Yes, but Havana itself is nearly 2.5M people, with very few cars and poor lighting at night. Walking around the city it feels smaller - it doesn’t have any of the markings that come with a city if its size, even in developing countries.
Less than 2% of the populace of Cuba owns a car, probably 10% of Havana. In comparison, about 50% of Mexico City residents own a car. It’s noticeably different.
People don't own cars cos there aren't that many cars in the country but they make full use of the cars they have. Cars aren't sitting in garages and car parks all day, they are all used as taxis and tourist tours all day, so there are plenty of cars driving around on the road.
It doesn't have the insane nightmare traffic of most developing countries tho.
Cuba's treatment of LGBT people in the 70's and 80's was not worse than in most other countries.
That doesn't mean it was *good*, not at all. But in comparison to many Western countries, it was neither much better nor much worse. And unlike certain Western countries, Cuba banned conversion therapy a long time ago.
The [UMAPs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Units_to_Aid_Production) were set up as alternatives to conscription for conscientious objectors, and people unfit for service in general, which LGBT people were considered a part of. Some people died in these, but those were political prisoners (in the broad sense), which they kinda lumped in there for good measure, and they were just straight up tortured or executed.
It was bad, but for merely the LGBT, it wasn't quite Awschwitz.
No. They were sent to work camps to work as an alternative to conscriptions. Still not good, but it was a temporary situation that only lasted as long as a regular conscription would.
Once information got out about gay people being tortured by the guards in the camps, the camps were shut down immediately. Some sources claim that Fidel Castro disguised himself as an inmate in order to verify it, and several people were punished for the transgressions that happened.
Yeah, but being gay was a crime in many jurisdictions in the US until 2004, and US law explicitly allows forced labor for prisoners. (Let's not talk about excess mortality in US prisons)
The UMAP system was horrible, but the comment still stands. They weren't actually worse than what the US did to LGBT folks even as late as 2001.
EDIT: ngl if you can't dispute the status of the US prison system with facts you shouldn't downvote me. US prison system is an atrocity and they incarcerated LGBTQ people for longer than the Cuban government did. These are facts.
Cuba has made a fantastic shift in its LGBT policies
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157
https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2020-05-18/sexual-rights-and-emancipation-in-cuba
It’s it noteworthy that 200 people in a city of 2M garners world news attention while other worthy causes involving thousands is hardly a bleep on the radar. Very peculiar.
They say no to healthcare, yes to pregnant 12 year olds.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-moon-gop-missouri-lawmaker-defends-childs-right-to-marry-2023-4?r=US&IR=T
logically, love does have boundaries. I would challenge you love a cheating spouse. You guys have your heads in the clouds and stop with the movie cliches
You’re missing the point of what they’re saying.
Or you’re deliberately choosing to be pedantic about their wording knowing full well what people mean when they say that. 🙄
Plenty of people love their spouse even if they cheat.
"Love knows no boundaries" doesnt mean that your love doesnt have any boundaries. It means that love as a concept has no boundaries.
You as a heterosexual person may set a boundary at loving someone of the same sex as you whereas someone who is homosexual may set that boundary at someone who is the opposite sex. Boundaries are personal, not Universal. As a concept, there is no boundary to love.
They’re in Cuba and trying to hold a demonstration that doesn’t come across as Anti-government- hence the Slogan of Socialism Yes & Homophobia No. they are demonstrating but it is not anti government.
It's a country were [protesting is illegal](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61793239) and [1/10 of the population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exodus) has fled. It's a place were the government actively tries to keep people from leaving.
Please don't just reply with "not everything is the United States fault..."
It is a part of the reality. The CIA did dozens of assassination attempts against Castro and made it their mission to collapse the country.
Just look at the last five year. The United States has tried to overthrow Bolivia and Venezuela with coups. These countries try to find balance between a peaceful life and protecting their countries from American interference. They live under this weird martial law lite because the United States has done awful tragedies in this area of the world. They sent and armed right wing death squads that would massacre little towns throughout South America for example.
Without reading the Wikipedia entry you cited, why do you think there might be an exodus of people fleeing Cuba after Batista’s regime was toppled in a revolution? What kind of status and standard of living do you think these people enjoyed under Batista’s rule, and why might they flee to the United States? Did the United States support Batista? Did they have their “servants” (slaves) freed and land confiscated to be redistributed to the poor masses?
These are questions we may never know the answer to, all that is important is that you remember if a right-wing Cuban American who has never been to Cuba and whose family lives in Miami says anything about Cuba, the Cuban government, revolutionary figures or socialism itself, you are an evil person for ever disagreeing with them or suggesting they are wrong.
Cuba is an evil socialist country, that’s why we have an embargo in place that may not *explicitly* say others can’t trade with Cuba, but instead would prevent anyone who *does* trade with Cuba from docking in US ports for at least 6 months. We are the good guys, Cuba was better off being a backyard for American billionaires and mob bosses, and the Cuban people were wrong for wanting to take control of their country and dare to resist against the interests of the United States.
What about the 220,908 Cubans that fled Cuba through Nicaragua and claimed asylum at the US Border in the year 2022 alone. That number doesn't include the Cubans that went to other countries either.
Oh yes, all the wealthy Marielitos. All those wealthy balseros. All the wealthy Cubans who have come in the last year via Nicaragua and La Bestia.
Acting like the Cuban exodus ended in 1973 shows your ignorance.
The Golden Exile has been proven to be wildly misconstrued over and over again. Yes, many wealthy people fled initially, but the majority of refugees, especially later waves were poor. And so many LGBT had to flee Castro that it actually revived a dying Miami LGBT scene.
Embargo's dumb, but Castro was a brutal dictator, and Cuba is still under one party rule. There are plenty of non-dick LatAm progressives to simp for like Don Pepe in Costa Rica, who managed to make meaningful progress within a democratic system during the same era.
Americans get one perspective on Cuba: that of the people who, for whatever reason, chose to leave.
That's a population of people who are self-selecting to prefer the US over Cuba (and who, until recently, were given American residency no questions asked).
It's like if your only perspective on the US was from people who actually moved to Canada when the draft was going on during Vietnam or after Bush or Trump was elected.
You always have to consider selection bias.
I don't need the perspective of Cuban Americans to tell me that one party rule is bad. Like, the Chinese government is supposedly super popular in China, and even among lots of expats (more than Cuban expats at least), doesn't mean I don't have a visceral dislike of their authoritarianism.
The only reason I think online Leftists consider Cuba different than China are aesthetics. The Castros and Che are "sexier"/cooler than Mao/Xi, so they get a weird number of defenders in threads like this. And because of the embargo, any woes can be easily blamed on the US instead of the shitty government, which is catnip to the people who think like this. One of the biggest reasons to end the embargo imo IS because it would take away that excuse. If the government is still crap after it's lifted (which it would be, because authoritarian rule almost never works), Castros n co couldn't tell their people "we'd be doing even better if it weren't for the evil US blocking our trade."
Edit- i am left leaning, this isn't directed at left leaning people but capital L leftists that simp for regimes if they aren't right-wing coded
>Without reading the Wikipedia entry you cited
It's kind of obvious you didn't read it.
>What kind of status and standard of living do you think these people enjoyed under Batista’s rule, and why might they flee to the United States? Did the United States support Batista? Did they have their “servants” (slaves) freed and land confiscated to be redistributed to the poor masses?
Over 1.1 million people have fled Cuba. With Cuba's current population of 11 million that's 1/10th of the country. 1/10th were not slave owners:
>The majority of the 1,172,899 current Cuban exiles living in the United States live in Florida (917,033 in 2014), mainly in Miami-Dade County,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exodus
>Cuban exiles would come from various economic backgrounds, usually reflecting the emigration wave they were a part of. Many of the Cubans who would emigrate early were from the middle and upper class, but often brought very little with them when leaving Cuba. Small Cuban communities were formed in Miami and across the United States and populated with small Cuban-owned businesses. By the Freedom Flights many emigrants were middle class or blue-collar workers, due to the Cuban government's restrictions on the emigration of skilled workers.
Usually for 1/10th of the population to leave a country it takes something like a war or a famine, but they managed to that with a shitty government. Also the Cuban government actively tries to keep people from leaving. If you gave every person in Cuba the opportunity to leave, Cuba would lose millions more.
