@CyberSocialist Well, be sure to read it first 😉

@CyberSocialist "Slaves" better describes their situation

@CyberSocialist Did you read it?

@CyberSocialist

Or just arguing because someone dared to say people in Cuba are exploited?

@kravietz as if. I’m well read. The timing of this is enough to make anyone suspicious of the provenance of these assertions

@CyberSocialist

The truth is that all the current "communist" regimes are doing the same thing - outsourcing their citizens in other countries to get some dollars to continue supplying the elites with goods, while keeping regular people at bare survival level.

North Korea sells their workers to Russia to work on construction sites, Cuba sells their doctors. The country keeps most of the worker's salary and keeps them under guard to prevent defection.

How is that different from slavery?

@kravietz your critique of modern slavery in the wealthiest economies of the world is missing. Why?

@CyberSocialist Missing from where exactly?

@kravietz your critique of the ills of socialism.

@CyberSocialist

So what you're saying is essentially, when I criticise a socialist country, I should always also point out the evils of neocons capitalism? Is that what you're asking for?

Then how abou thist: yesterday I just posted about a teenager who was denied healthcare in the US and died.

So I guess, by your guidelines, I should also add a paragraph about how screwed healthcare was in socialist countries? You know, to be objective.

Or does it only work one way?

@kravietz all of these nations you mention are under economic and political assault by Uncle Sam. Many are left with little choice. It isn’t Fidel’s fault there’s no fuel in Cuba. It’s the USA that’s to blame

@CyberSocialist

"Little choice" that makes them... to do what exactly and how that's related to sanctions?

How exactly is USA to blame if Cuba is buying fuel from Venezuela, Argentina and Algeria (at least)?

And regarding US sanctions themselves, can you trace them back to any particular events in the history of Cuba that triggered them?

@CyberSocialist Regarding international sanctions against USSR, did you possibly note the values and objectives that were at the very core of Soviet ideology?

*World* revolution? Abolishing of capitalism *in the West*? Soviet *westward* offensive of 1918-1920? Amtorg Trading Corporation? Comintern? Assassination of Georgi Markov and other dissidents living *in the West*?

Still no idea why those to be "abolished" might not want to trade with USSR?

@CyberSocialist

If you have just a little bit of self-respect, how can you support a regime whose whole economic model is based on *preventing its own citizens from leaving the country?*

Maybe I'm a bit more sensitive to such oppression because I was born in country that operated just on this principle... When you are not free to leave you country you are nothing more than property of the state - and I wish Western leftists admitted that eventually.

@kravietz Moderate Rebels covered this: the US is asking countries to refuse help from Cuban doctors asking them to recognise them as human trafficking victims. This is mainstream media cooperation with a deeply racist neoliberal State department. Pretending that ‘because you can leave’ you are ‘Free’ is a nonsense; go anywhere you like and you’re debt with follow you.

@CyberSocialist

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque

Can you explain how in your understanding a ban on leaving your country - as NK, Cuba and USSR did - has anything to do with social justice? How do you explain & justify this? You call yourself a socialist - is forcibly keeping people in a country part of your socialism?

I'm genuinely interested. I've read a lot of justifications for why there's nothing wrong with living at $20/month in 70's Poland from people like JP Sartre living in $2000/pm France.

@kravietz you’re applying a ahistorical analysis to a country that’s been under an illegal and immoral blockade for the last 60 years. Actual wage levels per hour are not the issue. Neoliberalism doesn’t have the answer to climate destruction.

@CyberSocialist

> Actual wage levels per hour are not the issue

I can see they're certainly not a problem *for you* so I was just wondering how long have you been living in Cuba or North Korea or communist Poland exactly?

@CyberSocialist Because I can tell you first hand $20 monthly salary in communist Poland *was* a huge problem for my parents (I was 13 when the crap collapsed eventually).

Guess what - free housing and healthcare were *not* really free because when there's shortage of everything, from flats to basic medicines, you have to pay bribes and black market prices for these goods.

@kravietz Poland and the Cold War are a coexisting fact from 1960-1989: you can’t re-run history but neither can you ignore the racists that US/Russian geopolitics causes much of what you suffered. Blaming Cuba for fighting for its existence any way it can in the face imperial aggression seems ahistorical and pointless: the Media has an agenda against successful Cuba - that’s obvious, even to those who lived in the eastern block

@CyberSocialist

I'm not blaming Cuba for fighting for independence.

I'm blaming Cuba for forcibly sticking to a failed economic model, keeping its citizens pariahs in their own country and renting them to capitalist countries as some kind of slaves.

> the Media has an agenda against successful Cuba

Except Cuba is *not* successful.

@kravietz yes, it is successful - why are you measuring purely GDP? For ideological reasons you’re ignoring facts: Cuban culture, music, art, dance, medicine, tourism, universal healthcare and education have all flourished despite the immoral and devastating US blockade and sanctions. You evidently know zero about Cuba. Why pretend?

@CyberSocialist

If Cuba is successful, why people are risking lives to escape by boats to countries like Mexico or USA?

