Cuba Si, Obama Maybe
The devil is, as always, in the details, but I support, in concept at least, Obama’s plan to open up to Cuba.
I write this having visited the Caribbean island in my lefty days (illegally, of course) and found it to be a wretched totalitarian state that treated its people (tiny nomenklatura excepted) like medieval serfs and turned the beautiful buildings of historic Havana into an unmitigated slum. Cuba is a monument to the insanity of “scientific” socialism, an island-sized jail run by a megalomaniacal thug and his creepy brother.
BUT… the fifty-year (or whatever it is) boycott has not worked. It has not made things one jot better for the Cuban people. Nothing has changed. The place still stinks. If something hasn’t worked for decades, it’s time for a new approach.
So I welcome Obama’s initiative – if only for co-optation purposes – and have a simultaneous suggestion for educational purposes, although I doubt it will be listened to. Why not take a few million of those skillions of stimulus (or whatever it is ) dollars and make a movie that tells the real truth about Che Guevara, rather than the objectively pro-fascist hagiographic gibberish that my Hollywood colleagues have been making. And if that’s too costly, how about a documentary that tells the story of the treatment of gays in Cuba? Cuba, according to the New York Times, of all Fidel friendly places, is the “only country in the world to have quarantined homosexuals.” (Of course, things are a bit better now – let’s hope.)
UPDATE: This approach of Obama’s – outreach to the moderate Taliban – seems much less promising. What exactly is a moderate Taliban? Someone who beats a woman but doesn’t kill her? Scars her but doesn’t decapitate her? The mind boggles.
Sigh. I’ve thought for years that if we wanted to open Cuba, all we needed was an airdrop of Sears and Victorias Secret catalogues, along with $1000 checks. I somehow don’t doubt Obama’s ability to screw this up too.
This Twitter thing is starting to make sense . . .
Roger, did you read the series Peter Coyote just wrote for the S.F. Chronicle? Not just about cigars.
Just checked out the Coyote piece. Very amusing, in a sad way. Some people never change. (Yes, I knew Peter, very slightly, in the old days of the SF Mime Troupe when he led everyone in singing “Papa Mao-mao-mao… Mao tse-tung” in doo-wap style.
As you read, he wrote about Cuba’s bloody history, but stopped short of Castro and Che.
We have to be very careful about doing business with Cuba. Some people liken it to China and point out how much our trade has helped the average Chinese citizen, but Cuba is quite different. Any money invested there must be filtered through Castro’s bureaucracy. If I want to build a factory, I will pay the government which will provide the property, designate a contractor, line up the supplies, hire my employees and eventually decide how much to pay them.
I might well end up making money, but the average Cuban won’t see much of it at all. The government, however, will have enriched itself through my efforts. The embargo hasn’t killed Cuba, it’s true; but ending it might well not help it either — it could just entrench the Communists. Obama should tread lightly.
I’ve always felt that the boycott against Cuba simply gave Fidel Castro an excuse as to why his country is a basket case. Avoiding a boycott and obtaining needed goods is not a difficult task; there are plenty of countries that would deliver goods and services to Cuba if Castro could pay for them–which he cannot.
Removing the economic boycott would remove Cuba’s major excuse for its inability to develop its economy.
Working with a few happy Cubans that escaped, I noticed a pent up desire for the luxury items we all take for granted. One young man bought and traded in, several vastly different cars within an abnormally short time. As he explained to me, “Just to own them”. “You have no idea what it feels like to be deprived of ‘things”. Luckily we were selling cars at the time. He hated Castro for ruining Cuba. His father was a high ranking Military officer (that’s how they escaped). They became extremely active in the US Republican Party and loving the US free enterprise system. Another young woman in business, same story. Both very well educated because of their high political military status.
If Cuba’s embargo is lifted the US should at least make it contingent of freedoms for the Cuban people. The reality is that Castro can buy whatever he wants from many other countries. He is just broke because he systematically destroyed the Cuban economy. So I guess he’ll be trading with the US with money given to him by Hugo Chavez. Life for the Cuban people will not change. Castro’s swiss bank accounts will swell as some idiot from Indiana will sell him something and someone in California will smoke a better cigar. some things never change.
If we want to abandon the embargo because we think it will help American business then fine, so be it. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking it means Cuba suddenly becomes more likely to be a freer and more democratic society. Where in the world has that ever happened? We have had trade relationships with other Communist countries, past and present, and I can’t think of one where it made much difference in the internal political structure of those countries.
I would think there may be Cubans who don’t want relations with the US to thaw since it most likely means an end to our favorable Cuban refugee policy. And I can’t imagine Castro’s going to suddenly start handing out free passes to all those who might wish to leave just because we’ve decided to play nice for a change.
The embargo is an obsolete policy, which has caused more losses to the US itself than to Cuba. For more information on this issue and other Cuba-US related topics visit havanatimes.org
At this point, Cuba’s military must be a hollow shell. I think Blackwater should invade and knock over the Castro regime “on spec.” Sell it to the highest bidder. I can see a bidding war between Miami Cuban exiles, Texas billionaires looking for an Obama-era tax haven, and Israeli Mafia building a safe haven (Havana?) for when Tel Aviv turns radioactive.
The problem is that we can lift the embargo on Cuba but the regime WON’T lift its embargo on the Cuban people. How exactly do you plan on dropping those Victoria’s Secret catalogs if the Castro brothers say you can’t?
We can talk all day about the liberalizing power of capitalism but newsflash: Cuba still has a Marxist economy. The only way Americans can do business in Cuba (assuming a lifting of the embargo) is through joint partnerships with the Cuban state in which the Cuban state has majority stake. Employees are rented (really they’re serfs) by the venture and the state makes a bundle while the workers get about 5%.
