Comments by "" (@shauncameron8390) on "Cuba: A deserted revolution? | Talk to Al Jazeera: In the Field" video.

  1.  @EM-dw2yv  Because Cuba's credit is poor from all the previous times they defaulted on their payments.
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  2.  @ProjectHyena  No. Cuba operating on a model that doesn't allow any efficient production of anything locally is the real issue.
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  3.  @davidpethick83  The facts are: Cuba had no real economy left after Castro decimated it having to be propped up by USSR and other countries making the sanctions of little consequence, but an excuse for the Cuban government to maintain the economic repression of its own citizens.
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  4.  @IshtarNike  The embargo is nothing compared to what Castro did to local industry and the loss of Soviet aid to make up for it.
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  5. She is. A Party stooge.
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  6.  @ProjectHyena  Yet Soviet aid, Canadian tourism, Venezuelan oil and US remittances kept Cuba afloat despite it.
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  7. <When it comes to the living conditions of civilians, Cuba is in much better condition than Capitalist Mexico is in.> Yet Cubans much rather live in Mexico than Cuba. LOL <The embargo sanction is what causes Cuba's economic limitations.> No. Its lack of local economy and industry is the cause of Cuba's limitations making it reliant on outside aid thanks to the Cuban government's wholesale decimation of the private sector.
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  8.  @glenncordova4027  LOL. Which allowed Castro to die a multi-millionaire.
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  9.  @pbworld7858  But no jobs or viable economy to put to good use in.
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  10.  @criticalthinker8374  <It's a lack of basic humanity. Individual humans mean nothing and their toxic failed ideology means everything.> What more do you expect from a collectivist ideal?
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  11.  @elkamalito9641  The Cuban government is what's holding Cuba back from reaching its potential, not the US sanctions.
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  12. There'll never be a government that cares about its citizens. All governments are self-serving and power-hungry.
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  13. The government needs to abandon the central planning and let the free market thrive.
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  14. Especially after Castro destroyed the local economy and the foreign aid dried up when the USSR collapsed. So much for self-reliance.
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  15.  @glenncordova4027  Because Castro decimated the local economy to the point it could not support itself without some outside aid.
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  16.  @kimobrien.  Just like he's not interested in tankies.
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  17.  @jackrosario9990  They don't.
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  18.  @fotoz2363  Or making makeshift boats off the Miami port risking getting eaten by sharks to live in Havana. Ditto for Los Angeles to live in Pyongyang.
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  19. Exactly.
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  20. Margaret Thatcher was right. Communism = power to the government at the expense of the people.
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  21. And (consistent) electricity.
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  22. And interestingly that done far more damage than the US sanctions bringing about that Special Period.
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  23. The embargo is just a convenient excuse to ignore the failures caused by Cuban government policy regarding economic development.
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  24. The only bullying going on in Cuba is that of the Cuban government against its own people.
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  25.  @marshallbeggs  Exactly.
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  26.  @Michael-ig8ih  <Doctors in Cuba make enough for a comfortable living.> No they don't as they only get 10% of their actual earnings while 90% goes to the government. There's a reason why they have side-jobs like taxi-driving. That and their monthly rations are inadequate. Not to mention some became doctors, because it's their best chance at getting a travel Visa and TFO of Cuba altogether. <If you’re becoming a doctor for pat and prestige, you shouldn’t be a doctor. If your sole motivation to be a doctor is not helping your community, you don’t deserve the privilege of going to medical school for free > Says who?
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  27.  @backto-il9ne  Pretty much.
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  28. But it won't, because it might spell the end of the regime like what happened in the Soviet Union, its one-time sugar daddy.
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  29. Exactly.
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  30. LOL. Nah. Cuba is more Freddie Gray.
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  31. Just like the ruling PCC will never let go of their stranglehold on the economy and people's lives. Apparently it's better that the people suffer than admit failure and responsibility for why the country hasn't progressed in the past 6 decades, letting go of the power.
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  32. Pretty much.
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  33. End the communism.
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  34. No. It's because Cubans are not legally allowed to even if they wanted to.
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  35. It's only a triumph for those part of the regime.
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  36. Communism cannot work. Tanzania under Nyerere didn't suffer from any US sanction or internal corruption yet its experiment failed all the same.
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  37. Pretty much.
