La verdad es que se la comio. Menos mal que no vi eso ayer.

The same idiot has another article on Cuba on the same site:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3243

A certain Bennie, who commented favorably on Anderson's article, laments that Communist "Cuba sure gets the rough end of the pineapple in the MSM." I guess that's just another of those quaint Australian expressions based on Australia's quaint history. Before boatloads of prostitutes were sent to relieve their distress and to become the mothers of the Australian nation, its convict-pioneers must have found some kind of release in pineapples. Exactly which is the "rough end" of a pineapple is a matter open to debate. It apppears to have only "rough ends." Of course, I am not as sensitive or finessed in these things as the Australians are. No doubt they have found a soft spot in the pineapple. My advice, though, is never to eat a pineapple if you visit Australia. And be wary of those little "shrimps on the barbie," too.

Manuel,

Te la comiste! I just read your comment, and I'm sitting here in the office laughing like an idiot. People are starting to look at me funny. Gotta go.

The revolution will last forever - on the shelf of the history section right next to the Third Reich.

Anybody wanna take bets that this same dipstick, once the castros are gone and Cuba's real history is exposed, will be one of the first to go, "I didn't know about...." Yeah, right. People like him hear it, but think they can put off caring until the evidence is too great for them to deny.

Yo no se porque si Cuba tiene tanta cosas buenas porque todos los communistas no se mudan para alla. Pero no, siempre dan alabanzas al H.P. en jefe y su gobierno desde la comodidad de paises democraticos. Y que habla desde Australia adonde hay una comunidad cubana. Porque esos cubana viven en casa del caramelero? Parece que no ha pensado en eso.

Little Gator:

Thank-you for your kind words. I was laughing myself all the time I was writing it.

I also posted the same comment on the offending Australian website. My humor, as you can understand, was completely lost on them. They took everything I said very seriously indeed.

Here is the response from a certain sharkfin and my own response to him:

Cubano

Boatloads of prostitutes were sent to relieve their stress. Those women were prostitutes because women weren't allowed to have jobs in those days except as maids or governesses and if they couldn't get a job like that and their husbands or families fell on hard times they often ended up in the streets. Much the same as in Afghanistan with the Taliban in control. Women whose husbands died weren't allowed to work and had to beg on the streets. Prostitution wasn't an option because the religious police would have killed them.

Anyway what's your country's history, Cubano? With all the conquerors throughout history and revolutionaries, how do you know your mother's ancestors weren't concubines or (sex slaves)?

The early convicts who were given life in prison for stealing a loaf of bread when starving in those days carved the early towns and cities out of the bush with their primitive tools and bare hands. Without their slave labour this country wouldn't have got started. I like most Australians are proud of them and what they achieved under the boot of the British military and upper classes.

Obviously you aren't an Australian as you have no understanding that Australians are proud of their history.

Posted by sharkfin, Thursday, 15 March 2007 11:45:57 PM


sharkfin:

As I said, please don't take offense. I merely present this version of Australian history as a counterpoint to Tim Anderson's no less offensive portrayal of Cuba. We all have slaves and kings among our ancestors. And, surely, Australians have created the greatest nation on earth ever peopled by convicts and prostitutes and proved all the eugenicists wrong. God bless Australia!

Posted by Cubano, Friday, 16 March 2007 12:11:27 AM

Wow. This guy should look into a career as a novelist since he seems to be so good at both making stuff up and using random, out-of-context facts to bolster the "credibility" of what he's just pulled out of his butt. Also, notice that although Cuba is supposed to be so great, he doesn't live there. I wonder why?

Dear Lord... that man is very separated from reality.

Has he ever actually visited Cuba? I suspect that if he has, it's been as a guest of the government, and he's only been shown what they want him to see.

Terrible... no analysis, no attempt to poke through the veil. Just a listing of details devoid of context, and some out-and-out errors (does anyone truly believe Cuba's healthcare system is one of the best in the world? With their admitted and noted problems getting medications, their sanitation issues, etc.? If mere access is the only criteria, then McDonalds must be the best damn restaurant in the world.).

