nino_savatte
No pasaran!
The US doesn't really have a health service as such, it's more of a health industry that is dominated by pharmaceutical giants, hospital corporations and greedy medical practitioners.
Castro crap/not crap
- Thread starter golightly
- Start date
TeeJay said:
You make a commie state sound wonderful. Meanwhile, we can't even get the trains to run on time.
Education and health are normally the two most important issues to get right in a modern, democratic state. We are failing miserably at one of them and the other we are excelling at, as is proven by the year on year improvement in grades. Soon everyone will be so well educated that all students will have A grades.
Let's not moan though, things could be worse. We should just lower our expectations and not strive to improve out country any more. Fuck the NHS. It's good enough. It will do.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
what, do good things for us proles?mattkidd12 said:
JHE
.
'Most'... hmmm... dunno about that - but it would certainly be easy to think of examples of dicators who've done nothing good for working people.mattkidd12 said:
This is all damning with faint praise, isn't it? Don't you think that the Cuban Revolution (led by Castro) has major achievements, as well as major failings? I do - and I think that helps explain its prestige.
yeah the new government of castro has done lots of good things for the populace of cuba - health service is the best example.
Does that mean I should support the cuban government. I prefer to apply a class analysis to Cuba. Do the working class have power? No. Have the w/c even been able to freely elect their leaders? No. Is there a class system in Cuba? Yes.
Does that mean I should support the cuban government. I prefer to apply a class analysis to Cuba. Do the working class have power? No. Have the w/c even been able to freely elect their leaders? No. Is there a class system in Cuba? Yes.
mattkidd12 said:
Can't think of one good thing Blair has done for me. He has made health care harder to get, tied up disability benefits in red tape, and made it impossible for me to get physical therapy on the NHS. Then there is is stand on nukes, nuclear power, etc and his nasty habit of making war against the peoples wishes. Introducing water charges in NI against the wishes of the people doesn't help either ....... I've seen how "well" this works on the mainland.
Education may be improving, but by the time my grandchildren are old enough to go to university, it will be so expensive that it'll be only for the rich kids - I went in the days when any working class kid who was smart enough got a full grant and fees paid - no student loans.
So, we've got a crappy dictator in a so-called 'democracy' - tell me one way that the Cubans are worse off - apart from having a country next door wanting to take them over!!
JHE
.
I'll give three (and that's without mentioning hurricanes).ZAMB said:
1. Their income is much lower. From the point of view of most Cubans, most Britons live a life of luxury.
2. Cubans have much less freedom of expression, association, communication and travel than we have.
3. We get the chance to vote the scoundrels out. They don't.
It's fair enough to note the good things about Cuba and the bad things about Britain, but don't go over the top.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
JHE said:
When I saw this post I thought two things: this 'analysis' is based on prejudice and the desire to demonise Cuba.
The right to freedom of speech may be enshrined in the US constitution but in practice it can be undermined by those who feel that they are acting on behalf of the state.
In the US, many voters are denied the right to vote because of their skin colour. This was a practice that was meant to end in the 1960's with the promulgation of the Civil Rights Acts yet certain states and their governors have seen to it that certain voters are removed from the electoral register.
Wtf has "luxury" got to do with this? Is this your only means of measuring 'happiness' and 'contentment' within a society? If so, you have a lot learn about people...something that a capitalist nation like the US blatantly ignores....or have you forgotten Hurrican Katrina?
Interesting how the Cubans are able to cope with hurricanes given their relative penury; while its richer, more aggressive northern neighbour cuts flood defence budgets in favour of spending the money on bombing other countries.
ZAMB said "...tell me one way that the Cubans are worse off..." in comparison with people in the UK.
Listing income, freedom and having a vote are simply facts.
There was no 'prejudice' or 'demonising' involved at all and the US was not mentioned once.
Looks to me like you are projecting your dislike of the anti-Castro Cuban-American gang onto totally innocent and descriptive posts.
Listing income, freedom and having a vote are simply facts.
There was no 'prejudice' or 'demonising' involved at all and the US was not mentioned once.
