US Urges ‛Genuine Democracy’ in Cuba
FOOD FOR THOUGHT, 31 Aug 2015
News from Somewhere – TRANSCEND Media Service
HAVANA (Rooters agency) 17 Aug 2015 – Speaking today at the reopening of the US Embassy and Invasion and Subversion Center, US Secretary of Diplomacy John T. Kettle said he was very happy about the renewed relations between the two nations – one good and one bad. In particular, he hoped that Cubans would now be able to choose “genuine democracy”.
Explaining this remark, Secretary Kettle said that Cubans were misled into thinking their system was democratic just because they elected the people who run their government.
This was not real democracy, because corporations were not allowed to vote.
As Kettle explained, the US Supreme Court has decreed that corporations should have an equal vote, the size of which is determined by their market capitalization and the amount of profits that they could not profitably reinvest in producing something.
This arrangement, he said, had brought about a very desirable increase in calm and good order in the conduct of US elections, mainly by making it pointless for working people and other riffraff to disturb their betters by voting. And if this was good enough for the US, then it was certainly more than good enough for everyone else, especially if they were poor.
A problem in Cuba is that there aren’t many privately owned corporations, so it will be difficult to bring Cuban elections up to US standards. However, the US stood ready to help resolve this dilemma by encouraging US investors to buy anything that looked like it could return a quick buck.
Continuing his criticisms of Cuba’s current electoral arrangements, Kettle pointed out that it appeared that Cubans could all vote more or less automatically, without any regard for the color of their skin. “What’s genuinely democratic about that?” he demanded to know. “If people choose to have dark skin, they should expect the usual consequences, including having difficulty in voting.”
However, he said that he did not think that this consideration would stop US tourists from coming to Cuba to sun themselves on its beaches. “Very few of our citizens worry about voting any more. The counts are all done by computer these days, and the computer knows how you voted or would have voted even if you didn’t actually vote for some reason.”
Secretary Kettle added that the US would consider “very sympathetically” any Cuban request for donations of computers and programs to bring Cuba’s elections closer to US genuine democracy.
Go to Original – newsfromsomewhere.org
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