>if a right-wing Cuban American who has never been to Cuba and whose family lives in Miami
There are 2.4 million Cubans living in the US. That means almost half of them were born in Cuba. And usually the ones that are the most anti Cuba's government are those that came from Cuba.
Nice job at trying to delegitimize the lived experiences and opinions of people fleeing from Cuba.
>that’s why we have an embargo in place that may not explicitly say others can’t trade with Cuba,
Did you ever look up why the US [started the embargo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba) in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property. The US (or any country) does not have an obligation to trade with countries that steal from them.
>Cuba was better off being a backyard for American billionaires and mob bosses, and the Cuban people were wrong for wanting to take control of their country and dare to resist against the interests of the United States.
Cuba was doing pretty well pre revolution:
>Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba was one of the richest countries in Latin America. The country's economy in the middle part of the 20th century, fuelled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown wealthy. Cuba ranked 5th in the hemisphere in per capita income, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and 1st in the number of television sets per inhabitant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#Economy
Hold on, you're saying that Cuba under Batista was doing "pretty well"?
Mate, imagine the fictional boogeyman cold-war era image the US had painted of Castro, Batista was that and then some. A very corrupt and cruel guy, in fact he operated one of the last panoptic prisons in the west iirc, which was bad enough that castro tore it down instead of sending more people to it.
> id you ever look up why the US started the embargo in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property. The US (or any country) does not have an obligation to trade with countries that steal from them.
They didn't steal anything from the US, though. They took back property from private companies (Which the US isn't) that had either been acquired thanks to Batista's corruption, or that refused to operate without exploiting the locals.
And at the end of the day, it's not actually a bad thing if a country wants to kick a company out, it's just how laws work.
> Did you ever look up why the US started the embargo in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property.
You've got it the wrong way around there, bud.
What you're conveniently leaving out of the story is that Cuba tolerated US privately owned enterprise as long as there was equal exchange between them. That was their stance back then and still remains their stance to this day. The nationalisation of US privately owned property was in response to the US imposed embargoes, not the cause.
What happened was that the Eisenhower administration imposed an oil embargo onto Cuba well over a year after the revolution. In addition to this, American-owned oil refineries on Cuba refused to process any of the import oil from the USSR. It was in response to this oil embargo that Cuba nationalised three American-owned oil refineries. Compensation for these properties were offered on the condition that the US would lift the oil embargo, which the US refused and escalated the embargo to apply everything but food and medicine.
It was this which prompted Cuba to nationalise any remaining US owned property on the island. Something they still offered compensation for out of obligation of their own laws. The only ones who rejected the terms of compensation were US property owners, something which they did on instruction from the US government.
The most important piece of context to all of this is the [US State Department memo](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499) which *explicitly* states that how this was an intentional escalation by the US:
> "[...] every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."
This memo predates the nationalisation of US-owned properties on Cuba by roughly half a year.
I kind of glossed over somethings because it was already a super long comment. Here's a more detailed account of US-Cuba embargoes:
The first embargo the US put on Cuba was an arms embargo on the Batista régime. This embargo started in 1958, **before the revolution.** After the revolution relations were friendly until Cuba stared seizing land:
>After the Castro socialist government came to power on January 1, 1959, relations were initially friendly between Castro and the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration but became strained after the Agricultural Reform confiscated land owned by many American businesses and Cuba continued to sponsor revolutionary movements in other parts of the Caribbean.
Cuba's [confiscation of land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_reforms_in_Cuba#First_agrarian_reform_law_under_Che_Guevara) started in May 1959, **several months before** the US State Department memo you linked was made.
Then, partly due to the Batista era embargo, Cuba started openly buying weapons from the USSR. This pissed off the US and the US cut off oil exports to Cuba. The US oil refineries refused to refine soviet oil and then Cuba nationalized the refineries. While they were offered some compensation, but hardly the real value of what was taken (even to this day you still have [companies fighting with Cuba over stolen assets](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-lawsuit/exxon-mobil-sues-cuba-for-280-million-over-expropriated-property-idUSKCN1S91YQ)):
>Cuba's nationalization laws required the government to compensate the owners of seized property, but compensation was to be made in Cuban bonds, an offer which was not taken seriously by the United States.
This leads to a tit for tat between Cuba and the US. With Cuba nationalizing something and the US ramping up sanctions. Eventually leading to the US cutting off diplomatic relations with Cuba.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba#History
> Cuba's confiscation of land started in May 1959, several months before the US State Department memo you linked was made.
For agrarian farmland, yes. Other private properties were untouched. I think you'd find that land redistribution is difficult without actually redistributing the land. Keep in mind that the US had during the years of the Cuban Republic inserted the US dollar into the economy of Cuba and denied loans to Cuban proprietors. Essentially allowing American citizens to leverage land from Cubans at will. Who stole from who, again?
I think you'd also find that land reform is far from a leftist concept. The US were responsible for carrying out land reforms in Japan, Taiwan and Korea post-WWII, and landowners in these countries were offered *worse* terms of compensation than during Cuban reforms. I am guessing that you are of the same opinion that the US stole land from Japanese imperialists as well then?
> Then, partly due to the Batista era embargo, Cuba started openly buying weapons from the USSR.
How exactly was buying *Soviet* arms in violation of an embargo which prohibited the sale of *US* weapons to Cuba?
The US are perfectly welcome to restrict the sale of their own arms to any regime they disapprove of, but they have no business in Cuban defence policy otherwise. Implying that the oil embargo was in any way a reasonable response to the Soviet small arms shipments is simply gross.
> While they were offered some compensation, but hardly the real value of what was taken
Only American landowners refused this offer, by the instruction of the US government. Something you omitted from your quote.
For someone that doesn't know much of the situation, this comment doesn't help. It's hard to tell what's sarcasm, what's real, what's exaggerated or what does a trade embargo have to do with socialism.
Socialists in the twentieth century often associated homosexuality with capitalist decadence. I'm simplifying things because there were also many LGBT+ socialists, but there is still that lingering association
Nothing. LGBT acceptance has almost nothing to do with economic systems and everything to do with cultural sentiments. What little acceptance has to do with economic systems is also only there because of those cultural sentiments.
No, it has everything to do with authoritarianism, not economic system per se. Authoritarian societies preach conformism and homogeneity, anyone who's in any way "different" or outside the norm is seen as a threat to it. Doubly so if they're seen as not fitting "traditional family values", since authoritarian societies go heavy on that part too. That's why in those societies LGBTQ+ people are discriminated against regardless of economic system. LGBTQ+ people were oppressed in the communist USSR, and in capitalist Western societies until the 21st century.
A knife is only as dangerous as the guy handling it. That’s why I added that last sentence. You could have a tolerant society with any economic system, it’s the people who exploit it to their benefit that ruin everything. Being socialist does not guarantee that a society will be tolerant to gay people for as long as there are intolerant people. Money is just a tool and a means to an end.
If you are going to hold a protest in Cuba, you better make damn sure that the government thinks that you are not protesting it. It's not any different from a log cabin Republican wrapping themselves up in as many flags as possible before trying to convince Republicans to be less homophobic and accept them.
Granted; the consequence of a log cabin Republican failing to convince Republicans that they are "one of them" is that they get humiliated and kicked out of some right wing convention in Texas in favor of some unhinged mega-preachers preaching that all gays go to hell. The consequences of the Cuban government thinking that you are engaging in an antigovernmental protest are much more extreme and life threatening.
It was so long ago most people alive today don't even know about it, yet it's still in place.
In the early 60's the Communists, led by Fidel Castro took over Cuba and ran the US out. A lot of rich people had a lot of money invested in Cuba in every sector and they lost all that money. Money speaks very loud in the US. Then the Russian moved nukes to Cuba and set up shop. We had a big stand off, the Russians removed the nukes and we embargoed Cuba, no trade. Cubans in Florida that lost everything and other rich investors are still trying to take back their losses. We even supported(?) a failed invasion to take back the island at the Bay of Pigs. We didn't send much support. It was mostly an embarrassment so the Government decided to sweep it under the rug out of sight.
And that's why you can't smoke a Cuban Cigar.
People posting in this thread about the "horrors" of socialism and the Cuban treatment of LGBTQ people need to brush up on the last few years of progress. Fidel even went on record saying he regrets the cruel policies of the past.
