Rev Left Radio - Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution

Episode Date: May 18, 2017

Brett sits down with repeat guests Phil (from our first ever episode) and Brendan (From our episode entitled "Ideology: Capitalism and Liberal Culture) to discuss Phil's recent trip to Cuba, the gains of the Cuban revolution, US imperialism, and the future of socialism in Cuba (and the world!). Please take the time to rate and leave a review on iTunes! This will help expand our overall reach.   Follow Revolutionary Left Radio on: Facebook as well as Nebraska IWW Omaha GDC Twitter @RevLeftRadio or contact the dudes at Revolutionary Left Radio via email [e-mail]    

I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs game. Shut up! Will you shut up? Now we see the violence inheriting the system. Shut up! Come and see the violence inheriting the system! Hell yeah, I would. Almost confess to her Marxist's use. Very nice words, but happens to be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, fuck, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

They're smashing the Starbucks windows. They're smashing the Starbucks windows. Garbex windows right now. This is complete anarchy. God, those communists are amazing. Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio. I am your host and

comrade Brett O'Shea, and today we are going to discuss the topic of Cuba, and the Cuban Revolution and Castro and all of it. The reason I really wanted to tackle this topic, among many other reasons, is that a comrade and fellow activist of ours recently went on a trip to Cuba. So he

agreed to come on the show and discuss how his visit, how his visit went. Along with him is another close friend and comrade. Both of our guests today are actually second time guests. Phil was on our first ever episode. You can go back and listen to that. And then Brendan was on our ideology episode, which was really well received. And you know, a lot of people seem really interested to that. And our data shows that it was one of our highest ranking episodes. So if you haven't heard that yet, go ahead and go check that out. So Phil and Brendan, would you guys like to maybe introduce yourselves and say a bit about your background? Sure, yeah. I'm Phil. I am a revolutionary. I call myself a revolutionary and non-activist.

I'm with the Red Plains Revolutionary Group here in town. And I'm also a communist and a Marxist and all the things that goes with that. Everything good. Yes, yes. I'm Brendan. I'm also a revolutionary. I think that's a distinction that needs to to be made, as someone once said. Between activists and revolutionary? Between a revolutionary and a pig, actually. Counter-revolutionary. Yeah.

Fred Hampton? Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, I'm also a bit of a nerd. I studied sociology and Latin American studies, and Cuba's always been kind of a topic of interest in mine. Awesome. Yeah, it's, you know, Castro's death was pretty recent. There's lots of concern or questions about where Cuba goes from here.

you know Obama did opened up relations a little bit or maybe we can get into that later but there's a lot happening in Cuba right now it's in a dynamic phase of its of its history and people are still unsure about where it's going forward but so we're going to have this episode in basically two general parts the first part we're going to talk to Phil about his recent visit because I think you know anybody could talk about Cuba and have opinions on Cuba but to actually have an interview with somebody who's been to Cuba and like the very recent past is pretty unique and interesting. So let's go ahead and start there.

Want to maybe start with the recap of how your trip win or whatever you want to say about your trip. How did it go? You know, it went really well. I think, you know, you mentioned Fidel's recent death, and the one big message that I think I took back from that from the trip is that, you know, Fidel lives, Fidel Viva, the chant of the schoolgirls who led the May Day parade.

The May Day Parade of over a million, I don't know the exact number. Was that in Havana? Havana, yeah. They were chanting, Yosoi Fidel, you know, and that was kind of the theme, you know. The Revolution is definitely still alive in Cuba. And I went there, I was only there for two weeks, you know, and I was only in, you know, a few places around the island. So that doesn't give me a comprehensive knowledge of the island and, you know, all that stuff.

I think I got a good idea, at least, of what's going on. You know, there are two responses I have to it. And the first one comes from my interaction with the Cuban people in the rural areas of the Artemisa province where we were staying most of the time. We were in a camp up there. And that's an agricultural province, much like here in Nebraska. You know, walking through the villages there,

I felt like they were like the towns I grew up in. You know, I grew up in these, like, tiny-ass towns in the middle of Nebraska. And, you know, it felt familiar and it felt, and it felt new at the same time. And talking to the provincial officials in Artemisa, who were very excited about their province, very proud of it, very dedicated, and who had done a lot of really impressive stuff with the developments and the initiatives around the province. And talking to, you know, other people around the island.

And I don't speak Spanish, which is the one big regret. But to the extent that I was able to, I talked to as many Cubans as I could. One of the highlights for me was one of the days we were invited into the home. Me and a few other Americans were invited into the home of a baseball veteran, somebody who had been playing in the Cuban baseball leagues for his entire career. And him and five of his baseball buddies were all staunch supporters of the Revolution. We hung out with them, we went and got dinner with them, and they, you know, they reminisced about the baseball playing days, and they were very, very interested to hear about Trump and things like that, and very down to talk about revolution, very down to talk about politics. So that was one half of it, you know, the positives, you know, the May Day Parade, which was incredible, you know, beyond anything I've ever experienced.

And certainly, I haven't processed it at all yet, you know. How recent has it been? When did you get back? I flew out of the island of Monday And then I got back here on Tuesday But So that's only about Five days ago

Yeah And the parade was already a week old at that point But I never really You know Experience anything like that And unless I go back to Havana Which I hopefully will I won't experience anything like that again

What was so powerful about it You know just the sheer number of people And not only that But the sheer number of people who are like visibly joyful and proud and you know just dance like literally dancing in the street for pride of their nation for pride of the revolution for pride of the castros it's you know I've really never seen anything like that you know nothing you never see anything sincere you know and certainly nothing on that scale like corporate ties and marketize it kind of

made into like a macy's float sort of thing there's no advertisements in Cuba no billboards like if you go to every if you go to any parade in America you know you'll see if not all if not everything advertisement you know at least a large part of it but I mean that's kind of a digression like just I got choked up so many times watching that parade just seeing the faces the innumerable faces of Cuban young people especially who were just so joyful and so happy and it was all for this, you know, a workers' holiday, a workers' celebration. And so that's certainly, you know, that was the one side of things where I was really, you know, heartened by, you know, Fidel lives.

