Which of Tooting Carmen's controversial political statements do you agree with?

[Sikeliot]

What do you disagree with in the other four statements?

Actually on second thought I do agree with #4.

[KMack]

Ironically, many people used to compare Chavez to Castro, but that's actually an insult to Castro. Whatever his faults, Castro's regime created a relatively equal society with good public services, a low crime rate and (by Latin American standards) low levels of corruption - totally the opposite of what Venezuela has become.

An equally miserable society. Good public services, like what? Do you think a regular cuban gets to go to the same clinics that are for medical tourism? LOL no. Low levels of corruption. Castro can make billions on medical tourism, send doctors abroad, and they get paid like $50 a month.
They seized all property and private business when they took over, hey that surely ins't corrupt. You can be arrested for anything tossed in jail with no due process for as long as the government want to keep you there. No way that is corrupt. It is probably relatively safe because people the regime erased dissent a long time ago.

[Sebastianus Rex]

(1) The poor in Cuba are in most respects better off than their counterparts in many other Latin American and Caribbean countries. At least there, they are guaranteed healthcare, education, housing and food. In addition, the Cuban police and army are generally more benign and better-behaved than in many other countries in the region. Needless to say, the US embargo is vindictive and cruel.

True to a large extend, but the question is, wouldn't be Cuba much more developed without Castro taking over ? Also I don't think the quality of the housing is anything special there, most buildings are crumbling. Heathcare and education is also of low quality, it takes 3 years to become a doctor while in Europe it's about 7-10 years...I have some exprience with Cuban doctors here where I live and usually they are a disaster.

(2) Compared to many of the Black African dictatorships, Apartheid-era South Africa was practically a paradise. It is rather strange to argue that racism is a worse crime than embezzlement or even genocide, and the exceptional sanctions, boycotts and isolation imposed upon the country were, in hindsight, quite hypocritical and one-eyed.

Agree, but one thing doesn't make the other right.

(3) Ariel Sharon (less so other Israeli leaders) was easily comparable to Slobodan Milosevic, and the fact he wasn't tried for his war crimes is because international justice is only for the 'little people'.

Except Ariel Sharon is surrounded by states that endorse terrorism against Israel. Wars crimes all commit, the victor's justice.

(4) The notion that a working-class rural woman in India is freer than her counterparts in China and Russia, just because she has the vote, is utterly preposterous. It certainly doesn't mean she has a genuinely free and dignified life. Compared to her Russian and Chinese counterparts, the poverty, corruption and especially misogyny she'd face would be rather worse - her lack of safety and autonomy, plus the fact she'd have rather less access to healthcare, education, housing and food than the other two.

Why is Russia here ? As far as I know in Russia women can vote.

And another crucial one:

(5) Soviet Communism was at least equally bad as Nazism, and it is time the world treated it as such.

Depends on the perspective, they didn't drop the atom bomb on anyone.

[Tooting Carmen]

True to a large extend, but the question is, wouldn't be Cuba much more developed without Castro taking over ? Also I don't think the quality of the housing is anything special there, most buildings are crumbling. Heathcare and education is also of low quality, it takes 3 years to become a doctor while in Europe it's about 7-10 years...I have some exprience with Cuban doctors here where I live and usually they are a disaster.

Excluding the much wealthier Southern Cone countries, Costa Rica and Panama, the UNHDR ranks Cuba higher than most countries in Latin America.

Agree, but one thing doesn't make the other right.

Of course not, but the conventional notion found especially on the Left and even some people on the Right that South Africa was uniquely heinous is incredibly myopic, and the fact is that it and no other country was forbidden even from taking part in sports and cultural events, no matter how murderous or corrupt the country or its Government in question was.

Except Ariel Sharon is surrounded by states that endorse terrorism against Israel. Wars crimes all commit, the victor's justice.

Up to a point, but at the end of the day the evidence for his complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres is rather more compelling than Milosevic's complicity in the Srebenica massacre.

Why is Russia here ? As far as I know in Russia women can vote.

Russia is a quasi-dictatorship, as opposed to China which is an actual one. India, by contrast, is often hailed as the "world's largest democracy", no matter the fact that so many of its citizens both literally and metaphorically live in shit.

