Veteran social activist Tom Hayden interviews Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon.
?Let?s try to imagine what Karl Marx would be doing today.?
It was Sunday, May 21st, and my host posing the question was Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly. It was Alarcon?s 69th birthday, and I was having difficulty understanding why he had pressed me to fly down for a visit. The purpose was nothing more than ?two old guys talking,? according to his daughter Maggie, a thirty-something single mom and formidable interpreter of Cuba to many North Americans.
Looking back today, I don?t know whether or not Alarcon already knew that his longtime comrade Fidel was diagnosed as needing serious surgery. The question would become a ?state secret,? at Castro?s wish. Alarcon is third in line to succeed Fidel after Raul Castro, although it is more likely Alarcon will blend into a collective transitional team.
The prospect of three days? conversation with Ricardo Alarcon reflecting on his long revolutionary experience was too important to put off, and our interviews may be of greater value during the current rampant and reckless speculation over Fidel?s status. Few individuals alive have the range of Alarcon?s experience, from being a Havana student leader during the Cuban Revolution to Cuba?s United Nations ambassador (1965-78 and 1990-92) to foreign minister (1992-93) and National Assembly president since 1993. And so we sat at a seaside restaurant on his birthday with daughter Maggie and his advisor, Miguel Alvarez. A Venezuelan cargo ship passed just offshore.
?I think Marx would be asking what are we doing about all the millions today who are protesting for peace and justice,? said Alarcon in answer to his question. In a recent essay on ?Marx After Marxism? he argued that Marxists should begin to see the world anew. Scoffing at neoconservatives who embrace the end of Marxism (and the end of history itself), Alarcon also emphasizes the need for ?self-critical reflection on our side as well.? In effect, he is proposing a return to the original spirit of Marx before the 20th-century revolutions in his name. That original Marx organized an early transnational labor movement, with the central demand the eight-hour day, and wrote more theoretical works on 19th-century capitalism. According to Alarcon, that earlier Marx never meant a science-based, inevitable march to socialism based on some objective truth revealed through communist parties. That Marx was a practical revolutionary who himself famously declared ?with all naturalness,? Alarcon points out, ?I am not a Marxist.?
For Alarcon and the Cubans, history always has been contingent, subject to human will and unexpected developments, rather than an unfolding of the inevitable. After Cuba?s decades of dependency on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which caused a degree of ?subordination? to Soviet interests and ?reinforced dogmatism,? Alarcon calls for active exploration of new trends in global capitalism and its oppositional movements. ?Old dogmatists are incapable of appreciating new possibilities in the revolutionary movement,? he says.
All the talk of the United States becoming a sole superpower ?falls to pieces with its bogging down in Iraq? and the derailment of its neo-liberal agenda for Latin America, Alarcon believes.
He identifies new obstacles facing capitalist growth. Every 25 years a population equivalent to the whole planet?s numbers in Marx?s time is born. Alarcon believes climate changes are irreversible, forests are being transformed into deserts, cities becoming uninhabitable and, as a result, an environmental challenge to capitalism has arisen which requires rethinking of Marxist political economy.
Alarcon revises the Marxist (and Leninist) conceptions of the 19th-century proletariat accordingly. Today there are growing numbers of those from different stations of life ?who do not conform, are unsatisfied and rebel.? ?For the first time, anti-capitalist malaise is manifested, simultaneously and everywhere, in advanced countries and those left behind, and is not limited to the proletariat and other exploited sectors.? And so ?a diverse group, multicolored, in which there is no shortage of contradictions and paradoxes, grows in front of the dominant system.?
?It is not yet the rainbow that announces the end of the storm,? Alarcon says, warning that the diverse movements lack a common theory, are marked by spontaneity more often than organization, and need to develop further without either sectarian factionalism or becoming carried away.
He pauses, points an index finger for emphasis, and tells me ?the most important task for the Latin American left? is to reelect President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. Having met with leftists highly critical of fiscal moderation in power, Alarcon says that ?notwithstanding his faults, if Lula is defeated, all of Latin America will be worse off.? This advice may not sit well with some radical advocates of Latin American revolution, but Alarcon takes a longer view. The recent nationalist electoral wave in Latin America—Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile, and a near-success in Mexico—inevitably brings dilemmas of governance to the forefront. But for Alarcon and Cuba, the overall changes in Latin America further a benign result, the full integration of Cuba into Latin America after decades of Cold War antagonisms. The permanent embargo by the United States makes the Cubans especially wary of any reversals in the continental process, as the defeat of Lula in the Oct. 1 election would represent.
