My nationality has absolutely nothing to do with the question. I could just as well be an American. If I ask certain things of America, it's because I'm posting in a thread on Obama, because I'm on a predominantly American board and I enjoy discussing things with the people on this board, because I recognise the influence and power America has over the Western World.

I'm not anti-American, nor am I a nationalist; I'm a socialist - I oppose capitalism and all that goes with it - imperialism, territorialism, racism, sexism, militarism; all injustice.

The notion that a "nation" can "betray" itself is absurd. And it's a common tendency of anti-socialist propaganda to portray it as such - that socialists outdo themselves and come undone, that they somehow betray themselves because of socialism's inherent capacity to fail. That's a lie.

Stalinism betrayed socialism, if you want a poetic simplification. But it's never as simple as that. It's a gross misconception that the Soviet Union failed at socialism; it never achieved it fully, thanks to unique and specific historical and social factors; likewise with Cuba, whose revolution was an amazing achievement, but whose dependence on further social revolution made certain compromises inevitable - add to that the Bolivian disaster, the Bolshevik disillusionment, Stalinism's betrayal and all anti-Red propaganda that was quick to throw Stalin and communism in (or under) the same bed.

The revolution must be permanent.