U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba

[TyroneSlothrop]

Still having a hard time seeing the difference between Cuba and China.

If someone will explain away the hypocrisy, I'd be much obliged. Otherwise, we ought to treat Cuba like China.

China is not right next door to America
Chinas nukes are capable of reaching the west coast, but Cuba with Russian missiles can reach a fast area of America.

Gee, now you sound like those "liberals" you hate so much.

Situational ethics? Subjective morals?

A bit wishy washy in your reasoning and logic. You're beginning to sound as evil as the fuckwits I personally have little time for. Keep up that sort of blathering idiocy and I shall lose any respect I might have had for you.

Machiavelli would be proud, to be sure.


How about this. . . . .



Make friends with everyone, then you don't have to worry about them killing you?



And, on a more direct note, our relationship with China has nothing to do with nukes, and has everything to do with greed and economics. American political elites are hypocrites, plane and simple. It is all about power and money with them. There is nothing that Cuba has to offer that we want that is worth the insult that besmirched the pride of the American elite establishment when Cuba did what it did fifty years ago. Let any nation leave the umbrella of American hegemony, it needs to know it will suffer the same fate as Cuba. THAT is why Cuba was made to suffer by the elites, both on the left and the right.

And it worked. Did Kaddafi ever act so brazen? No. Did Saddam act so brazen? No. How about Chavez? Nope, they kidnapped him, staged a coop, and then finally assassinated him first, but never had as much trouble, because he always did have his oil on the market. The Cuban message was always loud and clear.

If you think that Russia would ever put any missiles there now? What are you, a teenager, twenty years old? Russia would have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

I'm 62.
I support the freedom of the Cuban people and this new relationship with them is not going to give them their freedom.
If Putin wants his oil money to go back up (or anything else they think they could use for political gain or leverage) he would do that threat in a heart beat, but would never really go through with it just like the last time it happened. It's about political games and power. It also would be in the future but not now.
He is pretty happy right now with his new spying ability, having it back again in Cuba. They will use that for a little bit for political leverage against us.
I do agree with you that it is about greed with our trading to China and the elites in both parties being hypocrites.

I am sorry but the US Government is not in charge of doling out Freedom...I wonder where folks get such outlandish notions....

I never said that it was.
Promoting freedom is not doling out freedom.

why not promote Freedom in Saudi Arabia our great close friend that does not allow women to drive or go out in Public without a male family member...go promote Freedom over there ...why is the Freedom promoting US always overthrowing freely elected Governments ...?

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

you know nothing at all about Cuba ...you speak without a "data base"

I speak from Raul Castro's own words who says that Cuba is committed to it's principals which is keeping Cuba a Dictatorship.

Riiiiiight.

His speech that he made to the people of Cuba was on C-Span and that is exactly what he said. "Cuba is committed to it's principals"

but when he said that he is not saying "our principles amount to a dictatorship" that is just noise going on in your head from anti Cuba brainwashing here in the US...the rest of the world sides with Cuba condemning US policy in October 2014 by a 188-2 vote at the UN

The government will still control them.
They will just have it a littler easier in being equal in their misery.
It isn't anti USA Cuban brainwashing. It's reading history in all of the governments who promote big government control over their people.
If the Senate passes this, you will see that the people of Cuba will still not have freedom.

The people of Cuba have freedom...they are being Governed by other Cubans and the US should have no say whatsoever about Cuba ...worry about Ferguson Missouri and the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were brutalized....7000 arrested...

 

[georgephillip]

The Cuban Five?
"The softened relations come with a prisoner exchange. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a subcontractor for USAID—that’s the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was arrested in 2009, sentenced to 15 years for smuggling illegal technology into the country for opposition groups.

"Also released was a Cuban who had provided information about Cuban spy operations in the United States. Obama did not identify the prisoner by name, but Newsweek reports he’s Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a former Cuban intelligence officer who who worked secretly for the CIA until he was arrested on espionage charges in 1995.