@kravietz that’s not a real argument for the success, in the context of a US blockade, of socialism in Cuba: people emigrate from many places for many reasons, even the USA! What are your criteria for ‘success’ then? And do some people wanting to leave mean it’s ‘failed’?

@CyberSocialist

People emigrating from USA or Poland don't have to risk their lives on boats, did you notice the slight difference?

@kravietz no, in the USA they die where they live due to zero healthcare and no employment. Is this your model of success?

@CyberSocialist

Once again https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque

But thank you for that "no" at least. So starting from your honest "no", if people are risking their lives to escape country A, and they can just freely leave countries B,C,D if the don't like it there, would you still classify A as "successful"?

@kravietz Devoid of context the question has no meaningful answer. If 1 person wants to leave it’s a failure? If 10? 1000? And what if their material needs are being denied due to the blockade? I don’t blame them for trying to leave, but I don’t naively conclude that this means ‘country x is a “failure” ‘ as this ignores the historical contingencies that exist and how these impediments could be removed.

@CyberSocialist

Yeah, I guess that would be truly socialist to *blame* these people for trying to escape!

Do you also mercifully spare your blame to wives suffering from marital violence for willing to escape?

Or would you rather console them explaining that violence and austerity are not really measures of a failed marriage because their husband can sing well!

@CyberSocialist

It's not about how many want to leave in the first place.

It's about they *cannot* leave because their country holds them as... what exactly? How would socialist theory classify their position? "Enthusiastic members of the collective who don't want to leave, and if they want, they're reactionary traitors"? Just trying to simulate the language I remember from childhood.

@CyberSocialist

So the question is: why would an allegedly successful country prevent its citizens from leaving and how "successful" it is if people are so desperate to risk their lives to escape?

@kravietz Cuba would be 100x richer without the US blockade. Why not argue for the lifting of that?

@CyberSocialist

So what you're trying to say here, is that country that has built a socialist economy that is scientifically proven by Marx to be superior to capitalist economy, is 100x poorer only because an unsuccessful capitalist country doesn't trade with it and doesn't give it loans?

Can you see any, you know, possible contradictions in this logic?

@kravietz what a deeply flawed understanding of ‘the blockade’ you have! The US is unique in having a governing seat on all the world financial institutions and an overriding veto on supranational trade organisations that even China can hardly compete in a trade war: what chance Cuba? The US seeks to punish every other nation that trades with Cuba.

@CyberSocialist

How come? https://oec.world/en/profile/country/cub/

The top export destinations of Cuba are China ($379M), Spain ($184M), Germany ($82.3M), Indonesia ($55.4M) and Singapore ($52.4M). The top import origins are China ($1.35B), Spain ($1.01B), Mexico ($356M), Algeria ($353M) and Brazil ($345M).

And how come 7% of Cuban imports come from... the US?

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/cuba-exports-and-imports.html

@kravietz really? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/cuba-food-production-us-oil-sanctions you’re really denying the reality of this for ideological reasons? Because your childhood was impacted you’re denying the material reality of the US in Cuba and blaming socialism?

@kravietz This isn’t simply ‘not trading with Cuba’ but stopping ALL trade with any nation - a form of collective punishment hitherto unseen, except perhaps with the likes of Zionist apartheid Israel and its illegal blockade of Gaza.

@CyberSocialist

> US/Russian geopolitics

Russian/German imperialism could be blamed for WW2.

Austerity of the Eastern Bloc after 1946 was caused exclusively by enforcement of Marxist economy. Before 1989 private trade was a crime (!) in all Eastern Bloc countries and you couldn't buy anything, from food, medicines to fucking toilet paper (!) because all paper was especially rationed (you could print leaflets on it).

In 1989 they allow private trade - and bang, overnight shops are full!

@CyberSocialist And while wages were like 100x less than in the West, food prices weren't so much different.

For an average salary today in Poland you can buy say ~7000 eggs or 300 kg of butter (just to compare purchasing power). Back in 80's for an average salary you could buy 700 eggs or just 16 kg of butter, if you were able to find them in official shops. If not, you'd need to buy on black market, add extra 150% price margin.

@CyberSocialist

And speaking about "ahistorical", do you know at all what was the objective of all the 20th century revolutions?

Abolish capitalism because socialism is going to do everything so much efficiently, with less surplus and more justice.

Now fast forward 50 years: all the socialist countries begging for Western loans and humanitarian help, some struggling with famines (NK), unable to feed themselves and secure decent level of living on their own.

"More efficient", remember?

@kravietz again, your ahistorical analysis pits US-Western neoliberalism as normative and neutral , devoid of deleterious effects. To argue the merits of socialism you need to do it within the context of the places it’s taken root. International loans are a tool of neoliberal empire.

@CyberSocialist

> you need to do it within the context

Go on, surprise me. I'm not easily dismissed with a bunch of sophisticated-sounding truisms.

> International loans are a tool of neoliberal empire

Precisely my point! So why were socialist countries even taking them if their socialist economies were scientifically proven superior and more effective by Marx?