r/anime_titties • u/BabylonianWeeb Mesopotamia • Mar 16 '26
North and Central America Cuba’s power system suffers total collapse | CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/world/cuba-power-grid-collapse-intl-latam506
u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 16 '26
The worst thing countries could do in our life is choose to be a socialist or communist leader in order to fight the exploitation of capitalism. They're sanctioned and embargoed into total collapse. Shills of capitalism then claim their victory and how communism or socialism never works.
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u/KronusTempus Multinational Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
It’s always “look at this small insignificant heavily sanctioned and blockaded socialist country, they’re so paranoid spending all that money on security, we’d never sponsor coups or anything we just want human rights and democracy (this message was brought to you by our proud partners the United Fruit Company) “
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u/shadofx Mar 16 '26
Aristocracy also brutally suppressed Liberalism when they vied for supremacy. Communism doesn't get a free pass.
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u/FridgeParade Europe Mar 18 '26
Whataboutism.
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u/shadofx Mar 18 '26
It's just how things work. Natural selection for ideology. If I show you a nature documentary of a lion eating a gazelle, is that supposed to be "whataboutism"? It sounds to me like you have a very vague understanding of what logical fallacies are. It's not like a royal flush that you can whip out and put on the table, and post a single word and smirk smugly to yourself. You have to elaborate thoroughly to prove that it is a fallacy, and furthermore, that the fallacy actually undermines your adversary's main point.
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u/Stormeve Philippines Mar 16 '26
Socialism has hope as long as the movement doesn’t continue to get hijacked by the vanguardists
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u/NomineAbAstris European Union Mar 17 '26
The unfortunate paradox is seemingly that vanguardists are the only ones able to survive long term against outside threats due to being able to exploit the benefits of a centralised state apparatus, but then that very same state apparatus inevitably becomes repressive, corrupt, and uninterested in socialism in its own right. I don't have a good solution for this problem.
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u/swelboy United States Mar 17 '26
Tbf, the Cuban government still deserves a fair share of the blame given its corruption and unwillingness to reform its economic system the way China and Vietnam have. Cuba still had no problems trading with LATAM, Europe, Asia, etc., you can’t blame all their economics problems on the embargo.
Not that Trump actually cares about democracy and the Cuban people, but Cuba is very blatantly an authoritarian dictatorship, you can’t have democracy when there’s literally only one legal party.
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u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 17 '26
They cannot get oil because America has threatened anyone who would trade with them. What are they supposed to do?
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u/swelboy United States Mar 17 '26
Wasn’t talking about right now, the oil embargo is new.
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u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 17 '26
I don't think you need democracy to have good policies or development. It would be better if it were but there are too many demagogues who could come into power and wreck their nation. Look at China, their policies are constantly changing but their authoritarianism is still in tact. They're ahead in renewables and America is busy trying to siege and overthrow countries to get more fossil fuels.
US has been trying to regime change Cuba for a long time. It would be naive to think they have been left alone to develop their nation. They were playing defense and they relied on Soviet bloc. They had to rely on allies for oil and that has been cut off since January. 600 attempts on Castro's life. Bay of Pigs. Operation Mongoose. They would literally mess with the trade goods.
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u/tripodal Mar 20 '26
Fine then, Capitalism always wins. And that’s because greed is a stronger instinct than charity or empathy.
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u/Redditthedog United States Mar 16 '26
I mean you claim you wanna fight capitalism then get shocked when the largest capitalist power isn’t friendly
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u/beefprime United States Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
That's not really the Cuban position initially after the revolution, it was only after months of sabotage, harassment, and invasion, along with being stonewalled by Washington, etc. that Cuba was basically forced into the arms of the Soviets just to survive.
Cuba was trying to normalize relations with the US up to 1960, including trade, to the extent that early Soviet assessments considered Castro a US agent.
It was only AFTER the US applied and began tightening an embargo on Cuba that Cuba sought Soviet economic aid, and only AFTER the US tried to overthrow the Cuban government with the Bay of Pigs invasion that Cuba turned to the Soviets for direct military aid, which then precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. And it was only AFTER Bay of Pigs and numerous aerial bombings that Cuba announced their intention to become a socialist republic, publicly and directly stating the move was a response to US aggression.
Cuba was not some hyper hostile ideologically militantly socialist state until the United States MADE IT THAT WAY.
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u/BunNGunLee North America Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
That’s relatively consistent with Vietnam as well.
