The video in question is entitled “College Freshman Explains Socialism To Cuban Who Escaped On A Raft”. It is from a conservative Youtube channel known as Babylon Bee, who obviously has very anti-socialist views, so it is no surprise that they would demonize them in this video.
Without further ado, let’s review this video.
The video starts with a Cuban immigrant sitting down on a bench smoking a cigar. A young white man with a Che Guevara shirt, representing our strawman socialist, comes up to him.
He introduces himself, and the Cuban responds with “Hola.” The young man states that that’s cultural appropriation.
What kind of real-life person says “ThAt’S cUlTuRaL aPpRoPrIaTiOn!1!1!” to somebody saying a fucking greeting? I’ve said foreign greetings and heard people say foreign greetings, never got accused of such a thing. I don’t even believe these college freshmen would even make such an accusation, just laugh at most. The idea of a young person obsessed with cultural appropriation is something that only exists in the minds of angry conservatives.
The immigrant explains that he is from Cuba and thus it makes sense that he would say “Hola”. The college freshman says “That’s awesome!” in an obnoxious manner and says that it’s sad that Cubans don’t appreciate the social programs they have. The immigrant asks him what he’s talking about.
Why would this obvious socialist talk like this? Why not just ask the guy how it was like over there and just ask him about stuff he’s heard and whether it is true or not? For instance, if can figure out what life is really like in China by asking a Chinese person about it. Obviously, Chinese people are going to have a more positive opinion about their experience because China is an advanced world superpower while Cuba has been behind much of the world thanks to the decades-long embargo.
The freshman talks about healthcare. The immigrant says that they had healthcare, and says that they had to heal wounds with dirt and his mother made him a wheelchair with just an old washing machine.
The Cuban healthcare system is largely based on preventive care. If this freshman knows so much about socialism, how does he not know that? If this skit is trying to argue what Cuban healthcare is bad through what the immigrant is saying, where is the mention of the U.S. embargo which prevents Cuba from getting so many essential materials for healthcare, such as bandages and wheelchairs, along with so many other things that people need for a prosperous society? But no, apparently socialism is the cause of all of Cuba’s problems. China and Vietnam do not have these problems because they can trade with the United States and the rest of the world.
The freshman tells him that he must be mistaken, and that he had learned all about Cuba’s social programs in college. When asked about how long he has been in college, he says he has been there for just half a semester.
What kind of delusion is this? Why do so many conservatives believe that colleges teach kids to be Marxists? If anything, they constantly lecture about how Marxism is eViL!1!1!1! So it would make sense that professors would not teach students that Cuba has great social programs, but rather tell them that Cuba, like every other socialist nation, is eViL!1!1!1! It is as if conservatives are trying to scare ignorant anti-communists into avoiding college as they might be teaching eViL sOcIaLiSm!1!1!1!
The freshman explains that he is pretty much an expert on socialism, and states that he is inviting his classmates into a group called Socialists Undermining Capitalist Knowledge.
How is this freshman an expert on socialism? Any Marxist-Leninist can tell you that Cuba is indeed a poor country and socialism doesn’t magically make it not poor. How did he not mention the embargo when the immigrant commented on how bad his healthcare experience was?
The immigrant asks the freshman what else he learned about Cuba and states that Bernie Sanders taught him about Cuba’s great literacy programs.
Cuban literacy programs are indeed good and this has been pointed out by many Marxist-Leninists, but why did this freshman mention Bernie Sanders? Marxist-Leninists do not like Bernie Sanders, we view him as a social-fascist who gives Americans free healthcare and college while continuing to bomb the Middle East and exploit the world. Also, Sanders hates Cuba, viewing it as an “authoritarian” country. If anything, if this freshman loves Bernie Sanders, he would be talking about how Cuba isn’t “real socialism”.
The immigrant states that they had to write “I will obey Fidel Castro!” a hundred times every morning.
I have never heard of this happening at all, it sounds too ridiculous to be believed anyway.
The freshman also states that Bernie Sanders taught him that poor people rose up and stole the means of production from the rich people in Cuba.
Once again, he mentions Bernie Sanders. Bernie is not a socialist, he is a social democrat. He would never advocate for revolution, he would advocate for winning an election. He would just tell Castro “No, no, don’t take up arms to fight the dictator Batista, just settle down and try to get people to vote you into office. Otherwise, you are an evil authoritarian.”
The immigrant explains that they owned nothing with regards to production.