Since people were doing such a fine job of discreding his Cuban democracy crap, I opted to cast doubt over his research skills.

It is obvious that when he says "(for example, Puerto Ricans, who pay tax but have no representative in Congress)" he doesn't have a clue.

For starters, Puerto Ricans don't pay federal taxes. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They only pay taxes to the local government. Secondly, Puerto Ricans have international representation, have a comissioner in the House with voice and no vote, and are NOT a state.

If he can't get a simple fact like that straight, imagine the validity of his cuba statements.

This Australian Opinion Forum is very peculiar indeed. They restrict opinion to 350 words and allow you to post only two comments every 24 hours. There is much here for a psychologist to analyze about the country's insurality and adversity to outside (or "big") ideas. Personally, I think the reason for these restrictions is that it's considered "bad form" for Australians to get more than 2 ideas in a 24-hour period.

In any case, there are sensible and honest Australians, as we can see from the following comment left on the website:

"The Cuba described in this article is not the one I visited several years ago. I think it only exists in this writer's mind. Having traveled extensively in Mexico, often to rural locations far from paved roads and electricity I have to say that Mexico is far ahead of Cuba in any public health, social welfare sector that one chooses. Clean pure safe drinking water is much more available to anyone in Mexico. Cuban household water treatment consists of 2 buckets and a block of fine sandstone with a basin carved in the top. The typical rural home in Cuba has a small cabinet where water is poured into the basin and it filters into the bucket below. This is not a 100 micron mesh filter, it is a rock. One small town we visited in Pinar del Rio has a sewage collection system, but the treatment plant has not been operating "since the Russian left" so the collected, untreated sewage goes right into the local river. Which is where all of the people downstream get the water to filter thru the rock in their home. Cuba is free to trade with Mexico (and the rest of the world). My friends in Mexico say that Cuba does not produce anything they want or need so that is why there is no trade. Next time you are in Cuba, try to buy some oranges. See if anyone will tell you what happened to the citrus groves in 1962. Oranges in Mexico are usually about five cents each from any one of numerous street vendors."

Posted by texcaver, Friday, 16 March 2007 1:58:53 AM

And to add to La Ventanita's comment: Puerto Rico has rejected initiating steps towards Statehood 3 times in the last 40 years. So their "not having a vote" is due to them choosing to not have a vote. By voting on it. So La Ventanita's point is well made: Mr. Anderson's researching abilities are low.

-----

Just as a tiny point about taxes, though: Assuming the Wikipedia article is correct, there *is* some federal taxation in Puerto Rico.

"A common misconception is that residents of Puerto Rico do not have to pay federal taxes. Residents of the island pay federal taxes (import/export taxes, federal commodity taxes, social security taxes, etc.) and some even pay federal income taxes (Puerto Rico residents who are federal employees, or who do business with the federal government, Puerto Rico-based corporations that intend to send funds to the U.S., etc). While most residents of the island do not pay federal income tax, they do pay federal payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare)..."

OK, guys: Because of the time difference, I missed the initial article by Tim Anderson and the subsequent comments at Babalu. So, apologies for the delay. But here goe.:

Speaking as a Cuban-born very proud Aussie, I can tell you this:

1. Tim Anderson doesn't know what he is talking about. Period.

2. Sadly, his erroneous views do represent the views of probably a majority of "academics" in Australian universities. But I suspect this is no different to what happens in most US or Western European universities.

3. However, I don't believe his views would be shared by the majority of Australians.

4. Yes, we may have been colonised by the English and used initially as a penal colony - a dumping ground for so-called undesirables - but we have done OK. In fact, better than OK.

El Mondo that is correct; which is why Puerto Ricans have access to Social Security and Medicare.

However they don't have representation in the US government b/c they do not pay Federal Income Taxes.

Maybe I should've been clearer on the Aussie site.

Luis:

When you became an Australian did you lose your Cuban sense of human? Yes, of course, Australia is one of the most blessed lands on earth and you are fortunate indeed to have ended up (or down) there.

