Protesting the island's dire
economic conditions,
food shortages, and the slow pace
of COVID-19 vaccinations.
In one area of Havana,
protesters clashing with police.
Elsewhere, they chanted repressers
at riot police.
Cubans voicing anger over
the repression of civil liberties
and the handling of the pandemic.
Amid what many are describing
as the country's
worst economic crisis in decades.
>> And, of course, that economic
crisis in Cuba is only exacerbated
by US sanctions and the US embargo,
which of course was reimplemented
by the Trump administration.
We'll get to those details in
just a second.
But first, some additional context
in regard to the protests that have
broken out in Cuba.
Thousands of Cubans have taken to
the streets to protest
the government's handling of
coronavirus and the food shortages.
The economic situation there is,
in fact, dire, especially
considering the fact that Americans
who typically would send US
currency to family members in Cuba
are no longer able to do that.
So that lifeline
has been squashed by the sanctions,
that again, were implemented
during the Trump administration.
Now the protests began early Sunday
afternoon in the municipality of
San Antonio de los Banos,
in the Artemisa province,
adjacent to Havana.
A few hours later they had spread
to the east of the country,
in provinces such as Santiago de
Cuba.
Now Biden has already weighed in on
this after much pressure from
Senator Marco Rubio,
who has decided to exploit these
protests to spread his
anti-socialist messaging.
And Biden said this, we stand with
the Cuban people and their clarion
call for freedom and relief from
the tragic grip of the pandemic and
from the decades of repression and
economic suffering to
which they have been subjected
by Cuba's authoritarian regime.
But let me just be clear in stating
that while Biden campaigned on
lifting those economic sanctions,
he was then elected into office and
refused to do anything about them.
Mostly because he wants
to appeal to Cubans and Venezuelans
in South Florida, who have no
interest in voting for him anyway.
So it's a weak move by Biden.
There is unnecessary pain and
suffering in Cuba as a result of
those sanctions.
And if he genuinely does care about
doing something positive in regard
to the economic situation there,
the only thing he can do,
the only thing he should do as the
president, is lift those sanctions.
>> Okay, so I think this is
a complicated story.
Let's go through a couple of
the different angles here.
So first of all,
is Cuba an authoritarian regime?
Absolutely, would I prefer that
the people of Cuba have freedom?
Absolutely, and actual democracy
which they do not have now.
Okay, the Castros have been in
charge forever,
it's clearly a dictatorship, okay?
And all the dreams of communism
are, honestly, nonsense.
There was never any communism
there.
Communism almost always turns
into dictatorships and
that's what it turned into here.
They remind me the libertarians,
the government will melt away.
No, the government will melt away
until there's one dictator.
So, on the other hand,
are we making the situation
considerably worse for the people
of Cuba through our embargo?
Definitely, right?
And you could be against regime
change and you could be against
the embargo and still be against
the dictatorship that runs Cuba.
I say it's complicated,
it's actually not that complicated.
It's easy to say, hey, listen,
we feel terrible for
the people of Cuba,
our heart goes out to them.
But I think us trying to do regime
change through either violent
means, like we normally do in
the Middle East, bombings, etc.
Or coups,
as we normally do in Latin America.
Or through, impose suffering upon
the people until they get so mad,
and so frustrated, and so hungry,
and so sick, they try to overturn
their own government.
That's a very bad strategy and
it's a very immoral strategy.
But I'm going to add one layer
here, and then this is the only
part where it actually does get
some degree of nuance, right?
So most folks now say sanctions
are always bad.
Actually, I don't agree with that,
I think it really depends.
And remember, BDS is in some sense,
a boycott movement that you can
call a sanction movement.
And that's where, again,
it gets complicated and
nuanced, right?
And the best example of sanctions
working was in the case of
apartheid in South Africa.
But the key to whether it's going
to work or not, in my opinion, is
if there is a dispersed power base.
And you affect the financial
interest of the ruling class.
>> Yes.
>> If you do that, then you could
actually remove a government
as we did in South Africa.
And in that case there was no
violence, we actually pushed
through economic pressure, right?
But and when you do it against
dictators, whether it's
Saddam Hussein or Assad in Syria,
or the Castros in Cuba or
Kim Jong-un in North Korea,
there's no chance of it working.
Because the dictator is always
going to have enough caviar.
And by definition, the dictator
doesn't care about his people.
So it's not like, my God, my people
are sick and hungry, I'm so moved.
No, Kim Jong-un started
concentration camps.
He's not moved by
the suffering of his people, and
neither are the Castros.
