Who's the biggest human rights abuser in Cuba today?

[AP]

Poll question: Who's the biggest human rights abuser in Cuba today?

I don't see people in cages, wearing dog collars, pushed around in wheelbarrows, andn committting suicide in such high rates anywhere other than Gimto.

So who's the biggest human rights abuser in Cuba today?

(I welcome any evidence to the contrary...)

[forgethell]

1. There are none

so blind as those who will not see! This is not to excuse any failings of Bush*, but Castro is a monster. I'm not going to give you references, they are all over the net, in libraries, everywhere you look. We lack moral credibility to criticize anyone else, if we can't criticize Fidel Castro. Flame me if you like!!

[AP]

5. I'm not asking who's bad and who's good. I'm asking who's worse

And at leat Castro has a good reason for cracking down -- he's trying to fend off actors encouarged by the biggest, richest nation in the world.

What's Bush's excuse?

[forgethell]

10. Fidel Castro

Fidel dies and goes to heaven. When he gets there, the Pearly Gates are open, so he walks in, walks up to St. Peter's desk, sets down his luggage. and says,"Hi, I'm Fidel Castro." St. Peter looks in his book, and says, Sorry, you're not listed, you'll have to go to the other place." So Castro shrugs, turns around, and walks down to Hell.

When he gets there Satan is waiting. "Fidel, mi amigo!! Welcome, welcom to Hell. Big party tonight in your honor. C'mon, I'll take you to your room, and you can get changed."

Fidel stops and says, "Caramba, I left my suitcase at St. Peter's."

"No problem," says the Devil, "I'll just send some boys to pick it up for you." so he grabs two young demons by the horns and sends them on their way.

When they arrive at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter is on a break, and the gates are closed and locked. "What'll we do?" the first one asks, "the boss'll be pissed."

"No problem, " says the second. "you stand on my back and I'll lift you over. Then you pull me up, we'll drop down and get the suitcase, and get back over the same way."

So that's what they do. As they are climbing over the wall, two angles pass by and watch them. As they drop down onto the Golden Streets, one of the angels turns to the other, and says, "That damn Fidel. He hasn't been in Hell an hour, and already wwe've got refugees."

You can tell me a good George* Bush joke if you have one. But where are W*'s refugees. I know a lot of people here talk about moving to Canada, but so far I haven't seen any e-mails claiming to have done so. Links??

Fidel is a monster. * may have made a good beginning, but he hasn't had the 40+ years of experience that FC has.

[forgethell]

12. Also

do you really think that the only Cuban people whowant Castro out are those who do it because the US said for them to? Unbelievable!!

G*'s stated excuse is "terrorism". I guess you have to mak up your own mind about how valid that is.

[AP]

13. I think if the US weren't riding Cuba's ass all the time, Cuba would

be a much nicer place for all Cubans.

[forgethell]

17. You can think

what you want. I'm done here.

[AP]

22. I didn't need you to tell me I can think what I want. I already knew I...

...could!

Bye.

[beanball]

26. Castro

is not a danger to world peace,if Castro is a monster then Mr.Bush and Mr Sharon are mega-monsters they pose more of a threat to world stability than any other leaders,their greed and hate knows no limit,truly dangerious men.

[tom_paine]

2. It's a tie

Where's that option?

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. Which Dem candidates have pledged to free the people in Gitmo?

I have not been able to find a lot of information about this.

[jiacinto]

20. Why should the Democrats support terrorists?

nt

[AP]

23. Let's be honest with our terminology. I don't think Castro is a terrorist.

I think it's fair to call the FL'ians who bombed that plane full of Cubans a terrorist. I think it's fair to call Castro a bunch of things too.

But what I'm talking about here is hypocrisy.

If Castro is a human rights abuser in Cuba, what the hell is Bush and Gitmo in Cuba?

[DuctapeFatwa]

24. Should Democrats support the Geneva Convention and International Law?

Should Democrats support the rule of law in general?

[AP]

39. But what are the remedies for violations? Does the G.C/I.L. say that...

...violations will be treated the way Bush is treating them.

One thing I remember from Iraq is that the US used the Amnesty annual report on Iraq human rights violations, and Amnesty Int'l responded with a VERY harshly worded retort that Amnesty reports are not intended to be used as justifications for toppling regimes through force. I'll add that I don't think they're justification for toppling regimes through subterfuge.

Amnesty, as do I, still believes in the rule of law. If you have a problem with Castro, than you should be arguing for an I.C.C., and, for good measure, you should argue that GWB's actions should also be within its jurisdiction.

