Ate lots of beans...Quote:
Originally Posted by Splashone
James.
Printable View
Ate lots of beans...Quote:
Originally Posted by Splashone
James.
It's hard to completely understand a situation when the input you rely on is mostly from media.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
The people who have left/fled Cuba over the years are far from cowards. To leave a loved one behind in an attempt to provide them with a better future, whether they are Cuban or Mexican for that matter, is a decision that neither you or I will hopefully never have to make. It's one thing to say, "Stand your ground & fight!" from the comfort of our recliners. It's a completly different thing to say it when stairing down another's rifle. As I grew older & reflected about situations in history, I often asked myself, "How can a few dozen lightly armed men, keep thousands behind a poorly constructed fence, especially when the thousand people being held knew there were headed to their death?" I did not understand this sheep mentality, as I saw it. My thoughts were to organize as best as possible & die trying, if it come to that. Again, I had never been faced with that decision. One day I say a documentary about 2 men who survived WW II. In the last 5 minutes of the documentary, one of the men gave me the answer to this question that bothered me many a times. The name of the film is "Fighter" from 2000.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouschie
"Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev follows two Czech Holocaust survivors, Jan Weiner and Arnost Lustig, as they revisit Terezin, a labor camp where Arnost was interned for five years and Jan's mother was murdered.
Director:
Amir Bar-Lev"
Both my father & step-father were Vietnam veterans. I was 14 years old when the war ended. I have discussed this same question with several Vietnamese in my trips to Vietnam. Today, the Vietnamese people treat Americans like they are gods, they all but worship the ground that we stand on,,, this is from a visitors point of view. Very strange considering the war we had. Here is the response I received from all my interviews, basically word for word the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
2004 interview;
"We won the war." This is usually the first words out of their mouths. "Why should we hate you now?"
"The majority of our country is under the age of 30, they have ho idea of what the war was about and we don't talk to them about it, for the most part."
"America was our enemy at the time, she destroyed much of our country. When we finally drove her out, we were on our knees, our allies left us. America was the only country to reach out to us, to pull us off our knees. No other enemy in our history has ever reached out to help us. We will always be gratefull to America for this."
HCMC, Saigon, is one of the largest cities in the world by population,,, humble & poor by Western standards, yet I can walk down the streets at 11pm with no treat of mugging, drive-bys, from the hotel to the icecream shop. I asked my driver one day, "What happens to thieves that rob the tourist here?' He said, "I don't know, because no one ever sees them again."
Yes, part of it is that the old resistance is dying off, but that's not the main reason. Until the past couple of elections , Florida was a strong Hispanic vote & South Florida was it's power base. This base was Cuban. You controlled South Florida, you controlled the Florida vote in the presidential election. We all know how important Florida is in the presidential election. But over time the Hispanic vote is not solely controlled by the Cubans,,, over the years Florida as a whole has become more diverse in its Hispanic makeup. Central & South Americans who can now vote, are quite large in numbers. Central Florida is now the political strong point in Florida & it is not Cuban.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
As a child my grandfather was a large farmer in South Florida, only one man had more, Manual Diaz. My grandfather employed many of Cuban heritage. I worked in the fields, when not in school & during the summer with Cuban men, women & I palyed with Cuban children. My grandfather/family owned & managed a lot of land, as a child my siblings & I played in the many abandoned cars & vehicles that were on my grandfather's land, we could pretend to drive these cars as young as 7 or 8 years old, these were fun times. But,,,, there was a firm & strict rule, we had to check in each day with grandmother & she would tell us which cars we could play in. Any other vehicle that day was off limits. As the years went by, we played in all of them, over & over. I asked my grandmother years later when I was an adult about the strict rule. It appears that my grandfather did a liittle more that just farming, he stored weapons & munitions for the anti-Castro militias that were in South Florida, the supplies were rotated throuhout the cars,, grandma kept the records. :shrug:
My biggest concern is that the communist dictator/s and their pals will benefit economically while the Cuban people will continue to languish in poverty and oppression: because I'm sure the next step will be economic aid to 'lift the people out of poverty', but I can easily imagine most of the aid being stolen or squandered.
