Cuba has been slammed for their constitutionally legal charge of "dangerousness". Guess what?

[Mika]

Its a valid charge ....

Sexually dangerous can be kept in prison
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4385019

.... in the USA.



Have at it, proto and gang. :hi:

---

[protocol rv]

1. but what's dangerous in Cuba?

For example, is the dangerousness legislation allow the state to determine what dangerousness means? And does the individual being arrested under the dangerousness law have a previous record or conviction? In many jurisdictions, once a person has been convicted of a serious offense (a felony), then this person loses certain rights, including the right to be presumed innocent in future events.

But i understand the dangerousness law is applied in Cuba to a person who hasn't been convicted, and this is used to jail political dissidents.

Do you remember the Sholtzenitzin book about the Soviet system, the Gulag Archipielago? The Cubans derived their system from Soviet teachers. The system they used in Cuba is a "tropical" version of a repression machine designed by the Soviets for many years, modified and honed to perfection by the Cubans. Once the regime falls, there will be investigations, and I'm sure there will be fascinating books and articles written about it. It will rank way up there with the material we have got from the American torture center at Abu Ghraib.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Ah, ha ha ha ha. We get some windy stories here, don't we? Omigosh.

http://www.americansafetyvest.com.nyud.net:8090/cart/cw3/assets/product_full/windsock.jpg

[protocol rv]

5. Well, what is it? Do they or don't they?

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say the Cuban government abuses human rights. They exposed the use of this type of law to jail dissidents. Now the ball is in your court.

Also, I'd like to remind you that you are losing credibility, when you find yourself unable to discuss a simple issue like this. To tell you the truth, I think I could work with Raul Castro and help him with some economics advice, and I would do so to help Cuba stay out of the clutches of US imperialism.

But it's difficult to justify working in a society where everybody seems to be such a robot, unable to discuss or criticize anything at all. I like to criticize everything, as you already figured out, so I don't see how I could live in a place where there's no acceptance that change is needed. Seriously, if you do like Cuba, you need to learn to free your mind a bit, and engage in dialogue, rather than be so monochromatic.

[Billy Burnett]

10. I notice that you haven't contributed your opinions over at the original LBN thread.

You have so much to add to this topic that I'm sure you'll clarify the major talking point over there.

:hi:

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Billy Burnett]

7. delete

[Billy Burnett]

9. You understand wrong.

"But i understand the dangerousness law is applied in Cuba to a person who hasn't been convicted, and this is used to jail political dissidents."

Got any solid examples? (Please, Cubanet sourced "reports" are not solid examples.)

[Peace Patriot]

6. The issue is indefinite detention beyond the sentence arrived at by a jury trial

wherein the accused allegedly has rights (right to be confronted by accusers, right of habeas corpus, right to a defense, right to a public trial, etc.) The issue is NOT what (or who) the government considers "dangerous."

We, the people of the U.S., just lost the right to NOT be indefinitely detained by our government. Or rather, this abrogation of one of our most basic rights was just formalized and extended beyond military/security detention to CIVILIAN crimes, since we had lost that right already during the Bush Junta's savage assault on our Constitution called "the war on terror."

I have my guesses as to why. You know, if the U.S. government/political establishment really wanted to curtail sexual predation, they would shut down Congress. The Bush Junta positively recruited sexual predators, and also thieves, to be Diebolded into office, because such people are easier to control and also they help the corporate rulers degrade and discredit government. There is absolutely nothing more hypocritical in our establishment than their targeting of "sexual predators" for particular hatred and venom, in order to create the precedent that punishment for a crime is not enough, that "some people," when accused and convicted by the government, LOSE ALL THEIR RIGHTS.

But I think there is a deeper and even more corrupt motive for their wanting to create categories of crime for permanent detention. The far rightwing corporate establishment that actually rules the U.S. has, for decades, demonized drug offenders and filled the jails with drug users and small time drug entrepreneurs--most of them black men who are thus removed from their communities, lose the right to vote, are incarcerated in white rural regions and counted as "warm bodies" (though they can't vote) to pad the books of white rural populations, for purposes of OVER-REPRESENTING white rural areas in Congress and in federal boondoggle contracts. But sentiment about drug use and drug trading is changing very rapidly. Many Americans, even some in the police establishment, are fed up with the "war on drugs," deem it a failure and want to end the criminalization of drug problems. How, then, to keep the vast prison system in this country FUNDED--a prison system infested with private corporate interests? If drug use and trade is decriminalized, it will just about empty the prisons--since about 75% of the prison population is made up of non-violent offenders (or the innocent and wrongfully convicted), which almost always involves the drug laws.

