US/Cuba Look to Normalize Relations

The question has been raised that if the embargo of Cuba was ineffective, what then is the harm in eliminating it? (One could also ask, what then is the harm in eliminating it?)

I believe that misses the point.

The relative poverty of the authoritarian and socialist Cuban economy has severely limited their imports from every country, including the United States, simply because they don't have the ability to pay for them. The embargo also isolates Cuba from U.S. financial markets, much as do the current EU/US sanctions against Russia - something I believe is equally apopropriate and effective. Given the persistent political oppression that the authoritarian Castro regime continues to impose on the unfortunate Cuban people, and the mischief it continues to pursue in the hemisphere, I believe its continuation is appropriate. Secondly, removing the embargo without any meaningful concessions or change in the behavior of the Cuban government is merely foolish.

I'm not entirely sure what fbaezer means when he writes that the embargo has backfired idealogically. Has it increased the loyalty of Cubans to their oppressive regime?? I suppose that is a possibility in some quarters, but I also strongly suspect that given the physical possibility of leaving we would see a massive exodus of Cubans from the island. I will agree that the embargo has become a convenient rationalization for soft-headed "progressive" thinkers here and abroad, who wish to blame the United States for the condition of the Cuban Revolutionary government and the people it oppresses. However these folks would quickly find another rationalization if this one was removed - there's no point to trying to please them.

Finally, it is likely that the Castro brothers will be dead within a few years, and in these circumstances we should do nothing to prop up the regime in its final days, or to enable its vestigal survival past the coming transition. Let it fall and be replaced with something better.

Evidently Frank believes Obamacare is important and apparently successful. Gosh !
Even Vermont has given up on its efforts to create a single payer medical care system.

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@georgeob1,

George, I think Obamacare has been a much needed...and very late to arrive...start in the right direction. I suspect it will eventually lead to a state of affairs in healthcare for our country that is sorely overdue.

I realize that soft-headed conservative thinkers cannot wrap their minds (such as they have) around that idea...but a decade or two down the pike I suspect it will be looked at as something special that happened. And thanks to the "Party of NO" it will continue to be known as Obamacare and will generate a great deal of honor and affection for the man for whom they named it.

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@georgeob1,

When I say that the embargo backfired ideologically it is because it was shrewdly used as an internal propaganda tool to mask the inefficiency of the regime's economic system. It worked for at least two decades. In the late eighties, when Soviet subsidies were there no more, Fidel talked about a "double embargo", both from the US and Gorbachov's Soviet Union, to explain the situation. An economic collapse ensued.
I don't think the embargo has played an important role in Cuba's economic woes (perhaps only in its first, crucial, years). It has since helped the Castros ideologically and the place of potential American investors has been taken over by European (mostly Spanish), Canadian, Latin American (mostly Mexican) and, lately, Chinese firms. US interest were not served by it, in my opinion.
What interests has the embargo served? The ideological interests of Conservative Americans, who think that "muscle" is better than sound diplomacy. And the ideological interests of hard line Communists in the Island, ready to stand against the epithome of Capitalism.

I believe that free markets and personal freedoms are intertwined. Cuba has to move, compulsory, to a Chinese style model. It will still be authoritarian, at least for a while, but certainly a welcome difference from the hellish Police State they now live under. Just compare China, and its limited freedoms today, with China during the horrid Cultural Revolution of the sixties.

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An interesting way of analyzing the state of the Cuban economy is to recall the political jokes along the different years.

In the 80s, "Contradictions of Socialism:
We act like if we worked, the State acts as if it paid us.
The Production Plan is not fulfilled, but the State says it is.
The State says the Production Plan was fulfilled, but there is nothing at the stores.
There is nothing at the stores, but our tables are full.
Our tables are full, but we complain.
We complain, but the State says we're happy,
The State says we're happy, but it acts as if we are not.

In the 90s:
The three main political preoccupations of Cubans are:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner.

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A couple more Cuban political jokes:

This one is from the seventies:
What is Communism?
It is the luminous horizon of humankind.
And what is a horizon?
An imaginary line that gets farther away as you approach it.

