Here's a Cuban American's take on RI's progressive Cuban themed restaurant

http://www.babalublog.com/archives/001527.html

The comment section is coarse, but understandably so And they don't think very much of the food either....

A tragedy that the Cubans replaced Batista with someone as bad.

Make no mistake about it, the progressives in this state have the exact ideology as the mass murderers in Havana. If they could seal the border and triple the income tax they would do it in a New York (or Havana) minute.

Please do not feed the troll above.

All of the crying about the "abuse" of human rights in Cuba since 1959 might have more significance if you had shown a similar display of hand wringing about the situation there prior to the revolution. Or better yet, if we would have heard more about the ousting and assassinations of Allende and Arbenz and the abuses heaped upon the poor peasants of Chile and Guatemala by U.S. puppets like Pinochet and Rios Mott and Stroessner and a host of others. To look with only one critical eye is to miss half of the action. Remember Archbishop Romero? I do!

But you spend your time spewing venom about the left and ignoring years of right wing death squads. If you were interested in social justice you would be also pointing out U.S. complicity in backing the brutal fascists who ruled in Paraguay, Guatemala, Chile, Ecuador and elsewhere in Latin America.

You are blind, disingenuous or both.

OldTimeLefty

Such misinformed insults. All of those incidents and abuses were unacceptable. In fact, your list stops too soon. What about recently deceased General Suharto of Indonesia?

Now, Richard, let's test your consistency. Wouldn't you say that Castro is (was) as bad as Pinochet?

If you want to know about the U.S. sponsored atrocities in Guatemala try reading “I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala.” She describes what happened after the Garcia Lucas regime came to power in 1978. Her brother, father and mother were savagely killed by the Guatemalan Army in separate raids on their tiny Mayan village. The book was compiled and documented by anthropologist Elizabeth Burgos-Debray. You might also want to read “The War for the Heart and Soul of a Highland Mayan Town” by Robert S. Carlsen. Or you can do as I have done and visit Guatemala , travel around the towns bordering Lake Atitlan and speak directly to the people there.

Could you please explain what you mean by, “All of these incidents and abuses were unacceptable.” Where have you previously written about their unacceptability. Did you whisper it to your pillow one evening in a fit of conscience? Have you made public statements decrying such “unacceptable abuses”?

I didn’t mention General Suharto because Indonesia is on the other side of the world from the Caribbean and the argument was centered upon Latin America.

You just don’t seem to get it. Castro, despite what one may think of him came to power by leading a revolution which succeeded with little or no foreign intervention. Pinochet, despite what one may think of him was put in power because of U.S. intervention.

Sorry, Monique, but your ignorance is showing and sarcasm in no way substitutes for argument.

OldTimeLefty

I was not being sarcastic, Richard. Heads up - you're batting around .100 in accuracy about what I've written.

Specific to my not having written about past American foreign policy abuses:

A lack of words on my part does not constitute approval of horrors that have occurred on the planet or undertaken by misguided officials in American government abusing their power. In fact, I have no obligation to write about anything in particular and certainly not to certify my disapproval of any or all deplorable events in world or American history. If this were required, I would be writing non-stop for a week and Justin would probably kick me off A.R. after the first day for being boringly obvious. It would be easier all around, Richard, to assume that I do not approve of any evil deed, past or present.

Turning now to your comment about Castro, what you are saying is that it is acceptable under certain conditions that a government comes to power through violence and murder and then, once in power that it proceeds to deprive its citizens of democracy, free speech, a free press, due process and even basic necessities (through state ownership of the economy).

And that's where we part company. Because it wasn't acceptable for Castro to do it, under any condition. Nor was it acceptable for Pinochet to do it, under any condition, including to "preserve the economy", as certain Chileans have said.

Now, let's break it down, because for both Pinochet and Castro (and most other dicators, actually), they executed their evil in a two step process. They came to power through unacceptable means. Then they failed to institute democracy and justice.

The question then becomes: why the second step? Though they committed evil deeds in coming to power, if they really wanted what was best for the people, why could they not have set up a democracy with all the accoutrements once they got into power?

Monique,
Until my recent comments you never said a mumblin' word about right wing dictators and you used up an ink factory on Fidel.

See if you can understand this.
1. Pinochet was set up and sponsored by the United States government.
2. We both live in the United States.
3. We should concern ourselves with the actions of our own government, then look outward.

Until this thread you ignored Pinochet, Rios Mott, United Fruit's well known subversive activities, killing of peasants over land reform, rapes and murders of clergy in churches and nuns in convents, but you take off after Fidel. It looks like you are more concerned with who the perpetrator is than what the perpetrator has done. And your previous silence on the subject gives our country a free pass on its own atrocities.

You would do well to remember that Cuba has the highest literacy rate in Latin America and has trained and has exported more doctors than any Latin American country. Can you point to any such accomplishments by the Pinochet regime, even though it had millions of U.S. dollars poured into it while Cuba has suffered from a 49 year blockade and economic sanctions.
OldTimeLefty

You seriously are comparing two dictatorships, Richard? Once again, you have confirmed your own unfortunate point. Violence, murder, repression, an absence of justice, free speech and a free press - all acceptable under a dictatorship on one side of the political spectrum but not another.

And no, it is not impressive that a dictator attempts to make up for his sins by providing education and medical infrastructures. Everyone who points to this "achievement" completely misses the point that provision of these services are a distant second to the absence of democracy, free speech, free press, due process, etc.

Richard and Monique

The toughest thing about leading the US is that you have to choose allies. Some are good people, some are not.

Lets go back a little further in history than Richard has. When a certain national socialist doublecrossed a certain international socialist, the latter became an ally of the US. Under FDR. Yet it is well documented that Stalin was one of history's greatest mass murderers. So what say you Richard? Was FDR and the America he led wrong?

And as part of an overall strategy, was blocking the commies' expansion in Latin America - with some extremely unsavory characters - worth the eventual collapse of the USSR and liberation of the other half of Europe we missed the first time around?

chuckR
FDR and Stalin learned to deal with one another. It was Truman who greatly soured U.S. - Soviet relations. You might want to read Walter LaFaber's, "America, Russia and the Cold War" to get an even handed grasp on what was going on between 1940 and 1989. But, if you insist on good guys and bad guys, the world becomes very simple; invective replaces argument and jingoism replaces thought.

Monique, you poor benighted soul.

Violence and murder? The U.S. leads the world in death by firearms. Most of the world has outlawed capital punishment, we haven’t. In the U.S. water boarding doesn’t equal torture and evidence obtained by water boarding is admissible in court. We play hocus-pocus with habeas corpus.

Justice? Scooter walks, black man with a crack pipe gets mandatory prison time. Ollie North gets pardoned, Richard Nixon retires with full pension and Secret Service guards, etc, etc., etc. This tells me that some people are more equal than others and that "equal under the law" becomes a joke.

Free Speech? When Justice Scalia tells us that one buck equals one decibel speech isn’t so equal. Some speech is more equal than others.

That crap happens here, where you and I live, but you only see it over there. To quote my Italian grandmother. “When you have a devil in your kitchen and one in your yard, you better take care of the one in the kitchen first.”

The reason that you cannot point to any accomplishments of the Pinochet regime in Chile or the Garcia Lucas - Rios Mott regimes in Guatemala is because there were none. They existed on U.S. aid in order to stuff their own pockets and to make sure that companies like United Fruit profited on the backs of tenant farmers. They did so by brutally repressing native populations, enabled by U. S. blessing and arms.

So, let’s look at the mess we caused, help clean it up and then look at Cuba.
OldTimeLefty