Well, if there’s enough yelling and if choice words and phrases are used, it might be more than the price of gas that starts World War III.
It WOULD start over fossilized remains, wouldn’t it? Kind of ironic.
Whaddaya mean, “would be”?! The thing is already accomplished!
That’s selling Putin short. Russia and China are welcoming Iran as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I think the SCO is strengthening itself to be a counterweight to Europe and the U.S.
I’m sure the fact that the Communist nations aren’t as evil as we’ve been led to believe is very reassuring to the 62 million Soviets killed by the USSR, and the 35 million Chinese killed by the People’s Republic (Numbers 1 and 2 on Rummel’s list of the most murderous regimes). As noted by Unca Cece, the most murderous regimes in the period studied were communist and fascist, which accounted for 84% of democidal deaths.
And that’s just the murders. In fact, communism appears uniquely incapable of co-existing with human rights and freedoms, economic or otherwise. Can you name one communist regime that actually has a human rights record?
Most people would point to Cuba as yet another example of how Communism is bad. Cuba is mired in poverty, and human rights are practically non-existent under Castro’s regime. From Human Rights Watch:
Will never be as strong though, considering that the flow of information is restricted as their governments require, and the Western economic powers advocate a free flow of information ideas etc, this economic cooperation between some Eastern powers will never emerge as strong as it’s Western equivalent.
Cuba isn’t “Communist” anymore. They’re Socialist. You wanna lump those two terms together?
I wasn’t referencing how the USSR or China had killed many of their own people, which is of course a reprehensible thing. I’m just pointing out that our knee jerk reaction to other governmental forms is partly done over ignorance. They do things differently over there. Because difference implies (or at least can imply, to some) that one is better or worse, we’re also inclined to think that ours is better because we see press on how theirs is worse and how if it were better, we’d have it…so it can’t be better!
Part of the problem…well, not problem…the miscommunication with how Communist or Socialist goverments communicate with the status quo is because Capitalism is the overwhelmingly dominant ideology on the world stage today. Western countries wrote those rules under Western ideologies. It seems inevitable that countries that don’t hold the same ideals as Western countries would score badly on those scales, no?
Cuba has a decent civil rights effort, actually. They split from segregation before we did and are more proactive in race relations over the past 50 or so years.
You mean that the US’s constantly constricting embargo on Cuba has nothing to do with how poor it is? I’d think that Cuba would be a lot more prosperous if its nearest neighbor, and the most powerful country in the world, didn’t hate them for their own, secret reasons.
How do we want to define “civil rights”? Are we happy with how we’re discussing it now?
Cuba isn’t “Communist” anymore. They’re Socialist. You wanna lump those two terms together?
I wasn’t referencing how the USSR or China had killed many of their own people, which is of course a reprehensible thing. I’m just pointing out that our knee jerk reaction to other governmental forms is partly done over ignorance. They do things differently over there. Because difference implies (or at least can imply, to some) that one is better or worse, we’re also inclined to think that ours is better because we see press on how theirs is worse and how if it were better, we’d have it…so it can’t be better!
Part of the problem…well, not problem…the miscommunication with how Communist or Socialist goverments communicate with the status quo is because Capitalism is the overwhelmingly dominant ideology on the world stage today. Western countries wrote those rules under Western ideologies. It seems inevitable that countries that don’t hold the same ideals as Western countries would score badly on those scales, no?
Cuba has a decent civil rights effort, actually. They split from segregation before we did and are more proactive in race relations over the past 50 or so years.
You mean that the US’s constantly constricting embargo on Cuba has nothing to do with how poor it is? I’d think that Cuba would be a lot more prosperous if its nearest neighbor, and the most powerful country in the world, didn’t hate them for their own, secret reasons.
How do we want to define “civil rights”? Are we happy with how we’re discussing it now?
The Cuban government still imprisons innocents and represses political parties from opposing Castro, thus is anti democratic. Some socialist countries can be democratic, but there is no Communist country on Earth which hasn’t been anything but totalitarian.
Dude, it was worse because it had to put up a concrete wall in the middle of Berlin to stop people from leaving, educated professionals couldn’t stand the place, let alone the actual working class.
Capatalism isn’t a Western concept, it’s an idea of trading which incorporates Humans natural desire for wealth, security and betterment of self through the earning of money or barter, there’s my generalised view of it.
Yet have no free press or political representation other than Castro approved Unions and workers parties. Give me the Western model any time of the day.
Like Castro nearly bringing WWIII to the US doorstep?
I am.
The Indian state of Kerala has been governed by the Communist Party for years, and has as good a human-rights record as any other Indian state, AFAIK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala#Politics Of course it’s debatable whether that counts as a Communist “regime,” since it’s under the Indian constitution.
Hmm? Cuba is officially a socialist republic, governed by the Communist Party – just like the old USSR. The terminology was based on the theory that “socialism” – state ownership and management of the economy – was what they actually had and “communism” was a utopian, stateless society to be achieved in the future. And I’ve never heard that the Cubans use the terms any differently.
Castro has changed his definition of what Cuba is from “Marxist-Leninist” to “Socialist”. Feel free to point out whether or not you think it’s true, but there were some policy changes at that time that pushed Cuba to the right.
