The role that foreign capital and political powers such as the US, Russia and China are likely to play in this process seriously threatens the prospects for Cuban national sovereignty – perhaps the only unambiguously positive element of Fidel Castro’s legacy. Barack Obama’s policies have signified a degree of recognition of that sovereignty. It is uncertain what Donald Trump’s policies will be in this regard, although the appointment of Mauricio Claver-Carone, a Cuban-American extreme rightwinger, to his transition team is a very ominous sign.
National sovereignty’s very important except when we vote for it at which point we’re all xenophobic dickheads.
Didn’t you get the memo – nationalism is fine for brown skinned folks, just not for white ones. Same goes for culture – immigrants must be allowed to celebrate their culture, white English people have no culture, and any attempt by them to celebrate anything to do with it must be stamped on hard.
This “Fidel was popular with the people” line is just sick. Gramsci explained it all for them.and they have followed his manual ever since.
A witness to a fire in North Korea describes people running back into the burning building to rescue pertains of the Great Leader, who they believe is still alive in some strange way.
How sovereign was Cuba when it depended on Soviet subsidies?
Or more recently, cheap Venezuelan oil?
An “extreme right winger”, eh? Given that they call all of their opponents this, it is hard to tell what he is. Just opposing transgender bathrooms puts you on the list.
Is there no depth that cannot be plumbed in support of left wing dictators who murder, torture and imprison their own population for the high crime of opposing political murder, torture and imprisonment?
I’ve found their contortions over the past few days sickening, especially the “but the Americans were beastly to him” arguments.
Just remember – the Guardian does not give a damn about Costa Rica. Which has managed to achieve most of the welfare goals the Cubans claim. But without the torture or the murder or the dictatorship.
It makes you wonder whether they don’t support Cuba *despite* those things but *because* of them.
‘Barack Obama’s policies have signified a degree of recognition of that sovereignty.’
BO’s policies are his personal policies, not Congressionally ratified. Hence his Cuban policy ends January 20, as will most of his policies. Give the new Congress 100 days to clean out the few things he actually got ratified. By Spring, it will be as if the Obama Administration never happened.
Oh yes, the kind of National sovereignty that had the Russians running their economy like a colonial administration, and paying for it too.
A very funny kind it is too…
Actually, how awfully terrible at economics do you have to be that the Soviets say “gosh, they’re pretty crap. Even we can do it better” and then go and send “advisers” to run it not quite as badly as the locals.
But Castro meant well, or something, despite the secret police and executions… Don’t look at them…
And remember, the real value of pointing out political hypocrisy is not to identify a hypocrite.
It’s to identify persons so confused – or so deliberately deceptive – that you can’t believe a word they say.
Not a damn word.
“It’s to identify persons so confused – or so deliberately deceptive – that you can’t believe a word they say.”
Indeed. It helps identify those who are either stupid or lying, either way they shouldn’t be let loose unattended with scissors, let alone running a country.
Example – “Bolivarian Capitalism”. So, were you lying *then* when you told us it was socialism, or are you lying now when you’re telling us it never was socialism? Or are you too stupid to tell? Either way….
Actually, Cuba was little more than a Soviet colony until post-Soviet Russian decided Castro and Cuba were too expensive to bother with anymore.
BO’s policies are his personal policies, not Congressionally ratified. Hence his Cuban policy ends January 20, as will most of his policies. Give the new Congress 100 days to clean out the few things he actually got ratified. By Spring, it will be as if the Obama Administration never happened.
Agreed. Much of Trump’s legacy will depend on how well he obliterates Obama’s legacy… And Trump knows it.
I’m hoping he eradicates it so completely that study of the Obama era becomes a branch of archaeology, not history.
“National sovereignty’s very important except when we vote for it at which point we’re all xenophobic dickheads.”
Saw precisely that here in Taiwan earlier this summer. The same “journalists” who advocate Taiwan retaining de-facto national sovereignty against Chinese pressures were publishing anti-Brexit editorials making unsubstantiated claims and assertions about “racism” and “xenophobia”.
I don’t get it. Taiwan vs China cannot be “racism” and “xenophobia.” The are all ethnic Chinese.