[Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

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tristeham: Jul 31, 2022

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

i did see das rheingold recently where the gods exit towards valhalla at the end. wagner was an enthusiastic supporter for the revolution of 1848 (a german nationalist and all), and was writing anti-clerical and proto-socialist articles. but he obviously went in in a reactionary / romantic direction later which the nazis liked. lunacharsky was such a fanboy though that he thought they shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and that soviet composers should try to do as good a job at making operas.

his ring trilogy was originally supposed to have siegfried destroy a society corrupted by money and power, proclaiming a new social order based on love. wagner decided that was dumb, took the blackpill and developed doombrain (bourgeois ideology) and replaced him with wotan, representing the old order, powerless to prevent the oncoming ruin of the world.

wagner was obviously a reactionary but equating romantism to conservativeness is pretty anachronistic. wagner's scores were incredibly adventurous.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 06:39

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# ? May 24, 2024 23:06

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

that being said, stalin made numerous comments about germans, saying that communism would fit them like a saddle fits a cow, and that they'd struggle to make a revolution because they'd have to trample on lawns

lmao

# ? Feb 17, 2023 08:11

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

tristeham posted:

wagner was obviously a reactionary but equating romantism to conservativeness is pretty anachronistic. wagner's scores were incredibly adventurous.

right. i need to learn about it more.

Cuttlefush posted:

lol at wotan and wagner being big ole PMCs. Lunacharsky never really strayed, right? He died on the way to being ambassador to spain in 1933 so I assume he never listened to so much wagner he broke.

probably. on the PMC thing, the designers did it cleverly so the gods were wearing godly costumes but the background would occasionally show modernist skyscrapers and construction cranes. loki/loge kinda inspired by the avengers. a bunch of people in the crowd in their sunday best who looked like mr. burns, the actual haute bourgeoisie around here contemplating their doom. none of them stayed for the Q&A when the performers said they didn't give a gently caress about how anyone dressed for the opera

# ? Feb 17, 2023 09:59

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

lmao

can't remember where the cow reference was but it was with djilas:

quote:

In the course of the conversation, he remarked about the Germans, �They are a queer people, like sheep. I remember from my childhood: wherever the ram went, all the rest followed. I remember also when I was in Germany before the Revolution: a group of German Social Democrats came late to the Congress because they had to wait to have their tickets confirmed, or something of the sort. When would Russians ever do that? Someone has said well: �In Germany you cannot have a revolution because you would have to step on the lawns.��

[...]

There were also anecdotes. Stalin liked one in particular which I told. �A Turk and a Montenegrin were talking during a rare moment of truce. The Turk wondered why the Montenegrins constantly waged war. �For plunder,� the Montenegrin replied. �We are poor and hope to get some booty. And what are you fighting for?� �For honor and glory,� replied the Turk. To which the Montenegrin rejoined, �Everyone fights for what he doesn�t have.� � Stalin commented, roaring: �By God, that�s deep: everyone fights for what he doesn�t have.�

https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/djilass-conversations-stalins-dacha

# ? Feb 17, 2023 10:03

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 74 days!

jarofpiss posted:

got back from a week in cuba the other day. was interesting.

tell me more. post pics if u feel it

# ? Feb 17, 2023 14:07

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 74 days!

re: commodity fetishism, remember that the entire purpose of a commodity's production is to be sold for exchange value. at its most basic, one can eliminate commodity fetishism by simply producing socially necessary goods and services as they're needed by the society in question, and being a worker in that society grants you access to it. those goods are no longer commodities because they are not produced for their exchange value. they're just products people need and are being produced to meet that need.

to give a really basic example, lets say you work at the toilet paper factory. being a worker gives you, i dunno, a red card or something that says "this guy does socially necessary labor". you work your shift, and on your way home you stop by the corner store. you grab some cigarettes and a quart of milk and at the counter, the cashier rings you up, scans your red card, and you're good to go. no money, no exchange value. the card and the cashier are there to track usage and consumption patterns to guide production.

in this example, your labor is explicitly what entitles you to access to the produce of society. there's no mystification inserted in the exchange for someone to manipulate or exploit. thus there are no commodities to fetishize.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 14:26

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

i've been told that "commodity fetishism" or "the commodity fetish" is better translated as "the fetish character of the commodity", i.e. the treatment of commodities as magical totems of some kind. the way they're anonymously produced and sold makes it seem as though their value isn't just a social relation determined by collective human productivity but rather something inherent to their forms and functions

socialist states HAVE separately campaigned against the colloquially-understood "commodity fetishism" where people covet fancy sports cars or whatever though. that was what inveighing against "rootless cosmopolitanism" in the USSR was about, for instance; the idea was that you should have pride in your home rather than envy the glamour and luxury (supposedly) available in faraway capitalist cities

# ? Feb 17, 2023 17:23

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN: Aug 12, 2022; by Fluffdaddy

I think commodity fetishism at its simplest can be described as "you don't know exactly who or what went into making this specific thing, you just know it's a thing that has been ascribed value".

