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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#781
post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything is equally bad, would you prefer to be brainwashed in North Korea or South Korea?

If North Korea were a wealthier country because of extensive natural resources, an established industrial base, and distributed the money more reasonably, then you're making an actual dilemma. Why, instead of taking a comically bad example, you don't pick a more controverte place like Singapore, an organized state where drug consumption leads to the death penalty and you will be suppressed it dissent is attempted, ye…

> instead of taking a comically bad example

On the contrary, my example is probably the best you can get because the point I'm making is the equivalence between one government and another, or between US presidents and Castro is a false one. No one is saint obviously but the offenses have a different gravity hence we have as different societies as North and South Korea.

Some Western people might feel like the US or the UK are literally totalitarian states but they just didn't live under autocratic regimes.

Speaking of which, the false equivalence narrative is actively exploited by such regimes to legitimize their own miserable state of affairs. It's fascinating how it works but apparently if something is bad in, say, Russia and also bad in the US (as told by the state TV), Russian citizens are fine with their conditions not being improved.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea is the poster child here, depending on how you define "western intervention".

Does the life quality of populace increase or did it decrease on countries that US of A intervened? I do not understand US fear of communism(by definition ussr did not even have communism, it was something else may be call it ussr-communism?). Both countries were allies in world war. What was the need for a piss of contest between the two? I would say ussr's involvement in cold war was caused by passive aggressive ta…

> Does the life quality of populace increase or did it decrease on countries that US of A intervened?

Yes, I understand that's the question at hand. In the case of Korea, there is a good argument to be made that the entire country would have had the quality of life North Korea has if it were not for the intervention.

> by definition ussr did not even have communism

Yes, and neither did China, nor Cuba, nor Vietnam, etc, etc. At some point we end up with a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. In any case, the fear was of "the thing calling itself communism", not "theoretical platonic communism".

The fear, at least for people who actually thought about the matter, was based on the following facts:

1) Communism (as it was being practiced; I will assume this parenthetical henceforth) was incompatible with fundamental aspects of society that were considered important in the US. For a simple example, if you look at the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the US constitution), the only right that was not being actively being violated in the countries that called themselves "communist" was the one granted by the Third Amendment. Well, except it _was_ being violated in the USSR in the early 20s. But generally 20th century nation-states have housed their own soldiers.

2) Communism was actively expansionist when it had the chance to be; see eastern Europe, the Korean peninsula.

3) Communism had as part of its doctrine the goal of fomenting revolutions in countries that were not yet communist.

4) There were communist parties in various countries, including the US, and some of their members (not all, yes) were actively involved in item #3.

5) There were various people in the US who were not members of the communist party but were clearly sympathetic to the idea of the communist party having more power or seizing power altogether. A number of these people were highly placed in the existing US government.

So at least in some quarters there was the perception of a plausible existential threat to the US as currently constituted (literally; throw out the Constitution and replace it with a totally different setup).

In addition to this, there was of course the usual fear of the other, the fear of the labor movement on the part of owners of capital, and so forth. In many cases these various reasons for fear were self-reinforcing.

> Both countries were allies in world war.

Yes. That doesn't always mean much on its own; the USSR and Germany were allies from 1939 to 1941.

> What was the need for a piss of contest between the two?

This is a question without a simple answer.

To some extent, in both cases, it was driven by domestic political considerations. It's a lot easier to maintain power if you keep telling people there are external enemies they need to worry about and hence shouldn't rock the domestic political boat too much. In the case of the USSR this was a quite explicit (and longstanding; it dates back to the 20s) policy of the Communist Party. In the US, I think it was a bit more opportunistic and not as organized.

Add to that concerns regarding the fate of allies, the pre-existing tensions I talk about below, and lots of stuff I am not thinking of right now and may not even know about...

> I would say ussr's involvement in cold war was caused by passive aggressive tactics began by USA.

The tension dates back way longer than that. There were quite a number of people in the US who fundamentally mistrusted the USSR for the reasons listed above, and that distrust went back to the original October Revolution. There were quite a number in the USSR, including in high government positions, who distrusted the US because of its participation in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus... . There was tension over the UN declaration of human rights and its article 13. There was tension over the post-war division of Europe. I'm sure you're aware of the Soviet blockade of West Berlin and the ensuing Berlin Airlift; that situation was not precipitated by the US. The Korean War was not precipitated by the US.