Alarcon is pragmatic. He believes in the Cuban philosophy that ?the duty of the revolutionary is to make the revolution,? that it must be a ?heroic creation.? But he is aware, perhaps painfully, that revolutions cannot be ?imprinted or copied? and that the ?mandates? of mass movements like those that have elected Lula must be respected. ?There is no alternative in Brazil. The guys who were mad at me for saying this went to meet with the landless movement representatives in Brazil, and they told them the same thing.?
Continuing at a dinner conversation, Alarcon opined that there should be ?many forms of socialism,? depending on the needs of different countries and movements. Even the social-democratic parties, the historical rivals of the European communist parties, have an important role to play today, he said. ?I hope they go through the same sort of introspection we have,? Alarcon said, referring to the tendency of the moderate socialist parties to cut social programs and ?tail? after U.S. military and economic policies. ?I would go further,? he said. ?I don?t believe that capitalism cannot be reformed. The Great Society in your country is an example.?
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By saul2006, September 6, 2006 at 2:17 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Castro replaced a right wing dictator and while he has given health & education to his people, he is just the mirror opposite of what he replaced.
I hope this will not happen here when the Democrats oust the Republicans. It would be nice if they learned that what killed the Republicans is they went too far right, and don’t take it too far left as their time in office will not be lengthy
By Thom Pleesy, September 1, 2006 at 6:43 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I just can’t understand 2 things. #1, If only a few people alive have the range of experence of Mr. Alarcon. Why pray tell have an advisor. So I can only surmise the advisor has more experence or knowledge than Alarcon does. Why not just talk to the advisor. #2, could you maybe (even though the US is a far larger country) give em some sort of count on the amount of boat people sailing north VS the ones sailing south over the years since the rev. Thank you, Thom
By Spinoza, September 1, 2006 at 8:49 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
>>>Thinking along the lines of.. Costa Rica.<<<<
Costa Rica is the only reasonably democratic country in Central America and is so because it has had the least USA interference. Most all other countries are a disaster with narrow groups of rich and a vast majority of poor living in horrible slum conditions.
Cuba is not a paradise and has many problems including moving into a capitalist mode of thinking but when contrasted with most of Central America they are doing very well.
By Frank, September 1, 2006 at 4:07 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
FREE CUBA NOW!! Toss out the communist bums out of office!
The cuban people deserve:
Free Elections with multiparty candidates
Free Press without government censorship
Release of political prisoners
An end to state kidnappings and imprisonment of dissidents
By Bruce Breece, August 31, 2006 at 11:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thank you very much Tom for a most informative and instructive article. Sr. Alarcon is to be congratulated also. His tireless efforts to make this world a better place should be read and discussed by more Americans.
By Todd Ricker, August 31, 2006 at 10:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The perennial question of “What will happen when Castro dies?” is well answered by the sentiments of Alarcon and others like him, such as Cuban Foreign Minister Philipe Roque. These are nimble minds that are cognizant of the mistakes of other revolutionary societies as they continue to build the future of their own. I have had the great privelege of meeting and chatting with Mr. Alarcon and can affirm that he is just as thoughtful and engaging in person as he seems to be in Mr. Hayden’s article.
By John McAuliff, August 31, 2006 at 8:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Tom Hayden has long been one of the best organizers and political commentators produced by the new left. It is unfortunate he never was elected to the House or Senate where his voice would find a deserved national audience.
Cuba, unfortunately, is not only a target for conservatives, but also a symbol of the inability of liberals to mobilize opinion against out of date ideologically bound interest group policies.
According to a recent CNN poll (August 5, 2006), Americans today favor re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba by 62% to 29%. Should Fidel Castro be replaced as leader by his brother Raul, the number favoring normalization rises to 69%.
