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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRight wingers wrong again...Cuba is inching toward freedom of speech critical of Castro brothers
American critics of the Obama administrations rapprochement with Cuba
have called the shift in policy a failure by focusing on how rigid the socialist
government has remained. Theyre missing something important: The new
relationship has done much to diminish the culture of fear and obedience the
state has long used to control its citizens. For years, those who criticized the
government paid a high price and were branded as traitors, but today Cubans
from a broader crosssection of society are speaking out with less fear.
A youth group led by bloggers recently began a round of town hall
meetings at universities around the country to debate the political future of an
island that has been ruled by two autocratic brothers since 1959 and the
continuing exodus of young people. Harold Cárdenas, one of the leaders of the
group, known as Young Cuba, recently lamented the lack of political
enthusiasm among his contemporaries. Has Cuban youth become apolitical?
he wrote in a post. Or is it that the current alternatives are unappealing?
That is a veiled but sharp criticism of Cubas graying and increasingly
unseen leaders by Mr. Cárdenas, who has close ties to the progressive wing of
the government. Taking that sort of euphemistic shot at the state in Cuba is
not so unusual, but some Cubans have gone even further.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/opinion/pushing-the-boundaries-of-free-speech-in-cuba.html?emc=edit_th_20160307&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=70251688
Initech
(100,099 posts)Kip Humphrey
(4,753 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)Freedom of speech in the US has declined with tasteless haste.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)...if all the critics of the Castro's would remember what Cuba was like before the revolution when Batista and the American mafia ran the country. Speaking openly would have gotten you killed in those days.
Fidel Castro masterminded a political overthrow and established a functioning social democracy which is what really pissed off the American empire. From a capitalist perspective, citizens working together in the public interest....SENDS THE WRONG MESSAGE.
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Human101948
(3,457 posts)and if we had supported Cuba, the Castros would probably have been supplanted long ago.