Post #20,369
12/5/01 4:06:29 PM
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OK, I'm confused
What has Cuba got to do with this?
What should Cuba retaliate for?
I personally wouldn't blame Cuba for declaring war on the US in an effort to reclaim their occupied territory (Guantanamo) but Cuba understands that discretion is definitely the better part of valor here (they are hopelessly out-gunned). So they pretend that that land just isn't there.
Cuba is actually a pretty good example of what the US has historically done wrong in foreign policy - supporting the nasty Batistas while the US mobsters exploited the products of Havana nightlife. The Cuban revolution is understandable and they had pretty much two choices in superpowers to pick from for allies after the coup - the country who had propped up the murderous regime they just deposed and the other one.
Cuba was played by both sides, when mostly, they're just trying to improve the standard of living for all their people (and have done a much better job than we have with higher literacy rates, more accessible health care, lower infant mortality rates, longer life expectancy...). Its not perfect, but given their resource constraints I think they've done an amazing job.
I see a lot to admire in Cuba and a lot to dislike in the US treatment of same.
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Post #20,371
12/5/01 4:31:56 PM
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Thought we were making lease payments on Guantanamo.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #20,373
12/5/01 4:40:55 PM
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I set up shop in a room in your house...
...and start paying rent, all without your permission.
Would you want to kick me out?
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #20,406
12/5/01 8:15:05 PM
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not if you were white:)
The room in the house was setup in Anchorage Alaska and suddenly they are demanding rent from the occupants of all the other rooms, withholding heat and toilets while their room is carpeted in gold. Nothing new there.
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #20,392
12/5/01 5:56:15 PM
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Re: Thought we were making lease payments on Guantanamo.
We are but the lease can only be terminated by agreement of *both* parties, the lease fee is around $5k and Castro has never cashed the check and instead indicated his desire to terminate the lease. The US, naturally, refused. The lease was originally "negotiated" under pressure and under normal contract law could likely be proved invalid due to duress. Hard to prove just now as all original signers are dead.
Consequently, Castro claims Guantanamo is actually occupied territory (rightly so to my mind). Not only does the US continue to enjoy their Cuban base, but they play the poor guest by imposing economic sanctions against their host and attempting to bully other nations into going along.
Interesting side note: Kennedy was fond of cigars and is rumored to have stashed 1000 Petit Uppmans prior to imposing the embargo believing that those would last him through the crisis.
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Post #20,379
12/5/01 5:16:54 PM
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Typically too
The inhabitants of Little Havana / Miami Dade - are the cohorts of the US mobsters who were the exploiters. Typically these are portrayed in US agitprop as "the freedom loving antiCommyunist true representatives" of the er Cuban Peepul (cf. The Murican Peepul). I wonder if the name Bautista is ever even mentioned to HS students, in Murican prepared 'text'books nowadays (?)
Hah.. the Calle Ocho folk make Trent Lott look like a 'humanitarian'. Having lost cosa nostra, their dudgeon knows no bounds. I've talked with some (a friend was involved with a Cuban there). None will acknowledge any of the points you mentioned. Of course. It's like trying to talk to a thousand Jerry Foulwells.
That we maintain our blockade in Y2K signifies only - the petulant and predictable behavior of an adolescent mind-set in most all our foreign relations. The juvenile nature is displayed everytime a Murican asks, all teary eyed.. Gosh.. why don't they Like US? Huhh?
Maybe the Marshall Plan was our last genuinely humane policy statement. All since was mere dodging and weaving to embarrass the USSR, win cold-war brownie points: but Never was all that about helping people per se. The dictators and other slime we terror-trained at the
School for the Americas (!) (Ft. Benning?) [Oh the Irony]
Demonstrated for all the world to see - that our actions were purely strategic and on the most maudlin scale of all: sheer maintenance of Power. Screw the inhabitants. That is our legacy in Cuba as in Nacaragua, Guatemala, Chile ... ... And the fantasy of 'otherwise' is now so deeply ingrained (Graham Greene writings notwithstanding) - the Murican Peepul continue to ask the above terminally naive Question:
Even here! and after 9/11.. Can a perennial adolescent Ever grow up?
We'll see..
Ashton
at play in the fields of the lurid.
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Post #20,388
12/5/01 5:42:03 PM
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The Cubans you decry send $800 million per year to their...
relatives in Cuba, thus propping up that dictatorship. A little irony there.
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Post #20,400
12/5/01 7:30:57 PM
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Of course there's irony! They are People!
Familia trumps the hierarchy Every Time. D'Oh.
And of course.. there is no more 'the average Calle Ocho ex-pat' than.. that other mythical beast, The Murican Peepul.
{sheesh}
I mean simply: the Murican juvenile preoccupation, spin, Hatred! for Fidel == the entire Israel Question too! Stupid Fucking Slogans R'Us (too).
Just as the cold war distilled All Nations\ufffd into daily reciting mantras of Hatred <> EZ Slogans about the sub-humans: their 'adversary' yada yada. It's what juveniles do. And this species demonstrates hourly: it's teen-age acne in all spheres. The mass don't need Gibbon or Dostoyevsky or ___ they gots Dan Rather and Tee Vee. And we get this doggerel.
Meanwhile: the Corporations run the mess for their banal (but ever so simple) aim - all that heavy yellow shiny metal. (or that oozy black fluid, just a surrogate for the metal -and now digital- form).
A.
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