The exploding cigar is the tip of the iceberg as far as silly strategies go. Missles guided by pigeons, carefully placed dead rats laced with explosives, inflatable tanks, etc. It's amazing how often real life resembles the Looney Toons.
sebas gutierrez He says "Something else has also happened. A lot of changes." The whole "exploding cigar" thing was taken from a legit book listing the quest for murdering Castro titled "Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro" On Amazon here: www.amazon.es/Executive-Action-Fidel-Castro-Secret/dp/1920888721 I read it. There was tigers in there if I recall right.
sebas gutierrez To be honest, I pulled that from a video that I assumed had legit subs (even if they might have been pushing it with the swears). Thanks for pointing it out. Cigar story is confirmed, though!
I just discovered this channel today and I've binge-watched about a dozen episodes while I worked...absolutely love this, some of the most well-researched and thought-provoking stuff on RU-vid.
When i went to the southern most point there was this guy that had a bunch of cats performing tricks and stuff and it was scheduled to go on for 45 minutes, it was about 15 minutes until the cruise ship roughly 150 yards away from his act made a crazy radio noise and scarred the cats, stopping the show completely.
In Portugal music had a huge part in overthrowing the fascist regime the revolution start and end sign was a radio broadcast of 2 songs by Zeca Afonso all with revolutionary hidden meanings.
Well art in a socialist country is about the art itself and not about selling. In theory and without censorship, art in a socialist country can by better in quality that in a capitalist country where some artists have a hard time to survive. If I was a dictator I would not censor art but if the art was offencive there should be a writen statement from the artist(s) that they don't actually believe in those offencive stuff.
I honestly wish more rap in America stood for something. It doesn't have to be about how bad they think the government is, but it would be nice to see some more meaningful songs being made with intentions of giving a voice to those who don't have one, instead of something extremely vulgar that has to do with sex, drugs, or showing off just how "cool" they are.
Oh god, a musician who releases 2 albuns a year making the same amount of money as a person who works 8 hours a day 5 days a week, truly something of nightmares
I havent seen the actual interview but at 3:16 the English subtiles don't match anything that Castro is saying, lol. He said: "también se ha producido otra cosa, buenos cambios" which translates to: "there has also happened another thing, good changes". Aside from that, great video!
Sup. Im a cuban guy that life in Miami since 2012 and I love los Aldeanos so much as any other young cuban or person that is against the government. I just want to say that... Great video
Went to cuba last year. All those places in your footage have been rebuilt and reworked in pretty fashion. Also, some old 1800s establisments like jewelry stores have been rebuilt in themed-hotel form.
Hey, Sam, don't hide that Bathory t-shirt ;) This vid reminds me of the Yugoslavian 80s music scene. Unlike other communist states, Tito allowed more freedom and a youth alternative/punk scene was able to flourish, allowing for groups like SKUC to publish tapes by now legendary bands such as Laibach and Borghesia. Maybe it was Slovenia and Ljubliana's proximity to Italy and Venice (which is a 2 and a half hours car ride) and a Slovene alternative scene could grow in a communist dictatorship. But personally the days are long gone when a single band could create a revolution such as Laibach or Public Enemy (even if an intellectual one). Maybe it might have something to do with the fact that there are way many more bands out there than there used to be, what with technology becoming cheaper and easier to record stuff. Also that we live in the age of the Internet when we are constantly aware of anything that happens the minute it does because Twitter or Facebook will make us aware of it. We have now first hand sources, we don't rely any more on celebrities and musicians telling us what's going on. While you wrote and recorded your protest song, the Internet already discussed it and moved to another topic. Anybody remember Kony?
This is very reminiscent of the culture wars that occurred during when the US CIA was funding artist like Jackson Pollock to try and show off how creative and different US art was and also simultaneously taking attention away from Social Realism. The US has also had a history of hating the art the the National Endowment of the Arts funds such as Piss Christ or Lighght. Thanks for the videos, I really enjoy your show.
There is a difference in the Salah Edin-incident; he started with taking a rap song about the Dutch society (also called Het Land Van..., Dutch for the land of...) and began depicting his life as a string of anti-islamic, racist incidents, forgetting to tell why he got picked out, being a known associate of a lot small time criminals. He also depicted himself as the fundamentalist murderer of Theo van Gogh (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_(film_director)) and condoned the murder stating "he had his music to let out his frustrations, Mohammed B. (murderer of Theo van Gogh) didn't have such a thing."
Cuba is not as bad as people like to think. If you really take some time to look at conflicting reports you can easily come to the conclusion that Cuba has one of the best health services in the world, excellent disaster relief (in an area susceptible to hurricanes and violent tropical storms) and pretty much the only communist country in the world that has actually tried to uphold socialist ideology... Cuba would undoubtedly be better off if the US didn't selfishly blockade it for so long because "oooh, boo-hoo, we don't like what they think!". I like to think about Angola and Mozambique when I hear popular opinion that the Cuban people are being oppressed; both of the former Portuguese colonies were granted independence after a revolution back in Europe, but there had been a terrible independence war raging for a decade or two prior. It was waged by communist and socialist guerrillas, primarily. Those leftist guerrillas won, and eventually democracy was instituted. Yet, these groups still remain the most popular political parties. Guess what, guys? Communism and socialism isn't _always_ bad and it is _not_ inevitable that people living under such a system would universally hate it.
+StopMinecraftVIOLENCE Communism destroyed Cuba! Cuba is great yeah for people like you; that don't actually have to live there. So much suffering, so many deaths and separated families and you're saying its not that bad and making excuses! F**k you!
ivonotei Cuba was a shithole before communism. At least the government has introduced a brilliant healthcare and disaster relief system. I'm not saying it's perfect, just not as bad as the West likes to think.
