US Preparing for Military Aggression on Venezuela
Bytut editor
Mar 10, 2015
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@ LASILENCIA
Evidently I annoyed you with my choice of words when I said I had “written Cuba off.” (Did you see my response? I said I was not faulting Cuba).
I wish to further explain my comment…
Cuba is an island that must import 60 percent of its food. This was not a problem when the USSR was giving $4 billion to $6 billion a year in subsidies to Cuba. But when the USSR collapsed in 1991, Cuba starved. Cubans lost an average of 20 pounds of body weight. It was a very rough ten years until Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, and started helping Cuba with money and fuel.
Cuba had the same problem that most socialist nations have, including Venezuela. Instead of being ruled by a plutocracy, Cuba became ruled by a bureaucracy. For some Cubans this was not a huge problem. Other Cubans, however, despised the government and the bureaucracy. Many migrated to the USA.
When Raul Castro took over from Fidel in 2006, Raul tried to reform the bureaucracy. But when he tried to eliminate the ration booklet for food, poor Cubans rebelled. Low-wage state workers and retirees were already struggling to get by on $15 a month. There was no way they could afford market prices for food.
Cubans enjoyed their free education and healthcare, but Cuban society gradually split into two levels. On one level were poor people who lived on government ration booklets, and had jobs, but no luxuries. On the other level were Cubans who received remittances from relatives abroad, and Cubans who worked in the tourist industry. They could afford to eat in restaurants once in a while, and they were envied by poor Cubans. (When money flows in, it always causes envy and resentment between people. This is about to become a whole lot worse.)
The support from Venezuela helped, but it did little to alleviate the two-tiered system.
Incidentally, all through the blockade years, Cuba bought $500 million worth of agricultural goods from the United States. Food sales were an exception to the embargo, but the U.S. sellers would accept only US dollars, not Cuban pesos. The blockade of Cuba made it very difficult for Cuba to get dollars, but the pressure eased somewhat when Chavez started helping Cuba. (Rich Venezuelans consider this to be a waste of money, and they absolutely despise all the Cuban doctors and nurses in Venezuela. When rich Venezuelans see a Cuban, they scream, “Communist!” Sometimes they physically attack Cubans.)
Despite the help from Venezuela, and despite the fact that food was not embargoes, Cuba was always under economic pressure, and also social pressure, because of the two-tiered system. Young Cubans envy the Cubans who receive cash from relatives aboard. They envy the odors coming from private gourmet restaurants called “paladares” (fancy eateries), which have sprung up all over Cuba.
Kids in school are not allowed to bring lunches from home, since this will create envy between the kids that have fancy lunches, and the kids who have almost nothing. To cut down on costs and provide healthy meals, many schools are trying to grow as much of their own food as they can.
On top of it all, the attack on Venezuela has caused extreme hardship for Cuba.
What all this means is that most Cubans are eager for some kind of change.
The problem is that they naively think they can have the advantages of normalized relations with the USA, without the disadvantages. They think they will have better living conditions, while they still get to have their free education and health care (even though these will be eliminated by “market reforms”). They think they will enjoy more financial equality, when in fact the gap between rich and poor will explode. They think that food and health care will continue to be “human rights,” not realizing that when rivers of money flow in, the only people who have any “rights” are the rich.
So that’s what I meant when I said I had written Cuba off. It was not an insult. I was just acknowledging the way things are right now, given the greed and imperialism of the USA. The Cuban experiment is now in its twilight.
Hopefully am wrong.
Konrad, I was not annoyed. Forgive me if i came across that way. Just juggling with reality. The truth hurts some times. I see all the support that is given and I interact with people who are just as involved with what is going on with Cuba and Venezuela. They give me hope. Maybe because we want it to work out and at the same time we know what awaits at the end of the tunnel. There is no light unless there is another blood bath. Contrary to what many people in this movement believe, Cuba and Venezuela have done so much good for us in the Latin community as well as the world, but those are the ones who don’t know the real history behind these two great nations. They are very giving and that is how we are as a community. It hurts like hell to see them tore up like this for many reasons. But that is not important. You are right about what you wrote about Chavez. He was our messenger who bought many truths to light. I respect your opinion very much. Just like Chavez, you bring truth to light. It hurts some times but in no way insulting. 🙂
we can say the year 2015, is the year the US has shown to be a paper tiger, a street bully who attacks the weak. Iran has shown to the USA that if it’s interest are not taken seriously, it is willing to fight for them. this is exactly what is happening in Iraq, their open support, planning, some “volunteers”.
The year 2015, the year of 4 blood moons, an extremely rare occurrence was forecast by the Mayans as the year the world will move towards a peaceful existence. However the Talmudist believe the exact opposite, they believe it is the year that they would have their NWO, Khazar state 2.0, thanks to Syria things have not worked.