Why is Cuba shedding it's communist policies?

Do some research, what bollocks! I've lived in eight cities in five countries on four continents (including the EU)... what's your experience?

Maybe? MAYBE?

I think a lot of people who maybe don't really know a lot of history or know much about countries other than the US tend to think that somehow it is unprecedented in history for there to be a tug of war between the government and the courts to determine the boundaries of rights to privacy, the powers of the police, etc etc. Obviously it is not, this is a natural process in a democracy, there is an ebb and flow.

Yet it still seems hard to believe that anyone could say "well, in Cuba they have a one party system, no democracy, a controlled press, no freedom of assembly or association, no freedom of movement, a vast secret police, political prisoners, a 50 year hereditary dictatorship, restricted internet access, no independent judiciary... but in America the National Guard makes you leave your home after a hurricane causes mass flooding, so the US and Cuba are both police states". This suggest a substantial detachment from reality.

 

Do we have any of those freedoms any longer here in the states?

• We are a republic we have never practiced pure democracy. I would argue that there is no inherent difference between the two well intrenched parties in the US.
• Our press is now so consolidated and corporatized that it is no longer free or objective.
• Anti-war protests are moved and isolated to areas so far from political events that they are no longer even associated with the events they are protesting.
• Since 09/11 our freedom of movement has been greatly reduced, you now need a passport to visit Mexico or Canada.
• Homeland Security and it's affiliates have grown in scope and power with fewer restraints and with the recent passage of FISA all verbal or written correspondence is open to scrutiny.
• We are now free to apprehend and incarcerate off site. People so conscripted are held without rescourse to the basic tenets of law and torture is inflicted all in the name of enhanced security.
• Hereditary dicatatorship for 50 years, well we aren't quite there yet.
• Our judiciary has been made a joke both through appointments, and political firings. No one in honesty could say that it's fair and independent.
• The National Guard and nobody else made anyone evacuate in time to save lives, they only enforced evacutions after the crisis was over in time to do a land grab.

I think I have a pretty good grip on reality.

As to your ebb and flow comment. When have any rights that have ever been relinquished ever been reinstated after they have been taken? Seems like it's mostly ebb and live with it.

 

All of them.

The parties compete for the middle, I would not expect radical differences.

Complete nonsense, in the internet age we have more choice than ever about where to get our news and information. You are not complaining about freedom of the press, you are complaining that the press isn't pushing the views you want.

This is an infringement of free speech, but not the destruction of it. Try protesting Cuba's dictatorship anywhere. You would be arrested within minutes. Can you see the difference?

The horror!

That is completely false, read up on FISA if you are really interested.

Here we go with the "we" again... who is free to apprehend who?

Again, not specific enough... who his held with recourse to what law?

Torture, however, I completely agree, although it doesn't affect US citizens. If anyone didn't hear me the first time, yes I agree with Gardener on this one.

Yes, so far we have 0 years.

The Supreme Court has always been appointed, if that's what you mean. That's the system. There is no change from some golden age when apparently the Supreme Court got everything right and was free of any politics.

They were late but its a bit ridiculous to claim the crisis was over.

The Supreme Court struck down the handgun ban in Washington DC, and a month ago struck down portions of the Military Commissions Act. Other examples of the courts fighting back on war on terror related legislation/actions are here.

Please remind me when the good old days were, you know when there were no attacks on civil liberties and government was pure and good. I'd like to know.

 

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Hey Gardner: we forgot the one about Marijuana being illegal.

People going to jail for home growing and being raped in prison.

This is Hip Forums, right?

We dont care about Soccer Moms here!

 

It should be noted that the only reason Cuba is communist to begin with is because when Castro kicked out the Jewish mafia that ruled Havana, the country lost its main source of income. Vice.

He yelled for help and the communists were the first to answer.

The enemy of my enemy...



x

 

The sexual tourism that Cuba currently engages in has a paralell in literature. In Orwells Animal Farm , the final betrayal when the pigs engage with the human outsiders in the commerce of exploitation of thier fellow beasts.

 

QFT!

 

right because Batista's regime being more backwards than Castro's ever was had nothing to do with it.

 

If you don't have relatives in Miami, you're fucked.