Looks to me like you are projecting your dislike of the anti-Castro Cuban-American gang onto totally innocent and descriptive posts.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
TeeJay said:
I wasn't addressing you, hotshot but seeing that you're here I shall deal with you. There is much demonising of Cuba by those who defend the excesses of free market capitalism. Having unfettered access to meaningless objects in the form of consumables, is no true indicator or happiness or contentment. Income is also relative and if you want to build a case against Cuba you should at least come up with something better than this. But do bear in mind that there are legion examples of other states that the US supports, where health care is minimal and literacy rates are embarrassingly low.
I'm not projecting anything, TeeJay and how nice of you to reduce this to a simple binary. The US has attacked Cuba, economically, militarily and rhetorically since 1957, yet the US still has trouble looking after its own poor and I mentioned Katrina for a very good reason: it serves as a useful and timely reminder that, for all its money and its claim of being the most "free country in the world", it treats certain citizens with contempt and regards the very idea of social justice as ananthema.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
So you think "voter scrubbing" is a good thing, TeeJay?
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Nino, I agree with you about Katrina, about how limitless capitalism is not the answer, about how Cubans benefit from SOME things (health care, education, below-market rent and electricity etc) ... but.....
"Having unfettered access to meaningless objects in the form of consumables, is no true indicator or happiness or contentment" is just an irrelevant comment for the majority of people who live in Cuba (like, ahem, half of my family.). They don't WANT "unfettered" access and they don't want "meaningless consumables." They DO want to be able to afford to buy stuff like
- shoes
- books
- nappies
- shampoo (not available in Cuban pesos, only in convertible money, meaning washing their hair means spending half their monthly income)
- construction / plumbing materials to repair their crumbling homes
- underwear (which for some reason, and I don't really think it's the embargo, are scarce and scarcely affordable in Cuba)
- infant painkillers (prescribed by, but not actually available from, those wonderful Cuban doctors)
... and I could go on. What exactly is so "consumerist" about their aspirations?
"Having unfettered access to meaningless objects in the form of consumables, is no true indicator or happiness or contentment" is just an irrelevant comment for the majority of people who live in Cuba (like, ahem, half of my family.). They don't WANT "unfettered" access and they don't want "meaningless consumables." They DO want to be able to afford to buy stuff like
- shoes
- books
- nappies
- shampoo (not available in Cuban pesos, only in convertible money, meaning washing their hair means spending half their monthly income)
- construction / plumbing materials to repair their crumbling homes
- underwear (which for some reason, and I don't really think it's the embargo, are scarce and scarcely affordable in Cuba)
- infant painkillers (prescribed by, but not actually available from, those wonderful Cuban doctors)
... and I could go on. What exactly is so "consumerist" about their aspirations?
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
trabuquera said:
You miss my point - as do so many others - the very idea of "freedom" in the US and much of the western capitalist world, is measured by having access to meaningless consumables. The desire to consume for the sake of consuming has replaced other, more important things in life. The right in the US present consumerism as the Alpha and Omega of a free society, if anything it shackles people, especially the poor, who have no access to such luxury goods - unless they steal them....then they end up in prison. As we know, US penal system tends to have a disproportionate number of Blacks and Hispanics incarcerated within its walls. Blacks and Hispanics are on at the bottom of the US socio-economic pile. They are the prisoners of the state and of the power of consumerism.
At the heart of the things that you have described lays the US economic embargo. Of course if Cuba played the US game (and allowed the mafia and other criminals to return), the embargo would be lifted as a stroke but that won't happen - will it? I don't blame Cuba and I don't blame Castro, the blame and responsibility rests on the shoulders of the US, like it or not.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
The embargo doesn't prevent Cuba from having alcohol and cigarettes on sale almost everywhere - they are easier to obtain than food.
The embargo doesn't prevent Cuba from building hotels and tourist facilities up to "first world" standards - and having them there for the exclusive use of visiting foreigners.
The embargo doesn't prevent Fidel himself from wearing Adidas and Nike sneakers, or from his higher ministers driving Mercedes cars, or from putting Western brand name goods on sale in those hard-currency stores.
The embargo doesn't prevent Spanish, Canadian, Israeli and Italian businesses from running joint ventures in Cuba.
The embargo doesn't prevent the Cuban government from buying, printing and issuing literally MILLIONS of propaganda Tshirts (for instance, those issued in the (perfectly right) campaign to get Elian Gonzales back to Cuba, or the (more arguable) campaign to free the "cuban Five" of counter-intelligence agents caught spying in the USA.)
