Noah the world's largest economy has waged all out economic warfare on a tiny island nation since the 1950s. It's simply not remotely rational to think that you can assess its economic system under those conditions.
One thing that's cooler than old cars is when Castro liberated sugar plantations that were run by literal Black slaves.
As noted, I supported Obama's normalization. I'm not interested in defending the embargo. But I'm also not interested in letting the Cuban leadership off the hook because of it; that is, in fact, one of the bad things about the embargo, that it enables that leadership to blame every problem the country has on the USA rather than on themselves. (It's a generalizable problem with conducting "diplomacy" via sanctions.)
If it is literally impossible for Cuba to do anything to improve their lot while suffering under the embargo, then rationally they should surrender so as to get the embargo lifted. If, on the other hand, there is a viable strategy for defying the USA and proving that they can thrive despite the best efforts of the Yankee imperialists to crush them, they should be pursuing that strategy. Are they?
That’s an excuse, not a reason. Hong Kong and Taiwan did just fine when Mainland China economically blocked them, and few countries buy into the US embargo of Cuba. And it is not as if we don’t have lots of natural experiments of same country different systems sending the same message.
I have long supported eliminating the US embargo, because it would strip the Cuban regime of its last excuse. If Florida stops being a swing State, perhaps the Cuban-American lobby will lose its pull and the policy will be rescinded.
Slavery was abolished in Cuba in 1886, when the country still was a Spanish possession. No, Fidel didn't 'liberate sugar plantations that were literally run by slaves'. That last paragraphs is one of the most ignorant (or disengenous) statements I've ever read in my whole life. Chronic scarcity of staple goods, political repression and economic mismanagement and have been a feature of every Marxist-inspired polity that has ever existed: it's not the US embargo.
A simple search shows that the USA exported nearly $300 million in poultry meat to Cuba in 2022, over $11 million in soybeans and over $8 million in corn. Not to mention medicines and other humanitarian goods. While there is an embargo on business and financial investments, there is no such thing on humanitarian trade.
The reason Cuba is in the state that it is in is not because of the embargo, it is because of gross mismanagement by a police state that trades the future potential of its people for power and money. Like all good communists, some animals are most definitely more equal than others.
Thank you for this incredibly honest piece. My parents were Cuban exiles. I visited just before normalization and even then I found the experience soul crushing - a profound sense of "there but for the grace of God go I." I did not have tour guides that were as honest, but we had fun with it and kidded them about it. I did, however, have the opportunity to hang out and speak with Cubans and while there was plenty of hope then, there was still a healthy helping of despair.
My parents are Marxists and they visited Cuba a couple years ago, excited to see the revolution in action. They saw the kinds of things you saw, and left sad and disillusioned.
This report sounds pretty credible…and sad…though the organized tour they were on did seem like they could still arrange an almost convincing “In Search of the Buena Vista Social Club” tour for a select group of Gringos
It’s very telling that the one slightly positive economic note is attached to China. I don’t view their angling to be the next world hegemon as positive necessarily but sometimes I wonder if they could do any worse than we have since 1959…. Welcome to 2025…
Noah the world's largest economy has waged all out economic warfare on a tiny island nation since the 1950s. It's simply not remotely rational to think that you can assess its economic system under those conditions.
One thing that's cooler than old cars is when Castro liberated sugar plantations that were run by literal Black slaves.
As noted, I supported Obama's normalization. I'm not interested in defending the embargo. But I'm also not interested in letting the Cuban leadership off the hook because of it; that is, in fact, one of the bad things about the embargo, that it enables that leadership to blame every problem the country has on the USA rather than on themselves. (It's a generalizable problem with conducting "diplomacy" via sanctions.)
If it is literally impossible for Cuba to do anything to improve their lot while suffering under the embargo, then rationally they should surrender so as to get the embargo lifted. If, on the other hand, there is a viable strategy for defying the USA and proving that they can thrive despite the best efforts of the Yankee imperialists to crush them, they should be pursuing that strategy. Are they?
That’s an excuse, not a reason. Hong Kong and Taiwan did just fine when Mainland China economically blocked them, and few countries buy into the US embargo of Cuba. And it is not as if we don’t have lots of natural experiments of same country different systems sending the same message.
I have long supported eliminating the US embargo, because it would strip the Cuban regime of its last excuse. If Florida stops being a swing State, perhaps the Cuban-American lobby will lose its pull and the policy will be rescinded.
Slavery was abolished in Cuba in 1886, when the country still was a Spanish possession. No, Fidel didn't 'liberate sugar plantations that were literally run by slaves'. That last paragraphs is one of the most ignorant (or disengenous) statements I've ever read in my whole life. Chronic scarcity of staple goods, political repression and economic mismanagement and have been a feature of every Marxist-inspired polity that has ever existed: it's not the US embargo.
A simple search shows that the USA exported nearly $300 million in poultry meat to Cuba in 2022, over $11 million in soybeans and over $8 million in corn. Not to mention medicines and other humanitarian goods. While there is an embargo on business and financial investments, there is no such thing on humanitarian trade.
The reason Cuba is in the state that it is in is not because of the embargo, it is because of gross mismanagement by a police state that trades the future potential of its people for power and money. Like all good communists, some animals are most definitely more equal than others.
Thank you for this incredibly honest piece. My parents were Cuban exiles. I visited just before normalization and even then I found the experience soul crushing - a profound sense of "there but for the grace of God go I." I did not have tour guides that were as honest, but we had fun with it and kidded them about it. I did, however, have the opportunity to hang out and speak with Cubans and while there was plenty of hope then, there was still a healthy helping of despair.
My parents are Marxists and they visited Cuba a couple years ago, excited to see the revolution in action. They saw the kinds of things you saw, and left sad and disillusioned.
I thought things were better than this.
This report sounds pretty credible…and sad…though the organized tour they were on did seem like they could still arrange an almost convincing “In Search of the Buena Vista Social Club” tour for a select group of Gringos
It’s very telling that the one slightly positive economic note is attached to China. I don’t view their angling to be the next world hegemon as positive necessarily but sometimes I wonder if they could do any worse than we have since 1959…. Welcome to 2025…