Got to have a new "demon"--and they've been working on "sexual predators" for some time, as THE PEOPLE WITH NO RIGHTS. Add in "brown people" with a Spanish accent, and you're well on your way to filling the void that threatens to be created when the "war on drugs" finally goes the way of Prohibition, into the slime-pit of history.

As to social "dangerousness," it's interesting that the most dangerous people in the U.S.--and indeed in the world--Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their cohorts--are still running around free. Criminy, they slaughtered ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND INNOCENT PEOPLE in the first weeks of bombing alone, in Iraq, to steal their oil. If ANYBODY should be "permanently detained" it is those monsters!

But along with banks that are "too big to fail," we have war criminals who are too powerful to even investigate, let alone prosecute.

Compare this situation to Cuba--where a JUSTIFIABLY fearful government of a tiny island off the Florida coast, forty years a target of the mighty U.S.--may overdo it a bit, in trying to keep CIA agents off the streets.

I just have to laugh. The U.S. government is SO HYPOCRITICAL! I mean, WHO has been torturing prisoners on the island of Cuba? WHO? WHO has a U.S. Navy prison that is the scandal of the world, where old men, boys and other random persons swept up in Afghanistan or sold to the U.S. military by war lord jerks, have for years been incarcerated and many of them tortured, without trial, with no recourse, with no access to their families or communities or ANYBODY. WHO has been hooding and shackling prisoners and flying them to torture dungeons around the world?

It is absolutely ludicrous and A FORM IN INSANITY that the U.S. dares to criticize and demonize Cuba's government for 'human rights' violations. It is A LIE of staggering proportions. The U.S. corporate rulers DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT ANYBODY'S HUMAN RIGHTS! Not ours. Not the Cuban peoples'. Not the Iranians'. Not ANYBODY'S. They want POWER in order to LOOT AND PLUNDER and trample the poor into the dust, here and everywhere else.

I just heard that this humongous, CAPITALIST, BP oil spill--the result of corporate control of our government, vast corruption and de-regulation--may hit the island of Cuba--that spectacularly beautiful island unmarauded by corporate greed, whose people have survived so many natural disasters and so many venomous U.S. plots. If the ten mile blob of poisonous corporate greed rolling around the ocean floor off Florida hits Cuba, that will be a tragic demonstration of how much our corporate rulers and their puppets in government care about Cubans or anybody else. U.S. blather about "human rights" is HUMBUG.

[protocol rv]

8. How romantic

"Unmarauded by corporate greed"

Who do you think is investing in Cuba, developing their oil fields, mining their minerals, building hotels, and building ports? Sister Theresa? Get real.

[Billy Burnett]

11. Are you saying that corporations control the Cuban gov't too?

Interesting point. Especially considering that these ventures you mention are joint ventures along with the Cuban government, with Cuba owning the majority share in all of these ventures.

Please clarify. Thanks.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Cuba has not suffered the vast overdevelopment blights of southern Florida and Honolulu.

Its environment is pristine by comparison. Instead of promoting "the rich get richer"--and favoring billionaires, banksters, ponzi schemes, heartless and ruinous policies toward the poor and middle class, trash culture, vast corporate (anti-free trade) monopolies, mafias of various kinds and highly corrupt development scams and the other horrors of capitalism-run-amok, including deregulation of the oil industry--Cuba concentrates on everybody having shelter, food, education, health care and employment. We let the wealth get vacuumed to the top, at the expense of the majority of people and of the environment. Cuba has gone the other way. They have less monetary wealth, but more social and environmental wealth. And our vast monetary wealth is concentrated in a few hands whose power to loot the rest of us and trash the environment is now entirely out of control. We don't have "free trade" in this country, or anything even resembling a "free market." We have oligarchic, monopolistic rule by the super-rich, exercised through run-amok corporations--who, among other things, destroy small businesses and have even gained monopolistic, PRIVATE control of our voting systems, run on 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls, owned and controlled largely by ONE, far rightwing-connected corporation (ES&S, which just bought out Diebold).

