Cuba Followup: Bernie and "Democratic Socialism" · 11:17am Jul 13th, 2021
"All people have the right to protest and to live in a democratic society. I call on the Cuban government to respect opposition rights and refrain from violence. It’s also long past time to end the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba, which has only hurt, not helped, the Cuban people."
This is, after a day of thinking over it, is Bernie Sander's full response to the Cuban government dragging people from their homes. A lukewarm statement that fails to acknowledge or condemn the violence that has already occurred, and implies that there are any "opposition rights" or "democratic society" in the strict dictatorship that is Cuba... followed by a quick, predictable pivot to blaming the United States for the Cuban government beating up their own people.
And no, the embargo isn't at fault, even partially. First, It's been around for 60 years, and these same people claim that Cuba has been "prospering" for most of those years. Second, the United States isn't the world; Cuba has healthy trade relations with Canada, Mexico, and China, among others. Third, and this is crucial: The current crisis in Cuba is mainly a food and medical shortage. It so happens that both food and medicine have been exempt from the trade embargo for the last 21 years.
Scrolling through the replies to Bernie's post are very informative. His supporters have filled up the place with numerous takes on how the first, lukewarm part of the statement was entirely unnecessary; some even call it "playing into the CIA narrative". Numerous comments focus on the second half of the comment to agree that the embargo is at fault. Many people playing the equivalence game by saying that nobody in the US has a right to criticize the Cuban government for how it responds to protests. A number sowing doubts that the protests are even happening at all. And occasionally, an actual Cuban coming in to say that the dictatorship is bad and they agree with the embargo... only to be dogpiled by rabid progressives. These are his supporters. These are the people who wanted him to be president. They understand that the message he put up was a dog whistle in favor of communist dictatorship, and have made that whistle explicit.
If democratic socialism was really all that different from authoritarian communism, then "democratic socialists" wouldn't invariably, predictably, defend the actions of communist dictatorships.