[DuctapeFatwa]

40. Do the American voting classes really want the rule of law?

How does the rule of law benefit US business interests?

[AP]

41. How does rule of law help economic interests? Look at the American West

and the cowboys. Before there was law, it was rough justice that governed the west. You don't get the best economic environment when people with the most guns make the rules. You just get the kind of world the people with the most guns want, and that's usually just monopoly pricing and slow growth, 'cause they don't want to wast money on trying to improve methods and processes.

So, the rule of law comes along, and then you start seeing that justice actually results in a level playing field which creates way more wealth which is distributed broadly.

So, the rule of law is actually great for business...generally speaking, that is. But you know runs the government in the US? Well, it's the equivalent of those Old West types who just wanted the rules to be made by the people with the most guns. And we're getting that same kind of world that that philosophy resulted in in the Old West: a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and no progress.

[WoodrowFan]

4. amazing

several hundred prisoners being mistreated vs 11 million people. This poll is a freeper's wetdream.

Amnesty International on Cuba (2001) http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webamrcountries/CUBA?OpenDocument
In Cuba, repression of dissent is legitimized by the Constitution and the Penal Code. Some offences against state security, such as ''enemy propaganda'', as well as offences against authority, such as ''disrespect'', have been widely applied to silence critics. Others, like ''dangerousness'', are ill-defined and open to politically motivated misuse. At times, dissidents have been convicted of criminal offences believed to have been fabricated in order to discredit them or their organization or in retaliation for peaceful expression of their beliefs. Detained dissidents have on occasion been held for long periods without trial, or convicted after procedures that did not meet international standards for fair trial.

Amnesty International on Gitmo:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/usa-190803-background-eng

More than 650 people from some 40 countries are being held without charge or trial in Guantánamo Bay.

Most of the detainees have been held for more than a year in conditions which may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. They have not had access to any court, to legal counsel, or visits from relatives. They have been subject to repeated interrogations and confinement to small cells for up to 24 hours a day with minimal opportunity for exercise. Several have attempted suicide.

[AP]

6. Then it's probably a tie? So does that give Bush the moral authority

to call for the end of the Castro government?

[Imajika]

8. Lots of Castro apologists call DU home

This thread will no doubt bring all the friends of Fidel out in force.

It is really no different when some right wing nuts rally round thugs like Pinochet. Both the left and right have extreme adherents so blind by ideology that they simply refuse to understand that some rotten people and awful leaders reside on all political spectrums - even in their own.

Then there are the fanatical true believers that are still baffled and in denial about the fact that most human beings would, after a taste of communism, reject it virtually every time.

Castro is tin pot communist dictator who's era has passed him by. His ideology is a great failure, having been abandoned vitually everywhere. Fidel's hold on power is only maintained through his police state. He would be kicked out on his revolutionary ass if Cubans were ever actually allowed to vote for candidates of their own choice and against Castro without fear of arrest and torture. Command and control economies will never be successful or competative - virtually everyone else the world over knows this, sadly Cuba will probably be stuck with this system until Castro finally passes away.

We should end the stupid, misguided embargo and travel ban against Cuba. These things only help Castro by giving him something to blame his lousy economy and his nations ill health on. Take that excuse away from him, and his regime will crumble much more quickly for the good of everyone.

Imajika

[AP]

14. You don't have to be a friend of Castro to know that US's cuba policy

is bullshit and is hypocritical,.

It's all about the money. AT&T, the casinos, the sugar barrons in FL and Chaquita drive US cuba policy, and it has nothing to do with human rights.

[Red_Storm]

19. or a Castro apologist.............

to know that the Cuban-American MAFIA in florida dictates U.S. policies on Cuba.............

[iverglas]

16. yuppers

"Then there are the fanatical true believers that are still baffled and in denial about the fact that most human beings would, after a taste of communism, reject it virtually every time."

And I know a whole lot of human beings, including pretty much all the Cubans I ever met in Cuba, who, after a taste of life in the inner city of a USAmerican city with no opportunity to escape (i.e. the experience of regular USAmericans who live there, not Cuban "exiles") -- or life in the kind of society that Fulgencio Batista and his USAmerican backers subjected Cubans to -- would do exactly the same thing.

I wouldn't actually have called most of them (or me) "true believers", but you go ahead and do it if it makes you feel good.

I just generally think that most human beings, when offered an opportunity to have enough to eat and a decent place to live and schools for their children, will generally take that choice over life in a society operated by thugs, backed by foreign powers, for their own profit. Which was, after all, the choice that Cubans made.