Castro is a Democratically elected official and somewhere from 97 to 99 percent of the population votes in elections. Having all your population voting is one of the hallmarks of a democracy. I’m not saying that Cuba is a democracy, I’m just pointing out that there are some things they do in the way of democracy that we do.
Is the United States the only country that builds walls to keep people out? Seems that other countries build them to pack their people in.
Capitalism is a view that’s been spoused by the Western countries. Whether or not Capitalism is purely a Western-created ideolgy isn’t the point.
What, exactly, do you mean by “political representation” in Cuba? There is one party, but it could be argued that your average joe has a better chance of getting into government there than in America.
Of course Castro wanted the nuclear missiles. He’s had the US hostile to him since he got into office. I don’t condone it, but I certainly can see why he’d want a great deterrent.
We’re also veering way off the topic. We should make a new thread if we want to keep this up.
You’re joking right? No seriously, you are joking? No democratic election churns out 97-99 percent of the electorate for one particular party. And Castros elections have never been validated by the UN for authentication.
Yes like East Berliners had to enjoy for forty years. Keeping them in the workers paradise is difficult. Immigration isn’t political oppression, it’s just defending/regulating the border, that’s what states do.
Capatalism has been around in various forms alot longer than Communism. Communism doesn’t work because Human nature is not to share, but to survive.
Who cares, if I couldn’t have a political party created to say that Communism is bad etc, there is no freedom of political thought.
He could of had Soviet soldiers manning the Island to protect his ‘revolution’ however he went a step further and allowed Soviet nuclear ambitions to blind him to the peoples needs. Castro is interested in nothing but his maintaining of power.
You do that.
No. No, no, no, no. Castro is not a democratically elected official. There are “elections,” but they’re elections in name only. The ballot only includes one name, and if you don’t vote for it you’re locked in jail (see the Human Rights Watch article I linked earlier). That’s not democratically elected. (You seem to concede this when you say that “I’m not saying that Cuba is a democracy,” but if that’s not what you’re saying, then how can you say Castro is democratically elected?)
And just because they claim to do some of the things we do doesn’t mean anything. Stalin claimed that he respected human rights, just like we Americans do. That doesn’t mean it was either true or that he should get credit for being a good guy regardless of his record.
I think you’re confused. Capitalism isn’t a particularly Western viewpoint (or, I believe it would be more accurate to say “system,” but that’s kind of nitpicking). For example, most Eastern nations are capitalist, like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, etc. Communist/Socialist nations are the exception, even outside of the West.
First of all, I don’t know who could make that argument. If you have some authority for that proposition, please provide it.
Second, even if it was easier to get into government (which I can’t imagine it is), so what? The only opinion that matters is Castro’s. What good is your government position if you can’t influence policy?
No, not “of course.” Just because someone is “hostile” to you doesn’t mean you need nukes, and just because nukes would make a great deterrent against invasion doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to have some shipped over. Castro has ruled Cuba for 30 years since then, so it seems like a pretty frivolous reason to have almost started a nuclear war. Moreover, the nukes weren’t just a deterrent against invading Cuba. They were a deterrent to opposing any Soviet actions throughout the world.
Thanks for the link to the article about Kerlala, BrainGlutton. I don’t know enough about them to comment extensively, but I do think it’s relevant that the Communist party is currently the majority party of the democratically elected government. Plus, under the Economy section of the Wikipedia article you linked, it says this:
So it appears that they’re Communist primarily in name.
However, it’s still interesting, and I’ll have to read up some more on them.
Not true. Communist ideology was formulated, in the early 19th Century, in response to the emergence of industrial capitalism, in the late 18th Century.
When did that happen?
Cuba: A Revolution in Motion by Isaac Saney would be my source on this.
I wouldn’t know about the validation from the UN, however.
Age Quod Agis, that same book would be the same source that shows how people are into their government more.
I won’t dispute that Castro was/has been trying to preserve his power. He pressed for the nukes after Russia tentatively offered them to him. I don’t say that it was the right call, and if I remember correctly, Khruschev regretted offering them to Castro (can’t remember if Castro regretted it, however).
BrainGlutton, Castro noted the change as well in his speeches. In the beginning, he proclaimed that he was a Marxist-Leninist, eventually that extreme left policy waned into Socialism. I’d say that this change publically happened in the past 10 to 15 years off the top of my head. The national rallying cry is “Socialism or Death”.
When you say people are “getting into” and “into” their government more, do you mean that they’re more interested, or more involved? Because I fail to see how they could be more involved in their government in Cuba, since even government members not named Fidel Castro really have no say in anything that goes on there.
I have little doubt that Cuban citizens are very interested in their government, since the government has more effect on their daily lives (and deaths) than in most other countries.
Care to explain? Feel free to summarize what you think is in the book you’ve cited.
Well, at least a lot of them have a chance to get involved – http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569844_8/Cuba.html:
It would actually be a more democratic and broadly participatory system than anything we’ve got outside New England, if the Communist Party were not controlling every step of the process. Provided you’re acceptable to the PCC, it is probably easier to get a seat on a Cuban municipal assembly than an American county commission or town council.