Discussion for article #231299
I’ve been away for 45 years, and I had tears in my eyes as well.
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It’s about frickin time.
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God (will) bless Presidents Obama and Castro for this act!
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Bonum diffusus est.
From the Times:
"At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Gross said he supported Mr. Obama’s move toward normalizing relations with Cuba, adding that his own ordeal and the injustice with which Cuban people have been treated were “a consequence of two governments’ mutually belligerent policies.”
“Five and a half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits better judgment,” Mr. Gross said. “Two wrongs never make a right. This is a game-changer, which I fully support.”"
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Excellent news, long overdue.
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I just heard Jonathon Capehart say on TV, that this Lame Duck President just proved he’s not gonna be lame…and that he still plans on doing big things. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Capehart is just so adorable.
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dont get excited all republicans have come out against it since obama started it. they say they will try and pass new restrictions delay etc etc.
this really is a tremendous move on obama’s part; and watching the republicans flail around after being caught utterly off-guard is entertaining as hell. from the secret negotiations in canada and thru the vatican; using the friggin pope as an intermediary; getting the release of not only the return of gross, but the release of a cuban asset; dozens of cuban prisoners; negotiations on a number of issues… and all the right wing cubans have is how pissed off the miami cubans are; and that castro is the most evil monster ever and obama got suckered…
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Lately, I haven’t agreed with a lot that Obama has done (or not done in the case of the cave on the spending deal), However, today I would vote to put his likeness on Mount Rushmore. Finally, a President has the balls to say fuck you to the ex-Batista toadies living in Miami off what they stole from the Cuban people.
A story…I am 70, and when I was 11 in 1955, I read an article in the Readers Digest about a group of brave souls who were in Mexico trying to raise money to overthrow Batista in Cuba. I was so taken with the story that I sent a $10 bill to the address in New York shown in the story. Ever since then, I have been proud to have been a “supporter” of the Cuban Revolution. I have also admired the fortitude of the Cuban people, who for 50+ years have given the finger to various US Presidents who were too stupid to realize that the embargo was simply stiffening the resolve of the Cuban people.
I’m just sorry that we will now face a Republican Party hell bent for leather to prove that the circus in Congress is a bunch of counter-revolutionary fascists! Che had the right idea in January and February 1960, when he put what was left of Batista’s cronies against the wall. Too bad we can’t do that with the occupants of the Republican Clown Car.
Long live the 26th of July Movement!!
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They don’t have to pass anything. If they don’t authorize funding for the Cuban Embassy (and they won’t), there won’t be a Cuban Embassy. If they don’t pass a bill to repeal the embargo (and they won’t), the embargo will remain in place. The GOP has the power to cripple most of this deal, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. (Heck, they might even let bills for funding the embassy and lifting the embargo come to the floor, just so they can snub the President by voting them down.)
If…and it’s a big IF…the GOP passes a bill to deny money for an embassy in Havana Obama will veto it and that will be the end of it.
The GOP will make a lot of noise and then it will just fade away.
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I’ll bet the clown car has neither seat belts nor airbags because Murica.
Tourism alone can mend these old wounds, at least as nations, if not individuals.
Cubans would be wise to look closely at Colorado and Washington State for an example of how they might increase and enhance that tourist experience, without having to overtax their people or their tourists.
The resentment we still read from the legacy Batista children and grandchildren born here in The States, as portrayed so graphically in this latest post to TPM, is trans-generational because the children and grandchildren of the disenfranchised Batista Cubans have passed it along as a rite of passage and a tradition with shallow roots. I would wager most of those offspring would not trade their American citizenship for Cuban.
We need to work with YOUNG Cubans, get them together with YOUNG Batista legacies with Miami roots, and leave the old folks out of that loop to avoid vendetta validation, and get on with the future.
The past is no picnic, particularly in this place.
Until we see Cuba as a neighbor and not an enemy, this will never get resolved.
Performers like Santana could help unite these two groups of young people. And I am not snarking for an instant, I am absolutely serious, a music/message concert in Havana, sponsored by the USA, performed by Carlos and some other American/Hispanic groups with a huge popularity in Cuba would help mend the wounds and start the healing.
I mean it, I am serious about this.
One more comment and I’ll stop for now…
Let me, once again, promote my old and ingloriously ignored proposition for the rejuvenation of new statehood for the USA.
CUBA 51!
Cuba, as the 51st State, would fulfill more than a few dreams.
Call me crazy (I know some of you already do) but it seems like something to hope for, even if it is pure fantasy.
“What happened in the United States is that the remaining voices of the Cold War—the defenders of U.S. sanctions—have been overtaken by the voices of those who want a foreign policy toward Cuba that is appropriate for this century.”
WHO are those voices, on both sides? NAMES, please.
Until we know the players in ths drama, we can only speculate about their motives.
Cui bono from sanctions?
Just answer that question, with NAMES, not groups or nations or interests, and we will understand better why this happened all along.
Yes! This is the President we have been waiting for! I love it that he is irritating the crap out of the GOP as well
It doesn’t work that way. They don’t have to pass a bill that Obama could veto in order to deny money. If they don’t pass a bill which authorizes the spending, then there’s no money for the embassy and it never opens. Obama can’t veto the non-passage of a bill!
Well, they stopped Ebola by freaking out and the next midterms are 4 short years away. They will probably attempt to institute more midterms somehow.