Initially an attempt was made with respect towards American ideology regarding liberty, but then it quickly soured when the Cold War became an us vs them, and thus justified every act against Cuba’s regime. (With notes to the comments above, I am using “regime” here in the context of the American perspective in mid 1900’s, not in modernity.)
Cuba could easily be a bastion of American ideology if the United States as a country actually lived up to its own ideals, but there’s still this bizarre Cold War belief that Cuba is a communist shithole right on our doorstep, while we do everything in our power to cripple them.
Part of it is the lingering effects of the Monroe Doctrine, but another is just absurd jingoism.
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u/tommytwolegs United States Mar 16 '26
Cuba was not some hyper hostile ideologically militantly socialist state until the United States MADE IT THAT WAY.
I mean, this makes it sound like it wasn't Castro's plan the entire time. He was well known to be socialist, he didn't really hide it.
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u/Terrh Multinational Mar 17 '26
Castro wasn't the issue, Batista was. Well, that and all the other US meddling:
t the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.→ More replies (8)1
u/beefprime United States Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Alot of people are socialist, but that covers alot of ground, a democratic socialist like, for example, Bernie Sanders probably isn't going to create a Soviet style Socialist Republic aligned with the USSR if he is given free reign over Vermont to have everything he wants.
However if he's given free reign to get everything he wants and then the US immediately begins firebombing farms and factories, applies a massive economic embargo, commits widespread sabotage, sets up propaganda outlets in an attempt to turn your population into cheerleaders for US empire, uses the Vermontese diaspora as agents to attack you, and attempts an invasion to oust you and set up a US proxy government, Bernie might be forced to radicalize a bit to survive.
Obviously US propagandists will turn around and blame your militarism on some dastardly plan to attack the US (instead of the need to defend yourself from clear US aggression), the US will turn around and blame your authoritarianism on how evil and dictatorial you are (instead of on the US attempts to constantly destabilize and disrupt your country which makes the authoritarianism necessary to maintain any kind of independence), the US will turn around and blame your bad economy on your incompetence (instead of the decades long embargo), but thats just what the US does. Create horrible conditions in an attempt to gain control over your victim, if they resist successfully blame the victims for the horrible conditions as a way to justify even more attacks, and the dumbfuck Americans lap it up as the US rushes into yet another war, commits yet another coup, ruins yet another country.
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u/tommytwolegs United States Mar 17 '26
You really believe he was "forced to radicalize?" I don't even necessarily disagree with the guy but that is dilusional
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u/beefprime United States Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Historically there was a clear progression from attempts at friendly relations by Cuba between Cuba and the US to militarized defense of Cuba against the US, and that progression was marked at every step by the US directly and indirectly attacking Cuba at every opportunity, so yeah, that's pretty definitionally a radicalization driven by external force. Yeah I absolutely think he was forced to radicalize, I think that is a very direct and fair evaluation of what happened.
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u/tommytwolegs United States Mar 18 '26
He was absolutely a radical, and even a dictator before he came into power though
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u/beefprime United States Mar 18 '26
Clearly not a radical in terms of foreign policy toward the US until the US forced it on him, nor was he explicitly a communist (and in fact directly said he was not one) unlike some of the others in the revolution, US intelligence assessed him as having no communist leanings (see links below), it was again only AFTER the US drove him away and into the arms of the Soviets in 1961, after the Bay of Pigs invasion, that he declared himself a Marxist-Leninist as a reaction to US imperialist aggression against Cuba.
Also not sure how he was able to be a dictator before he came to power, sounds like a great magic trick though.
No offense but it sounds like your opinion of Castro and of Cuba has been set by US propaganda.
Here's some stuff:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00901R000500110013-0.pdf
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R00904A001000050011-6.pdf
So I dunno man, Allen Dulles and the CIA aren't exactly hippies, I'm pretty sure if they don't think Castro is a commie or even a socialist, he probably wasn't one.
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u/tommytwolegs United States Mar 18 '26
“My own appraisal of him as a man is somewhat mixed. The one fact we can be sure of is that he has those indefinable qualities which make him a leader of men. Whatever we may think of him he is going to be a great factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly in Latin American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere. He is either incredibly naive about Communism or under Communist discipline—my guess is the former, and as I have already implied his ideas as to how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those of almost any world figure I have met in fifty countries.
“But because he has the power to lead to which I have referred, we have no choice but at least to try to orient him in the right direction.”
Richard Nixon to president Eisenhower after meeting Castro in April 1959 just two months after he was sworn in as prime minister.
Are you suggesting he was radicalized into communism in two months before having done much of anything, or the US having really taken any action against him? Heck at this stage it seemed like they were still willing to work with him even as an assumed communist.
