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Obama shakes hands with Cuba's Castro in 'gesture of hope'

Montecresto said:
Howdy CB. I'm just saying that the embargo has damaged Cuban citizens. If your ok with that, that's another matter. I still would like to see Americans polled on the idea of naturalizing relations with Cuba.
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Interesting, and that brings us back to the "so will the right" comment. That's certainly true, however where both will do it they seem to do it for different reasons. The left chooses to do it for things that do not benefit the US, in fact it ends up costing us. The right does it with things that end up profitting the US.

If the Cubans are in such bad shape, start a charity for them, encourage them to change their system.
 
Montecresto said:
Several pictures of conservative presidents shaking hands, holding hands and hugging men equally evil in some cases, worse in others and it all gets explained away as acceptable, yet Obama doing the same gets condemnation. That is soooooo blatantly partisan, those of you involved in that perpetuate a big part of what's wrong with America!
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No, not even close. None of them, except for roundheels McCain are bowing to these foreign leaders. And all had at the time of the photos, relationships with the US that were beneficial to the US. All except for Obama.
 
clownboy said:
Interesting, and that brings us back to the "so will the right" comment. That's certainly true, however where both will do it they seem to do it for different reasons. The left chooses to do it for things that do not benefit the US, in fact it ends up costing us. The right does it with things that end up profitting the US.

If the Cubans are in such bad shape, start a charity for them, encourage them to change their system.
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You can't make such a blanket statement about the right. Not everything they do profits the US. Unless when you say US, you mean corporate America who made huge money on the ME wars, whereas the real US, us citizens and taxpayers, were set back a couple trillion dollars. (Not to mention the loss of life for nothing gained)
 
clownboy said:
No, not even close. None of them, except for roundheels McCain are bowing to these foreign leaders. And all had at the time of the photos, relationships with the US that were beneficial to the US. All except for Obama.
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Again, if by US you mean corporate US interests, we agree. At any rate, why would we have 'good relations' with evil men/governments just because it profit$ us?
 
Grant said:
Don't like any criticisms of the Castro family, huh? Did you wear the Che T-shirt as well
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So you want to get personal huh? Let's put a little grey area into your black and white world view.

Here ya go. Che was a ****ing murdering douche that I can't stand. How does this fit into your boxed in view of the world? Me, a hard core leftist who hates Che. I also don't like Fidel Castro. Raul... don't know the guy. There ya go. Got your fill of me personally now?

Watching all you righties line up to throw your disdain towards Raul simply because he holds the same last name when we all know you don't know a damn thing about him... THAT's funny. Now google him up and pretend like you always knew everything about him in your next post.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
And I'm schooling you on internet usage. What a tight friendship we now have.
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And I schooled Grant on who that Castro guy is that's in that picture. :lol:
 
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US Conservative said:
Ahem, Nixon was a devout anti-communist, Regan too.
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Until they shook hands with communists. Then they got all that icky commie stuff on them. They became infected.
 
lizzie said:
Patchouli makes one a commie? No wonder I'm feeling confused. I love the stuff, and I don't have a commie bone in my body. ;)
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Or do you?

It's seeping out of your bone marrow and getting into your blood stream.
 
specklebang said:
I could be wrong but I think Cuba has no middle class to shrink. So, they'll need a different strategy. The objective being to diminish the control of their government.
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from what I know..(and I could be wrong too) there is a new allowance of private enterprise. I doubt if it's a free market, and I would imagine it's taxed,
but this is new, and should be encouraged.

I saw a "blub: the other day that we have rolled back at least some part of the sanctions/embargo.

Good post, good idea. There is every reason in the world ( and especially the western hemisphere) to encourage market reforsm by Cuba.

Ending the embargo would go a long way (in my opinion)
 
clownboy said:
No, not even close. None of them, except for roundheels McCain are bowing to these foreign leaders. And all had at the time of the photos, relationships with the US that were beneficial to the US. All except for Obama.
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Oh what a bunch of horse****.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Did you visit the prisons where anyone who stands up to Castro or communism rot in deplorable conditions? Hope you enjoyed your vacation.:roll:
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Almost ironic, coming from someone in the most incarcerated nation in the world. I don't know how many dissenters are imprisoned in Cuba- not as many as you think, I bet. Certainly not as many as are doing time for pot in the US.
 
