "Democracy Funds" that the US Congress conjured up went into the hands of some unscrupulous individuals in Cuba.

You're assuming the communists aren't unscrupulous individuals, but, no, there's no reason to conclude that these demonstrations are astroturfed at present. Cuba is struggling with an economic crisis and a medical supply shortage amid a pandemic. Those circumstances would produce unrest in any country, and, in dictatorships, some of that unrest tends to spill into ideological disquiet as the government behaves in an authoritarian way.

There's plenty of reason to assume they're astroturfed.

[Fahran]

Yeeeaaaaah, nah. HRW, like pretty much any Western NGO, isn't particularly good or trustworthy when it comes to talking about non-Western governments. Especially not Communist ones.

Have you considered perhaps that a bias in favor of liberal and democratic values is intrinsically not going to be favorable to communist regimes that impose one-party states and severely limit ideological opposition as a mechanism to promote an extreme form of Whig historiography? Western NGOs are biased against Syria and Saudi Arabia for much the same reasons. They're employing liberal benchmarks to measure illiberal states. Of course, illiberal states aren't going to really embody liberal values of democracy.

That's a huge mischaracterization of Cuba's system of government. This describes how it actually works. Yes, it's a youtube video, but its sources, of which there are plenty, which is why I linked the video instead of each of them individually, are cited in the description.

It's really not. I'm aware of how "democracy" works in Cuba and, by adopting that definition, we could excuse all manner of dictatorships as actually democratic. It doesn't change the fact that the essence of what they are is not how most people living under democracy would characterize democracy. You cannot freely select from a variety of candidates at all levels of governance and the structure and hierarchy of the single party remains a defining aspect of the political system.

Not only that, but for a dictatorship, the Cuban government sure is progressive when it comes to allowing the people to decide how dictatorial they are. But maybe this is just another of the many overly-convoluted schemes those dastardly Communists have concocted to deceive foolish people on the internet about their true, conniving nature.

Oh, wow. They allowed people to restore the assumption of innocence to the court system in 2019. Truly a bastion of human rights and democratic rule.

I insinuated that the subsection of Cuban Americans who attack Cuba are mostly tied to Batista's regime or the descendants of those tied to that monster's regime, which is completely factual.

Is it? Do you have sources? Because a lot of critics are more recent arrivals.

Those human rights activists can show their proof, then.

They have.

There's been plenty of pictures and video freely and easily coming out of Cuba which, shockingly enough, didn't actually cut its internet because a few hundred people took to the street to protest over the miserable conditions caused by the ongoing embargo and sanctions. What actually happened was a simple outage that quickly ended within an hour or so, to my knowledge. I know it might come as a bit of a shock, but a besieged island nation isn't going to have the best internet when an uptick of usage occurs during something like a protest.

I swear this is like watching libertarians shill for Pinochet...

Several hundred people have allegedly been arrested and these are some of the largest demonstrations in decades. We're probably talking tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets. You can choose to downplay it, but there's historical precedent for demonstrations of this sort even under much more competent and much less brutal governments under similar circumstances.

There's plenty of reason to assume they're astroturfed.

Have you tried not buying into regime bullshit? This is almost as bad as unironically believing Trump or his mouth pieces.

[Torrocca]

Yeeeaaaaah, nah. HRW, like pretty much any Western NGO, isn't particularly good or trustworthy when it comes to talking about non-Western governments. Especially not Communist ones.

Have you considered perhaps that a bias in favor of liberal and democratic values is intrinsically not going to be favorable to communist regimes that impose one-party states and severely limit ideological opposition as a mechanism to promote an extreme form of Whig historiography? Western NGOs are biased against Syria and Saudi Arabia for much the same reasons. They're employing liberal benchmarks to measure illiberal states. Of course, illiberal states aren't going to really embody liberal values of democracy.

Yes, I did in fact consider that Liberalism-supporting organizations would be unfavorable toward any and all non-Liberal, non-bourgeois systems of governance, even when they try to do something better than the bourgeois status quo ever could.

That's a huge mischaracterization of Cuba's system of government. This describes how it actually works. Yes, it's a youtube video, but its sources, of which there are plenty, which is why I linked the video instead of each of them individually, are cited in the description.

It's really not. I'm aware of how "democracy" works in Cuba and, by adopting that definition, we could excuse all manner of dictatorships as actually democratic. It doesn't change the fact that the essence of what they are is not how most people living under democracy would characterize democracy. You cannot freely select from a variety of candidates at all levels of governance and the structure and hierarchy of the single party remains a defining aspect of the political system.

So democracy only counts as democracy when it follows a specific, Western-style model. Pretty convenient metric to accuse anyone not kotowing to the West of being dictatorial.

Not only that, but for a dictatorship, the Cuban government sure is progressive when it comes to allowing the people to decide how dictatorial they are. But maybe this is just another of the many overly-convoluted schemes those dastardly Communists have concocted to deceive foolish people on the internet about their true, conniving nature.