Well I wouldn't expect any less from a "useful idiot" like yourself. I would like to shed light on a few things you commie people claim. 1st, Cuba was not over run by the mafia no more than the USA was because of mafia involvement in Las Vegas Nevada or Atlantic City New Jersey...that is pure propaganda hog wash out of the Castro play book of lies. 2nd, Cuba had the highest per Capita income in Latin America even ahead of European countries like Austria, Spain & Norway. If you wanted to work, there were plenty of jobs as the economy was booming in Cuba. 3rd, the Cuban people were not happy in the 1950's because of political reasons, NOT because of economic reasons. Batista had stolen the election of 1953 and had made himself a dictator. Cubans, unhappy with Batista being a dictator formed the 2506 movement to topple Batista and later found out the intent of the Cuban revolution headed by Fidel & his cronies that he was a communist. The Cuban people never wanted a communist dictatorship in Cuba and still don't... Here are some facts for you Castro/Che lovers..... Of Cuba’s 161 sugar mills in 1958, only 40 were U.S. owned, and United Fruit owned only a third of these. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in 1958 U.S. investments in Cuba accounted for only 13% of Cuba’s GNP. In 1953, more Cubans vacationed in the U.S., than Americans vacationed in Cuba. In 1955 the single Riviera Casino in Las Vegas featured twenty tables and 116 slot machines. This means that in 1955: one Las Vegas Casino had more gambling action than all of Cuba.
3:20 - Didn't one general float the idea of using a giant Jesus hologram to convince Cubans to revolt? Because funding a subversive musician seems downright sensible compared to a giant Jesus hologram.
this interpretation of communism is just plain ridiculous. Janitors and rappers don't make the same amount of money under socialism, and the workers have self-management in cuba..
The necessary term, here, is "subversion". The ability of the artist to use what the system has to share their message is almost a strict necessity in every form of art. When a government (which is supposed to represent the people) tries to use the arts to forward their own agenda, then the artists must become smarter, and those that aren't will kowtow. Sad to say that if an artist doesn't fight, then they don't necessarily stay true.
This Exists I went in with some low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I'd been on a binge of some of the worst zombie movies I could find. really low brow bottom of the barrel shit. Stuff like Cockneys vs Zombies, World War Z, "Stripperland" (Not really a zombie movie in the traditional sense but you get the idea) and I finally got to the last movie I'd queued up. Juan of the Dead. I was really really happy that the second good movie happened to be the last one I watched (the other good movie was "FDR: American Badass," which was actually about werewolves.)
phatphuck Not really weird or a coincidence since both titles are parodies of Dawn of the Dead. Other than that the similarities basically end at wacky genre comedy with slapstick zombie violence. Juan has some clever political commentary plus the main characters start a business where family members can request them to put their family members at peace. Very funny movie. Highly recommend it.
Actually this type of rap is it's own genre called raeggetón and is also in Puerto Rico and other Spanish speaking countries in the caribbean area (I'm Puerto Rican and currently live there)
This video really had me thinking about several things. The first being, where do you draw the line for your beliefs? While being willing to die for your beliefs seems quite noble, authoritarian and totalitarian leaders have shown that such levels of personal sacrifice get people little to no progress. The most effective vessels of change seem to be those that are somehow able to dodge and avoid those that would suppress their message, and even go into hiding to stay out of the 'gulags'. The second is what was actually going on? The story seems to have yet another bumbling failure at the hands of the US government trying to oust a Castro. I read the article you referenced in the video, and it seems to be a far more multi-national thing, Seriously it involves a Serbian contractor (polite term for some sort of mercenary), A Colombian Rock Star, an unnamed Legendary Cuban Singer with blood ties to Los Aldeanos, as well as two groups of Americans, USaid which claims to have been working out in the open, and another group that seems more like the background villains of Metalacolypse called Creative Associates International another contractor, this time from Washington. Seriously give this a read, it seems if anything the members of Los Aldeanos, didn't have much say in this whole affair. www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/cuban-hip-hop-scene-infiltrated-us-information-youth
I'm just going to use this as an opportunity to mention the plot by one of the big players in the MK-Ultra projects by the CIA to poison Castro. Not poison to death, mind you, just to make his beard fall out. I wish I was creative enough to have made that up.
+Suicidalfuckernumber1 yep :) Alot of Thrash Metal guys aren't American, like Metallica's current bassist who is Mexican I think, and Kirk is Philipino.
You need to understand the stuff as far as politics go is still fresh and if you are in your 40s can remember parts of the 80s . The U.S main problem is they need to learn to respect boundaries. It's a close country but it is not your country. People in media here in the States act like bratty children. Other countries have bigger political issues than music.
So Salah Edin made a contentious video (containing Alex Jones style melodramatics if I may add) which was funded entirely by government money, was sued and had his freedom of speech rights and his funding protected by a judge on multiple occasions? Sounds like the system worked perfectly to me. How is that "more severe" than the case in Canada where a band was ultimately muscled into returning their government funding completely? You're coming off as a little biased to be honest.
Canadian artists are absolute slaves to their government arts funding. If you hang around an American college radio station, you'll soon notice the deluge of CDs coming in from Canadian (and also Australian) bands with government support logos on the backs of their album. The vast majority of these indie bands get lost in the shuffle, receive no airplay or fans, and the government funders never get anything close to a return for their investment in these groups. In other words, the Canadian govt probably doesn't have any better track record in creating stars out of their artists than an American major label would.