>> Right. >> So what America is
trying to do is,
if we make the people of those
countries suffer so badly that
they're going to die either way,
maybe they'll do a violent
overthrow of their own government.
Like I said earlier,
that's a deeply immoral policy and
it's not going to work.
>> Yeah, so there's so
much I want to touch on.
Because it's important
to understand the political context
in which this uprising currently is
taking place.
So first off,
Raul Castro actually stepped down.
You're right in that it's not
a democracy.
They don't have elections,
they don't have
democratically elected leaders.
But their new president,
relatively new president,
is Miguel Diaz-Canel.
And he is not
a product of the Cuban Revolution,
which is actually a pretty
interesting part to this story.
Because for those countries that
are looking at this as a possible
way of pushing for
regime change, I'm curious if they
see this change in leadership as
a potential vulnerability in Cuba.
The fact that Biden refused
to lift the sanctions I think
is incredibly problematic.
Especially when you look
at the Obama administration lifting
the embargo, then Trump coming in,
reimplementing it.
And then Biden campaigning on
lifting it, but then he
never did and he doesn't plan to.
So to pretend like he's concerned
about the economic situation of
Cubans right now while insisting on
keeping the sanctions in place,
it's just disgusting and
ridiculous, right?
Now, the other thing I wanted to
mention was, the Cubans in
South Florida, who are arguing that
lifting the sanctions does nothing
other than provide more money to
Cuban authoritarians.
No, that's not true, right?
Because the sanctions did one thing
in specific that harms
Cubans in the country right now.
So I'm going to go to this video,
it touches on it a little bit.
And then I'll fill in the blanks
when we come back.
>> Not happening.
>> President Joe Biden came
to office promising
changes in US policy toward Cuba.
But months after he
moved into the White House,
sanctions remain in place and
diplomacy is strained at best.
The crippling effects of the US
embargo recently led to
the suspension of cash deposits in
US dollars, a major source
of income for ordinary Cubans.
>> It affects me from the point of
view that I have relatives abroad
who send me foreign currency.
But well, we will look for
other ways for it to arrive.
>> It's all a far cry from
President Obama's historic visit in
2016.
When relations were normalized,
the US Embassy reopened and
travel to Cuba allowed.
President Biden, it seems,
is not following suit.
>> A Cuba policy shift or
additional steps is currently
not among the president's top
foreign policy priorities.
But it is an issue, of course,
we will remain engaged in and
focused on.
>> In essence that means retaining
hundreds of tough measures put
in place by President Trump.
Including redesignating Cuba as
state sponsor of terrorism.
>> So Cuba is designated as a state
sponsor of terrorism.
Biden has not reversed that.
Consider the fact that these
sanctions remain in place during
a pandemic when people need help,
right?
And we're not just doing it in
Cuba, we're also doing it in
Iran and also in Syria.
And so, couple that with the fact
that they've lost a lot of money in
regard to the lack of tourism.
That's how a lot of Cubans make
money, right?
So the coronavirus crisis, which
caused the closure of airports and
slowed down tourism by more than
80%- Cuba's second source of income
after its medical missions- has
exacerbated the shortage and
fueled popular discontent.
And what's also interesting, Cenk,
is if you look at
the narrative that's playing
out here in the United States.
It's hard to research a story like
this in the United States relying
on US media.
Because they just say this is
about socialism,
they're just protesting socialism.
No, it's way more complicated
than that.
It's not just,
they're protesting socialism.
And that's when you hear Chomsky
talk about manufacturing consent,
this is what he's talking about.
Simplifying the matter
on the ground and making this
about dueling economic systems.
When in reality, it's a complex
issue that is exacerbated by the
United States and its long history
of wanting regime change in Cuba.
>> Yeah, so, more critique for
everyone involved in this story.
I agree with what Ana's saying.
When I read the mainstream media on
this, it's so hard
to discern what's true or not true.
On domestic issues,
it's easier to discern.
Ana and I had a conversation with
Noam Chomsky about this in
an interview we did recently.
Where we shared notes on how do you
read the media and discern the
truth from the framing and the lies
and the manufacturing of consent?
And on domestic issues, where we
have a lot more information,
it's easier to do.
On foreign policy issues,
I don't trust the New York Times or
any of these outlets I read at all.
They always frame it as,
the people of Cuba are so
mad at the socialism and
the communism and
they have risen up in their anger.
There's barely any mention of
embargoes, it lacks all nuance.
And I just don't know if it's
almost unadulterated propaganda or
not, right?
And I wish I had honest accounting
and reporting from inside there.
Because, look, again,
the dictatorship there has tons of
faults.
