He Knows No Shame ... Cuba - The Horror...

[Selene]

Never met a Commie dictator he did not love...

http://www.therealcuba.com/page5.htm

http://www.executedtoday.com/2010/01/12/1959-cuban-revolution-santiago-de-cuba-enrique-despaigne/

http://www.aguadadepasajeros.bravepages.com/english/january59.htm

http://www.cubaarchive.org/downloads/CA20.pdf

http://flashbak.com/on-this-day-in-photos-how-fidel-castro-became-prime-minister-of-cuba-6130/

My best friend's dad sat in his back yard for weeks after the "revolution" with a .45 in his lap.

He was a police officer under the old regime and therefore was execution material.

Thankfully, he was able to get his personal family the hell out of this island prison.

A...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't agree with the reasons Obama did what he did, but I am in favor of getting Internet access and American commerce into Cuba.

In my understanding of politics, a dictator can only keep power if he restricts the information the citizens receive. In order to wage an information campaign to change the political structure, the gates to information have to be opened.

For good or bad reasons, Obama did that.

Now we now have to deal with it. We can bitch, but that won't do anything. If I were interested in Cuba (and I may become so due to my 32 years in Brazil), I would start thinking about how to sow the seeds of discontent in tyranny and thirst for freedom in materials to be consumed by Cubans, and how to popularize them.

All that said, I would not want to be someone whose family has been blood-soaked by the Castros and hear what Obama just did.

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

I can see pluses to the move.

However, the exchange was ridiculously one sided.

Of these three (3), I believe at least one (1) of them was serving life.

Venezuela is an example where this did not work.

There are others.

I have no comfort zone with this man.

A...

[PDS]

I agree with MSK. I think this is a good result, even if motivated by the wrong reasons.

I will be happy to own a condo in Cuba in the next 5 years.

[Francisco Ferrer]

I couldn't find a picture of Castro shaking Obama's hand, so just imagine Castro on the left and Obama on the right and you get a pretty good idea of how low this country has sunk since 2008.

[william.scherk]

I agree with MSK. I think this is a good result, even if motivated by the wrong reasons.

I will be happy to own a condo in Cuba in the next 5 years.

In my stinko pinko way, I agree with resuming normal state-to-state relations with Cuba. In itself, this inserts and extends America and American values into Cuba in several ways. It regularizes migrations, visa regimes, allows for future Embassy meetings with civil society folk (the dissident Cubans who are not quite jailed but otherwise given no room besides the internet to criticize or challenge the system).

I also agree with the slight easings here and there of travel and ability to access US banking and financing, and the new limit to remittances. The details on how the US will insert itself in telecom are to come, but it looks like a victory for the Cuban people.

What hasn't changed is that US citizens still cannot get tourist visas. And the trade embargo. Who knows what the new Congress will do with the latter. Most Americans who visit Cuba will still break the law, when they fly Montreal-Havana or Toronto-Varadero on a beach hotel package.

Canada's Trudeau was a mighty leftist of sorts, in that he reestablished normal relations with Cuba in the seventies, in the age of Nixon's detente with China and the USSR. I've always wondered, and more deeply after the fall of communism in Europe, when Cuba would crack. I think getting "normal" with Cuba is a good wedge.

It's been so long. That island is whipped economically. Its system barely feeds and clothes and houses its own citizens. At the same time the people are well-educated and enterprising. It's a country just waiting to join the 21st century, debased by a bankrupt and decrepit totatlitarian dictatorship. I can't but support anything that might help revive individual risk and reward and lessen the hard hand of the Cuban state on its people.

The last steps in Cuba itself getting more 'normal' will probably initiate when the Castros die. If their successors cannot liberalize their economy like China, the infrastructure will continue to decay and the ability of Cubans to be economic actors will stall.

From reading a few dissident Cuban sites, the ordinary Cuban was surprised by the news delivered by Raul on TV. Surprised and very positive. They certainly know what changes need to be achieved.

I think the younger generation of Cuban-Americans will be strongly positive for this change, and for America to dump its blockade. The older generation will not accept detente.

