Posted on 02/12/2002 9:14:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Interesting.
You need to remove the idea that if we trade with Castro the Cuban people will benefit. The rest of the world is free to trade with Castro. We are allowed to give them humanitarian aid. Their relatives send them dollars and and/or go visit with a suitcase (only one allowed--Castro's dictate) filled with things they can barter. They usually don't take anything for themselves personally, so that all the room is available to take things to leave. Knowing the rest of the world is free to trade with Castro (He owns an island that can produce goods and an educated population that could provide skilled labor for a foreign business on the island. You'd think tourism would be a money maker.) so, with such prospects, how is their suffering the fault of the U.S?
Doesn't make sense does it? Well it does if you understand that Castro is a communist. People are not allowed to enrich themselves. He takes the wages (in dollars) from foreign companies that the people earn and then pays the workers one-tenth what they earned in local currency. He pockets the rest. This is Castro's communism. He also barters doctors and teachers and trainers and subversives out to other miserable hell-holes either for goods or to shore up alliances. The Cuban people are his property, they belong to him. How will tading with Castro change this?
Castro gives 5 hour speeches, orders large crowds to wherever he wants, runs the state controlled T.V., radio, newspaper and schools. He controls all information, all economy everything. He also provides a better life to those higher up in his communist circle, because after living under communism, people wouldn't choose to live under communism, so you have to have people around you who will forcefully preserve your paradise. Now when Castro dies, don't expect this wonderful event to usher in a wonderful life for the Cuban people. Castro doesn't intend for his dream to die and those close around him aren't about to let that happen either.
If we allow U.S. companies to secure loans to pay for good sent to Cuba (Castro will only give them worthless IOUs which is one reason so few countries will trade with him anymore) and the American people will foot the bill for this. In turn Castro will take the profit from our stupidity and use it to advance his communist agenda and terrorist activites around the world. How will this help the Cuban people? How is their suffering improved? They suffer because of communism and Castro and our trading with Castro will not help, infact in will strengthen him and send the message to the world we endorse and recognize his communist government. We must not do that tjg.
LOL You are a riot! And to think that I was beginning to take you seriously. Remember to use the /SARCASM when you write things like that. LOL
Right! If only we had Carol King during WWII. We could have helped the concentration camp inmates by sending her to sing "You Got a Friend" to Hitler. And if we had Jane Fonda back then, she could have done a photo-op launching a buzz-bomb on London. LOL What a joke tjg, you really crack me up!
My belief is that this is impossible. Look at China and the growing middle class. True it is small, but it is a group born of capitalism and no communist intervention can prevent it. I think history has shown that head to head, capitalist ideaology defeats communist ideology everytime.
More than anything I think the embargo gives Castro a focal point to blame US policy for the misery he created. He's used it effectively. I just think it's time to take that tool away from him.
Lastly, we've had that embargo in place for what, 30 years? If getting rid of Castro was it's intent, it failed miserably. I'm for abandoning things that don't work and trying something else.
And you are correct, Castro uses the embargo to attack us (it's a wrong-headed argument but you can see the media goes with it-I've even seen one reporter called it a blockade) and it confuses those who want to take hits at the U.S. but other countries really know the scam and they don't like to trade with him either. So if we take that away from him he'll just find another thing to rail about. But he won't make life easier for the Cuban people. And it is his to give or hold back.
If we give Castro what he wants, we take away their hope. I can't do that. It is the one thing they hang on to. So you see, the embargo hasn't failed miserably because with or without it, their lives will stay the same, but by keeping it in effect, the United States tells the people held in Cuba, that we know Castro is wrong and we won't help him in his dirty business of trading in human lives. Which is what he really does. He makes their lives miserable and then holds that over our heads. What kind of sick is that?
We've told Castro to start moving toward a more open society, allow democratic elections and we will gladly start to open up relations with this new government. Now the ball is in Castro's court, where it's been for 40 years and it is he, who needs to change or step out of the way before there is any relief in Cuba. But he won't because no one is making him do it.