# ? Feb 17, 2023 18:07

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

croup coughfield posted:

tell me more. post pics if u feel it

i went with my wife for a week on our own and stayed in old havana in an airbnb apartment. we're from the USA and post obama you can go but you have to declare the purpose of your visit and there are a bunch of restrictions on what and where you are "allowed" to eat/shop/stay. like you aren't allowed to eat in state owned restaurants or stay in resorts etc. but there is no banking for US citizens while you're there so whatever cash you bring is all the money that exists as far as your trip is concerned. we didn't exchange usd for euros prior to going so this added a layer of complication for us, but people still all want usd down there and overall it worked out fine.

overall it's really strange and i expected it to be on some relatable spectrum of good->bad but it's not like that. it's very poor and the people live in very poor conditions compared to the US but they don't have rent and they get (inadequate) rations and they have healthy teeth. but they dont have paper or wheat or milk or beef or snacks or literally anything that is extremely easy to get here. like the really hard problems we have are generally dealt with there, and the really easy problems we have are really hard for them.

we wound up in this situation where we could easily go spend $50 for both of us to go eat 6lb lobsters or something at a fancy tourist restaurant but it was almost impossible to find snacks or something that wasn't a full ostentatious meal for foreigners. the money wasn't the issue there for us but sometimes you don't want a huge rear end meal and eating it when you're surrounded by objective poverty is a trip. it was really weird feeling and there are no shops where you walk in and just get tylenol. half the people there are surgeons and there's no headache medication or bandaids. anyone that we did any kind of tour guide with had some sort of post-graduate degree and had never been on an airplane.

we met up with the director of the MLK center there, which is a quaker project. we brought a carryon full of otc medicines and art supplies for them. she came to our apartment on the back of a motorbike and i realized she couldn't physically carry it all so i bagged it up and we took it to her sister's casita in old havana. old havana are all these 18th century stone buildings with courtyards in the center and people have built out apartments onto the inner balconies etc. they're mostly falling apart or literally collapsed. it's really sad but also it's an absolutely beautiful city.

cubans as a former mafia colony have a huge tipping culture and are all over you as soon as they realize you're from USA. they will walk up and initiate a conversation and start trying to show you a restaurant (they'll get a little kickback for taking you) or take you to where you say you're going, or try to get you to go to the cooperativa to buy cigars or exchange money in an apartment that looks like it's out of a call of duty map. i think americans are generous tippers and also presumably any americans that are meandering around without a tour group are at least somewhat sympathetic and aware of how hosed the embargo is. i wound up tipping $10-$20 to people as i met them or whatever and it was literally life altering money in the moment. we sort of had our own crew of local guides that we made friends with after the first few days depending on which direction we were headed from the apartment.

one of the friends i made was named eric and he was a total street hustler and parking attendant. we had drinks together over a few days as i ran into him and he took me to his apartment and it was pretty dire (like most of them in old habana).

overall it was a really interesting trip and i'm glad i did it. i plan to go back at some point for a shorter period and with a lot more supplies. it seems like the government is loving up big time and blames everything on the embargo. the embargo is an absolute atrocity but cuba is in rough shape post ussr collapse and i'm shocked it's still around.

happy to post more about specifics, a week is enough to write an entire book about it feels like. i'll try and post some pictures when i'm back at the house and not at work.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 18:11

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

this is the marxism thread so i figure i should post about my impressions of the economy:

the government reorganized the currency in 2020 and eliminated the CUC (cuban convertible peso; tourist money) and it's all cuban pesos now. the gov't has appeared to go all in on tourism as an industry, and you see post-hurricane damage that is not repaired while large hotels are going up in state/private partnerships with foreign companies.

the embargo makes it difficult for people to get their hands on necessities like OTC meds & supplies, paper, general materials, etc. there's a joke where you can go to the hospital and have 5 doctors examine you and say you need a band aid but there aren't any.

the embargo along with the currency reorganization and the gov't prioritizing tourism appears to have created an absolutely insane dual economy for the people. a surgeon makes the equivalent of $30usd/wk or something and a month of dehydrated milk costs $20usd on the black market. a street sweeper in old havana has a monthly salary of $20usd. people have babies and the rations don't give them enough to handle the food needs so they turn to tourists to make supplemental income that is many times what they make from the state. the govermnet runs "dollar shops" where you can buy appliances in usd or euros. i saw through a window $120usd for a countertop convection oven.

cuba did not develop a meaningful industrial base while it was being subsidized by the ussr, and so post collapse they are all in on tourism. everyone i spoke to loved fidel, and was mad as hell about the current situation. i get the idea of the state needing foreign currency and needing tourism to get their hands on it, but if you're trying to encourage fat europeans to wander around and eat lobsters and your regular people can't get their hands on loving milk i don't see how that's sustainable.

for $12/usd + tip per day we had two women who lived in our building come and make us breakfast on our balcony every morning. i tipped $3 per meal and it would be a big amazing fruit plate, coffee, a pitcher of some sort of fresh juice/smoothie thing, then a plate with 2 eggs, a slice of toast cut in half, a half square of deli-type cheese, and a thin slice of deli ham (terrible). by the third day i realized these were clearly coming out of somebody's rations (5 eggs per person per month). the fact we had milk for the coffee and toast and ham was an enormous luxury because that is scarce in cuba.

at the end of the week i tipped i think $80 or $100 on top of my breakfast payment and they came running back because they thought they had taken the money i meant to pay for the mini bar or something. i told them no it was for them for taking care of us. they started tearing up and it was literally an amount of money that could buy them powdered milk for the year. it felt extremely hosed up in general.

people in cuba don't have stuff like we do. they would have some framed prints on the walls and maybe some partially broken figurines and some old furniture, but they don't have just bullshit stuff.

