BTTT for this great thread!
Posted on 05/20/2002 3:03:50 PM PDT by walrus954
Today was an amazing day for I finally got to see President Bush speak in Miami. My day started at 9 am when my father and I set out for the office of Rep. Lincoln Diaz Balarat. I got tickets from the congressman on Friday and had to pick them up. Then, it was off to the Orange Bowl where were boarded a shuttle bus to the James Knight Center. For someone who's Spanish is very shaky (I am only partially Cuban), this was a baptism by fire. I am 15, and I was the youngest on the bus by fire. Not only that, but my 45 year old father was the youngest on the bus by far. The people with us on the bus consisted of old Cuban-Americans who, like all Cuban Americans, had a strong love for Cuba and a passionate hate for Castro. After about a half hour of singing the Cuban National Anthem and reciting poems about Cuba, we made it to the James Knight Center, where we had to wait for two hours in line to get through security.
After this two hours of waiting, we had another hour and a half of waiting. It was interesting, however, because we got to hear the stories of the man who sat next to us who was a political prisoner in Cuba for 26 years. Then, at three o'clock, it started. Our senators and congress men (Graham, Nelson, Ros Lehithn and Diaz Balarat) entered, and Gloria Estefan and John Secada sang the national anthems of Cuba and the US. Governor Jeb Bush came to the podium and spoke in flawless Spanish. Then, he introduced the President of the United States. It felt like a volcano erupting inside the auditorium. All 3,000 jumped to their feet clapping and waving flags and screaming "Libertad" (Liberty!) and "Viva Cuba Libre!" (Long Live a Free Cuba). The feeling of goosebumps doesn't even begin to describe it. The president began to speak in Spanish, but then said he didn't want to destroy a beautiful language and reverted to English. The President gave a great speech spelling out his Cuba policy. After every few sentences, the crowd would leap to their feet, waving their flags, and shouting "Libertad!" and "U-S-A."
It truly was an amazing experience. He challenged Castro to allow free elections and introduced a Cuban refugee kid who came here 6 years ago speaking no English. Now, he will be going to Harvard. It proves what can happen to capable people when they are allowed to prosper in freedom. He then discussed his conditions for lifting the embargo (freeing political prisoners, allowing elections, etc), which I agree with. The President really gave me strength to continue to believe that someday, Cuba will be free again. I hope that this day is soon.
Viva Cuba Libre y Presidente Bush!
Andrew
Oh really?
Two words for you: Hugo Chavez...
"He was talking to you," my mother later said. The pastor was, of course, talking to all of us, challenging each one of us to make the most of our lives, to assume the mantle of leadership and responsibility wherever we find it. He was calling on us to use whatever power we have, in business, in politics, in our communities, and in our families, to do good for the right reason. And his sermon spoke directly to my heart and my life.... There was no magic moment of decision. After talking with my family during the Christmas holidays, then hearing this rousing sermon, to make most of every moment, a family who would love me, my faith would sustain me, no matter what.
The testimony of a plain-speaking, decent man.President Bush sounds good to me.
Please keep your political paradigms straight---Hugo Chavez is not a communist. He was freely elected in internationally monitored national elections in 1998---while he does have socialist views, this is not synonomous with communism.
As far as Cuba goes, the fact of the matter is that the ONLY reason why the United States maintains an embargo on Cuba is that the Cuban political lobby is the second-strongest of all the international lobbiest groups (Israel being first), and it would be political suicide for any president, Democrat or Republican, to lift it. All the more so in the case of George W, who needs to get his brother re-elected.
Fidel Castro is an impotent old has-been in the twilight of both his life and his political career. It's high time for the United States government to begin a policy of economic and political engagement with Cuba in so that the transition to a free and prosperous nation is hastened.
"Hugo Chavez is not a communist. He was freely elected in internationally monitored national elections in 1998..."
It's actually you who are a bit naive abour politics, you believe that communists can't be elected to office, and that they have to overthrow a government.
Hugo Chavez ordered his troops to fire on his own people as they protested outside his presidential palace just a few weeks ago, he sized control of the media and stopped them from reporting the news, allowing only the state-run media outlet to remain on the air. He's nationalized Venezuela's largest industry (oil) and implemented the concept of neighborhood "watch" committees in the fashion of his mentor, Fidel Castro, he amended the constitution to stay in power longer.
