Over 5 Million Turn Out for May Day in Cuba
About 5.3 million people, nearly half of the country’s population of 11 million, filled the streets of cities, towns, and municipalities across the Caribbean island today to celebrate International Workers’ Day. “A sea marched toward Revolution Square this May Day,” began the report in Trabajadores,...
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50% of the population, that's massive
It's basically a parade for the country's biggest holiday. It's not an anti-government protest.
0.06% of the global population
Yeah too bad they can't get together like this to turf out their government
At this point, I'd trade Cuba's government for the United States.
edit: deleted posts, sorry guys it's just too much to get a flood of people come at me, there's no time to respond to all of them and quite frankly I try to avoid talking about the US anyway
Most of the issues with Cuba's poverty stems from sanctions. Those sanctions are in nobody's interest except a few Cuban expats in Florida. Who at this point are the descendents of people who were kicked out for largely good reasons.
As for human rights abuses, we don't even need to make the comparison between the US and Cuba on that one.
Nah there's also plenty of mismanagement, in particular spending the cold war being a one product economy and thinking that the USSR will be around forever, overpaying for sugar and sending industrial goods in return.
Venezuela messing up royally and not being able to subsidise Cuba with their oil any more is a more recent problem, but pretty much the same pattern.
Cubans are masters of improvisation and the party is smart enough not to interfere with the people's capacity to self-organise to get around acute problems, unlike Americans and Russians they don't micro-manage for the sake of micro-managing, but they're very much not masters of strategic planning.
Over long, better short, Cuba has to increase its value-add and labour productivity. Export fewer resources, more and most of all more high-value finished products, also become energy independent. It's nice that they can help out Venezuela with toilet paper but truth be told it's not really a product that's highly sought after on the world market because by and large, countries are better at not fucking up their economy than Venezuela.
Or, differently put: Wake me when Cuba exports electric buses. That, preferably, look weirdly like 40s, 50s American cars, in a retrofuturistic way. Or something more niche, but have something that's not rum, tobacco, or honey. Oh, pharmaceuticals, gotta give them that.
This sounds awfully simplistic.
"What about the US?" is not a real arguement. We are discussing Cuba, not the US, Botswana or Uruguay.
The Cuban regime is brutal and authoritarian with minimal respect for human rights.
I started this thread with "I might trade the US government for Cuba's right now". In that context, it's completely fair to compare the two.
I am talking about blaming everything on sanctions.
I am not that knowledgeable about Cuba, but I have met people from Cuba who moved to the Eastern Block and I know a little bit about events Cuba in context of global history (missile crisis, overthrow of Batista).
Your approach doesn't sound nuanced enough based on my experience talking to Cubans (and they are not your descendants of Cuban exiles in Florida types).
But they still have free healthcare. You can walk off a plane in Cuba and get healthcare. It might be shit healthcare, but poor people in the US have shit healthcare too in Republican states.
So what? There are countries that have free healthcare and also have a democratic political system and aren't run as a brutal dictatorship.
You keep doing the "but what about the US?", thing. We are not discussing the US, we are discussing Cuba.
You keep doing the “but what about the US?”, thing. We are not discussing the US, we are discussing Cuba.
I'm not OP, that was my first comment. Also, we can compare Cuba and the US right now because we're going authoritarian and they're already authoritarian. It's interesting that they have some things better than us.
Comparison is fine. But you are engaging in whataboutism. We are discussing Cuba's brutal authoritarianism, this topic can evaluated with references to the US.
The poverty is the result of the US economic siege war, don't pretend like they did it to themselves.
Saving this for November 2026 when a "something" happens to where elections will be delayed
That's because they don't want to.
We like to think life in America is so much better than that in Cuba, but have you tried being poor in America?
but have you tried being poor in America?
... have you?
Jesus Christ.
I live well-under the poverty line. It's bad. I also know it's nowhere near as bad as an average existence in Cuba.
Read up. Read personal accounts. Check economic statistics.
Just by living in the US, we are immensely fucking privileged.
Depends on what your judging life by. For health and economic security living in Cuba is better then being poor in the u.s. life expectancy for Cuba and the u.s. are even, and life expectancy in the US is heavily dependent on income, so your average Cuban is living maybe 10 years more than someone in the US living under poverty.
If your judging life by political freedom and economic mobility , then yeah living in poverty in the US is better.
Yeah by economic statistics you're "richer" if your in the bottom fifth of the US compared to cuba but you aren't paying half your income to rent in cuba and you won't be ruined by medical debt if you get sick.
Just by living in the US, we are immensely fucking exploited
They're not mutually exclusive.
The average American thinks the USA is the greatest nation on the planet and that Americans are the most fortunate people on the planet. You're expressing internalized propaganda. Living in poverty in the USA is not better than living in poverty anywhere else, and is in fact a lot worse due to lack of infrastructure, crushing wealth disparity of historic magnitude, and the absolute abandonment of socialism. A poor person in a socialist country still has all their needs met. A poor person in the USA is an object lesson who is made to suffer hunger, homelessness, and lack of medical care to keep the rest of the workers in line.
You're living in a fantasy.
The average American thinks the USA is the greatest nation on the planet and that Americans are the most fortunate people on the planet.
Recognizing that being impoverished in a prosperous and developed country is better than being impoverished in an economically struggling country is not propaganda. America is not the best place to be poor, but it isn't the worst, and the self-pitying idea that being poor in the US is as bad as or worse than being poor in any country is some utterly ignorant shite.
A poor person in a socialist country still has all their needs met.
Do you really know nothing about living standards in Cuba?
You’re living in a fantasy.
How ironic.
If you're incapable of utilising the massive amount of capital residing in the USA, then I assume you're an imbecile.
The country is a tax haven. Vast amount of opportunities.
Do I like my country more? Of course I do, but god damn I'm getting sick and tired of all these Americans thinking their country is bad.
You're with 230 million adults in a country the size of Europe. Of course it's gonna be spread out.
Median net wealth in the EU is lower than in USA (77k Vs 112k USD). PPP it's about the same.
Europe's for people who prefer stability. USA is for people that prefer volatile growth and crashes.
Why do you think they are celebrating? I was just wondering what your take on May Day is. Why do you think they are able to cheerfully celebrate despite the lack of fuel? Why do you think holding down a people economically would make them change their minds on their system of governance? I wonder what your take on all that would be.