Headed in the right direction, it would seem:
Mr. Obama is not lifting the longstanding trade embargo with Cuba. But according to a senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the policy has not yet been formally announced, the president will use his executive authority to shift policy toward Cuba in three specific areas.
Under the new policy, Cuban Americans will now be allowed to travel freely to the island and send as much money as they want to their family members — so long as the money is not going to senior officials of the Cuban government or the Communist Party.
Second, the administration will take steps to open up communications to the island by allowing telecommunications companies to engage in licensing agreements that will support cell phones, satellite televisions and computers there.
Third, the president will reverse restrictions on gift packages imposed by his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, in 2004. The new rules will permit Cuban Americans to send clothing, personal hygiene items and fishing equipment to family members on the island — again, so long as the recipients are not government or Communist Party officials.
“This is an effort to reach out in support of the Cuban people’s desire to see change in Cuba,” the official said. “By helping people become less dependent on the regime, it opens the space that is necessary to form the kind of grass roots democracy that everybody hopes will come to fruition in Cuba.”
One of the funny things about the last few days regarding the Pirate situation was the false sense of urgency some folks were pushing- “OMG, this has not been resolved in three days!” Yet the same people are probably content with the decades of fail that has been our Cuba policy.
Hopefully this is the right thing to do. It can’t be worse than the status quo, which seems to me to have been pointless.
Barry Soetoro
Those same people are content with our drug "war" policy as well.
cleek
Obama is Just Like Bush.
Bulworth
Maybe this is about all that can be done through executive order, but it is pretty small stuff. I hope we aren’t looking back four or eight years from now thinking that an opportunity was missed.
BR
As Al Giordano pointed out, the fact that only Cuban Americans are to be allowed to travel to Cuba under this policy might get challenged in the courts – it might be a trojan horse policy that finally opens up Cuba for travel by all Americans.
Cris
This is probably easier said than done. Obviously, you can restrict money from going directly to a senior official or to the Party, but it seems pretty likely those senior officials are going to find a way to get to that money.
Kind of like saying you’re sending food to Somalians on the condition that it doesn’t go to warlords. The warlords are going to get their hands on it anyway.
Cris
@Bulworth: check this sentence right before John’s excerpt:
Obama’s executive orders should send the message to these lawmakers (whoever they are) that now is a good time to send this legislation to his desk.
The Grand Panjandrum
This is a good first step. Of courese, I would love to see the Congress end our ridiculous policy toward Cuba but any small step is good. Cuba is a great place to vacation. You just have to go through a third country and to the fine if the American Customs officials catch that your passport has a stamp from Cuba on it. I can’t remember what we paid, but the fine is only a couple hundred bucks. The fine is nothing and well worth it for a great vacation that is very affordable.
a different phil
Well, yes. For example, they are both bipedal mammals. Generally speaking you’re 100% correct, except in the areas of competence and effectiveness in office.
Dennis-SGMM
Our Cuba policy has been a prime example of politics trumping common sense. If it wasn’t for the political influence of the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida we’d have normalized relations with Cuba years ago. We fought a war in Vietnam, the government there is still communist, and yet there was no hue and cry when we normalized relations with the Vietnamese.
Napoleon
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I thought Canada does not stamp an American’s passport who is going to Cuba (well, that is what I have been told).
jonas
Can someone explain how the entire foreign policy of the United States of America towards an important neighboring country was essentially held hostage for 40 years by a couple of bitter old dudes in guayabera shirts at a Miami cafe? If we’re going to have diplomatic relations with fairly unfree or authoritarian countries like Vietnam, Syria, Belarus, etc., why the hell not Cuba?
Halteclere
When in college, I helped a friend who was from Cuba send a set of 30-over rings to her uncle for his ’55 Crown Vic.
I would love to visit Cuba and take a taxi that was built 15 years (or so) before I was born.
Napoleon
@Dennis-SGMM:
We recognize Red China and the USSR quicker after the communist came to power in those nations then Cuba’s government, and those 2 countries can actually do others damage, whereas the Cubans not so much.
Cris
Because those are the same two guys who masterminded the Kennedy assassination.
Halteclere
Yea, but Cuba (conspiracy theory says) was behind the Kennedy assassination. Therefore no one who was alive at that time will ever get to experience the promise land of full diplomatic relations with the US!
Ricky Bobby
If you are interested in actually bringing down a communist government, THIS is the way to do it.
Zifnab
Cause Cuba is a hundred miles off the coast. People can actually visit it. One thing to say, "Communism is full of monsters and tyrants" while importing Chinese textiles. Another thing entirely to have a respectably sized next door neighbor be all loud and proud and still do business with them.