He openly sides with known despots (Fidel) and freely supplies Cuba with free oil to maintain the old dictator's army supplied.
I don't have to remind you that Bill Clinton was freely elected, twice, by a popular vote, and one of the first things he attempted to do after taking office was to socialize health care, roughly 20% of the US economy. Yet, I don't recall Bill calling himself a socialist...do you?
I don't know what YOU call a ruler who orders his people shot for expressing their discontent with his rule (I know what we would have all called Bill Clinton if he had ordered JimRob and the rest of the participants in the March of Justice shot), and openly acknowledges a communist as a role model and mentor. I call them a communist.
People like you eventually do as well...you just do it way too late to do anything about it.
As far as the strong Cuban-American presence in Congress is concerned...you're damned right we have a strong lobby. We haven't suffered the sort of erosion of our moral principles that a good portion of the people of this country seem to have suffered, and we don't practice moral relativity.
Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
Trading with governments who use their people as slave labor is wrong. It's wrong with China, and it's wrong with Cuba. It's sad that we, as a people, can't stand up and demand an immediate moratorium on the China trade. It's even sadder that some are critical of those of us who do stand up to the amoral profiteers who now look to Cuba as a source of income, income supported by brutal repression and murder, and try to paint us as hard-liners.
Learn a lesson from China, trade with the US has brought no changes to the people, it has simply enriched those in power, we've created a stronger enemy, and we've become partners in oppression and human rights violations. We've done that in the name of profits, and cheap goods.
"America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Exactly!!
Honestly, I agree with you for the most part.
I think that one day soon, the fact that China has been funnelling its huge trade deficit into its military is going to come back to haunt us, and that was all in the name of corporate profits thinly veiled by the policy of engagement.
As for Cuba, my only problem with the embargo is that it hasn't engendered enough political or social pressure to force Castro out of office.
Obviously, there's no easy answer to the situation or it would have been done already (the Bay of Pigs would have fit the bill had it been successful).
I'm all for a free Cuba, or a free China for that matter...we'll see what the future holds.
You're an intelligent individual who is obviously passionate about this issue...I appreciate the chance to have been educated by you. I will often argue a viewpoint that I don't really endorse so that I can learn more about both sides.
VIVA CUBA!!!!
The idea that the embargo has failed because of the fact that Fidel is still in office is inly valid if there had been a time-frame laid out for it to acheive that goal, there wasn't.
I am going to share a letter from an individual whom I am honored to call "friend", published by the Wall Street Journal.
May 17, 2002
The Never-Ending Cuban Embargo
Regarding your editorials "Bush's Cuba Pickle1" (May 9) and "Our Man in Havana2" (May 16): While the U.S. embargo has not forced Fidel Castro's capitulation, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 it has limited his capacity to subvert his Latin American neighbors, while forcing him to liberalize economic policies in order to remain in power. He has been forced to divert funds from his subversive military machine, limiting his capacity for terrorism and subversion, including his assistance to the Colombian FARC narco-terrorist rebels.
He has also been forced to legalize the dollar, privatize taxicabs, allow the cultivation of small family plots, and permit the opening of small family restaurants. Nevertheless, the embargo is porous and dollar stores (diplotiendas) contain everything a foreign tourist with hard cash may want; and if he gets sick, he can get excellent health care that is not available for ordinary Cuban citizens.
Castro has demonstrated that he would maintain his fiefdom with or without the embargo. But this would not be so for less charismatic and less intelligent leaders, including his brother Raul, Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban National Assembly, or Carlos Lage, president of the Council of Ministers. Nevertheless, removing the embargo will only help these hard-line Communist underlings stay in power once Castro is gone.
Castro has defaulted on all foreign loans. He owes European bankers $12 billion; Spain, $9 billion; and more than $10 billion to Argentina, England, Canada, Venezuela, Japan and Russia, etc. Meanwhile, by 1997, according to Forbes magazine, Castro had stashed more than $1.4 billion in offshore accounts.
The embargo needs to stay, until free elections have been held and a constitutional republic re-established in Cuba.
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Medical Sentinel Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Macon, Ga.
BTTT for this great thread!
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