Posted by manhattan:
One more reason to hate Bush. Goddamn killjoy.
Legally mandated poverty ? Come on. You can accuse them of mismanagment or bad economics.... but legally mandated ? Even if they have a law that says "all shall be poor in Cuba" there is no law about "women will be prostitutes to get dollars for the government".
So what does Bush do... he cuts further the means of sending dollars to Cuba and tightens the embargo ! Which means less commerce and tourism ... and MORE FUCKING POVERTY ! So there will be more prostitutes. Thank you Bush for your wisdom. How about spending some dollars to keep poor american mothers from doing tricks... ?
He wants votes for sure... but try not making up stuff. Nobody beleived the WMD.... and now this. Get a better storyteller.Manhattan, your post to Sailor was entirely repugnant. Shame, sir! Shame!
manhattan, you have failed to support a single one of the assertions for which I asked some support, very especifically for your assertion that the Cuban government somehow directly forces women into “protitution slavery”. You just provide a lot of handwaving but no proof.
Piss off, eh? You are telling me that these sex tours which are being sold and advertised in Europe would get you into trouble if you visited their web sites? So Europe is also part of this? Your excuse is pathetic. The fact is that you have zero proof and you know it. Furthermore, the one link you provide does say prostitution exists but it also says two things:
yes those are the anti-Castro people in Miami whose votes Bush is seeking. I’d hardly call them impartial. Also:
If you are going to link you better find links which support your position and not mine.
Your contention that by imposing an economic system which leads to poverty they are directly forcing women into prostitution is ludicrous and could be applied to any country which has poor people, including the United States, not to mention all of the third world.
Not true. Again, where do you get this? What are your sources? I have been there. I know it. Are you saying they allow prostitutes into the hotels? They don’t. How do they distinguish prostitute from non-prostitute? They can’t.
No, I am not a doctor, a human rights worker or a journalist but neither did I violate your laws because I am not a US citizen so I have the privilege and the freedom to go there and experience Cuba personally instead of having to rely on the propaganda and the lies issued by president Bush.
This is beneath comtempt and reflects on you, not on me. I will let the mods deal with it as they see fit. I see no point in responding in kind. The readers can make up their minds about who’s arguments are more convincing.
Well, that may be the case but he still has some facts wrong. Maybe he hasn’t been there in a while or maybe he is blinded by prejudice as many anti-castro Cubans in the USA are. I know what they are like. My uncle was married in Cuba and lost everything with the revolution. You should hear him talk. As I said, I have no sympathy for the Castro regime but Bush is lying again and lying is not the way to advance truth or freedom. The ends do not justify the means.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Take it to the Pit or take it down a notch, Manny.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
The egotism of Bush’s actions is truly marvelous.
From my readings on tourism in Cuba, US tourists make up a very small portion of visitors, and of them, I’d say that only a minority go for the hookers. Likewise, from reading about Cuba, it seems that it is Europeans who make up the vast majority of customers of Cuban prostitutes.
I’m astonished that anyone thinks that US recreational travel to Cuba (for any purpose) makes up a major portion of the Cuban economy.
Poverty MIGHT push some women into prostitution, but to say that the government is encouraging them to become prostitutes because said government is too stupid/inept/corrupt/etc. to create better opportunities for their citizens, well, doesn’t follow.
I am from a thirld word country, one of the greatest exporters of prostitutes in the world. Prostitution is legal here, and our government, just as Castro’s, is beyond comtempt; but I would be lying if I said our government encourages prostitution. They could be blamed for its extent and growth, but not accused of encouraging it.
I hope that make sense to you, it made sense in my head.
It follows for those who mindlessly and irrationally swallow every word ejaculated by this administration. To them it makes sense just like it makes sense that drug users are supporting the terrorists and that invading Iraq was an act of self defense. When you question their assertions, rather than prove them rationally, they call you an anti-American supporter of terrorists or, as in this case, of being pro-child-prostitution. Calling president Bush on a lie to them is being pro child prostitution. It is truly pathetic. They have no arguments and they are desperate and this is their last resort.
There are many countries where the government is more permitting with prostitution than in Cuba and where women are pushed into prostitution by poverty. Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are well known in the same area of the world as Cuba. What does President Bush have to say about them? Nothing.
I saw a documentary about prostitution in SE Asia and it was the kind of stuff that bothers you for months after you see it. Very disturbing. Young girls chained to beds in shacks where dozens of men rape them daily. One such place caught on fire and dozens of girls perished because they were chained and could not get away. Girls sold into sexual slavery in Africa. The kind of stuff that makes you wonder about humanity. Does president Bush care about this? Nope. Not in the least. He cares about gaining a few votes in Florida. That’s what he cares about.
Having never been to Cuba, I have to rely on anecdotal evidence supplied to me by friends who have been. They have no reason to lie, and all three friends of mine who have been to Cuba on vacation tell me the same thing.
Prostitues are readily available INSIDE the hotels in Veradero. Bribes or no, they are grouped all over the lobbies of the hotels in Veradero, presumably as flower salesgirls or whatever, but there is absolutely no real effort to remove them, from either the police, army, or hotel management.
It means something coming from guys that have been to Amsterdam and Thailand when they say that the Cuban prostitution trade is the most overt and accessible that they’ve seen.