Montecresto said:
So what, they don't control US foreign policy. Some one needs to poll americans on their feelings about normalizing relations with Cuba.
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They are Americans.
 
annata said:
from what I know..(and I could be wrong too) there is a new allowance of private enterprise. I doubt if it's a free market, and I would imagine it's taxed,
but this is new, and should be encouraged.

I saw a "blub: the other day that we have rolled back at least some part of the sanctions/embargo.

Good post, good idea. There is every reason in the world ( and especially the western hemisphere) to encourage market reforsm by Cuba.

Ending the embargo would go a long way (in my opinion)
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When we were there we stayed in 'casas particulare' private homes with a suite they could rent out to tourists. They ran about $20/day. The casas were identified by a green triangle on the door. We ate, usually, at paladares, private homes that were allowed to seat 12 for dinner (every one we were at pushed that limit though- one in Havana doubled it up). The food was great, the menus limited and at two there was music. In Cienfuegos and Trinidad we were woke up every morning by guys pushing carts with bread or tomatoes or whatever, calling out what they were selling. Not exactly capitalism but not North Korea, either.
The hotels were mostly private enterprises that cut the government in on the action and you were supposes to stay at least three nights in hotels but if you could give the customs guy the name of one he was satisfied. There were street hucksters- don't buy cigars from them.
The only problem with the country I could see is the prosecution of dissenters but you'd have to be determinedly vocal to get arrested, going by how some of the people we met in Havana talked in public. I'm guessing that the society will liberalize when the last veteran of the revolution dies or retires from government, kinda like what happened in the USSR when the last WWII vets died.
 
Mason66 said:
They are Americans.
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Well sure they are (have become, legally) but they are comparatively a very small minority. And our Cuban policy shouldn't be decided by them.
 
Grand Mal said:
Almost ironic, coming from someone in the most incarcerated nation in the world. I don't know how many dissenters are imprisoned in Cuba- not as many as you think, I bet. Certainly not as many as are doing time for pot in the US.
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Cuba has political prisoners while in the US we imprison people for actual crimes. See the difference?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Cuba has political prisoners while in the US we imprison people for actual crimes. See the difference?
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The US imprisons more people than any nation on earth .. by far .. including all the totalitarian nations we like to point fingers at.

We don't have political prisoners? That depends on your perspective.

Political Prisoners in the USA | Alliance for Global Justice
Vivien Lesnik Weisman: Jeremy Hammond, American Political Prisoner
We Must Open Our Eyes to America
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Cuba has political prisoners while in the US we imprison people for actual crimes. See the difference?
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We have political prisoners as well. In fact another one of Obama's unfulfilled promises (one of many I believed in when I voted for him) was to expand whistle blower protection, which would be bad enough of itself if he simply failed to "expand" them. But he has actually shrunk them and imprisoned more than his predecessors.
 
Montecresto said:
We have political prisoners as well. In fact another one of Obama's unfulfilled promises (one of many I believed in when I voted for him) was to expand whistle blower protection, which would be bad enough of itself if he simply failed to "expand" them. But he has actually shrunk them and imprisoned more than his predecessors.
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Can you name these political prisoners and tell me what exactly they were convicted of? Here is some info on Cuba and what has been going on since the guy took over who's hand Obama warmly embraced.

"The number of prisoners held on political charges in Cuba doubled to 90 in the past 10 months despite the government’s preference for short-term detentions to control dissent, a Havana human rights group reported Tuesday.

About 30 of the new prisoners are leaders and members of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU), a dissident group that has achieved a surprisingly active presence in the eastern part of the island since it was founded in mid-2011.

The number of jailings is evidence that police “are ready to repress with the utmost force in order to paralyze the visible advances of UNPACU,” founder José Daniel Ferrér Gárcia said by phone from his home in the eastern town of Palmarito de Cauto.

Read more here: Cuban human rights group: Number of political prisoners has doubled - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com
 
My comment was not meant as any kind of a denial of human rights abuses in Cuba. And jailed whistle blowers are political prisoners and though we have whistle blower protections, they are weak which is why Obama campaigned on this promise to expand them but instead has relaxed them and imprisoned more than his predecessors.
 
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