And I find it awfully disingenuous to suggest that when the failings of a society can obviously be laid almost entirely at the doorstep of said thugs and foreign powers (do we ever wonder what Cuba would be like today without decades of embargo?), those failings provide justification for the thugs and foreign powers to bring down the government in question. It is their handiwork, and them, that are the problem.

Offer me an "all other things being equal" scenario -- Cuba with Castro but without decades of US sanctions -- and if it looks like the scenario we see now, I'll join you in your righteous outrage. Unfortunately, we'll just never know what that scenario would have looked like. And I know whose fault that is.

.

[AP]

18. The Republican strategy in CA and Chile: bring the economies to their

knees with every means in your control (IMF, uncapping energy prices, embargo) and then blame the leader for what you're doing to them.

[Liberal Classic]

29. Very good post

Normalization would likely hasten the fall of Cuba's dictatorship.

[iverglas]

11. whew, them's some apples and oranges

"several hundred prisoners being mistreated vs 11 million people"

Yes ... "11 million people" being ... what?


Too bad you folks can't travel to Cuba. I've been there a fair number of times, and I've seen an awful lot of people not being mistreated at all. Perfectly happy people. Of course, I'm sure one might have seen similar things under Batista ... although the people I'm talking about under Castro might not have been the happy ones under Batista.

Really, not everybody in a country where the government practises some degree of political repression is "mistreated", you know.

.

[DealsGapRider]

7. Absurd.

Comparing a dictator who rounds homosexuals up in concentration camps and who has executed political opponents without trial with the US camp at Gitmo that houses terrorists and human rights-violating members of the Taliban....simply unbelievable.

I agree, this poll is a Freeper's wet dream. Just goes to show you that some people's hate is so pronounced that they can overlook evil everywhere in the world because they're struggling so hard to find it in their own country.

[VermontDem2004]

9. Absurd

I think Castro is worse then Bush but not all of those people at Gitmo are terrorists and human rights-violating members of the Taliban, many of them haven't even been charged with a crime and have no access to a lawyer. I read a story awhile back ago about an Arab-American was hauled off to Gitmo because he was allegedly involved in a terrorist conspiracy but in reality he was a husband and father to two children who was full time worker at Intell.

[AP]

15. that's what I'm talking about. What gives Bush the moral authority

to criticize Castro on human rights when the US is pulling shit like that IN CUBA TODAY!

Why doesn't Bush just admit it's all about profits?

[MrPrax]

21. The anti-Castro People are so boring

They have simply dusted off Cold War rhetoric and still wanna fight their daddies' wars down in Florida.

If detractors were concerned about human rights, they would spend much more time denouncing support for countries like Guatemala, Colombia or Haiti.

I assume the Cuban people might want a little more input into their system, but I am sure they are NOT interested in being the Dominican Republic or Jamiaca...

Cubans don't have to be ashamed of their accomplishments--the US and their client regimes in the Caribbean and Latin America must come up with better examples of their system working to fulfil even basic needs...

[DealsGapRider]

25. Boring

Yeah, condemning the Cuban secret police for rounding up homosexuals and carting them off to concentration camps. It's so passe.

[AP]

27. You're right. Let's plan for a transition to a society in which American..

...corporations will be rounding up Cuba's wealth and carting it off to Wall St.

That's the answer.

That's what Bush is talking about. He's trying to use what you cited as justification for turning Cuba into an economic slave of the United States.

Castro may be bad, but Cuba doesn't deserve that.

[Liberal Classic]

28. Definately Fidel Castro

I'm not defending Bush and I'm not defending the Batistias, but if there's one person who is most culpable for the human rights abuses that absolutely do happen in Cuba it is the dictator himself, Fidel Castro.

I fail to understand how liberals and progressives could defend Castro's human rights, those that do must have those rose colored glasses on. Casto hides behind flowery politcal ideas, but there's no freedom of speech in Cuba, there's no freedom of assembly, there's no political openness at all. Some people counter that they have "free healthcare" for all the good this does them. If a Cuba style government is the price of free healthcare then I do not want to pay the price is too high.

Imprisonment and torture are commonplace. Do not tell me that I am just listening to those "biased" people in little Havana, I hear the same thing from my relatives in South America. The only reason Castro is still in power is that he has the geographical advantage of being an island nation. The Gulf of Mexico and Carribean serve Castro well, 50 miles of open ocean is better than the iron curtin or Berlin wall.

