Sixstrings wrote:They're transitioning to the Chinese model. Good from them.. Chinese state capitalism isn't freedom, but it's a lot better than old school communism.
Questionmark wrote:Welcome to 1991. The Cuban govt was forced to give land grants to private farmers and allow privately run businesses to exist in the early 1990's during the Special Period in order to prevent a complete collapse of society and some serious civil unrest. This is nothing new.
EnergyUnlimited wrote:Cuban authorities are reestablishing property markets:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13125104
This is a single cautionary change, not a comprehensive reform. So it is difficult to derive conclusively what they are really up to.Cuba says it will allow people to buy and sell their homes for the first time since the communist revolution in 1959.
These are literally the words from which "perestroika" started in the Soviet Union. You would see Gorbachev saying them from the TV screen every day, especially the "severe self-criticism", the funny part. Gradual privatization of the "public" property was one of the strong real drivers behind perestroika.He said the party leadership was in need of renewal and should subject itself to severe self-criticism.
sjn wrote:Sixstrings wrote:They're transitioning to the Chinese model. Good from them.. Chinese state capitalism isn't freedom, but it's a lot better than old school communism.
For whom?
More than a half century of Cold War and lingering enmity came to an abrupt but quiet end on Monday as the United States and Cuba restored full diplomatic relations.
The new era began with little fanfare when an agreement between the two nations to resume normal ties on July 20 came into force just after midnight Sunday and the diplomatic missions of each country were upgraded from interests sections to embassies. When clocks struck 12:00 in Washington and Havana, they tolled a knell for policy approaches spawned and hardened over the five decades since President John F. Kennedy first tangled with youthful revolutionary Fidel Castro over Soviet expansion in the Americas.
Without ceremony in the pre-dawn hours, maintenance workers were to hang the Cuban flag in the lobby of the State Department alongside those of other nations with which the U.S. has diplomatic relations. The historic shift will be publicly memorialized later Monday when Cuban officials formally inaugurate their embassy in Washington and Cuba's blue, red and white-starred flag will fly for the first time since the countries severed ties in 1961. Secretary of State John Kerry will then meet his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, and address reporters at a joint news conference.
Again, it all comes down to this sense of entitlement. We want a utopia and we fail to take responsibility for our role in setting a dysfunctional political stage. We want to view ourselves as hapless victims rather than co-conspirators. I find it all very myopic.
onlooker wrote:Actually, Ennui I find that very shallow thinking. You can chose not to believe that a group of very wealth hidden cosmopolitan people are not calling the shots, but your gullibility relative to politics is quite poignant.
onlooker wrote: The masses know this that is why they have such apathy and cynicism.
ennui2 wrote:
Notice how there's no analysis that frames things in a way where Obama is doing it out of a good conscience. It has to be greed or desperation or whatever.
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