Caller: JFK Johnson Pushed the Fight Against Communism...
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Caller: JFK & Johnson Pushed the Fight Against Communism... - Video
THE ULTIMATE idiocy of the stay-the-course-in-Cuba crowd was displayed Wednesday on CNN.
Asked why she so vehemently opposes any initiative to normalize relations with Cuba, CNN commentator Ana Navarro gave us this gem:
"For no other reason than the calendar," she said. "We're so close, 55 years closer, and now [Obama] does this."
Her point, and the misguided point of our irrational, inconsistent, duplicitous and counterproductive Cuban policy for the last five decades, is that our breakthrough is just a body bag away. With Fidel about to die, she said, and Raul's state funeral to follow shortly thereafter, Cuba will cast off communism and embrace democracy.
But common Cubans have never embraced communism. Communism is a paternalistic, elitist ideology imposed by dictators. Like the masses in every communist country since the Bolsheviks turned out the czar, most Cubans have never been party members or true believers.
But to believe that Castro's death will make us, by default, the choice of Cuba's people ignores our long history of indifference to their plight.
Where were we when Sgt. Fulgencio Batista promoted himself to commander-in-chief and divided Cuba up among his friends and family? Today, we offer democracy, albeit from afar. But democracy was a nonstarter in U.S. policy toward Cuba back then.
We want the Cubans to remember our words and forget our deeds. We want them to believe our platitudes about justice and ignore the fact that we use part of their island to imprison people without trials and to violate the international conventions against torture that we authored. That's a contradiction that can't be explained from afar.
Can we make them forget the past and buy the promise?
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Why normalizing relations with Cuba is long overdue
Freedom vs communism
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By: Odal Rune
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Freedom vs communism - Video
ST. LOUIS (KTVI) President Obamas move to lift some U.S. restrictions against Cuba is receiving mixed reactions locally.
St. Louis Congressman Lacy Clay praised the presidents actions calling them long overdue. But Missouri U.S. Senator Roy Blunt criticized the decision as one that will encourage our adversaries.
A St. Louis resident of Cuban heritage fears the Obama administration move will end up enhancing the Castro regime.
Jorge Riopedre, an executive with a not-for-profit health clinic, is the son of Cuban refugees who were forced to flee Cuba in the early nineteen sixties because of actions by the Communists who took over the island nation.
My mother had to flee for her life because of religious persecution. My father and his family were at gunpoint removed from the land that had been theirs for five, six generations, Riopedre explained.
His parents succeeded eventually in earning advanced college degrees and building a good life in Florida. But family relatives who remained in Cuba are trapped in poverty.
The Cuban government controls every aspect of your life, he said noting there is free education but, the government then chooses what your profession is. Riopedre said, on every block of every town there is a person in charge of the defense of the revolution who reports back to the government on what the activities are of the people who live there.
Riopedre said he appreciates President Obamas desire to normalize relations but if the end game is that it will strengthen the Castro government without really changing things for the United States then Im not sure thats the way to go.
He thinks the U.S. would be better to wait until Fidel and Raul Castro die and try to influence the next Cuban government. What keeps the Cuban people downtrodden and oppressed is the Castro government not the United States embargo.
Link:
Local Cuban-American says communism is the problem not U.S. embargo
This must be the sort of thing President Obama meant when he talked about"more flexibility" after elections.Relations with Cuba are to be normalized.
Let's try to sort this out dispassionately. Cuba isn't a topic that often lends itself to calm and collected discussion but let's try.
Take the response of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is appalled the U.S. will open an embassy soon in Havana (at present, the U.S. has an office in the Swiss embassy there and an envoy housed in tropical splendor in Miramar).
"This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba," Rubio told The Associated Press. "But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castroregime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come."
The first part of Rubio's take is unquestionably correct. Castro is a Communist thug and that's his romantic persona. He and his ilk put thousands up against the wall and thousands more in foul prisons for vicious crimes ranging fromdemanding a free press to being attracted to the same sex.
What the world needs are fewer and better Castros; ridding it ofdespotic killers like Che Guevara was a plus. So it's maddening to see American liberals who think both are good guys and who'd like to see a little more of the Cuban experiment here.
But take the second part of Rubio's remark. Castro has already been a permanent fixture in Cuba for generations. If the embargo's goal is toppling Castro it hasn't worked. That doesn't mean the goal isn't a noble one, simply that clinging to an unsuccessful policy isn't sensible.
From time to time, especially from Havana, one hears the embargo hurts Cubans. This has it backwards. Castro hurts Cubans. State run economies are disastrous for people. If anything, Cuba refutes Marxism even more than the Soviet Union's collapse, because if Castro can't make a go of it on a Caribbean island with massive aid from Russia, practically free energy from Venezuela and full trade with every country but the U.S., then fellow travelers in America need to upgrade their thinking.
Still, disgust with the intelligentsia is no guide for foreign policy. The U.S. should not maintain the Cuba embargo to spite the dupes among us.
There's also an inconsistency in the American position. TheChinese Communists have murdered more than any political group on earth. The U.S. and China have had formal relations since 1972.
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The Cuban embargo and Castro's Communism: James Varney/Thursday chat