In the end, I hope the Cuban people can make good use of better relations with the USA. I hope they get the opportunities to fix their wrecks, and get on with being a normal country. I hope those who step up after the Castros are able to manage a transition bloodlessly.

I revile the dictatorship, I might mention. I want the people there to be able to live free as I do in Canada, and for the creaky old communist system to crumble unto death.

Is this an adroit move by Obama or an executive over-reach? Don't care.

I see this as a tacit defeat for Cuba the state, and the beginning of the end.

__________________________

Trudeau and Castro in Havana

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I revile the dictatorship, I might mention. I want the people there to be able to live free as I do in Canada, and for the creaky old communist system to crumble unto death.

William,

Let me complement this.

From my hillbilly right winger bunker, I revile the neocon war machine. I want people the world over to live in peace and organize as locally they see fit. So I hope the creaky nation-building crony-capitalist system of unending war crumbles unto death, too.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

"I revile the neocon war machine."

Let's call it something else so I can stay employed.

--Brant

the oil-war machine? (that's nice and greasy)

[Jules Troy]

I think this is one of the better things Obummer has wrought. As was said before probably for the wrong reasons but that is irrelevant, Americans and Cubans will be better for it.

[Selene]

Unless you are in the medical profession...

Directive 10-289 anyone?

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Tuesday re-imposed limits on doctors leaving the country, saying its universal and free healthcare services have been "seriously affected" by the flight of vital medical specialists.

In a rare backtrack by Cuba on modernizing reforms of recent years, the Communist government said it would reapply restrictions that had been lifted in 2013.

Cuba said it was responding to a U.S. program that seeks to drain its former Cold War enemy of doctors, nurses and other specialists working in third countries. The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, begun in 2006, remains in effect even though President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba this year.

Medical professionals now need special permission to leave the Caribbean island for personal travel, marking the second restriction imposed on Cuban emigration in a week amid a crisis in Central America, where thousands of Cubans trying to reach the United States have been stuck at border crossings.

A Communist thug is a Communist thug...

“In the name of the general welfare, to protect the people's security, to achieve full equality and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of the national emergency that:

Point One. All workers, wage earners and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty shall be determined by the Unification Board, such Board to be appointed by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. All persons reaching the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the interests of the nation.

Point Two. All industrial, commercial, manufacturing and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit nor leave nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the nationalization of their establishment and of any and all of their property.

Point Three. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.

Point Four. No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured or sold after the date of this directive. The Office of Patents and Copyrights is hereby suspended.

Point Five. Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as it, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more and no less. The year to be known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.

Point Six. Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.

Point Seven. All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive.

Point Eight. All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions will be final.[1]”

"Explanation

Point One served two purposes: to establish the Unification Board, and to require that all persons presently employed, stay employed in their present capacities. The age of twenty-one was selected because that was the voting age at the time of writing. (The voting age remained at twenty-one until the first term of the Richard Nixon administration, during which time Amendment XXVI formally set the voting age at eighteen.)

Point Two was a direct response to the phenomenon of people quitting and vanishing. This was the real reason for the economic decline, as the bureaucrats half suspected, half feared. Under this point, anyone who quit and vanished faced arrest, imprisonment, and expropriation of his assets.

Point Three provided for the surrender of all intellectual property of any kind to the government. This point actually directed that holders of patents and copyrights voluntary surrender their rights, clearly an oxymoron.

Point Four simply provided that no new inventions were to be introduced for the duration. Wesley Mouch and his associates regarded new inventions as destructive of people's livelihoods.

Point Five attempted to freeze all industrial or commercial output at present levels. For the purpose of determining those levels, the Directive declared a very special fiscal year to be the year ending on the date of the Directive, which was May 1.

Point Six attempted to freeze consumer spending at the levels seen in the fiscal year ending on the date of the Directive, as Point Five had done for business output.

Point Seven was an indefinite wage and price freeze.

Point Eight, the "elastic point," vested in the Unification Board the power to decide, finally and not subject to appeal, any question not covered in Points One through Seven."

http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-reinstates-limits-doctors-leaving-country-164002789.html