So, in terms of Miguel Diaz-Canal,
I'm not an expert on him.
I don't know to what degree he's
basically serving Raul Castro's
interests.
But it doesn't really matter
because it's the same idea and
the same ideology and the same
set of folks that are still running
the country, right?
And in terms of blame for
them, they deserve plenty.
So they're trying to develop their
own vaccine.
And they won't let any
other scientists look at it
in the international world.
Now, Cuba has a healthcare program
that they're very proud of, and for
a long time, rightfully proud of.
So in America,
we do propaganda where we say,
Cuba is just a hellhole and
there's nothing good in it.
No, the healthcare in Cuba,
generally speaking,
has been good to excellent, right?
There's many other
problems, though.
But in this case they refuse to
participate with anybody
in the outside world,
that is a terrible idea.
What if the outside world develops
a great vaccine and you don't?
Well, then you gotta get that
vaccine to your people.
And time is of the essence here.
It reminded me of Texas saying,
we don't want to connect our energy
grid to anybody else's energy grid,
we're independent.
And then their energy grid went
down and they weren't connected,
and so their people suffered.
So in a sense,
it's similar here in Cuba.
So yes, they have tons of blame for
the Cuban government.
But then back to us,
Biden's hypocrisy, as usual,
is unbearable, right?
I promise you this because I
want to pretend to be progressive
when I'm running for office.
because I know that voters
love progressives,
they love progressive positions.
I just get the mainstream media to
smear Bernie Sanders, who's actual
progressive in the race.
Call him a communist and
say he's going to execute people in
Central Park.
And then I give them progressive
talking points because I know
they love it.
And then I get in office, and guys,
I was just kidding on 70%
of them at least.
We give credit where credit's due,
he withdrew from Afghanistan.
He got rid of net neutrality rules
that Trump put in that were
terrible, or
anti net neutrality rules.
But on stuff like this,
he always goes back to
his deeply conservative roots.
And so here he's celebrating
the misery of the Cuban people.
Ha-ha, we're going to keep
Trump's embargo.
And Obama was terrible on most
issues like this too, but
not on this one.
Please, guys, on every issue,
use your judgment, use your mind.
Not everything is black and white.
So Obama was great on Cuba.
He opened it back up and
that was the right direction to go.
Now Biden is going backwards.
>> Yeah, one final thing I wanted
to mention about Cuba and
some of the more exciting things
that were taking place within
the country was.
I think we've been clear on
mentioning some of the downsides of
that authoritarian government.
However, they were opening up their
economy not to multinational
corporations.
But what they were doing
was beginning to open
up their economy to worker co-ops.
So the means of production were
transferred from the government to
the actual workers in the various
companies in Cuba,
which was exciting stuff, right?
>> Yeah. >> And I'm worried that
right now Cuba's in a vulnerable
position.
And with more and more pressure by
both business interests,
South Florida and
people like Marco Rubio,
Biden's going to double down on US
sanctions.
Biden still recognizes Juan Guaido
as the leader of Venezuela.
He wasn't democratically elected,
he's not the leader of Venezuela.
So I think that Cuba at the moment
is in a vulnerable position.
I think that it's also wrong
to minimize the concerns of
the protesters.
But as an American, if you're
watching this and you're wondering
what should the United States' role
be in this situation?
The only role is to lift
the sanctions, that's it.
The fact that the US wants regime
change is wrong.
And understand why they want
regime change.
Because they want to open that
country up to the same exploitation
that was taking place during
the Bautista regime.
>> And I'm going to give one last
piece of hypocrisy here.
It's from one of our members,
Make You See the Silver Dragon
wrote, and I'm glad he did.
He said Biden is anti-Cuba because
it's not a democracy.
Good thing that our buddies in
Saudi Arabia and
Israel are democracies.
And so, that's such a great point.
And it exposes the hypocrisy of the
US government now led by Joe Biden.
So Saudi Arabia is not within
miles, planets, of a democracy,
obvious massive dictatorship at its
worst, right?
But as long as they're giving us
oil and natural resources, yay,
Saudi Arabia, okay?
And Cuba, on the other hand,
has a thousand problems, but co-ops
were way better than communism.
Or forget communism, the government
control through the authoritarian
government that they had.
Instead we go and crush that,
because it's not that we're worried
that they're too left wing or
that they're actually communists,
or that they're dictators.
We're worried that they're not
letting us rob them of their
natural resources.
And if you don't agree to that,
then we're going to smear you in
every possible way.
That's why be wary of US government
propaganda, and honestly,
in this case, US media propaganda.