Honestly its rude to be invited by a country to meet their president who decided to respond to your criticisms of their administration only to not show up and go meet the opposition.
Being invided and then no showing shows complete disregard to basic diplomatic Etiquette since it was a mission to show solidarity against the embargo
Bonus socdems being cringe part 4.5: about another member that didnt show up to the presidential meeting
Deeply unserious people
In general this is something I notice among the western left. They call themselves communists, but actually hate and disagree with the social and economic policies that every single AES country led by a communist or socialist party has tried to implement or actually implemented. I notice it a bit on hexbear too. AES countries are actually attempting to build an equitable society, as a country is first and foremost a society. This means actually wielding political power and making controversial decisions. And even when the western left and an AES state agree on a policy, the western left will still find a way to say the very policy they agree with is actually bad all of a sudden. See the comments on Cuba’s family code.
Also for those in the West who critise the economic systems of AES states, you will have to take the very same steps as these AES countries on the long road to socialism if you plan to seize state power.
Nevertheless, the establishment of a state capitalist regime is unavoidable, and will remain so everywhere. The developed capitalist countries themselves will not be able to enter a socialist path (which is not on the visible agenda today) without passing through this first stage. It is the preliminary phase in the potential commitment of any society to liberating itself from historical capitalism on the long route to socialism/communism. Socialization and reorganization of the economic system at all levels, from the firm (the elementary unit) to the nation and the world, require a lengthy struggle during an historical time period that cannot be foreshortened.
- Samir Amin, on China 2013
Pretty much every local communist group I’ve tried to be active in has this problem. They always have to sprinkle in something about Chinese or Soviet Imperialism, then (no surprise) tell us that Palestinians should join with Israel workers, and same for Ukrainian and Russians. No real understanding of anti imperialism and what forms it will take. Always finding a reason why we can’t support any real concrete opposition to western hegemony.
One of these communist groups even told me that South Africa today is just as bad, if not worse, than when under Apartheid. And they also hated the Black Panthers.
So much work needs to be done in the West.
One of these communist groups even told me that South Africa today is just as bad, if not worse, than when under Apartheid.
That’s not communist that’s just reactionary and chud talking points. I’ve lived there for my entire life as a “born free” (born after the end of apartheid which happened in 1994) , it is most definitely not as bad as apartheid. I’ve heard the stories from older people, the country is better now in many ways. South Africa is just a third world/global south country with those kind of problems. From corruption to crime to unemployment to failing state infrastructure.
If it’s not personally identifying, what communist org(s) are you talking about that hated the BPP?
I am afraid to doxx myself if I say. I was a little afraid to even mention the above incident, but I’m probably being paranoid. I’ll give hints, and just indirectly doxx myself lol.
They call themselves an anti revisionist Marxists Leninist group. They were maoist in the 60s. They worked with SDS in the 60s.
They then broke with China. One of the reasons they state was due to China’s “elevation” of the Black Panther Party as the vanguard in the United States. I guess they were jealous. They also are really anti black nationalism, and just nationalism in general. They won’t read Fanon. They complain about Palestinian flags at protests because of “nationalism”.
Like I said in another reply, I didn’t do the due diligence before joining - my mistake. It also discouraged me because it is either that group or a trotskyist group (sorry for sectarianism). So barren.
Thanks for the details! Please don’t feel any pressure to doxx yourself in any way! My curiosity is worth much less than your comfort and safety.
In general this is something I notice among the western left. They call themselves communists, but actually hate and disagree with the social and economic policies that every single AES country led by a communist or socialist party has tried to implement or actually implemented. I notice it a bit on hexbear too.
The theory of communism that I’ve constructed in my very special, unique, pure, leftist brain that is free of propaganda is superior to whatever hard work actual people out in the actual world are doing to construct a better world. /s
The hurdle that I had to jump over when I progressed from socialism to communism was this exact one. Around 2019-2020ish, I had gifted kid brainworms, heightened by my university degree, that were still writhing around in there about how I was the smartest and specialest politics and geopolitics understander the world had ever seen.