And I saw, I did see Raul Castro in the flesh. Did you? From a very far distance. He's wearing a sick-ass sombrero. He never, he didn't say anything. I, like, he's like the Luigi, uh, to Padillaise for Mario. You know, he's not the main character. But, uh, I love that analogy. It was great, it was great, uh, to see him. And just to share in that whole event. And then I think the other side of the coin was that

cube is not perfect, obviously. And even though I wasn't there a whole long time, and even though my hosts did try to coddle me to a certain extent, you know, and, you know, it was, it was kind of a, you know, I was there to support the Cuban people, and we were at an international brigade to sort of, you know, show solidarity with them. I was treated, I wasn't treated like a normal Cuban person, obviously. Like, you know, I was given translators and tour buses and things like that. But to the, but I did, you know, pick up on maybe a few things that were not that great.

And certainly in our system, things are always going to be not that great. but sort of the other side of the coin to that boundless enthusiasm and an incredible source of positivity was that there's still a lot of evidence of the global economy at work in Cuba and certainly nowhere more evidently than the tourism market and as it was explained to me the tourism market was sort of opened up in I think the 90s the late 90s yeah that as a way to get foreign capital because you know you know they need they need foreign capital because they're in this this this this shortage or this the special period of the 90s and I can't really say that they made the wrong choice but it's certainly it's certainly not great from a socialism perspective

because with foreign investment and foreign capital comes foreign influence inherently foreign influence but just foreign relations foreign forms are relating to each other yeah we were in a we we talked to a tour guy who is like who is honest about the fact that you know you can make more begging in the park from tourists than you can working at a at a wage job and you know I read the book Brendan went or gave to me for my birthday the Che's economic policy by Carlos Trebalda is that right but he talks about and he writes about all these economic policies of Shea

and one of the most important things was the wage and Chey talks about you know until we get rid of the socialist until we get rid of the capitalist system completely and fully transitioned to socialism we're going to have wage as long as we have money we're going to have a wage and so the wages of this really important feature

in economic in his economic system where it's an incentive system You know, it has to be structured in a specific way. And now we've got tourism coming in, and there's all these off-the-table transactions. There's transactions that occur outside of the wage system, and they create a totally different economy. You know, they've already created a different economy with the two different exchange systems, the Kuk, or the Cuban convertible, universal something, which is what the tourists use, because it's like equivalent with the dollar. And then the Cuban Pesa, which is what normal people use. use and so you've already created those two sort of economies and then now you have where you

have a tour work somebody who works in tourism who gets access to cooks you know from tourists whether he he's like maybe operating as a taxi driver or something and we were hailed so often by taxi drivers walking down a street in old havana or a tourist attraction somewhere it would just be you know relentless because they know like one taxi ride will be like the equivalent of that entire day's work for someone else, you know? And so there's this disparate relationship that's being set up in my, and from what I saw. And I think that's really, it's really damaging, you know, to the whole project. And I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I think Cuba will survive

and as they have always done. But, you know, it's not that great. It's not perfect. Yeah, I think it's also worth mentioning that to understand the current, economic situation and maybe, you know, to cover this in its entirety, would, you know, escape the scope of this one episode. But you have to understand the history of the human economy. You have to understand American sanctions and the shutting out of Cuba from international trade for so long or the, you know, economic and military attacks on Cuba from the strongest

military and economy and human history, America, or the United States to be more specific. So, you know, I really don't, I want everybody to understand that there's a context in which these things are unfolding and you can't separate you know the current cuba from the history of cuba and the history of u.s imperial ingression you know in on the island yeah i think i think actually it's probably worth going over in in brief some of cuba's economic history specifically because it ties in so much to their colonial history predating even its relationship with the united states uh but really specifically with spain uh cuba was such an important sort of setting off point

for Spain and it was one of its last colonies that it actually lost and it was a sugar monoculture well the United States Cuban independence from Spain was a long process but the United States eventually got involved in doing so

they purchased a significant amount of sugar development things like that and so that really tied Cuba to sugar monoculture even further. When Castro first took power in the 60s in the early parts of the 70s, they tried to diversify that economy away from sugar

and it didn't really go so well. It's a small island and it's not really heavily industrially developed. It's interesting to note, I mean, part of why Marx was so concerned with socialism coming into already capitalist societies is there is a degree of development that occurs under capitalism.

That's really good. If you read the Communist Manifesto, there's a part where it's almost a praise of capitalism because of its developments of feudalism. You know, it does, increases the productivity. And Cuba never really got that chance. You know, American interference right away. And then the Soviet Union stepped in

because of strategic convenience. And they said, hey, you know, we'll help you out. We'll subsidize your economy. But they still wanted that sugar. Because so much of the sugar developed in the world still was going through you know these sort of capitalist channels most of Latin America at the time was still you know heavily tied to the U.S. and things like that so they

their economy turned back despite initial ideas to diversify it still ended up being a sugar monoculture so the collapse of the Soviet subsidies in the late 80s and really the collapse of the Soviet block in like 91, really left Cubans without their income. And it was very hard for Cuba to maintain the standard of living that they had developed for their citizens. And at that time, and prior to America had imposed economic sanctions on the island. So it was not able to trade with America. And that's one of the reasons why, for example, they have those older 50-styles cars

because, you know, the economic sanctions brought down on by America. Yeah. And like to, to like, note America. America clamped down on its economic restrictions in the 90s with the Helms-Burton Act, which actually took away power from the executive so that Congress has more power to deal with Cuba than any other country. And it's really the biggest signing away of executive power to the legislature in the United States that ever happened. Under Clinton, I'm 99% sure in a Republican Congress, which is interesting in and of itself.

But so the United States took the opportunity of the Soviet collapse to further clamp down on those sanctions. It's important to note. And one of the big reasons that the economic sanctions were put in a place was because from day one, the United States wanted to end Cuba. Because before Castro's Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, it was ran by the Batista regime, which was a U.S. puppet state. The U.S. corporations and the U.S. government basically told Batista what to do. and the Batista regime was cruel and just basically sold out Cubans to the American ruling class and to the mafia. And it was just like a mafia state. It was like the casino and like the...