i think the social floor in cuba is a lot higher than the social floor in the USA. i think that proportionally more people probably live at it in Cuba than do in the USA. i didn't see any homeless people and when the electricity went out, it went out for everyone. here if it goes out it's just one dirtbag who flaked on his light bill and should be ashamed of himself. there was a cuban cultural solidarity that i haven't seen before, and they were extremely proud of how safe it is in cuba.

it's cheaper to buy import beer and easier to get rum or beer than bottled water. the cigars are actually great and the cars are exactly what you've heard/seen in photos and it's mind boggling. there's nowhere else like it on earth i don't think.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 18:34

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

croup coughfield posted:

re: commodity fetishism, remember that the entire purpose of a commodity's production is to be sold for exchange value. at its most basic, one can eliminate commodity fetishism by simply producing socially necessary goods and services as they're needed by the society in question, and being a worker in that society grants you access to it. those goods are no longer commodities because they are not produced for their exchange value. they're just products people need and are being produced to meet that need.

to give a really basic example, lets say you work at the toilet paper factory. being a worker gives you, i dunno, a red card or something that says "this guy does socially necessary labor". you work your shift, and on your way home you stop by the corner store. you grab some cigarettes and a quart of milk and at the counter, the cashier rings you up, scans your red card, and you're good to go. no money, no exchange value. the card and the cashier are there to track usage and consumption patterns to guide production.

in this example, your labor is explicitly what entitles you to access to the produce of society. there's no mystification inserted in the exchange for someone to manipulate or exploit. thus there are no commodities to fetishize.

I'm probably dumb as gently caress here but idk how this scenario doesn't result in a black market wherein people who don't qualify for certain goods but want them anyway use illicit means to get them

# ? Feb 17, 2023 19:49

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

croup coughfield posted:

re: commodity fetishism, remember that the entire purpose of a commodity's production is to be sold for exchange value. at its most basic, one can eliminate commodity fetishism by simply producing socially necessary goods and services as they're needed by the society in question, and being a worker in that society grants you access to it. those goods are no longer commodities because they are not produced for their exchange value. they're just products people need and are being produced to meet that need.

to give a really basic example, lets say you work at the toilet paper factory. being a worker gives you, i dunno, a red card or something that says "this guy does socially necessary labor". you work your shift, and on your way home you stop by the corner store. you grab some cigarettes and a quart of milk and at the counter, the cashier rings you up, scans your red card, and you're good to go. no money, no exchange value. the card and the cashier are there to track usage and consumption patterns to guide production.

in this example, your labor is explicitly what entitles you to access to the produce of society. there's no mystification inserted in the exchange for someone to manipulate or exploit. thus there are no commodities to fetishize.

i�m kind of curious how art production fits into this sort of model. it makes sense that through the education process people select and qualify for careers/trades/crafts/etc that they are trained for and then do socially valuable labor.

is the idea that art would be basically handled the same way? like the state/party/society decides that it likes your anime drawings enough that you get a red card?

it�s easy for me to wrap my head around someone becoming an electrical engineer through passing qualifying exams etc.

it�s harder for me to conceive of artists making a living outside of market conditions determining their value.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 20:00

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

jarofpiss posted:

i�m kind of curious how art production fits into this sort of model. it makes sense that through the education process people select and qualify for careers/trades/crafts/etc that they are trained for and then do socially valuable labor.

is the idea that art would be basically handled the same way? like the state/party/society decides that it likes your anime drawings enough that you get a red card?

it�s easy for me to wrap my head around someone becoming an electrical engineer through passing qualifying exams etc.

it�s harder for me to conceive of artists making a living outside of market conditions determining their value.

in the ussr for quite some time art was kind of instrumentalized to serve what was deemed "socially useful" -- propaganda value, appeal to working class sensibilities, disavowal of bourgeois formalism, etc.

the USA tried to exploit this. the state department's art website links to the following story:

Modern art was CIA 'weapon'

www.independent.co.uk posted:

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

. . .

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.

Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert.
. . .

"Regarding Abstract Expressionism, I'd love to be able to say that the CIA invented it just to see what happens in New York and downtown SoHo tomorrow!" he joked. "But I think that what we did really was to recognise the difference. It was recognised that Abstract Expression- ism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it was. And that relationship was exploited in some of the exhibitions.

"In a way our understanding was helped because Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another."

. . .
This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its "fellow travellers" in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter.

The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.

This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, "The New American Painting", visited every big European city in 1958-59. Other influential shows included "Modern Art in the United States" (1955) and "Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century" (1952).

Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.

The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.

Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.

"We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."

He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."

. . .
...look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.

Covert Operation

In 1958 the touring exhibition "The New American Painting", including works by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and others, was on show in Paris. The Tate Gallery was keen to have it next, but could not afford to bring it over. Late in the day, an American millionaire and art lover, Julius Fleischmann, stepped in with the cash and the show was brought to London.

The money that Fleischmann provided, however, was not his but the CIA's. It came through a body called the Farfield Foundation, of which Fleischmann was president, but far from being a millionaire's charitable arm, the foundation was a secret conduit for CIA funds.