Claiming that the US "began" the cold war in some sort of sole act of aggression involves some serious revision of history as far as I can tell.

> It was USA who first deployed nuclear weapons near Russian border.

Yes. The context was that the US was looking for a way to be able to defend western Europe from invasion by Warsaw Pact forces. There was no realistic way to match those in terms of actual troop numbers and materiel without deploying a _lot_ more troops to Europe than the US was willing to do (for various reasons, including cost), so nuclear deterrent was viewed as a way to provide the needed defensive capabilities.

I agree that it was an escalation of the nuclear situation. I don't know to what extent the fears of a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany (say) were justified. But given what had just happened on the Korean peninsula a few years earlier, they weren't entirely baseless. I won't claim the missile deployment in Turkey and Italy was the right call, but I have a hard time categorically saying it was the wrong call...

> When russia deployed in response in cuba, suddenly that was news

In the US, sure. The deployment in Turkey was sure news in the USSR. ;)

> Most americans didn't even know that it was their country that started it

Indeed.

> Just like they are doing it now in the name of terrorism

I think the fear of communism was a _lot_ more justified than the current fear of terrorism. In particular, communism was a _lot_ more successful both in terms of seizing power and in terms of gaining mindshare in countries where it was not yet in power. For example, I have yet to see a US government official saying it would be good if the US were run more like ISIS-controlled areas. There were quite a few saying that sort of thing about communism in the 40s.

Again, I won't claim the US response to the threat was perfect. But I think the threat was real, and did need a response.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#783
I am not a big fan of greedy-unchecked-capitalism but communism is not the answer for problems of the world.

A thought exercise: Here is an attempt to take on an argument made by the communist apologists about Cuba in favor of Castro: that "there are no children sleeping on the streets."

May be that's true even if we don't have any independent scrutiny made by human rights organizations to support it. But "no children sleeping on the streets" is not a sufficient condition to judge the social progress of the nation.

For instance, these children may be sent to gulags (if they happen to be of the lesser equal people) or they may be forced to sleep on floors in a dungeon and still the claim "no cuban children sleeping on the streets" will be technically true. Or even the tyrant Castro might have ordered to kill all the children who were seen to be sleeping on streets (who's to prevent him from doing so there?)

The apologists just shun away from such critique as they are dishonest or are passionate followers blinded by their faith in communism.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that's not true. As a simple counterexample, Air Canada flies to Cuba and does business with US companies/individuals just fine. I'm not an expert on the embargo, and it's a bit complicated because it's got multiple pieces of enabling legislation, but at first glance the only one of those that says anything close to what you're saying is Title III of the Helms-Burton act (see…

PayPal (and several US banks) seized all funds of a huge German drugstore chain and their online markets, and demanded they’d stop making business with Cuban cigars before returning it (as reported in the news: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lassen-uns-nicht-erpr... [2011], also see the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ka26b/paypal_bl... ) The same happened with MasterCard and VISA, and is…

Thank you for the links.

The Reddit discussion references the Helms-Burton act, and for the case of things like banks and payment processors, I expect the problem is Title I section 103, which prohibits US nationals from extending loans or other financing to anyone for the purpose of financing transactions involving confiscated property as defined elsewhere in the act.

So for the cigar case, if the cigars were grown on land that was confiscated (for example), my reading of it is that processing a payment for the cigars would be prohibited under the act. Certainly so for MasterCard and Visa, which are clearly extending credit.

That's not the same as a blanket ban on both doing business with Cuba and business with US companies, but it does make things very complicated, I agree, especially because there are so many ways of extending credit when companies deal with each other.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is naive As even you said, Cuba was not supposed to have Windows copies, but I'm sure they had Iran theoretically couldn't have access to Boeing parts (and this was a stricter embargo), but they had There's always a way of solving things. Most of Cuban problems were caused by themselves, not the embargo.