It was the original Las Vegas. Yeah, exactly. For the rich and wealthy in America. Senators would fly down to Cuba to do things that they wouldn't be comfortable doing in the United States. And, you know, the mob ended up investing in Las Vegas and that ended up being the next one. But before it was Havana. Yep. And a lot of the reasons I was going to say for the economic sanctions was an attempt to, then there's actual papers that were released of, you know, internal dialogue in the United States government where they said we want to starve out the Cuban people. If we can make them so uncomfortable, I mean, talking about innocent men, women, and children here, if we can starve them and make them desperately hungry, then they might be able to turn against the Castro government. And, you know, that's one way that we might be able to have an end to sink our tentacles back in and reestablish a Batista-like figure on the island. States has always deluded itself into thinking that the Cuban people are an inch away from

revolting. And certainly not everybody on the island is happy. But more than anything, most people there seem to really want reform of the socialist government versus an abolition of it. Exactly. Which is not the view in the United States. And I think part of that is delusion. Some people used to want to make Cuba a U.S. state. So I think there's some of that like leftover sort of imperialist ambition. Beyond that, you have a very, the Cuban population in the United States is very much not representative of Cuba, the island, because Castro deliberately let people leave. There were a couple different points. They flew out as a very smart way to avoid sort of the Venezuela situation where you have a very polarized country where it's really hard

to blame anyone for the current situation in Venezuela because it's coming from both sides. There are business people in Venezuela who have deliberately stagnated economics there in order to exacerbate the issue. The Cuban government during various points, the Carter regime, the Carter administration, sorry, was one example where Castro actually let people who didn't want to live on the island leave. And by doing so, he increases support here, and here is in Cuba, I guess. to support in Cuba because it gets rid of those dissidents, but then the other side is they're

all in Miami or New Jersey. And so then everybody who lives in the United States thinks that everybody in Cuba hates Castro and especially the people who live here now. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like self-selection. Like the people who aren't going to contribute to the revolution do sort of tend to leave. Like there is, I don't feel like there is a real counter-revolutionary movement in Cuba and that most of the, anti-Cuba rhetoric or anti-Castra rhetoric is coming from the united states from miami and those and the people that the counter-revolutionaries that you know left cuba for miami and new jersey um at the initial point of the revolution a lot of those people were landowners um those were those were the people

that were going along to get along in the u.s puppet dictator state um and so once castor took over basically you guys need to leave we're taking we're taking back our economy we're taking back our government and we're going to run things their own way and instead of slothers You know, there's this, there's this caricature of Castro, like he's this, you know, Stalin figure or something like, he's like this murderous. It's not at all true. He let them leave. He offered to, after the revolution, an interesting fact is, you know, the foreign

corporations that owned, you know, different industries in Cuba. There was an attempt by the Castro government to actually pay, you know, up to market value to have some of those industries fall back into Cuban hands. And those plans were rejected by the U.S. and other Western corporate, you know, corporations. There are a lot of waiting checks in the U.S., Cuba, sort of dynamics. I don't think that Cuba has ever cashed in any of the checks that we send them for Guantanamo, and likewise certain checks to restitute expropriation have been rejected by U.S. businesses.

So before we move on, I was going to point back to Phil, and you mentioned earlier support within the Cuban community for Fidel and for the Cuban, and for the Cuban Revolution. Brendan, you mentioned people wanting reform within the socialist system and not a reversion to capitalism. Most people. Phil, would you be able to touch on what you experienced communicating with the locals in Cuba and what you thought like, maybe like the percentage makeup of people that were really

supported or people that had dissent or kind of give us an idea of how the people in Cuba feel about Cuba? It's a big question. Like I said, I don't speak Spanish, which is my great shame. and something that I want to rectify as soon as possible. So I wasn't able to, you know, just walk down the street and talk to people about it. So from the extent that I heard was positive towards the revolution and positive towards, you know, not necessarily the status quo, but certainly supportive of the way the revolution was going.

You know, I talked, uh, I talked to, I mentioned the story about how I went. was invited to the home of the baseball veteran and they were all very supportive of the revolution and i think they laid they appropriately laid a lot of the problems cuba was facing at the u.s's door and we're kind of like you know you guys need to do revolution now you know which was cha's big i think chay had that famous quote where chay said you know americans live in the belly of the beast you guys can make a big difference if you guys revolt yeah that's still true today yeah i mean it's certainly And it's certainly true, and it's something that was born out not just by the Cubans, but by other people from other nations that were part of this international brigade for the May Day.

We talked to some South Koreans who were socialists, and they were talking about how, you know, Cuba has one U.S. military base, Guantanamo, South Korea has, like, 16. and they were like you know our influence the United States imperial system influences us you know to a much greater degree and they're like you know you guys need to do revolution there to stop that did you say we're trying yeah yeah yeah yeah we're doing everything we can but to to what I experience and and it's not that representative you know people were on board with the revolution in the direction the revolution was going and certainly when we heard a panel of leaders of the mass mass organizations like the women's federation young communists student union organization talk about different things and you know they're all they're all very you know fiery and passionate

about their movements but i feel like they were all supportive of the of the direction that revolution was going and one of the things the the leader of the student unit mentioned a couple of times was like the I need to end homophobia which is which is something I was glad to hear and that's been a you know Cuba going back to their Spanish colonial period you know you have a Catholic presence in all of Latin America really because of colonialism and that sort of religious context does often give rise to a sort of social conservatism, even in a situation like the Cuban situation where there's actual socialist revolution that's been a half a century long, there's still going to be those sort of cultural

norms and those religious leftovers. And, you know, there have been failures on Castro's government's part in the past, but those failures have been acknowledged by Castro later down the road and we're fixed. And now Cuba is kind of on the cutting edge of trying to push back against some of these issues and be really progressive in that social sense. Absolutely, yeah. All right, well, is there anything else before we transition to part two, start talking about the gains under Castro's government and the gains of the Cuban Revolution? Is there anything else you'd want to say about your time in Cuba or anything you would want Americans to know

that you think there's myths around as far as what Cuba's like that you saw firsthand not to be true or anything you want to say about your trip? I will say that the first, this morning I was at work and I saw one of my, my coworkers for the first time since the trip. I had been supposed to work with them earlier in the week, but I had been still on the way back. Like, I was on a plane when he called and was like, where are you? I was like, I'm on the plane.