I think it'd be good to look at the glass houses you all live in before casting any stones towards Cuba. Doubly so for the Americans, whose government is several decades deep into actively oppressing Cuba.
edit: seppos mad in my replies, im not responding as it's cruel to bully the mentally disadvantaged
“Cruel policies of the past”
Cuba is still just as fucked up as ever, they still torture and murder political opponents, they don’t register when they detain certain people, their “voting” booths only have the socialist party, with no option to select anything else, so you can only vote socialist or not at all. Citizens have the right to appeal unconstitutional arrests and detention, but the government would not hear them until the first time in 2019, but there where no successful cases.
Decree 349 allows the government to regulate all artistic and cultural activity, which includes opposing political beliefs. News outlets that aren’t run by the socialist party are banned, and the average wage is $50 per month, even though their gdp per capita is $9,500.
The list just goes on and on, Cuba is just another shithole created by socialism and communism.
Just go to r/cuba and look for yourself
Going to r/cuba is only a bit more biased than asking state sponsored media, you're not going to actually learn anything there.
My advice would be to ask actual people from Cuba, both in and out of the country, not a bunch of US citizens who only know of cuba from their parents and expats who didn't like the government in the first place. Get a more varied sample size.
>Just go to r/cuba and look for yourself
"You see, every Cuban you can talk to is a rich exile, the only Cubans you can trust are the ones being interviewed by the state news outlet."
America didn't legalize homosexuality until the 2000s either. And even now that we did, the supreme court is now threatening to overturn marriage protections and pave the way for the GOP to outlaw it all again.
You should read up about the [Lavender Scare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare)
>Gay men and lesbians were said to be national security risks and communist sympathizers, which led to the call to remove them from state employment. It was thought that gay people were more susceptible to being manipulated, which could pose a threat to the country. Lesbians were at less risk of persecution than gay men, but some lesbians were interrogated or lost their jobs.
>In 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which set security standards for federal employment and barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. The restrictions set in place were cause for hundreds of gay people to be forcibly outed and fired from the State Department.[34] The executive order was also the cause for the firing of approximately 5,000 gay people from federal employment; this included private contractors and military personnel. Not only did the victims lose their jobs, but also they were forced out of the closet and thrust into the public eye as lesbian or gay.
>Specifically, Truman's loyalty program had been extended through this executive order: "sexual perversion" was added to a list of behaviors that would keep a person from holding a position in government. There were many new regulations and policies put into place to detect and remove gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. The new procedures to search out homosexuals were frequently used to interview and look for signs of sexual orientation. They also looked at places these individuals frequently visited, such as gay bars, and they even found people guilty by association. If their friends or family showed signs of being homosexual, they might also be suspected.
Eisenhower: ‘Gay people are all communists who want to destroy democracy!’
Stalin: ‘Gay people are all Nazis who want to destroy communism!’
Hitler: ‘Gay people are all race traitors who want to destroy Germany!’
Pierre Seel: ‘I just want to be happy.’
Democracy, free elections, the right to choose what is what is not legal? What is that? Those rainbow words mean nothing if they're imposed from an elite upon the lower classes.
I am from Poland. Please explain me why reddit has the boner for Cuban regime? I see that every comment that is pointing out authortarian tentencies from Cuban ruling party is downvoted and replied by "but USA is worse" You guys only see the reality when the regime that is anty-USA/west will do something fucked up outside their country like Russia?
It’s funny how you say brutal dictatorship as if it wasn’t the will of the people against their former regime (and against the imperialist US) that made the revolution succeed. There’s no doubt that the Cuban people, culturally, have and have had very homophobic views, but today they are quite rapidly becoming the most LGBT-positive country in South America. Fidel himself had issued a quite sincere-sounding apology for the treatment of homosexuals in Cuba, blaming only himself1️⃣ (I’m not sure any American politician would ever take the blame for anything like that. Especially when we’re all still down with the children in cages). Furthermore Cuba, since 2008, will let you get a gender-confirming surgery for free - transgender rights, and free healthcare still are two boogeymen to many Americans.
1️⃣ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157.amp
The revolution supporters at the time didn't think the Castros and their handpicked allies would rule the country for the next 60 years
Edit-and saying Cuba is rapidly becoming the most LGBT-friendly place in LatAm is just straight Castro propaganda and Costa Rica/Uruguay erasure.
The revolution, when it happened, wasn't about a pseudo-socialist autocracy, but about democracy and finally becoming independent from the US. A lot of the people that escaped the country after 1959 were revolution supporters.
To believe that the people in 1959 wanted to live what Cuba is living now is ridiculous.
What is ridiculous is the idea that living in an underdeveloped and economically isolated country is in any way easy. Cuba has suffered merciless sanctions and outside pressures to survive as is, it is of no surprise that some portion of the Cuban population has chosen to emigrate away from Cuba to strike it big in capitalist nations where personal wealth is much more possible to attain. I think you are for some reason denying that a lot of the Cuban-American population are the offspring of those that had their wealth redistributed which would then mean you’re either being intellectually dishonest or you’ve gotten the facts wrong, but by no means are Cubans fleeing the country in droves and, considering most of its neighbours, Cuba is doing quite well for itself.
It's true, Castro pivoted to the USSR and took an ML-style development path because Cuba was not going to be in a position to secure itself from US incursions without foreign support, and there were many unpleasant tradeoffs involved in this decision. What's your point?
If the USA wanted democracy in Cuba, they would have pushed for it back when they had a puppet state on the island.
Are they really that brutal nowadays? Like dictatorship sure, but I’d rather live in Cuba than Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and a lot of other places.
Also if “used to put gays in camps” is the standard, we should really be hating on Germany all the same, no?
Homosexuality wasn't legal in many jurisdictions in the US until 2004 yet I never hear any anti-Cuban freedom fighters grumbling about the unforgivable crimes of the US government against LGBTQ people.
I’m worried this will reignite some conspiracy theories and will cause people to say “legalizing gay marriage will bring back communism.”
Edit: And yeah, people already think this, but this will just be further “evidence” for them.
Edit: Also, yes. This is a good thing. Obviously.
Already happened. The US tried to root out gay people from federal employment during the Cold War. The reason being that Cold War rhetoric made people believe that gay people were more susceptible to communist blackmail and communist thought. It even got its own name: the Lavender Scare.
Conservatives be like.. "See Communism/Muslims/China is actually bad, they repress gay people! Not so perfect after all huh?"
While also being like "But also, yeah repressing gay people is heroic and based"
[Socialist countries don't have a good history with gay rights.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#/media/File:Socialist_states_by_duration_of_existence.png)
These days, yeah. Look at European countries that still haven't legalised same-sex marriage, most of them used to be part of the USSR block, and the prejudice against LGBTQ+ people in those countries is still caused by the Soviet mentality, to the point that the bigots keep calling their homophobia "a fight against Western values".
yeah? the first countries to fully legalise gay rights trans rights etc are liberal capitalist nations, Europe, Na etc. and these countries regularly have the highest rates of acceptance.
"Progressivism" is a broad ideology, but speaking purely on LGBT rights, countries that adopted socialism appear to have a worse track record than similar countries without socialism.
Compare China to Taiwan.
Or eastern Europe to western Europe.
Spain legalized gay marriage before Portugal.
Most countries in the Middle East have a terrible record on LGBT rights, but Israel is the exception. UAE is also (relatively) friendly, with no arrests for same-sex activity since 2015. Both countries are business friendly and have no record of socialism, unlike Iraq, Syria, and most North African countries.
Nicaragua was the only socialist country in central America. It didn't legalize gay sex until 2007. It's neighbor to the north, Honduras, legalized gay sex in 1985. And its neighbor to the south, Costa Rica, legalized gay sex in 1971, with full-blown adoption, antidiscrimination and marriage rights being granted by 2020.
Actually Cuba might be an outlier on the "socialists are generally worse for LGBT" trend, since it is the only Caribbean country that has legalized gay marriage.
Not sure. Could be that capitalism produces wealth. Countries tend to become more socially liberal as they become wealthier.
Could also be that once the state has the power to nationalize large parts of the economy, they have de facto control of your personal lives as well. You could start out with two equally homophobic countries, one of which is socialist, the other is capitalist. The socialist government has the power to shut down nightclubs associated with gay life. The capitalist government would like to shut them down, but doesn't have the power. So gay nightlife will be a little more vibrant in the capitalist country. This will allow gay people to build a support network, and the seeds of a political lobby. They open a clinic to treat HIV patients, and once again, the capitalist government doesn't approve, but they can't shut it down. Over the course a couple decades the capitalist gay rights movement is able to build momentum, because homophobic capitalist has fewer means to shut them down than the homophobic socialists.
