[OPE] One party state?

There is nothing in what I said which attempts to "neatly categorise" the
Cuban system, as David Yaffe claims. Indeed I acknowledged that the US
system and the Cuban system might be different in important respects. My
challenge however is: aren't they both really a "one-party state", since
there is in reality only one party with power? I am not even saying anything
about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, my gripes are with the
rhetoric of a "one-party state" according to which there are no democratic
choices in Cuba (because it is a one-party state) and freedom for all
democratic choices in the USA (because it is not a one-party state). My
suggestion is, that if you strip away the rhetoric, both systems might have
more in common than you would think.

We could tabulate the commonalities in the following way:

Cuba USA
__________________________ ___________________________
Political propaganda All-pervasive advertising
Cuban Communist Party Democratic-Republican government
alliance
Influence through party membership You "buy" yourself political
influence

... and so on.

Jurriaan

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Received on Fri Jun 5 14:30:14 2009