The Begiining Of The End Of CUBA (Hugo Chavez, Iraq, Canada)

[KevK]

There was a small item in the news yesterday that I think is going to turn out to be big news. The Cuban government, under the new President Raul Castro, has allowed the purchase of private computers which will be imported from Canada and eun Windows just like ours do (for the time only the desktop model is offered).
Why is this big? Simple- the internet cannot be far behind and with the internet will come communication which will bring about ideas. While I do not think Cuba will become an American style democracy, I do think Castro is planning to liberalize and modernize the country. This is just a start to that process. I predict that, in 10 years, Cuba- while not being a "democracy" will be a much more modern country with a private market much as China is.

[saganista]

Raul Castro will turn 77 next month and rather clearly understands himself to be a transitionary figure. The Cuba of ten years from now will bear his imprint, but it will not be under his leadership. He is more of a pragmatist than Fidel, but is still a hard-liner and would have the even harder-line core of the government to deal with even if he were of a mind to make sweeping changes. At the moment, it is a fairly easy sell within the government that some repositioning work needs to be done to ready Cuba for the future. It is likely on this account that there will continue to be essentially small-scale liberalizations (such as those on electronic goods) and that restrictions on private ownership and economic activity may be eased, as they were after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Much may depend here on what sort of relationship can be maintained bewteen Raul and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela having become a smaller but still important bankroller of the Cuban economy. But Cuba is very mindful of what happened in the Soviet Union after communist rule came apart there and has no desire at all to follow along that same sort of path. After half a century of centralized, essentially one-man government, the Cuban economy and society are dominated by people who grew up in and with that model, and there is not going to be the yearning-for-freedom sort of groundswell that right-wingers might be expected to imagine among the Cuban people anymore than there was among the Iraqi people. The US does stand to be a big winner out of Cuba's changing future, but the evolution will be a slow process. We are not going to be welcomed with sweets and flowers. We should be looking for opportunities at no- or few-strings-attached liberalizations of trade and travel policies, not expecting to get much immediate return on the dollar. Our real interests lie in the long run, and we would be foolish to lose those over a mindless devotion to some flawed philosophy that no Cubans and even most Americans do not at all ascribe to...

[rlchurch]

Hopefully the United States will drop its silly embargo of Cuba. American tourists and businesspeople flocking to Cuba would bring about change a lot faster than any coercion. Unfortunately we'll have to wait for a change in Administrations to get that started.

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by rlchurch

......we'll have to wait for a change in Administrations to get that started.

Has not the embargo been supported by many previous administrations - of both political parties?

It appears you want to portray this as a "Bush" issue when CLEARLY it is not

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Has not the embargo been supported by many previous administrations - of both political parties?

It appears you want to portray this as a "Bush" issue when CLEARLY it is not

Everyone since JFK!!! When we get back in there I think we should turn Cuba into a giant ethonal factory and save our corn for cattle feed so my steaks stay cheap!!!

[TnHilltopper]

How is Microsoft able to get around the sanctions that prevent other US companies from doing business with Cuba? Heck, going with Windows may keep Cuba in the dark another decade or two, so maybe they will choose wisely and go with Linux.

[Yeledaf]

Cuba, confined to its slummy little room for five decades by a megalomaniacal fool who managed to combine the political acumen of Stalin with the strutting ego of Mussolini. What a boring little sore of a country. Abandoned by its Soviet pimps, it now seeks a new sugar daddy in Hugo the Toad. Talk about a cheap date -- Cuba is like the girl with big boobs and bad teeth who sometimes forgets to shave her armpits, but only because this month El Jefe decreed that the stores would have no razor blades...

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Cuba, confined to its slummy little room for five decades by a megalomaniacal fool who managed to combine the political acumen of Stalin with the strutting ego of Mussolini.

How embarrassing that Cuba has a higher standard of living, a greater quality of life, and it's people more wealth and prosperity than the US colonial states of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

What a boring little sore of a country.

You have only yourself to blame, since you installed Castro as the country's leader.

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by Mircea

How embarrassing that Cuba has a higher standard of living, a greater quality of life, and it's people more wealth and prosperity than the US colonial states of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Embarrasing to whom? The states of Oregon, California, and New Hampshire of more concern to me. And they are doing quite well.

You have only yourself to blame, since you installed Castro as the country's leader.

I did nothing of the kind. Why, I only recently learned how to install Linux.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Has not the embargo been supported by many previous administrations - of both political parties?

It appears you want to portray this as a "Bush" issue when CLEARLY it is not

I think Obama would be inclined to ease it if not drop it all together- which is what should be done. I mean we have no problem with business in China which is even a more hard line Communist government.