Castro is dead. What next for Cuba?

[Altai]

Its surprising, because I thought he was also dead since long.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Altai

[Bryan]

3 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

I just watched the map. I didn't realise before how close Cuba is to Florida. I knew it was close but that close.

If it were as easy to move into the USA as it is to move from Africa into any EU-country there would probably be no-one left in Cuba.

 

Not everyone wants out. They just want the US to stop messing with their economy. I know plenty of Cubans who are quite happy there. We have family friends who often travel to Canada to visit, yet happily return home each time.

[-TSS-]

The closest seems to be the westernmost tip of Cuba to Cancun in Mexico. I wonder why that route hasn't become used. I know Mexico isn't the USA but Mexico isn't Cuba either.

[Bryan]

53 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

The closest seems to be the westernmost tip of Cuba to Cancun in Mexico. I wonder why that route hasn't become used. I know Mexico isn't the USA but Mexico isn't Cuba either.

The US has the Cuban adjustment act that lets Cubans (and only Cubans) get automatic residency if they can get into the country. Once they've set one foot on US soil, they don't get sent back. It's a far greater pull to the US than anything in Cuba does to push them out. If they can get to Florida, economically (and culturally) they're good. But if the other option is almost anywhere else, most Cubans are quite fine with staying home.

 

[The_Squid]

2 hours ago, Bryan said:

That's a pretty accurate statement.  Considering the crushing economic oppression of the embargo, it's truly amazing what the Castros have been able to do in Cuba. 

Bryan, you're not being a good partisan hack for the Conservatives.....  remember:. Anything Trudeau says is bad.   No need to form opinions based on facts.

[Bryan]

47 minutes ago, The_Squid said:

Bryan, you're not being a good partisan hack for the Conservatives.....  remember:. Anything Trudeau says is bad.   No need to form opinions based on facts.

I'll leave fact-free opinions to others. I'll base mine on what I've seen first hand.

I've been to Cuba several times, been all over the island, have friends who live there, my parents have spent several months at a time there, and our family has hosted Cuban families who have come to visit and happily chosen to return home. I know Cuba fairly well, and I know many Cuban people fairly well. Well enough to know that what we are told by the diaspora in Florida doesn't match up to the reality on the ground on the island.

[Icebound]

We have the conservative hero Reagan supplying Saddam with armament,

We have Harper lavishing high praise on King Abdullah when he died, 

we have Trump's love of Putin,

and just everybody loves the Chinese.

All of these have atrocious human rights records.... and all of these received various level of praise from the west at one time or another.....

But what make Castro different is that nobody could make a buck off of him.  

Hence Abdullah deserves praise, but Castro doesn't... and Trudeau's gesture, no doubt in part because he sees Canada making money in Cuba... gets him into hot water with all of those who have not been able to.

Remember, we will all have to be praising Trump as well, because praise is what he lives for... if we want the USA to ever help us in NATO or anything else, ever again.

 

 

 

[-1=e^ipi]

^ While Harper's praise for King Abdullah was also deplorable, Putin doesn't come close to Castro. There is a lot of sense in seeking better relations with Russia.

[taxme]

23 hours ago, Bryan said:

From what I've seen personally, most people in Cuba truly love(d) the man. Not quite as much as they loved Che, but he's definitely a national hero. 

It really is a eye opener to go to Cuba and see how different things are there compared to what we are told over here. 

All citizen's have to put on a happy face or else they could end up in the gulag. Castro didn't exactly like anyone who complained about his communist utopia. The ones that loved Castro must have been those who made money from his communist regime. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by taxme

[taxme]

2 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

^ While Harper's praise for King Abdullah was also deplorable, Putin doesn't come close to Castro. There is a lot of sense in seeking better relations with Russia.

Putin is not the bad guy that the western corporate fake stream media like to make him out to be. When are the sheeple ever going to learn that when the phony media attacks someone well that person must be one of the good guys that they disagree with. Or should I say someone who their corporate bosses don't like.  

[taxme]

12 hours ago, Bryan said:

Not everyone wants out. They just want the US to stop messing with their economy. I know plenty of Cubans who are quite happy there. We have family friends who often travel to Canada to visit, yet happily return home each time.

