The resolution passed the House, but must still pass the Senate and the President.
After 40years of embargo of Cuba, is this now admitting failure of American Foreign Policy, or just simply correcting a mistake?? And what exactly does everyone think will happen to this poor island once corporate America gets there? Will we be turning Cuba into another Bahamas, or can Cuban culture and American tourism somehow live side by side?
One strange thing on this, I checked with some normal news sources(CNN, BBC, Wash. Post) but couldnt find anything on this passing. I would think this would be historic news.
I for one hope they do. I have wanted to vacation in Cuba for some time, and while as a non-US passport holder I am not restricted per se, I do travel to the US frequently for business and pleasure and I have heard, anecdotally, that US immigration (they are actually stationed over here in our case) look askance at Cuban visa stamps.
Given my previous hassles with them, travelling on valid visas, I’m unwilling to take the chance until that stupid law is rescinded.
I thought that one of the things that makes living in a free democracy different from living under a totalitarian government is the freedom to travel. Yet I cannot travel freely to Cuba should I choose to do so. I think that the embargo on Cuba is ridiculous and is actually something that Castro wants to maintain. That way he can blame America for all of Cuba’s ills and also keep American ideas away from ordinary Cubans. This should have been gotten rid of a long time ago. Too bad presidents from both parties over the past 40 years have been too timid to stand up to the Cuban lobby in Florida.
PS I know that Castro is a really bad guy who has done terrible things to his people. But the embargo is doing nothing to weaken his control of the island. Free trade and free travel is the best way to topple his obsolete system of government.
It seems that Floridaland doesn’t have as much automatic clout as one might think. The embargo failed long ago. Yes, Cuba is a miserable place to live (and Western Europe, for all its finger-wagging at the US, has done somewhere between bugger and all for Cuba). But it’s still under Tio Fidel and likely will be unti he shuffles off his mortal coil. These days, the trade-and-travel embargo is a prop that supports Castro. It’s time for the policies of my grandfather’s generation to undergo a reexamination.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science web site has a very detailed history of the overal Cuban travel embargo.
Check the San Jose Mercury News for more information on the House vote. You will find that the Bush Administration has indicated it will veto the bill if it passes the Senate.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science web site has a very detailed history of the overall Cuban travel embargo.
Check the San Jose Mercury News for more information on the House vote. You will find that the Bush Administration has indicated it will veto the bill if it passes the Senate.
What good would lifting the travel ban do? The only thing I can think of is that it would bring more money to Castro’s government and mean that americans would no longer have to fly to Thailand for underage prostitutes.
Let’s see, [ul][li]You think that the 40 year old embargo is a failure of American [/li]Foreign Policy, [li]You also think that lifting the embargo will be detrimental to Cuba.[/ul][/li]To follow that line of thought means the embargo is protecting Cuba and hurting the U.S. Therefore, if you support the bill to do away with the embargo, you must be a member of imperialistic faction of the U.S.
[ul]:dubious: [sup]You din’t say that did you?[/sup][/ul]
Well actually I wasnt giving my opinion, I was just asking what everyone thought, perhaps I should have made my stand more clear.
I think the embargo should be lifted. Lets face it, after 40years what exactly have we accomplished besides impovershing a 3rd world country? I think a “kill them with kindness” approach at this point could accomplish more than an embargo.
That would be easier to buy, if it weren’t for the remark about the Bahamas, Cuban culture and American tourists. I’m not defending the Bahamas, since it might help if they had a little competition from Cuba. But what else besides tourism does Cuba have to offer? Cigars, rum and sugar?
Again you seem to be condemning the whole period of embargo. I agree that it is outdated, etc., but not that it wasn’t needed when Castro was supported by the Soviet Union.
Don’t knock the benefits of good rum and cigars. But I doubt that the American sugar lobby would allow cheap sugar to come in from Cuba.
As for the glib comment from puddlegum, if you go to Thailand to try and find underage prostitutes you might well find the inside of a Thai prison. Not some place anyone wants to be, so say those who’ve seen it. You might be thinking of Cambodia or Vietnam.
I’ve read a tourist can get a paper visa separate from his/her passport. That’s how many US citizens visit Cuba via third countries and not get into trouble.
According to Bill Griffith, who authors the “Zippy the Pinhead” comic, Cuba has excellent ice cream and nearly empty roads.
And don’t forget the excellent but very cheap coffee. To annoy the Yanqui corporations even more, Imports from Cuba could essentially come on what amounts to a shuttle, given how close it is to the continental US.
The Cuban embargo, an attempt to unseat an illegitimate Communist dictatorship, hasn’t been successful because the United States has had so little help from the other nations of the world in its attempt to isolate Fidel’s Cuba. If other nations had shown a modicum of conscience and backbone and helped to make Cuba a pariah state, the brutally repressive government could have been brought down already. To blame Cuba’s woes on the US is to fail to recognize that the rest of the world is not embargoing Cuba. The real reason that Cuba is such a hellhole where people risk their lives trying to flee over shark-infested waters is that Communism is a disastrous political system which impoverishes people. Cuba is poor because it is kept Communist by a dictatorship that doesn’t afford its people the rights of free expression, association, or travel. There’s a good reason that a famine has never occurred in a democracy.
