Diaz's version of democracy

[VeguerosMAN]

I am seeing this dude more and more  in western media... Maybe it's not a coincidence.  

[chris12381]

Not a coincidence at all. BreakThrough News is part of the Neville Singham-funded media network (along with People's Forum, Tricontinental, CodePink) that's specifically built to give Cuban and Chinese government figures/regimes friendly, uncontested English-language platforms. The whole point is to manufacture sympathetic international coverage whenever Havana's under pressure, which is exactly where we are right now. Worth noting: ICAP, the Cuban institute that coordinates this kind of foreign 'outreach', just got OFAC designated last week. It's not independent journalism discovering him but a coordinated PR push using existing regime-aligned infrastructure.

By the way, the Martí invocation in that clip is its own kind of offensive. Martí died fighting for an independent, pluralistic republic and warned specifically against concentrating power in one man or one party. Using him to justify 67 years of one-party rule with no free elections is a direct inversion of what he actually stood for and died for. Just my opinion.  

[El Presidente]

9 hours ago, chris12381 said:

Not a coincidence at all. BreakThrough News is part of the Neville Singham-funded media network (along with People's Forum, Tricontinental, CodePink) that's specifically built to give Cuban and Chinese government figures/regimes friendly, uncontested English-language platforms. The whole point is to manufacture sympathetic international coverage whenever Havana's under pressure, which is exactly where we are right now. Worth noting: ICAP, the Cuban institute that coordinates this kind of foreign 'outreach', just got OFAC designated last week. It's not independent journalism discovering him but a coordinated PR push using existing regime-aligned infrastructure.

By the way, the Martí invocation in that clip is its own kind of offensive. Martí died fighting for an independent, pluralistic republic and warned specifically against concentrating power in one man or one party. Using him to justify 67 years of one-party rule with no free elections is a direct inversion of what he actually stood for and died for. Just my opinion.

To be fair, many Western countries play the same game of controlling media to project a world view. 

Voice of America/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Alhurra TV  and Radio Sawa (Middle East)/National Endowment for democracy (provides grants to media organizations, journalists, and civil society groups worldwide), European Endowment for Democracy etc etc. 

Of course, none of those countries promoting democracy are holding political prisoners (to my knowledge). 

[VeguerosMAN]

Democracy and Free Market!!  

[El Presidente]

Vietnam model. 

If it were 40 years ago, it would make a lot of sense. 

[Chitmo]

On 6/18/2026 at 7:57 AM, El Presidente said:

To be fair, many Western countries play the same game of controlling media to project a world view. 

Voice of America/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Alhurra TV  and Radio Sawa (Middle East)/National Endowment for democracy (provides grants to media organizations, journalists, and civil society groups worldwide), European Endowment for Democracy etc etc. 

Of course, none of those countries promoting democracy are holding political prisoners (to my knowledge). 

50% or more of the privately owned media outlets in Canada are owned by American hedge funds. You have to be super careful these days when trying to find accurate news. Unfortunately most readers won’t take 5 minutes to fact check anything. 

[Christophe]

As a Westerner, and not at all a lefty as people might assume from what I'm about to say, I'm pretty tired of people acting like the whole world is supposed to do the liberal-democratic dog-and-pony-show we're used to every 4-5 years. Liberal-democracy is a historical and geographical anomaly, not a standard. And even so, it's really just slop for the masses. If you pay attention for two seconds to how the leaders of liberal-democracy actually act (not what they say), you'll forget about Rawls, Russell and Fukiyama pretty quickly. They learned their lessons from Machiavelli, Robert Michels, Pareto, Schmitt and Gramsci... Iron law of oligarchy. 

Our "free elections" may replace the talking head in charge, but they have demonstrably as much effect on policy as the votes of a Cuban, Russian or Chinese citizen (look up the Gilens and Page study from 2014); that is to say, virtually none. Policy is made by a small group of highly connected elites, everywhere and always - i.e. an oligarchy - and is almost always completely disconnected from public opinion. The only political change that happens, comes from competing elites. The rest is all window-dressing. Even concepts like constitutionalism or human rights are pliable and easily twisted or discarded by liberal regimes, whose entire moral framework and raison-d'etre supposedly depends on it, when their actual power comes under the slightest perceived threat. 