Our boss had fucked up, you know, or whatever. But there were no hard feelings. He saw me. He was like, hey, you know, is communism as bad as I say? I was like, no. he was like that's what I thought that's funny and it's true you know communism isn't as bad as they think

as they say it was great being over there was great you know it's not it's underdeveloped that's for sure and and one of the one of the things uh one of the tour guides or whoever said while he's down there was like Cuba's a third world country with a first world mind

or a first world consciousness you know that's more or less true you know in terms of development they're underdeveloped for sure you know people are still riding around with horses and and stuff and uh but they have an incredible an incredible access to education literacy uh you know you can you can go as far in higher education as you as you can and that's something that's totally foreign a totally foreign comment to an american you know you can get free health care some of the highest quality free health care you can anywhere in the world that's also

also something that's totally alien to American. So there are things in Cuba that are objectively better than things in the United States. And so that experience in itself and just going down there and experiencing that is pretty significant. Would you say that there's a sense of community and camaraderie among average Cubans, like a sense of collectiveness that just doesn't exist here that you saw maybe manifest itself in the Mayday parades and i would say that the culture in cuba is is appears you know to the outsider to be much better than the united states much more cohesive you know much more positive but beyond that i can't really say too much you know i can't i don't speak spanish like i said which you know again again

is my is my greatest shame my greatest shortcoming and one last thing before we transition to the second part i wanted to mention about you know you said that you know cuba's underdeveloped and has economic problems as a first world consciousness, which I think is absolutely a great way of putting it. Besides for American sanctions, United States, I'm using those two terms interchangeably. I know there's some nuance there that I should just say United States to be clear. You know, when the Cuban Revolution took over and kicked Batista out, it's worth noting that Batista's regime ransacked the treasury. So when Castro took over, not only did he have this American giant breathing down his neck and implementing sanctions almost immediately and

baiting him in like the Bay of Pigs and JFK is the most overrated president of all time because he was a huge anti-communist and he was huge in this and this push against Cuba, this really disgusting, immoral push against Cuba. So you're operating with nothing in the treasury and the biggest world economy saying fuck you. Yeah. Imagine trying to build a society. That was something that was mentioned. It was like they didn't have any cash.

There was no cash. And, you know, I think it's, I think the meaning of Cuba and the meaning of Fidel Castro, Castro, particularly, is a very profound one, and it's very unique. You know, Cuba may have its problems, and it may be facing these different things, but they are really the only lasting socialist revolution left, you know. And they are an incredible symbol against imperialism, that, you know, even the Soviet Union with all its might and all its, you know, miles and with all its people. and even, you know, the Chinese revolution, you know, it was largely petered out.

You know, the Cuban, this tiny island, you know, has been able inexplicably for so long to stand up against the imperial. It's just, it's really encouraging, if you look at it in the right light, and it's really remarkable, and Fidel to die at all. a tragedy for to die on his own terms after like 350 CIA assassination attempts is like a unique form of victory that I don't think really anyone else has achieved. Fuck yeah, well said. Exactly. Gets me a little tearyat thinking about it. Yeah, Jesus.

So let's transition now to just talking about like I want to talk about the gains made under Castro's government and some of the things that Cuba's been able to achieve despite living, you know, in the shadow of the giant 90 miles off its coast. So I'll just start off with some basic facts of some of the achievements that they've been able to make. On the employment front, the unemployment rate in Cuba as of 2014, which is the data I have at this time, was 2.7 percent, which is almost unheard of, even in American context. International Workers Day or May Day, as Phil alluded to, is a major national workers' celebration in Cuba. under Cuba's constitution recently any form of discrimination harmful to human dignity is prohibited and gender reassignment surgeries have been available under its national health care free of charge since 2008 on the education front the literacy rate in the country is 99.9% Cuba offers free education from elementary school all the way through university on the global humanitarian front since the night since 1969 a total of over 325,000 Cuban health workers have participated in missions in over 158 countries.

On the gender equality front, Cuba was the first country to sign and the second to ratify the discrimination against women convention. Nearly half of the parliamentary seats in the Cuban National Assembly are occupied by women. And finally, on the health care front, for all Cubans, health care is completely free. Cuba created the meningitis B vaccine in 1985, and later the vaccines for hepatitis B and dengue. So those are just some of the achievements that Cuba's been able to obtain against all odds. And it's still one of the biggest supporters of international aid

with sending its medical teams out into different countries like earthquakes happen or other sorts of natural disasters happen. Cuba is world-renowned for its response. So did either of you, Brendan, would you want to say anything about some of the games, that they've made are some of the programs they've initiated that you that you find important um there are for each um hmm there are so many gains um there's always sort of a a grain of salt with them um that i think is important to note although i think you can say the same for the failings for every failing

there's a there's a positive to it that's worth mentioning cuba such an interesting country um i I think literacy and health care were such important goals for the revolution. Literacy and life expectancy and stuff went up exponentially very quickly. And that was really the goal. And so in a lot of ways, the goals of the revolution succeeded in those areas. Healthcare, Cuban medical diplomacy is world-renowned. It's interesting to note that during Hurricane Katrina, Cuba offered to send its health care diplomats, if you will, to Katrina. We refuse them, which was terrible.

But you can, Katrina's quite a terrible story in all sorts of fronts in that many, but Haiti. So medical diplomacy has saved a lot of lives. It also is opportunity for Cuban citizens, Afro-Cubans, and women. are very well represented in those fronts. And I think that's really important. It also is a way for Cuba to improve its ties, for example. I think it was Norway. But one of the Scandinavian countries actually offered to help Haiti pay for these Cuban doctors

after the earthquake, I think, in 2010. I don't remember the exact year, I'm sorry. And afterward, the Scandinavian country ended up increasing business ties with Cuba because once people actually work with Cuba and these sort of health care things, they find that Cuba is not really necessarily so bad, and it's kind of worth risking, annoying the United States. And as time goes on, more and more countries kind of start to ignore the U.S. lead in that front. I think one thing that I think is very impressive about Cuba is its environmental reforms, which are also not perfect, but have some very interesting implications.

forest cover has increased since the revolution dramatically. I might actually grab my phone and pull that up later on. But due to concrete government policy? Yes. And actually, I think one of the few gains made during the special period was a switch to a green model of agriculture that I think is worth talking about for days. It's really impressive. But beyond that, deliberately, deforestation was a major problem in Cuba back during, you know, the Batea. era and before, and they increased their forest cover significantly, which is such an important

part of sustainability. And I think in 2006, the World Wildlife Foundation, I may be wrong about the year and the organization, but I'm pretty sure, rated Cuba as the only sustainable country for environmental growth. And some people talking about sustainability, environmental sustainability think that it's not possible with economic growth and as minuscule as Cuba's economic growth has been 1%, you know, it's still economic growth and meeting sustainability standards. So some people think that's impossible, which is really interesting. So I think Cuba in the environmental front deserves a lot of recognition that they don't necessarily get. Absolutely. Phil, did you want to say anything about what you think some of the gains are?

