Gimme a Break!
The official podcast of the Just Break Already Caucus.
Gimme a Break!
DSA: Defend Cuba! Fight U.S. Imperialism! All out on July 17th!
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Lital and Edward are once again joined by Monica, who has been helping organize a united-front demonstration in defense of Cuba happening in New York City (and elsewhere!) on July 17th. We talk about why it's essential to fight to defend the gains of the Cuban Revolution against U.S. imperialism, why the Communist Party's market reforms are throwing open the doors wide for the gusanos and U.S. rulers to foment counterrevolution, and what socialists and anti-imperialists can do right now in the belly of the beast to fight back.
JBA recently put out a statement outlining what DSA should do to defend Cuba, which you can read here. To read all our statements, resolutions, and petitions (and see what else we've been up to lately), check out our Linktree, follow us on X and on Instagram.
Hate what you heard? Love it? Want some more of it? Send us your comments, commentary, love letters and hate mail! We eagerly await your feedback, and the best way to reach out is through our DMs, which are always open. We're also interested in debating the way forward in DSA, so if you're from another contest and want to debate, hit us up!
All atomic bases in Cuba and the in the US, and we are in complete agreement with that.
SPEAKER_00Major Guevara, are you in fact trying to export your revolution? Are you every day shipping arms to other Latin American countries? Are you bringing revolutionaries from other countries to Cuba, training them, sending them home?
SPEAKER_02I also had an opportunity to say at the Assembly, and I can repeat it emphatically now. Revolutions are not exportable. Revolutions are created by oppressive conditions, which Latin American countries exercise against their peoples. And there comes rebellion. And afterwards, new Cubas will emerge. We are not the ones who create revolutions. It's the imperialist system and its allies, internal allies.
SPEAKER_04Hello and welcome to another episode of Gimme a Break, the podcast of the Just Break Aready Caucus in the DSA. I'm your host, Lee Tal, here with Edward.
SPEAKER_01Hello.
SPEAKER_04And the audio you heard at the beginning is of Che Guevara, a leader of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, being interviewed in 1964, and he speaks of the role of U.S. imperialism in oppressing Latin America and that this is what fuels revolution. This episode is focused on Cuba and the dire situation facing the revolution and what we here in the belly of the beast can do to fight US imperialism. The US has been strangling Cuba for months. There's been an oil blockade, the economy has collapsed, and just a few days ago, the grid collapsed and the island has been without electricity for days in the third nationwide blackout in six months. So the US has just been placing immense pressure. And the US has spent decades trying to overthrow the gains of the Cuban Revolution. But now it has reached an intensification that poses the survival of the revolution itself. And while Trump and Rubio are advancing these attacks now, the Democrats have fully backed Trump's efforts to restore capitalism in Cuba. And this has been a long-standing goal of the Democratic Party of Plunder. Democrats themselves have over the years imposed starvation sanctions on the island in conjunction with the Republicans. We in the JBA understand that electing a Democratic Congress in November or a quote progressive Democrat as president in 2028 won't stop U.S. imperialism's drive to strangle Cuba. Any reliance on negotiating a quote fair deal with the imperialists is fatal for the revolution. The JBA put out a statement, it's on our link tree, calling on DSA to defend Cuba, fight U.S. imperialism, and stop counter-revolution. And here to talk to us about the situation in Cuba and what pro-Cuba activists in the DSA can do about it is Monica. Welcome. Hi, everyone. Monica is also helping to organize a demonstration in New York City to defend Cuba next Friday, the 17th, in front of the Jose Martí statue in Central Park. And of course, the JBA will be there, and we'll talk about that as well in this episode. So maybe to start, Monica, you can give us some background for, especially for younger listeners who may not know the history, what is the significance of the Cuban Revolution and why do we have to fight to defend it?
