Posted on 07/30/2009 10:40:00 PM PDT by AmericanSphinx71
HAVANA, July 30 (Reuters) - Havana's famous seaside avenue, the Malecon, could be mistaken for Hollywood Boulevard this week as four high profile film stars come to the Cuban capital in the splashiest sign yet of warming U.S.-Cuba relations.
Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan arrived in Cuba on Wednesday, with del Toro in town to pick up an award and the other three working on a "research project," a spokesman for the group said on Thursday.
The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said the stars were accompanied by other people in the movie industry, including producers he would not name.
Because of the long-standing U.S. trade embargo against communist-led Cuba, Americans have been forbidden, with some exceptions, from visiting the island 90 miles (145 km) from Key West, Florida.
Hollywood stars such as Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Steven Spielberg have come to Cuba in the past but cultural exchanges slowed due to restrictions imposed by former U.S. President George W. Bush.
The spokesman said the group is traveling under a license granted by the U.S. Treasury Department.
U.S. President Barack Obama offered earlier this year to "recast" relations with Cuba, which have been sour since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.
Obama has lifted travel restrictions for Cuban Americans and restarted immigration talks with Cuba that were suspended under Bush.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Now that relations with Cuba have thawed, maybe Michael Moore will be going to Cuba for bariatric surgery.
And I like Robert Duvall too. Guess he doesn’t have as much sense as I thought.
“And I like Robert Duvall too.”
According to the article, Mr. Duvall is there on a research project. I will reserve any judgments until there is information as to what kind of research is being conducted.
I do know that Bill Murray appeared in an Andy Garcia film, The Lost City. This film, which is an excellent movie, is an anti-Communist/Castro, pro-American/capitalist film. Naturally, this doesn’t automatically mean that Mr. Murray is a conservative. After all, Dustin Hoffman also appears in the film. Although, he plays notorious mobster, Meyer Lansky.
The commies are right at home...
And why didn’t these “stars’ visit Gitmo? It’s in Cuba.
“There’s a little thing called “liberty” that I take very seriously. We aren’t at a state of war with Cuba, and as such, travel by US citizens shouldn’t be restricted, at all.”
Exactly. Not acceptable in the land of the free.
Not to mention, they don’t work. 50 years of sanctions and travel restrictions have not prevented Fidel from being one of the longest reigning dictators in world history.
I went to Myanmar ten years ago for a three week visit. The people there told me over and over again that travel restrictions on tourists did not hurt the military dictatorship because they were at the top and always had plenty, but the losses from tourists staying away were a real disaster for the poor people of Myanmar.
I look forward to the day when they all live there, not as members of the elite, but as everyday Cubans do:
What does the term “useful idiots” mean to you two?
It would be nice if he STAYED there!
Interesting. You employ a Soviet-era term to criticize someone who disagrees with the the heavy-handed, fascist tactic of the imperial federal government in restricting it's citizen's right-to-move freely.
“Useful” sounds good. I like being useful. But “idiots” sounds a bit too pejorative to be effectively balanced by “useful” so I would say that, all in all, it means you appreciate that we attempt a rational discourse, but you feel like we are incapable of doing so.
LOL. Noobies supporting each other's idiocy cannot be surprising in the uhbummer era.
Surely there have been some overly obviuos seedlings emplaced at this great institution we call FR.
Remember:
“LOL. Noobies supporting each other’s idiocy cannot be surprising in the uhbummer era.”
All right, as a noobie I yield to your greater knowledge of the world, but please, for the sake of my education, explain why our government, in its infinite wisdom, has so graciously allowed me to go to Vietnam, Laos, China, and Myanmar but refuses to let me go to Cuba.
Ummmm, “useful idiots” was a term coined by soviet dictator and theorist Lenin to describe non-communists who would indulge in being allergic to warfare until the termites known as useful idiots would have so demoralized our country as to make it fall to its enemies without much bloodshed at all. In this context, “idiot” denotes not so much a lack of intellectual horsepower or IQ points as a dreadful lack of wisdom, afflicting our nation with truth decay all for mere convenience of avoiding conflict. Please avoid unwarranted assumptions as to what I may appreciate.
If we had finished Fidel off at the outset during the Bay of Pigs invasion by providing the support arranged by Eisenhower and canceled after the invasion began by John Kennedy, you could travel wherever you please in Cuba, but their regime is an enemy of our civilization with or without a war. Citizens of most other nations can travel to that island to buttsmooch the regime. You might choose one. Ugo Chavez would welcome you to Venezuela. Vladimir Putin/Russia...etc.
In case your motivation is libertoonianism, we have gone a long way down the road since Frank Meyer wrote "In Defense of Freedom" in the hope that by fusionism libertarianism could be somehow reconciled with conservatism. It is quite apparent that the experiment has failed. Both sides can move on now.
“In this context, “idiot” denotes not so much a lack of intellectual horsepower or IQ points as a dreadful lack of wisdom, afflicting our nation with truth decay all for mere convenience of avoiding conflict. Please avoid unwarranted assumptions as to what I may appreciate.”
Let me get this straight. Because I feel like my government should not tell me where I can and cannot go (outside of a war zone, of course) then I am “afflicting our nation with truth decay” because I want to “avoid conflict.” I’m afraid I just don’t see that. To me, those who trust the government to tell them what they can see and what they cannot are the ones who are guilty of “afflicting our nation with truth decay.” Trust the government at your peril. Trust yourself to see the truth by venturing out into the world. Don’t be afraid.
These are now considered stars? Not to me.
Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan
I’ll make sure I don’t contribute to their ‘stardom’.
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