I think they are kind of what we said, you know, the education being the big one and leading into medical. I think in a way that kind of emphasis on education and literacy may backfire a little bit on the because you've got this populace that is really well educated. but they're still living in a very underdeveloped and unevenly developed place. And so I think maybe that makes them a little more vulnerable to seeing, you know, American culture and thinking that it's better over there and moving or being discontent or whatever. But I don't know if that's anything that's really avoidable. And it does happen. I think some 2% of Cuban, doctors on abroad missions end up leaving to the United States.

But that's when you actually look at the numbers. There's so many people that go abroad. For other reasons, I don't think it's particularly disproportionate. I don't think Cuba has the sort of brain drain that sometimes we talk about them having. Beyond that, the United States has some special rules for Cuban immigrants that don't really apply to literally any country for a long time. it may still be the case at Cuban National who sets foot in the United States

gets basically immediate citizenship and we actually subsidize or used to subsidize the relocation of Cuban nationals to the United States. So we have a special incentive specifically designed to encourage that sort of behavior. So it isn't surprising that some people leave,

but so many others choose to come back or choose to continue to operate on these missions usually to other Latin American or to African countries. I also think Phil's right that we shouldn't focus entirely on these sort of like concrete material gains because there's, I think, a lot of cultural importance that the revolution has really brought about as well. In the sort of arena of like religion and culture, we tend to think of the Castro government as being very anti-religious and to some extent that's true nominally atheist state

but a big part of their blowbacks with Catholic and Protestant organizations is that these Christian groups and during the early days of the revolution opposed the revolution after the fact it's castrusted something along the lines of

inside of the revolution everything outside of the revolution nothing and some of these churches deliberately tried to help foster sort of some of that Bay of Pigs sort of stuff. Whereas you don't really see the same for some of the other religious groups. I know that actually the Castro government is pretty good about making special like dietary. Sort of, I don't know, I don't want to say concessions, but they are willing to move the rules a bit around for Jewish people living in Havana. I've seen some evidence of that myself, which is very interesting.

But beyond that, actually, Afro-Cuban religions, you know, what we call Santoria, but, you know, in Spanish, it'd be more regala to Ocha or Palo Monta-Mayombo, I guess rather than Spanish, that's actually the African. But these, these, you know, cultures were not allowed to be practiced under, like, Spanish imperialism. After Spanish imperialism, they were still really looked down upon. there's a lot there was a significant amount of racism in Cuba there's still a sum although much less than it was certainly better certainly better I would definitely want to address I had that on the sheet of things I wanted to talk about what what are your guys's thoughts on racism in cuba and how does it compare with racism in the US where are the stance where are the racial dividing lines in in Cuba it's a lot less structural um afro-cubans especially living on the western

and half of the island were some of the biggest benefactors of the revolution materially. And like I was saying, it is a lot more acceptable now to, and, you know, worship Orishas in, you know, openly in the streets of Havana, drinking your rum and, you know, talking to whatever Orisha you're talking to, and engaging in possession and things. It's very similar in some respects to, like, Haitian voodoo. and I think you're going to have a hard time finding a part of the world except for assumedly West Africa and certainly Haiti that that sort of freedom is expressed certainly here

you know I saw an SVU episode which was talking about human sacrifices in Santeria and and it was I think quite racist in its depiction even as it tried to make the point that the SVU officers were racist it was still racist beyond beyond their deliberate attempts to point that out but there is there is a lot of covert racism it's a lot less structural than here we have it built into our criminal justice system they don't have that in cuba they made a point to get rid of it they did very well hence castra saying we have eliminated racism in cuba but he didn't and if you go to Cuba, I've heard several people tell me that they've gotten warnings, you know, watch out for

those Cubans, you know. What are those Cubans? You know, it's probably Afro-Cubans. Yeah. And that's an interesting point because one thing that you're just not going to be able to do or there's no societies figured out how to do it quite yet is to eradicate racism in the minds of random citizens. But what you can do is destructuralize it. You can de-institutionalize it. You can de-institimize it. And in that sense, America has a lot, or the United States, States has a lot to learn from Cuba because at least there's an attempt there whereas here it's just an attempt to dismiss the problem like we have an entire party you know dedicated to the dismissal of racism even as an idea while they're being obviously insanely racist at all times

yeah i think uh as with many things the problem of racism in cuba is all is also influenced by just the nature of Cuba as a socialist country in a capitalist global economy. And I think particularly, and again, this is also true for most problems in Cuba, its relationship with the United States. In conversation with an Afro-Cuban in Cuba, he kind of said, you know, there's no like structural racism, kind of like we were saying. while you have these sort of euro cubans these white cubans who have relatives in america who are able to send them money and and so they're able to afford you know the the higher

you know priced houses or like the the more prestigious neighborhoods or whatever so even though there isn't like on the books or in the in the government system you know these sort of discriminations just by nature of being able to have access to American relatives you know is one way in which these sort of old systems are kind of you know propped along there's almost a perverse irony to that it's almost as like the United States is exporting its racism yeah by exporting its cash and creating a wealth imbalance along racial lines and then that creates this sort of you know racial hierarchy I mean it's absolutely exporting racism and it always has. I do think it's very important to note, though, that a lot of the racism in Cuba

doesn't stem from the United States. It stems from its colonial past, which is where our racism stems from as well. You know, you have, right now, you have institutional and structural systematic racism in the United States influenced by biological racism, which wouldn't have happened without religious racism, you know, beforehand. And, you know, Cuba has a history of slavery predating the existence of the United States. And so you have to recognize that this historical oppression is not something that will go away quickly. It's incredible to see the gains that Cuba has made in regards to race. But there is elements of sort of Cuba's unique national ideology or Catholic ideology that

reinforces this as well, you know. I mean, a big part of it, again, you know, relates to religion if you have people who are, you know, being possessed by, by these sorts of African spirits, you know, and you're, you know, there's somebody whose family is pretty Spanish, going back to, you know, Spain, you know, who's, who's been in a position of privilege for a long time. And as Phil was saying, these people were more likely to leave the island. But if they're still, you know, if they still really have, you know, these church connections or whatever, they're still going to look down on these, you know, this, oh, that's not true Catholicism. Santria is not true Catholicism, and there's a degree of racism to that that exists independent of United States influence.

