Al Neuharth: Why is China OK, but Cuba 'enemy'?

USA Today ^ | February 22, 2002 | Al Neuharth, USA Today founder

[Demidog]

paid in the dollars he demands from countries who use his workers

What countries use his workers?

[Demidog]

In what way? Do you mean tips?

That's one way yes.

I'm sure you might be able to think of others if you tried.

Are you also suggesting that the only workers in Cuba at hotels and other establishments are government employees?

While it might be true that this is technically correct in that Cuba controls everything, a hotel or restaraunt is not a government agency. Cuba can't enforce a prohibition on the flow of dollars from Americans to Cuban citizens and fankly I find it a bit hillarious that you are suggesting that all of the regular Cuban citizens are secreted away to some safe place whenever tourists arrive.

[Dqban22]

It amazes me to see the people who get involved in arguments about something they don't know anything about. You can't even buy soap, a bag of potato chips, a shirt, a pair of briefs, a deodorant, or a toothpaste or toothbrush with Cuban pesos. The average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is the equivalent to $10 dollars or 220 Cuban pesos. According to the Cuban National Bank, the equivalent to $4 dollars is the monthly allowance for food by the rationing card. You are allowed only a pair of shoes per year, but the stores are empty and you can buy it only when they deliver a few once or twice in the year, and only if you are lucky enough to find your size. Most of the things that are rationed and that may be purchased with Cuban pesos are unavailable, but you can buy any American or European products, even luxury ones, in the "diplo-tiendas" (diplomatic stores) for those who have dollars.

Cubans have been suffering that kind of Fourth World Status for the last 40 of the 43 years of Castro’s rule. The first 3 years Cubans were still enjoying the extraordinary inventories found all around Cuba when Castro took power. The level of economic destruction brought to Cuba by Castro’s Stalinist economic structure was so profound that the rationing remained in force even when Cuba was receiving over 5 billion dollars a year from the Soviet Union for over 30 years not including the huge military help.

[William Wallace]

Castro is in his sixth (yes, 6th) decade of power. The Embargo has not loosened his grip one iota. Castro DEPENDS on the Embargo. The LAST person who wants to see it end is Castro

If the sole purpose of the embargo was to topple Castro, then yes, it's been a monumental failure. But if it was intended to hamper his ability to export revolution in other parts of the hemisphere, then it has been a resounding success.

Calls to lift the embargo are a RED herring (pun intended). Yes Castro blames Cuba's basket case economy on the US embargo. Do you think Castro MIGHT have a bit of a motive to lie about the true cause of Cuba's economic problems? Because if the embargo is not to blame, then the blame falls squarely on Castro and his economic policies.

You've argued on this thread that this is a reason for ending the embargo. By taking away Castro's scapegoat, perhaps the Cuban people will finally realize Castro is to blame for their problems and overthrow his dictatorship. This sounds reasonable, but you've overlooked the fact that when a scapegoat dies, Communist dictators simply find a new scapegoat. Anyone who disagrees ends up in jail or gets shot. If the embargo is ended, the Cuban economy will continue to tank. The difference is Castro will then blame on the US for allowing greedy capitalists to exploit his countrymen. He's done it before.

When the US traded with Cuba, Castro said that American companies like United Fruit were "exploiting" the Cuban people. Now he blames Cuba's current economic woes on the US's refusal to trade with Cuba. Are we exploiting them by not exploiting them?

The truth is Castro was lying both times. Cuba enjoyed the second highest standard of living in the hemisphere prior to Castro's Revolution. Today, Cuba has one of the lowest standards of living in the hemisphere, comparable to Haiti. Speaking of Haiti, will you join me in asking President Bush to end the US embargo of Haiti? Applying your and Castro's logic, there MUST be a US embargo of Haiti -- otherwise they wouldn't be so poor. Let's end the Haitian embargo now, for the sake of the children of course! < /sarcasm >

Incidentally, do you know why the U.S. embargo of Cuba began? The media would have you believe that the embargo was imposed at the behest of those rabid anti-Communist Cubans in Miami as a way to overthrow Castro (funny how they make anti-Communism sound like a bad thing). But that was never the case. The embargo was imposed because Castro confiscated (i.e. STOLE) hundreds of millions in assets of American citizens and companies doing business in Cuba. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the embargo was continued because it hampered his ability to foment Communist insurrections in other parts of the hemisphere.