Cuba will democratize, maybe some day soon they will. This is more sure than any so-called 'historical dialectic.'

[AP]

30. Ok, maybe I phrased my question wrong. But, my points are: (1) what gives

Bush the moral high ground on human rights in Cuba, considering what he's doing in Cuba, which, in mind is attrocious, and (2) I know why Castro does what he does (and I don't like it), but what the hell is Bush's excuse...that Bush is American, and subject to the Constitution and operates within a putative democracy, makes Bush's actions in Cuba stunningly atrocious.

[Liberal Classic]

31. One thing and one thing only

Putting aside all of the Bush presidency, everything that has happened, there is one thing and one thing only that secures our moral high ground. Here in the U.S. you and I are not going to get rounded up by the goon squad for publically saying that Bush is wrong, or Bush is a liar, or Bush is a traitor, or Bush is a criminal.

Consider that for some weeks every day as I went to work there were protestors holding signs and chanting slogans about out military involvement in Iraq. That's it. That's all the moral high ground we need to condenm Fidel Castro. You may not like Bush, hell you may Hate him but despite all the faults our country may have we do not torture and imprison our own people for holding political opinions.

[AP]

33. Here in America, America will round you up by a goon squad, ship you off..

...to Cuba, and deny you your human rights outside the reach of the US justice system.

The US has no high ground on the human rights issue and has no business trying to depose a government, claiming that's the issue, especially when it's all about money.

Why don't we care about Nepal, Columbia or Nigeria, if human rights are so important? Because, just as with Cuba, it's really money the Bush administration uses as its North Star.

They demean the whole issue of social justice by using it as tool to achieve an imperialist agenda which is meant to lead to a form of wage slavery for the Cuban citizens and de facto colonialization of their economy.

If you think Castro is a human rights abuser, petion for an International Criminal Court and address this issue in a court of law with the rules of evidence. Don't economically sabotage the government and apply hypocritical arguments about tyranny that you can't even live up to.

[Liberal Classic]

34. Sources, please. Americans rounded up for political containment?

Goodness knows that the U.S. isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The last time that happened was during World War II. Please cite sources which prove political dissent is oppressed in the U.S. the same was as it is in Cuba.

I submit this very website, Democratic Underground, as proof that such oppression does not exist. Do you sincerely believe Fidel Castro would ignore a website called "Cuba Democratic Underground?" Can you seriously tell me that the U.S. is the right wing dictatorship state to rival Cuba and North Korea? If our country is so bad, how come you and I haven't been rounded up and taken to the gulag on cattle cars? How can you tell me that the U.S., with all its glaring faults, does not have a moral high ground over Fidel Castro's police state?

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that we could stand to improve in our own house, but that does nothing to expunge Fidel Castro's fantasy island of being the last stalinist dictatorship in the western hemisphere. Even Paraguay, poor corrupt Paraguay who is close to my heart, let's people escape to some place else.

[AP]

35. I'm sorry, we didnt' round up Americans and ship them to gitmo. we sent

them to NC. Isn't that where the guy from Chicago has been disappeared to?

Look, if you could be used as a pawn to scare people into being afraid of terrorism, and if you could help Bush get elected, you'd get rounded up and railroaded pretty fast.

[Liberal Classic]

36. If what you're saying were true, all Muslims would be interred

I think you're trying to exaggerate. I don't know about all about these guys charged with spying, but I'll tell you this: I have Muslim neighbors. They're still working and going to school. I say hello to them in the morning, they're still here and not carted off to the gulag.

Let's see. I can go downtown with my placard which says "BUSH SUCKS" and hand out flyers. What will happen to me? So long as I'm on public land, nothing. People might give me dirty looks, or take my handouts. Now, go to Havana and get a sign which reads ¡Castro es un pendejo! How long until you're in the pokey?

Sheesh!

[AP]

37. I'm not talking about spying. I'm talking about that guy who flew into

Chicago and was arrested and has pretty much disappeared because, if he were treated as any other citizen, he'd probably reveal how paper thin the fake war on terrorism really is.

He, I'm not saying that Castro shouldn't pay the price. Indict him in the ICC. Don't sabotage his country.

[Character Assassin]

32. I'm going to have to say Minnestoa North Stars

Man, those guys are tough!

[rbnyc]

38. Castro, but Shrub is the one for whom I'm responsible.

Castro has abused more people's rights in Cuba, but Bush is the one I am (we are) responsible for driving out of power. Bush is the one who says he represents America, and Bush is the one I hate more.