Only once I purged those brainworms and realized that I am actually an online Westerner who doesn’t really know shit about fuck; once I realized I was full of assumptions about what socialism and communism and anti-imperialism and democracy should be, rather than how they actually manifest in the real world; once I realized that I have been poisoned by individualism at a fundamental level since I was born into society and needed to accept that my opinions really just aren’t that important, especially to those doing the work of anti-imperialism like Hamas or Cuba or the DPRK; once I accepted that I should learn and listen to what people on the ground were saying and not just sit in a hermetically sealed online treatbubble, could I fully say I was a communist
NATO leftist scum. Had the same experience when I visited a chapter as a leftist Guatemalan with actual success in my city and these fucks used obnoxious idpol to downplay our gains and whined about how we weren’t that strong while listening to European leftists who achieved less than us.
Read Maria’s response as she lists “poc voices” to use them against Cuba. This is what NATO leftists do and their irritatingly academic way of speaking combined with the sheer arrogance and chauvinism is why most in the global south hate them.
We went to Cuba as reps of our party and even warned them about NATO leftists. They laughed and said they’re well aware of them.
The aristocratic, smug attitudes of these NATO leftists is infuriating, esp given that they don’t have a single historical success. Literal toddlers thinking they can give advice to professors in their field of expertise.
I skimmed some portion of Maria Franzblau Criticism of Cuba
https://reformandrevolution.org/2024/02/17/cuba-between-imperialism-and-socialism/
We should be critical of socialist and anti-imperialist forces when necessary. Most times this should take place internally when other parties take actions we disagree with strategically. But when a leftist party actively betrays socialist principles, such as by attacking abortion rights or supporting Israeli apartheid, we should be willing to make our disagreements public. As for reactionary, anti-communist forces like the governments of Iran and Russia or groups like Hamas and the Houthis, we should make crystal clear our fierce opposition to their politics while also condemning imperialist aggression against them.
Most egregious considering the Palestinian genocide.
The first weakness is in our analysis and understanding of Cuban socialism. There is no shortage of inspiration we can draw from positively appraising the Revolution’s gains in literacy, healthcare, education, and more. We should not deemphasize the role of the brutal US embargo in the country’s crises. But one simply cannot understand the full picture of Cuba this decade without also understanding the political repression of independent organizing, the threats that private business and austerity pose to the socialist economy, or the crisis of legitimacy the government faces. If one were to attend this delegation and fully accept the party line put forward in our itinerary, the political side of this crisis would go completely unmentioned.
Having it both ways, the embargo is bad for the economy but also the threats that private business and austerity pose to the socialist economy
Second, it limits the effectiveness of our external messaging and organizing, especially in regions of the country with large Hispanic and Cuban-American populations. While it is true that there are large sections of these diaspora communities, particularly Cuban exiles, who are hardcore reactionaries and have petty-bourgeois class interests, it would be a mistake to treat these communities as monolithic or immovable. In my own experience organizing in Miami, there is a large presence of Cubans in every local struggle, whether it be university students and faculty walking out against our far-right state legislature’s censorship of education, or local Starbucks workers’ struggling to unionize their stores.
DAH POCS. like fr what do you mean?
https://reformandrevolution.org/2024/02/17/cuba-between-imperialism-and-socialism/
Meanwhile, a notably large “No” campaign against the Family Code was led by the churches and right-wing dissident groups through social media. While the referendum passed, “No” received 33% of the vote, which is remarkably high for a government initiative in a one-party state.
Like what?
edit:
In many ways, the Family Code represents the bureaucracy working at its best. They corrected an error in the party’s stances under the pressure of LGBTQ Cubans and the international movements for those rights, used mass meetings to influence public opinion and respond to it, and mobilized the party and its mass organizations to advance a “Yes” vote to expand womens’ and LGBTQ rights. But a lack of independent organizing or popularly-controlled institutions means that this was necessarily a slow going and top-down process. Put bluntly, Cuba’s transformation on LGBTQ rights was facilitated in no small part by Mariela Castro’s position as a prominent figure in the party bureaucracy with a famous family name.
You see, this good thing they did, is actually bad.
Bootlicking catholic fucking church to own the
commies“authoritarians” 🤡Earlier in the piece:
We visited the center on our second day in Havana and heard a lecture from Mariela Castro about the history of CENESEX and of women’s and LGBTQ rights in Cuba. During the Q&A, one comrade asked for any advice Castro could give to US socialists fighting for queer rights. She mostly dodged the question regarding advice for US socialists, and she opted instead to describe her internal struggles within the Communist Party on this topic. She told the story of how she found old writings from her mother, the revolutionary Vilma Espin, in support of same-sex marriage and used it to argue for the Party to support same-sex marriage. She went on to describe the process of winning LGBTQ rights as a slow, gradual, consensus building project rather than a rapid, activist struggle.