The embargo doesn't prevent Fidel from spending millions of dollars on building the "Anti-imperialist Tribunal" (a stage for launching public events) smack in from of the US Interests Section, while ordinary Cubans' homes crumble, because according to the Cuban government "the embargo means we cannot afford building materials."
What I am trying to explain to you, is that ordinary Cubans (not foreigners, not anti-Castroites, not Cuban -Americans) look at all these contradictions and wonder. They KNOW the embargo exists, and they've been told all their lives that it is the reason for all the scarcity in Cuba. "no hay ... por el embargo" (there isn't any, because of the embargo) has been the refrain they have heard ad nauseam. But seeing these things, they begin to ask, well, is there or isn't there? Are there or aren't there resources? because it does seem as though , when required for political or propaganda purposes, there certainly ARE.
The embargo certainly DOES add to shipping costs on all goods, makes some foreign companies wary of dealing with cuba for fear of being penalised by the US, and makes some (a very limited number of) goods totally unavailable in Cuba because they are only manufactured by US companies (most heartbreaking of these being the spare parts for medical machinery and some pharmaceuticals.) But it does not even BEGIN to explain - much less to excuse - the pauperised standard of living which cubans "enjoy".
The embargo is, of course, a grotesque example of bullying and economic imperialism by the US, an abuse of human rights, and an attempt to remove Castro by starving out the Cuban people. But it does not, and cannot, justify the failed policies of Cuba's government. If they US had any brains (never mind any heart) it would have been abolished decades ago .... and it is quite possible that Castro's standing would have plummeted once he didn't have this ever-ready excuse to lean on.
And another thing: the embargo has been in place since 1962 - yet in the 1970s and 1980s, Cubans lived far better than they do now. Why is that? because previously Cuba depended on COMECON and USSR subsidies. Once that collapsed, the truly rickety economic structure of Castro's plans was laid bare.....
The embargo doesn't prevent Cuba from building hotels and tourist facilities up to "first world" standards - and having them there for the exclusive use of visiting foreigners.
The embargo doesn't prevent Fidel himself from wearing Adidas and Nike sneakers, or from his higher ministers driving Mercedes cars, or from putting Western brand name goods on sale in those hard-currency stores.
The embargo doesn't prevent Spanish, Canadian, Israeli and Italian businesses from running joint ventures in Cuba.
The embargo doesn't prevent the Cuban government from buying, printing and issuing literally MILLIONS of propaganda Tshirts (for instance, those issued in the (perfectly right) campaign to get Elian Gonzales back to Cuba, or the (more arguable) campaign to free the "cuban Five" of counter-intelligence agents caught spying in the USA.)
The embargo doesn't prevent Fidel from spending millions of dollars on building the "Anti-imperialist Tribunal" (a stage for launching public events) smack in from of the US Interests Section, while ordinary Cubans' homes crumble, because according to the Cuban government "the embargo means we cannot afford building materials."
What I am trying to explain to you, is that ordinary Cubans (not foreigners, not anti-Castroites, not Cuban -Americans) look at all these contradictions and wonder. They KNOW the embargo exists, and they've been told all their lives that it is the reason for all the scarcity in Cuba. "no hay ... por el embargo" (there isn't any, because of the embargo) has been the refrain they have heard ad nauseam. But seeing these things, they begin to ask, well, is there or isn't there? Are there or aren't there resources? because it does seem as though , when required for political or propaganda purposes, there certainly ARE.
The embargo certainly DOES add to shipping costs on all goods, makes some foreign companies wary of dealing with cuba for fear of being penalised by the US, and makes some (a very limited number of) goods totally unavailable in Cuba because they are only manufactured by US companies (most heartbreaking of these being the spare parts for medical machinery and some pharmaceuticals.) But it does not even BEGIN to explain - much less to excuse - the pauperised standard of living which cubans "enjoy".
The embargo is, of course, a grotesque example of bullying and economic imperialism by the US, an abuse of human rights, and an attempt to remove Castro by starving out the Cuban people. But it does not, and cannot, justify the failed policies of Cuba's government. If they US had any brains (never mind any heart) it would have been abolished decades ago .... and it is quite possible that Castro's standing would have plummeted once he didn't have this ever-ready excuse to lean on.
And another thing: the embargo has been in place since 1962 - yet in the 1970s and 1980s, Cubans lived far better than they do now. Why is that? because previously Cuba depended on COMECON and USSR subsidies. Once that collapsed, the truly rickety economic structure of Castro's plans was laid bare.....