And then there’s the fact that, fifty years ago, Cuba held a nuclear gun to our heads. That does bad things to diplomatic relations.
Martin
Well, I think this is the most definitive proof yet that Obama is a commie. Excuse me while I go buy more shares of Tetley and Lipton stock.
Keith
Hate to sound like an opportunist, but I just want easier access to Cuban cigars along with the ability to vacation there (love Cuban food, hate Miami)
JenJen
I think the Pirate thing was very illuminating. Listening to Limbaugh, Gingrich, Red State, et al openly root against the US Navy and the United States just so the President would look bad sort of sealed their derangement for me.
I took a spin around that Red State "piece" you linked to earlier, and the comments section is astounding; the author refuses to apologize for never correcting his early and false facts, and just in that anecdotal thread one can see the clear divide between moderate Republicans who wish to give the President his due, and those who attack anyone suggesting any such thing.
Ouch.
Cris
Love Gloria Estefan’s Cuban music, hate the Miami Sound Machine
Napoleon
After we encouraged an invasion of their country staged from our shores
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
No way man! Sanctions are going to work. You just have to give them time. Man, you liberals give up too easily. WOLVERINES!
Just Some Fuckhead
It will be nice to finally ship our Cubans back to Cuba where they belong.
someguy
A well-deserved nuclear gun, thanks to Eisenhower’s meddling in Central America.
Corner Stone
@Keith
God how I hate Miami. Given the choice between being forced to go to Miami again or taking a sharp stick in the eye, I’m pretty even. In fact, now that piracy is all en vogue maybe I’ll stock up on a nice felt eye-patch and practice my Aaaarrrrrrsss! Just in case the dilemma presents itself.
Halteclere
@JenJen:
Yea, I listened to Michael Savage a little bit last Thursday and he was emphatic that the Navy is nothing but a floating brothel.
Of course his brilliant plan was to get submarines involved to stop the piracy.
Corner Stone
@jonas
I’ve never understood this either. Do you think it’s because those same bitter dudes wanted to bogart all the underage sex slaves on the island for themselves? Or maybe they’re the only ones with a cigar connection and wanted to keep the prices artificially high through a stranglehold on supply?
And I’ve had cubans (the cigar not the sex slaves) and they’re not appreciably better than a really good cigar I can find in the humidor of my local Spec’s.
If someone answers this question please share with the board.
Svensker
I had an argument with some right wing "freedom isn’t free!" types a few months ago about this issue, in which I argued that having the U.S. Government dictate to which countries Americans were allowed to travel was the apotheosis of unfreedom. Their answer? "But, but, they’re commie!"
Apparently, the act of being different from Americans bestows a particularly virulent and infectious leprosy on those scary Others. Given contact, Americans might catch this horrible leprosy and Look At The World In a New Way or, in other words, die.
Good for Obama. A little slow and cautious for my taste but still, progress.
Zifnab
@Napoleon: @someguy: Hey, I’m not saying it wasn’t provoked. I’m just pointing out that it happened.
Living on the gulf coast during the Cuban Missile Crisis and being told, "Yeah, but when you think about it, the last two Presidents really kinda brought this on us themselves" doesn’t suddenly endear the Cubans to my heart.
One of the biggest problems with the Communist revolutions of the 50s was the massive ego attached to any revolutionary leader. Everything was for the "cause" even if it meant thousands dying in killing fields or tens of thousands being displaced or millions starving from ideological policies.
Castro spent decades putting the "Dick" in Dictator. I can’t honestly show shock at America’s inability to come to terms with him.
Corner Stone
@Zifnab
Bygones bitchez!
The Moar You Know
Oh hooray. Soon South Floridians can know the joy us San Diegans have held back from the nation for so long: a bunch of xenophobic mouth-breathing fucktards will be loudly urging the nautical equivalent of "BUILD THE FENCE" to stop the hordes of illegal Cuban immigrants that are sure to ensue.
Maybe the Minutemen will all move there. I’m willing to throw in for their gas if they’re willing to leave.
scav
Z- mmmmm, what Castro may have started, cheney certainly took to new unassailable heights. I can only hope it takes over 50 years for this nation to get over it and even begin to consider sending care packages to repub. kinsfolk.
gwangung
Well, that’s because the first generation Vietnamese immigrants hadn’t burrowed themselves into local economies enough and multiplied….
someguy
@Zifnab
A lot of that heavy handed stuff was necessary to break the back of the Batista-followers. Imagine 5 million people, who are just like the old irritating Cuban guys in Miami who drive people batshit, except they’re running the country at the time, and howling like Rush Limbaugh over the exact same things Limbaugh howls about, taxes and single payer health care. They’re mainly pissed because the grownups took away all their toys. It’s no shocker they vote Republican because they were Gingrichites before being Gingrichite was kool. How can you not be in the Castro’s fan club?
