Showing posts with label fidel castro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fidel castro. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Isn't It Time To Change Our Cuban Policy?
Travelocity has been fined $182,750 due to their software allowing trips to Cuba that might have benefited Cuban companies. Travelocity claims that it was a software glitch. What if it wasn't? This policy has been in place for forty-five years now and has accomplished nothing other than generating votes from Cuban-Americans in the exile community in Florida.
We fought a hot war with communist Vietnam, now we have normalized relationships. We bankrupted the Soviet Union in an arms race. We have outsourced much of our manufacturing to China.
Yet powerless Cuba, who no longer have a Soviet sponsor, must suffer for domestic politics. It's not about being a fan of Fidel Castro. It's about thinking that the policies of Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have done nothing to end the regime of Castro. It Castro does make it to January 2009, he will be watching the 11th President of the US during his reign.
Can one person make a coherent argument why opening up China is a good thing, but this embargo on Cuba is bound to work any day now? Cubans who fled the island around 1960 now have children and grand children who were born in the US. Are they going to all run back to Cuba when Castro's regime falls?
These cronies of the right wing dictator who Castro replaced would sit around Miami forever plotting how they would come back and run things when Castro was killed. Do Cubans who have stuck around all this time really want Americans to run their government no matter what their opinions on Castro?
Give Cubans access to goods, services, technology, information and let them decide if they want to stick with communism. The embargo is a joke that makes Cuban people suffer and our government hypocrites.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Matt Lauer singlehandedly is ruining nearly half a century of a brilliant political strategy according to Humberto Fontova, a wingnut author at Human Events.
Exactly three weeks ago Cuba's Stalinist regime held a "tourism fair" in Havana to kick-off an ambitious plan to boost the Cuban military's tourist booty. To entice and swindle foreign investors, Cuba's propaganda ministry publishes a magazine titled Opciones where Cuba's "Minister of Tourism," Manuel Marrero, boasted of a bold $170 million outlay to upgrade Cuba's tourist facilities from golf courses to yacht clubs to theme parks.
Exactly one week ago ( by some peculiar coincidence) NBC's "Today Show" decided to broadcast from Havana amidst smiling, clapping, dancing tourists while Matt Lauer advised viewers on how to legally vacation in Cuba. No doubt Matt Lauer has studied Katie Couric's post-Today Show career with keen interest and mounting trepidation. But all who watched his performance from Havana can reassure him:
"Don't worry, Matt," we say. "Should that fickle NBC brass become disenchanted with your services, you're a shoo-in for Cuba's new Minister of Tourism. You passed the audition with flying colors, amigo. A jittery Mr Manuel Marrero is probably already looking over his shoulder."
These Batista loving Cuban exiles are a wee bit intense and quite insane, but I digress.
Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the elder, Clinton, and Bush the gimp have all remained resolute in a policy that is bound to work one day. Well probably not. They all have also been steely eyed in their determination to pander to the crucial Cuban exile voter in Florida, no matter how unbelievably stupid their irrational passion. Think of the minutemen movement, but with black beans and rice served at dinner.
Matt Lauer screwed this all up. Viva sanctions. Castro is bound to be toppled of old age and it will be bittersweet due to this treason.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Cuban President Fidel Castro has strongly criticised the use of biofuels by the US, in his first article since undergoing surgery last year.
He said George W Bush's support for the use of food crops in fuel production would cause 3bn deaths from hunger.
The old dictator has a point believe it or not. The use of corn products in ethanol is devastating right now to poor people in Latin America. The cost of corn meal and products such as tortillas have escalated quickly because of increased demand for these products to produce ethanol.
It is the law of unintended consequences. Let me also say that perhaps President Bush's favorite idea of switchgrass, he seems to just like saying that word, might be a better choice. Let me put this in a way Joe Six-pack can understand.
What if cheap domestic beer was found as the best alternative fuel for cars, and corporations kept buying so much of it that demand was excessive, and now you had to pay $15.85 for a six pack of Budweiser. You would be bumming wouldn't you?