Depends on the perspective, they didn't drop the atom bomb on anyone.

But the Communist regime carried out gulags, purges, man-made famines, mass executions, show trials, the conquest of Eastern Europe and the support of many violent dictatorships around the world, including several of the aforementioned Black African dictatorships.

[Tooting Carmen]

An equally miserable society. Good public services, like what? Do you think a regular cuban gets to go to the same clinics that are for medical tourism? LOL no. Low levels of corruption. Castro can make billions on medical tourism, send doctors abroad, and they get paid like $50 a month.
They seized all property and private business when they took over, hey that surely ins't corrupt. You can be arrested for anything tossed in jail with no due process for as long as the government want to keep you there. No way that is corrupt. It is probably relatively safe because people the regime erased dissent a long time ago.

Well the fact that such a poor country like Cuba manages to ensure healthcare and education for all its citizens while still being able to send many teachers and doctors around the world (for example, Cuba contributed more to doctors to fight ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone than any other country) is quite remarkable. Also, Transparency International ranks Cuba as less corrupt than most Latin American and even some Western countries such as Greece and Italy, while Amnesty International itself has said the Cuban police are less brutal than many other police forces in the region.

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[Sebastianus Rex]

1. You cant refute the argument that without Castro Cuba would be much more developed than it is now. Cuba was already more developed than most Latin American coutries in the 1950's.

2. The situation in SA was quite unique, however bad were other regimes, there wasn't a case where 10% of the racial minority subjugated in such a way 90% of the racial majority.

3. So ? Was George W. Bush and 1000 of other leaders judged by war crimes ? It's the vicor's justice as I mentioned before.

4. Russia is a quasi dictatorship why ? In Russia women can vote freely, can smoke, can drink, can chose tgeir religion, can fuck with whoever they want and can walk much more safely at night in the streets if Moscow than in most western metropoles.

5. The western democracies and USA also commited most of those things, plus genocides, racial segregation etc...

[Haider]

1, 3 and 4. Nothing controversial about those statements, just plain facts.

[Tooting Carmen]

1. You cant refute the argument that without Castro Cuba would be much more developed than it is now. Cuba was already more developed than most Latin American countries in the 1950's. Although Cuba was wealthier as a whole than most other LAC countries, very few people actually benefited from it, and its extreme inequality fed the Communist revolution in the first place.

2. The situation in SA was quite unique, however bad were other regimes, there wasn't a case where 10% of the racial minority subjugated in such a way 90% of the racial majority. While less obvious than SA's White-Black divide, many Black African regimes systematically persecuted people from rival ethnic groups, such as Mugabe's massacres of the Ndebele ethnic group in the 1980's, Macias Nguema's constant attacks on people from the Bubi ethnic group and Idi Amin's massacres of the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups just after he came into power - not to mention, of course, his expulsion of Ugandan Asians.
And all this is even before we consider their much more generalised political oppression, corruption and misrule. Furthermore, how come Australia has never received any substantial international criticism for its mistreatment of Aboriginals, which in some respects has been actually worse than the Apartheid regime's treatment of Blacks? Until pretty recently, the Australian State officially classified Aboriginals as flora and fungae, and routinely kidnapped and forcibly disappeared thousands of Aboriginal children over many decades.

3. So ? Was George W. Bush and 1000 of other leaders judged by war crimes ? It's the vicor's justice as I mentioned before. True, but the point about the Israeli-Arab conflict is that it's a particularly serious threat to world peace in a way that few if any other conflicts are.

4. Russia is a quasi dictatorship why ? In Russia women can vote freely, can smoke, can drink, can chose tgeir religion, can fuck with whoever they want and can walk much more safely at night in the streets if Moscow than in most western metropoles. Freedom House classifies Putin's Russia as "Not Free". Even though it has the trappings of a parliamentary democracy, in reality it is a Presidential dictatorship with not much real opposition - though certainly a lot softer than in Soviet times, of course.

5. The western democracies and USA also commited most of those things, plus genocides, racial segregation etc...Stalinist Russia was right up there with Nazi Germany in terms of its brutality and totalitarianism. Whatever their faults and crimes, no other Western country or regime comes close - not even the Fascist regimes of Spain or Italy.

[GreentheViper]

4 and 5