Anti-Trump Cubans are not “Socialists”

This comes from a Facebook response by one of our nephew and niece to the many Trumpista ignorant comments.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of posts about Cuban Americans not forgetting why our parents, and/or grandparents, left Cuba and that we shouldn’t be “slapping” our family in the face by voting or supporting socialism (and/or communism)…and it’s truly upsetting me.

1. For starters, not agreeing with Republicans DOES NOT MAKE YOU A SOCIALIST!
2. Voting Democrat DOES NOT MAKE YOU A SOCIALIST nor a COMMUNIST!
If you know anything about socialism and the Cuban government’s regime, you’ll know that they were not / are not a socialist nor communist regime but a tyrannical dictatorship.

Socialism in Cuba is not Socialism. And Communism, in Cuba or anywhere else in the world, is not Communism BECAUSE COMMUNISM IN THE REAL WORLD DOES NOT WORK!

I spent the better half of my college years sharing the truths about Cuba, Communism, and The Che Guevara with my liberal friends that idealized Communism, Cuba, and Che.

The all too sad truth about Cuban Americans, especially my generation, is that they have NO FREAKING IDEA ABOUT CUBA after the revolution. Almost every single Cuban American I see sharing posts like the one mentioned above have absolutely no family left in Cuba nor do they know anything other than the stories of Cuba past. They speak ignorantly about the current situation and what socialism and communism is in Cuba. Unfortunately, I have an entire side of my family that did not have the luck of getting off the island…and/or had the misfortune of staying to try and change things. I also have family members that nearly died fighting the revolution…something I will never forget.

Nonetheless, I’ve seen the so called socialist/communist Cuba…and it is neither…because, as noted above; 1. Communism DOES NOT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD and 2. Cuba IS NOT SOCIALISM BUT A DICTATORSHIP!
One of my uncles died a slow and painful death from a “small” heart attack because Cuba’s “wonderful” healthcare system did not have the proper equipment to save his life. After waiting hours for an ambulance he waited even more hours as he slowly died of a heart attack…something like 12 hours or so…but Cuba’s healthcare system is “wonderful.”

Months after the death of my Uncle Carlito my Mom’s younger brother, a medically declared schizophrenic, took his own life because he couldn’t deal with the pain of losing his older brother and, though the wonderful doctors in Cuba knew he needed to adjust his meds, the meds he needed ARE NOT AVAILABLE IN CUBA and the US meds couldn’t make it in time.
SO NO! JUST BECAUSE I DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP, NOR THE CURRENT “REPUBLICAN” PARTY, DOES IT MEAN THAT I SUPPORT SOCIALISM OR COMMUNISM.

I know the truth about both, and though wonderful in theory, in the real world it is pretty damn hard to create a truly Socialist society and IMPOSSIBLE to create a functioning Communist society…and I will never support either……BUT I SURE AS HELL AM NOT GOING TO SLAP MY PARENTS IN THE FACE BY VOTING FOR TRUMP.

For those Cubans sharing the post that started this rant…have you truly forgotten how Castro took power…? For that matter, have you forgotten how any tyrant takes power?

I have been in Cuba visiting my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, living with them for 3 weeks at a time and seen Castro’s propaganda on Cuban television first hand.

Every December there is a commemorative television show that recounts how Castro took power. The glorious revolution is shown on TV and the slogans and speeches from the revolution are re-aired.

And in those slogans and speeches you know what comes up most often….?
Not socialist nor communist rhetoric, BUT DIVISIVE and FEAR MONGERING RHETORIC…the EXACT RHETORIC OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT (and after two years of his presidency, now too almost all the Republican Party) uses to this day.

As I watched the shows retelling the Cuban Revolution I used to think, “How stupid do people have to be to believe this? How ignorant and hateful does a country need to be to allow someone like this to take power? Thank God I live in America…no way this would happen there.”

Well, guess what, it didn’t happen here in the good ol’ USA because instead of us allowing someone spitting nothing but divisive-hate-driven-fear-mongering rhetoric to take power WE VOTED HIM INTO POWER!

BUT HERE’S THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL…as long as we get to vote him into and out of power this is still America. And though not the America I grew up admiring (an America full of love, hope, respect, racists and prejudices….but always getting a little less…an America whose politics where above the trash-talk-disrespecting-vulgarity of the Latin-American Countries I grew up watching), my beautiful America all the same.

In the end, my grandparents and my parents raised me to be tolerant, patient, thoughtful, respectful, and that freedom (and education…education was almost always first), true freedom, is the most precious thing we can ever have. So as long as we all get to share our thoughts out loud (respectfully and thoughtfully) without fear of prosecution, and as long as we get to go perform our civic duty and vote, I am slapping absolutely NO CUBAN IN THE FACE!