"Meanwhile, the United States freed the remaining members of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino. The men were arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. But Cuban intelligence officers say they were not spying on the United States, but rather trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups responsible for attacks inside Cuba. President Obama outlined the exchange as the prisoners were already returning home."

Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations Democracy Now

 

[peach174]

I speak from Raul Castro's own words who says that Cuba is committed to it's principals which is keeping Cuba a Dictatorship.

Riiiiiight.

His speech that he made to the people of Cuba was on C-Span and that is exactly what he said. "Cuba is committed to it's principals"

but when he said that he is not saying "our principles amount to a dictatorship" that is just noise going on in your head from anti Cuba brainwashing here in the US...the rest of the world sides with Cuba condemning US policy in October 2014 by a 188-2 vote at the UN

The government will still control them.
They will just have it a littler easier in being equal in their misery.
It isn't anti USA Cuban brainwashing. It's reading history in all of the governments who promote big government control over their people.
If the Senate passes this, you will see that the people of Cuba will still not have freedom.

The people of Cuba have freedom...they are being Governed by other Cubans and the US should have no say whatsoever about Cuba ...worry about Ferguson Missouri and the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were brutalized....7000 arrested...

They do?
Then why are they not able to interact with the tourists?

I don't worry about law breakers who get what they deserve. You break the law you get arrested.
You protest peacefully and don't harm other people's businesses or block their access to roads and bridges you don't get arrested.

 

[peach174]

The Cuban Five?
"The softened relations come with a prisoner exchange. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a subcontractor for USAID—that’s the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was arrested in 2009, sentenced to 15 years for smuggling illegal technology into the country for opposition groups.

"Also released was a Cuban who had provided information about Cuban spy operations in the United States. Obama did not identify the prisoner by name, but Newsweek reports he’s Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a former Cuban intelligence officer who who worked secretly for the CIA until he was arrested on espionage charges in 1995.

"Meanwhile, the United States freed the remaining members of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino. The men were arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. But Cuban intelligence officers say they were not spying on the United States, but rather trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups responsible for attacks inside Cuba. President Obama outlined the exchange as the prisoners were already returning home."

Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations Democracy Now

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

Obama said "Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe".
That is not true. The Cuban Government has made it illegal to have that technology.

 

[SwimExpert]

I think it's a good move to reestablish relations with Cuba. The Cold War is over. We need to move on. Cuba is a nightmare for most of the people. I think that one thing we have learned over the course of the 20th century (and the beginning of the 21st) is that trying to starve a people into overthrowing their government does not work. All it does is make them angry at whomever in the international picture the people blame. And most often, that's us, because we're the ones leading the charge for economic sanctions. But ultimately, human beings are a highly adaptable species and can become accustomed to all kinds of undesirable conditions. The people become used to the poverty, they become resigned to it, and without any realistic and foreseeable way to change their plight they will double down on it. It's better to be very good at living in poverty, than to be very bad at it because you aren't willing to accept what's happening around you. If trade and commerce between the US and Cuba helps them revitalize their country, that will be far more effective at winning us favor.

 

[peach174]

I think it's a good move to reestablish relations with Cuba. The Cold War is over. We need to move on. Cuba is a nightmare for most of the people. I think that one thing we have learned over the course of the 20th century (and the beginning of the 21st) is that trying to starve a people into overthrowing their government does not work. All it does is make them angry at whomever in the international picture the people blame. And most often, that's us, because we're the ones leading the charge for economic sanctions. But ultimately, human beings are a highly adaptable species and can become accustomed to all kinds of undesirable conditions. The people become used to the poverty, they become resigned to it, and without any realistic and foreseeable way to change their plight they will double down on it. It's better to be very good at living in poverty, than to be very bad at it because you aren't willing to accept what's happening around you. If trade and commerce between the US and Cuba helps them revitalize their country, that will be far more effective at winning us favor.

Ask the East Germans how much better it is to have Capitalism, rather than being good at living in poverty.
Poverty is still poverty.