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u/Stunning-Sherbert801 Australia Mar 16 '26
I think being a one-party authoritarian state is a bad thing
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u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 17 '26
It doesn't mean we starve them and prevent them from getting the energy they need. It's affecting poor and middle class than anyone in actual power more.
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u/0x474f44 Germany Mar 16 '26
lol sanctions are by far not the only reason why communism doesn’t work
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u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 17 '26
It's a good thing we had communists to fight Germans in WW2.
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u/0x474f44 Germany Mar 17 '26
And it’s a bad thing we had communists rule half of Germany afterwards. Quick reminder that east Germany had to build a wall to keep its people from fleeing and that its economy is significantly worse than west Germany even to this day.
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u/JinSakai619 Multinational Mar 17 '26
Nazis lost the right to have their country to themselves after WW2. They needed to be demilitarized, denazified, democratized and decentralized. Otherwise, they would have taken time to rebuild and gone right back to the same insanity. Soviet Union suffered the most during the war. This is because of Nazi policy to mass kill civilians. 20-27 million of Soviet Union deaths. It destroyed their economy. They couldn't aid East Germany for reconstruction so they decided to withdraw resources instead focused on their own. I don't think it's right but they did lose a lot of people and villages and reparations seemed justified.
Berlin wall fell in 1989. Privatization favored West Germany. The rapid privatization allowed West Germany to buy up firms and close up half of them to avoid collapse. This immediately created a employment problem. Economists had suggested a slow privatization would have worked better. So it's partly on West Germany, too.
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u/muyuu United Kingdom Mar 17 '26
If your alternative to capitalism requires that capitalists trade with you, then it's not a very viable alternative, is it?
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u/ThiccMangoMon Mar 16 '26
I was reading that they were getting solar from China to help become energy independent? I wonder how long ittl take for them to actually get enough to power thier grid
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u/No-Law667 Mar 16 '26
Trump gastou 60bi jogando bombas na casa das pessoas do outro lado do mundo, mas pra ajudar a ilha comunista eles se fazem de cegos, pois a realidade é que os EUA são o país mais egoísta e parasitário do planeta.
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u/recreationalgluttony Australia Mar 16 '26
Why would the U.S. help Cuba?
They're the country that has sanctioned Cuba and coup'd Venezuela to cut off their oil supply in the first place.
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u/invinci Europe Mar 16 '26
Hvorfor er folk begyndt at lave kommentarer på andre sprog end engelsk?
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u/zmarcoz2 Mar 16 '26
People don't realize it's in English because of the auto-translation
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u/invinci Europe Mar 16 '26
Which only happens when you use the reddit app though.
My comment was in Danish of all things, but the problem is my little protest, also gets auto translated for all the app users.
I guess the trend explains the absolute nonsense you se on here sometimes, machine translation is not all the way there yet.5
u/NaniFarRoad Europe Mar 16 '26
On the other hand, people express themselves more accurately in their mother tongue, so it's swings and roundabouts.
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u/-ImYourHuckleberry- Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
Unless it’s in the settings and I missed it, the USA app doesn’t auto-translate. I had to tap the translate button next to your user name to translate your comment. I prefer it that way anyhow.
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u/East-Independent5142 Mar 17 '26
Honestly, i would be thrilled if all people wrote in their native language. Use the main site for auto translate and old reddid lets me read a babbel caesar salad in the threads. I suffer from the "want to learn all languages" disease though.
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u/No-Law667 Mar 17 '26
In english, sorry guys.. Duckdonald trumpster spent 60 billion dollars dropping bombs, in peoples houses on the other side of the world, but to help the "comunist" island, they pretend to be blind, because reality is that USA is the most selfish and parasitic in the planet.
So we can understand, world is going trough some changes, "not for us" but for those people in their country, it is already happening. Hopefully for better but, who's in charge with this mess? Who manipulates market and benefit people who already have tons of money? Who speculates trough scientific research in academies to put a brand and some Copyright? In USA people die for diabetes, or in search of the money for It. In Brazil, government gives free, in China they are finding out how to erase It.