SPEAKER_03For many people in Latin America, and I would add the Caribbean, having grown up in countries where there's complete misery in the countryside, there's no access to healthcare, there's poverty everywhere you turn around. Just thinking of a country that actually was able to emancipate itself from the reason why these problems exist in the first place, meaning US Yankee imperialism, maneuverings and day-to-day reflection of what they do. It's become, for generations and generations, one of the reasons why you become curious about socialism. Like obviously, there's the big question of agrarian reform, for example. So I was just remembering, like, first learning about the United Fruit Company, the infamous corporation that enslaves peasants and agricultural workers all over the continent, and how the Cuban Revolution took away all of their land. Like they literally had this very radical agrarian revolution. And how these type of actions that happened from also privatizing banks like Chase and allowing for education to become free for everyone, from kindergarten to university, healthcare, that is something a lot of people know about. I read this short book about the role that they played in Angola. So it's just this beacon of opposition to the crimes that are perpetuated over and over again. And I also know that these kind of conditions that are so clear and part of our daily lives in countries from Venezuela to Colombia, they have never gone away. What you really think of is how much the US hates what happened in 1959 when the Cuban Revolution happened. Like how they will never forget and they will never forgive. And that's what becomes sort of like a clear, even if you don't know much about communism or you don't know much about the specifics of the events, you can get this feeling that forever and ever they will be looking for revenge. And this is basically where we're at right now. They're salivating for bringing back what was taken away from them that allowed for wealth to be distributed with all of its limitations and what we can get deeper into during the podcast, but just looking at an option that allowed for a small, really tiny country to be able to free itself and uh and give an example to the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because before the revolution, Cuba was the playground of the American rich, right?
SPEAKER_03Exactly, exactly. It was like a casino, like a private casino, a place where the American bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie would just be able to do whatever they wanted and get away with it. Right.
SPEAKER_04In our statement, we describe the Democratic Party as the party of the Bay of Pigs. And maybe Edward, if you want to speak some to what the Bay of Pigs invasion was and what it showed about the role that Democrats have played in trying to bring down the Cuban Revolution.
SPEAKER_01Going back to just a few years after the Cuban Revolution, you have the liberal Democrats come back into power, JFK. The Democrats are really from the very beginning gunning to undo the Cuban Revolution. When we talk about the Bay of Pigs, what that was is the CIA basically armed all of these what they call Cuban exiles, and really it's these people who were exploiters in Cuba and who lost everything in the revolution, were armed, trained, and then sent back to attack Cuba to try and get back everything that the revolution had taken out of their hands and put in the hands of the working people of Cuba. This is really the one of the first attempts by the U.S. ruling class to try to overturn the gains of the Cuban Revolution. It was a big victory, actually, for the Cuban people who knocked this thing down in about three days. A few years later, you also have the Cuban Missile Crisis happen, and the U.S. under the Democrats imposes the total economic blockade on Cuba, which continues and has been intensified over the years. Most recently, with Trump cutting off the oil shipments to Cuba after he was able to kidnap the president of Venezuela and turn it into pretty much a U.S. puppet as well.
