[Sithsaber]

To be fair the father is a economic migrant/refugee. If he died along the way the kid would have been taken in by the state. At best the son would be called for after the father had established himself in a low wage but at least car affordable lifestyle on the main land. Some people just want a Nissan, they aren't really class traitors. (hell sometimes i seriously consider emigrating to a few countries that will not be named in search of easily available labor work)

[Decky]

To be fair the father is a economic migrant/refugee. If he died along the way the kid would have been taken in by the state.

The kid should be told that he has.

[Social_Critic]

My case was a bit backwards. I told my dad when I was 13 I was leaving on my own. So he helped me escape. This made it very hard for him to leave, because the idea is to punish us and keep us divided. I never did see my dad again.

This man knew the system, but he decided to risk it naively thinking the Cubans would break down. But that's not the way it works. The typical solution we use is to go back in using a high speed boat and have them swim out. It can be a harrowing experience but it has been done. But people who go in to fetch relatives don't talk about it, of course.

Eventually all of this makes one fairly clinical about the whole thing. I don't take it personal because I realize they are diseased criminals, and these commies treat everybody the same. But it does make me into a machine when it comes to them. I have no pity whatsoever for them. I must confess I was really hoping Chavez would last a few years dying of cancer. It hurts like crazy.

[Gletkin]

First, the revolution to overthrow Batista lasted about two- three years.

Ok.
Your point being?

Second, I never said they should be put in a wood chipper alive. I have said they should be jailed, put on trial and convicted. Then executed. And then their corpses can be put in a wood chipper. Given their tendency to have medieval ideas about embalming and making demigods out of their leaders' cadavers, I think a medieval solution is in order.

You indicated that you wanted to see them executed and now confirmed it. Although I hardly think corpse desecration is substantially less "barbaric" than execution. Indeed at least here in the States the executed are treated with a modicum of dignity.
So those who oppose the death penalty would give you crap about "rulers should be held responsible when they do harm if they had options not to do harm".

Returning to my point, nothing you argue really gets traction with me. I don't give a shit about excuses. After 50 years, enough is enough.

That's fine.
But would you also "disallow" "Castro was worse than Batista" arguments?

[Social_Critic]

Very very often though....more the rule than the exception....the proverbial eggs were broken to make the proverbial omelet. Especially if the rebellion was in the form of a protracted war. More lives were lost to the American War of Independence than ever was to British colonial "tyranny".

When I said the revolution in Cuba I was responding to your comment. I guess this discussion is really about nothing, because you lack the detailed knowledge I have. The key learning if you wish to absorb it is that repression and abuses which go on for 50 years after the fighting is over are not justified. Ever.

[Gletkin]

I guess this discussion is really about nothing, because you lack the detailed knowledge I have.

According to that "I was there, you weren't" logic then History itself is literally a limited subject since it has to restricted to our lifetimes. Any subject beyond our existence might as well be forgotten about then as none of us were there.
According to your standard, anything and everything about Fidel Castro eventually will be "really about nothing" as eventually everyone who ever lived under his rule will die out.

The key learning if you wish to absorb it is that repression and abuses which go on for 50 years after the fighting is over are not justified. Ever.

An eminently valid argument.
Even comparisons to predecessors literally get old over time. Rehashing old glories is frequently a sign of a lack of present viability.

[Social_Critic]

I didnt say history was about nothing if you weren't there. But if you gloss over details then you lose the key learnings.

Let me use a fairly un controversial example: During the USA invasion of Cuba in 1898 (the Spanish American war in USA lore), Teddy Roosevelt was said to have charged up San Juan Hill. My dad took me to the battlefield and joked Roosevelt didn't really charge up San Juan, that was Leonard Wood. But Roosevelt was written up by the media and became president. Many years later I took a graduate level history course when I was studying engineering and I told my professor the Roosevelt story was off. He challenged me about my sources and I explained I heard it from my dad whose grandfather had been at the battle with the Cuban forces. My professor said that was bullshit hearsay, told me to prove it. I had to dig all the way to letters written by USA officers who were there, and proved that according to the ranger eyewitnesses Roosevelt was at a nearby hill. And he did indeed act with valor, distinguished himself - but he wasn't at San Juan hill. Just a nitpick, I know, but it shows how being there does help sometimes.

You know, quite often I like to discuss things and get in these debates because I'm not like you guys. I'm an engineer, but I'm sort of Forrest Gumpish. I met a lot of interesting characters, and yes I shook hands with Fidel Castro. I was introduced to him as xxx 's son, who is an outstanding student. Fidel shook my hand, asked me what I wanted to do in university and told me to keep up the good work. And I'll add something else. So even though Kurt shits a brick when I say it, I do know. I know a lot more than you can imagine.

[Sithsaber]

Sounds like bullshit but weirder things have happened. Just look at me; I've lived in the same place since forever but some fucking how i have ran in to everyone from honest to goodness italian mobsters to various members of foreign oligarchies to connections in the local pd and republican senators.

[Gletkin]

you lack the detailed knowledge I have.