So, unknown to the Tate, the public or the artists, the exhibition was transferred to London at American taxpayers' expense to serve subtle Cold War propaganda purposes. A former CIA man, Tom Braden, described how such conduits as the Farfield Foundation were set up. "We would go to somebody in New York who was a well-known rich person and we would say, 'We want to set up a foundation.' We would tell him what we were trying to do and pledge him to secrecy, and he would say, 'Of course I'll do it,' and then you would publish a letterhead and his name would be on it and there would be a foundation. It was really a pretty simple device."
. . .

socialist realism ftw

# ? Feb 17, 2023 20:18

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

mawarannahr posted:

in the ussr for quite some time art was kind of instrumentalized to serve what was deemed "socially useful" -- propaganda value, appeal to working class sensibilities, disavowal of bourgeois formalism, etc.

the USA tried to exploit this. the state department's art website links to the following story:

Modern art was CIA 'weapon'

socialist realism ftw

yeah there is certainly the long history of state patronage being fundamental to art production, and i definitely see how that fits within a ussr model. societies need it, but it�s inherently a net negative in material resource cost vs gain?

art also serves as a vehicle for counterculture and i�m skeptical of a central planning committee being the arbiters of what direction aesthetic expression takes? i may be wrong, but generally what i think is interesting about art is likely not going to be what the majority democratically agrees with.

i think i�m kind of curious what the process for developing artists within this kind of society actually looks like in regards to education and providing time for the development of a craft etc.

like of all the unjust things the capitalist system does, creating an environment that discourages unserious people from pursuing art as a living is probably one of the least damaging. examples of trust fund screenwriters and artists notwithstanding.

i mean i would be an aspiring artist if i could feed myself doing it. but there is no reason society should shoulder the burden of supporting me while i paint toy soldiers and bad canvases when i�m far more productive working in construction.

# ? Feb 17, 2023 21:17

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

this reminds me to post pics of the promotional trading card book published by a cuban canned fruit company that depicts the revolution.

i got it in cuba and it�s like mars attacks but the cuban revolution

# ? Feb 17, 2023 21:22

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

jarofpiss posted:

i went with my wife for a week on our own and stayed in old havana in an airbnb apartment. we're from the USA and post obama you can go but you have to declare the purpose of your visit and there are a bunch of restrictions on what and where you are "allowed" to eat/shop/stay. like you aren't allowed to eat in state owned restaurants or stay in resorts etc. but there is no banking for US citizens while you're there so whatever cash you bring is all the money that exists as far as your trip is concerned. we didn't exchange usd for euros prior to going so this added a layer of complication for us, but people still all want usd down there and overall it worked out fine.

overall it's really strange and i expected it to be on some relatable spectrum of good->bad but it's not like that. it's very poor and the people live in very poor conditions compared to the US but they don't have rent and they get (inadequate) rations and they have healthy teeth. but they dont have paper or wheat or milk or beef or snacks or literally anything that is extremely easy to get here. like the really hard problems we have are generally dealt with there, and the really easy problems we have are really hard for them.

we wound up in this situation where we could easily go spend $50 for both of us to go eat 6lb lobsters or something at a fancy tourist restaurant but it was almost impossible to find snacks or something that wasn't a full ostentatious meal for foreigners. the money wasn't the issue there for us but sometimes you don't want a huge rear end meal and eating it when you're surrounded by objective poverty is a trip. it was really weird feeling and there are no shops where you walk in and just get tylenol. half the people there are surgeons and there's no headache medication or bandaids. anyone that we did any kind of tour guide with had some sort of post-graduate degree and had never been on an airplane.

we met up with the director of the MLK center there, which is a quaker project. we brought a carryon full of otc medicines and art supplies for them. she came to our apartment on the back of a motorbike and i realized she couldn't physically carry it all so i bagged it up and we took it to her sister's casita in old havana. old havana are all these 18th century stone buildings with courtyards in the center and people have built out apartments onto the inner balconies etc. they're mostly falling apart or literally collapsed. it's really sad but also it's an absolutely beautiful city.

cubans as a former mafia colony have a huge tipping culture and are all over you as soon as they realize you're from USA. they will walk up and initiate a conversation and start trying to show you a restaurant (they'll get a little kickback for taking you) or take you to where you say you're going, or try to get you to go to the cooperativa to buy cigars or exchange money in an apartment that looks like it's out of a call of duty map. i think americans are generous tippers and also presumably any americans that are meandering around without a tour group are at least somewhat sympathetic and aware of how hosed the embargo is. i wound up tipping $10-$20 to people as i met them or whatever and it was literally life altering money in the moment. we sort of had our own crew of local guides that we made friends with after the first few days depending on which direction we were headed from the apartment.

one of the friends i made was named eric and he was a total street hustler and parking attendant. we had drinks together over a few days as i ran into him and he took me to his apartment and it was pretty dire (like most of them in old habana).

overall it was a really interesting trip and i'm glad i did it. i plan to go back at some point for a shorter period and with a lot more supplies. it seems like the government is loving up big time and blames everything on the embargo. the embargo is an absolute atrocity but cuba is in rough shape post ussr collapse and i'm shocked it's still around.

happy to post more about specifics, a week is enough to write an entire book about it feels like. i'll try and post some pictures when i'm back at the house and not at work.

jarofpiss posted:

this is the marxism thread so i figure i should post about my impressions of the economy:

the government reorganized the currency in 2020 and eliminated the CUC (cuban convertible peso; tourist money) and it's all cuban pesos now. the gov't has appeared to go all in on tourism as an industry, and you see post-hurricane damage that is not repaired while large hotels are going up in state/private partnerships with foreign companies.

the embargo makes it difficult for people to get their hands on necessities like OTC meds & supplies, paper, general materials, etc. there's a joke where you can go to the hospital and have 5 doctors examine you and say you need a band aid but there aren't any.

