Is Castro's Cuba next..

[Harleyman]

I think that you will find that the rest of the world doesn't agree with you.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Vietnam

 

The politics of Vietnam takes place in a framework of a single-party socialist republic. The central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam is reaffirmed in the current constitution, adopted in April 1992.

 

Oh rubbish! Read my post on China. Ditto for this. Vietnam exports a major percentage of it's producst to the US.

Some of my shirts were made in Vietnam and I recently bought four dining room chairs also made in Vietnam and very well made I might add.

The leaders may call themselves communist but the business structure is well on it's way to capitalist

[Harleyman]

I remember when I used to live in New York, a friend in the UK asked me to get him some good cigars. I visited a tobacconists there and the owner was something of an expert on cigars and cigar production, so much so that he insisted on giving me an impromptu lecture on the global cigar industry. He said that the general view that Cuba produced the best cigars was a myth and that the quality was now very poor. As an example, he mentioned that the famous cigars that Churchill smoked were now produced in another Central American country, because Cuba didn't have the ability to produce high qaulity products (this applies of course the whole of Cuban industry, not just cigar production).

 

Hey! And here was me thinking that all Cuban cigars were rolled on the thighs of 17 year old virgins.

Another fantasy consigned to the ash heap of mythology

[Radomu]

I wonder therefore why there are thousands of people coming north into central America with the intention of eventually crossing the border into the US?

Could it be that they're not quite happy living in the new democratic wonderlands you paint such a rosy picture of?

 

Castro in his revolutionary days was an out and out Communist and exported his commuinist ideaology by sending mercenaries to various parts of South America and also Africa where they killed large numbers of people opposed to them.

 

As for Hugo Chavez, friend and associate of Iranian leader Dinnerjacket I understand he has great ambitions to make himself president of Venezuela for life. Now that aint democratic is it?

 

He didn't make himself President-for-life, he just removed term limits. If people want him out, they can easily vote him out. His regime has been incomparably democratic compared to what they have in the US, especially for his focus on passing major laws through referendums.

 

And I did clearly state that I'm not defending Castro's preposterous policies against those who disagreed with him.

[Harleyman]

He didn't make himself President-for-life, he just removed term limits. If people want him out, they can easily vote him out. His regime has been incomparably democratic compared to what they have in the US, especially for his focus on passing major laws through referendums.

 

And I did clearly state that I'm not defending Castro's preposterous policies against those who disagreed with him.

 

Fantastic claim. How much do you know about how the three branches of US government work?

Which of the three branches interprets the Constitution in matters of law?

What are state ballor initiatives and how do they work?

 

Go ahead give me your reasoning for your statement above.

 

As for your remark that Chavez quote "he just removed term limits" that's a power grab by any other name. The typical agenda of a wannabe dictator, and I'll bet if the people wanted to just vote him out it wouldn't be easy either.

 

Chavez is just a meathead who likes to tweak the American tail. If he thinks that it enhances his international image well and good for him but the reality is that he has done the opposite by associating with pariahs like Iranian leader DinnerJacket and murderous clowns like Khadaffi

[Radomu]

Fantastic claim. How much do you know about how the three branches of US government work?

Which of the three branches interprets the Constitution in matters of law?

What are state ballor initiatives and how do they work?

 

Go ahead give me your reasoning for your statement above.

 

As for your remark that Chavez quote "he just removed term limits" that's a power grab by any other name. The typical agenda of a wannabe dictator, and I'll bet if the people wanted to just vote him out it wouldn't be easy either.

 

Chavez is just a meathead who likes to tweak the American tail. If he thinks that it enhances his international image well and good for him but the reality is that he has done the opposite by associating with pariahs like Iranian leader DinnerJacket and murderous clowns like Khadaffi

 

I took an entire year-long University course about the US government, i think I know how it works. And it's a very flawed representative republic. It has the electoral college, which gives a handful of party-elected people in each state greater advantage over popular vote in Presidential elections. It has corporate personhood accepted by various supreme court decisions, practically allowing wealthy interests groups to purchase individual congressman. It's so flawed, you can hardly call it a democracy. But really, it was never intended to be, especially by John Adams and Andrew Hamilton.

 

Why is it? Prime Ministers in Parliamentary Democracies don't have term limits, do they? If Chavez is shown to be illegitimate to the majority of the population, they can always vote him out in the next election. You seem to buy into the worst of the propaganda provided by Western Media. No such depiction of Chavez is seen in Japanese television here. But then again, I remember being completely mind-blown by going to the UK and the US during the middle of the Iraq War, and seeing the ridiculous portrayal of it by BBC and CNN.

 

Chavez is not perfect, but he's to be admired for doing various reforms such as nationalizing the massive Venezuelan oil reserves to protect it from US capitol buying them off. He has reduced Venezuelan poverty for 25% of the country in the past decade and the country is seeing a level of economic growth that was unprecedented in its own history.

 

Obama and Cameron associates himself with Mubarak, Kind Abdullah, and Hu Jintao. Saudi Arabia makes Iran and Libya look like civil rights paradises, yet these "leaders of the free world" associate themselves with few of the most brutal dictators of Eurasia. The difference between their association with them and Chavez's association with Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad is that, a support of a global superpower like the United States makes a world of difference to the denial of democracy in these regions.

[Jonathanb977]

Good thread, LC. I'd like to think that anything that moves Cuba closer to democracy would be welcome. All this reminds me of Castro's rapid and influential negative criticism of the Prague Spring in the sixties. That's something the Czechs haven't forgotten, and they've pressed for a wider understanding of the human rights abuses in Cuba ever since the wall fell down.

 

Still looking into the curious case of the council and the choir, by the way. I'll update the thread referred to when a couple of pieces of the jigsaw fall into place.

 

Becoming interesting economically over there. I think Raul Castro (and, some reports suggest, even Fidel Castro) realise that Government control of the minute details of economic life can have a stagnating effect. Cuban national debt is high and without some measure of official free enterprise, they'd be without any means of sorting it out. The newspaper reports of lists of businesses Cuban people can now be licensed to do are baffling, if they're true. Apparently you can work as a clown at kids' parties officially now, but allegedly it's just if you're a particular clown character, sanctioned by the regime. Dunno how true all that stuff is.

 

But it seems pretty clear that people are keen to apply for business licences so they can set up bars for tourists and shops - or just legitimise existing, furtive enterprises. I hold no particular brief for left and right but I think anyone can see there's a point when Government just has to butt out of citizen's lives.