Talk:Ubre Blanca

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"Cuban children traditionally received a free daily glass of milk at school until the age of 13. As the U.S. enforced economic embargo tightened this age was reduced to seven. Presently milk is rationed, and shortages mean that Cubans sometimes make do with a soy substitute."

The above statement is ridiculous! What? Cuba can't produce enough milk cows because of an economic embargo that is bogus in the first place? I mean they produce sugar and tobacco. Before Castro the island was full of cows and livestock in the country side.

What does the U.S. embargo have to do with Cuban milk production and school children not getting any milk? Cuba is the largest and most fertile island in the Carri bean, it is capable of rising corps and livestock such as cows, and it has always had cows regardless of the United States or not. To me this is Castroite propaganda – and a lot of people are ignorant enough or cool aid drinkers to believe such lies. Also be aware that Castro sells the majority of the produce overseas and to tourists and the Cuban people get nothing. This is an old dictator's trick - a form of keeping the people down and blaming the troubles on the USA or Miami Cubans or someone else – Hitler did it also by blaming the Jews of Germany's problems – he (Castro) creates these maladies so the people have an enemy and to blind them from the nasty stuff he does to them everyday. I have seen creates of Cuban grown grapefruit in the London and Canadian produce markets. The best one is the Cubans not being allowed by law to eat shrimps and lobsters - all that are sold to the tourists – even where Cuba is an island with some of the richest fishing around. Castro blames the embargo! This is a fact!

No. After the Soviet disintergration and the tightening of the embargo in the early 90's, Cuba's economy collapsed leading to widescale poverty. There was a shortage of livestock in Cuba due to lack of feed. That is a fact, verifiable by any economic study on the island. Whether you claim to gave seen Cuban fruit in London or Canada is of no consequence.--Zleitzen 10:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Castro's failed economic policies are to blame for poverty

Zleitzen writes:

>>:No. After the Soviet disintergration and the tightening of the embargo in the early 90's, Cuba's economy collapsed leading to widescale poverty. There was a shortage of livestock in Cuba due to lack of feed. That is a fact, verifiable by any economic study on the island. Whether you claim to gave seen Cuban fruit in London or Canada is of no consequence.--Zleitzen 10:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)<<

Cuba's economy had collasped long before the disintergration of the Soviet empire. In fact, shortly after Castro usurped Cuba's presidency and became dictator-for-life, Cuba's economy began to disintergrate. To start off, Castro imposed a failed Marxist economy on the Cuban nation. In Marxist economies, which have failed in every country where they have been implemented, the laws of supply and demand do not exist. He, also, confiscated all private property and exiled Cuba's enterpreneurial class thus destroying the backbone of the Cuban economy. If that was not enough, he took away most personal farms and forced farmers to work in hugh agricultural cooperatives, where they had no incentive to work land that did not belong to them. This ensured productivity to fall drastically. And if you thought that it could not get worst, Castro killed any vestige of life in the moribund Cuban economy with his harebrained ideas! You see, Castro thinks that he is an expert on ALL SUBJECTS KNOWN TO MANKIND. One of his harebrained ideas was the 10,000,000 ton sugarcane harvest--a technical impossibility. One day Castro had the harebrained idea to have the biggest sugarcane harvest in the history of Cuba. So, he chopped down thousands of productive fruit trees, burned down forests, and redirected Cuba's workforce [including essential office workers, etc..] to start planting and harvesting sugarcane. The cost to the nation was catastrophic as all resources were redirected to his goal of 10,000,000 tons of sugar. What's more, the sugar mills were run to the ground from working day and night and essential machinery destroyed. Of course, the 10,000,000 ton sugarcane harvest was not met. Cuba's economy never rebounded.

So, it is not the U.S. embargo that is to blame for Cuba's poverty, but Castro. Before Castro rose to power, Cuba used to produce enough food to feed its populace. Cuba is a subtropical country with four harvesting seasons and famously fertile land.

By the way, one of the first things that Castro did when he rose to power was to sell off Cuba's lifestock. The province of Camaguay was famous for it's prized lifestock and Castro depleted it by either selling it off or giving it as gifts to other 3rd world countries in order to ingratiate himself with them. Castro loves to take what doesn't belong to him, what belongs to the Cuban people, and give it to others as part of his propaganda campaign.

And about those "verifiable" studies on the island that prove that there is a shortage of lifestock in Cuba because there is no feed [due to the embargo], there are no verifiable studies inside Cuba because everything is controlled by the state. There are no independent organizations that can go to Cuba to do their own field work. Any information that any "independent" organization obtains from Cuba is obtained directly from the Cuban institutions who manipulate stats to suit their purpose.

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In response to Zleitzen: Not only is your claim ridiculous, it's false. The US embargo on Cuba has a number of exceptions, among them all agricultural/food products! Besides stop making excuses for a failed economic system – like all the soviet socialist and iron curtain models who have dropped that archaic system for capitalism and free markets and personal responsibility. Never trust the state – especially a Marxist one were they screw things up – its been proven by history. The Cubans are poor, not because Batista made them that way, or because they were peasants, but because the communist economic policies of Fidel Castro have all been failures. The Cubans under Castro were poor to begin with – as I said – it's an old dictatorship trick. It was based on the Soviet model of long lines, low quality products, and empty shelves. The embargo is nonsense especially in a very fertile and rich island capable of producing livestock and also surrounded by a bountiful ocean. Remember, Cuba is the largest Caribbean island famed for its tobacco and sugar. Even during the Soviet subsidies there ration books. I was there in 1979 with my mother and my Mom's family had a ration book and also a political report card as well as internal passports – they were not allowed to travel to other parts of the island. What? a big island like Cuba can't make livestock feed? I thought Cuban scientists and agricultural engineers – due to the "wonders" of the Revolution were capable of doing anything! How hard is it to make feed? What about all this thing we hear about soybeans and organic farming? If all of this is true – of the scientific laurels of the Revolution, then by now I would expect super cows and miracle food stuffs that make Cubans into uber Latinos! But in the end we all know what propaganda looks like. Plus why does Cuba always have to depend on the United States so much? The United States is not a panacea to Cuba's problems. Cuba needs to drop the welfare “poor little me” attitude and take responsibility for their own problems – created by them. Besides Castro has always traded with everyone and every nation - he buys from all over the world - so this notion of embargo or blockade is bogus. Written by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mandingojones

Thanks for your input guys but none of what you say (at length) changes anything. After the collapse of the Soviet sugar for oil deals, Cuba couldn't compete with Brazil, India, and China who had far cheaper sugar production which was mired by dated Soviet technology in Cuba. Leading to the economic collapse and a national food shortage. According to official Cuban estimates Food consumption dropped below 1,000 calories per day, half of what they needed. In desperation, Cubans slaughtered and ate virtually all of the huge cattle resource, as people couldn't get hold of the cattle feed anyway. There were experiments with sugar cane and so on. This crisis was excacerbated by the embargo and subsequent helms-burton machinations. Don't take my word for it. Give Cuban economics a study.--Zleitzen 03:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The "battle of ideas" was launched by Castro during the Elian Gonzales affair. It has nothing to do with the Cold War years or Ubre Blanca.