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I always thought the left hated the view that the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ – yet I can’t think of any other reason for somebody concerned with human rights and supportive of democracy and free speech to support Cuba. If Castro suddenly performed a drastic U-Turn and toned down his hostility towards the US his America hating defenders in the West would shut up.
The indisputable fact is Cuba is a totalitarian and vicious regime; Castro’s opponents are ruthlessly persecuted, censorship is ingrained at every level – indeed the Cuban govt doesn’t just control the media’s content but actually outlaws media it doesn’t control. In 2003 Castro jailed some 50 political dissidents including independent journalists writing for newspapers in the US, most of them are still in jail in conditions so appauling that they make Gitmo look like the Ritz. On the bright side Castro is rumoured to be ill so fingers crossed he hurries up and dies.
Yes. Because America hasn't tried (and failed, unsupprisingly) to kill him many times before using diplomatic methods. You show your ignorance well, my freind. Castro was all ears and TRIED diplomatic communication with the US. They refused point blank. Fact.
No. Wrong again. The Cuban jails are not as bad as Gitmo or Graib. China is far worse, why doesn't the USA go on about China? Oh yes. It doesn't oppose countries that might have the suitable means to fight back, I forgot.
Er the US frequently criticises China for its disgusting human rights record. The US, also unlike the EU has committed itself to raising the issue of occupied Tibet in dialogue with China. Also, while some members of the EU – notably France have pledged to work to scrap the arms embargo on China the US has consistently opposed lifting the embargo.
And in the UN it criticised Cuba. And severall other countries. And meanwhile raised NO ISSUE to the UN about China.
Infact the Chinese even supported the US on this matter. And the US has little room to talk about illegal occupation, does it?
Edit: I think we all need a laugh!
Wilst some of it is true... China... has room to talk!
China is on the security council. It has a veto. The UN is useless when it comes to China, although come to think of it's useless in many other respects too.
The US is not illegally occupying anywhere. And even if it were that doesn’t make China right to occupy Tibet does it? The US does not – but say the US like Cuba only had state-owned censored media – would that make Cuba right? No! It would make both Cuba and the US wrong...Your logic seems to be that because the US doesn't have a flawless record other countries cannot be condemned. It makes no sense.
Cuba like China has no democracy, no free press, no free speech, no freedom of assembly, no right to a fair trial and overall a bad human rights record. That’s indisputable and deserved to be condemned. – The US obviously is not perfect however you cannot possibly compare the scale of the human rights abuses sometimes committed in the US to those that regularly occur in the likes of Iran, China and Cuba.
Bizarre, lol. :thumb:
Its good for communication ... but a bit powerless. Also it is US govt. Controlled.
I never understood how Freedom of speech, assembly, and association etc where classed as rights, when we in the West don't even have that. Shame... it could be fun meeting some people.
The US is Illegally occupying Iraq. A war for regeime change is illegal. I know it doesn't make Tibet "right"... but isn't the west meant to be leading by example with our "freedoms" (Which are ever being curtailed.)
Just because the PR brand image of America claims it as a bastion and defender of "freedom" and "human rights" does not make it so. The last century's repeated demonstrations of overt and covert interventions to advance mere corporate domination along with the consistent support for cooperative tyrants (from Latin America to Africa to Asia) is an running testament to the truth behind that bogus mythology.
Moreover, for him to make any comment against arms sales to China, especially against France, when his beloved and never criticised extremist state of Israel is one of the worst arms profilerators to CHINA on the planet (and that in many cases as a proxy for US arms manufacturers), only demonstrates his ignorance all the more.
Go on Dis, astound us with your idea of balanced scholarship by reminding us all how there was no democracy in Chile before Pinochet.
At least with Mat we dont have to endure the pretense that he has any clue about those issues on which he graces us with his input.
It's good freind Israel has already sold them to China, and has been doing so for AGES.
Nothing destroys the legitimacy of a nation's principles in the eyes of those who may have once wanted to emulate our example than outright hypocrisy.
For somebody who likes to pose as a supremely intelligent academic you do make some bizarre claims. I do criticise my ‘beloved and never criticised’ Israel, I fully accept and have frequently highlighted that Israel is not perfect and that successive Israeli governments have made mistakes. I’m really puzzled how you can interpret me to be some fanatical Zionist who never has a bad word against Israel..
