The Cuban Embargo: Long Enough Don’t Ya Think?
January 1 marked the fifty year anniversary of Fidel Castro as the bearded “Leader of the Revolution.” Much was written about the revolution itself and I also found an good chronology of the last fifty years of the Cuban revolution.
However according to the AP article In communist Cuba, a whiff of rugged individualism, not all is well with the Cuban people:
Alejandro, a farm worker who lives nearby, says the problem is not apathy but a lack of freedom. “Solidarity? Fine. But it is no substitute for political change,” said the 26-year-old, who lives with his parents and didn’t want to cause them problems by giving his surname. “People are ready for new things. There’s a lot of frustration.”
In the Belfast Telegraph article Disappearing Caribbean: The unique Cuban way of life, the most obvious point of the story is how Cuba is stuck in some kind of socialist time warp staring the Bearded One:
The visual grammar of Havana has barely changed since the 1950s. The skyline is the same. So are the fabulous cars – Dodges, Buicks, Cadillacs and Chevrolets, held together with rope and soap – that still patrol the Malecon. The revolutionary slogans on the walls are a stuck record; “Hasta la victoria siempre” recycled decade after static decade. The national newspaper Granma (so named after the cabin cruiser that brought the young Fidel and Raul back to Cuba in 1956) remains a shameless Castro fanzine. Old cars, old buildings, old news – for anyone who does not have to live here it’s a heady mix.
And there’s hope as more mainstream organizations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations contend:
In a significant break from the strategy of the Bush administration, Obama has signaled a willingness to have direct talks with Cuban President Raul Castro. On the campaign trail, he created a small stir when he broke with the status quo on U.S.-Cuba policy, stating that under certain conditions he would repeal restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to Cuba–and, importantly, he was able to do so while retaining moderate popularity among the politically significant bloc of Cuban Americans in Florida’s Dade County.
But not so fast Mario, it seems that All signs point to a Jeb Bush Senate Run. With the popularity of Jeb Bush and his relationship with the Cuban-American community, Andrea Mitchell writes there could be a snag:
Obama’s party now sees a political opening in Florida in 2010, with the announced retirement of Senator Mel Martinez. In vying for the open seat, Democrats could even be facing a popular former governor named Bush — Jeb Bush — who is strongly anti-Castro, and potentially the GOP’s best candidate.
Fellow citizens of Florida, Please don’t let the Bush era of debt-fueled spending make you nostalgic of better economic times. I too remember how well the State of Florida responded to the storms, but don’t confuse good civil disaster preparation with Bush political cronyism. The result could be another Bush in Washington and that ought to scare the BJesus out of you.