SPEAKER_04For years, uh Cuba was tied to the Soviet Union, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04So that was a key source of support.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really provided shield against the US just going in and smashing up Cuba. The Soviets were able to provide a lot of aid to Cuba. When the US was successful in fostering counter-revolution in the Soviet Union as well, that this really uh put Cuba in a worse position.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Since the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, Cuba has been reliant on Venezuela for oil, right? And also Mexico. Yeah, Mexico too. Yeah. But just to bring us to the current crisis facing Cuba, the Communist Party leadership in Cuba has responded to the strangulation by the imperialists by opening the door to very far-reaching marketization and foreign capital, which we think is like a total surrender. Um, these reforms are really gonna make really open the door to making Cuba once again a playground for the imperialists. So maybe, Monica, you can speak a little to the reforms, why we oppose them. There's differences in the left on this, like PSL, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others argue that they're necessary reforms, that there's no alternative. This is all that can be done, which is basically saying, like, there's nothing we can do to stop counter-revolution.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Yeah, so there's there's about 180 reforms that were voted actually unanimously by the Cuban Communist Party. This happened almost a month ago now. And as you were saying, this is just opening the door to privatization of the entire Cuban economy. I was speaking in a really brief sketch of uh some of the points that took place during the Cuban Revolution, being the expropriation of the banks, where now with these reforms you have that private banks are not permitted, which means that Cuba loses the monopoly over banking. You have now the allowance of ownership of a real estate development, quote unquote development. I love that word, right? It's like what this means. It's like just swaths of investors that are going to come and build, you know, multimillionary complexes and all of these things. And even like some of the leaders of the Cuban Communist Party were bragging about how now fast food franchises are welcome to expand and establish their operations in our country. Um it really all looks like a terrible scenario for what the Cubans have been able to retain, including also penetration in the agricultural sector where there will be, quote unquote, much greater freedom. So from these just points that I'm mentioning, but much larger of a picture, you can see that what's happening is that after the US has pressurized Cuba and strangled it, the bureaucrats are saying, well, we're gonna implement all these measures and you're welcome to take back our hard-fought games. And the, you know, the left is, you know, there are some groups in the left, like Left Voice or the group Revolution Permanent in uh in France, that have issued some statements or Communistas de Cuba that are in opposition to the reforms, which is a really good thing, and in defense of Cuba against imperialism, which is what's necessary. Groups like PSL and other groups, for example, like Partido Multinacional or Montinational Communist Party, they think that you have to support the measures of the bureaucracy because there's no other alternative. I think we have to look at the reality, and there is an alternative. We have to fight to expand the gains, we have to fight to cohere a new leadership poll that can unite across different groups despite our differences and bring forward radical solutions that you know we can get a little deeper into. But the fact that you just completely tell Cubans, well, you have to follow what your leadership did really abandons the struggle to their defense. And Cubans know, as a matter of fact, and there's been protests, although we're not there, so it's very hard to make an assessment that this is a danger and they're not they're not going with it. So as leftists, especially in in America, where this is going to benefit the ruling class, we need to be very, very clear that the reforms are not inevitable and they need to be opposed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_04Trump and Rubio are like really out for blood. Rubio said it was still not enough, these reforms. And the US did new sanctions after them and is escalating its attacks still further from here, from the belly of the beast. We have to be very clear in uh opposing the US's uh designs for Cuba to subjugate it. We can debate the question of the reforms on the left, but we also have to really unite on the basis of a defense of Cuba and against US imperialism. And I think that's really uh key right now. Our JBA statement noted that the DSA has over 100,000 members, branches in all 50 states. Many, you know, in the DSA no doubt want to defend Cuba. And I think most people in the DSA see themselves as opponents of US imperialism. But what do we do? I don't think the DSA has made any statement since the reforms.