 

[SwimExpert]

I think it's a good move to reestablish relations with Cuba. The Cold War is over. We need to move on. Cuba is a nightmare for most of the people. I think that one thing we have learned over the course of the 20th century (and the beginning of the 21st) is that trying to starve a people into overthrowing their government does not work. All it does is make them angry at whomever in the international picture the people blame. And most often, that's us, because we're the ones leading the charge for economic sanctions. But ultimately, human beings are a highly adaptable species and can become accustomed to all kinds of undesirable conditions. The people become used to the poverty, they become resigned to it, and without any realistic and foreseeable way to change their plight they will double down on it. It's better to be very good at living in poverty, than to be very bad at it because you aren't willing to accept what's happening around you. If trade and commerce between the US and Cuba helps them revitalize their country, that will be far more effective at winning us favor.

Ask the East Germans how much better it is to have Capitalism, rather than being good at living in poverty.
Poverty is still poverty.

 

[BlindBoo]

I'm especially pissed off about it. After more than 40 year of smoking I finally quit in the same year the interloper from Kenya is about legalize Cuban Cigars.........Mutherfuker.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Riiiiiight.

His speech that he made to the people of Cuba was on C-Span and that is exactly what he said. "Cuba is committed to it's principals"

but when he said that he is not saying "our principles amount to a dictatorship" that is just noise going on in your head from anti Cuba brainwashing here in the US...the rest of the world sides with Cuba condemning US policy in October 2014 by a 188-2 vote at the UN

The government will still control them.
They will just have it a littler easier in being equal in their misery.
It isn't anti USA Cuban brainwashing. It's reading history in all of the governments who promote big government control over their people.
If the Senate passes this, you will see that the people of Cuba will still not have freedom.

The people of Cuba have freedom...they are being Governed by other Cubans and the US should have no say whatsoever about Cuba ...worry about Ferguson Missouri and the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were brutalized....7000 arrested...

They do?
Then why are they not able to interact with the tourists?

I don't worry about law breakers who get what they deserve. You break the law you get arrested.
You protest peacefully and don't harm other people's businesses or block their access to roads and bridges you don't get arrested.

I went to Cuba and interacted with anyone I felt like interacting with. Included among the people I interacted with was the family of Rafael Del Pino who is the highest ranking Cuban defector. His family lives in Pinar Del Rio Cuba and I met and spoke with his mother and two brothers...

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

The Cuban Five?
"The softened relations come with a prisoner exchange. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a subcontractor for USAID—that’s the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was arrested in 2009, sentenced to 15 years for smuggling illegal technology into the country for opposition groups.

"Also released was a Cuban who had provided information about Cuban spy operations in the United States. Obama did not identify the prisoner by name, but Newsweek reports he’s Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a former Cuban intelligence officer who who worked secretly for the CIA until he was arrested on espionage charges in 1995.

"Meanwhile, the United States freed the remaining members of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino. The men were arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. But Cuban intelligence officers say they were not spying on the United States, but rather trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups responsible for attacks inside Cuba. President Obama outlined the exchange as the prisoners were already returning home."

Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations Democracy Now

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

Obama said "Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe".
That is not true. The Cuban Government has made it illegal to have that technology.

Riiiiiight.

His speech that he made to the people of Cuba was on C-Span and that is exactly what he said. "Cuba is committed to it's principals"

but when he said that he is not saying "our principles amount to a dictatorship" that is just noise going on in your head from anti Cuba brainwashing here in the US...the rest of the world sides with Cuba condemning US policy in October 2014 by a 188-2 vote at the UN

The government will still control them.
They will just have it a littler easier in being equal in their misery.
It isn't anti USA Cuban brainwashing. It's reading history in all of the governments who promote big government control over their people.
If the Senate passes this, you will see that the people of Cuba will still not have freedom.

The people of Cuba have freedom...they are being Governed by other Cubans and the US should have no say whatsoever about Cuba ...worry about Ferguson Missouri and the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were brutalized....7000 arrested...