Richard Bottoms
Can you think of a better day politically for Obama to put this policy into place. The Right will go insane of course, meanwhile everyone who isn’t Cuban, and over 40 years of age will be focusing on the successful hostage rescue.
He shoots, he scores. Again.
The Moar You Know
@Dennis-SGMM: Ah contraire, mon frere. You should’ve been in Garden Grove or near one of the SoCal Viet enclaves that sprung up after 1975. There weren’t a lot of them but they were PISSED.
And now all their tears mean nothing, and most of them go back and visit. Same will happen with Cuba.
Origuy
There wasn’t the level of protest with Vietnam, but the immigrant community didn’t have much political clout. They were more spread out in a large state that usually wasn’t a factor in the presidential primaries, and fewer were citizens in 1995. Most of the objection came from veteran’s groups and the usual rightwingers.
There still is a lot of antipathy toward the Communists among the Vietnamese-American community, though. Every time there is a dispute, one side calls the other communists. Last year there was a big fight over naming a stretch of Story Road in San Jose "Little Saigon". There were protests and even a hunger strike. Non-Vietnamese thought the whole thing a tempest in a teapot. The pro-Little Saigon group got enough votes for a recall of a Vietnamese city councilwoman who had proposed a different name. The recall election last month failed, probably because enough non-Vietnamese thought it was a waste of money and voted against it.
Cris
@Corner Stone: To take the question a little more seriously than I did upthread, I do recognize that when the government confiscates your property and turns you into a refugee, it tends to radicalize you. It’s the one thing that softens my view of Ayn Rand: her family caught the business end of the Bolshevik revolution. No wonder she became a private property absolutist.
scarshapedstar
Well, booooo. I’m not Cuban, but I want to visit Cuba. Can I make up a Cuban uncle or something?
The Moar You Know
@Cris: Back in the late 80’s, I was a student at UC Santa Cruz, and took a class in "Third World Cinema". Of course, we ended up watching some Cuban film one day. The film ends, the teacher starts in with some entirely predictable 80’s leftist balderdash about Coooba being the worker’s paradise, Coooba is good to their people, no one dies or lacks medical care in Coooba, etc.
A somewhat older girl, probably in her early thirties is sitting a few rows over from me and then stands up – she’s got tears streaming down her face – and she screams "fuck you, you bitch – Castro killed my parents!" and then runs out of the classroom in tears.
The teacher, for once, was left at an utter loss for words. She managed to croak out a "class dismissed" and we all left.
I’ve always remembered that, even when US Cubans are being utter fucktards like they were with that kid, Elian. A lot of those folks have some damn good reason to be pissed off.
AhabTRuler
You’re not wrong, but how many people can say "America killed my parents" now (or then)? Trying to pick the saints and the sinners in political history is well nigh impossible. Did Castro (& Che too, you hippies) kill people? Yes. Did Batista? Yes. Aside from that, I am not sure what I can tell you.
passerby
This is wonderful news. I can’t wait until the policy expands to include every American. I’m betting it will.
And uh, do Fidel and Raul know about this? I mean are they ok with the creeping spirit of capitalism it will engender? Telecommunications will blow Cuba wide open, are they (the Castros) ready for that?
LM
@Moar you know
Also a UCSC grad, so I know what you mean about the romanticized view of Cuba. This stupid U.S. policy has done no good in terms of its stated goals, and reaction against it makes the left buy into silly mythology.
I went to Cuba years ago and toured its notorious prison of the East. But that didn’t chill me as much as the frequent mandatory Committee for the Defense of the Revolution meetings Habaneros had to endure. As one person put it (once I got away from my "minders"), imagine the nosiest purist in your neighborhood being able to report you for insufficient revolutionary fervor. (During Cuba’s "special period" when goods were scant and rationed, the silver lining for them was having an "I was still in line" excuse for being late.) The "news" consisted of papers carrying only Castro’s speeches and patriotic screeds about Jose Marti.
When I returned home, otherwise rational people of my political persuasion kept telling me this was all their choice, and that if artists there were being imprisoned there, it must be their own fault.
What a nightmare.
It’s good to have a practical President for a change. Good riddance to bad policy, and I hope lefties stop just reacting against.