After reading all the ideas and possibilities I am still left with the opinion that Democracy, as we believe we have, cannot be exported. Anywhere the strong government was destroyed by meddling, we are seeing the results in the "rebels" of whatever stripe. Whatever happens, the average person is in favor of security and if a Jihad promises security, that is what they will buckle under to. Someone always survives. A strong government that supports the main ideas of a safer world would be on my list of things for our government to look for as friends. Not particularly the form of government.
Your thoughts may vary strongly from mine. We, at least, have the opportunity to dissent!
~Richard
does this mean that Cuban cigars is gonna become the choice of our youth instead of swisher sweets or just buying the flavored shells ?? ...lol
They are going to be smoking high end blunts ........ :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by gooser
I'm sure blunts will not go out of style anytime soon... May well be legal before we know it. (already is for some of you)
Not use gas as much :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Splashone
These days all houses are heated use natural gas, and cooking is done on natural gas.
In the old days, heating was done using diesel oil, which came from somewhere else.
And it is of course a fact that in those days we only used half the amount of energy per capita we use now (I just looked it up)
As Ivan says: in the long run, there are alternatives. But in the short term 'hey my heater is not working' timeframe, if Putin closes the natural gas lines, we're in trouble.
Wasn't there a nice movie on that very subject? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by pixelfixed
There's an alternative explanation... what would be your reaction if a foreign government came in (let's say the Brits, for the sake of argument), toppled your government and replaced it with sock puppets? How could the population of any country welcome such meddling? Large scale political changes must come from within the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geezer
Yes, I would agree. However, after a generation or two, there would be little difference to the average person. See above on Japan, Germany and Vietnam.Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelP
The trouble really gets out of hand is when a strong leader, for whatever reason, is toppled in a region where millennia of generational vendetta is a way of life. There are too many factions to ever form a stable government in the near future. In regions where "Any enemy of my enemy is my friend!" is the norm for short term vendetta, there will not be peace without a doomhammer to slap down any recalcitrant group. If an area/ nation has always had bad government, there is really no change other than the figurehead.
Since those regions are usually tribal by nature we have the present situation around the world. Whether gangs, or regions, or sheer the cussedness of Appalachia, that is our situation at this time.
Unfortunately, I am thinking this also applies to our government as it malfunctions.
Your thoughts may vary and you are welcome to express them.
~Richard
If they get any more royals inline for that throne, they are going to have to do something like that to have titles for them all!Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelP
Hypocrisy
Sanctions against Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, all good and will accomplish our goals.
Sanctions against Cuba haven't worked for 5 decades so we need to change our thinking.
:thinking::thinking:
Santions against Russia are going to end up biting the U.S in the Butt me thinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
:hmmm: Talk about prophecy, remember this ???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg
The Mouse That Roared ...... http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-That-Roa...se+That+RoaredQuote:
Originally Posted by MichaelP
I disagree here. Going to war is seldom "a good thing" for anyone. Of course there might be some advantages over time.Quote:
Originally Posted by pixelfixed
I agree that it should matter less after a couple of generations, however I grew up in a region where people still haven't let go of the anger caused by stuff that happened between 180 years ago (see Bruno's comment) and the end of WW2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geezer
We got attached to a country with a different language and culture so the French could have a "safe" direct trading route to Liege, then the transmission of the local language and culture were pretty much suppressed after WW2. The language transmission started again in the late 80s but as a foreign language... it was already dead as a local life language, only old people still spoke it. Even I get angry about it sometimes... and I left the country 14 years ago ;)
Not related to Cuba.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
As far as i know, currently there are huge investments going on in EU to get gas from somewhere else. Of course it takes time.
Luckily my country uses no natural gas almost at all.
Russia already made a huge mistake by using natural gas as a political & economical weapon against Ukraine. All the trust is gone. Crimea, Luhansk and Donets regions are out of gas at the moment Ukraine wants to close it.
The problem with the Russian oil and gas fields is also their outdated technology: if they stop pumping, it's almost impossible to start it again with their equipment. They do not have enough capacity to store it either.
Listened to Putin's speech today. No real answers. He has painted his country into a corner now and it's impossible to find easy and painless way out.
I'd very much welcome some accountability on policy goals and timeframes. Be it to sanctions, or wars, or anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
When something doesn't get you the results you want you can either try something different or 'wait a little longer'.
If the goal a is regime change, the guy dying of old age means that sanctions failed.
As far as hypocrisy goes, that's nothing new and this isn't even one of the better examples of it.