> There's always a way of solving things. Except, not really. You can’t put any app using any encryption technology up on the Google Play Store or the iOS App Store, if you also distribute anything to Cuba. For the first you need to get an approval from the US DoD, which requires that you never interact with Cuba.

You could sell apks

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#786
post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting lack of response. I suspect your parent simply isn't familiar with the legacies of people like Lee Kuan Yew or Park Chung Hee, because they haven't been depicted as much in western pop culture and propaganda.

Hello, indeed I'm not familiar with those examples, but it doesn't matter. As long as a government doesn't let his people run truly free elections regularly, that's bad. Emperors were considered normal at Romans' times; slaves were, too. Luckily, we have learned better since a long time. Left- or right-wing doesn't matter: dictatorship is an act of violence.

Absolute position are dangerous things without complete knowledge. I mostly agree with your position, and was hoping you had something useful to say about Singapore.

Without it I think that the absolute position is naïve.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you point on freedom of speech, but in this case I don't see it as something to be particularly proud of. Maybe Americans value their rights more than anything else, but to me as a Chinese citizen, this is both laughable and disrespectful.

> Maybe Americans value their rights more than anything else I certainly do, but sadly not every American agrees. There are many "law and order" types who would have that person arrested and beaten if they could. Fortunately our rights are still intact, even after all this time. People can do such things without fear. Far from being "laughable and disrespectful", I consider it a sign of a healthy, functioning society…

Very interesting and fascinating response for me. I wish I had more of discussions like this here.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#788
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And their economy wasn't half bad back then (from a communist standard). In Canada we always had a softer tone with Cuba. A lot of the US PoV seems propaganda driven. Sure, there is a vocal expat group that had very good reasons to leave and were definitely harassed/prosecuted/persecuted for their views/lifestyle. The same kind of minorities exists in the US (watch Trump speeches from the last year). On the other sid…

" In Canada we always had a softer tone with Cuba." Partly because we are not the US and did not have a direct confrontation. But partly because Trudeau Sr. was a communist-revolutionary apologist, in the French intellectual sense - and chilled with Fidel to boost is 'socialist hipster' cred and to thumb the eye of the Americans. As a young man, I found it admirable. Now that I know many ex-Cubans, I find it utterly…

>But partly because Trudeau Sr. was a communist-revolutionary apologist, in the French intellectual sense - and chilled with Fidel to boost is 'socialist hipster' cred and to thumb the eye of the Americans.

As opposed to a right-wing capitalist pig, like most other leaders?

The name-calling can go both ways.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a logical fallacy if coldtea actually made that claim. He did not. He simply pointed out that edblamey moral high ground is a fallacy in itself, when so many of those Western nations stand accused of worse.

Western nations have not 'done worse' in modern times. The logical fallacy I think is yours for trying to compare Cuba to the USA in a tit-for-tat comparison of misrepresented facts and issues. Dropping a nuclear bomb seems 'bad' until you put it in the context of what the Japanese were doing, and the costs otherwise. The North Vietnamese that the Americans & South Vietnamese were fighting against were 10x worse than…

>Western nations have not 'done worse' in modern times.

The US has bombed and invaded Afghanistan for the crimes of a handful of (mainly Saudi-backed) loonies (after first sponsoring Bin Laden in the 80s), have invaded Iraq under BS false pretexts (WMDs etc) and created huge losses, chaos, anarchy and civil war, have helped destabilize Libya with the same outcome, have targeted the Syrian regime and in the process helped ISIS grow, and so on. And that's just the open actions since 2001...

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a fallacy if it is being employed to absolve Castro of every crime. I think the point of the comparison was to remind pots not to call kettles black.

What makes you think it requires a total absolution to be tu quoque? If I murder 100 people and punch a grandma, and I point out it was OK to punch a grandma because I just saw YOU do it, it's still tu quoque despite the fact that nobody discussed the 100 I murdered

Only the argument is that the US has cause much much much greater mayhem than Castro, domestically AND globally, and yet it has the gal to take the hollier than thou stance.

Heck, US cops alone have probably killed much more people than the Cuban regime in those 50 years. And the place with 25% of the world's prisoners and 4% of the world's population is rich to call other places "police states".

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