Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we

recognize that only by understanding the past can we understand the present and

the histories of Cuba and Haiti have very stark lessons to impart

about the cruelty of the Cuba embargo, the repercussions of imperial exploitation, and the dangers

that arise amid dysfunctional democracy.

Sources today include Revolutionary Left Radio,

deconstructed, Democracy Now, did mention.

The Majority Report and the Real News, with additional members only clips from Rev Left Radio and Bad Faith. Now you did mention the current protest and that's a good segue to this next question because in Cuba recently there has been this flare-up of protest rooted in the dire economic conditions within Cuba, largely if not wholly

due to the multi-decade-long suffocating trade embargo on the island. The US Empire has always had a strategy of sanctions as war and of making the

economy scream as a way of undermining nations that they want to destroy and their

economic and political hegemony status has always allowed them the power to do so.

So I know you touched on it a little bit, but maybe there's more to say here.

How do you all think about this situation and where do you see Cuba going in the coming years? I mean what's happening now is simply a repeat of

what happened in July 11th. Like people in Cuba are legitimately suffering and they're

taking to the streets saying we want power, we we want food we want fuel and the reason why

there is a severe shortage of those things in Cuba is a direct consequence of US

policy towards Cuba the economic blockade the placement of Cuba on the

State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, which first of all is

absurd, but second of all cuts off Cuba from access to global banking.

Like they can't even get loans to engage in basic financial transactions

on an international scale.

They don't have oil reserves.

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