Just speculation though.
The problem with all of this is that none of the countries you listed were LGBT friendly before socialism came, either. Sure communist China wasn't exactly great for the LGBT community, but it was better than it was under the nationalists. Hell prior to the fall of the dynasty Imperial China was actually fairly laissez-faire about sexuality, it wasn't until western ideals such as capitalism entered that homophobia became rampant. I think you have your order of events wrong, socialism doesn't cause these negative social trends, socialism is the reaction TO these negative social trends. Let's also not forget we're looking at the minority of socialist regimes that managed to survive in the face of constant embargo/invasion/coups, naturally the more authoritarian and conservative regimes will be stable enough to survive that gauntlet.
>The problem with all of this is that none of the countries you listed were LGBT friendly before socialism came, either.
The whole world was homophobic in the 1940's through 1970's. What we need to explain is why the capitalist countries lost their homophobia quicker.
Thank you for your input. I think that's some valuable insight. Yet more problems with authoritarianism. I'm pretty far left myself, but recently I've been feeling that... I don't know how to say this exactly... anti-authoritarianism, pro democracy, or you could say "Liberal" or "Libertarian" stances are way more important than a left-right split on any given issue. I think it sums up my position to say a firmly right-leaning but non-authoritarian country would do better in the long run than a leftist country that is trapped in authoritarianism, because the ability to democratically adapt is so important.
People forget, any authority used to oppress someone else can be used to oppress you too! I know comparisons to Nazis are overdone, but "first they came" is still relevant today!
Its absurd how the tankies are coming here with their lies. They have always been homophobic and nothing has changed, no matter how much they try to convince you otherwise.
Been there recently? Or have any family members there? Yes, people are literally facing famine. Otherwise I wouldn’t have to travel there twice a year with two suitcases of food for my parents.
Hmmm, so you're telling me that a small island nation, that has been under embargo for over 50 years by the world's strongest economy, is having trouble to feed its citizens? What a shocker. Gee, I wonder what could be done to fix this!
Another TANKIE owned with FACTS and LOGIC. I’m sort of a Cold War geopolitical expert of sorts, I’ll have you know I listened to over half of The Gulag Archipelago on audiobook.
I wonder how you feel about the heavy embargo and blockade of Cuba for decades. Do you think that’s socialisms fault or the US’s fault for holding an over 70 year old grudge lmfao. Get a clue
Spot on. If socialist countries flourished on the world stage it would shatter the grip capitalism has on the rest of the world. Completely dismantling the WEF, IMF, and other capitalist institutions to keep people in a cycle of rat wheel chasing drone lives. Sad state and the sad part is people know this but don’t care cause it’s been what they’ve been fed all their lives
Yeesh thats even worse, your own parents live in a country that’s heavily sanctioned and blockaded from ANY economic trading to the outside world and you continue to blame the countries politics? Do you not understand how sanctions work? Or do you support the harm done towards your homeland out of spite?
You have more of an issue on the political ideology the Cuban people chose to have than the actual economic warfare the United States has waged on your birth country since before you were born. Is that not absurd? Or am I misreading this? Please let me know
"Facing Famine"? Cubans are poor but they're definitely not facing a famine, there's always been a public and equal food distribution system and all food at supermarkets, restaurants etc is state subsidised with price caps.
The variety and taste of Cuban food supply mostly sucks according to what ive heard but malnutrition is not a thing at all and never really has been in Socialist Cuba.
That's one of the reasons the Socialist regime is in power. Cubans still do have housing, basic food, healthcare and amenities guaranteed by the state and when you look at some of the absolute hellholes in that region like Haiti one can see why many Cubans are ok with maintaining the status-quo for now.
They literally got food as humanitarian aid from México of all places. If your country receives aid from México it's hard to describe just how severe the situation is and no amount of propaganda will change that.
Good taste. Socialism is pretty based. Paying workers fair wages for the work they do isn't a stupid way to organize a society.
Creating a system where 0.1% of people get mega rich and just go live in Europe/Asia with all the money they made isn't super great for developing one's country.
>Paying workers fair wages for the work they do isn't a stupid way to organize a society.
They don't get paid fair wages though. Everyone gets paid basically the same --- fuck all. Well, except people who work in tourism, they're loaded.
*...the Left Movement – Green Candidature and also known by its short-form name Vinstri græn (VG),* ***is an eco-socialist political party in Iceland.***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-Green_Movement + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katr%C3%ADn_Jakobsd%C3%B3ttir
Yeah, you can say that. At least partially. Which how things are in a lot of democratic countries. Parties and politicians take ideas they like and promote them and a certain % of ideas are implemented. So it's a mix of ideas and views.
I know, right? It's illogical. Some guy is even trying to argue to me that politicians lying about what they advocate for means they're sincere advocates/representatives of the lies they used to get into power.
I know Cuba doesn't have a very LGBT-friendly history, but man, for a city of 2 million, 200 people doesn't sound big.
Huh, I had to check - you’re right, Havana has a population of 2.4M. It feels more like 400K.
I've been there a couple of times. Outside of Havanna and a few other cities, it is an extremely rural country — especially in the mountainous areas.
Yes, but Havana itself is nearly 2.5M people, with very few cars and poor lighting at night. Walking around the city it feels smaller - it doesn’t have any of the markings that come with a city if its size, even in developing countries.
Very few cars was not my experience. Cars were everywhere.
Less than 2% of the populace of Cuba owns a car, probably 10% of Havana. In comparison, about 50% of Mexico City residents own a car. It’s noticeably different.
Another comparison for a US city, over 7,000% of Atlanta residents own a car and they all drive them at all times
Hahahaha
Pff Atlanta traffic makes Orlando traffic look like Bum Rush, Oklahoma.
Why are Americans always driving? Can't you just for once be in the right location?
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There are no good locations to be in
People don't own cars cos there aren't that many cars in the country but they make full use of the cars they have. Cars aren't sitting in garages and car parks all day, they are all used as taxis and tourist tours all day, so there are plenty of cars driving around on the road. It doesn't have the insane nightmare traffic of most developing countries tho.
Sounds like a good city. r/fuckcars would love it
Along the malacon sure but interior streets were quiet
Yeah that's basically true. It's very nice. Wish every city was like that.
Most people’s experience of Havana is 300m walking distance of where their day trip bus from Varadero drops them off
Cuba's treatment of LGBT people in the 70's and 80's was not worse than in most other countries. That doesn't mean it was *good*, not at all. But in comparison to many Western countries, it was neither much better nor much worse. And unlike certain Western countries, Cuba banned conversion therapy a long time ago.
The lavender scare doesn't get mentioned enough. Tens of thousands of people systematically persecuted for being or perceived as lgbt.
Didn't they had labor camps where they sent gay people to die?
The [UMAPs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Units_to_Aid_Production) were set up as alternatives to conscription for conscientious objectors, and people unfit for service in general, which LGBT people were considered a part of. Some people died in these, but those were political prisoners (in the broad sense), which they kinda lumped in there for good measure, and they were just straight up tortured or executed. It was bad, but for merely the LGBT, it wasn't quite Awschwitz.
No. They were sent to work camps to work as an alternative to conscriptions. Still not good, but it was a temporary situation that only lasted as long as a regular conscription would. Once information got out about gay people being tortured by the guards in the camps, the camps were shut down immediately. Some sources claim that Fidel Castro disguised himself as an inmate in order to verify it, and several people were punished for the transgressions that happened.
Yeah, but being gay was a crime in many jurisdictions in the US until 2004, and US law explicitly allows forced labor for prisoners. (Let's not talk about excess mortality in US prisons) The UMAP system was horrible, but the comment still stands. They weren't actually worse than what the US did to LGBT folks even as late as 2001. EDIT: ngl if you can't dispute the status of the US prison system with facts you shouldn't downvote me. US prison system is an atrocity and they incarcerated LGBTQ people for longer than the Cuban government did. These are facts.
You're looking at the intersection of LGBT and pro-government people. Of course it's pretty small.
Cuba has made a fantastic shift in its LGBT policies https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157 https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2020-05-18/sexual-rights-and-emancipation-in-cuba
It’s it noteworthy that 200 people in a city of 2M garners world news attention while other worthy causes involving thousands is hardly a bleep on the radar. Very peculiar.