Readers who want to stay on top of developments in US-Cuba relations, and work for a more rational policy, should ask to receive the weekly news blast of Cuba Central in Washington: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
By Gerald Smith, August 31, 2006 at 7:48 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Ricardo Alarcons interview with Tom Hayden underscores the value of a historical approach to understanding Cuba and predicting the near-term future. Some facts suggest that we should anticipate a Cuba that is friendly to the U.S. but with strong socialist policies. It is true that Cuban citizens do not now have much surplus income, partly because of U.S. restrictions on trade and travel. But Cubas progressive agricultural, education, and health-care systems are world class and the export of biotechnology and thousands of physicians abroad has helped create a trade surplus of 1.7 bn (The Guardian Weekly, 28 Jul-3Aug, p 19) that provides one of the best social safety nets in the world. In addition to subsidized housing (no homeless people), organic food security (parallel free market and state systems), and a narrow gap between the rich and poor, they have less crime and fewer imprisoned people than we have in the U.S. The U.S. media in general continue to hide these facts from the American people, in their confusion of capitalism with democracy and their fear of socialism.
The expectation that Cubans are eager for investment from the U.S. must be tempered by their societys educated memory that in the year before the 1959 revolution, the majority of utilities, railways, oil industry, nickel mines, banking, and tourism, and about 40% of sugar refineries, were owned and controlled by U.S. business (Volker Skierka, Fidel Castro, a Biography, Polity Press, 2004, p. 63). Most Cubans will therefore carefully resist globalization and foreign control of their economy.
Right wing politicians in the U.S. would do well to remember that Fidel and Raul Castro enjoy higher approval ratings among Cubans than George W. Bush has in the USA.
Most Cubans recognize, as do many democracy scholars, that Cubans live in a legitimate Socialist Democracy, with active participatory power, from neighborhoods upward. (Isaac Seney, 2004, Cuba, a Revolution in Motion, Fernwood Press.)
Gerald Smith
By A Happy Poor Person, August 31, 2006 at 6:20 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Two things to discuss….
“it was one big american whore house.”
It has now become one big Italian, Spanish, Canadian and German whorehouse, with 100,000 Americans sneaking in on the side.
“They have tons of articles and stories of atrocities that seem to have no relationship to reality, they are gross smear campaigns.”
How so? What evidence do you have besides simple second hand anecdotal evidence that suggests the people seem relatively happy? Encourage me to believe that versus articles.
Not saying Cuba is paradise or a hell hole, just meaning to imply that you’re acccusing them of misleading you, yet you turn around and say “Well, a few buddies have told me it’s great there.”
Powerful stuff.
In terms of models, Cuba could simply liberalize elements of their economy, satisfy their people, and be done with it. I don’t know. Thinking along the lines of.. Costa Rica.
By Broiler, August 31, 2006 at 6:12 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Spinoza,
“I have spoken to people who have visited Cuba
and who have travelled all over the Island.”
My family was allowed (not for over 2 years now)
to travel there in order to visit elderly relatives dieing
without food or medical care. Yes, you could bring
in supplies but aspirin, multi-vitamins and amoxicillin
are of little help to someone with Alzheimer’s. Those
that are of no importance to the system are essentially
euthanized. Travel was extremely limited.
Archeon,
“Everyone should remember this: Before the revolution
cuba was totally corrupt, run by the CIA and the Mafia,
the landed aristocracy paid little heed to the needs of the
peasants and american MALE tourists used cuban women
for self gratifiying sex”
Are you certain that without the CIA, Mafia and Americans
this does not continue? The entire island did not live in the
casinos and brothels of Havana. As we know everyone in
Vegas is a card dealer, gambler or hooker. For people around
the world living under corrupt regimes life goes on despite the
fact that they cant influence the big picture. For many Cubans
life does not go on. It is slowly snuffed out.
By Spinoza, August 30, 2006 at 9:08 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I have had a number of “debates” with the right wing Cuban partisans. They have tons of articles and stories of atrocities that seem to have no relationship to reality, they are gross smear campaigns. I have spoken to people who have visited Cuba and who have travelled all over the Island. They report a poor but relatively happy people. The contrast in stories are to great to give much credence to the smear stories.
