Cuba and US to normalize relations

[luiz]

Fidel enacted an exit visa system just two years after seizing power in order to prevent a mass exodus, particularly of skilled workers. The system was only abolished last year, by Raúl.

It's safe to say that any country that requires an exit visa from citizens wanting to travel abroad is a freakin' prison, not a model.

 

[Kaitzilla]

From 2 days ago:

Link to video.

Rand Paul also seems to be anti-embargo.
http://time.com/3642353/rand-paul-cuba-rubio-isolationists-just-dont-get-it/

 

[luiz]

There really isn't any good argument to keep the embargo...

 

[ReindeerThistle]

What Castro said in a flattering vein and what his people did are two widely different things.

The US wants to limit the number of people trying to enter, but Cuba does not. I wonder why that is. Hmmm.

Is it because Castro was a tyrant in the worst sense of the word?

J

The US does not want to limit the Cubans coming over, hence the Wet Foot/Dry Foot clause (where any Cuban gets automatic asylum if their feet touch US soil), so, why didn't the US hold up its end of the bargain when they agreed to accept them legally, and the Cuban government was willing to let them go?

Duh... So the US could create the image of Cuba not letting people go.

Cubans can go anywhere in the world, and they do!

 

[luiz]

And freedom is slavery!

 

[Zkribbler]

"the United States holds $6 billion worth of financial claims against the Cuban government."

Castro confiscated $56 million worth of sugar plantations belonging to the Bush family.

 

[plarq]

Fidel enacted an exit visa system just two years after seizing power in order to prevent a mass exodus, particularly of skilled workers. The system was only abolished last year, by Raúl.

It's safe to say that any country that requires an exit visa from citizens wanting to travel abroad is a freakin' prison, not a model.

Compare to DPRK, I think Cuba is better on allowing people emigrating. Especially in the early period of Castro rule, the emigration greatly reduce the danger of internal dissents.

 

[onejayhawk]

The US does not want to limit the Cubans coming over, hence the Wet Foot/Dry Foot clause (where any Cuban gets automatic asylum if their feet touch US soil), so, why didn't the US hold up its end of the bargain when they agreed to accept them legally, and the Cuban government was willing to let them go?

Duh... So the US could create the image of Cuba not letting people go.

Cubans can go anywhere in the world, and they do!

And freedom is slavery!

What he said.

RT your logic is marketable as fertilizer if you compost it properly.

J

 

[ReindeerThistle]

J, I just report it as it is. It is the US logic. Don't you people know ANY history other than the fertilizer luiz and the freedom-hating gusano mafia dig up?

The US agreed to take 20,000 a year, signing the First Migrant accord with Cuba in Dec 1984.

The US broke that accord and in spite of Cuba trying to revive the agreement, it was not discussed again until 1994, after Radio Martí -- a US-funded station broadcast out of S. Florida -- announced on August 5 that boats would be arriving from the US into Havana Harbor to pick up anyone who wanted to leave. No boats showed up and there were riots. Fidel himself went down to talk to the rioters -- without the police -- and calmed the rioters down. Their impetus to leave, Fidel said, was understandable, as it was during the Special Period and times were tough for all Cubans.

The US ended up detaining some 30,000 at Guantanamó in 1994 who were supposed to have been processed out. The US, from 1984 to 1994, the US only issued 1000 Visas a year. Pretty simple math, ain't it?

See In Conversation with Fidel by Ignacio Ramonet, 2008, Ch 16 "The Migratory Problem with the United States.

So, not logic, but arithmetic.

 

[Colonel]

Isolation should only be rescinded if we are allowed a significant presence in order to determine if they are moving away from a dictatorship.

 

[onejayhawk]

Isolation should only be rescinded if we are allowed a significant presence in order to determine if they are moving away from a dictatorship.

Just the opposite. Let them have all the contact they will accept. Tourism and trade will do more than diplomacy. After all, there is a reason people flee Cuba.

J

 

[Hygro]

Locking up scientists isn't in vogue. Though we do have plenty of creationists, antivaccers, and organic foods advocates, so it's a congenial sort of widespread brain damage.

Just stop.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

And there is a reason they have maintained a socialist republic, Marxist-Leninist, for 55 years.

Boo-ya!

 

[onejayhawk]

And there is a reason they have maintained a socialist republic, Marxist-Leninist, for 55 years.

Boo-ya!

You actually called it a republic.

J

 

[Borachio]

Isn't it a republic? I thought republic just meant "thing of the people" literally.

 

[onejayhawk]

Isn't it a republic? I thought republic just meant "thing of the people" literally.

Republic [ri-puhb-lik] noun

1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.
4. (initial capital letter) any of the five periods of republican government in France.
Compare First Republic, Second Republic, Third Republic, Fourth Republic, Fifth Republic.
5. (initial capital letter, italics) a philosophical dialogue (4th century b.c.) by Plato dealing with the composition and structure of the ideal state.​

There has not been a republic in Cuba for 55 seconds, much less 55 years.

J

 

[ReindeerThistle]

97% of Cuban citizens (16 and over) approved the 1978 Constitution. 94% participate in voluntary elections.

Anyone can run for office, regardless of income and no campaign spending is allowed.

Criminal defense is free of charge.

Medical Care is free of charge.

All children are guaranteed a quart of milk a day.

******
US = 37% of registered voters turned out for last midterm election, in spite of $4 billion spent.

50+ million still without healthcare in spite of ACA.

N. Carolina and Tennessee repealed sections of the voting rights act.

1 in 5 children face food insecurity.

Consent of the people? Pretty much Cuba's got it.

US, not so much consent as lethargy.

Boo-ya!

 

[Borachio]

Republic [ri-puhb-lik] noun

1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.
4. (initial capital letter) any of the five periods of republican government in France.
Compare First Republic, Second Republic, Third Republic, Fourth Republic, Fifth Republic.
5. (initial capital letter, italics) a philosophical dialogue (4th century b.c.) by Plato dealing with the composition and structure of the ideal state.​

There has not been a republic in Cuba for 55 seconds, much less 55 years.

J

Not true from what you've posted. You seem to have arbitrarily decided that only the first definition qualifies as a republic. I don't know why.

Why not highlight 2 and 3 instead? Then you'd see that my broader definition fits Cuba too.

2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.

In which case Cuba has been a republic ever since independence from Spain. (I think.)

According to your definition the Romans never had a republic, even though they invented the word.

 

[Joecoolyo]

All that tells me is that people in the U.S. are exercising their right to ignore that crap-fest that is politics. 97/94% sounds a lot more like fantasy.

I'd be hard pressed to believe you can get 97% of the population of any country to actually do anything.

edit: x-post, in response to RT

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Data is data. Believe what you want, but I documented the 94% from a non-partisan source, but I am a little woozy from getting blood work done to look it up, again.

The Danes have about a 90+% voting average.

And I agree, Joe, Americans aren't buying the BS. But they care... It's why I call it lethargy, not apathy.