the embargo along with the currency reorganization and the gov't prioritizing tourism appears to have created an absolutely insane dual economy for the people. a surgeon makes the equivalent of $30usd/wk or something and a month of dehydrated milk costs $20usd on the black market. a street sweeper in old havana has a monthly salary of $20usd. people have babies and the rations don't give them enough to handle the food needs so they turn to tourists to make supplemental income that is many times what they make from the state. the govermnet runs "dollar shops" where you can buy appliances in usd or euros. i saw through a window $120usd for a countertop convection oven.

cuba did not develop a meaningful industrial base while it was being subsidized by the ussr, and so post collapse they are all in on tourism. everyone i spoke to loved fidel, and was mad as hell about the current situation. i get the idea of the state needing foreign currency and needing tourism to get their hands on it, but if you're trying to encourage fat europeans to wander around and eat lobsters and your regular people can't get their hands on loving milk i don't see how that's sustainable.

for $12/usd + tip per day we had two women who lived in our building come and make us breakfast on our balcony every morning. i tipped $3 per meal and it would be a big amazing fruit plate, coffee, a pitcher of some sort of fresh juice/smoothie thing, then a plate with 2 eggs, a slice of toast cut in half, a half square of deli-type cheese, and a thin slice of deli ham (terrible). by the third day i realized these were clearly coming out of somebody's rations (5 eggs per person per month). the fact we had milk for the coffee and toast and ham was an enormous luxury because that is scarce in cuba.

at the end of the week i tipped i think $80 or $100 on top of my breakfast payment and they came running back because they thought they had taken the money i meant to pay for the mini bar or something. i told them no it was for them for taking care of us. they started tearing up and it was literally an amount of money that could buy them powdered milk for the year. it felt extremely hosed up in general.

people in cuba don't have stuff like we do. they would have some framed prints on the walls and maybe some partially broken figurines and some old furniture, but they don't have just bullshit stuff.

i think the social floor in cuba is a lot higher than the social floor in the USA. i think that proportionally more people probably live at it in Cuba than do in the USA. i didn't see any homeless people and when the electricity went out, it went out for everyone. here if it goes out it's just one dirtbag who flaked on his light bill and should be ashamed of himself. there was a cuban cultural solidarity that i haven't seen before, and they were extremely proud of how safe it is in cuba.

it's cheaper to buy import beer and easier to get rum or beer than bottled water. the cigars are actually great and the cars are exactly what you've heard/seen in photos and it's mind boggling. there's nowhere else like it on earth i don't think.

Sounds like a fun trip, I don't remember where the Simon Bolivar statue is but did you get a chance to see it? I believe that Che's remains also housed in Santa Clara, and i'd love to go and pay my respects.

If anyone hasn't you should read "We Are Cuba!" which outlines the Cuban economy from the revolution to now.

AnimeIsTrash has issued a correction as of 00:11 on Feb 18, 2023

# ? Feb 17, 2023 22:01

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Yea I enjoyed that even if it�s like�a little bit too well-cited. every paragraph has a couple of endnotes

I�d like to pick up the author�s older book on Che�s economic management

# ? Feb 18, 2023 00:07

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

AnimeIsTrash posted:

Sounds like a fun trip, I don't remember where the Simon Bolivar statue is but did you get a chance to see it? I believe that Che's remains also housed in Santa Clara, and i'd love to go and pay my respects.

If anyone hasn't you should read "We Are Cuba!" which outlines the Cuban economy from the revolution to now.

yep i saw that on our walk to the ferry to get us to the che compound. we got a beer at the bar by the big jesus statue then a local made us take tourist pictures with our phones in front of it and so we tipped him and then walked across the street to the che museum. it's like 25 pesos for locals and 250 for foreigners to get in. so that cost about $1.50 or so and we saw che's beret and chess room.

then we bought the same cheap magnets you see everywhere in cuba from a young guy working the gift shop and tipped him. so he opened up the roped off staircase and brought us up to the roof to look around, it was really cool.

from there we walked over to the fort and saw all the missile crisis missiles and the wreckage of the plane they shot down. it owned

# ? Feb 18, 2023 00:26

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

so if you want to stay in a state owned hotel or eat food in (some of?) state owned restaurants or shop at a grocery store, you need a tarjeta national. you cannot load USD onto one (no matter what the locals tell you) but you can pay for one in euros (i think). we only showed up with USD and even though we could exchange for cuban pesos, you can't pay your bill in cash at those places.

so we went to the floridita bar i think our second day, and bought drinks with USD no problem. had a couple of rounds and then left because it was packed full of eurotrash taking turns dry humping on the bronze hemingway statue.

the next day we went to the national hotel and went out onto the terrace and ordered a round of drinks. when we walked out it was empty except for a group of mafia-rear end new yorkers probably 150 years old having some sort of meeting or something. they got up and left after a couple of minutes but one of them briefly talked to us and asked us where we were from and all that. he was nice but they left.

so we hung out for a few minutes and one other guy came out and was having a drink. we asked for the check and the waitress brought it out in the little treasure chest they put all the checks in. we put pesos in there and usd for a tip, and she walked inside then came back out with a very pale face and asked if we had a card. i explained we didn't and only had pesos and usd and she was kind of freaking out because she hadn't asked us when we came in. we asked the other guy out there if he'd cover our tab and we'd give him cash and he said no problem so it all worked out, but that's how i learned about the tarjeta national.

later in the week we went back to the floridita and sat down to eat in the back. i asked the waiter about the card thing and he said we had to have one, even though you can buy drinks cash at the bar. on the other hand, the state owned bar sloppy joes you can order food & drinks and pay cash no problem.

cuba is a mysterious place.