By archeon, August 30, 2006 at 8:02 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Everyone should remember this: Before the revolution cuba was totally corrupt, run by the CIA and the Mafia, the landed aristocracy paid little heed to the needs of the peasants and american MALE tourists used cuban women for self gratifiying sex - including beastiality. So give me a break and quit all the yammering about the evils of the revolution. Sure communism isn’t great, but oppressive american colonial facism is worse. Not even the church was a help to the poor, it merely reinforced the idea that the poor were poor because god wanted it that way. I wonder if the choice were between pre-revolutionary cuba and Fidel’s cuba where would the majority of cubans cast thier vote? I know we never stop hearing from the screams of the pre-revolutionary spawn in Florida, on how Fidel stole this or that, how he imprisoned “political opposition” (funny how they never mention that these same people did with the help of the CIA try to launch and invasion).
Was cuba a democracy before the revolution? It was a hell hole, a shit hole, it was one big american whore house.
By Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
To John Hotchkiss,
I agree my rant may not be helpful. I admit to being
both biased and unarmed in discussing political systems.
Here’s a point. If the current Cuban population is
on board with Castro, why then at every opportunity
do we hear of a floating oil drum with 30 Cubans
aboard? Do you know of anyone defecting to Cuba?
The US allows Mexicans to escape poverty while Cubans
are sent back to persecution. (If Mexicans were sent back,
would they revolt and replace Fox?) Dogs and cats escaping
the post Katrina flooding were treated better. The other posters
here write as though individual human lives are meaningless
when compared to the success of the social experiment.
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
- Leonard Nimoy (as Spock)
Castro has left behind large segments of the Cuban population.
If youre not young and vital, you are discarded. The discarded
are never filmed. The world sees only what Fidel allows. Ask Fidel
to interview Cuban soldiers from the 60s and 70s. Where are those
men now? Howd the revolution work out for them? Well never know.
Ask Mr. Hayden what hes seen off the tourist trail? Im betting hes
never been allowed off the trail. At least in a free society the media
can cover the homeless and forgotten. Our poor have advocates and
we have the freedom to help.
Cuba is an experiment with humans as the lab rats. If the Cuban
population was predominantly Jewish and not Catholic/Christian
we would not be discussing Castro today. The international outcry
would have been thunderous, the US intervention instantaneous
some fifty years ago.
By John Hotchkiss, August 30, 2006 at 3:51 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I agree with brimitch that Broiler is historically challenged. Hayden a bird of feather to corrupt thieving Castroites? Name one instance when Tom Hayden has robbed the poor. I guess it is too much to ask of Broiler to take a critical view, and make a detailed response to the carefully crafted statements of Sr. Alacron, and the other factual details of the achievements of Castro’s government. Broiler’s rants, without a semblence or reasoned discussion of what the current population of Cuba want to do in any post-Fidel period is not helpful. By what right does the US Gov’t (Not only Bush, but all the anti-Fidel governments since 1959) and the volunteer exiles in Miami have to interfere in Cuba’s affairs,either “post-Castro”, or continuing in whatever way the current residents of Cuba want?
By Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 3:10 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Obviously Broiler needs to study his history. He still believes Cuba was a democracy before the revolution. Poor, sick, stupid bastar….”
Well Brimitch, you surely know what Cuba was before Castro.
You’ve not met and spoken with men and women,
ten years removed from Castro’s prisons in the safety
of West New York, New Jersey. Having been arrested
for the anti-party crime of growing vegetables for their
households. And still hesitant to whisper of the atrocities
they survived. How does forced dentistry grab you? Ever
seen teeth drilled by a prison guard for kicks? (That is their
few remaining teeth.)The people I met were freed as examples
of what would happen.
You may know better what Cuba was before Castro.
I know better what it became with Castro.
A fifty year holocaust.
Be smug, you don’t have a dog in this fight.
I have family still there.
You win the game of semantics. Viva la revolution!
By Carl Davidson, August 30, 2006 at 1:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Very good, Tom.
It brought back memories of the night in 1968 when you, I and Dave Dellinger were hustled through the streets of Havana for our late-night, long, rambling talk with Fidel.
Alarcon is asking all the right questions, and I agree with him about LuLa, too. There is a ‘High Road,’ market-inclusive, solidarity economy alternative to neoliberalism and hegemonism. It needs imagination, audacity, organizing and all the friends to can find.
Cuba, by the way, is what transformed me, in my twenties, from an anarcho-syndicalist into someone who could read Che from Grmsci’s eyes, or vice versa?