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  38. <Cubans work less and enjoy more time with their families than most people in developed countries.> Easy to do that when there are literally no jobs much less anything resembling a thriving economy. <Cuba’s medical system is decades ahead of the US’. > Lay off the PCC propaganda. And by the way, the US still outranks Cuba in overall healthcare.
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  39.  @Michael-ig8ih  <Capitalism has rotted your brain if you think working at Walmart is more meaningful than spending time with the people you love.> Not nearly as much as socialism rotted yours as if you can't spend time with the people you love in capitalism.
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  40. Says a poster who's probably on the PCC's payroll.
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  41. LOL. The revolutionary women is a Castro regime bootlicker.
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  42. And neither does Cuba with its import bans and high tariffs.
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  43. Translation: solidarity for the Cuban government repressing the people of Cuba while erroneously blaming the US.
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  44. If the US wanted to take over Cuba, they shouldn't have let it go after winning the Spanish-American War.
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  45. First end the planned economy.
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  46. How is Cuba going to conduct international trade when they hardly have the ability to produce anything worth trading due to Castro decimating local industry?
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  47. Cuban government = power at all costs.
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  48. Yeah! Viva la Revolucion indeed! While the people starve and suffer just so the PCC can stay in power and spite the US.
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  49. The end result of communism = kleptocracy.
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  50. Workers do own the means of production in socialism and Cuba. They just happen to be government bureaucrats.
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  51.  @guidototh6091  AKA the average socialist country.
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  52. Laos is a Chinese vassal state just like North Korea.
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  53. Cuba is not a Black-majority country. And the leadership is every bit as White as the people who fled for Miami.
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  54. <Communism Wins again.> If you like redundancy and inefficiency. <n my US town, Capitalists closed the shoe factories, and hundreds of people with similar skills were cast to the wind without the opportunities> They had opportunities. Sure it might have required them to get retrained or relocate, but still. Capitalists are not obligated to keep around a business that is no longer solvent let alone profitable due to insufficient revenues to meet basic operating costs.
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  55. Sanctions are nothing. The Cuban government undermined the country's ability to produce something worth exporting that could generate enough revenue to buy something. Never mind the currency they devalued and made worthless.
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  56.  @cherylblandin3513  <Do not know if it that they get kick back from imports or fear of making mis takes> High tariffs. There's no fear of making mistakes. There's just fear of losing power and social control.
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  57. He used the poor to enrich and empower himself and his comrades.
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  58. This is a problem with communism. Plus, the loss of Soviet aid did far more dame to Cuba than the US sanctions.
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  59.  @Waitaminute2015  Michael Manley's democratic socialism tanked Jamaica.
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  60. No. This is the Satanic nature of communism and how it always built on false promises. Never mind the liberators exploiting the people for power.
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  61. Not really. Cuba just simply ran out foreign aid to keep the facade going.
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  62. The US has no obligation to do anything for Cuba. And Cuba destroyed its own means self-sufficiency when Castro took over. China is just picking up where the West left off in exploiting Africa. By the way, how's Sri Lanka doing with those Chinese loans?
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  63. Exactly. Don't forget Canadian tourism and Cuba legalizing prostitution in the 90's. Also they depend on US remittances and food shipments.
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  64. Because she's one of the privileged.
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  65. Yet somehow it didn't suffer much when the USSR, Venezuela and Canadian tourism bankrolled it.
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  66.  @CTN999  Not nearly as crippling as the Cuban government's economic repression against its own citizens responsible for why it had to depend on Venezuela, Canada, USSR and even the US to stay afloat. The real elephant in the room is Cuba's command model. It doesn't produce much worth exporting and doesn't generate enough revenue to sustain itself and buy anything it needs.
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  67. Better question: why is no one talking about the Cuban government's policies that stifled virtually all economic growth and development having to depend on outside aid just to stay afloat? And the real reason it can't buy or sell anything is because it doesn't produce anything worth selling and it hardly has any thriving local industries that generate the revenues needed to buy something.
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  68. Nope. Be it communist Cuba or socialist Venezuela and Nicaragua.
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  69. Drop the command economy, Cuba.
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  70. Cuba destroyed its own economy opting for Soviet aid.
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  71.  @spaghettimon3851  Of the 2 million in prison, how many for disagreeing with the government?
