Alejandro Castro Espin Quotes

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• In building up a democratic model I think that Cuba's contribution, little by little, has contributed to getting closer to the ideals of those philosophers, of those Greeks who thought about how a society could be fairer, how a society could really represent the interests of the people. We have tried to get closer to that from a Latin-American perspective and from the Cuban perspective.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Latin, Thinking, Building Up

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• In Cuba we had the most ferocious form of capitalism for 60 years. It dominated every sphere of life.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Years, Spheres, Cuba

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• It is important to eliminate the stigma created by American imperialism and its allies regarding the Cuban political system. That stigma must be eliminated. You may think that there are no direct elections in Cuba. I am going to tell that they are direct and you can compare our process with any other country including the United States.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Country, Thinking, Political

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• How is it possible that a process can be democratic when it comes by way of money? If there is money then it can be elected a senator, it can be elected a representative. Do you know how much it cost to be elected president of the United States? The amount has reached, billions of dollars, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion dollars, that's how much a presidential campaign costs. How much does a senatorial campaign cost? It costs 80 to 90 million dollars; or the campaign of a representative, 40 to 50 million. Is that really a democracy?

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Presidential, Democracy, Doe

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• There is no one more talkative than Cubans, Cubans express their feelings, there's nobody more rebellious and revolutionary than a Cuban and I say that without chauvinism.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Feelings, Revolutionary, Rebellious

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• America did not need to be discovered because quite simply America had the American-Indians. There were whole groups of people that already lived there including very developed societies such as the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Mayans. But then came the European vision that saw the conquest as a source of advanced growth away from medieval Europe. The new revolutionary bourgeois trend formed a new perspective on what was democracy that they saw as an improvement to the democracy of ancient Greece.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Europe, America, Perspective

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• The great financial capital is not in one country, it is transnational, that is why it answers to power elites and that is why when I talk about the imperial power of United States I am in no way referring to the American people, who are a noble people that have always been moved by humane concerns.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Country, People, United States

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Can we say that the constitutional monarchies in Spain, Belgium or England are democratic? Those with superior chambers like the House of Lords in England, that still represent the English feudal nobility in terms of positions above regional representatives, who are in the end the representatives supposedly elected by the population. Many mechanisms exist, but they are mechanisms to preserve the power of the wealthy classes, of the bourgeois classes that hold the power and rights above the rest of the society.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Class, Rights, House

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• The future of Cuba is one earned by a country that has resisted for over 50 years against the most powerful empire on Earth. The resilience of its people made this triumph materialize.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Country, Powerful, Years

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Cuba has not accepted the domain and imposition of an empire that has wanted to dominate us for over half a century [America].

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  America, Cuba, Half

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Today China is a first world economy, in terms of development. The U.S. may still be in first in GDP but it is a broken economy in reality.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Reality, Gdp, Broken

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• To apply communism is an aspiration, in fact it has never been applied anywhere, it is really still a utopia.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Facts, Communism, Utopia

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• The United States turned to repression when its prominence started to slip in Latin America through establishing military dictatorships.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Latin, Military, America

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Cubans are a people who suffered from capitalism in the cruelest way, in the social order, the economic order and the political order.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Order, People, Political

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Under communism, no one would be living in marginal conditions as they do under capitalism today and where the greatest part of humanity lives.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Humanity, Today, Would Be

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Socialism is overcoming certain difficulties, it is working in order to try to achieve social advances, to really achieve a society where everybody improves, not where just the elite improve and the others get worse.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Order, Trying, Overcoming

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• In Cuba we are building a socialist society and we could say we are on the verge of a communist society which is hard to achieve, very hard to achieve, but is a longing worth fighting for.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Fighting, Cuba, Longing

  "The Future of Cuba". Inteview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• Cuba is not like bourgeois democracy the ones that imposes the blockade to make Cuba change. We have direct elections. Here they put people on a list and then tell the people supposedly what they have done so they can be elected. That is the difference and why we say our democracy is truly participatory and popular.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Differences, People, Democracy

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• When we talk about Cuban democracy we are referring to participatory democracy which is big difference with representative bourgeois democracy. Our is a democracy in which everything is consulted with the people; it is a democracy in which every aspect and important decision that has an impact in the life and society of the people, is done in consultation.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Differences, Impact, People

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• When we talked about going to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Conakry how many doctors in Cuba raised their hands to go? 15 thousand. In their homes they said, "We are willing to go risk our lives to help other countries". That is true medicine; it is the true observance of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors swear to.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Country, Home, Helping Others

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• In Cuba, despite having lived through the most difficult times, there has never been a neo liberal adjustment.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Cuba, Difficult Times, Despite

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• In Cuba the elections for the powers of the State comes from the people, first it comes from meetings of the citizens at the base. In Cuba we call them blocks, the divisions of a city that is the term we use. Several blocks of neighborhoods that live in the same area gather in assemblies that are stipulated by law. In those assemblies the people choose freely among themselves who will represent them. The criteria takes into account the candidates characteristics, including if they are hardworking, If they are good people, if they have a clean past, and money has no bearing on who is nominated.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Block, Past, Law

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• How do we explain for example the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Conakry? Those very powers that swindled and occupied them, in the face of the serious situation of social emergency, have not even had the capacity to send doctors there. In some cases they have sent in militaries instead because that is what they are compelled to do. They have had to send military to do it because they do not even have any doctors with the willingness to risk their lives in order to help those people that are precisely paying for the consequences of years of colonization.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Military, Doctors, Epidemics

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Communism is something that comes from the classics of Marxism that talked of a modern society we should aspire to. One that is truly fair where relations of monetary exchange are not the priority but rather one where peoples' needs could be satisfied.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Priorities, Needs, Communism

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• What worker or peasant can pay 80 - 90 million dollars to elect a senator or 4 billion to elect a president? Only great capital can do that. That is why we say that bourgeois democracy has been evolving in the last years into dollar democracy, this is not the democracy of sovereignty, and only the people can determine that.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Years, Democracies Have, People

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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