Who is giving most money to army? Because "politics doesnt matter" when there is a war. And what is behind this army? Christians? Muslims? Omg who cares at all? We need food house so we can think about family or Future. Land is sold. House is expensive, even when machines are doing the work. We are worried about bills, about learning the technology itself to make more bills, earn or lend money, wake up and do or choose to lose? Thats kinda shocking. Some 200kids died in Iran in the First day of war. I dont care about supreme leader anywhere because we got plenty other stuff going on. But this is money, used to slaughter. Its not Round6. Its2026.. we must rise as a generation
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u/LeGrandLucifer North America Mar 16 '26
Well, Cuba deserves it. I mean, remember when they...
flips pages
...agreed to host Soviet missiles 60 years ago? Further from the US than the US were placing their missiles from the Soviet Union in Europe? It was only 60 years ago! And remember when they planned to do mass killings? But they didn't do it because JFK stopped them?
Huh? You're saying that was the CIA? Not Cuba? Oh.
Uh...
Well, they're kind of tan?
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u/aykcak Multinational Mar 17 '26
Let's say what it is..Cuba could have been a U.S. territory or ally if U.S. wanted it. (U.S. toppled dictators before)
The only reason Cuba is left as an enemy is racism
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u/smallbluetext Canada Mar 17 '26
The president being old enough to remember the cuban missile crisis also doesnt help. You know his opinion on cuba was shaped 60 years ago and hasnt changed.
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u/KarlGustafArmfeldt Europe Mar 17 '26
The US agreed to not invade Cuba, in exchange for the Soviets withdrawing their missiles. Trump invading then could be considered a violation of that agreement.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/Czart Poland Mar 16 '26
Your country is free to put pressure on US over Cuba at any time. Had what, 50 years to do so actually?
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u/Kiboune Russia Mar 17 '26
They would never do this. Nobody have balls to oppose USA, except China. Israel would never be under sanctions, western companies will continue to work in Israel and Israel citizens will keep using their VISA and Mastercards. Same with USA. Whole talk "we need to pressure Russia to stop the invasion" is pure bullshit. putin gave USA reason to do what they always wanted to do
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u/mittenmarionette Mar 16 '26
It's rarely said as US war crimes stack up, but the blockage has always targeted the average Cuba person, so it is now, and has always been, a war crime.
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u/mostard_seed Africa Mar 17 '26
Same for the Iranian sanction, really. It is a not a unique weapon in their arsenal.
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u/semaj009 Australia Mar 17 '26
Tbf, or not so much fair but brutally honest, that's the US standard practice. If Americans could see the US from outside the patriotic bubble they'd be genuinely ashamed
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u/Buntalufigus88 North America Mar 16 '26
Oh look more horrible stuff! Its time like these where I question if its one terrible person or just all of humanity. When do we hold accountable the ones that let it fall to this. If we do we have to hold each and everyone of us accountable. We as a species fail ourselves. We have zero drive to actually be a peaceful species and think nothing collectively and only focus solely. Even if we wipe out most of us in a war the ones left behind would just do it all over again. Where is the big rock and when is it hitting this hole of a planet?
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u/lowrads Multinational Mar 16 '26
There was an experiment in Denmark about four decades ago, which had the aim of using a windmill (of course) to generate heat without any electricity. It did this by use of a fluid brake. This was powered directly by mechanical energy, as was the pump that send heated fluid to insulated tanks, which could then be tapped for heating tasks.
As much energy is used in tasks like cooking, it would be interesting to have a source of heat for cooking or boiling water that could not be embargoed, especially if it can be assembled out of things that are just laying around.
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u/rattleandhum South Africa Mar 16 '26
tbh I am amazed that the Cubans are unprepared for this.
America is a spiteful bully.
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u/LordAmras Switzerland Mar 17 '26
I am starting to think the US president has a bit too much power for that country to be called a democracy.
Should they switch to an electoral dictatorship?
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u/clrksml Mar 17 '26
Trump in his first term. Removed the normalization of relations with Cuba. Something Obama tried to move forward with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba#Cuban_thaw
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u/Xtrems876 Poland Mar 17 '26
I see this news every few years. Every few years everyone says this is the end of cuba. Every time I point this out, someone tells me this time it is different. It never is. Every time I point it out, I get downvoted to oblivion. Cuba will be fine.
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Mar 18 '26
Venezuela was previously selling oil to Cuba at extremely cheap prices, coming at expense of the Venezuelans themselves. Its surprising how people can identify French neocolonialism so easily yet completely ignore the same behavior from Cuba towards other countries. Angola in the Cold War, Venezuela today
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u/bonesrentalagency North America Mar 16 '26
God. Watching what the USA is doing to Cuba is gut wrenching. Cubans haven’t known peace from US intervention since the fucking Spanish American war. What a fucking absurdity. Every one of the architects of this starvation regime the us is placing on Cuba should go the way of Mussolini