# ? Feb 18, 2023 00:43

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

jarofpiss posted:

so if you want to stay in a state owned hotel or eat food in (some of?) state owned restaurants or shop at a grocery store, you need a tarjeta national. you cannot load USD onto one (no matter what the locals tell you) but you can pay for one in euros (i think). we only showed up with USD and even though we could exchange for cuban pesos, you can't pay your bill in cash at those places.

so we went to the floridita bar i think our second day, and bought drinks with USD no problem. had a couple of rounds and then left because it was packed full of eurotrash taking turns dry humping on the bronze hemingway statue.

the next day we went to the national hotel and went out onto the terrace and ordered a round of drinks. when we walked out it was empty except for a group of mafia-rear end new yorkers probably 150 years old having some sort of meeting or something. they got up and left after a couple of minutes but one of them briefly talked to us and asked us where we were from and all that. he was nice but they left.

so we hung out for a few minutes and one other guy came out and was having a drink. we asked for the check and the waitress brought it out in the little treasure chest they put all the checks in. we put pesos in there and usd for a tip, and she walked inside then came back out with a very pale face and asked if we had a card. i explained we didn't and only had pesos and usd and she was kind of freaking out because she hadn't asked us when we came in. we asked the other guy out there if he'd cover our tab and we'd give him cash and he said no problem so it all worked out, but that's how i learned about the tarjeta national.

later in the week we went back to the floridita and sat down to eat in the back. i asked the waiter about the card thing and he said we had to have one, even though you can buy drinks cash at the bar. on the other hand, the state owned bar sloppy joes you can order food & drinks and pay cash no problem.

cuba is a mysterious place.

That sounds awesome

# ? Feb 18, 2023 04:13

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 74 days!

that sounds like a very interesting trip, thanks for taking the time to post it

# ? Feb 18, 2023 04:33

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 74 days!

slavvy: we will solve the problem of conspicuous consumption and black markets and lusting for western decadence with brutal suppression by the police

# ? Feb 18, 2023 04:36

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

jarofpiss posted:

this is the marxism thread so i figure i should post about my impressions of the economy:

the government reorganized the currency in 2020 and eliminated the CUC (cuban convertible peso; tourist money) and it's all cuban pesos now. the gov't has appeared to go all in on tourism as an industry, and you see post-hurricane damage that is not repaired while large hotels are going up in state/private partnerships with foreign companies.

the embargo makes it difficult for people to get their hands on necessities like OTC meds & supplies, paper, general materials, etc. there's a joke where you can go to the hospital and have 5 doctors examine you and say you need a band aid but there aren't any.

the embargo along with the currency reorganization and the gov't prioritizing tourism appears to have created an absolutely insane dual economy for the people. a surgeon makes the equivalent of $30usd/wk or something and a month of dehydrated milk costs $20usd on the black market. a street sweeper in old havana has a monthly salary of $20usd. people have babies and the rations don't give them enough to handle the food needs so they turn to tourists to make supplemental income that is many times what they make from the state. the govermnet runs "dollar shops" where you can buy appliances in usd or euros. i saw through a window $120usd for a countertop convection oven.

cuba did not develop a meaningful industrial base while it was being subsidized by the ussr, and so post collapse they are all in on tourism. everyone i spoke to loved fidel, and was mad as hell about the current situation. i get the idea of the state needing foreign currency and needing tourism to get their hands on it, but if you're trying to encourage fat europeans to wander around and eat lobsters and your regular people can't get their hands on loving milk i don't see how that's sustainable.

for $12/usd + tip per day we had two women who lived in our building come and make us breakfast on our balcony every morning. i tipped $3 per meal and it would be a big amazing fruit plate, coffee, a pitcher of some sort of fresh juice/smoothie thing, then a plate with 2 eggs, a slice of toast cut in half, a half square of deli-type cheese, and a thin slice of deli ham (terrible). by the third day i realized these were clearly coming out of somebody's rations (5 eggs per person per month). the fact we had milk for the coffee and toast and ham was an enormous luxury because that is scarce in cuba.

at the end of the week i tipped i think $80 or $100 on top of my breakfast payment and they came running back because they thought they had taken the money i meant to pay for the mini bar or something. i told them no it was for them for taking care of us. they started tearing up and it was literally an amount of money that could buy them powdered milk for the year. it felt extremely hosed up in general.

people in cuba don't have stuff like we do. they would have some framed prints on the walls and maybe some partially broken figurines and some old furniture, but they don't have just bullshit stuff.

i think the social floor in cuba is a lot higher than the social floor in the USA. i think that proportionally more people probably live at it in Cuba than do in the USA. i didn't see any homeless people and when the electricity went out, it went out for everyone. here if it goes out it's just one dirtbag who flaked on his light bill and should be ashamed of himself. there was a cuban cultural solidarity that i haven't seen before, and they were extremely proud of how safe it is in cuba.

it's cheaper to buy import beer and easier to get rum or beer than bottled water. the cigars are actually great and the cars are exactly what you've heard/seen in photos and it's mind boggling. there's nowhere else like it on earth i don't think.

Thank you for posting this. I appreciate it.

