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Comment by kjellsbells | Hacker News Reader

The problem commonly skated over is that two views cam be true at once. For example:

- the "Batista" regime was dictatorial and repressive. The people fought back with Castro. The first wave of people to land in Miami were essentially the moneyed class who lost everything. Unsurprisingly they hate the Castro regime and its descendents. The US government were happy to accommodate them under the guise of anti communism.

- the "Castro" regime is dictatorial and repressive. The people cant fight back so they leave. The people landing in Miami and their descendents hate the regime for taking everything. The US Republicans are happy to accommodate them under the guise of sticking it to the libs.

I dont see any of this changing until the regime changes in Cuba to a more democratic one simultaneously with the Republican party imploding in Florida. Which basically means not in my lifetime.

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> the "Castro" regime is dictatorial and repressive.

As someone whose family comes from the former Soviet union, and has friends that come from other repressive places let me tell you that this really doesn't matter.

Economy and how you are doing are what matters in the day to day life of people.

People really don't think about the oppression or lack of elections, they care how much they need to suffer to put food on the table, whether they can afford vacations on the beach, how expensive it's gonna be, etc etc.

I consistently asked my grandparents and people from oppressive places whether they cared about politics and no they didn't.

They knew that people across the borders lived the same lives they did, but they could afford a better car and better vacations that's all.

The average Joe does not care about politics, even those who talk about it and share on social media don't care.

The amount of people that campaign, try to get elected, try to do anything even in their own neighborhood has always been low and probably never as low as now.

They may not care about the politics, but if the politics is what contributes to the economy / shortages / difficulty in getting things like food... then the politics matter, regardless of if any given citizen is consciously aware of it.

And as a reciprocal anecdote, I have family that grew up behind the iron curtain - and they were very much aware of and knew the importance of the governments politics

What can you do if you are effectively disenfranchised though? Either keep on keeping on or die in bloody revolution where there’s no certainty its not just a different oligarchy at the top when the dust settles.

Even the US suffers from this to an extent. Who the president is matters most for the people who make a lot of money from government contracts than you or I who broadly lead the same lives every presidency.

Do you think the economy can not be influenced by political decisions? Also do you live behind the moon?

The little man is told he has all the control but really he is along for the ride. The big man plots the course and convinces the little man their interests are shared when they may not be.

This is cynical thinking that causes corruption and incompetence to thrive. People have a say in their government but often refuse to use it for good. That's how bad leaders get into power.

Many countries continually elect smart and competent leaders and become prosperous, but some people have somehow convinced themselves that they have no say in politics, meaning they don't care when their system rots with horrible leadership.

This cynical thinking is what has ruined many third-world countries, and I hate to see it propagated.

All you have is a choice between an A or a B that was put in front of you by the party establishment. It’s no real choice.

That's the deal in the USofA at least; that has an antiquated first past the post systm that has ossified into a two party non representative standoff.

By comparison Australia has a relatively fresh preferential voting system based on a hybrid "Washminster" system that can see sitting heads of government (Prime Ministers) ousted and scrappy kids from housing estates rise to the head job.

No system is perfect. Some systems are less desirable than others. All systems need regular shaking out. No, that doesn't require guns (if sensibly designed as systems).

Even without fptp the system is rotten as its dependent on campaigning. My local mayor race was also "bad" in a sense. It started with like a dozen candidates which meant the vote was split between many people who had about the same sort of platform with little to distinguish them beyond a few instances of social media based muckraking perhaps, then there was the frontrunner supported by the democratic establishment and its donors and the closest competitor which was a self financed billionaire. These two went to a run off election in the fall and the democratic party endorsed candidate won, and practically it couldn't have happened any other way than that outcome.

Remove campaign financing by donors and ban advertising. Have the local election commission mail out policy positions of the various candidates funded by a small fee paid by these candidates (less than five thousand or so such that it isn't gate kept through wealth; most anyone can get that amount money on credit if they don't have it today). Then maybe we can consider the election process actually a little bit unbiased and not predetermined by monied interests.

Of course, people who benefit from donor financed campaigning and playing on emotion vs rational action would probably sooner compare this to the election system in Cuba, and it would never see the light of day.

Low level (small city mayors) campaigns tend to be a mess as there's often little public interest and much "vested" interest (concrete curb manufacturers want fat city contracts, etc).

Here we double down on honesty with punishment - campaign donations must be declared (with fines and potential jail if not), advertising is capped (max hours per medium) and tied to a person who vouches for the ad .. and can be held responsible for delibrate untruths, going for the family, etc.

It's similar but perhaps with stronger guiderails .. and like the US voting in "small" local elections isn't mandatory.

Voting in state and federal elections is compulsary - turning up to vote | mailing in a vote is mandatory - it's 100% OK to mail | hand in a blank vote, a pencilled in candidate, a rant against government, a crude drawing of dick and balls, etc.

That sorts out the "but I don't like any of the candidates" crowd and makes them easy to count - it also sorts out the problem of systemic disenfranchisement by making it hard for those who work on voting day, those who have insufficent booths in area, etc. The onus is on the system to ensure that everybody can vote - by mail, with time off, with available locations and short lines, etc.

I’m not believing cynical rubbish.

I find it amusing how you just don't get it. Your narrow worldview is typical of everyone who comes from oppressive regimes and doesn't understand citizenship. The writer Svetlana Alexievich wrote a lot about this kind of alienation.

> Economy and how you are doing are what matters in the day to day life of people.

Yeah, but "economy and how you are doing" is inseparable from freedom and democracy.

You need the rule of the law and respect for private property to ensure a functional economy. You need transparency, freedom of information and speech, freedom of assembly and political representation to demand responsible government from authorities.

> The average Joe does not care about politics

That's how Putin screws up the average Ilich, and the Castros screw up the average Juan. See the connection?

> Economy and how you are doing are what matters in the day to day life of people.

Very much so. Look at how people in Krasnodar started protesting after they lost power for 10 hours. After 2.5 years of Putin's war.

> The average Joe does not care about politics

Sadly, true. My parents blame everything on 'queer Westerners', while turning literally a blind eye to the torture of those who were against Putin. Might have a point though - my grandmother's family wouldn't have stayed alive if they weren't silent in the 1930s... she remembers how her building was 'purged' of mostly intelligentsiya.

My friends are oppressed and many can't return home. _I_ can't return home because my country will happily jail me for who I am, literally (I'm queer)

My country lost any chances of becoming a nice place to live for the next 100 years. AND IS THIS THE FUTURE MY FAMILY WANTED FOR ME?!!!.

I... I don't know what to feel anymore. I left the day after the war started. My friends turned refugees. Countless civilians dead. Bombed by my own country. Sometimes I wish Russia was nuked out of existence, and I wish I was at the ground zero. Sometimes I wish Sun went nova and wiped any and all life because life is overrated and unnededed in this universe that was meant to be cold and lifeless forever.

This is a terrible example, the USSR deliberately ensured that people were uninformed and uninterested in politics as interest in politics is a huge security concern for an authoritarian state.

The really issue in democratic countries is that people are becoming complacent and passive in upholding and participing in democracy.

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