PS But about Elian… I will never understand why Janet Reno had to pull his custody case out of court. What was the big hurry? If she’d waited two weeks for the judge to send him back, rather than send in guys with guns, maybe we wouldn’t have needed that recount in Florida.
toujoursdan
As a Canadian I have visited Cuba a few times. It is a fascinating country. It’s best to visit it now before communism falls and there is a McDonald’s and Starbucks on every corner like everywhere else.
A (non-Cuban) American friend of mine has gone to Cuba a few times. He flew though Cancun. The Cubans won’t stamp your passport by law. The trick is to avoid the re-entry stamp by the Mexicans when you return from Cuba back into Cancun. Having an entry stamp into Mexico from the US and a re-entry stamp back into Mexico without the stamp of the 3rd country you exited Mexico to visit can tip off a suspicious U.S. Customs agent when you return to the U.S., if that makes sense
If you say "American" when you return to Cancun from Havana, they often won’t stamp it. If the Mexican customs agent looks like he will anyway, you can slip him a $20 and say in Spanish "no stamp". (Alternatively, you can try to cleanly tear the page out, but that is mutilating a passport and illegal.)
It’s best to fly to Havana from Cancun Mexico. If you fly directly to Havana from Canada remember that any flights over the U.S. have to submit their passenger lists to Homeland Security and they can track you down from that list if they chose to.
Just some helpful advice. It’s a fascinating trip that doesn’t have to be expensive or all that difficult.
Jay C
Well, for another reason, Vietnam was a virtually unknown country thousands of miles away on another continent, a French colony for 75 years, and the Vietnamese didn’t even travel/settle/emigrate to the US until the 1970s in any appreciable number.
Cuba, on the other hand is right next door, and has had its history (trade, culture, commerce) entwined with that of the US for nearly 200 years – ever since the US strongarmed Spain into giving up Florida in 1818, and Cuba 80 years later. The American-Cuban and Cuban-American interconnections are pretty deep-rooted, and while it’s a easy simplification to classify the Cuban-exile bloc as "bitter old guys in guayaberas in Miami cafes" (no less glib for being substantively true) – the wholesale dispossession and expulsion of the Cuban middle and professional classes by Castro is still one of the major injustices of the last century. And validating this dispossession – (however well-integrated or affluent the forced emigres may have become) will still remain one of the major red-line issues which will influence US-Cuban relations. At least until the day when the island isn’t ruled by anyone named "Castro"
Blogreeder
Told ya Obama was a socialist. Nobody believed. That’s what happens when you pal around with terrorists.
HeyerKnowledge
If President Obama likes communism so much, maybe he should move there. Instead of trying to help change our government into something it was never meant to be.
someguy
@ JayC
Couldn’t disagree more. What gives somebody the right to accumulate wealth by exploiting others? That’s what the Cuban middle class was about; they were more like our upper class, comparable to AIG executives and their ilk. The howling about higher taxes from the teabaggers is just more of the same noise from the people on top; they always have enough rabble on hand to make it look like a middle class phenomenon, but it’s the wealthy putting up a fuss now that they are finally being asked to pay their fair share. "Property rights" is a fallback defense that exploiters raise when the people wise up to their business methods and the government finally decides to do something about it.
JosieJ
@Zifnab:
And yet I can get on a flight to Moscow tomorrow morning if I wanted to. Hell, there’s a flight out in an hour and fifteen minutes if I could make it to the airport that fast.
Ash Can
@HeyerKnowledge: You forgot to add "Also."
@someguy: There were plenty of "exploiters" who got the boot, but it was a very heavy-handed boot. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?) Rather than picking out those most guilty and subjecting them to due process, whole communities were rousted and people were murdered. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Having said that, though, I’m in agreement that the Cuba embargo has done little if any good whatsoever over the decades, and I like Obama’s approach (the telecommunications licensing is particularly inspired). But The Moar You Know @ 41 is right; many people have good reasons for their prejudice toward the Cuban government. The trick is to be able to balance sensitivity to people who were deeply and truly injured against the realism that the grudges held by the few can’t be allowed to hijack policies that, if enacted, would be for the greater good of the many.
Corner Stone
@Cris
And I completely get that, and I understand the story TMYK related about the woman in film class.
But it still tells me nothing about why we (the US policy makers) have been in slavery to their will for 40+ years?
Why are they so powerful when they have to be a subset of a very small minority group?
HeyerKnowledge
Hey, let’s all of us become socialists, then it will be a matter of class. Oh wait, it’s already happening.