http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/02/19/castro/index.html

Oh lawd maybe Cuba will not suck now

Right.

oh my god im so tired i screewd up the thread title

quick how do i fix it

In Cuba many a cigar will be smoked in the memory of his rule.

Don't know if you can, staff can though, what title did you want?

This is a fairly interesting development, I'll be reading about this all day I'm sure.

why is it that people who go to cuba and visit for any length of time other than at a resort say what a beautiful place it is and the only reason the country sucks and people want to leave is due to the embargoes the US has placed on them and continue to maintain after 40 years including threatening other countries with embargoes if they deal with cuba?

that's an honest question.

and why is it when he fights to establish and maintain an ideal in his society and his country he's a blood thirsty dictator and a terrorist, but when the western world does the same they call it something else?

**** i hate people and this ****ed society we live in. i can't wait to ****ing get out.

i'm having a bad morning. :p

What does that mean? That you want to die already, or something? As far as I know they aren't yet selling tickets onto interplanetary transports to outer colonies so you aren't ever getting out before the coffin calls you.

lol. no. i'm going to live in a very small rural community and go fishing every day. a community where social ills are far and few between.
here in the greater toronto area (and everywhere urban) i'm inundated with the **** society throws at us.

I'm considering moving up north and living in an igloo myself. I wonder if they have cable internet.

In communist koo-bah.... Castro resigns YOU.

Yeah, and why is it people risk death in rickety boats just to leave?

Maybe he'll move to that street they named after him in San Francisco.

It'd still be a crappy country. Just somewhat less crappy. The reason we put so much pressure on their government is because Russia basically wanted to use them as forward base, and that made our awesome ocean fortress more vulnerable. Why we kept the embargo up after the cold war? Who knows?

Commies!

cuba really didn't suck in the first place. The whole thing is dumb.

It did kind of suck. That's why Castro got in power in the first place.

well, people who live there do often have a pretty different perspective

cuba has this thing with foreigners where they are disproportionately nice to them (see: sicko)

I love how people think Cuba is a "crappy" country. The people their are happy, despite being in a dictatorship. They also have much higher literacy rates than the US, I believe.

This must be the reason they're all trying to leave.

what

did you ask them?

o.O

(image credits)

Yeah less crappy, like last time the US had a lot of influence over the island...

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba

timewolf... great use of that clip...

Anovis won this thread.

Cute kids spelling Fidel = Debate over.

i was listening to world have your say today and there was this guy talking about how cubans and castro had a different definition of human rights. right to healthcare, education and food was higher on the list than free speech and other things that the major powers consider human rights.

also, stop being mean to a guy i share a birthday with. hes not all bad anyway.

Does anyone else think that Bush sounds like a cult-leader in his response?

"Let's coax them to the wonderful ways of Democracy. Shut up and drink your kool-aid, Cubans."

[oops, sorry Ford.]

kool-aid. heathen.

I suppose I should speak up, although it seems like this has already been settled. I've been to Cuba, and have friends there who I speak with on a fairly regular basis. It's obviously not the worst place in the world to live, but the further away you get from Havana, the worse it gets. Infrastructure is breaking down in most areas. As for health care, even though the doctors may or may not be well educated, they simply cannot get the supplies they need to serve the people much of the time. I'm talking simple things like antidepressants or treatment for hep A... BTW, hepatitis A is contracted through fecal matter much of the time, so it makes sense that children would get it since many people use outhouses in neighborhoods and there is no guarantee that the sewage in your area is any good... They tell visitors not to drink the water but I don't think anybody should really trust it.

I could go on and on. The people that I met were so congenial and accommodating. Even so, I could sense a general feeling of tiredness in a lot of people... Research the CDR. Much of the time they won't even say "Fidel" outloud unless it is in praise. They call him things like "the bearded man" or "the big man." I really hope things improve there but we shall see. I think that those who do should pray about it.

(If anybody shows interest, I'd like to tell you more about my short time there. It may give a different viewpoint from "Sicko" - which I have not seen yet.)

Sure, link to an article that has huge text that reads:

"The neutrality of this article is disputed."

A lot of the measure of human rights and "freedom" of Cuba are by American companies/think tanks that are already officially opposed to that government. (E.g. Human Rights Watch I believe, Freedom House, etc.)

It makes plenty of fair points. If it bothers you only read the cited parts.

That hardly invalidates the article. It just means you should be extra careful while reading it.

NO

IT MEANS CUBA IS BETTER THAN DISNEYLAND

CUBA RHYMES WITH SCUBA

SCUBA RHYMES WITH TUBA

TUBA RHYMES WITH ARUBA

ARUBA RHYMES WITH GRAND POO-BAH

GRAND POO-BAH RHYMES WITH ROOMBA