And we have to really understand as socialists that these sort of social, these sort of social legacies of colonialism or something that we will have to deal with after the revolution, even if the United States no longer is exporting racism, you know, systematic racism or economic sort of differences, there will still be leftovers that we are going to have to consciously combat. And changing the material conditions is not an instant solve at all. You'll be able to change a lot and you may be able to create the conditions for progress on those fronts, but there's a lot of work to be done post-alternating the material forces at play.

You need both. Yeah. So talking on that, I kind of want to pivot to another question because earlier we talked about socialism. We talked about communism. Cuba's often called a communist. The Soviet, you know, the Soviet Union was called a communist. Maoist China was called a communist. So I guess I would ask you guys and just start a conversation with this question, but is Cuba socialist? What does it mean for a society to be socialist? And how does that differ from communism? This has communism ever existed, right? Because in the Marxist sense, we think of stages and we think of socialism

as building the conditions that would allow communism to exist. Yeah. But if you guys want to elaborate. For me, communism is an era that has not yet been achieved. And it can't be achieved in one country. Socialism is kind of a stage in that continuum. I don't think Cuba is socialist, but it is, it's not socialist as a nation or socialist as an economy, but it is socialist in that it's undergoing a socialist revolution and transition

to a socialist economy. Building socialism, active process. Yeah. And unfortunately, I think that in some fronts they've lost it. There's been some sort of economic reforms necessitated by the special period or the desire, especially of young Cubans. And so, in some stages, some things that we're sort of socialist aren't anymore. I think when you look at a country like Cuba, though, it's got elements of socialism. I don't think it's purely socialist, but if you look at the way it's health care is ran, I think that's pretty socialist. I think that the neighborhood doctors sort of are socialist.

I think the access to the education is socialist. I think there are elements. It's anti-imperialist wars in Africa was a socialist internationalism. Yeah, certainly. And when Cuba succeeds, it seems, but like, those successes are more socialist. So like in the case of like ecotourism, we were talking about tourism earlier and how the government felt the need to open itself up to tourism during the special period. And several people in the government deliberately tried to focus on eco-terrorism. They didn't want a sort of a Cancun situation where, you know, other countries kind of just export their environmental.

degradation, as well as the degradation of local culture. There have been some success stories and some failings with the sort of ecotourism projects. But in the cases that work, you see a genuine focus on improving the situations of the local people who are the people who get to work in these ecotourist things. And so when Cuba succeeds in ecotourism, I think that's socialism. but its tourism is not totally socialist. There's some significant, especially the amount of like European people who travel to Cuba for tourism.

That's capitalism. Yeah. So it's got a mix. It's got a mix and not in the same way of like a social democratic welfare state, not in the same way of like Nicaragua and a very Cuban way, it has a mix of socialism and capitalism. Yeah. And that's kind of how I view it.

And earlier we mentioned Marxist's, point about you know there's there's parts in his writings where he praises capitalism and i think that's one of the things that is very important for people understand about marxism generally is that marx wasn't just an anti-capitalist for the sake of being an anti-capitalist like fuck everything capitalism ever done it's it's purely evil he's looking at it from a historical perspective and seeing capitalism as a stage that was progressive and and a huge improvement on feudalism and and its advantages is that it's hyperproductive it amasses it creates huge amounts of wealth. But its downsides is how it distributes that wealth and what that wealth

distribution does to political systems and the immoral, you know, human suffering that is caused by this disgusting disparity in wealth. And wherever there's wealth inequality is going to be power inequality. And we see that every day. I'm talking about, I just wanted to touch on the point of Cuba's gains. We're talking about, you know, its health care system and its education system. Now, compare that to America, the United States. The United States is the richest country that this planet has ever seen more wealth and resources than was imaginable even a hundred years ago and still just with this with this new republican health care bill they're trying to push through you know it's this draconian anti-poor huge tax cut to the rich people lose their

houses we're going back to like pre-obamacare where pre-existing conditions can kick you off this this insurance paradigm of health care um education is is very low like we're in the middle of the pack of developed countries so what does all this wealth and resources going to that we have. If the United States became a socialist society, imagine how we could leverage that wealth and those resources and what we could do with that just to increase the quality of life for human beings in this society.

It would be amazing. And so on that front, I think we should take so many lessons from Cuba and realize that they did so much with so little. And we have so much and we do so little with it. Yeah. All right, we're about to start wrapping up. We're getting close to an hour.

I know this is probably a bad time to bring this up, but there are some critiques of Cuba, and one of those critiques that we hear all the time is that it's too authoritarian. You'll hear it from, obviously, the mainstream media, you'll hear it from capitalist apologists, but sometimes you'll even hear it from leftists of the anarchist variety,

the libertarian socialist variety, and there are some critiques to be made there, but there's a context in which you have to understand that. And so what would you guys say to the critique that Castro was an authoritarian or that the Cuban Revolution was too authoritarian? I would say that every revolution is authoritarian. By virtue of being a revolution.

Yeah. And I would say that people who critique, I would say in general that people who critique Castro and the Cuban Revolution as being too authoritarian don't really understand that. They don't really understand the nature of revolution. And I think if they did, you know, they wouldn't really have a problem with it, honestly.

