October 20, 2004
Battling Windmills
I started this blog over a year ago with the hopes of bringing to light the Cuban circumstance. I have posted news items about daily life in Cuba, about Cuban economics and politics. I have posted about political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, about Cubans who risk their lives to reach the shores of freedom in the US. I have posted many a time about the embargo and sanctions against Cuba and about US policy towards the island. I have given glimpses of what it's like to be Cuban and written about my own family's experiences in Cuba and in exile. I have done my best to show just what an illogical and repressive system communism is. I have spoken here from personal experience and from the heart.
But today I am frustrated, and moreso than usual.
I posted only one thing yesterday. A news article about the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, signed by the Clinton administration, that allows Cuba to purchase US food products on the condition that sales to the island be paid in cash and how trade has increased dramatically between the two countries because of it. I stated, in no uncertain terms, that I did not know exactly how I felt about this.
My ambivalence towards this issue is because I find no reason to get angry about it. Yes, I am pro-embargo, but I also dont want the Cuban people to starve. And who am I to be against an American Senator or Congressman doing what's best for his constituents by allowing farmers to sell their products wherever they can? Besides, the worse thing you can do to a cashed strapped enemy is to sell him what he needs and make him pay in cash.
The tradings with the Cuban government that bothers me are the ones that create profit at the expense of the Cuban people. Services, technologies, toruism and others.
Tourism bothers me to no end. Yes, Cuba is beautiful. Yes, her people are unique. But why in the world would someone want to go see people live in squallor? And why would someone want to promote Cuba's tourism apartheid by doing so? I have been called many things here because of my stance on the embargo, but I can assure you, the embargo does much less harm than the millions of dollars the Cuban government reaps from doe-eyed tourists.
My referrer logs are filled with people doing searches for "cheap cuban prostitutes" and "cuban asses" and "investing in Cuba" and "buying property in Cuba." Some people - a good percentage of them Americans - dont give a shit about the Cuban people. It's all me, me, me.
Then there are others too myopic or naive or just plain stupid to understand - as history has again and again proven - that socialism and communism do not work. A commenter in yesterday's post - anonymously, of course - posted a link to this site: Hands Off Cuba. A British organization whose aims are:
The Cuba Solidarity Campaign is the British campaign for the defence of Cuba and its peoples' right to self-determination and national sovereignty.- We believe that the people of Cuba, like any other nation, must be free to decide their own internal affairs without outside interference.
- We defend, therefore, Cuba's right to national sovereignty, independence and self-determination.
- We call for an end to the US trade blockade against Cuba and for the British Government to continue to oppose it.
- We call for the normalisation of all diplomatic, economic, cultural and scientific relations with Cuba by the US Government.
We believe that the people of Cuba, like any other nation, must be free to decide their own internal affairs without outside interference.
I, too, believe that the Cuban people must be free to decide their own internal affairs. Unfortunately, the Cuban government is not of the same opinion. In Cuba, it's not "the people" who make the important decisions, it's Fidel Castro and his regime who make every single decision for them. You really want the Cuban people to make their won decisions? Then call for their government to allow them to. Propose free elections. Let the people come out and say what they want and what they feel without fear of reprisals. Without fear for their very lives.
We defend, therefore, Cuba's right to national sovereignty, independence and self-determination.
I, too, defend Cuba's right to sovereignty. I too defend their people's right to independence and self-determination. But this sovereignty, this independence and self-determination can only be valid if the people themselves are allowed to be independent and self-determined. If they are allowed to be individuals, free thinking individuals who can act as individuals and determine for themsleves what is in their best interests.
We call for an end to the US trade blockade against Cuba and for the British Government to continue to oppose it.
Why? Why call for an end to the US trade embargo against a sovereign nation? They are a "sovereign" nation after all, arent they? If they can do without another nation meddling in their independent affairs, then they can surely do without that other nation peddling their wares in their sovereign utopia, can they not?
We call for the normalisation of all diplomatic, economic, cultural and scientific relations with Cuba by the US Government.
You are a British organization, who are you to meddle in the affairs of the US, a sovereign nation? England trades with Cuba. England has diplomatic ties, and cultural ties and scientific ties with the island. Why is it that the US must succumb to the pressures of a Cuba whose government despises it? Why should the US deal with a country who vilifies the very ideals that this country was founded on? Why should the US forget that Cuba, by it's governments own admission, is our sworn enemy? There were once medium range nuclear missiles pointed at the US from 90 miles away. And the US is supposed to accept this? Turn tail and shake hands and say "Oh well, no harm done"?
To those oranizations like Hands Off Cuba I say this: Fuck off. You have not earned the right to speak on behalf of the Cuban people. You have not had relatives murdered. You have not had you family divided. You have not seen your children indoctrinated. You have not bled, you have not suffered, and you have not seen your culture destroyed by the madness of a insane and inadequate ideology.
It is organizations like Hands Off Cuba that relegate the Cuban people to being after thought and that help smother life with an ideology.
Socialismo of muerte!!
How many more must die?
Posted by Val Prieto at October 20, 2004 09:18 AM
Comments
the embargo is castro's best friend. his worst enemy would be a populace with a taste of prosperity.
embargos don't work. free trade does.
Posted by: rox_publius at October 20, 2004 09:50 AM
Rox..They have free trade, everywhere but in the U.S. Embargoes do work. It is working now, as evidenced by the socialist groups calling for its demise. FYI fidelitos populace had a taste of prosperity, before he took power and have had NONE since. This IS NOT the fault or responsibility of the U.S. Fidelito has the ability to trade anywhere he wishes, just not in the U.S.
Posted by: Bill at October 20, 2004 10:32 AM
embargoes work? which dictator was ousted as a direct result of embargo?
Posted by: rox_publius at October 20, 2004 12:25 PM