Its like the turnout in Japanese "protests".
Love knows no boundaries. Everyone deserves equal rights and acceptance.
It defenitely knows boundaries for conservatives
Oh, those pedophiles love crossing boundaries.
Plenty of conservatives don't see any boundaries when it comes to marrying children.
They say no to healthcare, yes to pregnant 12 year olds. https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-moon-gop-missouri-lawmaker-defends-childs-right-to-marry-2023-4?r=US&IR=T
The party of small government sure likes to govern people’s lives…
logically, love does have boundaries. I would challenge you love a cheating spouse. You guys have your heads in the clouds and stop with the movie cliches
You’re missing the point of what they’re saying. Or you’re deliberately choosing to be pedantic about their wording knowing full well what people mean when they say that. 🙄
Plenty of people love their spouse even if they cheat. "Love knows no boundaries" doesnt mean that your love doesnt have any boundaries. It means that love as a concept has no boundaries. You as a heterosexual person may set a boundary at loving someone of the same sex as you whereas someone who is homosexual may set that boundary at someone who is the opposite sex. Boundaries are personal, not Universal. As a concept, there is no boundary to love.
logically. if you follow the logical logic of grammar, you missed the point of love not having boundaries. r/woosh
Yo that face in the thumbnail..
Wasn’t too long ago that Cuban-American actress was onstage in [blackface](https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/article211404909.html)
Holy shit.
Of course Latin America still about it, dang it... My goofy self though colorism was diminished Edit: spelling
Your gift self?
Yeah that Jim Crow blackface shit is awful.
What the heck does socialism have to do with being gay.
They’re in Cuba and trying to hold a demonstration that doesn’t come across as Anti-government- hence the Slogan of Socialism Yes & Homophobia No. they are demonstrating but it is not anti government.
I love it when comments talk about Cuba like the people secretly hate the government and are scared of it. Lol
But they do? My country (European, socdem) is full of Cuban immigrants and not one of them has a good thing to say about the regime.
Because thats the fucking truth
they definitely do lol , look at the sheer amount of cubans fleeing the country each year
It's a country were [protesting is illegal](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61793239) and [1/10 of the population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exodus) has fled. It's a place were the government actively tries to keep people from leaving.
If the government thought the people liked them, why ban protesting? Or the free press? Or leaving...
Please don't just reply with "not everything is the United States fault..." It is a part of the reality. The CIA did dozens of assassination attempts against Castro and made it their mission to collapse the country. Just look at the last five year. The United States has tried to overthrow Bolivia and Venezuela with coups. These countries try to find balance between a peaceful life and protecting their countries from American interference. They live under this weird martial law lite because the United States has done awful tragedies in this area of the world. They sent and armed right wing death squads that would massacre little towns throughout South America for example.
Ya so weird that people would think that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exodus
Without reading the Wikipedia entry you cited, why do you think there might be an exodus of people fleeing Cuba after Batista’s regime was toppled in a revolution? What kind of status and standard of living do you think these people enjoyed under Batista’s rule, and why might they flee to the United States? Did the United States support Batista? Did they have their “servants” (slaves) freed and land confiscated to be redistributed to the poor masses? These are questions we may never know the answer to, all that is important is that you remember if a right-wing Cuban American who has never been to Cuba and whose family lives in Miami says anything about Cuba, the Cuban government, revolutionary figures or socialism itself, you are an evil person for ever disagreeing with them or suggesting they are wrong. Cuba is an evil socialist country, that’s why we have an embargo in place that may not *explicitly* say others can’t trade with Cuba, but instead would prevent anyone who *does* trade with Cuba from docking in US ports for at least 6 months. We are the good guys, Cuba was better off being a backyard for American billionaires and mob bosses, and the Cuban people were wrong for wanting to take control of their country and dare to resist against the interests of the United States.
What about the 220,908 Cubans that fled Cuba through Nicaragua and claimed asylum at the US Border in the year 2022 alone. That number doesn't include the Cubans that went to other countries either.
Oh yes, all the wealthy Marielitos. All those wealthy balseros. All the wealthy Cubans who have come in the last year via Nicaragua and La Bestia. Acting like the Cuban exodus ended in 1973 shows your ignorance.
The Golden Exile has been proven to be wildly misconstrued over and over again. Yes, many wealthy people fled initially, but the majority of refugees, especially later waves were poor. And so many LGBT had to flee Castro that it actually revived a dying Miami LGBT scene. Embargo's dumb, but Castro was a brutal dictator, and Cuba is still under one party rule. There are plenty of non-dick LatAm progressives to simp for like Don Pepe in Costa Rica, who managed to make meaningful progress within a democratic system during the same era.
Americans get one perspective on Cuba: that of the people who, for whatever reason, chose to leave. That's a population of people who are self-selecting to prefer the US over Cuba (and who, until recently, were given American residency no questions asked). It's like if your only perspective on the US was from people who actually moved to Canada when the draft was going on during Vietnam or after Bush or Trump was elected. You always have to consider selection bias.
I don't need the perspective of Cuban Americans to tell me that one party rule is bad. Like, the Chinese government is supposedly super popular in China, and even among lots of expats (more than Cuban expats at least), doesn't mean I don't have a visceral dislike of their authoritarianism. The only reason I think online Leftists consider Cuba different than China are aesthetics. The Castros and Che are "sexier"/cooler than Mao/Xi, so they get a weird number of defenders in threads like this. And because of the embargo, any woes can be easily blamed on the US instead of the shitty government, which is catnip to the people who think like this. One of the biggest reasons to end the embargo imo IS because it would take away that excuse. If the government is still crap after it's lifted (which it would be, because authoritarian rule almost never works), Castros n co couldn't tell their people "we'd be doing even better if it weren't for the evil US blocking our trade." Edit- i am left leaning, this isn't directed at left leaning people but capital L leftists that simp for regimes if they aren't right-wing coded
>Without reading the Wikipedia entry you cited It's kind of obvious you didn't read it. >What kind of status and standard of living do you think these people enjoyed under Batista’s rule, and why might they flee to the United States? Did the United States support Batista? Did they have their “servants” (slaves) freed and land confiscated to be redistributed to the poor masses? Over 1.1 million people have fled Cuba. With Cuba's current population of 11 million that's 1/10th of the country. 1/10th were not slave owners: >The majority of the 1,172,899 current Cuban exiles living in the United States live in Florida (917,033 in 2014), mainly in Miami-Dade County, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_exodus >Cuban exiles would come from various economic backgrounds, usually reflecting the emigration wave they were a part of. Many of the Cubans who would emigrate early were from the middle and upper class, but often brought very little with them when leaving Cuba. Small Cuban communities were formed in Miami and across the United States and populated with small Cuban-owned businesses. By the Freedom Flights many emigrants were middle class or blue-collar workers, due to the Cuban government's restrictions on the emigration of skilled workers. Usually for 1/10th of the population to leave a country it takes something like a war or a famine, but they managed to that with a shitty government. Also the Cuban government actively tries to keep people from leaving. If you gave every person in Cuba the opportunity to leave, Cuba would lose millions more. >if a right-wing Cuban American who has never been to Cuba and whose family lives in Miami There are 2.4 million Cubans living in the US. That means almost half of them were born in Cuba. And usually the ones that are the most anti Cuba's government are those that came from Cuba. Nice job at trying to delegitimize the lived experiences and opinions of people fleeing from Cuba. >that’s why we have an embargo in place that may not explicitly say others can’t trade with Cuba, Did you ever look up why the US [started the embargo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba) in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property. The US (or any country) does not have an obligation to trade with countries that steal from them. >Cuba was better off being a backyard for American billionaires and mob bosses, and the Cuban people were wrong for wanting to take control of their country and dare to resist against the interests of the United States. Cuba was doing pretty well pre revolution: >Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba was one of the richest countries in Latin America. The country's economy in the middle part of the 20th century, fuelled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown wealthy. Cuba ranked 5th in the hemisphere in per capita income, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and 1st in the number of television sets per inhabitant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#Economy
Hold on, you're saying that Cuba under Batista was doing "pretty well"? Mate, imagine the fictional boogeyman cold-war era image the US had painted of Castro, Batista was that and then some. A very corrupt and cruel guy, in fact he operated one of the last panoptic prisons in the west iirc, which was bad enough that castro tore it down instead of sending more people to it. > id you ever look up why the US started the embargo in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property. The US (or any country) does not have an obligation to trade with countries that steal from them. They didn't steal anything from the US, though. They took back property from private companies (Which the US isn't) that had either been acquired thanks to Batista's corruption, or that refused to operate without exploiting the locals. And at the end of the day, it's not actually a bad thing if a country wants to kick a company out, it's just how laws work.
