Thread by @DSA_SF

WTF is Going On in Cuba? DSA SF Explains.

Right now, the most important factor in everything going on in Cuba is the U.S. economic warfare in the form of sanctions and embargo.

Much like how the U.S. historically blockaded Caribbean countries with warships, today this takes the form of an economic siege, denying the Cuban people much-needed medicine and goods.

As the center of the financial world, the U.S. can keep smaller countries like Cuba or Yemen from participating in world markets. In practice this means hundreds of thousands of excess deaths every year even before the global pandemic. ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.210…

So why are people protesting? Well, understandably, people in Cuba are protesting the lack of food and medicine caused by the U.S. blockade.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1414376292850577412

How do we know that they aren’t protesting the socialist system? Just two years ago the Cuban people overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution (88% of voters approved) which enshrines socialism in the foundation of the government.
reuters.com/article/us-cub…

It’s important to remember this is the goal of U.S. sanctions: put pressure on governments by starving their people. But even in the face of the longest embargo in world history, the Cuban people have staunchly defended the Revolution.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1414374621336514562

So why is this important to us, living thousands of miles away in SF? If socialism was a broken system that starved its people, then why would the U.S. need to punish Cuba with sanctions? The U.S. empire needs to keep us in fear of our neighbors who overthrew colonial capitalism.

Other Latin American leaders see this situation for what it is. Here the former President of Brazil, and future presidential candidate, reprimands the U.S. for killing Cubans in peacetime with sanctions.

https://twitter.com/LulaOficial/status/1414925396546568194?s=20

If you want to see where the empire wants this to go, look no further than the Mayor of Miami calling for air strikes on Cuba.

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1415033163190095880?s=20

So ask yourself: do I have more in common with the Cuban people – who have persevered through the embargo to produce their own COVID vaccine – or the billionaires in the U.S. who see an island with a smaller population than NYC as a threat?

dw.com/en/cubas-covid…

Learn more about how DSA is firmly committed to an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba and to solidarity with the Cuban people and their revolution #USHandsOffCuba

international.dsausa.org/statements/dsa…