By Spinoza, August 30, 2006 at 8:34 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I was probably one of the earliest members of SDS and I remember reading the Port Huron Statement 2 or 3 times. Hayden is an inspiring character though he seems to have become more conservative in old age and I have become more radical. What he has to say about Cuba is important because Cuba is under a lot of pressure from the Miami scum and the Bushites. I suspect that the incumbents are going to be more or less put back into power and the USA government will remain ultra reactionary. This bodes ill for the world unless the American people raise hell. The World Can’t Wait organization seems to be the only viable group around nowadays. Please contribute to them and get out in the streets. Raise hell. Defeat fascism. All out on October 5th.
By Bill Martinez, August 30, 2006 at 8:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thank you for such a complete insight into Mr. Alarcon and U.S.-Cuba relations. If only the Bush Administration (and those think-tankers who’ve been in the mix for four decades) would be open enough to read this, communicate with an enhanced sense of humanity and accept a more mature policy…...
By Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 5:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Instead, he sits for hours with the likes of me discussing the state of the revolution which he helped start over 50 years ago. He takes care of an invalid wife. He plays with his grandchild, Ricardito. He goes to dinner with a never-ending stream of visitors. He patiently answers reporters. He runs the domestic affairs of the National Assembly. He flies to international conferences.”
This shows how this low-life built his world on
the shoulders of citizens of pre-Castro democracy.
They stole what they didn’t have the fortitude to
work for. Now this creep plays the wealthy, world
wise traveler. Dining “with a never-ending stream of visitors”
while a large percentage of his countrymen have
little or nothing to eat.
Pre-Castro Cuba had capitalist pigs but they recouped
their losses. Castro killed, maimed and stole from
the common man. I know this from first hand stories
of my in-laws. He robbed from the working classes
as well as the casino and refinery owners. His
legacy will always be poverty built on the sweat
and blood of the working man. This while taking
in MLB games in New York with Rockefeller. Two
useless, power hungry thugs toughing out the revolution.
Their daddys never loved them. I shed a tear!
“Instead, he sits for hours with the likes of me discussing
the state of the revolution”
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By saul2006, September 6, 2006 at 2:17 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Castro replaced a right wing dictator and while he has given health & education to his people, he is just the mirror opposite of what he replaced.
Report thisI hope this will not happen here when the Democrats oust the Republicans. It would be nice if they learned that what killed the Republicans is they went too far right, and don’t take it too far left as their time in office will not be lengthy
By Thom Pleesy, September 1, 2006 at 6:43 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I just can’t understand 2 things. #1, If only a few people alive have the range of experence of Mr. Alarcon. Why pray tell have an advisor. So I can only surmise the advisor has more experence or knowledge than Alarcon does. Why not just talk to the advisor. #2, could you maybe (even though the US is a far larger country) give em some sort of count on the amount of boat people sailing north VS the ones sailing south over the years since the rev. Thank you, Thom
Report thisBy Spinoza, September 1, 2006 at 8:49 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
>>>Thinking along the lines of.. Costa Rica.<<<<
Costa Rica is the only reasonably democratic country in Central America and is so because it has had the least USA interference. Most all other countries are a disaster with narrow groups of rich and a vast majority of poor living in horrible slum conditions.
Cuba is not a paradise and has many problems including moving into a capitalist mode of thinking but when contrasted with most of Central America they are doing very well.
Report thisBy Roger Drowne EC, September 1, 2006 at 6:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Yo Tom…
R U Doing the
Earth Citizen Hand-Sign ?
R U Playing - Earth Ball - NOT WAR
http://www.EarthBall.org
scroll down 2 C how 2 do E.C. Hand - Shake & Play Earth Ball
Thanks, E.B. staff
PASS it ON
Report thisBy Frank, September 1, 2006 at 4:07 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
FREE CUBA NOW!! Toss out the communist bums out of office!
The cuban people deserve:
Free Elections with multiparty candidates
Report thisFree Press without government censorship
Release of political prisoners
An end to state kidnappings and imprisonment of dissidents
By Bruce Breece, August 31, 2006 at 11:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thank you very much Tom for a most informative and instructive article. Sr. Alarcon is to be congratulated also. His tireless efforts to make this world a better place should be read and discussed by more Americans.