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  72.  @spaghettimon3851  They don't live in the US.
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  73. No. Cuba belongs to whoever's willing to give them a handout.
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  74. But no economy to put it to good use in rendering that free education worthless.
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  75.  @imoldgreggboosh3467  In short.... Gregg Boosh = Castro bootlicker
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  76. No. That would be the Cuban government and its command economy destroying Cuba. None of the rest of the Caribbean is even under sanctions anyway.
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  77. No. Cuba starved itself with the wholesale decimating of local industry.
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  78. Which is minor at best. Cuba's problem is that even its own allies barely want to do business with it anymore as Cuba doesn't pay its tab or produce much worth trading.
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  79.  @Sharon-cb6zt  <Let me control everything about your life and keep you in poverty and disable you from having trade, etc.> That's the Cuban government in a nutshell.
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  80.  @Sharon-cb6zt  <sad- are not Cuban and have not been there BUT you are a Yankee....> And apparently neither have you, yet you shill for the regime like the typical Western leftist.
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  81. Namely Castro and Trudeau Sr.
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  82. Only by the Cuban government against its own people.
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  83. First remove the central planning.
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  84. Because that's nothing compared to inhumane and tyrannical Cuban government control of all daily life as ordinary Cubans are barely even allowed to make an honest living much less have any say over what they want to do with their lives without government meddling.
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  85. But they don't because even they're tired of not being paid and having their goods and services stolen.
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  86.  @mao4634  Capitalists control the CCP. Isn't Winnie The Pooh a billionaire?
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  87.  @RamMohammadJosephKaur  India is yet another socialist failure that has spent the last 29 years trying to catch up.
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  88. As the masses are just simply not up to the task of matching the rich's production levels to sustain the resources they think they're entitled to.
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  89.  @pomponi0  No one is starving the Cuban people except the Cuban government. <but if there was no price control, tourists would drive food prices up.> Because Cuba doesn't produce its own food at a sufficient amount to offset that.
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  90.  @Becky_Cal  Yet millions still risk their lives to enter the US in spite of its issues.
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  91. Not even Haitians.
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  92. Before the US, there was hardly any peace in the world.
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  93. But to a lot of illegal immigrants, being poor in America >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> living in state-imposed abject poverty in Cuba.
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  94.  @machevilchannel7002  <Capitalism during Batista's time hasn't provide a good standard of living,> Actually yes it did. And Cuba was one of the wealthiest countries in the Americas under Batista, something that even pro-Castro Afro-Cuban historians acknowledge.
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  95. Apparently he can no longer put up with what he voted for.
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  96.  @RamMohammadJosephKaur  Because Castro seized all the US-built and funded businesses without compensation and played host to Soviet nukes?
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  97. Cuba is far from helpless. The Cuban government made it such.
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  98. The current PCC was never democratically elected. The got into power by coup.
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  99. Yes it is . Sanctions are not responsible for Cuba's lack of local economy.
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  100. Cuba doesn't have oil. It's imported from Venezuela.
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  101. <You can not call it socialism unless everything is shared equally> Hard to do that when there's not much to share let alone equally on top of some being bound to squander what they have bound to be a burden and threat to those who managed what they have wisely. Yes you can call it socialism, despite that idea being unsustainable.
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  102. So does Jamaica. And?
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  103.  @josemanuelalvarezbilbatua7869  And the Cuba system produces very little, because it's inefficient, ineffective and outdated.
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  104. The real problem is Cuba has no functional economy thanks to the Castro-led government, dependent on interestingly the very same US for food and remittances.
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  105. LOL. No. This is the fault of Cuban communism and the political 1%.
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  106. China liberated its economy. Cuba still insists on maintaining total state control.
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  107. Without eventually either turning to capitalism or foreign aid.
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  108. LOL. 91% of the Cuban government is white. And black people are barred from participating and benefiting from one of the few thriving industries Cuba has which is tourism. White Cubans live better than black Cubans thanks to remittances as most of the people who fled from the Castro (who by the way was white) regime were white.
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  109. The Cuban government is the ultimate problem. Their egos and pride just cannot accept that their model doesn't work and need to step aside as they have done far more to hold Cuba back than any "illegal" embargo ever did.
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  110.  @biodiversityfanatic2454  Why don't you get a job and pay for it yourself?