Oh, wow. They allowed people to restore the assumption of innocence to the court system in 2019. Truly a bastion of human rights and democratic rule.

Let's just casually gloss over the part where it was a popular referendum in which the Cuban people decided by vote what their constitution should look like.

I insinuated that the subsection of Cuban Americans who attack Cuba are mostly tied to Batista's regime or the descendants of those tied to that monster's regime, which is completely factual.

Is it? Do you have sources? Because a lot of critics are more recent arrivals.

Not necessarily sources, no, but it's not hard to add two and two together when the Cuban Americans taking to the streets to protest in Miami or wherever are clad head to toe in Trump merchandise, since he's the closest thing to the long-dead dictator they love.

Those human rights activists can show their proof, then.

They have.

And where is it, then?

There's been plenty of pictures and video freely and easily coming out of Cuba which, shockingly enough, didn't actually cut its internet because a few hundred people took to the street to protest over the miserable conditions caused by the ongoing embargo and sanctions. What actually happened was a simple outage that quickly ended within an hour or so, to my knowledge. I know it might come as a bit of a shock, but a besieged island nation isn't going to have the best internet when an uptick of usage occurs during something like a protest.

I swear this is like watching libertarians shill for Pinochet...

I'm sorry that doing something other than flippantly accusing Cuba of any and every terrible thing under the sun is like deepthroating Pinochet's boots clean.

There's plenty of reason to assume they're astroturfed.

Have you tried not buying into regime bullshit? This is almost as bad as unironically believing Trump or his mouth pieces.

If facts and data compiled by a third party operating on another continent are regime bullshit, then, uh, no, actually. I'll keep buying into regime bullshit. Maybe you could try not dismissing stuff out of hand because it challenges your preconceived notions about a foreign country?

[Punished UMN]

It isn't though. You're saying the demand is moral in spite of the demand being made for immoral reasons, this can only make sense from a consequentialist view of morality. The morality of the demand is only coherent as a function of why the person making a demand is making it.

The alternative you're proposing is actually an ad hominem. You're not really addressing the demand at all. You're pointing to the people making the demand and making an argument about them that has no real bearing on the demand itself. If the demand were made by someone else, you wouldn't even have grounds to do that. And, trust me, the US government isn't the only group of people making this demand.

Yeah, because the purpose of the demand is based on the interests of those making the demand. Demands do not exist in a vacuum, they exist to serve the interests of those making them. A demand cannot in essence be reasonable because the demand is not an entity and thus has no intentions to be judged, only the entity making a demand can be reasonable, because it has intentions to be judged. e.g. if Russia asked the US to dismantle its nuclear weapons in the spirit of nuclear disarmament it would ostensibly be a reasonable demand, but none of us would consider it a reasonable demand in light of that Russia's intentions in asking this are to weaken the ability of the US to retaliate in the event of a large scale war.

The US demands for more press freedom in Cuba aren't unreasonable just because they're hypocritical, they're unreasonable because the purpose of the demand is to allow US media to flood the country and give the US influence there, and have little to do with human rights. It's not ad hominem or non sequitur, or whatever, you have simply misunderstood the nature of what a demand is.

[Nilokeras]

if you believe all that I have shares in a 200 km long nonsensical city in the middle of the desert to sell you

Silly pet projects like that spring from the same egomaniacal tendencies that have often been a driving force behind modernization and economic diversification in the region. Of course, one could argue that an Islamic republic would be more democratic while still remaining faithful to the political culture in place in Saudi Arabia.

Are they though? Like shitty megalomaniacal dictators tend to build giant vanity projects that don't actually do very much, not quietly invest in sewer systems or whatever.

Fair.

The Angolan Civil War, in particular, made the rift between the Soviets and Chinese nakedly obvious, and nobody involved in that war could really claim a moral high ground. It was peak Cold War, wholly predicated on realpolitik and the cultivation of proxies across national borders. Really, Cuba pretty much participated in what some would call neo-colonialism, albeit as a junior partner to the USSR. Not that the US was much better, supporting UNITA with the Chinese and South Africans.

I really don't understand why you're trying to wave around the 'neocolonialism' sticker considering your entire participation in this thread has been a full-throated and cold blooded defense of realpolitik. One cannot help but conclude that it's the result of some displaced guilt or moral feeling at trying to defend the Saudi regime and its 'modernizing' or apartheid South Africa as being somehow morally better than or at the very least equally bad as Cuba.

[Vassenor]

For one thing, Mohammed ibn Salman, the guy who had the dissident journalist chopped up in the Turkish embassy, is actually going to be the person who shifts Saudi Arabia towards modernization, secularization, and human rights in the long-term if he succeeds in his current ongoing reforms.

Not for the locals and especially not if they do any kind of dissent. Just for foreigners.