Report thisBy Todd Ricker, August 31, 2006 at 10:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The perennial question of “What will happen when Castro dies?” is well answered by the sentiments of Alarcon and others like him, such as Cuban Foreign Minister Philipe Roque. These are nimble minds that are cognizant of the mistakes of other revolutionary societies as they continue to build the future of their own. I have had the great privelege of meeting and chatting with Mr. Alarcon and can affirm that he is just as thoughtful and engaging in person as he seems to be in Mr. Hayden’s article.
Report thisBy John McAuliff, August 31, 2006 at 8:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Tom Hayden has long been one of the best organizers and political commentators produced by the new left. It is unfortunate he never was elected to the House or Senate where his voice would find a deserved national audience.
Cuba, unfortunately, is not only a target for conservatives, but also a symbol of the inability of liberals to mobilize opinion against out of date ideologically bound interest group policies.
According to a recent CNN poll (August 5, 2006), Americans today favor re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba by 62% to 29%. Should Fidel Castro be replaced as leader by his brother Raul, the number favoring normalization rises to 69%.
Readers who want to stay on top of developments in US-Cuba relations, and work for a more rational policy, should ask to receive the weekly news blast of Cuba Central in Washington: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Report thisBy Gerald Smith, August 31, 2006 at 7:48 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Ricardo Alarcons interview with Tom Hayden underscores the value of a historical approach to understanding Cuba and predicting the near-term future. Some facts suggest that we should anticipate a Cuba that is friendly to the U.S. but with strong socialist policies. It is true that Cuban citizens do not now have much surplus income, partly because of U.S. restrictions on trade and travel. But Cubas progressive agricultural, education, and health-care systems are world class and the export of biotechnology and thousands of physicians abroad has helped create a trade surplus of 1.7 bn (The Guardian Weekly, 28 Jul-3Aug, p 19) that provides one of the best social safety nets in the world. In addition to subsidized housing (no homeless people), organic food security (parallel free market and state systems), and a narrow gap between the rich and poor, they have less crime and fewer imprisoned people than we have in the U.S. The U.S. media in general continue to hide these facts from the American people, in their confusion of capitalism with democracy and their fear of socialism.
Report thisThe expectation that Cubans are eager for investment from the U.S. must be tempered by their societys educated memory that in the year before the 1959 revolution, the majority of utilities, railways, oil industry, nickel mines, banking, and tourism, and about 40% of sugar refineries, were owned and controlled by U.S. business (Volker Skierka, Fidel Castro, a Biography, Polity Press, 2004, p. 63). Most Cubans will therefore carefully resist globalization and foreign control of their economy.
Right wing politicians in the U.S. would do well to remember that Fidel and Raul Castro enjoy higher approval ratings among Cubans than George W. Bush has in the USA.
Most Cubans recognize, as do many democracy scholars, that Cubans live in a legitimate Socialist Democracy, with active participatory power, from neighborhoods upward. (Isaac Seney, 2004, Cuba, a Revolution in Motion, Fernwood Press.)
Gerald Smith
By A Happy Poor Person, August 31, 2006 at 6:20 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Two things to discuss….
“it was one big american whore house.”
It has now become one big Italian, Spanish, Canadian and German whorehouse, with 100,000 Americans sneaking in on the side.
“They have tons of articles and stories of atrocities that seem to have no relationship to reality, they are gross smear campaigns.”
How so? What evidence do you have besides simple second hand anecdotal evidence that suggests the people seem relatively happy? Encourage me to believe that versus articles.
Not saying Cuba is paradise or a hell hole, just meaning to imply that you’re acccusing them of misleading you, yet you turn around and say “Well, a few buddies have told me it’s great there.”
Powerful stuff.
In terms of models, Cuba could simply liberalize elements of their economy, satisfy their people, and be done with it. I don’t know. Thinking along the lines of.. Costa Rica.
Report thisBy Broiler, August 31, 2006 at 6:12 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Spinoza,
“I have spoken to people who have visited Cuba
and who have travelled all over the Island.”
My family was allowed (not for over 2 years now)
to travel there in order to visit elderly relatives dieing
without food or medical care. Yes, you could bring
in supplies but aspirin, multi-vitamins and amoxicillin
are of little help to someone with Alzheimer’s. Those
that are of no importance to the system are essentially
euthanized. Travel was extremely limited.