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  111.  @biodiversityfanatic2454  I have a job and just enjoying life as is.
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  112. Due to Fidel seizing all the US-funded and built infrastructure he didn't pay for alongside playing host to Soviet nukes.
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  113.  @Tribuneoftheplebs  Especially Ontario and Quebec.
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  114.  @VNn2023  But Switzerland doesn't operate on a command economy that restricts people's ability to make something out of themselves and can actually produce some of its own basic necessities. Rhodesia (before it became Zimbabwe) had an embargo imposed on it at the tail end of Ian Smith's rule yet the economy didn't hit rock-bottom.
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  115.  @davidpethick83  It would have been better. As a matter of fact, it was better for all of Batista's faults.
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  116. It wasn't the Cuban government that stopped tourism. It was the governments of the countries the tourists came from that did with travel restrictions and bans as the tourists weren't allowed to leave.
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  117. So does Haiti and North Korea.
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  118. No. The island suffered from the hands of its revolutionary heroes in charge.
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  119.  @jpjp280  Venezuela is learning the hard way after giving up their guns to Chavez.
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  120. Exactly. Ditto for Russia/USSR.
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  121.  @isisbeck2374  That's the truth. All dictatorships and regimes, including socialist/communist ones spend most of the treasury on security to buy loyalty from the only entity in any position to oust the government. The military and police.
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  122.  @woodsman9922  Better question: what has the Cuban government done for Cuba besides setting it back decades with their central planning?
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  123.  @woodsman9922  The sanctions are not nearly as crippling as the Cuban government's stranglehold on the local economy which cannot adequately and efficiently produce anything of its own worth exporting much less support itself with. <look at what has happened with China another Communist country.> Thanks to Deng's capitalist reforms in the 80's and Clinton's outsourcing of US manufacturing jobs in the 90's. <there was no way that the Communist system would have survived as it has> Thanks to Soviet aid, Venezuelan oil, Canadian tourism and US remittances and the government renting out doctors abroad.
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  124.  @woodsman9922  The Cuban government will happily sacrifice the people if it means they get to stay in power another day. Social control at all costs or end up like the USSR or Romania.
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  125.  @jayparfaye2340  It isn't as it certainly didn't affect them much when the USSR was around the give them aid. You complain about embargoes yet the only times Cuba ran into financial problems was when the aid stopped flowing and they had to find another way to compensate for their borderline non-existent economy due to the Cuban government's gutting of the private sector and local industry.
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  126. First remove the command economy and the PCC regime.
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  127. His/her own government.
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  128. How come no one in Iran is suffering?
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  129.  @OmmerSyssel  Cuba doesn't necessarily need democracy as much as it needs a free-market economy that allows people to make an honest living and something out of themselves, equality be damned! See Singapore.
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  130.  @holgermessner851  The only embargo in effect on Cuba is by the Cuban government. That's what's preventing Cubans from having a better life.
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  131.  @holgermessner851  Yes I do. It's not the sanctions' fault the Cuban government decimated its own agricultural sector and in turn has to import food, much of it from the very same US.
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  132. Yes they are. Socialists have always been wolves in sheep's clothing.
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  133. But the loss of USSR aid, Canadian tourism and Venezuelan oil did a much better job of crushing Cuban society as apparently they hardly had a self-sustaining economy to begin with.
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  134. Exactly. And these are the same socialists who complain about exploitation.
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  135.  @criticalthinker8374  Because the government controls what they earn.
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  136. Only after adopting some capitalist reforms to open up the economy in the 80's.
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  137.  @endrepepella2399  Like it was in the early 80's and had to fight off fellow communist China to maintain its independence.
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  138. The sanctions are nowhere nearly as crippling as the lack of local industry because the system destroyed it in favor of outside aid that all but completely dried up which is the only reason why they're struggling. It ran out of other people's money to compensate for what they cannot adequately and efficiently produce themselves.
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  139. End the central planning. What are you afraid of, Havana?
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  140.  @henrymorfin6768  Have you no shame, Havana? End the command economy. By the way, I don't live in Miami.
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  141. It'd be even nicer if Cuba abandon the command economy.
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  142. Yet it prospered and was the 5th wealthiest country in the Americas in its heyday
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  143. Cuba was already a vassal state of the US once after the US won the Spanish-American War.
