Obama Wants to Ease Cuban Restrictions
Yesterday, Barack Obama said that he would ease restrictions on visiting and sending money to Cuba. Castro is washed up and I’m not convinced that the punishment strategy has been the least bit effective with Cuba. Look at China. Sure they aren’t perfect, but are they more free today than 10 years ago? How about Vietnam?
Cultural exchange and economic development are some of the most effective methods of undermining these regimes. If it weren’t for the old-line Cuban exiles in FL, Castro would have been irrelevant when the Berlin Wall came down.
Tags: 2008 Presidential
Amen. Let’s quit the special treatment of Cuba. They are a bad regime that we should treat no differently from all the others (Russia included?).
The power of our ideas is every bit as strong as our strength of arms.
“Look at China”
Killing our kids and pets with tainted products!
Cheating on trade agreements!
If we had given Castro the same amount that we spend in Iraq in one week he probably would have gone off to dictator’s happy holiday camp and the Cuban economy would be booming with tourist dollars. Of course, the Cubans would also have the same lousey health care system we do.
It is long overdue that someone is standing up to the wack-job Miami Cubans who still think they can get their plantations back.
“It is long overdue that someone is standing up to the wack-job Miami Cubans who still think they can get their plantations back.”
Wow. Even when it comes to Cuba you still find a way to demonize the rich. Sounds more like sour grapes.
Maybe Obama just wants to get us all access to that wonderful healthcare system they have. You know, the one where leaders from all over the free world flock to when they need specialized care….wait…Cuba IS where Mayo is located…right?
One of the ways that Cuba has been able to survive and to have the status it does have in the Caribbean and South America is that medical assistance is one of its major exports.
Maybe Obama wants us to stop spending money on enforcement of this now very silly embargo. If there are no restrictions on Americans going to North Korea and Iran, it doesn’t make sense to continue all of the contortions for Cuba.
And Jason is quite right — it is well past time to stop the Cuban ex-pats from holding our Cuba policy hostage to some hazy reminiscence of the Battista era.
I learned the hard way that you don’t use “whack-job” and “Cuban policy” in the same sentence when in Florida. Boy, do those guys hold a grudge. Worse than the Irish. No need at all to pull out knives. Completely inappropriate.
For once, I agree with something posted here. Castro will fall only when people can trade freely. Right now he has a strangle hold on the economy. Nobody makes dollar one w/o his approval so they’re all beholden to him. Pull that rug out from under him and suddenly people will see the benefits of getting rid of him.
The stickler is the expropriation. What to do? Do we allow nations to steal US citizens property w/o any repercussions? You can travel to Iran but you may not move money out of there. Likewise North Korea.
Bare minimum, lift the travel ban.
From what I remember of the expropriation, Che Guevara hooked the US Corporations by saying the Revolutionary Cuban government would pay restitution based on filed financial statements. The US Corps had severely undervalued their businesses in Cuba in order to avoid federal taxes. Che hoisted them by their own petard (whatever a petard is).
petard := A petard was a medieval small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications.
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase to be hoist by one’s own petard, which means “to be harmed by one’s own plan to harm someone else” or “to fall in one’s own trap”. Shakespeare coined the now proverbial phrase in Hamlet.
Sorry, had to look it up.
From a friend of mine who got out of the hell hole we call Cuba very early in life:
“Unlike my uncles in Miami, I tend to agree with Sen. Obama. If Europeans can vacation in Cuba and make life easier for folks there, why can’t we? Castro is no nastier than his Chinese counterparts (not saying much, is it?). Now, let me give my uncle’s version, last fall when we visited him in Florida. “Somebody has to pay for what we have been through”. He did not mean monetarily, although there are some who still do talk about financial reparations. Some very strong feelings exist in the Cuban-American community in Florida, and they take their American citizenship seriously and vote in large numbers, overwhelming Republican. The uncle quoted above is 91, and he has never voted Democrat since he became a citizen and never will, still hasn’t forgiven Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs. I believe Castro wouldn’t have lasted as long if we had had a more open policy towards Cuba. Cuba is too close to the U.S. and too laissez-faire to not be very open to American influence.”
The phrase “to hoist by one’s own petard” literally means to “lift oneself up by their own fart”. Aka – to bloviate and be proven wrong thus crashing back to Earth, so to speak – kinda like Karl Rove over the past few years! 🙂 But the definition in the earlier comments is correct too – to blow oneself up with their own devices.
The whole Cuban embargo thing is just silly these days. It was somewhat useful, if not destructive, during the Cold War, but now it’s just pandering to the small republican cuban ex-pat community and the wackos who still fantasize about killing communists after watching Red Dawn for the 175th time.
BTW – if you have a friend named Peter – tell him his name means “to break wind” in middle-french!
“Look at China.”
Been there. Sorry, but that one won’t fly.
I’d actually be in favor of relaxing some aspects of the embargo, as long as it doesn’t mean putting cash in Raoul’s pockets: we can trade them old Buicks for cigars. It’s a win-win!
“…w(h)ack-job Miami Cubans who still think they can get their plantations back.”
What about those wacky Palestinian refugees who still have the keys to the houses they abandoned in 1948? Can we stand up to them too?