They do?
Then why are they not able to interact with the tourists?

I don't worry about law breakers who get what they deserve. You break the law you get arrested.
You protest peacefully and don't harm other people's businesses or block their access to roads and bridges you don't get arrested.

Again you sound brainwashed and unaware...the Nation with the highest prison population in the world ...higher than Cuba ...higher than N Korea ........is the USA

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”
Henry David Thoreau

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Obama is gonna let cuba dump all its welfare bums on america like he does with mexico. And all these deadbeats will vote dem.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

The Cuban Five?
"The softened relations come with a prisoner exchange. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a subcontractor for USAID—that’s the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was arrested in 2009, sentenced to 15 years for smuggling illegal technology into the country for opposition groups.

"Also released was a Cuban who had provided information about Cuban spy operations in the United States. Obama did not identify the prisoner by name, but Newsweek reports he’s Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a former Cuban intelligence officer who who worked secretly for the CIA until he was arrested on espionage charges in 1995.

"Meanwhile, the United States freed the remaining members of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino. The men were arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. But Cuban intelligence officers say they were not spying on the United States, but rather trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups responsible for attacks inside Cuba. President Obama outlined the exchange as the prisoners were already returning home."

Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations Democracy Now

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

Obama said "Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe".
That is not true. The Cuban Government has made it illegal to have that technology.

His speech that he made to the people of Cuba was on C-Span and that is exactly what he said. "Cuba is committed to it's principals"

but when he said that he is not saying "our principles amount to a dictatorship" that is just noise going on in your head from anti Cuba brainwashing here in the US...the rest of the world sides with Cuba condemning US policy in October 2014 by a 188-2 vote at the UN

The government will still control them.
They will just have it a littler easier in being equal in their misery.
It isn't anti USA Cuban brainwashing. It's reading history in all of the governments who promote big government control over their people.
If the Senate passes this, you will see that the people of Cuba will still not have freedom.

The people of Cuba have freedom...they are being Governed by other Cubans and the US should have no say whatsoever about Cuba ...worry about Ferguson Missouri and the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were brutalized....7000 arrested...

They do?
Then why are they not able to interact with the tourists?

I don't worry about law breakers who get what they deserve. You break the law you get arrested.
You protest peacefully and don't harm other people's businesses or block their access to roads and bridges you don't get arrested.

Again you sound brainwashed and unaware...the Nation with the highest prison population in the world ...higher than Cuba ...higher than N Korea ........is the USA

Why can't you liberals learn how to use the delete feature/. The board is sick of your posts that always contain posts from ten other people.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Recall all those Vigilante posts showing gruesome ISIS pictures ? Here is what Vigilante's confederate buddies were doing in the homeland in the US during the Civil war...

From T.J. Stiles’ Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War:

[Young Jesse and Frank James, riding with Jesse’s good friend, Archie Clement, under the command of the “bushwhacking” guerrilla leader, “Bloody” Bill Anderson. A fairly typical day for the band of irregulars as they moved back and forth across Missouri:]

“On October 17 (1864), the guerrillas stormed into the center of Carrollton, where the 160 men of the EMM garrison [local volunteer pro-Union militia] immediately surrendered. The guerrillas marched them toward the Missouri river, picking out a man to shoot here, another there, until half a dozen bodies marked the trail of the prisoners …. Later, they forced a German farmer to guide them west; when his knowledge ran out, Archie Clement shot him, sawed off his head, and placed it on the dead man’s chest, with his hands wrapped around it. Then they resumed their march.”

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

No the Cuban Government is committed to Sovereignty from US hegemony

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Ask the East Germans how much better it is to have Capitalism, rather than being good at living in poverty.
Poverty is still poverty.

Ask the Russians about Capitalism....


The death toll of the first 10 years of "demokratsia" in Russia is astounding: an in-depth study published in the British Medical Journal found that "an extra 2.5 million to 3 million Russian adults died in middle age in the period 1992-2001 than would have been expected based on 1991 mortality rates." Up to 3 million unnecessary deaths -- as many as were killed in the Vietnam War.