When conservatives start repeating the regime’s talking points about the embargo then I know we’re in a world of trouble.
Lifting the embargo will result in the following:
1. An incredible propaganda victory for an avowed enemy of our country
2. An influx of new capital into a decrepit bankrupt regime
3. A de facto farm subsidy to cover the cost of agricultural goods that Cuba will now be permitted to buy on “credit” but never pay for.
4. The collaboration of U.S. corporations in the repression of Cubans and the exploitation of Cuban workers through joint ventures with the Cuban State.
I don’t want any of these things but Roger is apparently OK with them. But most importantly it won’t help liberate the Cuban people because:
1. The international community isn’t going to love the U.S. all of a sudden and backtrack on 50 years of propping up the regime.
2. The regime understands how to manipulate foreign trade and tourism and extract its profit without allowing any of the “corrupting” (liberalizing) side effects to take hold. They have been doing it for 20 years with all kinds of trade from the West.
I’m not sure I welcome Obama’s Cuba proposal. You see, while I understand that the concept behind opening up a country is to add dollars and encourage liberation, the reality can be seen in Chavez’s Venezuela, where opposition is routinely squashed and incoming dollars simply end up lining the pockets of the favored. Plus, today’s foreign capital is tomorrow’s nationalized resource. Remember, Cuba has a history of such nationalistic expropriation. What American might send to Cuba in good faith will likely end up becoming a rock in the ediface of their nationalistic socialism, and not be available to use as a wedge for liberation.
It may not have been intended to be this way at first, but the boycott effectively functions to protect American assets as well. Sending capital to Cuba can end up being the equivalent to sending it down the drain. And who’s to say that Raul will be any less corrupt than Fidel was regarding the expropriation of other’s assets for La Revolucion? While he and the rest of the country’s Castroites are still in power, there’s no guarantee that the resources sent to Cuba will work to open the country up. After all, the US is the only nation with a boycott; none of the European nations, for example, has boycotted Cuba, and all of that trade has accomplished nothing as far as liberating the people or the economy. An influx of new revenue from the US is not going to be viewed by the current regime as anything other than a windfall. It certainly won’t be seen as a reason to change their ways.
I understand the frustration at the lack of effect the boycott has had, but I can’t see how sending US money to Cuba is going to help anything. Not with the government it has.
——
Re: “Moderate” Taliban – The worry I have is that the current politicos won’t be able to tell the difference between genuine “moderates” (those who joined because they had no choice, but are disgusted and wish they had a way out; yes, they exist) and those who look good simply because they haven’t had the opportunity to indulge in depravity. One is very rare, but a genuine chance for future progress; the other is a danger, and a bad temptation for the overly idealistic. If the current administration’s diplomats are unable to tell the difference, things can go downhill in a snap.
I fear the possibility for the same mistake that the US committed in Vietnam: In looking for opposition to the enemy, this administration might accidentally elevate someone who’s simply different in their corruption. And that would definitely lead to a failure, which would be a waste of everthing that has been accomplished so far.
The only industry that would get a boost from ending the embargo is the Classic Car auction market. Do you know what a ’50s era Packard would go for?
I think that with Cuba’s economy is as weakened as it’s going to be. Cuba gets enough from Europe and Russia to keep it from getting much worse; plus we have to counter their influence. Combined with a foreign policy that is cagey and focused on US interests (and I’m certainly not going to argue that we have that), opening up the embargo could result in a flood of cash and services that ultimately weaken communism there. They’re likely to try to boycott us.
Also, kudos to President Obama for showing his steady foreign policy hand by going out of his way to offend the British and weaken the special relationship. Combined with their bumbling in Russia and elsewhere, things are going to get very lonely for our allies and very lucrative for our enemies.
Has he given any thought to how he’s aligning the incentives? Of course not– on the job training!
At least this is one less country we have to fund.
What Henry Gomez said.
Cuba has librarians rotting in jail for being “enemies of the revolution” for crying out loud. We can shift our policy all we want, the tyranny will continue – same with Venezuela.
I visit Cuba all the time illegally (fly to Cancun).
To me the place is a near paradise. Cheap rum & cigars, and beautiful women.
What’s not to love ?
Jose you are moron
The moderate Taliban gives a 75-year-old woman only 20 lashes instead of 40.
The Left tells us we have to lift the embargo…but how many other countries have never embargoed Cuba? China, Russia, and scads of other countries have dealt with Cuba over the decades; but Cuba still remains poor and freedoms curtailed under the Castro brothers and their communist toadies.
Just because the US has an embargo, doesn’t mean that Cuba couldn’t take advantage of its other trading relationships throughout the world. The ‘lift the embargo’ chant is just a pitiful excuse to blame the US for the poverty of the masses. Sure we could lift the embargo, but the government of Cuba would still restrict commerce and the Castros would still skim off the top; just this time they would have more to skim.
BTW, what is a ‘moderate’ Taliban?
What is a moderate gangster?
What is a moderate terrorist?
What is a moderate gang-banger?
What is a moderate Nazi?
Does this President have any knowledge of even recent history? The Taliban behead those who would resist their oppression. Does Obama think a moderate Taliban is one who beheads a woman in the middle of a soccer stadium, but only in the morning when it is cooler and more comfortable to wear a burka?
Funny thing about Cuba’s treatment of gays…I remember this period during, I think, the late eighties when in San Francisco it became a meme to talk about how Cuba was much more advanced than the US on AIDS. They would put up gays in little cottages by the sea and give them free treatment.
No kidding, Cuba was being presented *by the gay community* as a gay mecca.
As they say, you can’t make this stuff up.
By the way, Roger, found out about you through Glenn and Helen pimping your book and then by seeing you on C-Span. Now most of the way through the book, and as a 9/11 apostate in San Francisco, am glad to have encountered a “fellow traveler”…