And this one, from the nineties:
A foreigner arrives to a devastated land. Sees two derelict hobos trying to make fire with a couple of sticks.
One hobo says to the other: "If next month the State doesn't give us sticks in the rationing card, Fidel will fall".

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@fbaezer,

I respect your arguments, and they are fairly persuasive. However, I'm not sure that the development of a more China-like state in Cuba is in the broad interests of the United States, at least now. In any event it's too late now to get much "credit" in the minds of either Cubans or other hemispheric spectators for relaxing the embargo. Better to see it through to the approaching end and use it as a chip when the game is fluid and the stakes are higher.

Doing it now, and under the conditions embraced by our feckless President, cheapens the whole thing and gets us nothing for our effort.

The unfolding collapse of Venezuela is an ill omen for the "Bolivarian" movement across South America. We shouldn't distract attention from the still unfolding tragicomedy of contemporary authoritarian, pseudo-populist socialism.

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@georgeob1,

Sounds an awful lot like, "Keep trying it over and over again. Maybe at some point we will get a different result."

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

George, I think Obamacare has been a much needed...and very late to arrive...start in the right direction. I suspect it will eventually lead to a state of affairs in healthcare for our country that is sorely overdue.

Many argue it is an intermediate step towards a "modern, efficient" single payer system. If so, they should examine the recent collapse of plans for such a system in Vermont. The current governor ran for office on a platform of creating a state-run single payer system and even hired the esteemed Joinathan Gruber as a consultant to help him design it. Now on closer examination they find the cost would be too high and the adverse erconomic side effects far too great for them to afford it, and the scheme collapsed.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I realize that soft-headed conservative thinkers cannot wrap their minds (such as they have) around that idea...but a decade or two down the pike I suspect it will be looked at as something special that happened. And thanks to the "Party of NO" it will continue to be known as Obamacare and will generate a great deal of honor and affection for the man for whom they named it.[/b]

I think we should try to preserve this statement so that it could be examined for the general amusement in a few years. Unfortunately it isn't worth the effort.

Humanity spent the better part of the lamentable 20th century watching the illusions of the benefits of socialism unravel to their destructive ends. Evidently some cannot be persuaded by facts and history.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

George, I think Obamacare has been a much needed...and very late to arrive...start in the right direction. I suspect it will eventually lead to a state of affairs in healthcare for our country that is sorely overdue.
Many argue it is an intermediate step towards a "modern, efficient" single payer system. If so, they should examine the recent collapse of plans for such a system in Vermont. The current governor ran for office on a platform of creating a state-run single payer system and even hired the esteemed Joinathan Gruber as a consultant to help him design it. Now on closer examination they find the cost would be too high and the adverse erconomic side effects far too great for them to afford it, and the scheme collapsed.

Frank Apisa wrote:
I realize that soft-headed conservative thinkers cannot wrap their minds (such as they have) around that idea...but a decade or two down the pike I suspect it will be looked at as something special that happened. And thanks to the "Party of NO" it will continue to be known as Obamacare and will generate a great deal of honor and affection for the man for whom they named it.[/b]
I think we should try to preserve this statement so that it could be examined for the general amusement in a few years. Unfortunately it isn't worth the effort.

Humanity spent the better part of the lamentable 20th century watching the illusions of the benefits of socialism unravel to their destructive ends. Evidently some cannot be persuaded by facts and history.

George, with all the respect in the world, I think you are being wrong-headed about everything you commented on here...

...but I doubt I would ever be able to get you to see that, so it is not worth the effort.

Socialism may not work...but I think we are about to find out that capitalism the way practiced here in the US is every bit as much a failure. It's just that we've had greater resources at our disposal for the last two centuries...than have the socialist experiments.

What I am saying is that capitalism is an economic system born on third base...and it thinks it got there by hitting a triple.

It didn't.

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@fbaezer,

Excellent analysis, thanks.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Many argue it is an intermediate step towards a "modern, efficient" single payer system. If so, they should examine the recent collapse of plans for such a system in Vermont. The current governor ran for office on a platform of creating a state-run single payer system and even hired the esteemed Joinathan Gruber as a consultant to help him design it. Now on closer examination they find the cost would be too high and the adverse erconomic side effects far too great for them to afford it, and the scheme collapsed.