.......... in the mid-1990s, the general public had already come to regard "demokratsia" as a dirty word, synonymous with the endemic corruption, ruin and violence that the Western-backed elites had visited upon the country. This cynicism was confirmed by the election of 1996 --..............-- when a half-dead Yeltsin, supported vigorously by the West, miraculously overcame a 2 percent popularity rating to win "re-election." The price of this Pyrrhic victory was the final surrender of the state to the oligarchs and security apparatchiks who, along with their American campaign operatives, had engineered the outcome. Flush with victory, they proceeded to push the country into yet another major crash in 1998, when life expectancy rates plummeted to the lowest levels since the famine years of the 1930s.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Folks we have relations with :

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy which doesn’t even allow political parties or any kind of public dissent.
Human Rights Watch reports:

“Saudi Arabia stepped up arrests, trials, and convictions of peaceful dissidents, and forcibly dispersed peaceful demonstrations by citizens in 2013. Authorities continued to violate the rights of 9 million Saudi women and girls and 9 million foreign workers. As in past years, authorities subjected thousands of people to unfair trials and arbitrary detention. In 2013, courts convicted seven human rights defenders and others for peaceful expression or assembly demanding political and human rights reforms.”
None of the opponents of diplomatic relations with Cuba has even once suggested that the US break off relations with Saudi Arabia over its medieval human rights practices. I therefore conclude that human rights does not drive this issue.

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

Zimbabwe. The US has diplomatic relations with the notoriously dictatorial government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and actually has given the country $400 million in humanitarian aid.
Human Rights Watch reports:

“Both the power-sharing government prior to August 2013 and the new administration have failed to amend repressive laws, such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), and the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, which severely curtail basic rights through vague defamation clauses and draconian penalties. Failure to amend or repeal these laws and to address the partisan conduct of the police severely limits the rights to freedom of association and assembly.

Sections of AIPPA and POSA that provide criminal penalties for defamation, or for undermining the authority of, or insulting the president, have routinely been used against journalists and human rights defenders. Police often misuse provisions of POSA to ban lawful public meetings and gatherings. Activists and journalists continue to be wrongly prosecuted and charged under these laws. For instance, on May 7, police arrested Dumisani Muleya, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, and Owen Gagare, its chief reporter, following the publication of an article on the security forces. The two were detained for eight hours, then charged with “publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the State.” ”

 

[georgephillip]

The Cuban Five?
"The softened relations come with a prisoner exchange. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a subcontractor for USAID—that’s the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was arrested in 2009, sentenced to 15 years for smuggling illegal technology into the country for opposition groups.

"Also released was a Cuban who had provided information about Cuban spy operations in the United States. Obama did not identify the prisoner by name, but Newsweek reports he’s Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a former Cuban intelligence officer who who worked secretly for the CIA until he was arrested on espionage charges in 1995.

"Meanwhile, the United States freed the remaining members of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino. The men were arrested in the United States in 1998 and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. But Cuban intelligence officers say they were not spying on the United States, but rather trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups responsible for attacks inside Cuba. President Obama outlined the exchange as the prisoners were already returning home."

Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations Democracy Now

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

Obama said "Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe".
That is not true. The Cuban Government has made it illegal to have that technology.

That would be nice if they got democracy but they won't.
The Cuban government is committed to being a Dictatorship.

The Cuban dictatorship is a dictatorship of the working people. Capitalism is a dictatorship of corporate elites. Cuba's system of government is based in communities where neighbors meet every 2 1/2 years to select delegates to popular councils and municipal assemblies. Electoral advertising is prohibited and all elected delegates can be recalled at any time. The Communist Party of Cuba is the ultimate authority, and it remains to be seen whether or not the US will stop trying for regime change in Havana. Democracy in Cuba will be determined by actions in DC and south Florida, in other words.