Cuba--for all its dependence on a king-like figure (Castro)--is actually more democratic than we are, at the levels of government below Castro. It has cleaner elections and a government that benefits the vast majority, not the rich elite, as here. Cuba also has a highly literate, highly educated population, and a superior medical system, due to the government's concentration on these goals.

It's quite interesting to consider China in this context. China is supposedly communist as well, but in truth seems to be ruled by a capitalist oligarchy. In any case, for most of its revolutionary period, China has had a highly controlling central government based on the illusion of a "peoples republic" and sharing the wealth. But China has suffered vast impacts to the environment under communist rule, accelerated now under their weird, communist/capitalist hybrid government. Soviet Russia was very similar in this respect, as to impacts on the environment. The impacts on people and on the environment of Chinese communist and Soviet rule have simply not occurred in Cuba. Why? A difficult question, but I tend to think that it has to do with both the deep democratic traditions in the Americas and with the character of the Cuban people. They may have had a sort of "benevolent monarch" in Castro--a revered figure who holds it all together in the face of the very serious threat posed by the U.S. giant to the north--but they are basically intolerant of tyranny, whereas the Chinese and the Russians never had anything else BUT tyranny throughout their histories. (Stalin, for instance, was just another manifestation of Tsarism.) Cuba has a deeply revolutionary history as to the struggle for independence and DEMOCRACY led by Simon Bolivar. The tyrannical, mafia-like Batista regime (which had been supported by U.S. corpo-fascist interests) was an anomaly in Cuba. The Russian and Chinese people may love freedom as much as anybody else, but the Stalin and Mao dictatorships were NOT anomalies. They followed from prior history. Cuba, in other words, has been heavily influenced by the DEMOCRACY revolutions in this hemisphere (including our own, in its early years). Its people are fundamentally democratic, and they have something else, which is harder to define, but which I'm going to call an artistic temperament--a temperament that generally tends toward the humane and toward equality and freedom. Music and art are fundamental to the Cuban character.

The Cuba of today combines all these different trends and influences in a most unique way. They are absolutely not anything like the Soviet Union or China. They are themselves. They have ADAPTED the communist idea of sharing the wealth to Cuba's unique character and culture--and that culture loves pristine beaches and Mother Nature and her critters--a response typical of ARTISTS.

You could cynically say that Cuba is not over-developed because communism has embedded poverty in the island, but you would be WRONG. Communism in Russia and China resulted in horrible development including horrible impacts to the environment. Cubans may be monetarily poor but they have other riches of great value to them--including the natural beauty of an island unmarauded by corporate greed.

Now that Cuba's government has been recognized as legitimate and sovereign by virtually everybody in the world except the U.S.--and including most of Latin America--and now that our U.S. corporate rulers are seeing potential advantage in an "opening" to Cuba--it will be important to follow the development path that Cuba takes. Are its democratic components strong enough to fend off the blight we see in Miami and other spoiled environments? Will loss of their king-like figure (a sacred personage traditionally associated with the sacredness of "the land") result in damage to the land (rampant development, pollution)? Will greed prevail?

I have touted some of Cuba's accomplishments, as a communist country and as a people. But I don't "advocate communism"--as you have accused me of doing. I think in very practical terms. What works--for the benefit of most people and for our only home, Planet Earth? What doesn't? I understand and love the creative aspects of capitalism and the fundamental human need for the variety of the "marketplace." Capitalism, to me, is a means of COLLECTIVELY supporting innovation. But I do NOT love and support this monster that capitalism has become, backed by monstrous military power. It is NOT freedom. It is tyranny. So I think we need to look around for ideas and systems that WORK--that benefit everyone and that don't kill the planet. It is STUPID to hold this kneejerk attitude toward Cuba that blinds people to good ideas--such as universal free medical care, no profiteering off of illness and free educations for doctors and other health professionals, or such as NOT destroying natural beauty. You have advocated for Chevron-Texaco and its humongous oil spill in Ecuador and have ridiculed the Indigenous people who have sued Chevron-Texaco for a clean-up and for health costs. I think this pro-corporate attitude is BLIND to the horrors of predatory capitalism, BLIND to its tyranny and BLIND to the immense peril to people and planet that it represents. Do we go on being blind like this? Or do we get very practical--which I think of as our most native characteristic, as a people. What works for the greatest good? What works to save the planet and all of humanity? We need a wide range of ideas--which our corporate press is not allowing; we need to OPEN OUR MINDS, not close them.

