Thread: US to Ease Cuba Embargo and Sanctions

Originally Posted by Splashone

I keep seeing this repeated. What did you guys do during the Iron curtain days?

Ate lots of beans...

James.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I know squat about cigars, but that is what the guy in the store said when I bought some for a relative. Cubans are expensive because of their reuptation, but Dominicans are better. Or so he said.

However, I never understood why the US kept embargoing Cuba? I mean, if the US can be friendly with Russia and China, what did Cuba do to deserve 50 years of blockade?

It's hard to completely understand a situation when the input you rely on is mostly from media.

Originally Posted by bouschie

For me it is about time. Sent. Rubio spoke against Obama and called him a coward. The cowards are those that left Cuba decades ago leaving family behind instead of fighting for freedom. This country became free because our forfathers fought for it. Where would we be if they fled to Canada or South America instead of fighting. We cannot fight for every country that is not democratic. China is not democratic but we trade with them. Let's move forward and hope change will come.
On a lighter side. Think about all those straight razors in Cuba that may go up for sale!

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.
"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"

Originally Posted by gugi

I wonder if some Vietnamese feel the same way about USA.

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.
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."

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The only reason the embargo has continued so long is the Cuban American Community in Florida. The politicians are afraid of them. Only recently opinions have softened probably because many of the old ones are dying off.

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.

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.

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

Originally Posted by gooser

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 ........

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)

Originally Posted by Splashone

I keep seeing this repeated. What did you guys do during the Iron curtain days?

Not use gas as much

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.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Vietnam Is becoming the next Japan,going to war with the U.S has always turned out to be a good thing for 3rd world countrys.

Wasn't there a nice movie on that very subject?

Originally Posted by Geezer

Whatever happens, the average person is in favor of security and if a Jihad promises security, that is what they will buckle under to.

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.