Read this article and think about living in a place where you are not allowed to own property or enrich yourself. Cuba Wages Offensive on 'Over-sized' houses
Thank you for thinking about this.
There are three options to pressure the Cuban government to abide by civilized accepted norms, A) U.S. Embargo B) Open trade. C) A Worldwide blockade.
A)U.S. EMBARGO.
The U.S. embargo is a red herring being used by Castro’s propaganda machine and his puppets in the Congress and the media. If we live in a town, where we have Wal-Mart, Kmart, Kroger, Target, and 50 other supermarkets, but only Kmart refuses to sell to you because of your bad credit history, why then are you blaming Kmart for all your problems? If all the other stores keep selling to you with the hope that you are going to change your behavior and keep throwing good money over bad thinking that in the end you will pay back your debts, there is a saying, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” No person is obliged to buy in any particular store, and neither is a store obliged to give credit to someone who does not pay back his debts. The same principle applies to international commerce.
B)CUBA’S OPEN TRADE WITH THE WORLD
For 43 years the Castro regime has maintained open commercial trade with over 150 nations. Everybody, with the exception of the U.S., was willing to put its lot with Castro. During over 30 years the Soviet Union poured more than 5 to 6 billion dollars every year in economic help plus over 200 billion in military help that Castro repaid with the blood of Cuban soldiers fighting as proxies of the Soviet Union around the world. At one time 70,000 Cubans were fighting around the world in places they did not even know existed. Many thousands of Cuban soldiers died in Castro’s pursuit of imposing communism worldwide. The rationing of food, clothes, shoes, and every other elemental everyday thing that is taken for granted in any civilized country started a year after Castro took power. He inherited a nation with a currency accepted internationally on par to the dollar, almost without foreign debt and with a golden international credit; Cubans enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in America. The Soviet help was several times bigger than all the help given by the Plan Marshall to Europe after WWII. In spite of such a huge Soviet help, the results at home were over 20,000 Cubans murdered at Castro’s firing squads, and over 500,000 political prisoners many of them suffered from 20 to 30 years of brutal violations of human rights at Castro’s infamous dungeons, and over 2 millions Cubans fleeing into exile by the most bizarre means.
For the Soviet Union the burden to keep Castro in power, a sociopath who encompassed on one person all the evil traits of his two main mentors Hitler and Stalin resulted in the collapse of its evil empire. While the Soviet leader lavishly poured money over the intractable tyrant just to keep out of balance their common enemy, the U.S., the people on the Soviet Union were suffering the same scarcities and oppressive conditions as of their comrades in Cuba.
Canada, Spain, Mexico, France, England, Italy have maintained wide open commercial relations with Castro for 43 years, and after the demise of the Soviet Union they tried to prop up the regime with additional investments under the pretense that by the interaction of commerce and tourism from western democracies the Cuban dictator would modify and liberalize the regime resulting in the return of democracy to Cuba. Reality couldn’t be father from their assumptions. Those foolish enough to get into Castro’s bandwagon followed the same path to bankruptcy, as did the Soviet Union. Castro is a compulsory buyer who not only has defaulted on all his international debts, but he also encourages all the Third World nations to also repudiate their debts. Now, those countries are desperately trying to embark the U.S. in the Cuban Titanic and the American taxpayers to rescue their ill-advised investments.
C)WORLDWIDE BLOCKADE.
Since the U.S. commercial embargo and the open trade policies adopted by the Western democracies have failed miserably in bringing any favorable results for Cuba’s return to freedom, democracy and a regime that respects the human and civil rights of the Cuban people:
Shouldn’t our question rather be, isn’t about time to consider a worldwide blockade against Castro’s regime since 43 year of free trade with over 150 nations have brought only an increase of the oppression and misery for the Cuban people?
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