The truth is, we stopped doing business with Castro because Castro is a thief and a troublemaker. If we're going to let bygones be bygones, then he should first return the property he stole from us and prove he's changed his evil ways.

[Victoria Delsoul]

I'm sure you might be able to think of others if you tried.

Are you also suggesting that the only workers in Cuba at hotels and other establishments are government employees?

While it might be true that this is technically correct in that Cuba controls everything, a hotel or restaraunt is not a government agency. Cuba can't enforce a prohibition on the flow of dollars from Americans to Cuban citizens and fankly I find it a bit hillarious that you are suggesting that all of the regular Cuban citizens are secreted away to some safe place whenever tourists arrive.

Sorry! I thought you knew some facts about Cuba. I was certainly mistaken.

[Dqban22]

According to Forbes magazine, Fidel with a personal fortune of over 1.5 billion dollars is among the richest chief of state in the world, while the Cuban people live in dire poverty. Castro’s main source of income is derived from money laundering from his drug and terrorist international network and slave labor exploitation of the Cuban workers in cahoots with foreign investors.

In Cuba, the executive, the judicial and the legislative power are all concentrated in Fidel Castro. Every Cuban is an employee of Fidel Castro, even those working for foreign enterprises. In fact, in order to invest in Cuba those foreign businessmen must give Castro major shareholder control of the company and must hire the workers from a Castro’s government dependency. Castro receives the salary of each worker in dollars, but pays the worker in Cuban pesos. The average salary earned is $400 dollars a month and Castro pays the worker 400 Cuban worthless pesos. The exchange rate is 22 pesos to the dollar, which means that each worker receives $18 dollars and Castro keeps for himself $382.00. In other words, the foreign companies acquiesces to bribe Castro to the tune of 95% of the salary of each worker they employ, something outrageous and illegal condemned by international labor laws.

[William Wallace]

fankly I find it a bit hillarious that you are suggesting that all of the regular Cuban citizens are secreted away to some safe place whenever tourists arrive.

Fankly she's right. :-)

It isn't necessary to secrete people away from where they aren't permitted to be in the first place. Tourists stay in/near the tourist resorts, which are Off Limits to ordinary Cuban citizens. Trespassing is punished a tad more harshly there than here, in case you were wondering.

In theory, tourists are free to visit to other parts of the island. But transportation is unreliable at best and government agents follow you when you stray off the Potemkin village. Their job is not to intimidate you, but any Cubans who might talk to you. Moreover, the non-tourist areas tend to resemble Dante's Inferno, but without the bright red paint (shortages). Who wants to spend their vacation seeing squalor, misery and fear when you can relax on the white sandy beach sipping Chateau Lafite and nibbling on pate de foix gras with other pampered progressive plutocrats in what purports to be a classless society?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Cuba doesn't have its own currency?

Sounds like our Iraqi Oil for Food discussion. The bad guys (Castro and Saddam) take the dollars and give crappy local currency to their own people. This is why all these people prefer U.S. dollars.

Even though its not the official currency.

Cubans suffer from hyperinflation, just like Iraqis. Neither is the fault of the U.S.

[Toddsterpatriot]

What countries use his workers?

At least one Canadian mining company comes to mind. Inco I think. Victoria is right.So is Cincin.

Sorry, hope that helps.

[Dqban22]

Appeasement did not work with Hitler, neither will with Castro. A real embargo worked with South Africa, and Chile, although it must be recognized that regimes that are intrinsically evil as Castro’s, seems to be immune to commercial embargos; and they neither respond to world’s moral or political pressures.

The Embargo might not have hastened Castro’s demise; but the burden of maintaining him in power contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. Reagan and the Pope should share that honor with Castro. The Cuban regime cost the Soviet Union several times more than the whole plan Marshall for the reconstruction of Western Europe after Second World War though, in this case it resulted in disastrous consequences for Cuba and the Soviet Union. Although the burden of maintaining Castro in power is being shared now between Mexico, Spain, Canada, England and 150 more countries fool enough to make deals with Cuba, it seems that the weight is becoming to heavy and they want to pass the ball to the American taxpayers.

Another by-product of the embargo is that in 1987 Castro had 297,000 active forces and in 1997 he had to reduce it to 55,000 according to the U.S. Department of State.