Worker cooperatives are a type of business which is owned and democratically managed by all the workers there. Not all businesses in Cuba are cooperatives, however, and there are also some owned by private owners and the state. About 4 million Cubans are part of Cuba’s largest trade union. This gives the Cuban workers a big voice in running the economy, or the means of production. Even then, putting every enterprise in the hands of the state and/or the workers is not the immediate goal of Marxist-Leninists. Instead this is a gradual process.
The immigrant states that they had an anemic donkey. He explained that he was delicious, implying that they were so hungry that they had to eat a donkey.
According to this page, Cuban people consume an average of 3,344 calories a day, which is equivalent to the amount of calories that the average British person eats a day. But you’re not going to accuse British people of starving, are you? Maybe that’s because they’re a wHoLeSoMe CaPiTaLiSt NaTiOn and not an eViL sOcIaLiSt NaTiOn!1!1!1!
The freshman asks the immigrant why he ended up in this dystopian, capitalist nation (United States) anyway. The immigrant explains that he fled on a raft. The freshman is dumbfounded that he fled on purpose.
Cuba is a poor country. People tend to move to richer countries in hopes that they will have a better life. Just because Cuba is a socialist country doesn’t mean that people will not flee to a richer country. How does this freshman not know that?
The freshman is once again dumbfounded how one can flee Cuban paradise to live in the oppressive, totalitarian state known as the United States.
I’ve said it before, this freshman who is an expert of socialism should be aware that Cuba is a poor country and poor people will often move to richer places because they do not want to be poor.
The freshman pulls out his iPhone and the immigrant says that they did not have that in Cuba.
THEY SAID IT, BOYS! SOCIALISM IS WHEN NO IPHONE! YES! NOW LAUGH!
Cuba has over 7 million smartphone subscriptions, out of a population of 11 million. Whether they have specifically iPhones, I do not know, but the majority still have some kind of smartphone. In the past, they had less smartphones, but this video was uploaded this year. And they are still using the “nO iPhOnE” meme. It is like the Babylon Bee is not trying to portray an actual, realistic Cuban immigrant. Rather, they are trying to portray themselves responding to this strawman socialist.
The immigrant then says that young people don’t have any idea what socialism is like.
And neither do you, Babylon Bee.
Later, the freshman goes up to a Korean man, trying to explain why North Korea isn’t “real socialism”. The Korean man explains that his family escaped North Korea.
Who goes up to a random person and says “iT wAsN’t ReAl SoCiAlIsM!1!1!1!”? It is a controversial topic that you can’t just run up to a person and talk about.
This video is just a regurgitation of already debunked anti-socialist arguments, and it tries to make them more credible by making the person saying these arguments a person who left a socialist country. And the person on the receiving end of these arguments is a strawman, stereotypical “radical liberal leftist” that only exists in the imagination of conservatives. How can a serious socialist support both Cuba and Bernie Sanders at the same time? Do conservatives not know the difference between socialist tendencies? It also serves to scare conservatives away from sending their kids to college due to fears of ***“sOcIaLiSt BrAiNwAsHiNg!1!1!1!”
The comment section largely consists of gusanos, hanjians, and the like talking about how their families fled eViL!1!1!1! socialist nations.
This channel has done other anti-socialist skits. If you guys want me to cover another one, feel free to let me know.
Christ, what did I just watch? Great write-up! 100% those comments are paid by Babylon Bee to drive engagement.
For what it’s worth, the Babylon Bee is supposed to be conservative satire, so some of this is intentionally over the top.
I’ll admit that I did not see that video for myself, but judging from your review it does not sound like I am missing out on anything. It’s a perfect example of antisocialists once again using figurative and literal cartoons (like PragerU) as substitutes for actual research. Oh hey, speaking of which…
From 1960 to 1965 it is reported that at least 681 acts of terrorism were committed against the Cuban people. Throughout the year of the literacy campaign several teachers, students, and peasants were tortured and murdered in order to terrorize farming communities and reduce support for the campaign. Young teachers were shot, lynched, or stabbed. There is documentation showing that the U.S. government backed many of these attacks; for example, the CIA sponsored Operation Mongoose, through which it attempted to defeat the Revolution.
(Source.)
I found that out as I was writing this reply. Needless to say, you aren’t going to learn important information like this from talking with antisocialists.
Socialists Undermining Capitalist Knowledge.
Grand Theft Auto III already did a joke similar to this and did it better. Admittedly, though, that was not the first thing that came to mind. Instead, I was at first reminded of this joke from Rudolph Herzog’s Dead Funny: Telling Jokes in Schicklgruber’s Germany:
According to one example, recorded in a variety of sources, the word RADIO stood for “Rein Arischer Darf Itzig Ohrfeigen”—“a pure Aryan is allowed to box Isaac’s ears.”
What’s a hanjian?