Archeon,
“Everyone should remember this: Before the revolution
cuba was totally corrupt, run by the CIA and the Mafia,
the landed aristocracy paid little heed to the needs of the
peasants and american MALE tourists used cuban women
for self gratifiying sex”
Are you certain that without the CIA, Mafia and Americans
Report thisthis does not continue? The entire island did not live in the
casinos and brothels of Havana. As we know everyone in
Vegas is a card dealer, gambler or hooker. For people around
the world living under corrupt regimes life goes on despite the
fact that they cant influence the big picture. For many Cubans
life does not go on. It is slowly snuffed out.
By Spinoza, August 30, 2006 at 9:08 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I have had a number of “debates” with the right wing Cuban partisans. They have tons of articles and stories of atrocities that seem to have no relationship to reality, they are gross smear campaigns. I have spoken to people who have visited Cuba and who have travelled all over the Island. They report a poor but relatively happy people. The contrast in stories are to great to give much credence to the smear stories.
Report thisBy archeon, August 30, 2006 at 8:02 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Everyone should remember this: Before the revolution cuba was totally corrupt, run by the CIA and the Mafia, the landed aristocracy paid little heed to the needs of the peasants and american MALE tourists used cuban women for self gratifiying sex - including beastiality. So give me a break and quit all the yammering about the evils of the revolution. Sure communism isn’t great, but oppressive american colonial facism is worse. Not even the church was a help to the poor, it merely reinforced the idea that the poor were poor because god wanted it that way. I wonder if the choice were between pre-revolutionary cuba and Fidel’s cuba where would the majority of cubans cast thier vote? I know we never stop hearing from the screams of the pre-revolutionary spawn in Florida, on how Fidel stole this or that, how he imprisoned “political opposition” (funny how they never mention that these same people did with the help of the CIA try to launch and invasion).
Was cuba a democracy before the revolution? It was a hell hole, a shit hole, it was one big american whore house.
Report thisBy jesus reyes, August 30, 2006 at 6:14 pm Link to this comment
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Here’s is something that I have never understood from these 8th Street fascists.
If Cuba is so incredibly bad, what is the model that they point to? Haiti? Dominican Republic? Jamaica? Guatemala? Honduras? El Salvador? Nicaragua?
Report thisBy Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment
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To John Hotchkiss,
I agree my rant may not be helpful. I admit to being
both biased and unarmed in discussing political systems.
Here’s a point. If the current Cuban population is
on board with Castro, why then at every opportunity
do we hear of a floating oil drum with 30 Cubans
aboard? Do you know of anyone defecting to Cuba?
The US allows Mexicans to escape poverty while Cubans
are sent back to persecution. (If Mexicans were sent back,
would they revolt and replace Fox?) Dogs and cats escaping
the post Katrina flooding were treated better. The other posters
here write as though individual human lives are meaningless
when compared to the success of the social experiment.
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
- Leonard Nimoy (as Spock)
Castro has left behind large segments of the Cuban population.
If youre not young and vital, you are discarded. The discarded
are never filmed. The world sees only what Fidel allows. Ask Fidel
to interview Cuban soldiers from the 60s and 70s. Where are those
men now? Howd the revolution work out for them? Well never know.
Ask Mr. Hayden what hes seen off the tourist trail? Im betting hes
never been allowed off the trail. At least in a free society the media
can cover the homeless and forgotten. Our poor have advocates and
we have the freedom to help.
Cuba is an experiment with humans as the lab rats. If the Cuban
Report thispopulation was predominantly Jewish and not Catholic/Christian
we would not be discussing Castro today. The international outcry
would have been thunderous, the US intervention instantaneous
some fifty years ago.
By John Hotchkiss, August 30, 2006 at 3:51 pm Link to this comment
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I agree with brimitch that Broiler is historically challenged. Hayden a bird of feather to corrupt thieving Castroites? Name one instance when Tom Hayden has robbed the poor. I guess it is too much to ask of Broiler to take a critical view, and make a detailed response to the carefully crafted statements of Sr. Alacron, and the other factual details of the achievements of Castro’s government. Broiler’s rants, without a semblence or reasoned discussion of what the current population of Cuba want to do in any post-Fidel period is not helpful. By what right does the US Gov’t (Not only Bush, but all the anti-Fidel governments since 1959) and the volunteer exiles in Miami have to interfere in Cuba’s affairs,either “post-Castro”, or continuing in whatever way the current residents of Cuba want?
