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Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world. Honestly, the Cuban people can stop this embargo tomorrow morning by simply returning stolen

Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world. Honestly, the Cuban people can stop this embargo tomorrow morning by simply returning stolen property to it's rightful owners and deciding to chose democracy over the support of the Castro family. Same way the patriots at the Boston tea party chose democracy. The Castro family could have ended this suffering decades ago. They decided not to, preferring to see "their" people starve and die of preventable diseases.

jandrese 5y ago
It would be very hard politically to end the embargo now. Florida is too important and the Cuban ex-pat vote moves the needle. If you don’t take a hard line on Cuba you lose almost 30 delegates.
eynsham 5y ago
It’s rather opaque at least to me who the ‘rightful owners’ are: willing buyer and willing seller might suggest indigenous Cubans, but I doubt that would do much about the blockade, and might makes right would presumably suggest that the party is right. Moreover even if the ‘rightful owners’ of property were found, it’s far from obvious how that would solve geopolitical difficulties with the US; after all, all sorts of governments which violate most Americans’ notions of property rights are on very good terms with it. As for the possibility of spontaneously choosing ‘democracy over the support of the Castro family’, at best this is an almost vacuous statement akin to ‘if nobody were to litter there would be no more additional litter’. Even quite praiseworthy and courageous peoples have some difficulty overthrowing their governments (e.g. in Sudan, Myanmar, Hong Kong…); the ‘patriots at the Boston tea party’ made similar choices, but merely choosing revolt does not guarantee success. Finally, on the embargo: the medicines exception of course exists, but US sanctions can, if desired, affect trade with most of the world economy, since most companies have some connexion e.g. to the US financial system. To the extent that is not the case in Cuba, that is because the implicit suggestion of the original quote, viz., that were sanctions loosened certain economic benefits would accrue in Cuba, has itself either been implemented or not been contradicted by some contrary policy.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Even quite praiseworthy and courageous peoples have some difficulty overthrowing their governments (e.g. in Sudan, Myanmar, Hong Kong…); the ‘patriots at the Boston tea party’ made similar choices, but merely choosing revolt does not guarantee success. Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for. > Finally, on the embargo: the medicines exception of course exists, but US sanctions can, if desired, affect trade with most of the world economy, since most companies have some connexion e.g. to the US financial system. If they would rather trade with Cuba than the US, that's their decision.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for. What a brave thing to say from the confort of your sofa. I mean you being American I imagine that should be read “they are fought for mostly by the French with French money and weapons in a proxy war against England”.
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > they are fought for mostly by the French with French money and weapons Lafayette sure helped the revolution a lot, but it's a stretch to claim that it was France who liberated the US. You would need a lot of archeological findings to "find" all these extra french soldiers.
  - eynsham 5y ago
    > Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for This is not quite correct; sometimes they are both fought for and granted—as, e.g., in every mostly agreed decolonisation, or the path from Groote Schuur to the interim constitution, &c. &c. More to the point, that is precisely why I quibble with the claim that the people of Cuba ‘can stop this embargo tomorrow morning’; they could tomorrow start to fight for democratisation (which plausibly leads to the end of the blockade)—with no guarantee of success. > If they would rather trade with Cuba than the US, that's their decision. This is more goalpost-shifting; the initial claim here is ‘Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world’, which it isn’t in the case where all the other countries decide not to trade with Cuba because of American pressure. Of course in this case it is also other countries’ decision quite how to respond to American pressure. Now it so happens that sanctions on Cuba do not seem to have as much extraterritorial effect as e.g. those on Iran, so the question does not in practice arise to the same extent as in this hypothetical. But your original point seems to be that a blockade by one country couldn’t be to blame for that much economic difficulty because other countries may not have instituted such a blockade themselves; this is, as a general point, wrong. (Incidentally, where does the number 179 come from? The UN alone has 193 members—and presumably one ought to add Taiwan &al.)
1cvmask 5y ago