Fez909
toilet expert
I don't know a lot about Cuba and it's political process, or its 'democracy' so I did a quick search and found these:
Source
And this from the UN in response to a Cuban resolution:
Source
Which seems to suggest that while it may be difficult for ordinary citizens to reach the upmost level of the political sphere, they are involved in the decision-making processes in a way which goes far beyond other 'democracies'. The proposals by the UN in that resolution seem to all apply to Cuba.
Source
And this from the UN in response to a Cuban resolution:
Source
Which seems to suggest that while it may be difficult for ordinary citizens to reach the upmost level of the political sphere, they are involved in the decision-making processes in a way which goes far beyond other 'democracies'. The proposals by the UN in that resolution seem to all apply to Cuba.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
trabuquera said:
You're handing people like mears a propaganda victory...but then I suspect that was your motive in the first place. Your post looks ideologically similar to much of what mears says and what your Miami brethren say.
The simple truth is that consumerism does not make people free; that is a myth that has been constructed and disseminated by the US State Department and it allies/agents. If you want to use consumerism as an indicator of freedom, then you are onto a sticky wicket.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
i honestly can't think of a single good thing that dubya has done for american workers.mattkidd12 said:
but I do buy your class analysis of cuba
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Consume and be happy. 
Exactly how important is it to have a microwave oven or an mp3 player?
Why is it so important to "keep up with the Joneses"? More importantly, where does this message come from?
Exactly how important is it to have a microwave oven or an mp3 player?
Why is it so important to "keep up with the Joneses"? More importantly, where does this message come from?
JHE
.
You were wrong - and had absolutely no reason to think those things.nino_savatte said:
You have not rebutted any of the points I made in response to the invitation to "tell [ZAMB] one way that the Cubans are worse off" than Britons. You know they are true.
Instead, you make a number of other points.
Your point about the electoral fiddles in the US is not very relevant.
Your questions about income and happiness might be worth discussing, but I hope you would not kid yourself that Cubans are happy with the privations they suffer. (Their privations are, I believe, less severe than in the years following the end of the Soviet Union, but they are still bad.)
Your point about Cuba's relative success in dealing with hurricanes is, as you say, interesting.
If you had read the whole thread, you would have a better idea about my attitude to the Cuban Revolution and the Castro regime. But I'll just spell it out for you here: I'm pretty ambivalent. The Cuban Revolution has achieved a great deal. It also has considerable failures and Cuba remains a dictatorship.
I am an occasional attender of Cuba Solidarity Campaign events, because I agree with their opposition to the embargo and because I'm fairly interested in Cuba and their events include some interesting talks and discussions.
Whenever I go to them, though, I do notice that the core of the CSC is made up of people who are utterly uncritical of the Cuban regime and like to pretend that Cuban democracy ('Poder Popular') is flourishing. Perhaps some of them genuinely believe that pluralism and 'bourgeois' political freedoms are not needed for democracy to work well. Others, I suspect, just pretend. They are so keen on some aspects of Cuban society that they turn a blind eye to the illiberal and undemocratic aspects.
Are you rather like those people in the CSC? (Perhaps you're worse. I've never been accused of 'demonising' Cuba at a CSC event!
The CSC people have a rose-tinted view of the Cuban regime, but they're quite a friendly lot.)
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
For the love of God!
1) I don't HAVE any "Miami brethren".
2) I don't agree with mears on almost anything, let alone plot replies on the internet to give credence to him.
3) I am against consumerism.
4) But I don't think that food, clothes, soap and building materials are meaningless consumerist desires.
5) I don't think that any and every criticism of Castro or the current criticism is invalid, simply because the US (for its own machiavellian and imperialist reasons) also criticises Castro. He's a man, not a god.
1) I don't HAVE any "Miami brethren".
2) I don't agree with mears on almost anything, let alone plot replies on the internet to give credence to him.
3) I am against consumerism.
4) But I don't think that food, clothes, soap and building materials are meaningless consumerist desires.
5) I don't think that any and every criticism of Castro or the current criticism is invalid, simply because the US (for its own machiavellian and imperialist reasons) also criticises Castro. He's a man, not a god.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Bit of both in answer to the original question and not as bad as most would like to portray it as. But being anti-state I can't defend Fidel on many levels, not least cos he's a politician.
fishfingerer
sultan of cringe
It'll be a real shame if this sort of thing comes to an end.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4792071.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4792071.stm
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
JHE said:You were wrong - and had absolutely no reason to think those things.