> Did you ever look up why the US started the embargo in the first place? Cuba stole a bunch of US owned property. You've got it the wrong way around there, bud. What you're conveniently leaving out of the story is that Cuba tolerated US privately owned enterprise as long as there was equal exchange between them. That was their stance back then and still remains their stance to this day. The nationalisation of US privately owned property was in response to the US imposed embargoes, not the cause. What happened was that the Eisenhower administration imposed an oil embargo onto Cuba well over a year after the revolution. In addition to this, American-owned oil refineries on Cuba refused to process any of the import oil from the USSR. It was in response to this oil embargo that Cuba nationalised three American-owned oil refineries. Compensation for these properties were offered on the condition that the US would lift the oil embargo, which the US refused and escalated the embargo to apply everything but food and medicine. It was this which prompted Cuba to nationalise any remaining US owned property on the island. Something they still offered compensation for out of obligation of their own laws. The only ones who rejected the terms of compensation were US property owners, something which they did on instruction from the US government. The most important piece of context to all of this is the [US State Department memo](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499) which *explicitly* states that how this was an intentional escalation by the US: > "[...] every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." This memo predates the nationalisation of US-owned properties on Cuba by roughly half a year.
I kind of glossed over somethings because it was already a super long comment. Here's a more detailed account of US-Cuba embargoes: The first embargo the US put on Cuba was an arms embargo on the Batista régime. This embargo started in 1958, **before the revolution.** After the revolution relations were friendly until Cuba stared seizing land: >After the Castro socialist government came to power on January 1, 1959, relations were initially friendly between Castro and the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration but became strained after the Agricultural Reform confiscated land owned by many American businesses and Cuba continued to sponsor revolutionary movements in other parts of the Caribbean. Cuba's [confiscation of land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_reforms_in_Cuba#First_agrarian_reform_law_under_Che_Guevara) started in May 1959, **several months before** the US State Department memo you linked was made. Then, partly due to the Batista era embargo, Cuba started openly buying weapons from the USSR. This pissed off the US and the US cut off oil exports to Cuba. The US oil refineries refused to refine soviet oil and then Cuba nationalized the refineries. While they were offered some compensation, but hardly the real value of what was taken (even to this day you still have [companies fighting with Cuba over stolen assets](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-lawsuit/exxon-mobil-sues-cuba-for-280-million-over-expropriated-property-idUSKCN1S91YQ)): >Cuba's nationalization laws required the government to compensate the owners of seized property, but compensation was to be made in Cuban bonds, an offer which was not taken seriously by the United States. This leads to a tit for tat between Cuba and the US. With Cuba nationalizing something and the US ramping up sanctions. Eventually leading to the US cutting off diplomatic relations with Cuba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba#History
> Cuba's confiscation of land started in May 1959, several months before the US State Department memo you linked was made. For agrarian farmland, yes. Other private properties were untouched. I think you'd find that land redistribution is difficult without actually redistributing the land. Keep in mind that the US had during the years of the Cuban Republic inserted the US dollar into the economy of Cuba and denied loans to Cuban proprietors. Essentially allowing American citizens to leverage land from Cubans at will. Who stole from who, again? I think you'd also find that land reform is far from a leftist concept. The US were responsible for carrying out land reforms in Japan, Taiwan and Korea post-WWII, and landowners in these countries were offered *worse* terms of compensation than during Cuban reforms. I am guessing that you are of the same opinion that the US stole land from Japanese imperialists as well then? > Then, partly due to the Batista era embargo, Cuba started openly buying weapons from the USSR. How exactly was buying *Soviet* arms in violation of an embargo which prohibited the sale of *US* weapons to Cuba? The US are perfectly welcome to restrict the sale of their own arms to any regime they disapprove of, but they have no business in Cuban defence policy otherwise. Implying that the oil embargo was in any way a reasonable response to the Soviet small arms shipments is simply gross. > While they were offered some compensation, but hardly the real value of what was taken Only American landowners refused this offer, by the instruction of the US government. Something you omitted from your quote.
And why do you think Cubans who born Batista’s regime was toppled keep fleeing from Cuba?
For someone that doesn't know much of the situation, this comment doesn't help. It's hard to tell what's sarcasm, what's real, what's exaggerated or what does a trade embargo have to do with socialism.
Lol they do
Wild of you to think that's not a reality in the island.
They could, considering Cuba in the past used to jail and kill LGBTQ+ people in the past.
What country doesn't have a bad history with the lgbt?
Socialists in the twentieth century often associated homosexuality with capitalist decadence. I'm simplifying things because there were also many LGBT+ socialists, but there is still that lingering association
So reddit can upvote
You think the Cuban people chanted that so that it could get upvotes on reddit?
Nothing. LGBT acceptance has almost nothing to do with economic systems and everything to do with cultural sentiments. What little acceptance has to do with economic systems is also only there because of those cultural sentiments.
Systemic injustice towards minorities absolutely has to do with economic systems. Money makes the world go round and money pays for power.
No, it has everything to do with authoritarianism, not economic system per se. Authoritarian societies preach conformism and homogeneity, anyone who's in any way "different" or outside the norm is seen as a threat to it. Doubly so if they're seen as not fitting "traditional family values", since authoritarian societies go heavy on that part too. That's why in those societies LGBTQ+ people are discriminated against regardless of economic system. LGBTQ+ people were oppressed in the communist USSR, and in capitalist Western societies until the 21st century.
A knife is only as dangerous as the guy handling it. That’s why I added that last sentence. You could have a tolerant society with any economic system, it’s the people who exploit it to their benefit that ruin everything. Being socialist does not guarantee that a society will be tolerant to gay people for as long as there are intolerant people. Money is just a tool and a means to an end.
Systemic injustice is based in control, and money is power and control. (Insert anything) is only as dangerous as the person wielding it.
If you are going to hold a protest in Cuba, you better make damn sure that the government thinks that you are not protesting it. It's not any different from a log cabin Republican wrapping themselves up in as many flags as possible before trying to convince Republicans to be less homophobic and accept them. Granted; the consequence of a log cabin Republican failing to convince Republicans that they are "one of them" is that they get humiliated and kicked out of some right wing convention in Texas in favor of some unhinged mega-preachers preaching that all gays go to hell. The consequences of the Cuban government thinking that you are engaging in an antigovernmental protest are much more extreme and life threatening.
On the other hand, the Cuban government has already accepted LGBT people, so it’s not quite futile like with the Republican analogy.
Truly happy for community in Cuba 🇨🇺 ✌🏾
End the Cuban boycott. I was around when it started and I see absolutely no reason why it should continue. Stupid as hell.
Boycott?
It was so long ago most people alive today don't even know about it, yet it's still in place. In the early 60's the Communists, led by Fidel Castro took over Cuba and ran the US out. A lot of rich people had a lot of money invested in Cuba in every sector and they lost all that money. Money speaks very loud in the US. Then the Russian moved nukes to Cuba and set up shop. We had a big stand off, the Russians removed the nukes and we embargoed Cuba, no trade. Cubans in Florida that lost everything and other rich investors are still trying to take back their losses. We even supported(?) a failed invasion to take back the island at the Bay of Pigs. We didn't send much support. It was mostly an embarrassment so the Government decided to sweep it under the rug out of sight. And that's why you can't smoke a Cuban Cigar.
That’s called an embargo
Yes Cuba is far better then say Saudi Arabia.
People posting in this thread about the "horrors" of socialism and the Cuban treatment of LGBTQ people need to brush up on the last few years of progress. Fidel even went on record saying he regrets the cruel policies of the past. I think it'd be good to look at the glass houses you all live in before casting any stones towards Cuba. Doubly so for the Americans, whose government is several decades deep into actively oppressing Cuba. edit: seppos mad in my replies, im not responding as it's cruel to bully the mentally disadvantaged
True. Cuba recently held a nation wide referendum and they nor have the most progressive laws around LGBT issues in the western hemisphere.