You must understand, however, that we who do not have the benefit of your acquaintance with these homegrown crackpots, cannot regard them and their opinions as innocuous and must attack them in the same degree and manner in which they ridicule
the suffering of our countrymen [I mean Cubans]. Anderson is our own equivalent of a Holocaust-denier, so please don't expect us to treat him as a "mate."

It was not my intention to wound the sensibilities of the Australians by reminding them of their origins (a sore spot that should have healed long ago). But if it teaches bad Australians like Tomlinson, who hate your country as much as they hate the U.S. and Cuba, that we too can humiliate and shame them, then so be it. I am sorry, though, for good Australians like yourself who might take personally what was not intended to be taken personally by them. Still, nothing that I said was a departure from the truth.

And, yes, as you say, you have done very well for yourselves.

That should be "Cuban sense of humor."

The Cuban Socialist Constitution of 1976 provides the framework of Anderson's article. He quotes from it extensively to prove that Cubans enjoy even greater rights than are accorded Americans under the U.S. Constitution. This fantasy is sustainable only by ignoring Article 62 of Castro's constitution. This Article in effect takes way all the rights granted in the other articles:

ARTICLE 62. None of the freedoms granted to citizens may be exercised against the provisions of the Constitution and the laws, nor against the existence and objectives of the socialist State, nor against the Cuban people's decision to construct socialism and communism. Violation of this principle is punishable.

In this respect the Cuban Socialist Constitution of 1975 is identical to the Stalinist Constitution of 1936, which also negated the very rights it granted when exercised against the interests of the one-party state.

Miguel,

No offence taken, cobber.

I'd like to think I haven't lost my Cuban sense of humor!

PS: You point re Art. 62 of the Cuban "constitution" is spot on.

PPS: To their credit, Online Opinion has just published an article by another of its contributors, John Ballantyne, under the heading, "The real Cuba: mass murderer Fidel Castro to go unpunished". You will find it here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5625

I hope it restores your faith in Australians!

If Tim Anderson is so impressed by Cuba’s Socialist Constitution of 1976 (which the Cuban government totally ignores) he should read the very progressive Cuban Constitution of 1940. He would be very impressed.

In fact, due to the tremendous effort put forth by the Cuban Delegation (Dr.Ernesto Dihigo y López Trigo, Dr.Gustavo Gutierrez and Mariano Brull) to include the Declaration of Human Rights (during the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, Mexico City on February 21-March 8, 1945), resulted in the creation of the Commission of Human Rights. Many of the Commission’s Articles are based on Cuba’s 1940s Constitution.

The suspension of the 1940’s Cuban Constitution by Fulgencio Batista was the catalyst that opened the door to fidel and hence the Cuban Rebellion.

Firefly:

It really isn't a question of the Castro regime "ignoring" the Socialist Constitution of 1976. As I've already explained, the Constitution itself contains the very mechanism that renders it inoperative (Article 62).

As for the Constitution of 1940, it is the greatest monument of the Cuban Republic, which was written with the participation of all parties and all sectors of the Cuban population, under the aegis of that guy you don't like. The Constitution of 1940 also contained provisions for the suspension or abridgement of its guarantees in times of national emergency.

Abraham Lincoln, unilaterally, suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, in effect, suspending the Constitution for the duration of the conflict, and he did so without any constitutional provision authorizing this suspension.

P.S.: Incidentally, how exactly does "a catalyst open a door"?

Manuel,

There is no need to get defensive on me. I too had family in the Batista government.

By the way I never said a “catalyst opened the door.” What I said was that “the suspension of the 1940’s Cuban Constitution by Fulgencio Batista, was the catalyst that opened the door to fidel and hence the Cuban Rebellion.” I’ll rephrase my statement for you: The suspension of the 1940’s Cuban Constitution by Fulgencio Batista became the catalyst for a series of events that ended with the Cuban Rebellion.

Catalyst: “Something that causes an important event to happen” i.e. The Cuban Rebellion.

Firefly:

I never get defensive. I am always on the offensive. I meant the "how does a catalyst open a door" remark to be humorous, as I know you appreciate my humor. I'm afraid that it's you who became "defensive" about it.