Compared to you I’m extremely moderate. Along with moderate Israelis, moderate Palestinians and moderate Arab states I support two states – Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and prosperity. The EU and US supports this, Russia supports this, the UN for the most part supports this as does most of the world – it’s the mainstream solution.
You meanwhile along with the Ku Klux Klan, Bin Laden and al qaeda, Islamic Jihad and President Ahmadinejad of Iran oppose the very existence of Israel and crave its destruction. And you have the nerve to categorise me as extreme... :rolleyes:
Oh and for the record I oppose Israeli arms sales to China and I’ve supported US measures to curb such sales, it’s not something I’ve ever commented on in detail here as I don’t think it’s been brought up explicitly before.
Was Stalin’s forced industrialisation and the brutal effects of collectivisation and the first five year plan justified by the fact that were it not for these policies Nazi Germany would almost certainly have later triumphed? I don’t know, I think looking at hypothetical alternative outcomes or judging the rightness of actions on their later unintended and unrelated consequences is flawed in many ways. However, it’s something that is inevitably applied and in one case to Pinochet. You’ve completely misinterpreted my opinion of Pinochet however. I do think that were it not for him Chile would not be a prosperous democracy today – and instead something more resembling Cuba, a totalitarian and oppressive Communist autocracy – and further probably one of the poorest South American countries instead of one of the richest. Nevertheless I don’t credit liberal democracy as an initial aim of Pinochet and I don’t view him in some hagiographical light – there were many negative aspects of his regime, however going by unintended consequences his regime is certainly defensible and by possible alternative outcomes his regime was undoubtedly the lesser of two evils.
I think it’s pretty irrefutable that there’s no such word as ‘unrefutable'
Jesus fucking Christ. And you say you're not an extremist?
Do you actually have the faintest bit of a clue about the democratic regime that was overthrown by the US in favour of brutal mass murdering fascist Pinochet? Or do you actually think it was some evil commie regime in the making?
Not that even if it was it would have been any of the fucking US government's business, seeing as that was what the people of Chile had decided, but never mind... it wasn't such a regime anyway.
Nice to see you believe mass raping torturing and butchering fascists are preferable to democratically elected left-of-centre governments :rolleyes: Perhaps we should do away with this "Labour" government and put the BNP in charge...
Of course Pinochet’s successes were achieved at a high cost, imo at too higher cost but that doesn’t mean the successes didn’t happen. When Pinochet took power unemployment had reached over 30% - by the end of his rule it was 7.8%, were it not for Pinochet and had the MIR succeeded Chile would have became a totalitarian communist state – and would not be the democracy it is today. Yes, there were awful human rights abuses – but these don’t magically translate into the achievements during Pinochet’s regime not happening.
Obviously our dear dis is so blinkered by his own adherence to a discriminatory and historically conniving ideology (which has allied itself with any and all world powers which might advance its illegitamate and wholly undemocratic aims) that he can no longer differentiate between a call for true, dignity-reaffirming open pluralistic democracy in a one state setting for all rightful inhabitants of the SAME land, and his paranoid Zionist-inspired claims of "destruction".
The only thing needing to be destroyed is the beligerent 18th century colonialist mentality that founded the modern state of Israel through terrorism, ethnocide and illegal dispossession by force and has maintained it by the same means ever since.
Germany did not cease to be Germany after the ousting of the Nazis and neither did South Africa cease to be a country after the ousting of the Apartheidists.
Making appeal to what the EU/US/UN/Russian governments supposedly want in a two state solution as any sort of educated argument is to in fact demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of the long prevailing ethos of the geo-political game. The reality is that the rights of the palestinians and their aspirations matter no more now than they did in the days of Balfour (whose documented admission of disregard by the major powers of that day was previously provided a number of times). What is sought is the maintenance of the status quo. This provides for continual recourse to the Zionist claims of enemies all about to justify a perpetual flow of:
1. Billions in unwarranted and intrinsically unconstitutional US tax payer dollars to underwrite an otherwise failed domestic economy that could not survive, especially with the ongoing open door immigration policy exclusively for those of Jewish descent regardless of their true national/cultural origins;
2. a vibrant industry of perpetual extortion from Germany of hundreds of millions more dollars every year as restitution for the Holocaust which precious few, if any, Germans living today can be held responsible in any way;
3. A key client and staging point for US and European arms suppliers, regardless of the fact that Israel regularly sells this technology on to numerous states such as the aforementioned China, but also Burma, Zambia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and others. Such proliferation is a means for US firms to circumvent Congressional bans through dummy front companies provided by Israel.