So you support the starvation of the Cuban people (your words) so long as the government doesn't change. What if it never does. You think starvation and collective punishment by the US is the way to go? Would love to hear your thoughts there as there are many countries on sanctions (especially poorer ones) and some politicians even brag on killing more than 500000 children like Bill Clinton's foreign secretary Albright did. https://www.cato.org/commentary/madeleine-albright-back-she-still-living-past https://www.cato.org/commentary/madeleine-albright-back-she-... Here is the opposite of current US policy of starving people in countries whose regimes we oppose: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/herbert-hoover-ussr-greatest-humanitarian-campaign-history-196718 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/herbert-hoover-ussr-gre...
- mc32 5y ago
  I'm curious what the world's rights are vis a vis oil producing countries. If OPEC stopped producing tomorrow, what are non oil producing countries' rights vs the rights of oil exporting countries? We know what George Bush thought, of course and we probably know what most oil consuming countries would want --which aligns with GHW, but what is the responsibility of these sides? Is OPEC obliged to export because if they didn't millions would die? Would it be okay to invade at that point? How do we square things?
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    Then what about stopping fracking or pipelines? Or as Joe Biden put an embargo and withheld vaccine supplies to India as they were dying from Coronavirus even though the US had overcapacity and had already had more vaccinations in stock than the population. Should India attack the US for killing lots of its citizens?
    - mc32 5y ago
      Or should they invade their neighbor for playing around with such pathogens and not having good practices when handling them such they they may accidentally escape? Interesting conundrums.
burntbridge 5y ago
This is an incredibly naive take. The U.S. couldn't care less about democracy in Cuba or anywhere else. It has a long history of supporting brutal dictators in South and Central America as long as they were right wing and pro American. One example: Chile 1973, a CIA backed coupe toppled and murdered the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
midnitewarrior 5y ago
The majority of the suffering in Cuba is due to being cut off from the world's largest economy. The population is largely happy, but have had to survive on little due to the compounded effects of many decades of US embargo. The people are well-educated, have a rich culture, good medical system, but live in an economy that has been strangled by an outdated US policy that causes immense suffering. The Castro's obviously have problems, but the effects of the embargo are as much, if not more significant.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  We're talking purges against the gays here and prison for political dissenters. Thousands risking their lives on makeshift rafts in the hope of making it to the US. That sounds like a happy place.
  - Kaze404 5y ago
    Do you have a source for your claims? The only information about LGBTQ+ rights on Cuba I could find is that not only is discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity is illegal, but a new Family Code who includes homosexual relationships is also being drafted as of 2021. Please do not use our suffering for gotchas on internet discussions. If you actually care, do something about it instead.
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > Do you have a source for your claims? https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/11/how-fidel-castros-niece-mariela-led-a-lgbtq-revolution-in-cuba.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/11/how-fidel-castros-n... They used to send homosexuals to labor camps > Please do not use our suffering for gotchas on internet discussions. Are you Cuban?
      - Kaze404 5y ago
        Do you really want to use actions committed in the 1960s as baselines to judge an entire country today? The United States, 20 years later, allowed LGBTQ+ people to literally die on the streets by HIV. > Are you Cuban? I'm a transgender woman who lives in a country with an active agenda against LGBTQ+ people today, and will not stand for my (and my friends') suffering being used to spread any propaganda that doesn't seek to liberate us.
emptyparadise 5y ago
Do you have any ideas on how this can happen without the same shocks that devastated local industries and social safety nets in the former Eastern Bloc? They were bad enough in developed European countries backed by a superpower (hell, look at how the superpower turned out), I can't begin to imagine how bad it would be in a small country like Cuba.
slightwinder 5y ago
> Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world. Cuba is free to do that, but what about the countries? Or more specifically, the companies who wanted to also trade with US-based companies? In Europe, there were occasionally cases of US-companies who tried forcing European companies to stop trading with Cuba because of their own legal situation. Some succeeded, some not.
pvaldes 5y ago
So let puts it clear. When somebody stole property from the England Crown and half a country from Spanish Crown (land that was stolen first to natives) to make a new country claiming liberty, that was fair and correct and will never return it; And when somebody stole property from American and Spanish families to make a new country claiming liberty, that was unfair and unacceptable and they must return it ASAP. Correct?
- hulitu 5y ago
  So lets put it clear: stealing from you is more than ok. Stealing from me is a crime. (see wars justifications for details)

jandrese 5y ago

It would be very hard politically to end the embargo now. Florida is too important and the Cuban ex-pat vote moves the needle. If you don’t take a hard line on Cuba you lose almost 30 delegates.

