the gipper

bob wrote - So Reagan has passed away at what, ninety five or something. I bet he got a lot better care than the people he pushed into poverty. He was an actor hired by gas guzzling war mongers. Heck, I'll say it. I'm glad he's dead.

Shin-Gua wrote - You're a ASSHOLE!
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bob wrote - aN asshole... Heck opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. Even you!

almas john wrote - Quote: He was an actor hired by gas guzzling war mongers.
Huh? Bob, with your uncanny ability to get to the core truths you should be lecturing at a university. Laughing out loud...
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Shin-Gua wrote - Yeah, but I don't exhibit mine!
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bob wrote - but.. but..almas john I never even went to university..and they use all those big words and all..

fred smith wrote - I understand that this may be confusing to you but there are differences between actors. Oh let's say between Bush in the US and Ortega in Nicaragua and Castro in Cuba. They were attempting to subvert democratic regimes (not necessarily pretty ones) with worse systems that imposed communism. Look through Latin America and which nations are most prosperous and offer their citizens the highest standards of living and best qualities of life and I will show you a system that is more similar to America than Cuba. Fair?

bob wrote - Sure that's fair. And show me a Latin American country where big business didn't use brutal tactics to keep workers down (thus provoking communist sentiments in the first place) and I will show Shin-gua my asshole again. Anyway Cuba is kept poor by trade restrictions. Who knows what it would be like otherwise.

Comrade Stalin wrote - bob wrote: Sure that's fair. And show me a Latin American country where big business didn't use brutal tactics to keep workers down (thus provoking communist sentiments in the first place) and I will show Shin-gua my asshole again.


Costa Rica. Drop your drawers, monkey boy.

bob wrote: O.K. one country out of what, a thousand or something. For that Shin gua gets a peek, but from a great distance.. *. There, you happy?

Pinesay wrote - So Americans are soley to blame for Cuba's condition. Laughing out loud...

Hummmm. Where have I heard this logic before? It's almost not worth addressing, becuase it represents a worldview that is dictated by a pre-existing agenda.

With the same logic I can blame America for almost EVERY evil in the world ... which a lot of people do anyway. Even North Korea blames the United States on its starving population living in the 12th Century on past trade restrictions.

Could it possibly be that such thugs bare any of the responsibility for their own repressive, murderous, totalitarian, oppressive governments?

bob wrote:
Who knows what it would be like otherwise.


What? You just said definitively that they are kept poor by trade restrictions. Why then equivocate in the next sentence?

Actually, we have plenty of historical evidence to know what oppressive governments do, even with all the economical ingredients for prosperity. They kill prosperity ON PURPOSE to control their poplulation. If there is money flowing in the country, they control most of it. Why people ignore hisotry, and even contemporary events as evidence, I don't know.

bob wrote - I didn't say the U.S. was solely to blame but it is very much to blame. The U.S. help create the climate for communism to develop in the first place just like it did in a lot of other Latin American countries. If Cuba was allowed freer market access it would be a lot better off than it is now. It would become better integrated into the global culture and Castro would begin losing his grip on power. Such a scenario has apparently never appealed to the American government.

One of the things that keeps Cuba poor is the trade restrictions. Nobody knows exactly what it would be like if the restrictions were lifted but most people would expect it to be better. This is what I meant and actually it was what I said. Not real difficult stuff I don't think.

Most of Latin America has had two choices. A dictatorial government that let them work themselves to death generating
profit for others. Or a dictatorial government that knew nothing about profit. Since they are still making up their mind on that one they have been granted lots of war, poverty, crime, torture, murder, imprisonment...

I hear prisons are a big business in the states too. And of course the government supports that growth industry by making it just about imposible for inmates to survive on the outside world when they are released. They get out. Can't get a driver's license, a job, a life, so they are commit another crime. The prisons get filled up again and the gun lobby gets to sell more guns to paranoid white folk in suburbia.