and i’m not saying they might not have...
but we have this friend who was upset about my recent instagram stream that was pro communism and that i was ignorant because his family only got one bag of rice for his big family and they weren’t able to get a new house without dirt floors and a leaking roof... so they fled on a raft that took 3 days.
so without saying “lmao sounds like made up bullshit” how do i say, “well actually they were probably middle class and didn’t actually need this or that blah blah blah”
she also thinks since i’m privileged and didn’t experience what his family did that i should maybe not be communist? idk i want to radicalize them both, but since his literal parents are anti communist it might be hard.
Shift the focus onto why Cuba was and is still materially poor (its pre-revolution agrarian plantation economy and all the horrors that went along with that, the ongoing embargo and economic warfare the US has waged against it, and the loss of its primary trading partner in the 90s), and how the impact of the Cuban communists has been to reduce that poverty and to mitigate the worst effects of it, to ensure that even when food is scarce people still have food, that they have healthcare and education, that even in rural areas people have housing when they didn't before the revolution.
People definitely emigrated from Cuba for economic reasons just as countless more people emigrated from capitalist Latin American countries for economic reasons, but with Cuban immigrants the worst poverty they describe is shit that's normal for the worst areas in the US as well, whereas immigrants from capitalist Latin American countries are fleeing genocidal death squads trained by the US army, they're fleeing cartel violence (and the footsoldiers of the cartels are primarily former military who were trained by the US army), and they're fleeing poverty that's far worse than anything Cuba has faced since the revolution (except perhaps at the absolute worst times in the 90s).
People definitely emigrated from Cuba for economic reasons just as countless more people emigrated from capitalist Latin American countries for economic reasons
exactly, it's a complete misunderstanding of what actually happened to think that everyone who moved was a plantation owner with slaves or something and as a result it comes off as very out of touch, because it is. It's just that the people that moved to the US for those reasons didn't have the analysis to understand the cause of the plight is neo-imperialism, not some "party elites" siphoning off state funds while the country suffers (which is simply projection)
you're not gonna convince your friend. simply because it's really annoying to have americans explain your history to you. source: am ukrainian, am commie, still find it irritating af when anglos explain the ussr to me by quoting 20 different, all anglo historians.
with your gf - stick to the usual lib-to-left pipeline? there's a good list of materials on c/books i believe, sorted into lib/left levels. you could see if she's interested in a tiny reading circle with you. if she's into liberal feminism, marxist feminism is a good doorway to more general marxist thought.
Point out their clothes are now being made with slave labour.
Tell your gf she won't even have dirt floors and a leaky roof when she's living in a van down by the river in the capitalist US.
Yeah some of them did have it hard after the Americans launched a brutal embargo policy from just 90 miles away. That doesn't fall on Castro, that falls on the United States.
Poor economic conditions from the embargo, a bit of propaganda from friends and family who left, plus the royal treatment once you get to the US (a good expat network in Miami, supported by the US government cause it looks good) all combined would probably make me want to leave too. This happens all the time throughout the history of socialist countries, where workers who don't have a quality Marxist education decide they want their Nike shoes and Gucci belts, but are ignorant as to what they are giving up, even if things are difficult. Frankly, I can't entirely blame them, but this isn't about individual choices anyway. At the end of the day, the responsibility falls on the US government, not Castro/communism. If things were just as shitty without an embargo, then I'd get the argument, but it's always conveniently ignored.
I'm sure there are criticisms of Castro (any leader is bound to fuck up, especially after such a long time in power), but assuming your friend isn't part of a plantation family (if he is then it's gonna take a lot more convincing, and I'd probably just write it off at that point), why would you advocate for Batista? why would you advocate for your country to entirely capitulate to another country? That shit doesn't work out, ask the former Soviet Republics.