[Dqban22]

Cuba is an economic black hole not because the U.S. trade embargo, but thanks to Castro’s adoption of a brutal Stalinist regime that does not allow any kind of freedom, personal or economic, and for 42 years he has maintained “Socialism or Death” without any room for compromises or changes.

In a country investment risk survey made by the magazine “Euromoney”, Cuba was ranked 183rd place among 187 countries, even below Somalia. “The Financial Times” reported on June 30, 1995, “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” Cuba is a country where there is not the rule of law, where the executive, legislative, judicial and the press, are solely on Castro's hands. Foreign investors are, as every body else in Cuba, at the mercy of the whims of a tyrant whose laws frequently change overnight.

Americans are not losing anything by not doing business with Castro. On the contrary, the law is protecting American entrepreneurs from doing stupid business decisions at the expenses of the American taxpayers.

The powerful Spanish financial group, Endesa, with projects in Cuba of over $100 million dollars, discontinued its association with Castro and sued the regime at the Chamber of Commerce of Paris for $12 million for breaking contractual agreements. The Spanish Guitar Hotels group also liquidated its investments in Cuba. There is a long list of foreign business failures due to Cuba’s centralized Stalinist economy. You cannot throw good money after bad in Cuba’s economic wastebasket. Cubans problems are not derived form the U.S. embargo, It is the lack of freedom stupid!

Cuba’s international credit is nil after Castro stopped payments to the Paris Club of European Banks. He also owes over 3 billion dollars to Japan, about $1.5 billion to Argentina, and several billions to Spain, and all the other business partners.

Those foreign investors caught in Castro’s scam want that the U.S. and the American taxpayers assume the Soviet Union’s role of maintaining Castro’s regime to the tune of 6 billion dollars annually, hoping that they would be able to recoup some of their ill advised investments. The Cuban people repudiate all those investors and tourists that have exploited them in partnership with the Cuban tyrant.

Cubans are discriminated in their own country. They resent the apartheid system forced upon them that does not allow Cubans to enter the beaches, restaurants and hotels that are reserved for the tourist and the government elite. The ill feeling is not against the Americans but against those foreigners that invest and are involved in the slave and prostitution trade in Cuba.

American investors should be patient. At the end, they will receive the good will and the rewards for being one of the very few countries that remain in solidarity with the Cuban people’s plight for freedom and democracy during the most tragic period of Cuba’s history.

[breakem]

There are two things that puzzle me. On this thread someone said the government can regulate trade, but not prohibit it. I disagree that they are mutually exclusive. Is there a source for this interpretation?

I cannot reconcile the differences or contradiction about actions to provide the common defense and general welfare. I saw a thread on the general welfare item here awhile back. Perhaps the libertarian site has some info.

I continue to believe that restricting the capabilities of potential enemies by not trading essential materials or systems is part of establishing an army, for the reasons I stated earlier.

I am basically a lzy researcher, I am however, familiar with the constitution, but obviously am far from being a scholar.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What countries use his workers?

Here's one:

[Excerpt] It is illegal in Cuba for anyone except the regime to employ workers. That means that foreign investors cannot hire or pay workers directly. They must go to the Cuban government employment agency, which picks the workers. The investors then pay Castro in hard currency for the workers, and Castro pays the workers in worthless pesos.

Here is a real-life example: Sherritt International of Canada, the largest foreign investor in Cuba, operates a nickel mine in Moa Bay (a mine, incidentally, which Cuba stole from an American company). Roughly 1,500 Cubans work there as virtual slave laborers. Sherritt pays Castro approximately $10,000 a year for each of these Cuban workers. Castro gives the workers about $18 a month in pesos, then pockets the difference.

The net result is a subsidy of nearly $15 million in hard currency each year that Castro then uses to pay for the security apparatus that keeps the Cubans enslaved.[End Excerpt] Source

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What countries use his workers?

Here are a bunch more.

Some foreign investment in Cuba

[Cincinatus' Wife]

At least one Canadian mining company comes to mind. Inco I think. Victoria is right.So is Cincin.

I meant to ping you on #333 and #334.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Excerpt] Among more shocking chapters, to those who might otherwise be sympathetic to Fidel Castro's professed aspirations, are Carlos Wotzkow's Spanish-language essays on Castro's persecution of homosexuals, support of bioterrorism, trafficking in narcotics, exploitation of the peasantry by Cuban Big Tobacco, and destruction of the environment.