SPEAKER_03I haven't seen anything official. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Everything has been about the elections. The elected Dems are not gonna defend Cuba. Support for US imperialism is a red line for the Democratic Party that no one can seriously cross without finding themselves outside the Democrats. Electeds like AOC and Mamdani prioritize their careers within this imperialist party. I mean, Mamdani actually just did a tweet a couple days ago, Happy Venezuelan Independence Day. And it said nothing about the U.S. attacks on Venezuela. It didn't say that the president Maduro, who was abducted and is being held in the city he's a mayor of, it didn't mention any of this. It's just really clear you cannot put any faith in these electeds to lead any kind of a fight back in defense of Cuba. AOC is against the sanctions on Cuba, but she's for quote trade normalization, which for the Democrats is just another route to get the exact same place in today, which means total penetration by US monopoly capital. That is the objective. Our statement said that rather than build unity with the Democrats, which is what the DSA leadership is promoting, we say that you have to build unity with the working class, which has an interest in defending Cuba and also the social power to do something about it. The American working class, the oppressed masses of Latin America, and the Cuban people have a common enemy in the US ruling class and a common interest in giving Trump and the Dems a black eye. If Trump and the Dems are successful in undoing the Cuban revolution, they're just gonna have further encouragement, be further emboldened to demand even more from workers here. When Trump was successful in kidnapping and jailing Maduro without hardly any protest, that emboldened him to escalate ICE terror in Minneapolis, to impose the oil blockade and wage war on Iran. The US rulers want to strangle not just Cuba, not just Venezuela, but the whole of Latin America. And every success they achieve puts them in a stronger position also to smash us here at home. DSA and the left more broadly really needs to show that there's an alternative and that we're serious about stopping the US and the Cusanos from taking over Cuba. We need an orientation that's aimed at building ties to the working people throughout Latin America and with trade unions here at home to mobilize in defense of Cuba. And it's not crazy to think about the unions coming out for Cuba. The National Nurses United, which is the country's largest nurses union, held a press conference in DC on June 30th to demand an end to the oil blockade. Many nurses experience like firsthand the human toll of the cuts to healthcare in the U.S. And they want to do something also about the health crisis engineered by the U.S. rulers that's happening in Cuba right now. But the leadership of the National Nurses United, they organized this protest not to draw a line against US imperialism, but to appeal to its liberal wing to do more to get Congress to oppose Trump. This is not going to save Cuba. While, quote, progressive Democrats might criticize Trump's methods, they really support the results. We need to mobilize workers, unionists, particularly healthcare workers, because we're not going to get universal healthcare in the US if the imperialists get away with destroying Cuba's universal healthcare system, which has really been a model internationally. That fight for healthcare here begins with defense of the Cuban revolution. Right.
SPEAKER_03Some conversations I've had, you know, with people in the DSA and around activists that are infuriated just about what's happening in the world and how it connects to what's happening at home, is what forces are they looking at, right? And so we are for a for a clean break for a reason, which is you cannot do both, as we've been trying to convey in all of these episodes. You cannot be for working class people and at the same time support or attempt to get elected and people in Congress to defend these gains. They're just Democrats. That's the reason why Edward was mentioning Bay of Peaks. They are out for blood. They want these gains to be reversed. They're going to go just as far as the Republicans because it's in their interest as a collective to get penetration. Just like it happened also with the Soviet Union. As long as these markets open for them, they can profit. They can make more and more money. Your connection between healthcare in Cuba and healthcare in the US, I went to Cuba actually. So just very briefly, if I can say like a short annex, uh people I know have needed to get these very expensive surgeries that cost like literally $100,000. And when I was in Cuba, one of the persons I met there said to me, I've heard that in America, if you need a transplant or you even need to see the dentist, that you never can get out of debt and that you guys have to borrow money. Is that true? And I felt like really conscious of how much for them it's a vital service to be able to access, like just to get your teeth fixed. And having those conversations and knowing that we are under capitalism here and that those insurance companies are the ones that are sucking the blood out of every American. And then going in contrast to DSA meetings that say, oh, we want to get this act for better healthcare passed in Congress, just shows what you really need is to confront the interest of the private companies to get what you need. So just how much we are in this country workers indoctrinated with a lot of anti-communism. But at the end of the day, it's crystal clear that when you have private insurances and private healthcare, you don't get what you need. So the politicians may be in one or the other party, but at the end of the day, they back those companies that are making the profits and we have to go up against both.
SPEAKER_04The new crop of elected, they all talk about Medicare for all. Everyone raises that. Well, if you're gonna let Cuba's healthcare system just go down, yeah, this does not bode well for having any kind of advances for healthcare here. That's gonna come about through struggle, not through looking to X, Y, or Z Democrat. And I think that's pretty clear, but that's also why the best thing to do if you want to fight to defend this, to defend Cuba is is to mobilize to do that. So maybe maybe Edward can speak to some of the points in our statement that just kind of like concrete points, like what can be done now, what we have to do now, why it's not crazy, why it's possible.