And I don't think you can really point to any specific instance or any general instance of there being like this real, you know, inordinate, you know, outside of the revolution, you know, abuse of power. And certainly it's a bit rich when, you know, critics, counter-revolutionary critics based in America,

you know, try to criticize Cuba for being anti-human rights when there's a literal torture base, you know, on Cuban soil, that's been put there by the American government specifically to avoid international law regarding torture. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to really take anybody who lives in America, you know, anybody who's installed in an American institution. I'm not going to take their word seriously when it comes to human rights. Yeah, and it's worth noting America is the biggest carceral state on the planet, has, you know, more prisoners in any other country on the planet, both in per capita terms and in overall terms. So you want to talk about human rights violations, you want to talk about human liberty and freedom,

then why are more Americans locked up in cages than any other planet on this, you know, or any other country on this planet? Yeah. So you don't have, you don't, if you support American capitalism, you don't have the moral authority to wag your finger at anyone. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really important for us as socialist to do now is, you know, certainly in certain arenas, I think, especially in sort of a queer record. There's a lot of terrible things that have happened in Cuba. Absolutely.

But, you know, it's 2017. We're not obligated to apologize for things that Castor did in the 70s and 80s, if they are no longer continuing. And a lot of them aren't. And if they publicly apologize for him and, you know. Yeah, especially since, you know, Castro's dead. Raoul is stepping down. There's a success. The succession, sorry, succession.

Yeah. Look, good Lord. The succession is planned out, and I think they're going to be very deliberate about it. So it's really, what are we doing moving forward? Well, the United States is increasing its prison population, and Cuba is not. That being said, I think it's, you know, there are a lot of limits to freedom that a lot of Cubans do have issues with. There can't always be vocal about it, although the regime allows certain sort of vents or valves where people are. So in this arena, you go to this square, you're allowed to be a little bit more publicly dissident than you are in your day-to-day life.

Or if you're in a band, bands get a lot more leeway. Musicians have a lot more leeway in Cuba to be critical. There's a really blossoming art scene there. Yeah, the culture and the music culture in Cuba is beautiful. And you can hear some very honest critiques of the regime there. But also you find in that same songs a praise for certain values of the revolution, which is what I was saying about people wanting reform. What really worries me is sort of my big fear about Cuba is that it will kind of go the way of China and institute sort of, you know, quote unquote economic reforms, i.e. the expropriation of Cuban public goods for the benefit of multinational corporations without any sort of political opening up. That's what you saw in China. That's what led to all the student protests. It was it was not because they didn't want to be a socialist country. It's that there. were becoming less socialist, but there was no free political avenue. And I'm very worried about

that. I don't think that's going to happen. That's a concern of mine. Certainly Cuba can be too authoritarian, but I think we have a very unfair view of it. For example, in the 80s, a lot of people who participated in the Angola campaign got in trouble in Cuba, seriously in trouble. And I think four people were executed. And in America, we talked about it, oh, those people were potential threats to the Castro. They could have seized power. They had an independent power base. But the reasons that the people were executed were because they were involved in drug trafficking, which was a huge embarrassment to the Castro regime. And they proved it. There were public trials. And I think anyone, any honest academic, anyone outside of America would say the reasons that these people

were executed was because of their involvement in black market activity. Not because they were a threat to Castro. So I think, you know, there's certainly, we've got some glasses in the United States that are making us see a much more authoritarian Cuba than exists. But there are people in Cuba who would like to see reform, and I think it would be remiss of us to deny them that. It's not our right to say that they're good or they're bad. Absolutely.

And I would add that this is the distinction between idealism and materialism when you're asking, is Cuba to authoritarian? the idealist will just say there needs to be more democracy there needs to be elections free and fair elections there needs to be a totally open press and all these things and fine you know none of us are against those things inherently but as a materialist we look at the context and we say hold on hold on what would it mean for castor especially in the wake of the revolution to open up elections totally it would mean a ability for the united states imperialist machine to sink his tentacles back into the system. And so when you're in a context where you're fighting the biggest military and economy

this planet has ever seen, and you're trying to exist with over, I think there was a recent report that said over 630 assassination attempts by the CIA onto Fidel Castro's life. You had the Bay of Pigs, actual, and an actual invasion of the island. You have all these, the economic sanctions meant to starve the people. You have this context in which you have to operate. Now, ideally, we would love to have, you know, total democracy all the time, but the fact is if you let that happen in America with its with its superior power and its superior wealth will immediately step back in and start to start to influence you know events in Cuba and the revolution will be gone so you ask yourself what's more important maintaining the revolution

or living up to these idealist standards regardless of material context beyond that do you think that if the Castro regime allowed for free elections would they be free elections you look in the case of Chile we interfered we interfered economically we uh we uh funded newspapers that were anti-Ayende. And then when Ayende won anyway, we got involved. We, you know, deliberately exported neoliberal economists down there. You look at Nicaragua, Sandinista Revolution occurred, popular support, what did Reagan do? You know, funding death squads in El Salvador, economic warfare, you can read some very interesting CIA handbooks about how to torture civilians.

and burning their food stores to cause scarcity that doesn't need to exist there. And then, you know, Castro actually told the Sandinistas that they shouldn't do fair elections because they were held at gunpoint by the United States illegally because Congress told Reagan not to do these things and they did it anyway and he always got away with it. It wasn't me. I didn't know. I didn't know.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so on and so forth. But some people in his administration did because we basically blackmailed the Nicaraguan people. If you elect the Sandinistas again, you know, in a fair election, you know, this is going to continue. And when you're, you know, when there's a gun to your head, you know, an economic gun, a psychological gun, Salvadorian death squads, you know, are you really able to freely vote? Exactly. I think even all that being said, you know, the Cubas do have a lot of democracy.

they are elections and they are held regularly and they are free you know they're not i don't believe you know the the higher positions are you know open to that popular vote but there is a representative vote that occurs and so i think particularly given that it's again you know beyond meaningless for anyone in the united states to say the cuban the cuban elections are unfair or unrepresent representative or undemocratic. I don't think, you know, the American elections are by any means more free or more fair or more democratic than the elections in Cuba. Yeah, and I always say, and a lot of people say that, you know, here in the United States, we do live in a dictatorship, the dictatorship of capital. Rich people run our society for and by their interests, and we are just,

you know, inundated with ideology to kind of act as a buffer between, you know, that reality and the fact that we view ourselves in our national myth as liberty lovers and freedom fighters. But in reality, our system is totally corrupt, is an oligarchic, you know, dictatorship. Common people have no say in the workplace, have no say in their government, have no say in anything. Money talks. If you don't have money, you can never rise to a power of prominence or, you know, position of prominence in the society. So, so please, you know, Spare me the moral finger waving. At least give me some material context.