Imagine, for example, if George Bush spent his time being photographed smoking Marlboros in order to promote the sale of cigarettes. Now imagine Big Tobacco forcing backwoods Appalachians to work for pennies a day, sometimes against their will, harvesting, curing and preparing the tobacco for cigarettes.

Imagine if the government were burning down virgin forests, and confiscating tens of thousands of acres, to plant tobacco for export around the world, using government power to enrich the tobacco industry.

According to Wotzkow, that is precisely what Fidel Castro does - sacrificing the Cuban environment to the interests of Tabacalera, S.A., the Spanish tobacco monopoly. Castro, in other words, is in bed with Big Tobacco, to the detriment of the Cuban people.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaks to President of the Tabacalera Spanish tobacco company Spaniard Antonio Vasquez in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 1, 2002 during an auction at the end of the cigar festival. Foreigners by the hundreds are making the annual pilgrimage to the green tobacco fields and curing houses for an insider's look at the world-famous Cuban cigar business. (AP phpoto/Jose Goitia) - Mar 02 1:45 AM ET

Tabacalera Spanish tobacco--[Excerpt] Just a few days before, an attempt by Tabacalera, in association with Seita, to buy the international business of RJR Nabisco of the US had been pre-empted by Japan Tobacco. It was a reminder of the failed Tabaqueira bid, and Mr Alierta became more convinced than ever that his group needed size to match its acquisitive ambitions.

Since then, two other factors have made a marriage with Seita all the more attractive.

One is that the French group took over Consolidated, the second ranked cigar company in the US, at the end of last year. That meant it overtook Tabacalera - which controls a string of producers in Honduras and Nicaragua and recently opened a plant in Cuba - as the world's leading cigar producer. [End Excerpt]

____________________________________________________

[Excerpt] A new group called the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF) has been created in Washington D.C. The main goal of the Cuba Policy Foundation is to create a lobby to lift the American sanctions on the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. The CPF also hopes to undermine the work being done by many pro democracy groups inside and outside Cuba which hope to bring civil society to the island.

The CPF is bankrolled by the Arca Foundation.

For those of you who don't know about the Arca foundation, it passes itself as a philanthropic organization that gives millions of dollars annually to organizations that fight for social justice around the world. Unfortunately a grand majority of these organizations are of a far leftist nature, like in 1998 when it gave $1,000 to an obscure contingent called Fondo Del Sol which helped surviving members of the Stalinist Abraham Lincoln Brigade view a photo exhibit on the Spanish Civil War! Among the pro Castro groups Arca has funded have been the Pastors for Peace ($10,000 in 1999), Global Exchange ($50,000 in 1999), and the TransAfrica Forum ($100,000).

Communist Cuba is the main focus of Arca's Foreign Policy grants list, and although it gives money to other international and domestic institutions, it annually gives a substantial amount of funds to causes dealing with communist Cuba. In 1999 alone, the Arca Foundation gave to over 19 organizations that are sympathetic to revolutionary Cuba.

The Arca Foundation's records denote that it has spent over $3 million dollars since 1995 devoted to institutions that ignore human rights in Cuba, but fight aggressively to drop US sanctions to the rouge nation. The Arca Foundation which is run by the R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir Smith Bagley, has silently worked in the background with institutions and Castro sympathetic Democratic politicians working to end economic sanctions against the dictatorship.

"Smith Bagley and the Arca Foundation is the pro-Castro lobby's sugar daddy," says Jose Cardenas, Washington spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. "Arca is a walkup window for free checks passed out to any and all comers with an ideological ax to grind against U.S. policy on Cuba."