You have not rebutted any of the points I made in response to the invitation to "tell [ZAMB] one way that the Cubans are worse off" than Britons. You know they are true.
Instead, you make a number of other points.
Your point about the electoral fiddles in the US is not very relevant.
Your questions about income and happiness might be worth discussing, but I hope you would not kid yourself that Cubans are happy with the privations they suffer. (Their privations are, I believe, less severe than in the years following the end of the Soviet Union, but they are still bad.)
Your point about Cuba's relative success in dealing with hurricanes is, as you say, interesting.
If you had read the whole thread, you would have a better idea about my attitude to the Cuban Revolution and the Castro regime. But I'll just spell it out for you here: I'm pretty ambivalent. The Cuban Revolution has achieved a great deal. It also has considerable failures and Cuba remains a dictatorship.
I am an occasional attender of Cuba Solidarity Campaign events, because I agree with their opposition to the embargo and because I'm fairly interested in Cuba and their events include some interesting talks and discussions.
Whenever I go to them, though, I do notice that the core of the CSC is made up of people who are utterly uncritical of the Cuban regime and like to pretend that Cuban democracy ('Poder Popular') is flourishing. Perhaps some of them genuinely believe that pluralism and 'bourgeois' political freedoms are not needed for democracy to work well. Others, I suspect, just pretend. They are so keen on some aspects of Cuban society that they turn a blind eye to the illiberal and undemocratic aspects.
Are you rather like those people in the CSC? (Perhaps you're worse. I've never been accused of 'demonising' Cuba at a CSC event!
Ah, I see "I am wrong" and who says? You?
You're too patronising by half and the moral high ground doesn't belong to you. The "electoral fiddles in the US" are not relevant you say but it wasn't entirely clear who "we" is.
You are comparing apples with oranges here. Sure we can travel and freely associate but under the provision of recent anti-terror legislation, certain people are now regarded with suspicion. We may "get a chance to vote the fuckers out" but the state always remains the same; it does not change. Have you noticed many real differences between the last Tory government and the current one? I can't say that I have.
I'm not sure what you are getting at here but it doens't look entirely truthful
I think I have rebutted your 'points'.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
trabuquera said:
You continue to read things into my posts that aren't there. Did I say food, clothing and soap were "meaningless consumerist desires"? I did not. Please refrain from misrepresenting my posts.
I have criticisms of Castro too; he's a politician, but my criticisms of the USG and its continued embargo and media harrassment of Cuba outweigh any criticisms I have of Castro.
I, for one, don't buy Condoleeza Rice's warm words to the Cuban people. Some people would take those words at face value but they are nothing more than meaningless rhetoric. The intentions of the US towards Cuba are transparently obvious and have nothing at all to do with ideas of "democracy", "freedom" or "choice".
JoePolitix
Gone
trabuquera said:
Noam Chomsky, himself a critic of the Cuban Government, notes in his essay "Cuba and the US: David and Goliath" that the US embargo on Cuba is even harsher than the one that was imposed on Iraq for over a decade (the one that killed half a million Iraqi children). Essential foods and medicines are denied and I have read numerous reports from international bodies that if it hadn't been for the emphasis the Cuban Government places on the welfare of its citizens there would have been a humanitarian catastrophe.
Now, sure there will be mistakes and some of those in the upper echelons of the state will abuse their positions (although I hardly think constructing an anti-imperialist tribunal or the president having trainers are some of teh worse examples of nepotism i've heard!) but ultimately the Cuban economic model is a succesful one for an isolated third world country under siege from imperialism. As the Cubans are fond of saying "socialism or death!".
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
(ahem...)
I don't argue with you that Cuba has worked near-miracles within the conditions it's subjected to. It is an achievement very much to me admired by anyone (including me) that even after COMECON collapsed and the Cuban economy went into freefall in 1991-94, that the Cubans made very tough choices about their priorities and chose not to close a single hospital, school or kindergarten. (A tough-it-out approach that our own dear T Blair could surely learn from.)
However: Chomsky's work notwithstanding, current conditions are rather different and just go to show that the embargo does NOT explain or excuse everything that's wrong with Cuba .....
