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Agreed: collectivist thought is the axis of social change that is all about good intentions and goodwill towards humanity, favoring improving the human condition over personal gain...

The problems arise when

A) there is dissensus over how to achieve it, and
B) human nature, especially its faults, are downplayed and overlooked.

Because you might be able to come up with a perfect system but any system is only as good as its parts... the parts are us and we're far from perfect.

I dont think there is dissensus but just greed and concervatism in its stead, but yeah. Yours is more civile in that regard, because it opens up to discussion.

DrGatineau wrote:if the US were to "put cuba under its influence" (ie make cuba an ally?), that wouldn't be a bad thing per se. i think cuba would probably become modernized and largely benefit. america would probably get something out of it, seeing as we tend not to meddle unless we get something out of it, but that's not in itself bad for cuba.

lol

cuba would be undoubtedly worse off (not that cuba and the US would become allies anyways). cuba is much better off than most of latin america, which was under heavy american hegemonic influence for decades (invasion of panama, US backed pinochet coup d'etat, etc) and has only really started to free itself of it relatively recently. they've got superior healthcare to the us, a lower infant mortality rate, nearly 50% of their parliament are women (compared to something like 20% in america), free education (including at the university level), etc. and that's in the face of an embargo from the largest economy in the world. just imagine if cuba could benefit from exports to the US as well as tourism.

also america meddles regardless of if they get something out of it tbh

OGLemon wrote:for the record, Russia was never at any point, socialistic or socialist. The main problem is people's conception of the nature of socialism. Socialism cannot exist in one country. It's a global order, just as capitalism is a global order today.

honestly i've always believed this attitude is somewhat of a cop out. i suppose you could say it's true in a strictly technical sense, but it's really the communist version of "no true scotsman." people are just afraid to admit that russia as a socialist nation was a failed experiment, so instead it's popular to turn to "oh but it wasn't REAL socialism."

the first capitalist experiments in the days of feudalism were failures too.

imo -> http://newleftreview.org/II/57/slavoj-z ... -beginning

so cuba is becoming the usa burdel again

I have to dissagree there Phig. I'd say that Russia was only soviet for a few years and then once worker councils were dissolved and too down socialism took hold, it was no longer truely socialist

Big up Phig for recognizing the things Cuban autonomy has achieved.

I also think the same of the "communist" (I parenthesize because it wasn't true Marxism, if such a thing could even be) experience that Russia went through: true, the revolution was unbelievably bloody, people suffered like mad, and yet - Sovietism bootstrapped them from being essentially a medieval country in the 19th c. to a world player at the beginning of the 21st. Was it worth it? Only someone who lived it can say, but there's a reason they're looking back fondly on their former imperial muscle.

ehbes wrote:I have to dissagree there Phig. I'd say that Russia was only soviet for a few years and then once worker councils were dissolved and too down socialism took hold, it was no longer truely socialist

OGLemon wrote:Russia was never at any point, socialistic or socialist

I can't disagree with both?

ehbes wrote:I can't disagree with both?

okay fair point, i misjudged your post a bit

still, i would argue that it was socialist. was it an ideal or even good implementation of socialism? no.

_ronzlo_ wrote:I also think the same of the "communist" (I parenthesize because it wasn't true Marxism, if such a thing could even be) experience that Russia went through: true, the revolution was unbelievably bloody, people suffered like mad, and yet - Sovietism bootstrapped them from being essentially a medieval country in the 19th c. to a world player at the beginning of the 21st. Was it worth it? Only someone who lived it can say, but there's a reason they're looking back fondly on their former imperial muscle.

yessss. soviet russia is really deprived of credit it fairly deserves for some of its genuine achievements. like how, in only the span of a decade from the mid 1920s to 1930s, the literacy rate went from something like 50% to 75%. same goes for communist china too

Phigure wrote:

DrGatineau wrote:if the US were to "put cuba under its influence" (ie make cuba an ally?), that wouldn't be a bad thing per se. i think cuba would probably become modernized and largely benefit. america would probably get something out of it, seeing as we tend not to meddle unless we get something out of it, but that's not in itself bad for cuba.

lol

cuba would be undoubtedly worse off (not that cuba and the US would become allies anyways). cuba is much better off than most of latin america, which was under heavy american hegemonic influence for decades (invasion of panama, US backed pinochet coup d'etat, etc) and has only really started to free itself of it relatively recently. they've got superior healthcare to the us, a lower infant mortality rate, nearly 50% of their parliament are women (compared to something like 20% in america), free education (including at the university level), etc. and that's in the face of an embargo from the largest economy in the world. just imagine if cuba could benefit from exports to the US as well as tourism.

lol?

you either skipped words when you read that, or you don't know what per se means.

and then there's this:

Phigure wrote:cuba would be undoubtedly worse off.

Phigure wrote:just imagine if cuba could benefit from exports to the US as well as tourism.

snh is just yearning for a neocon to frequent the forum, and seems almost willing to create one where one's not just for the sake of the circle jerk that would ensue.

i love how liberal and principled u guys were in the ferguson thread for example (sans u phig). big up the fair weather socialists and big up the consistency & integrity crew

and big up the people who say big up sarcastically as well.

you're fucking retarded

thx babe

Everytime you spew bullshit that you clearly have no grasp off you get your points broken down one by one and without fail your response is to say that we cherry picked what you said and took it out of context. read a book for me one time, for the love of god.

what is one thing that I believe that you disagree with?

there's a big difference between lifting an embargo and no longer subjecting a country's economy to an imposed handicap vs "allying" with the US and becoming uncle sam's vassal state (ie "putting Cuba under its influence" like you said)

and i suggested america turn cuba into a vassal state?

my point ehbs is that i'm more than willing to have a conversation with you but it seems like you (and not just you) just want somebody to yell at much of the time.

or maybe that's just how the internet is...

I don't know what else "putting Cuba under its influence" is supposed to mean. Just look at all the other Latin American countries (or countries around the world) that have been subject to American "influence" (hegemony b2b imperialism). they've suffered for it

Phigure wrote:I don't know what else "putting Cuba under its influence" is supposed to mean. Just look at all the other Latin American countries (or countries around the world) that have been subject to American "influence" (hegemony b2b imperialism). they've suffered for it

i think i used that exact wording because i was responding to someone else who used that wording. what i really meant was just establishing relations and lifting the embargo.

okay then I guess you are not the neocon I was looking for

actually yeah, that's exactly what happened.

[+] Spoiler

DrGatineau wrote:

jrkhnds wrote:

DrGatineau wrote: america's not trying to take cuba like russia is with ukraine and has with crimea.

if you honestly believe this, you need to read up on american history. to get a general idea how the US "takes" countries, go back to around 1892-1898 and learn a thing or two about US liberating operations in Costa Rica and Cuba. trust me, if the US gets a chance at putting Cuba under their influence, they'll take it. no matter the cost.

lol, america would not try to annex cuba, that's ridiculous. america has no want or need to do that. it would never happen, or at least not for a very, very long time, only if things were to massively change. america has certainly done it's fair share of empire building, no doubt. but I don't think that because a country did something in the 1800s, it follows that it would act the same way 120 years later. america hasn't annexed any land since the 1950s and the empire in the pacific has been largely scaled back since the 1800s.

would america manipulate cuba for it's resources? sure. america would do that to many countries. but I don't see america annexing cuba.

if the US were to "put cuba under its influence" (ie make cuba an ally?), that wouldn't be a bad thing per se. i think cuba would probably become modernized and largely benefit. america would probably get something out of it, seeing as we tend not to meddle unless we get something out of it, but that's not in itself bad for cuba.

hmm, was the phrase "take out of context" used earlier in this page......