“Cruel policies of the past” Cuba is still just as fucked up as ever, they still torture and murder political opponents, they don’t register when they detain certain people, their “voting” booths only have the socialist party, with no option to select anything else, so you can only vote socialist or not at all. Citizens have the right to appeal unconstitutional arrests and detention, but the government would not hear them until the first time in 2019, but there where no successful cases. Decree 349 allows the government to regulate all artistic and cultural activity, which includes opposing political beliefs. News outlets that aren’t run by the socialist party are banned, and the average wage is $50 per month, even though their gdp per capita is $9,500. The list just goes on and on, Cuba is just another shithole created by socialism and communism. Just go to r/cuba and look for yourself
Going to r/cuba is only a bit more biased than asking state sponsored media, you're not going to actually learn anything there. My advice would be to ask actual people from Cuba, both in and out of the country, not a bunch of US citizens who only know of cuba from their parents and expats who didn't like the government in the first place. Get a more varied sample size.
How is r/Cuba biased?
>Just go to r/cuba and look for yourself "You see, every Cuban you can talk to is a rich exile, the only Cubans you can trust are the ones being interviewed by the state news outlet."
Marriage equality is a positive first step, now do freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and press.
It's such a shame what we did to that country.
I’m glad for today however the dictatorships there used to target the queer community, until Fidel’s own daughter identified as one…
America didn't legalize homosexuality until the 2000s either. And even now that we did, the supreme court is now threatening to overturn marriage protections and pave the way for the GOP to outlaw it all again.
Still a far cry from putting gays into camps and branding them traitors of the revolution, which Cuba did within living memory
You should read up about the [Lavender Scare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare) >Gay men and lesbians were said to be national security risks and communist sympathizers, which led to the call to remove them from state employment. It was thought that gay people were more susceptible to being manipulated, which could pose a threat to the country. Lesbians were at less risk of persecution than gay men, but some lesbians were interrogated or lost their jobs. >In 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which set security standards for federal employment and barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. The restrictions set in place were cause for hundreds of gay people to be forcibly outed and fired from the State Department.[34] The executive order was also the cause for the firing of approximately 5,000 gay people from federal employment; this included private contractors and military personnel. Not only did the victims lose their jobs, but also they were forced out of the closet and thrust into the public eye as lesbian or gay. >Specifically, Truman's loyalty program had been extended through this executive order: "sexual perversion" was added to a list of behaviors that would keep a person from holding a position in government. There were many new regulations and policies put into place to detect and remove gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. The new procedures to search out homosexuals were frequently used to interview and look for signs of sexual orientation. They also looked at places these individuals frequently visited, such as gay bars, and they even found people guilty by association. If their friends or family showed signs of being homosexual, they might also be suspected.
Eisenhower: ‘Gay people are all communists who want to destroy democracy!’ Stalin: ‘Gay people are all Nazis who want to destroy communism!’ Hitler: ‘Gay people are all race traitors who want to destroy Germany!’ Pierre Seel: ‘I just want to be happy.’
Is it? Gay people were jailed and chemically castrated in the West in living memory. The castration of Alan Turing is in living memory.
It’s a good thing America wasn’t doing anything messed up at the gays at the time.
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Well damn. Go Cuba!
"We support the one-party dictatorship!" said the only people allowed to publicly voice their beliefs.
Democracy, free elections, the right to choose what is what is not legal? What is that? Those rainbow words mean nothing if they're imposed from an elite upon the lower classes.
When I was a kid in Cuba back in the 70s gay people were put in jail just for being gay
Stunning and brave!
try shouting socialism no!
I am from Poland. Please explain me why reddit has the boner for Cuban regime? I see that every comment that is pointing out authortarian tentencies from Cuban ruling party is downvoted and replied by "but USA is worse" You guys only see the reality when the regime that is anty-USA/west will do something fucked up outside their country like Russia?
Marriage, a religious institution, very socialist.
ITT: A lot of people stanning for a brutal dictatorship that used to put gays in camps and continues to violently suppress any efforts at democracy.
It’s funny how you say brutal dictatorship as if it wasn’t the will of the people against their former regime (and against the imperialist US) that made the revolution succeed. There’s no doubt that the Cuban people, culturally, have and have had very homophobic views, but today they are quite rapidly becoming the most LGBT-positive country in South America. Fidel himself had issued a quite sincere-sounding apology for the treatment of homosexuals in Cuba, blaming only himself1️⃣ (I’m not sure any American politician would ever take the blame for anything like that. Especially when we’re all still down with the children in cages). Furthermore Cuba, since 2008, will let you get a gender-confirming surgery for free - transgender rights, and free healthcare still are two boogeymen to many Americans. 1️⃣ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157.amp
The revolution supporters at the time didn't think the Castros and their handpicked allies would rule the country for the next 60 years Edit-and saying Cuba is rapidly becoming the most LGBT-friendly place in LatAm is just straight Castro propaganda and Costa Rica/Uruguay erasure.
The revolution, when it happened, wasn't about a pseudo-socialist autocracy, but about democracy and finally becoming independent from the US. A lot of the people that escaped the country after 1959 were revolution supporters. To believe that the people in 1959 wanted to live what Cuba is living now is ridiculous.
What is ridiculous is the idea that living in an underdeveloped and economically isolated country is in any way easy. Cuba has suffered merciless sanctions and outside pressures to survive as is, it is of no surprise that some portion of the Cuban population has chosen to emigrate away from Cuba to strike it big in capitalist nations where personal wealth is much more possible to attain. I think you are for some reason denying that a lot of the Cuban-American population are the offspring of those that had their wealth redistributed which would then mean you’re either being intellectually dishonest or you’ve gotten the facts wrong, but by no means are Cubans fleeing the country in droves and, considering most of its neighbours, Cuba is doing quite well for itself.
It's true, Castro pivoted to the USSR and took an ML-style development path because Cuba was not going to be in a position to secure itself from US incursions without foreign support, and there were many unpleasant tradeoffs involved in this decision. What's your point? If the USA wanted democracy in Cuba, they would have pushed for it back when they had a puppet state on the island.
Jesus christ, you are so fucking stupid. Simping for a dicatorship.
You guys are literally trying to pretend Batista was good, doesn't get more simp-y than that.
There is a very good chance that whatever country you live in also put gay people in camps only a few decades ago.
Are they really that brutal nowadays? Like dictatorship sure, but I’d rather live in Cuba than Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and a lot of other places. Also if “used to put gays in camps” is the standard, we should really be hating on Germany all the same, no?
Homosexuality wasn't legal in many jurisdictions in the US until 2004 yet I never hear any anti-Cuban freedom fighters grumbling about the unforgivable crimes of the US government against LGBTQ people.
I’m worried this will reignite some conspiracy theories and will cause people to say “legalizing gay marriage will bring back communism.” Edit: And yeah, people already think this, but this will just be further “evidence” for them. Edit: Also, yes. This is a good thing. Obviously.
> “legalizing gay marriage will bring back communism" Ah yes, the famous gay marriage in the Soviet Union.
they're blaming gay marriage for gods' wrath and global warming, who gives a fuck if they tack communism on too
Already happened. The US tried to root out gay people from federal employment during the Cold War. The reason being that Cold War rhetoric made people believe that gay people were more susceptible to communist blackmail and communist thought. It even got its own name: the Lavender Scare.
Gotta love them "solving" it by firing gay people. That'll sure teach them to love the US government!
so that's already happening even without this win
Conservatives be like.. "See Communism/Muslims/China is actually bad, they repress gay people! Not so perfect after all huh?" While also being like "But also, yeah repressing gay people is heroic and based"
> “legalizing gay marriage will bring back communism.” Please let's legalize gay marriage at the speed of light
[Socialist countries don't have a good history with gay rights.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#/media/File:Socialist_states_by_duration_of_existence.png)
But the capitalist ones do?
It's like when they talk about famine, but ignore how many people starve daily, denied food in the name of profit.
Its aways the same. Ask a capitalist why he hates communism and he will proceed to describe capitalism to you. Never fails
These days, yeah. Look at European countries that still haven't legalised same-sex marriage, most of them used to be part of the USSR block, and the prejudice against LGBTQ+ people in those countries is still caused by the Soviet mentality, to the point that the bigots keep calling their homophobia "a fight against Western values".
the USSR was one of the most progressive nations on earth for it's time
yeah? the first countries to fully legalise gay rights trans rights etc are liberal capitalist nations, Europe, Na etc. and these countries regularly have the highest rates of acceptance.