eynsham 5y ago

It’s rather opaque at least to me who the ‘rightful owners’ are: willing buyer and willing seller might suggest indigenous Cubans, but I doubt that would do much about the blockade, and might makes right would presumably suggest that the party is right. Moreover even if the ‘rightful owners’ of property were found, it’s far from obvious how that would solve geopolitical difficulties with the US; after all, all sorts of governments which violate most Americans’ notions of property rights are on very good terms with it. As for the possibility of spontaneously choosing ‘democracy over the support of the Castro family’, at best this is an almost vacuous statement akin to ‘if nobody were to litter there would be no more additional litter’. Even quite praiseworthy and courageous peoples have some difficulty overthrowing their governments (e.g. in Sudan, Myanmar, Hong Kong…); the ‘patriots at the Boston tea party’ made similar choices, but merely choosing revolt does not guarantee success. Finally, on the embargo: the medicines exception of course exists, but US sanctions can, if desired, affect trade with most of the world economy, since most companies have some connexion e.g. to the US financial system. To the extent that is not the case in Cuba, that is because the implicit suggestion of the original quote, viz., that were sanctions loosened certain economic benefits would accrue in Cuba, has itself either been implemented or not been contradicted by some contrary policy.

908B64B197 5y ago
> Even quite praiseworthy and courageous peoples have some difficulty overthrowing their governments (e.g. in Sudan, Myanmar, Hong Kong…); the ‘patriots at the Boston tea party’ made similar choices, but merely choosing revolt does not guarantee success. Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for. > Finally, on the embargo: the medicines exception of course exists, but US sanctions can, if desired, affect trade with most of the world economy, since most companies have some connexion e.g. to the US financial system. If they would rather trade with Cuba than the US, that's their decision.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for. What a brave thing to say from the confort of your sofa. I mean you being American I imagine that should be read “they are fought for mostly by the French with French money and weapons in a proxy war against England”.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > they are fought for mostly by the French with French money and weapons Lafayette sure helped the revolution a lot, but it's a stretch to claim that it was France who liberated the US. You would need a lot of archeological findings to "find" all these extra french soldiers.
- eynsham 5y ago
  > Democracy and freedom are never granted; they are fought for This is not quite correct; sometimes they are both fought for and granted—as, e.g., in every mostly agreed decolonisation, or the path from Groote Schuur to the interim constitution, &c. &c. More to the point, that is precisely why I quibble with the claim that the people of Cuba ‘can stop this embargo tomorrow morning’; they could tomorrow start to fight for democratisation (which plausibly leads to the end of the blockade)—with no guarantee of success. > If they would rather trade with Cuba than the US, that's their decision. This is more goalpost-shifting; the initial claim here is ‘Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world’, which it isn’t in the case where all the other countries decide not to trade with Cuba because of American pressure. Of course in this case it is also other countries’ decision quite how to respond to American pressure. Now it so happens that sanctions on Cuba do not seem to have as much extraterritorial effect as e.g. those on Iran, so the question does not in practice arise to the same extent as in this hypothetical. But your original point seems to be that a blockade by one country couldn’t be to blame for that much economic difficulty because other countries may not have instituted such a blockade themselves; this is, as a general point, wrong. (Incidentally, where does the number 179 come from? The UN alone has 193 members—and presumably one ought to add Taiwan &al.)