SPEAKER_01Kind of picking up off of what you were both just talking about, like not looking to the Democrats in Congress to save Cuba. This is the party at the Bay of Pigs. I think we've kind of gone over that quite extensively. If that's not what we should do, what should we do instead? Because the different countries in the world which the left has support for, Cuba is pretty almost universal. There's there's some people out there who think Cuba's capitalist or something, but in general, defense of Cuba is sort of seen as something like a universal principle almost on the left, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So the obvious thing is to try to build an anti-imperialist united front against the US in defense of the Cuban Revolution, whatever the position of your organization or your tendency or whatever you want to call it is on these reforms or which way you view the Cuban leadership. We think these reforms are opening the door to the United States coming in and taking Cuba wholesale. But if everyone on the left agrees we need to defend Cuba, instead of wasting time on lobbying Congress or getting people trying to get these Democrats elected, what we should do is actually we should build a united front where we can actually argue out what is the best strategy to defend Cuba and have debates on what the road forward is to defeat the US and stop its drive toward counter-revolution in Cuba. That's number one. There's so much sectarianism on the left that needs to be broken down to even just achieve something as simple as that that everyone claims to agree with, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Another big thing, of course, is that you have all these so-called progressive governments in Latin America, right? Claudia Scheinbaum in Mexico, Lula and Brazil. Uh these are countries which could break the U.S. blockade, right? They could ship oil to Cuba, but they aren't. And DSA has relationships with different parties, different unions in these countries. I know at the national convention last year when I was there, there were speakers from the Brazil from the Brazilian PT and the PSOL and people from Morena and Mexico who were all there. These connections exist. So really what we need to do is we need to talk to, we need to actually have these arguments as well with leftists in Latin America to put pressure on their governments, right? To resume the oil shipments and intelligence. Intensify them. At the end of the day, the reason these governments don't want to do that is because they're walking the tightrope between US imperialism and trying to maintain their own position. The only way you're going to get them to move on this is by fighting to mobilize the working class to do it in these countries, to do that in Mexico, to do that in Brazil and throughout Latin America, where you do still have some of these so-called progressive governments there.
SPEAKER_04Right. Um Yeah, I saw something on I think it was on Twitter. Somebody had commented that during one of these meetings with Morena and DSA reps, that Marina, that's Scheinbaum's party in Mexico, asked them when are you guys gonna break with the Democrats?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Did you read that? Yes.
SPEAKER_04Which is a very valid question. But but also there needs to be pressure put on Scheinbaum to actually break the blockade and to resume the oil shipments. It's not a question that DSA has relations and could be a pressure point on that.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. It could be a real factor there. Um I think another one too is just about every big city branch has some kind of international solidarity group, or you have a lot of people too who look to China to do something in defense of Cuba or look to China in one way or another as either a model or socialist or progressive country, whatever you want to call it. What has China actually been doing right now uh to help Cuba? Uh the answer is not very much. Sending some rice, sending some solar panels aren't really gonna do what it takes to rebuild the infrastructure that is really key to uh Cuba not being subject to blackout after blackout, the collapse of the electricity grid, any of those things, right? That's one thing the left should absolutely do is call on China to actually step up to the plate here and oppose US imperialism because that's not what it does with its foreign policy right now. Call for China to put out massive material aid and send personnel to help rebuild Cuba's infrastructure. Like that's a concrete way that this, you know, the Chinese worker state can defend the Cuban worker state, defend the Cuban Revolution, uh, which is also going to require a struggle.