Report thisBy Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 3:10 pm Link to this comment
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“Obviously Broiler needs to study his history. He still believes Cuba was a democracy before the revolution. Poor, sick, stupid bastar….”
Well Brimitch, you surely know what Cuba was before Castro.
You’ve not met and spoken with men and women,
ten years removed from Castro’s prisons in the safety
of West New York, New Jersey. Having been arrested
for the anti-party crime of growing vegetables for their
households. And still hesitant to whisper of the atrocities
they survived. How does forced dentistry grab you? Ever
seen teeth drilled by a prison guard for kicks? (That is their
few remaining teeth.)The people I met were freed as examples
of what would happen.
You may know better what Cuba was before Castro.
I know better what it became with Castro.
A fifty year holocaust.
Be smug, you don’t have a dog in this fight.
I have family still there.
You win the game of semantics. Viva la revolution!
Report thisBy Carl Davidson, August 30, 2006 at 1:45 pm Link to this comment
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Very good, Tom.
It brought back memories of the night in 1968 when you, I and Dave Dellinger were hustled through the streets of Havana for our late-night, long, rambling talk with Fidel.
Alarcon is asking all the right questions, and I agree with him about LuLa, too. There is a ‘High Road,’ market-inclusive, solidarity economy alternative to neoliberalism and hegemonism. It needs imagination, audacity, organizing and all the friends to can find.
Cuba, by the way, is what transformed me, in my twenties, from an anarcho-syndicalist into someone who could read Che from Grmsci’s eyes, or vice versa?
In any case, we need fresh thinking.
Keep On Keepin’ On…
Carl Davidson
Report thisBy brimitch, August 30, 2006 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment
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Obviously Broiler needs to study his history. He still believes Cuba was a democracy before the revolution. Poor, sick, stupid bastar….
Report thisBy Spinoza, August 30, 2006 at 8:34 am Link to this comment
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I was probably one of the earliest members of SDS and I remember reading the Port Huron Statement 2 or 3 times. Hayden is an inspiring character though he seems to have become more conservative in old age and I have become more radical. What he has to say about Cuba is important because Cuba is under a lot of pressure from the Miami scum and the Bushites. I suspect that the incumbents are going to be more or less put back into power and the USA government will remain ultra reactionary. This bodes ill for the world unless the American people raise hell. The World Can’t Wait organization seems to be the only viable group around nowadays. Please contribute to them and get out in the streets. Raise hell. Defeat fascism. All out on October 5th.
Report thisBy Bill Martinez, August 30, 2006 at 8:10 am Link to this comment
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Thank you for such a complete insight into Mr. Alarcon and U.S.-Cuba relations. If only the Bush Administration (and those think-tankers who’ve been in the mix for four decades) would be open enough to read this, communicate with an enhanced sense of humanity and accept a more mature policy…...
Paz,
Bill Martinez
Report thisBy Broiler, August 30, 2006 at 5:55 am Link to this comment
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“Instead, he sits for hours with the likes of me discussing the state of the revolution which he helped start over 50 years ago. He takes care of an invalid wife. He plays with his grandchild, Ricardito. He goes to dinner with a never-ending stream of visitors. He patiently answers reporters. He runs the domestic affairs of the National Assembly. He flies to international conferences.”
This shows how this low-life built his world on
the shoulders of citizens of pre-Castro democracy.
They stole what they didn’t have the fortitude to
work for. Now this creep plays the wealthy, world
wise traveler. Dining “with a never-ending stream of visitors”
while a large percentage of his countrymen have
little or nothing to eat.
Pre-Castro Cuba had capitalist pigs but they recouped
their losses. Castro killed, maimed and stole from
the common man. I know this from first hand stories
of my in-laws. He robbed from the working classes
as well as the casino and refinery owners. His
legacy will always be poverty built on the sweat
and blood of the working man. This while taking
in MLB games in New York with Rockefeller. Two
useless, power hungry thugs toughing out the revolution.
Their daddys never loved them. I shed a tear!
“Instead, he sits for hours with the likes of me discussing
the state of the revolution”
Birds of a feather Mr. Hayden.
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