Castro’s struggles within the party have been admirable and won considerable gains for queer people. But it is worth examining that, in response to a question about what LGBTQ organizing should look like, her answer was a course of action really only available to her: using old family documents to make an argument to top party brass. I was left wondering what avenues for change might exist for ordinary working people without the same access.
Another GOOD THING BAD
Her criticism at the end:
Our delegations, if they are not for a discrete purpose like observing an election, should include longer meetings between DSA members and members of other parties and organizations. Instead of solely hearing lectures, we should have more collaborative discussions where we learn about each others’s organizing conditions and trade ideas. Where we can learn from each other, we should seek to. Where we disagree on key issues, we should feel free to discuss and debate these matters in a comradely way.
The criticism is self defeating. She clearly admits she had the opportunity to ask questions. Then she dismisses their wins for playing within their organizing conditions
edit:
More of Maria being able to ask questions and have a dialogue
During the Q&A, I asked the following question to Álvarez: “In 2021 there were mass protests across the whole island of Cuba. While it is true that many on the far-right supported these protests, and Washington cheered it on, the protests also involved thousands of ordinary Cubans, workers, feminists, socialists, and members of the CPC. Many participants from 2021 remain in prison today. How should Cubans who support the revolution but have criticisms of the government make their voices heard?”
She did not like his response, which is fair but did not provide proof of what she said either, which she certainly could have in a blog post.
Who the fuck do these people think they are?
NATO leftists who think that their identity as an American citizen makes their opinion worthwhile. Fucking hate these scum
They literally just list off all of the State Department’s current baddies as ‘still bad but less bad than the US says they are’
the threats that private business and austerity pose to the socialist economy, or the crisis of legitimacy the government faces.
Are they talking about that weak color revolution the US tried to stage a year or two back lmao? Where like half of the media came from people in the US? And the actual march in Cuba was pitifully small?
In my own experience organizing in Miami, there is a large presence of Cubans in every local struggle, whether it be university students and faculty walking out against our far-right state legislature’s censorship of education, or local Starbucks workers’ struggling to unionize their stores.
Fuckin being all “yes, these
former bourgeoisie who turned liberal because conservatives were too openly racist to themdisadvantaged former small business owners and their children deserve to be treated well” after insulting and then openly flouting the Cuban president, you know, actual socialists.Pathetic or an OP.
We should not deemphasize the role of the brutal US embargo in the country’s crises. But
“But” in Polish means “shoe”, something that should be thrown at her.
Second, it limits the effectiveness of our external messaging and organizing, especially in regions of the country with large Hispanic and Cuban-American populations. While it is true that there are large sections of these diaspora communities, particularly Cuban exiles, who are hardcore reactionaries and have petty-bourgeois class interests, it would be a mistake to treat these communities as monolithic or immovable.
she’s more sympathetic to Miami gusanos than she is to Cuban revolutionaries. She wants to do tailism to appeal to gusanos and is worried that having solidarity with a socialist project would endanger her “organizing” among Cuban-Americans.
During my time in Havana, I made contact with several members of what is often called Cuba’s “critical left,” a term used to refer to left-wing activists, journalists, intellectuals, and everyday people who are critical of either certain policies of the PCC or broader systemic issues in the party bureaucracy. I organized three meetings, two with independent journalist Maykel Vivero and one with members of the leftist La Tizza collective. I also spoke to and attempted to meet with Marxist writer Frank Garcia Hernandez but could not arrange it while I was in Havana.