1cvmask 5y ago

So you support the starvation of the Cuban people (your words) so long as the government doesn't change. What if it never does. You think starvation and collective punishment by the US is the way to go? Would love to hear your thoughts there as there are many countries on sanctions (especially poorer ones) and some politicians even brag on killing more than 500000 children like Bill Clinton's foreign secretary Albright did. https://www.cato.org/commentary/madeleine-albright-back-she-still-living-past https://www.cato.org/commentary/madeleine-albright-back-she-... Here is the opposite of current US policy of starving people in countries whose regimes we oppose: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/herbert-hoover-ussr-greatest-humanitarian-campaign-history-196718 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/herbert-hoover-ussr-gre...

mc32 5y ago
I'm curious what the world's rights are vis a vis oil producing countries. If OPEC stopped producing tomorrow, what are non oil producing countries' rights vs the rights of oil exporting countries? We know what George Bush thought, of course and we probably know what most oil consuming countries would want --which aligns with GHW, but what is the responsibility of these sides? Is OPEC obliged to export because if they didn't millions would die? Would it be okay to invade at that point? How do we square things?
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  Then what about stopping fracking or pipelines? Or as Joe Biden put an embargo and withheld vaccine supplies to India as they were dying from Coronavirus even though the US had overcapacity and had already had more vaccinations in stock than the population. Should India attack the US for killing lots of its citizens?
  - mc32 5y ago
    Or should they invade their neighbor for playing around with such pathogens and not having good practices when handling them such they they may accidentally escape? Interesting conundrums.

burntbridge 5y ago

This is an incredibly naive take. The U.S. couldn't care less about democracy in Cuba or anywhere else. It has a long history of supporting brutal dictators in South and Central America as long as they were right wing and pro American. One example: Chile 1973, a CIA backed coupe toppled and murdered the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

midnitewarrior 5y ago

The majority of the suffering in Cuba is due to being cut off from the world's largest economy. The population is largely happy, but have had to survive on little due to the compounded effects of many decades of US embargo. The people are well-educated, have a rich culture, good medical system, but live in an economy that has been strangled by an outdated US policy that causes immense suffering. The Castro's obviously have problems, but the effects of the embargo are as much, if not more significant.

908B64B197 5y ago
We're talking purges against the gays here and prison for political dissenters. Thousands risking their lives on makeshift rafts in the hope of making it to the US. That sounds like a happy place.
- Kaze404 5y ago
  Do you have a source for your claims? The only information about LGBTQ+ rights on Cuba I could find is that not only is discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity is illegal, but a new Family Code who includes homosexual relationships is also being drafted as of 2021. Please do not use our suffering for gotchas on internet discussions. If you actually care, do something about it instead.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Do you have a source for your claims? https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/11/how-fidel-castros-niece-mariela-led-a-lgbtq-revolution-in-cuba.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/11/how-fidel-castros-n... They used to send homosexuals to labor camps > Please do not use our suffering for gotchas on internet discussions. Are you Cuban?
    - Kaze404 5y ago
      Do you really want to use actions committed in the 1960s as baselines to judge an entire country today? The United States, 20 years later, allowed LGBTQ+ people to literally die on the streets by HIV. > Are you Cuban? I'm a transgender woman who lives in a country with an active agenda against LGBTQ+ people today, and will not stand for my (and my friends') suffering being used to spread any propaganda that doesn't seek to liberate us.

emptyparadise 5y ago

Do you have any ideas on how this can happen without the same shocks that devastated local industries and social safety nets in the former Eastern Bloc? They were bad enough in developed European countries backed by a superpower (hell, look at how the superpower turned out), I can't begin to imagine how bad it would be in a small country like Cuba.

slightwinder 5y ago

> Cuba is also free to trade with 179 other countries in the world. Cuba is free to do that, but what about the countries? Or more specifically, the companies who wanted to also trade with US-based companies? In Europe, there were occasionally cases of US-companies who tried forcing European companies to stop trading with Cuba because of their own legal situation. Some succeeded, some not.

pvaldes 5y ago

So let puts it clear. When somebody stole property from the England Crown and half a country from Spanish Crown (land that was stolen first to natives) to make a new country claiming liberty, that was fair and correct and will never return it; And when somebody stole property from American and Spanish families to make a new country claiming liberty, that was unfair and unacceptable and they must return it ASAP. Correct?

hulitu 5y ago
So lets put it clear: stealing from you is more than ok. Stealing from me is a crime. (see wars justifications for details)