Chumpsky, Chumpsky, Chumpsky. It is useless to continue this highjack to Cuba if you are not finding Cites: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/665742.stm
On the whole: no executions now. The truth, however is in the middle of your rants and Daoloth, however the worst abuses and executions were committed at the beginning of the revolution. And it is now a gentler police state, but it is a police state nevertheless, and as a believer in democracy I think history will not absolve Castro.
To all: Stick to Venezuela, this is not a Cuba thread.
That’s right. You don’t have proof. It is very difficult to find proof for imaginary events.
The just pure sadism of the U.S. with regard to Haiti is kind of amazing. Haiti has two inter-related distinctions. First, it is the poorest country in the hemisphere. Second, it has been the victim of the most U.S. intervention of any country in the hemisphere.
For the current situation, I would recommend listening to a few reports on flashpoints, in particular, Dec. 3, 2002 and Nov. 25, 2002, to get an idea of how the U.S. is trying to starve the Haitians into submission. http://flashpoints.net/
Essentially the situation is this:
The U.S. allowed propped up a typical third world fascist dictator, Duvalier, for years before his ass was finally kicked out. In 1990, Haiti was allowed to have a free election. The U.S. was blindsided when their favored candidate, a typical comprador with vast U.S. funding, lost to the populist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990, in a landslide. The U.S. did not notice the very vibrant democratic organizations that had grown in the country, sweeping Aristide to victory. (The ruling classes are often surprisingly blind to the power of grass-roots movements.) Aristide went to work trying to help the just miserably poor people in Haiti. I mean, poverty like you wouldn’t believe, just soul-crushing poverty.
Well, the inevitable clash occured when Aristide started stepping on the toes of those who think it is their inalienable right to exploit Third World peoples, to maintain maquiladoras in Haiti that export exotic fruits to the yuppie market in the U.S. while Haitians are starving to death. Well, there was the familiar coup to oust Aristide and install a military dictatorship. The U.S. pretended to abide by an embargo, while all the time allowing the ruling junta to import everything they needed. Lying bastards.
The situation finally got to grim to ignore, and the U.S. was forced to allow Aristide to return in 1994. They did so, on some conditions, namely that he would respect the “rights” of capital. Harsh conditions were placed on Haiti. You know, the typical IMF-World Bank-WTO kind of crap where they impose austerity conditions mandating that only a certain percentage can go toward social programs, where tariffs are restricted, etc. Crucially, though, when the U.S. went in to restore Aristide, they confiscated thousands of pages of documentation on the coup, which to this day has still not been released.
Aristide did not quite play by the rules, though. He is again president of Haiti, and has overwhelming support from the people. The U.S. is imposing some really sadistic sanctions on Haiti, and, familiarly, threatening to intervene militarily.
The people of Haiti, although starving, are acting quite heroically, I might say. I never cease to be amazed at the heroism of the oppressed. They are refusing to give up their democracy in the face of U.S. threats and coercion. We will see if they are able to maintain a civil society, or if they will go the way of Chile, Guatemala, etc.
The religious fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia are squashing the human rights of their citizenry. The portion of Iran that really runs things, again, rightists, are stopping democracy. Ariel Sharon is not doing nearly enough to promote a peace process. Neither is Yasser Arafat. Both are rightists, IMHO. George Bush, a rightist, has done a horrible disservice by slapping tarrifs on steel. Pinochet was a horrible leader.
The left and the right have their own shares of wackos. Back to Venezuela. Chavez is a leftist wacko.
Fine. Everything you say is true, as long as we do a few translations into English.
For one thing, a “police state” is defined as “any state that does not allow free reign to capital.” Secondly, when you use the term “democracy” you are using it to mean “the freedom of capital to exploit resources and people.”
With those translations, what you say is true. So, I guess you are only a liar if we read your post as if it was written in English. Once translated, though, it is perfectly truthful.
(BTW, the BBC is hardly a credible source of information on leftist governments.)
What would you accept as a credible source? www.americaisthedevil.com? There’s no pleasing you, continue to leave in your own imaginary world.
And back to the OP…
Cesar Gaviria, Secretary General of the OAS has just finished speaking about a meeting (the 15th already) between the two sides to negotiate a peaceful ending to the conflict. May Venezuela find a peaceful, satisfactory way out of this mess.
Hijack.
The offical position of the Cuban government is that Ernest Hemmingway was a capitalist oppressor of the Cuban masses, and that he hated the Cuban people.
How so? Mussolini enjoyed wide support from the west, because he “got the trains to run on time.” He was referred to as “that admirable Italian gentleman” by Roosevelt. Fascist Italy was not considered a police state by the capitalists, until it became ideologically serviceable for the war effort. But, somehow Cuba is.
Thank you for confirming why I don’t agree with your definition: a police state (and everybony NOW think it was) will indeed allow capitalists to continue exploiting people. Without some silly problems like unions, disposed off by courtesy of Mussolini. A democratic state should have no relation with the economic system it has.
Well, well, well. Chumpsky, one simple question. How many elections has Castro stood for?
How exactly can you hold in your mind the idea that Cuba under Castro isn’t a dictatorship? Hey, maybe you agree that Cuba SHOULD be a dictatorship. I’m sure you can explain why dictatorship is neccesary for the child-like Cuban people. But please don’t argue that Cuba isn’t a dictatorship.
The poor of Venezuela certainly need help. They have been very badly served by previous governments. With all of its oil wealth, Venezuela had the chance to really improve things. Unfortunately that chance has been largely squandered.
It is a great misfortune for the poor that their champion, Chavez, has turned out to be such a spectacularly incompetent bungler, not to mention a thug. Chavez could perhaps have improved things, if had had made any attempt to work with the other political interests in the country. But a bully and a blowhard by nature, he chose the path of diviseness and confrontation from the very beginning.
Salt of the Earth, Jagger/Richards
I too hope things can be worked out democratically. I never like to see an elected government overthrown by force, even one as inept and dangerous as Chavez’s.
But is very ironic that this is happening to someone who has so little respect for democracy himself, having led a coup against an elected government in 1992. (And I’ve never understood why Chavez was not still in jail for treason for that little adventure.)
The Venezuelans here can correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand the Chavez’s own new Constitution enshrines the right of rebellion against an antidemocratic regime - a clause the army officers in the plaza are using to justify their actions. It sure likes like Chavez is being hoisted by his own petard.
[I am ignoring the utter nonsense that **Chumpsky** has been spouting - he clearly knows nothing whatever about Latin America. And I speak as someone who has worked in Latin America for 25 years, is fairly left-wing, and has had more than a little first-hand experience with U.S. interventionism in the region.]
About the three people killed, it is true.
About the venezuelans’ fear, I think is not accurate. Chavez IMHO doesn’t have a support on that from the armed forces.
That’s true. Chumpsky, you should read that very carefully. He is talking about Chavez’s mistakes AND mistakes of previous govenments. Yes, they did mistakes (and bad ones), but Chavez is making BIGGER BADDER mistakes.
He was in prison, but Rafael Caldera indulged him (what a mistake). IMHO he did this because he was Carlos Andrés Pérez “enemy”, and he was kinda populist himself, so he wanted to “win points” with the people that were with Chavez.
