The Grand Illusion
Cuba is inexorably crumbling. Its infrastructure is deteriorating, and no one appears to be willing or able to address the root cause, which is that the private sector doesn’t see any return on public service investment, and that the country’s too poor to raise taxes for capital investment and operation. This is the result of years of abuse by essentially unregulated private sector agricultural exploitation followed by decades of equally abusive pseudo-communism.
In the United States, there’s a similar conflict, but here, the scions of the private sector have amassed billions and aren’t happy with laws and policies restricting their operations and exorbitant profits, while those working for them feel more and more exploited as the costs of living increase faster than their income.
Both sides cite their ideals, but there’s sometimes a fine line between the earnest idealist and immovable ideologue, and, unhappily, the more one attacks someone’s beliefs, the more likely that person is to become the immoveable ideologue. And ideologues invariably want to force others to comply with their views.
It’s often been said that, while figures don’t lie, liars figure. That’s true about history as well, in that historians often see what they want to in history, as do politicians, especially Donald Trump and the rabid MAGA types. But it’s also true about everyday people. I have neighbors, good, solid people who are anything but idiots, and who’d do anything to help, who honestly believe that Trump hasn’t lied about anything, that the Somalian “mafia” control the state of Minnesota, and that most people on any form of government financial assistance are freeloaders.
I also know people who insist that police officers are the enforcement arm of the Patriarchy, that children should be bombarded with literature about gender identity before children are even old enough to understand gender identification and its ramifications, and that everyone has a right to more than minimum government assistance, regardless.
The problem with these inflexible true beliefs on a larger scale is that societies get less and less flexible and more and more rigid and polarized. And the less flexible a society or country is, the less likely that pressing problems get addressed as the country becomes increasingly authoritarian… and less free.
Cuba is crumbling because the US imposes threats and tariffs on anyone who significantly trades with them.
It’s been petty retribution for 70 years since the revolution – much like Haiti, Cuba is an experiment that cannot be allowed to succeed. The situation is complicated by the longstanding links between Cuba and Florida going back to Spanish times, with Florida being heavily involved in the original Cuban independence, and multiple waves of migration back and forth.
When the Soviet Union collapsed!, Cuba lost their primary source of investment and trade. French companies have long done so on small scale, Pernod Ricard for example has a strong relationship with Cuba over Havana Club, and regularly invested into their infrastructure. But private companies don’t build power stations, that requires state level funding. China has done some state level investment, particularly in solar, but Cuba doesn’t have a lot of mineral resources or fishing rights to exchange for, and likely doesn’t want to give up another permanent enclave on their island, meaning Chinese investment remains modest by their standards.
I don’t have much use for “True Believers” of any stripe, mainly because beliefs don’t have to be based on reality. And reality doesn’t care what anyone believes.
Get the facts. It’s difficult but not impossible to find reliable information sources.
“Facts and Reliable Information” sources. I am finding that it is increasingly difficult to find such entities, because, it seems that most sources have an increasingly obvious bias and assigning a quantity to the quality of the resultant ‘fact or information’ widens the distance of the believed probability from the reality. 50 years ago most official US sources used to be more reliable/believable than those of the Soviet Union. Now, when one can reduce a statement from a US Federal or State source to its kernel of fact or information there seems to be little difference from how far it is separated from reality compared to what comes out of Russia. One reason for this difficulty is finding reliable supporting source of fact supported evidence (despite AI). Even the World Factbook is gone: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/
Re: “Facts and Reliable Information” sources
A couple of months ago I ran across a website that rates a wide variety of “news” sources using a grid of “News Bias and Reliability” vs. “Political Bias”. Obviously I can’t attest to the accuracy with which they place all individual sources, those that I do know something about seem to be reasonably placed.
Hopefully you (and others) might find this helpful:
https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive
Looks useful; Thank You. Interesting distribution pattern for the US leaning media.
With all due respect, exactly what is your source of “children should be bombarded with literature about gender identity before children are even old enough to understand gender identification and its ramifications?
I see this claim constantly from the Alt Right crowd, I’ve yet to ever see any sources that actually back the claim.
Obviously I can’t speak for our host, but:
“I also know people who insist that … children should be bombarded..”
So I suspect it’s personal acquaintances of LEM’s. Heaven knows he lives in an area with a lot of Trumpists.
As KevinJ noted, while I live in an area where liberals are either a threatened or endangered species (if not both), I have a wide range of family and acquaintances, many of whom live in places like Colorado, California, New York, and Massachusetts where there’s a great deal of, shall we say, rhetoric and commentary about what should be in elementary school libraries and classes.
That’s an answer that doesn’t answer sadly (Not implying anything, just addressing).
Do we have examples of these books? Because I’ve yet to see one that does anything other than just normalize that someone might have two moms or two dads, or normalize that someone might feel different and that doesn’t make them weird, bad or wrong.
I’ve yet to see any book or teaching program that “forces” gender identity on people. Unless you mean just that a book acknowledges it exists.
So that was my question and I apologize that I was unclear. What are these books that are being claimed to forced gender identity? Or the lesson plans in the case of teachers?
First, I never said children were “forced.” I said they were bombarded by literature dealing with gender identity issues at a young age;.
Second, since you asked, two specific titles:
The pronoun book: she, he, they and me!
Described as ” A fun and beautifully illustrated book that celebrates gender diversity through educating young children on pronouns”
Who are you? : the kid’s guide to gender identity
Described as a “brightly illustrated children’s book providing a straightforward introduction to gender for anyone aged 5+.”
The Social Justice Books website lists 50 books all about gender for young children.
If you care to look, really look, I’m sure you could find a lot more.
Enjoy.
That is fair and I apologize for using the word forced. Was not trying to put words, just spoke in what I felt was accurate but clear was not.
For the books.
“Who Are You” is about normalizing asking for Pronouns, something useful since it’s becoming a relevent part of the english language and first meetings. Nothing about bombarding with gender identity just “This is a new part of speech and let’s talk about how it’s used and how to make it not awkward.”
For “Who Are You” is more about self image and not trying to force yourself to certain molds. While it uses terms like non-binary, gender neutral, etc, it’s, again, not bombarding. Not anymore than claiming a Disney film is bombarding children with Hetero Cis relationships.
Something existing is not bombarding and it’s a disservice to state otherwise.
It’s also disingenuous to make a comparison of “Books exist that say it’s alright to not be “normal” to normalizing or condoning ICE’s actions or our current administration.
To use the meme “One side says eradicate immigrants, people of color and the LGBTQIA+ and the other side says…. Healthcare and better minimum wage. Yeah, both sides are bad.”