In fact the US Congress created and approved a loophole exemption to the embargo in 2000, "allowing" Cuba to buy US food and medicines, and US companies to sell to Cuba, but only on the basis of cash sales (i.e. no letters of credit etc - which drives up the costs Cuba has to pay.) This restriction on sales was partly, again, American meanspiritedness and messing with the Cubans for the sake of it, but also because Cuban import enterprises have an extremely unhappy record of running off leaving their (European, Eastern Bloc and Central American) creditors screaming for payment which just never arrives.
However, for whatever reason, Cuba seems currently rather happy to buy goods off the same nation which has it in an economic headlock, the USA. There's ideology, and then there's common sense ... even in cuba ... viz:
Sales to Cuba up despite embargo
Associated Press- Wed, Feb. 16, 2005.
HAVANA - U.S. food producers significantly increased their sales to Cuba last year despite a long-standing trade embargo against the communist island, according to a Cuba-U.S. business group. The New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council said in a report released Monday that U.S. companies exported $392 million in products to Cuba during 2004, up from $257 million in 2003. The sales - including wheat, corn, rice, chicken and soybean oil - pushed Cuba to No. 25 on a list of 228 foreign markets supplied by American food exporters.
Under an exception to the embargo passed in 2000, American agricultural goods can be sold to the island but on a cash-only basis. Since then, the island has steadily increased its standing, from 144th place in 2001, 50th place in 2002, and 35th place in 2003.
The increase in Cuba's purchases of American food comes despite the tightening of long-standing commercial and travel restrictions against the island by the Bush administration. At the same time, U.S. lawmakers - particularly from farm states - and others are pushing for an end to the restrictions.
I don't argue with you that Cuba has worked near-miracles within the conditions it's subjected to. It is an achievement very much to me admired by anyone (including me) that even after COMECON collapsed and the Cuban economy went into freefall in 1991-94, that the Cubans made very tough choices about their priorities and chose not to close a single hospital, school or kindergarten. (A tough-it-out approach that our own dear T Blair could surely learn from.)
However: Chomsky's work notwithstanding, current conditions are rather different and just go to show that the embargo does NOT explain or excuse everything that's wrong with Cuba .....
In fact the US Congress created and approved a loophole exemption to the embargo in 2000, "allowing" Cuba to buy US food and medicines, and US companies to sell to Cuba, but only on the basis of cash sales (i.e. no letters of credit etc - which drives up the costs Cuba has to pay.) This restriction on sales was partly, again, American meanspiritedness and messing with the Cubans for the sake of it, but also because Cuban import enterprises have an extremely unhappy record of running off leaving their (European, Eastern Bloc and Central American) creditors screaming for payment which just never arrives.
However, for whatever reason, Cuba seems currently rather happy to buy goods off the same nation which has it in an economic headlock, the USA. There's ideology, and then there's common sense ... even in cuba ... viz:
Sales to Cuba up despite embargo
Associated Press- Wed, Feb. 16, 2005.
HAVANA - U.S. food producers significantly increased their sales to Cuba last year despite a long-standing trade embargo against the communist island, according to a Cuba-U.S. business group. The New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council said in a report released Monday that U.S. companies exported $392 million in products to Cuba during 2004, up from $257 million in 2003. The sales - including wheat, corn, rice, chicken and soybean oil - pushed Cuba to No. 25 on a list of 228 foreign markets supplied by American food exporters.
Under an exception to the embargo passed in 2000, American agricultural goods can be sold to the island but on a cash-only basis. Since then, the island has steadily increased its standing, from 144th place in 2001, 50th place in 2002, and 35th place in 2003.
The increase in Cuba's purchases of American food comes despite the tightening of long-standing commercial and travel restrictions against the island by the Bush administration. At the same time, U.S. lawmakers - particularly from farm states - and others are pushing for an end to the restrictions.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
hope he's checked out the source of the cigar carefully!Yossarian said:The man's seen off Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the elder, Clinton, and is on course to light a celebratory cigar when baby Bush leaves office to a chorus of jeers so I'm giving him a 'not crap' vote for that...
e2a; where i'm coming from too. like it or no - and you can nail them on domestic represssion, except the regime would have been crushed by the yanks the moment it turned fwuffy wiberwal - he's lit a beacon for all those nations who've been stomped by the US, and shown a different way.
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