On Maykel Vivero:
He is one of the few journalists who cover the persecution of the San Isidro Movement and its leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. In his journalistic work, he thinks it’s very important to provide the most complete information possible without getting carried away by personal feelings.
https://www.memoryofnations.eu/en/gonzalez-vivero-maykel-1983
On Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara:
State television revealed a document indicating San Isidro leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara receives monthly $1,000 payments from the National Democratic Institute, which is funded by USAID and NED.
https://twitter.com/bellybeastcuba/status/1382680866439172103
edit:
The small San Isidro Movement in question campaigned for the re-election of Donald Trump in October, speaking to a South Florida-based audience, while applauding the damage being done to Cuba by the U.S. blockade, while asking for additional sanctions. Images have earlier circulated of the main leader of the San Isidro group, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, with the Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. embassy in Havana. Another member, Omara Ruiz Urquiola, also paid a visit to the diplomat; and Carlos Manuel Álvarez, who resides in Mexico and is linked to U.S. special services, through the CIA front National Endowment for Democracy (NED), arrived at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement last Tuesday, November 24.
They have advocated for the tightening of the blockade and the cutting off of remittances and their end goal is an overthrow of the revolutionary Cuban government.
Gonna go down as an epic moment in DSA history, right up there with that time they let a cop run a branch.
State television revealed a document indicating San Isidro leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara receives monthly $1,000 payments from the National Democratic Institute, which is funded by USAID and NED.
And there it is folks.
Western chauvinist getting pissy that the know-nothing Cubans won’t listen to her enlightened sage advice.
Bonus points for engaging in
My strategic reasoning is that I think it’s counterproductive to advocating for an end to the embargo to meet with the head of a state that will credibly be accused of authoritarianism.
Holy shit. It’s literally just “muh authoritarianism.” And coming out of some of the more powerful caucuses too. This is the best the DSA can muster?
“Deeply unserious people,” indeed.
conceding that hamas beheaded a bajillion babies before i advocate for a ceasefire (it’s not true at all and I’ve just ceded ground for no fucking reason)
Idea for a
bitserious reform of the DSA: AES country invites DSA leadership to visit, then refuses to grant exit visas until they’ve harvested 100 tonnes of wheat by hand.
The 1959 Cuban Revolution was a key event that galvanized and inspired the growing New Left in the 1960s. Cuba became viewed as a radical and anti-imperialist third world country worthy of praise by many of the radical activists of the 1960s.[3]
In 1969, SDS was composed of competing factions with individual priorities and visions.[4] SDS delegates travelled to Havana, and were inspired by Fidel Castro’s New Year’s Day speech, in which he called on Cubans to help with the sugar harvest.[5] Although the Americans originally offered to help by taking industrial jobs displaced by the massive sugar harvest, Fidel reportedly responded that if North Americans were to help, they would cut cane.[6]
Touch
grasssugar cane- Fidel
If I were to conduct a diplomatic faux pas on that level, I would resign from embarrassment.
If I got to visit the actual fucking leader of Cuba then I would be there early and probably listen for the vast majority of the time; berating or asking sectarian questions would be almost at the bottom of my list. They’re the people who have succeeded while we have failed, we have to listen to them
I really hate succdems
Goes to show how hilariously distant the Cuban government is from the cartoon of a totalitarian cartel regime US media paints them as that Canel even bothered to hear them out.
jesus christ, imagine being able to meet the top goat of cuba and SKIPPING OUT
fucking losers
I don’t understand how anyone can take a person like this seriously.
The DSA is not socdems and the actions of these specific DSA members are not the actions of an entire chapter. They are representatives, yes, and they’re actions were cringe, yes, but you’re being intentionally obtuse here because “socdem bad” despite the DSA not even being socdem lmao. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups while on delegation
Bruh
And there it is. I knew she’s an op because absolutely no one who’s honest about their intentions would skip out on missing the head of state.
Missing the head of state of one of the few socialist countries in the world. Virtually a once in a lifetime opportunity that most don’t get.
Westerners nods at when they need to sit down and listen to marginalized voices when they actually have to do it for real
This reminds me of a recent podcast on Rev Left where he interviewed three Pan-Africanists who were part of a delegation in Cuba: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/on-cuba-and-haiti-the-fight-for-liberation-self-determination-in-the-caribbean
One of them has been to these conferences in Cuba multiple times and would mention how US leftists would constantly bring ideological and sectarian baggage with them and how Cuban communists have to constantly tell them to remove their heads from their asses and stfu (It’s around 13:00 into the podcast).
Why the fuck are you even going to Cuba as a member of a political party if you skip a meeting with the goddamn president? This should get them expelled, but I suppose that might be too authoritarian.
If anyone still wonders why the global south thinks the western “left” is a joke, this is a perfect example.