Yet Dis thinks calling such fully intentioned criminality (along with a general ethos of exceptionalistic group superiority no different in principle to any other heinous ideology that has achieved power over entire states) simply "making mistakes" is tantamount to "criticism". In truth it is just another example of the apologist's mantra of self deceptive excuse making.
No dis, if anyone be likened to other rabid ideologues with all their intrinsic paranoias of what would be if their brand of delusion does not gain or continue to hold sway, tis you. You would do well to reflect on your penchant for projecting your own intellectual dishonesty onto others.
As for Chile, I suggest you educate yourself beyond the surface rhetoric you defer to regularly. Allende was a fully democratically elected leader and nothing about his illegal subversion by the CIA can be called an advancement of democracy, not by any who actually subscribe to true pluralistic democratic principle at any rate.
Utter utter bollocks. Allende was democratically elected, brought in widespread socialist reforms and the country did very well. It was then the subject of economic warfare and CIA clandestine programmes which destabilsied the country and set up the conditions for Pinochet's coup.
However, even studying history at an undistinguished stage as I am I feel I'm capable of separating my personal private political opinions from whatever historical period I am studying. Subconsciously I suppose it might bear some influence but when writing an essay about the 1948 Palestinian refugee exodus for instance I felt I separated my personal sympathies to Israel from my essay. Although in most other areas I’m interested in and have focused on my personal biases have been less directly relevant. Oh and what’s your idea of a ‘true historian’? Do you believe an entirely unbiased account is possible?
Bullshit.
For the third time, can you provide any evidence, or at the very least tell us why you think the democratically elected left-of-centre government of Chile was "descending into a Communist autocracy"?
Oh very nice... putting profits before people yet again.
The country was prosperous enough before the fascist piece of shit decided to overthrow it and descend the nation into a fucking hellhole, thank you very much :rolleyes:
Yes, the fascist scum. Nobody else.
Adolph Hitler also had great successes in Germany, dramitically changing the fortunes of a severely deppressed German economy.
I am sure that in the name of fairness you will be the first one who will want to point this out whenever the Nazi regime is being discussed- or at least don't mind me if I do :rolleyes:
What the fuck are you talking about?
I'm really rather disgusted to be honest. I thought you had some principles however misguided they sometimes appeared to be. But that is clearly not the case. Please don't ever tells us again about the horrors of Nazi Germany, how nauseating fascists are or what terrible human right abuses the Chinese are committing.
Because it seems that brutal regimes, fascists and appalling human right abuses can be ignored after all.
Come back Adolph and Saddam - all is forgiven.
Allende was pretty cosy with the militant Movement of the Revolutionary Left, he was close to Castro and could conceivably have turned Chile into a Cuban style Communist dictatorship. Allende was no saint anyway, he was a racist and homophobe.
I don’t know, I’m not an economist but my albeit limited reading of Chile suggests that Pinochet’s economic reforms vastly boosted the economy. However – as I said before – at an extremely high price, a price too high.
Tbh I think there’s more scope for somebody to do that of Mussolini, not that I'd condone it. Hitler brutally murdered millions under no pretext other than racism. Mussolini was a brutal dictator and while he held racist views he wasn’t biologically racist, it’s generally believed he didn’t believe in the superiority of races and such nonsense. Although that’s not to say he wasn’t racist from a nationalistic perspective. I don’t know, you make a good point though. It’s something I need to think about more, it’s difficult to explicitly condemn Mussolini and then recognise some good points to Pinochet.
That’s not the case at all. Nowhere have I condoned or denied Pinochet’s disgusting abuses. However, I do recognise that Pinochet made some achievements – albeit at a cost too high. I haven’t studied his regime in depth and knowing only limited Spanish I can’t access much written on Pinochet.
From my limited knowledge of Pinochet however I think it’s simplistic to characterise him as a South American Hitler, I don’t dispute the fact that there is a lot of truth in the criticisms against him but I believe that there’s also some limited truth in the claims of his supporters in the West. I think I made my original point badly, I'm not an apologist for Pinochet - although it's interesting that if I were I attract more condemnation than an apologist for Castro (if not Stalin) does.
Your a fucking loon, Dis.