[Christophe]

On 6/18/2026 at 7:57 AM, El Presidente said:

Of course, none of those countries promoting democracy are holding political prisoners (to my knowledge). 

That's because they'll never call them that. The USSR didn't have political prisoners either, just criminals and insane people that didn't understand how glorious the Soviet-system was (see how that works?).

We have public and private persons imprisoned for "hate speech", hit with an onslaught of lawfare, selectively prosecuted for fraud or breach of some obscure financing law that every politician breaks 12 times a day, debanked and deplatformed, targeted by orchestrated media-hit campaigns, followed around and harassed by so-called NGOs (who get most of their funding from the government)...and before people forget, even assassinated (by lone nutjobs every time, completely unrelated to whatever political obstacle or threat they happen to pose to the power structure, of course).

[Christophe]

23 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Vietnam model. 

If it were 40 years ago, it would make a lot of sense. 

It would also make a lot of sense if they were surrounded by friendly or at least somewhat neutral countries, like Vietnam. Unfortunately, they are on an island 90 miles of the coast of their largest geostrategic enemy, which has been blockading them for over half a century, and pretty much surrounded on all sides by its vassals. It's pretty hard to make any model work, given their circumstances.

[El Presidente]

3 hours ago, Christophe said:

It would also make a lot of sense if they were surrounded by friendly or at least somewhat neutral countries, like Vietnam. Unfortunately, they are on an island 90 miles of the coast of their largest geostrategic enemy, which has been blockading them for over half a century, and pretty much surrounded on all sides by its vassals. It's pretty hard to make any model work, given their circumstances.

Vietnam and China have a long, extensive history of conflict, including multiple wars, invasions, and territorial clashes.

In terms of Cuba, there is no excuse for the "Authoritarian State" model they have chosen. 

They are a disgrace. 

[Christophe]

14 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Vietnam and China have a long, extensive history of conflict, including multiple wars, invasions, and territorial clashes.

In terms of Cuba, there is no excuse for the "Authoritarian State" model they have chosen. 

They are a disgrace. 

Cuba has had open conflict with the United States since the Spanish-American War (1895). In that time the US has militarily occupied Cuba three times, backed a coup against the 1940 Constitutional republic, propped up the dictator that took over, tried to invade it once more with a force of CIA-trained exiles when the Cubans kicked him out, embargoed and blockaded the country, tried to assassinate the leader a few dozen times, still occupy part of the island and of all things put a torture camp there... just to name a few examples of the American meddling in Cuba. The US continued f****ing with Cuba a lot longer than it did with e.g. Vietnam once it became clear they had lost to the revolutionary forces. And to be fair, from a realpolitik point-of-view, it's easy to understand why: Cuba's location. 

No country "needs" any excuse for its model of state. Nor is it of any consequence if they have any or not. That's not an endorsement of the Cuban government. Cuba or its elites don't have a lot of options. It's either this, or becoming a US vassal. That's just objectively the situation, when you're next to a belligerent hegemon with an overt desire to rule over your affairs, and your only allies are on the other side of the globe. (and you don't have nukes). 

[VeguerosMAN]

If I am not mistaken, I don't think any Cuban is celebrating in the streets of Havana with the "free market" news from the regime. We all know it's all BS. 

[JohnnyO]

On 6/20/2026 at 5:16 PM, El Presidente said:

Vietnam model. 

If it were 40 years ago, it would make a lot of sense. 

When you are putting people in jail for 2 sets of books for your nickel and dime MYPIME, that's the Communist model. 

[El Presidente]

6 hours ago, JohnnyO said:

When you are putting people in jail for 2 sets of books for your nickel and dime MYPIME, that's the Communist model. 

That's certainly not the Vietnam model. 

Four sets of books, overseas beachside residence, not paying the correct govt payola  minimum...for a white collar barred holiday. 

You need to know your playground. Whether that be paying donations into a political party, allowing Gov into your enterprise, or being subjugated 100% via intimidation Cuba style. 

[VeguerosMAN]

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ramiro-valdes-lauded-hero-cuban-revolution-dies-94-2026-06-21/

Raul might be next.