Give me some analysis that's not just shoved in your brain from passive absorption of Western propaganda. Yeah, the Western political liberalization that occurs in post-communist regimes, it's never more free. Look at Russia. Look at what happened in Russia in the 90s. you have most people really what they wanted in the soviet union was an end to moscow dominant socialism they wanted socialism and they wanted you know the USSR as a system of several different socialist republics so the big change happens Gorbachev sort of oversteps his mandate to the people Yeltsin kind of takes advantage gets into power and there's a lot of communists who were elected to

the Duma who said Yeltsin, you're, you know, you're overstepping your constitutional bounds and you're getting rid of reforms that the people who elect, or you're getting rid of social safety nets that the people who elected us fairly voted for us to keep. So then there comes this constitutional crisis. And what happens is Yeltsin brings out the tanks. Yeltsin kills people. You have more people who die in the street fighting in Moscow than had happened since, you know, the glorious October revolution. So, you know, you have to really like, and tell me right now, really, that Russia right now is more free than it was in the U.S.S.R. Or anywhere, anywhere, any post-Soviet state.

Yeah. Like, look at this shit show in Ukraine. Exactly. And it's, it never is, you know. Poland, you know, they were forced. Neoliberalism does not give people options. It lies. You can vote, but your vote doesn't.

matter you can you can be on the winning side of the popular vote by millions and you still don't get the president that the people voted for yeah that's what it is and that's generally true and it's always going to be true until you know we overthrow the dictatorship of capital so thank you guys very much for coming on before we end the show i always do this and i'm going to do it again we can maybe start with some recommendations or end sorry rather with some recommendations anybody that listen to this episode and wants to find out more this is a huge topic you know we just scratch the surface there's no way in an hour or two hours or even ten hours

that we could possibly address every issue on this topic but here are some recommendations from us for things you can check out going forward and I guess I could start why you guys maybe think of something to recommend I would recommend two things maybe a little unorthodox but I would recommend and it might sound crazy at first but you know hear me out Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown on the Cube episode.

It's on Netflix. It's a CNN show, so usually you don't go there to get really concrete stuff. But Anthony Bourdain is, he goes out of his way to try to be open ideologically. And this is the guy who said that he wished he could strangle Henry Kissinger with his own bare hands. He's kind of a bad ass. Yeah, he is a low-key comrade. But his episode on Cuba was really enlightening. He does bring up dissent and issues that are still needing to be addressed in Cuba.

But overall, the interviews with the people really show that what Brennan was saying earlier, they want reform, they want to move forward, but they don't want, that does not mean that they want capitalism. I think one of the people being interviewed said, we don't want, you know, McDonald's billboards on every corner. We don't want your strip malls. We don't want, you know, your Nike factories. We want a more free and democratic socialist society. And I think that is what you hear over and over and over again. It's not perfect.

We want changes, but changes does not mean capitulation to American capitalism. And that show did a low-key, really good job of bringing that. And it's an objective, and it's an interesting episode, so I recommend that. The second thing is I wrote a blog on the Marxist distinction between idealism and materialism with regard to Cuba. And that's at self-aware1.wordpress.com, just my personal little blog where I throw show. it up at. But if anybody's interested in understanding Cuba, with that distinction of the idealism versus materialism in mind, I did my best to write a short article on that. So those would be my recommendations. Brendan? From a political standpoint, a really good starting

block book would be Julia Swiggs, Cuba, everything you need to know. It's kind of written in a format where here's a question, here's an answer. It's relatively non-biased. I think you're going to have a hard time reading it and saying, oh, wow, you know, Castro regime is the best. But you're also going to have a hard time reading it and saying, oh, you know, Castro would have done this no matter what, you're going to have to acknowledge that the United States deliberately funded terrorism that attacked, you know, planes coming out of Havana. And so I think that's a good starting point for you to grow. But I would be remiss if I did not recommend rather than just exploring the political, you don't, you should explore the Cuban culture. It's a risk.

culture and I think a big point of pride for all Cubans and a key part of the revolution itself is embracing Cuban independent national culture. So I would definitely look into the music. I'd look into those Afro-Cuban religions. I think Harry Belafonte did some documentaries about both, or about the music and its relation to the African-Caribbean religion. So a good American musician and comrade, Harry Belafonte, look into some of his stuff about Cuba. I don't have a whole lot of, you know, specific recommendations. I think you don't really need a whole lot. I think you've grown up, you know, you who are listening,

you've grown up in America, you've read something about Cuba, you know enough, you know a basic timeline of what happened with Batista, what happened with the revolution. And I think at some level, you already know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. you know you're already acquainted with the power dynamic and so i think it's not as important for you to try to find a blow-by-blow account or you know something like that you kind of already know who the good guys are who the bad guys are what the revolution means i think you know

you should always try to learn as much as you can and you should always try to learn more about Marxism, because that's what's going to give you the ability to decode, you know, any sources or any works you encounter in the future about Cuba. Beyond that, I would just recommend looking at the speeches of Fidel, speeches of Che, and reading them for yourself. Absolutely. Can I just say one thing? Yeah, of course. I think history absolved Fidel. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Hopefully this podcast will be another voice screaming, you know, his, his, his, his, his, his, his praise because, you know, Fidel lives. Yeah.

Fidel Viva. Absolutely. And I'm yo so much for coming on. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. Again, I'm very honored to have both of you guys on. So thank you for your contribution. And to everybody listening, stay tuned.

Next week we're going to discuss the Rojavan Revolution and the Kurds. And so we're going to touch on, you know, a different type of revolution and a different geographical and material content. and, you know, listening to that episode and this one, hopefully we'll give people, you know, a good orientation to what socialism is, what building it means, and, you know, the practical issues that are faced when you're trying to build socialism, you know, in this global context. So thank you again. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

You know, and I'm going to be. I'm going to You know, I'm going to be.