For the record, Smith Bagley was the individual who threw a party at his mansion where Elian Gonzalez was the guest of honor after the boy was accosted from the home of his Miami relatives. During this party, agents of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC provided delicacies like smoked salmon, shrimp and fruit that although taken for granted here in the United States, are unavailable to most of the Cuban population back on the island. Yet, Bagley who is a tremendously rich WASP sees no problem in giving money to organizations that help the Cuban revolution while the rest of the island population goes poor, hungry and oppressed. [End Excerpt] Source

_________________________________________

IPS: Left-Wing Thinkers Interview by Sidney Blumenthal Washington Post, 30 July 1986 [Excerpt] IPS has always attended to operate on two levels: Its public scholars are ideally supposed to be both activists and intellectuals. This stance has ceaselessly inspired conservatives to accuse IPS of subversive intent, down to the present debate over Nicaragua. In recent years, the views of some IPS fellows have prompted the charge that they have become apologists for Third World revolutionary tyrannies. They are absolutely pro-Sandinista. I have not heard a critical word, says Robert Leiken, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has been associated with IPS in the past. It's critical to be critical, says Barnet. There's always a danger of appearing to be an apologist of something you're trying to explain in a hostile political environment. There's a perception that we're overly concerned with the Third World. I think it's fair criticism. He adds, Our biggest weakness is in domestic policy. But the criticism about IPS that comes from places other than the right is not really about being overly concerned with the Third World. Rather, IPS is charged with a romanticism that clouds perception. The focus of much of this criticism falls on Saul Landau, who befriended Fidel Castro in 1960 and made a film about him. But much of the rosy glow has faded. For me, he reflects, Cuba was not a terrible attractive model. The stuff that seemed exciting me 25 years ago - revolution - doesn't seem exciting now. I want to get out of Nicaragua and into America.[End Excerpt]

IPS The Institute for Policy Studies sixteen years later and with 57 Congressional Caucus Members

[Gumption]

Is there a source for this interpretation?

Yes. The Federalist Papers This link will take you to a Federalist Papers search page where you can look up the words "regulate trade". Or you can just go to #53 and search for "regulate" within the document. There you will find where either Madison or Hamilton says :

"How can foreign trade be properly regulated by uniform laws, without some acquaintance with the commerce, the ports, the usages, and the regulatious of the different States?

and ...

"How can uniform regulations for the militia be duly provided, without a similar knowledge of many internal circumstances by which the States are distinguished from each other?"

There are many references like that. If you are at all interested in the original intent of the founders, rather than just assuming what makes sense to you must be what they meant, just read them. It is a difficult read (if you are anything like me, you will have to read them over and over again) but well worth it. Madison, Jay, and Hamilton penned these documents in order to explain the proposed Constitution to the common colonist of the time (which makes me mentally inferior to the common colonist of the time). They leave no stone unturned unless the wording in the Constitution is extremely self-evident. Read them, then reread them (then reread them). It's worth it. But fair warning ... the original intent bares little resemblance to interpretation we apply today.

I cannot reconcile the differences or contradiction about actions to provide the common defense and general welfare.

There's no contradiction. All you have to know is, if the federal government was granted the power to provide the "common defense" and "general welfare", 1) there would have been little need to go ahead and enumerate specific powers like the ones listed in Article 1, section 8, and 2) federal powers would be limitLESS because there would be NO imaginable power that wouldn't/couldn't be considered to be for the "general welfare" of the people. Then when you consider Madison's (the father of the Constitution) famous words :

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." Federalist No. 45

If the federal government was simply charged with providing for the common defense and general welfare, there powers would not be "few and defined", but rather "numerous and indefinite".

BTW, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a Republican. Republicans care about this stuff too ... at least they used to.

Also, I don't consider myself a "constitutional expert", just someone that loves and respects the document, and the men that made this grand experiment possible. It kills me to see the ignorance and disregard, at best, and the utter contempt, at worst, for the supposed "ridged Constitution" that I am a witness to on a daily bases. If there is EVER anything you think I could help you understand, please don't hesitate to contact me (that goes for all who read this). I will always find the time to respond to you (or anyone else) about the subject I love so much.

[Gumption]

One more thing ...

The response I made to your first question about the interpretation was meant to explain where I get my interpretation of "regulate". I've stated that I think they meant "to make regular or uniform" the laws for commerce between the states and between the states and foreign nations. The Federalist Papers is where I get that interpretation. I can't see how prohibiting commerce with a particular country can be considered "regulating" because then I would have to admit that the Feds have the power to prohibit one state from trading with another state. I don't think the states would have signed on to that power. But if there is even a question about how a power is construed, I agree with what Thomas Jefferson said :

When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe & precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

That's why I offered up an Amendment to address the concerns you had about the sale of certain weapons and weapon components to foreign governments.

OK, done now.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"What countries use his workers?"

The US...Archer Daniels Midland has a food processing plant in Cuba.

[breakem]

catch ya later