I know that there are plenty of Canadians who are quite happy in Canada also. They are probably like most Canadians who go to other countries and are quite happy to return to Canada even though their government is just as crooked as the government of Cuba is. Or maybe they have to return to Cuba or someone in their family will go to jail if they ask for asylum in another country. That is what usually happens to people who live in communist countries. North Korea will jail your whole family if you escape from that country. 

Sometimes the people have to put on a happy face and say nothing if they do not want to go to jail upon their return. 

[Bryan]

6 hours ago, taxme said:

I know that there are plenty of Canadians who are quite happy in Canada also. They are probably like most Canadians who go to other countries and are quite happy to return to Canada even though their government is just as crooked as the government of Cuba is. Or maybe they have to return to Cuba or someone in their family will go to jail if they ask for asylum in another country. That is what usually happens to people who live in communist countries. North Korea will jail your whole family if you escape from that country. 

Sometimes the people have to put on a happy face and say nothing if they do not want to go to jail upon their return. 

Nothing you're talking about even remotely applies to Cuba. People are free to do and say pretty much what they want.

[Boges]

His brother has been in charge for awhile now, so it's business as usual. 

I suspect Prez Trump will be a bit more hardline in regards to normalizing relations than Obama was. I think they'll have to be more open to compromise of they want to continue to normalize relations. 

[Argus]

On 11/27/2016 at 3:57 AM, Bryan said:

From what I've seen personally, most people in Cuba truly love(d) the man. Not quite as much as they loved Che, but he's definitely a national hero. 

You think ordinary Cubans are going to feel free to say what they really felt about the Castros?

Freedom House ranks Cuba as 6.5 on the freedom scale (1 is completely free, 7 is completely unfree)

Edited November 28, 2016 by Argus

[Argus]

10 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

^ While Harper's praise for King Abdullah was also deplorable, Putin doesn't come close to Castro. There is a lot of sense in seeking better relations with Russia.

Putin has killed a hell of a lot more people than Castro.

[Boges]

It's interesting that Putin is now drawing the ire from people on the Left, while Castro is drawing praise. It was the USSR that allowed Castro to become the threat he was.

Was the USSR not an evil regime? 

[Bryan]

21 minutes ago, Argus said:

You think ordinary Cubans are going to feel free to say what they really felt about the Castros?

Cubans can and do speak their minds. The suggestion that they don't is every bit as ridiculous as claiming that Canadians don't say what they really feel about  our leaders. 

[Boges]

11 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Cubans can and do speak their minds. The suggestion that they don't is every bit as ridiculous as claiming that Canadians don't say what they really feel about  our leaders. 

But they can't freely leave. 

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

Putin has killed a hell of a lot more people than Castro.

Proof?

[msj]

1 hour ago, Boges said:

But they can't freely leave. 

Interesting because my hair stylist married a guy from Cuba and managed to bring him into Canada through immigration. 

They have gone back and forth to visit for the past 4 or 5 years. 

I think Bryan is right on this: people just don't know because they have no personal experience on this. 

[Boges]

10 minutes ago, msj said:

Interesting because my hair stylist married a guy from Cuba and managed to bring him into Canada through immigration. 

They have gone back and forth to visit for the past 4 or 5 years. 

I think Bryan is right on this: people just don't know because they have no personal experience on this. 

I've heard about this too, where people go to Cuba and someone "falls in love" with them. Marrying them is the only way to get them here and sometimes they just vanish once they're here.

I don't think people would take make-shift rafts trips to Florida or Olympic Athletes would disappear at events if Cuban's had true freedom of movement. 

Now I know the link is Breibart but it references an ESPN personality that's not even close to Alt-Right. He talks about Cuban-Americans feeling alone that their pain is being ignored because people in the rest of the world seem to want to remember Castro in a positive light. 