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  144. Iceland doesn't doesn't have either of those, yet the people are not being subjected to the level of poverty and repression by their own government there like Cubans are.
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  145. Here in Canada, they're Liberals and NDPers.
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  146. The poor despotic leadership also didn't do Haiti any favors. And one of them even re-instated slavery, because food production hit rock-bottom and the idea of giving everyone a plot of land proved disastrous. No. That would be the Cuban government doing that as it destroyed anything resembling a thriving local economy. Cuba is in a crisis now, because other people's money in the form of foreign aid, Canadian tourism, etc. dried up.
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  147. End the command economy and PCC rule.
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  148. The current Cuban government deserves no support.
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  149. You mean Cuban government. USA has nothing to do with Cuba's indoctrination OOOPS! I mean education system.
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  150. Yes blame it on the revolution.
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  151.  @Michael-ig8ih  Yes it is true. Who'd have thought that socialists be the biggest capitalist exploiters around?
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  152. Because their state wages are pathetically low and their monthly food rations barely last a week.
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  153.  @kimobrien.  Wrong country! You mean Canada. One of only 3 countries that doesn't have private healthcare and a serious family doctor issue.
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  154. <Socialism by definition is when the workers own the means of production.> The workers do own the means of production in real-life socialism. It's just that workers happen to be government bureaucrats if not family and friends of said bureaucrats.
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  155.  @kimobrien.  By putting it in the hands of the government or some other central committee who become exploiters by default.
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  156.  @thevictoriakent  I thought making money was not allowed in Cuba.
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  157. Cuba doesn't have a middle class as it doesn't have a private sector at all.
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  158. That's not saying much.
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  159. It's not shocking as the ruling ANC share more or less the same socialist/communist views as the ruling PCC and ZANU-PF in charge of Cuba and Zimbabwe respectively.
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  160. LOL. Obama was far from a good man.
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  161. No. It is the Cuban government's central planning.
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  162. Well, they are. Just ask Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Finland.
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  163. Cuban government-imposed poverty, that is.
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  164. No. 60 years of Cuban government economic repression created this disaster. It just simply simply ran out of other people's money to live off of be it Soviet aid, Canadian tourism, US remittances or Venezuelan oil.
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  165. <They will never allow any alternative economic approach to succeed. > Socialism never succeeded even under the best of circumstances. There's a reason why China had to adopt some capitalist reforms in the 80's.
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  166. No. Economic repression by the Cuban government have done so much harm to Cuba. <Cuba, and it's Citizens, shouldn't be punished like it has been just because it a Socialist Country...> The Cuban government is the one doing the punishing as the people are barely even legally allowed to buy and sell. and make an honest living.
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  167. Cuba isolated itself and sided with the USSR.
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  168. <Now there is a large poor population caused by lack of industry,> And due to that produces very little worth exporting which can be traced all the way back to the Cuban government and its central planning model.
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  169. Yet the only people benefiting from their "noble" sacrifices are regime elites and affiliates.
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  170.  @kimobrien.  <The US promised to process 20,000 visas but refuses to do so preferring a migration crisis at its border.> Most Democrat politicians.
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  171. Enabled and supported by greedy women like Imelda Marcos and Mao's wife.
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  172.  @rap3208  But not the people who run it which is why they want out.
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  173.  @zionen01  Namely the poor and illiterate as they're easy to manipulate and control.
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  174. In the end.
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  175.  @mikenogozones  Exactly. It seems that Cuba is yet another case of a country that ran out of other people's money. If anything, it exposes the fact that Cuba doesn't have a viable local economy to support itself with because the Cuban government heavily suppresses it.
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  176. Yet Cubans much rather be poor anywhere except Cuba. Free stuff is not an adequate substitute for freedom apparently. Cuba has no jobs either. No real economy so to speak as it depends on outsiders including the very same US it has issues with to stay afloat.
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  177.  @angelicamimosa  Singapore doesn't have a US-hating communist running the show with a command model to boot.
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  178.  @bjornsmith9431  Michael Manley was the reason why Jamaica had to run to the IMF and World Bank in the first place after his policies crippled the economy for the next 50 years.
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  179. Ditto for Vladimir Lenin.
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  180. Jim Jones himself was a communist.
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