# ? Feb 18, 2023 04:38

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

croup coughfield posted:

slavvy: we will solve the problem of conspicuous consumption and black markets and lusting for western decadence with brutal suppression by the police

Idk man people seem to just want stuff and the more you tell them they can't have it the more they want it, I don't think that's a capitalism thing so much as a monkey brains thing

Or do you like, make cocaine and porno a state supplied thing?

E: now that I think about it you can't really make cocaine without an international supply chain and a bunch of oppression so we'll go with meth or something, whatever you know what I mean

# ? Feb 18, 2023 04:38

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

one of the things i was told in cuba was the origin of the word "guajiro". the guajiros are the peasant farmers in cuba. we took a small tour to vinales, and visited a tobacco farm and a coffee farm where they made us lunch. we took a bus to vinales from havana and then walked through these dirt roads along farms to get to a little house where they served us pina coladas and then we rode horses over to the tobacco farm. the farmers were all wearing coveralls that are olive green with kind of a military flair.

they did a cigar rolling demonstration then we all smoked them and they sold cigars they roll at that farm. they store them wrapped in palm fronds to keep the humidity. currently some of the farmers are refusing to plant tobacco this season as a protest for the government not assisting with the rebuilding of the drying huts post hurricane. if you grow tobacco or coffee you are required to sell 90% of your crop to the state.

there is an auditor that comes through once a year and does the count for the crop. they told a joke that they always greet him and before they get to business they smoke a cigar and have some "vitamin r". then after they finish the socializing they do the count and they sell the required 90% to the government, and the remaining 20% they keep for themselves.

post cuban war of independence in 1898 the americans that moved to cuba referred to the farmers that fought the revolution as "war heroes," and the word became spanishized over time into "guajiros"

# ? Feb 18, 2023 05:43

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

here are some pictures from the trip:

view from the balcony of our apartment. we had a really great space

che at revolution square

out behind the hotel nacional

cuban art museum courtyard

fidel & marti. you don't see fidel murals or statues or street names all over the place, he apparenlty didn't want that. you do see marti busts out in front of almost all schools/govt buildings/etc

the art museum has collections spanning the history of the island from the colonial era to the present day. it's fantastic

early twitter hot take detector

old havana including the floridita bar

the bacardi building. one of the primary art deco buildings in cuba. under renovation (like everything)

misc havana pics, marti statue, grand theater edifice

this hoodlum hauling rear end around town with a completely smashed windshield. everything went to hell after fidel died and the kids are all misbehaving

someone tell me what all these papers are stuffed in the cracks.

hemingway's compound with his house & tower

hemingway's toilet & scale, picasso, library, and bazooka
you couldn't go inside the house but all the windows were open and the attendant ladies offered to take your phone in and take all the photos for you, it was really nice and she made sure she took one of the bazooka which made me laugh

the pilar

abandoned stadium outside havana built for the panamerican games in 1991. kind of sad and a big waste of money, there are rotting unused buildings and structures from that in various places

old havana

museum of the revolution (under renovation)

patria o muerte

havana, museo, my apartment

first stop early on our tour into vinales. this is a hotel/restaurant (under renovation) that overlooks the valley and the mogotes. the farmers grow tobacco down in that valley and the mogotes are these cavernous hills that are iconic for cuba. absolutely wild.

mural fidel had painted on a cliff wall of the various dinosaurs in cuba and the evolution of life out of the sea or something like that.

this is the walk and ride to the tobacco farm and the coffee farm

farmer renee taking us on the hilariously unsafe tour of his backyard cave lit by cellphone flashlights and the catfish living in a pool of water down in there

pepita made us ropa vieja for lunch. honestly wonderful food, ropa vieja is incredible and i'd love to get it even back home

plaza vieja, very touristy and expensive drinks but there were groups of schoolkids repeatedly cheering every time a flock of birds swooped down at them to try and land which then repeated the cycle and it was adorable

ferry to go to the peninsula and see che's house. there were 3 off duty clowns on the ferry i guess headed to or from work and let me tell you that clowns are still a thing in cuba and they love them

the journey to see the giant jesus

che's house, desk (working hard thank you vibes), beret, and the roped off staircase (under renovation) the gift shop worker brought us up to go get the rooftop views

the cuban missile crisis apparently never ended, and the US plane that they shot down

this fort was incredibly cool and i think they shoot a cannon at 9pm every night. we did a ton of walking and were hungry as hell by this point. there were restaurants in the area and we couldn't eat at any because we were no card having bums

martis

i was drinking with my parking attendant friend and i think these was the building he said he tried to scavenge some beams from to sell post hurricane. floor collapsed and he broke his teeth and legs and some other people took the beams he was sawing away from. then he put his vest on me and made me pose for pictures in it.

grand theatre tour and up a tiny very unsafe spiral staircase to the roof to see just about the whole drat city. our state tour guide was a young lady that was a dancer i believe and she flowed from perfect english into french into spanish and back for the group of 10 people that she was guiding. it was amazing

backstage with the rigging

impromptu clown parade

my friend eric's address. he lives on poor street and needs clippers and an old phone. you can't send anything over $200 value to cuba or it will be confiscated but you are able to send packages.
i'm going to leave this up for a little bit and then delete it.

on the way to the airport home, milk truck (presumably armored)

my ebay and etsy accounts got locked from being on cuban wifi and updating software. had to get that fixed when i got home lol.

# ? Feb 18, 2023 06:54

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 74 days!

cuba is badass

# ? Feb 18, 2023 14:01

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

very cool and interesting pictures and trip report, thank you

# ? Feb 18, 2023 14:12

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

croup coughfield posted:

cuba is badass

# ? Feb 18, 2023 15:29

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Appreciate all the pictures and observations, thanks for posting.

