Is the USA uncivilised?

[JimC]

Unlike other, perhaps more civilized, places, the American press is largely not owned or operated by the State. So most of the propaganda us rustic and culturally illiterate Americans are spoonfed is undertaken by American private enterprise at its own risk.

1. As I'm certain you know, the vast majority of other western democracies also largely have media that is not state owned or operated. The exceptions, such as the British BBC and the Australian ABC tend to have charters of independence, and in addition tend to the sceptical side of media characteristics. Our own ABC is often decried by conservatives as a hot-bed of leftist opinion...

2. I disagree with BG that US citizens are fed propaganda by their govenment about issues such as Cuba. Instead, the relationship between Cuba and the US has been a form of clever narrative, fostered by the largely anti-communist press, that serves the fairly standard purpose of giving a society a neigbouring bogey man to shake their heads about. All part of the subtle panem et circensis of the modern corporate state...

[Seth]

Unlike other, perhaps more civilized, places, the American press is largely not owned or operated by the State. So most of the propaganda us rustic and culturally illiterate Americans are spoonfed is undertaken by American private enterprise at its own risk.

1. As I'm certain you know, the vast majority of other western democracies also largely have media that is not state owned or operated. The exceptions, such as the British BBC and the Australian ABC tend to have charters of independence, and in addition tend to the sceptical side of media characteristics. Our own ABC is often decried by conservatives as a hot-bed of leftist opinion...

2. I disagree with BG that US citizens are fed propaganda by their govenment about issues such as Cuba. Instead, the relationship between Cuba and the US has been a form of clever narrative, fostered by the largely anti-communist press, that serves the fairly standard purpose of giving a society a neigbouring bogey man to shake their heads about. All part of the subtle panem et circensis of the modern corporate state...

Problem with your argument is that Cuba is anything but a "bogey man," which is the whole point. Castroism is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and has been since the Cuban missile crisis precisely because the Castro regime has never backed down and never made even the smallest attempt to reassure the US that, given the opportunity, it won't do the same thing again.

[The_Metatron]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

[Seth]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

I'm not afraid, I'm sensible. I prefer to be educated and to put some thought into planning for the unexpected. Doing so has saved my life more than once. You'll never see me on an episode of "I survived" because what constitutes a life-threatening situation to the unprepared usually constitutes little more than a challenge or inconvenience to me. This is because I think about such things and what could and should be done to respond effectively to them. It's called "risk assessment" and it's a valuable survival trait. As a result I don't live in fear, I live confidently knowing that I can take care of myself...and anybody else...in an emergency.

Everything you write just stinks of lower bell-curve blind proletarian acceptance of malign fate and ostrich-like denialism.

So there.

[JimC]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

Exactly!

And the US fearing Cuba in the present day is a little bit like a tiger being terrified by a terrapin...

(ooohhh, alliteration by accident! Bonus points!)

[Seth]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

Exactly!

And the US fearing Cuba in the present day is a little bit like a tiger being terrified by a terrapin...

(ooohhh, alliteration by accident! Bonus points!)

The reason we have no need to be terrified of Castroism is because we've had our boot on its neck for 50 years, which kept it from becoming a threat again. Since we already have the boot on the neck of Castro, it makes perfect sense to keep it there until the regime ceases to exist. Giving your vanquished enemy the opportunity to rebuild its threat is a basic error of warfare that Europe has forgotten at least twice, much to it's substantial detriment. And involving the same nation for crying out loud.

[mistermack]

When did the USA vanquish Castro?

I must have missed that. Was it at the Bay of Pigs? Another great American victory, equal to the Vietnam triumph?

[Svartalf]

I thought the tiger broke a fang or two on the terrapin's shell at Bay of Pigs.

[Warren Dew]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

It's dwarfed by the fear people like you have of Seth's gun rights views.

[Seth]

When did the USA vanquish Castro?

I must have missed that. Was it at the Bay of Pigs? Another great American victory, equal to the Vietnam triumph?

Let's see...Kennedy stared down Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US imposed the embargo and has maintained it for 50 years, Cuba remains a toothless, penurious communist enclave drowning in poverty and privation that poses no threat to anyone and will remain that way till we lift the embargo and open trade relations.

Sounds like Castro's been padlocked on his island for 50 years in a prison of his own making from which he rants and raves from time to time but does nothing else. I call that "vanquished." Combat can take many forms, not all of which require actual bullets and bombs.

I thought the same tactic should have been used at Waco. The Corps of Engineers should have been brought in with armored equipment to build a wall around the Waco compound which, when completed, would be declared to be a federal prison. Would have saved 83 lives, most of them women and children. That's what we did to Castro and it's worked out quite well.

[JimC]

Man, I've never encountered anyone as afraid as you are, Seth. Everything you write just stinks of fear.

It's dwarfed by the fear people like you have of Seth's gun rights views.

Change "fear" to "incredulity"

[Ian]

Incredulity and derision.

[Blind groper]

Seth's views are just weird. The USA has little power to achieve positive outcomes, but has the power to cause great harm, wich it does with monotonous regularity.

The USA had its arse kicked in Viet Nam, and the communist regime is slowly but surely moving towards a more right wing approach in the absense of American influence. In terms of reform, the best ting to happen there was the removal of American influence.

In Cuba, where the USA has, to quote Seth, kept its boot on Castro's neck, there has been no reform in 55 years. No move towards the right, or to freedom, or towards more free enterprise. No, just repression and a sad society. So much for the American boot!

[Seth]

Seth's views are just weird. The USA has little power to achieve positive outcomes, but has the power to cause great harm, wich it does with monotonous regularity.

The USA had its arse kicked in Viet Nam, and the communist regime is slowly but surely moving towards a more right wing approach in the absense of American influence. In terms of reform, the best ting to happen there was the removal of American influence.

In Cuba, where the USA has, to quote Seth, kept its boot on Castro's neck, there has been no reform in 55 years. No move towards the right, or to freedom, or towards more free enterprise. No, just repression and a sad society. So much for the American boot!

You still insist on missing the point. It's not about Cuba's progress, that's for Cubans to work out or not work out as they please, it's about preventing the Castro regime from becoming a threat to the US by providing a base of operations for Marxist terrorism 90 miles offshore. Unfortunately that requires embargoing Cuba because the regime has shown zero remorse and zero intent to abstain from becoming a terrorist base camp. Everything that happens or doesn't happen in Cuba is the sole responsibility of the Castro regime and the Cuban people.

[mistermack]

Let's see...Kennedy stared down Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis

That's bollocks. Kennedy stared down the Russians, Kruschev. And Kruschev stared down Kennedy. Both gave way. The Russians withdrew their missiles from Cuba, and the Americans withdrew their own missiles from Turkey and Italy.
In historical fact, Kruschev won hands down. He got the American missiles removed, which is what he wanted, and Castro got a guarantee that the US would never invade. All Kennedy got was a few headlines, and a strategic defeat.

The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962,[7] when Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. Secretly, the US also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union.

Another glorious victory for the US.
And another daydream for Seth. Learn some history.