Tortillas and masa are near and dear to Mexican's hearts in the same way.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The ailing Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has spoken publicly for the first time since falling ill last July.
"Hello there, illustrious and dear friend, how are you?" Fidel Castro asked President Chavez at the start of an extended conversation on the Venezuelan leader's "Hello President" show.
"I feel good and I'm happy," Mr Castro went on.
First things first. "Hello, President" is really a lame name for a show. I wonder if Hugo Sanchez came up with that one himself. Secondly, will Castro ever kick the bucket? So far he has outlasted Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and has made it through six years of the Cuckoo Bananas presidency. That is some intestinal fortitude (pun intended). The good die young they say. So it may just be that Castro will be celebrating his 50th year as President in 2009, as George Bush retires to pursue video games as a hobby.
I just hope that when Castro goes, democracy flourishes so those Batista loving nutcases in Florida can be soundly rejected by people who stuck around for the last half century in the country's first true popular vote. Perhaps Jose Canseco can run on a steroids and handguns platform in 10 years when Castro finally decides to retire.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Today I am kind of cheating; it's two words. Conservapedia explains away the period of both Fulgencio Batista, who ruled Cuba from 1933-44, threw a coup and was dictator from 1952-1959, as well as the rule of Fidel Castro from 1959 to the present with the following in depth citations. These entries will certainly help the home schooled kids learn more about the history of this island nation close to the shore of the US.
Fulgencio Batista was the dictator of Cuba before Fidel Castro. Under him Cuba thrived and he kept close ties to the U.S.A. He was overthrown when the U.S. started to back Fidel Castro. He fled the country and Castro took over as dictator of Cuba.
Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgenico Batista in 1959 and became dictator of Cuba. Liberals in America promoted Castro as a hero, but the conservatives believed he would become a ruthless and dangerous dictator. Sure enough, Castro soon began to rule the country cruelly, seizing private property and ending free speech. Under Castro's rule, Cuba has changed from being one of the richest nations to being one of the poorest.
I think I am ready to write a term paper now. But I have a few questions first. Was Batista a nice guy? It seems that everything in Cuba was swimming during his reign according to Conservapedia, but there have been dark rumors that he executed a great deal of opponents, and was tied to the mafia, he and J. Edgar Hoover might have been the same dress size as well. Perhaps that will be in the next revision.
Castro also has been president for almost 50 years now. Maybe it's being a tad picky, but stating without documentation that conservatives made a prediction about the naive liberals in America backing the wrong horse may need to be filled with a bit more background. I mean is he a gemini? Does he think K-Fed of Brittney should get custody? Come on, more info please.
Friday, February 23, 2007
In a Washington Post hit piece out on Hugo Chavez today, the virtues of free market capitalism and trade agreements were extolled while Chavez was painted negatively. He deserves it in many areas. He has an authoritarian streak that I find quite disturbing.
However, this article, probably endorsed by the US chamber of commerce, and the ghost of United fruit did have a moment of truth mixed in with the pro coporate agenda.
Although Chávez frequently travels to foreign capitals to lambaste Washington, it's not so clear that Latin Americans favor the Venezuelan president's prescriptions, even if their governments are happy to accept his aid. According to a recent survey of 20,200 people in 18 countries by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean polling firm, most Latin Americans lumped Chávez with Fidel Castro and President Bush as bad leaders, citing Brazil's Lula and Chile's Bachelet as the best. And most of those polled classified themselves as political moderates .
In Latin America, they distrust Bush and Chavez. Today I am a latin american too. Much of the time, the rest of the world has a more nuanced approach to politics than here in the US of A. You don't have to choose A or B. You can dislike authoritarian Chavez at the same time you don't trust authoritarian Bush. Our two party system has set up this mindset that there are only two options and you have to embrace one of the two, which of course is a falsity.
Viva Latin America!
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