de officiis wrote:When I was in middle school, I checked out a book about Cuba from the local public library. It painted a very rosy picture of the conditions there and cast communism in a favorable light. When I went and talked to my dad about what a great concept it was, he got really pissed and told me in no uncertain terms that communism basically sucked and that I was to put any ideas to the contrary out of my mind. Funny how a lot of emotion can make you remember these things.
There is no Communism at this juncture tho, again, when you're a Communist, what you're saying is that you aspire towards Communism "someday", Communism is the end state of the World Socialist Revolution, there's no Commuism until you achieve the One World Government and associated centrally planned post scarcity Utopia.
In the meantime, there is only Socialism, Socialism is the transitional state; while you are on the road to Communism, so technically, Cuba has not achieved Communism, only Socialism, as no one state could achieve Communsim on its own, you only get to Communism when the Westphalian state itself has been replaced; by a unitary World Socialist state.
When you have effected the World Socialist Revolution and in the wake achieved One World Government and nothing exists outside of that regime, only then; is Communism at hand.
Thus, a Communist would argue that Communism wouldn't "suck", it would be utopian, however, in the meantime, the best they can do is Socialism, and only reason it "sucks" is that it is at war for survival, the Imperialists are the ones who are making things "suck", by preventing the Socialists from achieving the goals on the way to Communism, and if weren't for the Imperialists sabotaging things deliberately, it would not actually "suck" on the way, as then Socialism could get things done without having to enact wartime measures against Imperialist repression, embargro, terrorism, sabotage, etcetera.
So the regime in Havana, they blame the embargo and associated isolation, they say "look, it's not ideal, this is not how it should be, but the Yanqui Imperialists are trying to break us, they're trying to kill the revolution, so we have to tighten our belts and hunker down, because this is a war being waged against us, and if you give in, things will be much worse, the Yanquis will just turn Cuba back into a Third World sweatshop for their corporations, and then you'll really have something to cry about, living in a garbage dump being repressed by Imperialist puppets; no education, no healthcare, no social assistance whatsoever, no national security, and no sovereignty, you'll be living like the poor do in places like Haiti, in abject poverty and utter squalor, so, careful what you wish for..."