2 cents… What about Nevada?? Isn’t that where they have the chicken ranches ??
I can, and do. I do not believe that the USA has any rights. Period.
Oh, and this:
Bullshit. Not all poor people abandon their principles and prostitute their children. You ought to be ashamed.
Lib, saying prostitution is principally ‘caused’ by poverty is hardly the same as saying all poor people are prostitutes.
( I’d like to take this opportunity to say doH! to my, somehow, confusing Nebraska with Nevada earlier. What the hell was that about??! )
Well sailor, in the interest of keeping this thread in GD I’ll ask you to post which facts you believe I have wrong. I’ll refer you to this article in Salon Magazine that does a pretty good job of discussing the tourism apartheid policies of the Cuban government.
As to being blinded by prejudice because I’m Cuban, funny you should mention that, Cubans in the US send around one billion (yes that’s billion) dollars every year to relatives in the island. That makes those same “blinded by prejudiced” Cubans the second largest source of cash in Cuba. The first source? Tourism.
Sorry, I did not realize until too late that I was in Debates. Now that I know, and before I leave, I will make the argument that he did not say it was “principally caused”; he said that it was “caused” — and even that without any backing argument or cite. In any case, it is logically indisputable that if A causes B, then if A, B.
Can you explain this? I don’t understand it. What should I be ashamed of? Where did I say all poor people abandon their principles and prostitute their children? Where did I imply it happens any more or any less in Cuba than in other countries with similar level of poverty? Please clarify.
Can you explain this? I don’t understand it. What should I be ashamed of? Where did I say all poor people abandon their principles and prostitute their children? Where did I imply it happens any more or any less in Cuba than in other countries with similar level of poverty? Please clarify.
Shit and fuck the hamsters.
Lib, what countries have a similar level of poverty than Cuba and have no prostitution?
Why don’t you read the thread? I brought up something President Bush has said in the last couple of days. That is the reason I started this thread, to call attention to another lie disseminated by this government.
manhattan made assertions which contradict my personal experience inside and outside of Cuba. He said sex tours were organised from othre countries with the cooperation of the Cuban government. That contradicts my own experience inside and outside of Cuba so I challenged him to provide proof. What European travel agencies organize these sex tours in cooperation with the Cuban government? If convincing evidence is presented I will accept it but I am not going to accept the word of manhattan who has much less experience than I do with traveling both in Europe and in Cuba.
His only reasoning is that the Cuban government is responsible for the poverty which, in turn, is cause for women to go into prostitution. I do not accept this reasoning any more than I accept the reasoning which says if you smoke dope you are supporting terrorists or that if you think the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea you are anti-American and a terrorist supporter. But for those who accept the notion that bad government causes poverty which pushes women into prostitution, I have a question: What is so special about the Cuban government? The same bad government which causes poverty which pushes women into prostitution exists in countless other countries and the US government and their apologists do not seem concerned. The conditions in Burma and other Asian and African countries are unspeakably worse. Why don’t we hear about it? What is so special about Cuba? Why is so different from the prostitution in other Caribbean countries?
I also want to point out the tactic of smearing by association. Just like anti-gay people smear gays by associating them indirectly with pedophiles, those attacking Cuba mix and match and smear and blur and confuse and associate adult prostitution with child sex. They talk about one and the other as if they are the same thing. It is guilt by association.
Again, to those who say the Cuban government foments and encourages and promotes and condones child abuse: Please show me the evidence. Not the evidence that it happens but the evidence that the Cuban government allows it and encourages it. Where are those travel agencies in London and in Paris and in Frankfurt?
Two of the main countries with companies who own and operate hotels and tours in Cuba are Canada and Spain. You can visit their web sites and find out about their tours and hotels. Please show me where there is any mention of sex with minors. Or of sex of any sort, for that matter. Then please show me where the Cuban government participates in this. Child sex tours being organized in Canada and Europe? The whole thing is just ludicrous and only someone blind to the facts would believe it.
It is up to the one making the assertion to prove it. Extraordinary assertions require extraordinary proof. Read the OP:
It is a smear tactic. The fact is that he has no evidence which cannot be shown to be a lie.
If any support exists for prostitution its from corrupt officials looking for some money… not government policy.
If Bush wants to fight sex slavery he should head to eastern europe and Russia… white girls there are being traficked to western europe and other parts in absurd numbers. (Not many votes to be gained thou).
J. Michael Divney - Tourism in Cuba - “It is an island large, beautiful and unfortunate…”
The link above is an interesting and reasonably extensive historical overview of Cuban Tourism. It does seem to suggest that because the Tourism industry is one of the THE major cash cows for the Cuban government, that the tourism industry operates with a fairly high level of governmental oversight and approval.
There is a tremendous “sex tour” business that patronizes Cuba and the default (and often correct) assumption by many Cubans is that single white, unattached males are part of one of these tours.
Whether this winking, tacit acknowledgement of what goes on in many hotels is morally and operationally tantamount to putting adolescent girls and boys in harms way, by setting up a system that greases the skids for them to wind up in the hotel rooms of sex tourists is a fair, but fairly complex question, in a poor nation grasping for cash when and where it can find it.