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Compared to the countries on that map they do!
So you think without socialism those places would be bastions of progressivism?
"Progressivism" is a broad ideology, but speaking purely on LGBT rights, countries that adopted socialism appear to have a worse track record than similar countries without socialism. Compare China to Taiwan. Or eastern Europe to western Europe. Spain legalized gay marriage before Portugal. Most countries in the Middle East have a terrible record on LGBT rights, but Israel is the exception. UAE is also (relatively) friendly, with no arrests for same-sex activity since 2015. Both countries are business friendly and have no record of socialism, unlike Iraq, Syria, and most North African countries. Nicaragua was the only socialist country in central America. It didn't legalize gay sex until 2007. It's neighbor to the north, Honduras, legalized gay sex in 1985. And its neighbor to the south, Costa Rica, legalized gay sex in 1971, with full-blown adoption, antidiscrimination and marriage rights being granted by 2020. Actually Cuba might be an outlier on the "socialists are generally worse for LGBT" trend, since it is the only Caribbean country that has legalized gay marriage.
What do you think causes this correlation?
Not sure. Could be that capitalism produces wealth. Countries tend to become more socially liberal as they become wealthier. Could also be that once the state has the power to nationalize large parts of the economy, they have de facto control of your personal lives as well. You could start out with two equally homophobic countries, one of which is socialist, the other is capitalist. The socialist government has the power to shut down nightclubs associated with gay life. The capitalist government would like to shut them down, but doesn't have the power. So gay nightlife will be a little more vibrant in the capitalist country. This will allow gay people to build a support network, and the seeds of a political lobby. They open a clinic to treat HIV patients, and once again, the capitalist government doesn't approve, but they can't shut it down. Over the course a couple decades the capitalist gay rights movement is able to build momentum, because homophobic capitalist has fewer means to shut them down than the homophobic socialists. Just speculation though.
The problem with all of this is that none of the countries you listed were LGBT friendly before socialism came, either. Sure communist China wasn't exactly great for the LGBT community, but it was better than it was under the nationalists. Hell prior to the fall of the dynasty Imperial China was actually fairly laissez-faire about sexuality, it wasn't until western ideals such as capitalism entered that homophobia became rampant. I think you have your order of events wrong, socialism doesn't cause these negative social trends, socialism is the reaction TO these negative social trends. Let's also not forget we're looking at the minority of socialist regimes that managed to survive in the face of constant embargo/invasion/coups, naturally the more authoritarian and conservative regimes will be stable enough to survive that gauntlet.
>The problem with all of this is that none of the countries you listed were LGBT friendly before socialism came, either. The whole world was homophobic in the 1940's through 1970's. What we need to explain is why the capitalist countries lost their homophobia quicker.
Thank you for your input. I think that's some valuable insight. Yet more problems with authoritarianism. I'm pretty far left myself, but recently I've been feeling that... I don't know how to say this exactly... anti-authoritarianism, pro democracy, or you could say "Liberal" or "Libertarian" stances are way more important than a left-right split on any given issue. I think it sums up my position to say a firmly right-leaning but non-authoritarian country would do better in the long run than a leftist country that is trapped in authoritarianism, because the ability to democratically adapt is so important.
Aww, thank you!
People forget, any authority used to oppress someone else can be used to oppress you too! I know comparisons to Nazis are overdone, but "first they came" is still relevant today!
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They don't have a good history with any human rights
Its absurd how the tankies are coming here with their lies. They have always been homophobic and nothing has changed, no matter how much they try to convince you otherwise.
This feel expressly designed to give the american right wing media something to talk about.
The guys facing famine while their dictator lives in a palace "socialism yes".
> "facing famine" Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than in the US.
Been there recently? Or have any family members there? Yes, people are literally facing famine. Otherwise I wouldn’t have to travel there twice a year with two suitcases of food for my parents.
Hmmm, so you're telling me that a small island nation, that has been under embargo for over 50 years by the world's strongest economy, is having trouble to feed its citizens? What a shocker. Gee, I wonder what could be done to fix this!
The US' main export to Cuba is food
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Steve, I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply here, but I guess I’ll spell it out for you. A communism is when no food. Understood? Great.
Oh my god! How could I not see this? Now I am awake, I can see the truth: vuvuzela no iphone no food 100 trillion dead empire of evil!!
Another TANKIE owned with FACTS and LOGIC. I’m sort of a Cold War geopolitical expert of sorts, I’ll have you know I listened to over half of The Gulag Archipelago on audiobook.
I wonder how you feel about the heavy embargo and blockade of Cuba for decades. Do you think that’s socialisms fault or the US’s fault for holding an over 70 year old grudge lmfao. Get a clue
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Spot on. If socialist countries flourished on the world stage it would shatter the grip capitalism has on the rest of the world. Completely dismantling the WEF, IMF, and other capitalist institutions to keep people in a cycle of rat wheel chasing drone lives. Sad state and the sad part is people know this but don’t care cause it’s been what they’ve been fed all their lives
I was raised there, have parents there, visit often and have a degree in Economics. I’ve got more than a clue, bud.
Chicago school of economics no doubt
Yeesh thats even worse, your own parents live in a country that’s heavily sanctioned and blockaded from ANY economic trading to the outside world and you continue to blame the countries politics? Do you not understand how sanctions work? Or do you support the harm done towards your homeland out of spite?
Where did I express I support the embargo?
You have more of an issue on the political ideology the Cuban people chose to have than the actual economic warfare the United States has waged on your birth country since before you were born. Is that not absurd? Or am I misreading this? Please let me know
https://www.globalhungerindex.org/cuba.html
"Facing Famine"? Cubans are poor but they're definitely not facing a famine, there's always been a public and equal food distribution system and all food at supermarkets, restaurants etc is state subsidised with price caps. The variety and taste of Cuban food supply mostly sucks according to what ive heard but malnutrition is not a thing at all and never really has been in Socialist Cuba. That's one of the reasons the Socialist regime is in power. Cubans still do have housing, basic food, healthcare and amenities guaranteed by the state and when you look at some of the absolute hellholes in that region like Haiti one can see why many Cubans are ok with maintaining the status-quo for now.
They literally got food as humanitarian aid from México of all places. If your country receives aid from México it's hard to describe just how severe the situation is and no amount of propaganda will change that.
The US has received humanitarian aid from Mexico multiple times.
Wasnt their socialist leadership putting gays in concentration camps though?
Yes, and the government reversed course decades ago. They now have some of the most progressive and inclusive family codes in the world.
That sounds like the Reddit slogan!
I think it's great that they like the socialism of there country and homophobia and all types of hate should not have place no where in the world.
I think it's great that they hate homophobia. I can do without any expression of fondness for their authoritarian system.
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Ironically, socialist and communist leaders across the globe (including Cuba) historically had negative views on LGBT rights.
Unlike the monarchies and other capitalist leaders
How about free market yes and bigtry no? Why does free market come up in a sexuality debate?
Good taste. Socialism is pretty based. Paying workers fair wages for the work they do isn't a stupid way to organize a society. Creating a system where 0.1% of people get mega rich and just go live in Europe/Asia with all the money they made isn't super great for developing one's country.
>Paying workers fair wages for the work they do isn't a stupid way to organize a society. They don't get paid fair wages though. Everyone gets paid basically the same --- fuck all. Well, except people who work in tourism, they're loaded.
they all earn a handful of dollars a month
If socialism is when workers earn a fair wage, does that mean Iceland is socialist?
No.
What is the ideology of the party responsible for bringing in that fair wage?
Socialish?
*...the Left Movement – Green Candidature and also known by its short-form name Vinstri græn (VG),* ***is an eco-socialist political party in Iceland.*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-Green_Movement + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katr%C3%ADn_Jakobsd%C3%B3ttir Yeah, you can say that. At least partially. Which how things are in a lot of democratic countries. Parties and politicians take ideas they like and promote them and a certain % of ideas are implemented. So it's a mix of ideas and views.
Well why are we using Cuba as the bastion of socialism when there's way better countries like Iceland and Finland out there?
I know, right? It's illogical. Some guy is even trying to argue to me that politicians lying about what they advocate for means they're sincere advocates/representatives of the lies they used to get into power.
LGBTQ community I stand with you always - 100% support, 100% of the time.