SPEAKER_04I think it was yesterday. There was something at the UN where there's a a vote to have a debate on the US sanctions against Cuba. A number of countries, including China, spoke against the sanctions, and the PSL, you know, promoted this as like all these countries are with Cuba and everyone is against the US and everyone is with Cuba. But what are they actually doing in reality to save Cuba? China could provide massive material aid to Cuba. But the PSL and these other people, to my knowledge, aren't erasing that. Instead, they're promoting their credentials as like they're fighting the US.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. Sort of just acting as their press agent.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but that's the last thing Cuba needs right now, actually. Maybe Monica can speak now about the United Front protests that are being organized for next week for Friday the 17th, and what can be done in the DSA branches to build support for it. There's gonna be demos, I think, in other cities as well, which we will post on our Insta and Twitter as those uh details become publicized. For now, we know there's demos in New York, Calais, and the Bay Area. I think there'll be a couple more announced uh soon as well. So maybe you can speak to that and what we can what what can we do in the DSA to actually try to build support amongst the DSA for it?
SPEAKER_03There's this really vacuum of demos, rallies given the proportion to how much danger people are in Cuba and the starvation going on there that the US has imposed. That even a small action that's getting started requires a lot of attention, I think, if people are in the DSA thinking of themselves as any kind of opponents of injustice. The most basic part of being a socialist, if you are, would be to get something started. So this is an opportunity, right? Like July 17th, this United Front action that's been built by Spartacy League, the Maoist Communist Union, Labor Militant, International Socialist Alternative Revolutionary, some militant caucuses in different industries in New York, like transit workers fighting for a new for a fighting union, healthcare workers building union power. There's more information about it, and it can be linked in the notes to the show, or we can provide provide more details. The reason why it's so important to come together is because it's our own defense, right? If we cannot get something together as the left where we all agree that it will be a historic loss for all of the persons that care about fighting US imperialism, we can't get started on much more. So we really do welcome just record ready suggestions from other caucuses if they want to publicize the demo or they want to put out their own statements. And this is a start, this is some some place and some point where we can create a pole of opposition to what's going on there and there's such a vacuum. Even getting the the process started of debating and having endorsements for this demo could make a big difference so that we can appeal to the working class to come together and not look at the other forces that we discussed today that have historically been on the other side and will be on the other side. So this action uh will be taking place at 6 p.m. in front of the Jose Martí statue. And uh you can tell a little bit more about that, Little, if you want, but um that would be my pitch for everyone to contact us and show up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Okay, well, thank you so much, Monica, for coming on the show to talk about this very important protest.
SPEAKER_01There will be United Front protests not only in New York, but also in San Francisco, uh, Los Angeles and Chicago that we know about right now. If there are any more, please let us know. They are all taking place on July 17th in San Francisco. That's going to be at 5 p.m. Pacific at the 24th Street Mission BART. Los Angeles is going to be at 6 p.m. Pacific in front of the federal building. That's 300 North Los Angeles Street. And Chicago will be at 5.30 p.m. Central at Federal Plaza, which is 50 West Adams Street. And if you want to stay updated on everything the JBA is doing, you should make sure you check out our Linktree, which is linktree.com slash DSA underscore just break already. You can follow us on X at Clean Break Now and on Instagram at DSA underscore just break already. We love to get your feedback, commentary, comments, hate mail, love mail, whatever it is, send it to us. Our DMs are open. We look forward to hopefully having members from other caucuses come on the show. We'd like to debate. If you want to come on and make a pitch for why you think we're wrong, give it a shot. We're gonna prove you wrong. But either way, we would love to have others on the show to talk about which way forward for the DSA. And usually that's where we end the show, but I think Letal has something she wants to say to conclude today.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so just to conclude, the New York demo is in front of the Jose Marti statue. Martí was a fighter for Cuban independence, and he died fighting the Spanish in 1895. And he's honored in Cuba. The airport in Havana is named after him. So the instrumental music that is gonna close us out is from Guantanamera, the Cuban national anthem. And the verses were written by Jose Marti, which has the lyrics with the poor people of the earth, I cast my lot. And Marti's fight for independence has everything to do with fighting now to keep Cuba out of the clutches of US imperialism and total foreign domination. So to end on that note, all out for July 17th. We'll see you all there.
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