US has twenty something sanctions programs, the people who care most about them are corporate executives. Most ordinary americans are told to focus on the big picture such as 'Obama - bad', and that the nuts and bolts are not too important to be concerned with.
Yes, if we thought Putin was a bit unpredictable and dangerous before being painted into a corner, watch out now. Won't be the first time armed conflict has been used to distract people from domestic woes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor
Bob
Unfortunately so,Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
This all reminds me too much of 1938. Seems there cannot be happy endings this time either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
6 Countries including the newest against Russia (the other programs are against certain groups of people)
Length of time, actually North Korea has been in effect 12 years longer and gone through the death of Kim Il -sung (sp) :hmmm: No more a regime change then Raul Castro was
So yes Obama does look a bit hypocritical on this one
Look it up - here's the direct link to the official government policy, it's at the department of Treasury, not at a think-tank/oped/propaganda outletQuote:
Originally Posted by gssixgun
Sanctions Programs and Country Information
If people don't like what this president is doing they can simply elect a different one in less than two years. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the partisans to start calling 'hypocrisy' on the one they voted for.
Jeb Bush will probably get the Florida vote regardless, let's wait and see if he'll promise to reinstate the embargo and then follow through if he gets elected.
Let's not be too fast to place Ole Jeb's hand on the Bible yet,,,,, Jeb is not the favored boy in Florida. :beer2:Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Jeb isn't extreme enough to get the Repub nomination. Anyone extreme enough to do that is too far right to win the general election. The circular firing squad just keeps getting bigger.
He'll most likely be the preferred establishment option to romney and christie, and the republican party of 2014 is much more capable of picking a candidate with real chance of winning to one who'll just throw red meat at the hardliners but can't win against clinton.
True, but 2 years is a lifetime in an upcoming election. The country has had enough Bushes & Clinton's & I think the primaries will reflect that.
We shall see john,If Hillery would have divorced Bill after the Lewinsky Debacle,I would vote for her,Sadley she is a gutless woman,power hungry, with zero morals.JMO
I know, but the current political realities are pretty strong :)
Political campaigns are expensive and building anything grass-roots with no money takes time and there's just not enough of that for 2016.
I thought back in 2008 that the next round being clinton vs. bush would be somewhat plausible but does sound like a joke and now to me it seems close to inevitable.
Jeb praised the trade of our 'spy' for three of theirs and the new policy of restoring relations with Cuba. I'll vote for anyone I think can beat Clinton, but I'd like to see Jeb given a chance. I wasn't too happy with 43, but I think Jeb is a different person and would make a good president.Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Well, he's supposed to be the 'smart' one in the family and Bush Sr. had presidential aspirations for him not his little brother, but Jr turned out quite politically savvy and took the opportunity when it presented itself.
I think I saw him against the new policy, but wants to run for president on republican ticket after all so he has to pick some positions to the right of obama and clinton.
Attachment 188056
BBC News - US-Cuba shift: Opponents threaten to block changes
Hmmmmmm, that photo showed up when I was rummaging through the BBC. First story I have read on the matter - wonder why lol? :).
No - the story doesn't discuss barber shops in Cuba - it was a bit disappointing.
My question is why does he have bigfoot's hair brush, I thought he lived up in Canada?
You mean the brush for "hairy back syndrome" gugi? Nah! That's a world-wide affliction :).Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
.
.
.
I think it's a mirror lol.
Duh, being an administrator of a straight shaving forum is tough - makes you forget what the rest of the world looks like...Quote:
Originally Posted by earcutter
Yeah way to spoil it, buzzkill! I knew you're still a closetted cannouck and for your information bigfoot isn't even real, my mom told me - take that! :pQuote:
Originally Posted by earcutter
I disagree with ivan on the closset canuckism, i think you are becoming americanised, they're great at stating the blindingly obvious :)Quote:
Originally Posted by earcutter
Right let's wait for the comebacks...
Well I am out - I got nothing :).Quote:
Originally Posted by edhewitt
At least I pointed it out in the typically mild-mannered Canadian way though :).
I was expecting the comebacks from affronted Americans, but i thought that would have been obvious. Perhaps you haven't lost all of the Canadian in you :)Quote:
Originally Posted by earcutter
Wouldn't that be because of the anti-Castro lobby of Cuban exiles ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