[naaman fletcher]

13. They will soon...

When the embargo is lifted.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Since 2000 I've found material on information our corporate stooge media won't carry,

concerning the fact Cuba has had a thriving business in medical procedures for people from other countries, packages which include picking up the person going into the hospital at the airport, arranging their hotel accomodations, taking them later to the hospital, going through their medical procedure, followed by recuperation, and return to their hotel, all smoothly conducted for the client. Don't know when they started, but it was a successful business by 2000, well utilized by foreign people seeking medical treatment. That was long before our own insurance companies started packing people off to India, etc., for heart surgery, etc. (The profits from this business, as from the hotels goes to the Cuban infrastructure, Cuban domestic medical treatment, education, etc. for the Cuban people themselves. Has been that way for ages. Those wanting to pervert Cuba's success, and revert the whole country to its former filthy, brutal celebration of wealth taken at the destructive abuse of the poor do their best to muddy the waters on these issues.)

Cuba has a world-famous medical research record already respected in other countries at the time I started researching, having made breakthroughs into critically important areas, like Menningitus, certain forms of cancer, etc. They also are superior in their treatment of eye disorders, etc.

Another interesting program is the amazing gift of a medical education to qualified students from the U.S. and other countries.
American students can undoubtedly get help from contacting Pastors for Peace in securing information about setting up the process of applying, communicating with the University of Havana.

They take a limited number of students from the States each year, I believe they are all students who could never afford to go to medical school on their own, award them full scholarships, internships, and the "payment" is the agreement to work in deprived areas or neighborhoods within the United States for a set number of years to give aid, attention, help to the very poor among us.

I've run across stories of young men and women from inner city neighborhoods, a Native American community, and a daughter of a migrant Mexican laborer in Florida, people who are very intelligent, very qualified in temperament, spirit for this kind of work, who could never have possibly hoped to graduate using only their own resources.

Someone looking for real information on Cuba really has to beat the bushes, since it doesn't get covered here, traditionally.

You've noticed whenever an American news story comes from Cuba they ALWAYS go and stand in the oldest, most deteriorated spot in Havana to do their spot. It has been a joke to people who have watched them at it over the years. It's clearly for propaganda purposes alone, and it most purely is an attempt to deceive U.S. Americans about the quality of life there.

In the meantime, the Cuban government, now that it has crystallized its goals for the critically important developement of the structure for adequate housing, food, education, medical treatment for the masses (formerly ignored altogether, and living on seasonal work) they are slowly but surely transforming their old buildings, too (after building new living spaces for the masses FIRST, and moving people there, away from the decrepit buildings in inner cities), little by little. The entire enormous project is being overseen by Havana Historian Eusebio Leal, himself celebrated world-wide, the "director of restoration."

Here's his Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebio_Leal



Eusebio Leal restoration projects, among many projects underway.

Following photos are from Santiago de Cuba.

http://www.trekway.com.nyud.net:8090/cuba/images/CU98_016-santiago-de-cuba.jpg http://www.liorkaridi.com.nyud.net:8090/Travel/Cuba/SantiagoDeCuba_3.jpg http://images.travelpod.com.nyud.net:8090/users/marichoube/1.1218834420.25_santiago-de-cuba.jpg
http://www.hotelsantiagodecuba.com.nyud.net:8090/images/santiago-de-cuba-padre-pico.jpg http://www.cuba-individual.com.nyud.net:8090/bilder/santiago4.jpg http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com.nyud.net:8090/Photofiles/Cuba_Santiago_de_Cuba.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_OIzO1Zf-hEI/SZ8xZ4botxI/AAAAAAAAAO8/GvU90Xhwo9c/s400/tres_horas_de_discurso2004.jpg

http://images.travelpod.com.nyud.net:8090/users/kris/nostophobia.1200523800.santiago-de-cuba-bus-terminal.jpg

Santiago de Cuba bus terminal

~~~~ click for photo ~~~~

All Santiago de Cuba images. Last one from a city festival.