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/11/28/espns-le-batard-questions-obama-world-leaders-eulogizing-fidel-castro/

Quote

 

One of the things Castro took was hope, and as long as his regime is in charge, what it births is hopelessness, and as it regards Kaepernick, I’m not going to call that guy names. He’s got his fight. He’s not informed on all things. He could be wrong, but he’s not any more or less wrong than what the Prime Minister of Canada was just saying. Hell, Obama himself wasn’t harsh enough on what it is: a murderous killer, man. I don’t need to hear about Hitler building bridges, and I don’t need to hard about Castro and the good things he did. I just heard a bunch of world leaders celebrate the longevity of Fidel Castro…

I’m sitting here reading, just because he died, the finality of death, all of a sudden we feel the need to eulogize people, like we did with Richard Nixon, it became about free trade to China. What the hell are you doing? This guy is so much worse than Nixon. He’s got so much of the blood of my people on his hands, and his regime is still in charge. So he dies, and doesn’t end up meaning much. I mean symbolically, I guess, but how do you get your childhood and your freedom and your hope and your land back? My parents are old people now.

The only good in this that I can see is for me that it moves me that they outlived him. That they outlived him. That he didn’t get to live beyond them.

I mean, his brother is still in charge, and all of his puppet people are still in charge. And now, they have America more on their side than they did. America is hoping that capitalism bleeds in there and starts changing some things. Maybe. Also maybe not. Maybe you just line the Cuban government’s pockets with money.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Boges

[msj]

1 hour ago, Boges said:

I've heard about this too, where people go to Cuba and someone "falls in love" with them. Marrying them is the only way to get them here and sometimes they just vanish once they're here.

I don't think people would take make-shift rafts trips to Florida or Olympic Athletes would disappear at events if Cuban's had true freedom of movement. 

Now I know the link is Breibart but it references an ESPN personality that's not even close to Alt-Right. He talks about Cuban-Americans feeling alone that their pain is being ignored because people in the rest of the world seem to want to remember Castro in a positive light. 

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/11/28/espns-le-batard-questions-obama-world-leaders-eulogizing-fidel-castro/

 

Sure, the issue being here that I have direct and personal experience with my hairstylist and her husband (and kid for that matter). 

I'm not saying that he has had free or even easy access but he went through the motions and got out and they have visited back and forth.

Maybe it is because it is Canada rather than the US.  

 

[Bryan]

4 hours ago, Boges said:

But they can't freely leave. 

They can and they do.

We have Cuban family friends that live in Canada. We have a few family friends who live in Cuba that routinely go back and forth between Cuba and Canada. I met many Cubans who have travelled abroad for jobs, education, for vacations, etc. 

[The_Squid]

It's interesting why people on this forum, who presumably have Google, would make ignorant statements about Cubans never being allowed to leave Cuba.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/cuba-allows-citizens-to-travel-mostly-freely-for-first-time-in-51-years

 

Quote

 

The Cuban government announced Tuesday it will eliminate a half-century-old restriction that requires citizens to get an exit visa to leave the country.

The decree that takes effect Jan. 14 will eliminate a much-loathed bureaucratic procedure that has kept many Cubans from travelling or moving abroad.

 

This was in 2012.  So Cubans had to jump through hoops prior to this, but they could still leave.

The reason they take rafts to America is that they are often allowed to stay in the USA if they make it there.  Also, I don't think there are any flights from Cuba to the USA, so they can't get there under normal circumstances.  I could be wrong about the flights though...

 

Quote

 

President Clinton's agreement with Cuba resolved the dilemma of the approximately 33,000 Cubans then at Guantanamo. This new agreement had two new points. The United States agreed to take most of the Cubans detained at Guantanamo through the humanitarian parole provision. Cuba agreed to credit some of these admissions toward the minimum quota of 20,000 migrants from Cuba, with 5,000 charged annually over the years. Secondly, rather than placing Cubans intercepted at sea in a camp, the United States began sending them back to Cuba. Both governments promised to follow international agreements to ensure that no action would be taken against the people returned to Cuba.

As a result of these migration agreements and interdiction policy, a "wet foot/dry foot" practice toward Cuban immigrants has developed. Those who do not reach dry land are returned to Cuba unless they fear persecution there, but only those who meet the definition of asylum refugee are accepted for eventual resettlement in a third country. Those Cuban rafters who do reach land are inspected by Department of Homeland Security and usually are allowed to stay in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exile

 

 

 

[-TSS-]

A lot of Cuban-Americans have claims to property in Cuba. After the Cuban regime finally collapses a lot of lawyers will be getting richer.