Cuba has always split international opinion. Its detractors are perhaps best represented by the US senator Marco Rubio, who called the island “the only country in the world where Cubans can’t succeed”.
In turn, its supporters brook little criticism. Helen Yaffe, an author and academic from Glasgow University, recently arrived on the island, swiftly joining a government rally called by the government. Afterwards she declared on Novara Media: “No one should underestimate the resilience of the Cuban revolution.”
Managing to make Marco Rubio look statesmanlinke and sensible is an achievement.
In software, any acronym starting with YA generally means “Yet Another.” So in this case, YAFFE is clearly “Yet Another Fucking Freedom Extinguisher”
I do think US should end the blockade.
“I do think US should end the blockade.”
Me too. In fact the US is Cuba’s 4th biggest trading partner, so the blockade is make-believe. Allowing the commie tyrants to blame Uncle Sam for their own incompetence.
If the blockade worked it would leave the rulers unscathed so it’s a stupid idea.
Yaffe needs to be turned over to the Cuban people after Cuban socialism falls. I’m sure she will provide them with hours of amusement.
Helen Yaffe, an author and academic from Glasgow University, recently arrived on the island, swiftly joining a government rally called by the government.
Imagine living in the poorest country in Latin America. Your whole family sleeps in a dingy concrete sweat box with a corrugated iron roof. The toilet doesn’t work and the stench of human shit baking in the summer heat makes you want to gag. Your sister prostitutes herself to foreign tourists for a couple of dollars. Your sick mum is lying in a filthy, cockroach infested hospital where you have to bring necessities such as food, soap and bedsheets – paid for out of your $20 a month salary.
There’s no way for you to improve your situation without risking your life by fleeing to Yanquiland, the future is guaranteed to be at least as shitty as the past while the regime persists. If you complain about this there’s an excellent chance you’ll be beaten by the uniformed thugs of state.
Then some dopey cunt from Glasgow University flies in to stay at a fancy air conditioned hotel for a couple of days and tell you how lucky you are.
Afterwards she declared on Novara Media: “No one should underestimate the resilience of the Cuban revolution.”
So, the Guardian runs an article about Cuba but quotes a communist apologist who appears on Novara Media – run by communists Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani – to tell us that communism is great, or would be but for the evil Capitalist running dogs, and that just one more big push will create a workers paradise on Earth.
Apart from that absolute howler, it’s not a bad piece, but I think I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.
@ Hallowed Be
July 26, 2021 at 7:44 am
I do think US should end the blockade.
I know what you mean but the blockade runs two ways – Cuba also (officially) blocks most US goods (and US firms can sell food and medicine to Cuba). As I understand it, the loudest opposition to ending the blockade from the US side is from Cubans who basically fled to Miami with the shirts on their backs to avoid being murdered, and who don’t want the regime there normalising. There is also the issue of American property having been seized during the revolution.
The fact is, Cuba can get everything it needs from all the other countries in the world that haven’t got a trade embargo on it: the reason Cubans all own 1940s and 1950s Chevrolets and Fords and not modern Toyotas and Audis is because their economy has been fucked by socialism and plundered by its rulers so they can’t afford them.
The more I learn about the history of Cuba the more I’m sympathetic with the call for Cuba to pay the money*.
Like all countries in the region they elected hard men and both sides tried to suck the US in to their disputes. In ’44 Batista lost an election to the left wing Ramón Grau and went in to relative obscurity and leaving a fairly functional economy and peaceful country.
Grau’s regime was the most corrupt there had been up to that point. They managed to use the education budget to “turn pencils in to machine guns” which they then used to not only arm local gangs of thugs but to try to destabilise other countries in the region. They were the ones that invited the Mafia, including the exiled US mafia boss Salvatore C. Lucania, better known as Lucky Luciano, to a conference in Havana and allowed them to start operating. This really pissed off the US.
Grua’s corruption and incompetence led Batista back in to the game and, although he had been a hard man, he had at least in the past given democracy a nod. The gloves were now off and the rest, as they say, is history.
*In the same way it was right to compensate slave owners when we abolished slavery, although it sticks in the craw in the same reasons.
“Helen Yaffe, an author and academic” and long-time stalwart of the Revolutionary Communist Group.(Presumably, some relation to its guru, David Yaffe.)
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/critiques/sullivan/pub-7rcgrcp.html#rcg
Your whole family sleeps in a dingy concrete sweat box with a corrugated iron roof. The toilet doesn’t work and the stench of human shit baking in the summer heat makes you want to gag. Your sister prostitutes herself to foreign tourists for a couple of dollars.
Aye lad, but I tell thee, we had it tough…
Otto – oooh you bastard
Y’all keep using that word blockade. It does not mean what you think it means.
The US hasn’t blockaded Cuba since the Missile Crisis. It has had a somewhat steady embargo on Cuba for most non-humanitarian goods.
I think the embargo should be ended. Cuba has fallen so far down the league tables that it can only project power as far as Venezuela.
Mohave Greenie – we know what it means, and you know what we mean when we say it, and that’s not the OED definition. So actually – it means what we think it means, not what you think we think it means.
We are aware that US warships and aircraft aren’t currently closing the sea and air approaches to Cuba.
“I think the embargo should be ended. Cuba has fallen so far down the league tables that it can only project power as far as Venezuela.”
And now Peru.
We didn’t compensate slave owners, we compulsarily purchased the slaves. Yes, that was called “compensation” back then, but that word then doesn’t mean what it means today, when it has assumed the meaning of “recompense for injury”. It doesn’t, it just means “paid” pure and simple, just as you are “compensated” for going to work – ie, *PAID*.
She sounds like a refugee from Bagpuss.
Please let us have Professor Yaffe.