The term "single payer" has become a meaningless slogan for the Left. Most of them don't even know what the term means.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

The term "single payer" has become a meaningless slogan for the Left. Most of them don't even know what the term means.

They didn't know what Obamacare meant either ... until after they passed it.

Now after repeated, extralegal "administrative rewrites" of the law, it still doesn't work. One would think that the abundance of unforseen consequences and side effects would give them pause.

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Well...George and Oralloy seem to be of the mind that anyone who falls short of modified fascism...must be too stupid or lazy to learn what the term "single payer system" means.

I wonder why they think that way?

Anyway...since we are the only industrialized nation not offering universal health coverage for all its citizens, why are you on the right not championing our obtaining it also?

Do you on the right want our nation to become a second class nation...like the people of many countries think we are right now?

Why have the politicians of your stripe not come up with something so that everyone can have adequate health care...or do you think a civilized, industrialized nation like we ought to let people unable to afford health care to just die in the streets?

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

.like the people of many countries think we are right now?

Name them.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

coldjoint wrote:

Quote:
.like the people of many countries think we are right now?

Name them.

Here are a few. Please, tell me you do not want more:

Kiribati
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar (Burma)
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands, The
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
Norway
Northern Ireland
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines, The
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Rwanda
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Scotland
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Venezuela
Vietnam
Wales
Yemen
Yugoslavia
Zambia
Zimbabwe

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

.or do you think a civilized, industrialized nation like we ought to let people unable to afford health care to just die in the streets?

That is exactly what they think. They have the I've got mine screw the rest of you syndrome.

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@Frank Apisa,

Do you really claim to know what all these people think? Remarkable !!

How do you account for the observable fact that people from many of these countries are going to great lengths to come here - legally or illegally?

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Do you really claim to know what all these people think?

How do you account for the observable fact that people from many of these countries are going to great lengths to come here - legally or illegally?

It might be that they want to get close to you, George...because you are so welcoming.

But more realistically...do you really think that because people from many countries go to "great lengths" to come here...that means they do not consider us a second class nation?

Maybe they are coming from a third class nation...and consider moving to a second class nation as "moving up."

In any case, I think Rabel captured the essence of the right wing spirit on this question very well in the comment above.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Here are a few.

Pick one, and get the Hell out.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Well...George and Oralloy seem to be of the mind that anyone who falls short of modified fascism...must be too stupid or lazy to learn what the term "single payer system" means.
I wonder why they think that way?

Hmmm. Modified Fascism???

Anyway, the reason I think that way is because during the health care debate, I would frequently hear Leftists say nonsense like all the rest of the world has adopted a single payer system, despite the fact that both the UK and Germany have their own unique systems that are each quite different from a single payer system, and many countries around the world copy one of those two systems.

When I challenged them on that reality, they always came up with some sort of screwball nonsense about how the UK was single payer despite being completely different from a single payer system. (They completely ignored Germany and those who copied the German system as if they didn't even exist.)

Also, at one time during the debate there was a struggle over something called "the public option". The Leftists also persistently referred to the public option as a single payer system, even though it too was a completely different system. In reality the public option was just regular insurance where people submitted a monthly bill, and that money formed a pool from which medical bills were paid. The only significance to it was that it would have been operated by the government instead of by private industry. (The Left now persists in thinking that the public option was actually removed from Obamacare. In reality it is still there; they just renamed it to the "multi-state plan".)

So the reason I think that way is because this debate has a long history of Leftists militantly referring to everything under the sun as "single payer" even when it is nothing of the sort. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were referring to my toaster as a single payer system.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Anyway...since we are the only industrialized nation not offering universal health coverage for all its citizens, why are you on the right not championing our obtaining it also?

Do you on the right want our nation to become a second class nation...like the people of many countries think we are right now?

Why have the politicians of your stripe not come up with something so that everyone can have adequate health care...or do you think a civilized, industrialized nation like we ought to let people unable to afford health care to just die in the streets?

I'm not entirely sure that I'm "on the right". In any case, I don't have much objection to Obamacare. I only protested when the President tried to spout outright lies about my existing insurance coverage, and the extent of my protest was only to ensure that the record was set straight.

2 Replies

US/Cuba Look to Normalize Relations

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