# ? Feb 18, 2023 18:17

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

vyelkin posted:

very cool and interesting pictures and trip report, thank you

# ? Feb 18, 2023 19:04

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

very nice post, thank you

also, lol'd at early hot take detector

# ? Feb 18, 2023 19:18

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

question about cuba, is it true that foreigners can go and get medical work done there? know anything about that?

less so about the entry process, you mentioned enough about that, but is that like a thing that regularly happens? how does it work?

Thanks for the posts and excellent pictures btw. I would love to visit cuba some day.

# ? Feb 19, 2023 00:52

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN: Aug 12, 2022; by Fluffdaddy

Awesome posts, seems like you had a great time. Did you get to see or hear what life was like in a city that wasn't Havana?

# ? Feb 19, 2023 01:00

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

HiroProtagonist posted:

question about cuba, is it true that foreigners can go and get medical work done there? know anything about that?

less so about the entry process, you mentioned enough about that, but is that like a thing that regularly happens? how does it work?

Thanks for the posts and excellent pictures btw. I would love to visit cuba some day.

my understanding is that we paid for our health insurance as part of our plane ticket. we had a cuban visa and entry documents along with our passports but only carried our passports on our person while there.

cuba doesn�t seem to have necessary basic medical supplies available and i didnt hear anything about people doing any sort of medical tourism. locals did tell me that if you needed medical attention the doctors would give you a list of medications/supplies to bring for procedures including things like surgical gloves etc.

i think there are probably better countries to try and get that sort of thing taken care of if you have to than cuba. the embargo is real and even though they have great doctors i think materials are very hard to come by.

we brought a bunch of costco vitamins and otc painkillers to give to the quakers and they were extremely grateful. they don�t seem to have tylenol there so idk that i would show up and try to get any sort of medical procedure done.

on the other hand, a local also told me that cosmetic surgery is free and teenagers are all getting boob jobs? chalking that up to just normal poo poo talking like people do about their countries.

# ? Feb 19, 2023 08:20

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN posted:

Awesome posts, seems like you had a great time. Did you get to see or hear what life was like in a city that wasn't Havana?

we did a day trip out to vinales which is where we saw the farms and mogotes. the farmer renee has never traveled beyond the town.

its a really tourist heavy area in town with lots of airbnbs. we only drove through, but it�s really beautiful and there were lots of non-cubans there.

it generally seems like if you�re a farmer you probably have a better setup than someone in old havana. i think the revolution had land redistribution committees before they had an actual government in place

they all have plots that their families have worked for a while, and there is generational knowledge and skill that�s passed on. they have much more space obviously and room to keep chickens and goats etc.

cattle is inventoried by the state and it�s illegal to slaughter for personal use. unauthorized slaughtering of a cow carries the same criminal penalty as homicide apparently. i think pigs are also audited but you can keep chickens and lambs etc for personal use.

the farmers just recently got electricity from the grid in the last few years and only had solar panels a few years before that. they told me when they first got electricity they stayed up all night partying with the lights on.

# ? Feb 19, 2023 08:32

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

is Airbnb actually operating in Cuba and taking a cut?

# ? Feb 19, 2023 08:33

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

a bunch of people in the crowd in their sunday best who looked like mr. burns, the actual haute bourgeoisie around here contemplating their doom. none of them stayed for the Q&A when the performers said they didn't give a gently caress about how anyone dressed for the opera

I dress up for the opera to impress the performers. So does everyone else

# ? Feb 19, 2023 14:54

camoseven: Dec 30, 2005; RODOLPHONE RINGIN'

mawarannahr posted:

is Airbnb actually operating in Cuba and taking a cut?

I'm also super curious about this

# ? Feb 19, 2023 15:14

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 24, 2024 23:06

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

mawarannahr posted:

is Airbnb actually operating in Cuba and taking a cut?

i dont think airbnb is IN cuba but they are the platform that people are using to rent out their apartments.

so there are two kinds of casa particulars in cuba, one with either a red sticker on the door and the other with a blue. the red apartments are only allowed to be rented by locals and the blue only by tourists.

these airbnb casa particulars that are available to rent online are renovated apartments and (of course) owned by a cuban somewhere along the line. when you rent one, you will have a contact for your �host� who will meet you and give you the rundown etc.

the person you are in contact with before you get to cuba may or may not actually live in cuba, and they likely have an arrangement with numerous people to coordinate renting out the apartments.
it generally seems like there is a friend or family member out of country that is acting as the owner on airbnb and coordinating with the people working in country.

they must be pretty close friends because these apartments are generally nicely renovated and theoretically the cuban owner could always just show back up and tell everyone to get the gently caress out they�re moving back in.

i�m not sure exactly how the money goes from airbnb to the people in cuba, but it does somehow. our vinales tour was also initially booked on airbnb and then we paid the bulk of the fee cash in person when they arrived. if they were coordinating with someone out of country on it we never spoke to them.

we booked a casa particular and got the actual apartment we were booking, and we made sure the reviews reflected that before we booked. there is an old cultural system around this where they may double or triple book these apartments. and then just move you to one that is available when you arrive with no heads up or anything, and it may not be anything like the one you were trying to get. but what are you gonna do lol?

jarofpiss has issued a correction as of 17:16 on Feb 19, 2023

# ? Feb 19, 2023 17:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

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