Another problem with that kind of claim is that's also a tactic often used by those who want to pull the wool over others' eyes.
It's basically saying "I'm an expert on this matter whereas you're ignorant. Hence you should really be silent and just defer to me."
A good example being the US government's propaganda campaign shoring up support for invading Iraq a decade ago. They were the "experts". They had "detailed knowledge". Critics and doubters of the upcoming invasion were dismissed as ignorant. How the hell could they know better?
Years later, the "experts" finally admitted that just about all the reasons they gave for invading were wrong.

You know, quite often I like to discuss things and get in these debates because I'm not like you guys. I'm an engineer, but I'm sort of Forrest Gumpish. I met a lot of interesting characters

You don't say?

Just look at me; I've lived in the same place since forever but some fucking how i have ran in to everyone from honest to goodness italian mobsters to various members of foreign oligarchies to connections in the local pd and republican senators.

I know right?
I wonder how much he's compensated by Dos Equis for basing their marketing campaign off of him.

[Social_Critic]

I do say. let me ask you, do you read Spanish? I could send you material privately. But I'm not about to post Spanish links here.

[Sithsaber]

I don't think i should give you any way of finding me but sure send as much files to my profile as you want.

[Social_Critic]

I was writing for Gletkin. I am going to send some historical notes I keep for my book, including a description of the site where Castro's henchmen used to muder revolutionary force members who declared openly they were going to oppose Fidel if he turned communist. I happen to know where one of the mass graves is located.

[Decky]

Do you know who really killed JFK?

[Social_Critic]

I sure don't. The day it happened I was in Havana. I remember a neighbor came running down the street with a huge smile on her face, shouting "¡mataron a Fidel, mataron a fidel!" (They killed Fidel!). Everybody got really excited and many started cheering, thinking the nightmare was over. Then we heard it was Kennedy and Johnson was the new president, and everything went back to the same bullshit.

[Sithsaber]

That's right, as soon as the Castro brothers die Cuba will spontaneously rise up. The state apparatus goes no farther than Fidel

[Social_Critic]

Hey, I wasn't cheering. I knew better. I just reported what I saw. In those days Fidel was so overwhelming, everybody did what he said, and there was nobody willing to stand up to him. My mom thinks he had Camilo killed because the guy was opposed to communism. They do have their mass graves where they buried revolutionaries who opposed that commie bullshit Fidel came up with.

[Sandokan]

The two young men were veiled in the funerary on Zanja Street in Central Havana, and buried on the 27th, at noon. So far, the official press has not reported on the incident. Neither the government has made an appeal to avoid victims, in this type of accidents that has already become common in the capital.

[Sandokan]

Second escape Intent in a Buick

In February 2004, this time on a 1959 Buick converted into a tailfinned boat, a group of 11 balseros flee the island in a second try. The interior of the car was welded to be watertight, the prow of a boat was attached to the front of the car, and it was fully functional even the tires. Like in the previous intent they were intercepted at sea, and most of the balseros were repatriated again, except the Grass couple and their 4-year-old son that were sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Tthis car was also sunk by the Coast Guard. Eventually the Grass family were granted asylum in Costa Rica.

[Sandokan]

Cuban human rights groups report more than 500 political arrests in August
http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncomm ... ugust.html

Uncommon Sense
September 4, 2012

However you count it, the repression in Cuba does not let up.

The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation reports there were 521 political arrests in Cuba in August -- more than twice the number reported in August 2011.

The Hablemos Press Information Center (CIHPRESS), an independent news agency that keeps close tabs on repression in Cuba, reports there were 538 political arrests last month, the highest monthly total since March.

The differing counts reveal the challenges that human rights activists face as they try to hold the regime for its repression.
But as important as the bottom-line numbers, are the trends.

Whatever the wishful, delusional thinking of those who believe that if we allow more money, in the form or travel or remittances or trade, to flow to Cuba, the more likely the Castros will change their ways, the repression is getting worse.
However you count it, the suffering in Cuba is getting worse.

As long as there are Cubans with the courage to resist, and with the blood-thirst of the Castros to stifle their opposition, that will not change.

The tyrannical Castroit monarchy keeps outdoing itself with regard to the repression of the human rights activists. During the last two years the harassment and detention of dissidents across the island has risen sharply.

This video by Amnesty International reveals new tactics by the Cuban regime security apparatus to punish individuals which oppose the regime.

Routine repression in Cuba

[Sandokan]

“This is how people live in Cuba”: Video captures critical housing situation on the island
http://pedazosdelaislaen.wordpress.com/ ... he-island/

Posted by Pedazos de la Isla on March 14, 2013


This video, filmed and edited inside of Cuba by members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), capture the current housing and living conditions in the country, providing various testimonies of everyday citizens from the Eastern region as well as images which display the conditions in which they live- homes without roofs, underage children working the land to not die of hunger, unemployed and unassisted people, etc. Towards the end of the video, the homes of everyday citizens are compares with those of communist functionaries. See the difference for yourselves.
Video:

The 2002 census data show that of the new housing units built between 1990 and 2002, close to 50,000 were bohíos and adobe structures, similar to the one shown in the picture. The bohío is a primitive dwellings with palm bark walls, earthen floors and palm leave roofs; adobe, mud bricks walls, earthen floors and palm leave roofs. Those can’t be classified as adequate housing.