Comments from this International Manifesto Group video about Cuba “Curmudgeon4America” really living up to their username.
Transcript:
spoiler
@Curmudgeon4America
1 day ago
What is keeping Cuba poor is not US sanctions. It is the communist government. Controlled economies simply do not work and pretending that a central government can accomplish what the free market can has been historically proven false. The USSR collapsed because it could not provide consumer goods to the masses. It had to buy food from the US while controlling one of the world’s richest farmlands, the Russian steppe. China established capitalist reforms and became rich after a man-made famine which killed tens of millions of people. The best thing that could happen to Cuba is the commies go away. The economic philosophy you support is morally and economically repugnant.
@tonygarea7925
1 day ago (edited)
The idea that the Epstein regime is not at fault and not trying to strangle Cuba is beyond ridiculous. Only hard-core MAGA types still believe this. The whole world is opposed to the US embargo. I doubt that commenter above ‘curmdgeon’ listened to the video. Cuba has survived the US war for so long because of its collective spirit and way or organizing.
@raoulchristensen5279
18 hours ago
The oligarch “controlled economy,” in the US “simply does not work,” for the people, as speakers have pointed out.
@Curmudgeon4America
11 hours ago
@raoulchristensen5279 The US is the richest country in the world. It will stay the richest country in the world as long as we constrain our own government to allow the free market to grow. Your complaints about oligarchs is based on jealousy. You want their money for your benefit. You don’t realize that seizing that money will destroy the free market that makes us all wealthy. You are an economic simpleton, that’s why you support communism.
If you are truly a free market fundamentalist, how can you say that the US sanctions do not matter?
Cuba decided to play in the communism game-mode which means they are not allowed to participate in trade with anyone in the world, duh
I’ve seen this talking point thousands of times and when it’s pushed back against the conversation more often than not devolves into “US is the strongest nation in the world and can do whatever it wants!”
The yt comment section is a can of worms, no one goes there to have a sane intellectual conversation. Only ragebait.
The YouTube comments section is where the proudest people in the world go to broadcast to the entire world how utterly wrong and delusional they are about every single topic one can possibly conceive of.
I sometimes struggle with not engaging with the people in those comment sections when I watch lib-adjacent content. Especially in Filipino spaces sometimes whenever the US is seen in a bad light… It takes me out of the moment like ‘Oh right, that is what people think…’ which gives you a reality check but gets annoying sometimes when you’re cooling down to watch random vids or something.
Yeah… I have to keep reminding myself not to get baited by bulshittery. Best thing to do is disengage and especially not reply back on a forum that is owned by google and tracks every activity and search you do. Not having a google account and using a third party client like invidious or newpipe definitely helped.
China established capitalist reforms
Those mired in ultra thinking can get snagged on this too.
China utilized the private sector side of things along with state-owned and funded entities to expediently build up its productive forces (at the cost of development being uneven sometimes), but still kept a tight leash on what all capital can get away with doing and how. Given they did this in the context of a global capitalist system, it’s all but inevitable they’re going to take on some capitalist characteristics in the process; which is not the same as having a capitalist system (a system that is run by capitalists for the purpose of enriching capitalists).
This would not have been possible if China had been in a situation like Cuba’s of being so isolated, and so embargoed and sanctioned by the empire.
The USSR […] had to buy food from the US
Can’t recall the source at the moment, but I am reminded of that thing (I think info from during the Cold War) about how caloric intake was just as high in the USSR as in the US, if not a bit better. And this from a country that had recently dealt with a war on its doorstep (from Nazi Germany) and developed out of feudal conditions not long before.
AES states continuously show how much human potential and capability is suppressed and wasted by empire and capital, and how wildly and humanely far humanity could go if it was all organized under communist principles and scientific socialist practice. AES states will build a mountain out of a pile of sticks because that’s all they’ve got in the moment after trying to recover from their previous rulers exploiting the people and land to the bone, and then some empire country that has been taking from colonial tendrils for ages is like, “Yeah but we already built five mountains out of these Build-A-Mountain sets that we stole a long time ago. Our system is obviously better.”
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
