Posted on 06/10/2005 1:35:44 PM PDT by wagglebee
"Fool me once," they say, "and shame on YOU." "But fool me TWICE and" ... well, you know how the saying goes
In 1960 Castro stole almost $2 billion from U.S. businessmen and stockholders; 5,911 businesses were stolen – lock, stock and barrel – from their hard-working, capital-risking, rightful owners at gunpoint. This was (and remains) the biggest such heist in history.
In two weeks, and using a few bands of machine-gun-toting goons, Castro swiped more from American businessmen than all the "nationalizations" (lootings) by all nationalist (looter) regimes on earth have swiped from us combined. ("Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," p. 139)
Then Castro crowed about it gleefully into a phalanx of microphones and shrieked that he'd never repay a penny. And he hasn't. A few who resisted the plunder, such as U.S. citizens Howard Anderson, who had his jeep dealership stolen, and Robert Fuller, whose family farm was stolen, were bound, gagged, shoved in front of firing squads and murdered.
That, by itself, makes the "National Summit on Cuba" being held in Mobile Alabama's Spring Hill College this week (June 10-11) a sorry joke. This Jesuit College is hosting a two-day hoedown put on by the leftist World Policy Institute to showcase the marvels of Cuba as an investment and trading partner and to whoop it up for ending the "embargo" against Castroland – though, characteristically, this Institute prefers to parrot Castro's own term of "blockade."
The city of Mobile is also an official host and sponsor of this Summit. And why not? Mobile and Havana are officially "Sister Cities"! The touching ceremony celebrating the many business and cultural exchanges between the loving sisters was held during President Clinton's cozying-up-to-Cuba ploy in 1993. The festive occasion included much toasting and smiling and gurgling and slapping of backs between Mobile's representative, Robert Schaefer, and Cuba's representative, Oscar Redondo.
Came time for the ten-year celebratory bash in 2003 and Mr. Redondo was unable to attend. Weeks before, he'd been fingered by the FBI as a Castro espionage agent and booted out of the country. Redondo was a courier for Ana Belen Montes, the Defense Department's former "Cuba Expert" who is currently serving a 25-year prison term after being convicted as a Castro spy. "Montes passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana," said then-Undersecretary for International Security John Bolton.
"If Oscar was a spook, "said a stuttering Robert Schaefer at the shocking news, "he certainly neglected to tell me about it!"
Of course, Mr. Schaefer. Spies are famous for blurting out, "I am a spy for an enemy totalitarian nation!" Friends, can you imagine such a line as Mr. Schaefer's from Austin Powers himself? From Inspector Clousseau? Yet I quote the learned Dr. Schaefer precisely from an Oct. 13 issue of the Mobile Press Register.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Schaefer is a college professor, with a gen-yoo-wine Ph.D. in Political Science. Unsurprisingly again, the shrewd and impartial Dr. Robert Schaefer is a an official moderator at this Summit.
In 1998 the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a comprehensive report that concluded, "Cuba is no threat to the U.S. or to any of its neighbors." The Clinton regime, and all the Clintonista generals of the time, whooped with joy at the report. See? See? They beamed as they passed the report around. That's why we're hellbent on cozying up to Castro!
Current jailbird Ana Belen Montes authored the report.
Unsurprisingly, one of those shrewd and impartial Clintonista generals who signed off on that report, Gen. Edward Atkenson, is also a headline act at this week's Summit.
Why not call this Summit "The Saps With Egg on Face Cuba Summit"?
Never left out of these Castro lovefests – of these "lift the economic sanctions" orgies – is the World Council of Churches. This one features its former head, the Rev. Dr. Joan Campbell Brown herself.
But wait! A document from this same World Council of Churches – and I quote exactly here – states: "Economic sanctions should be used to enforce compliance with international law and humanitarian principles. We call on the international community to apply immediate and comprehensive sanctions. We promote divestment and an end to all investments."
Whoops! I forgot – that applied only to South Africa.
Jimmy Carter himself sent a letter to the last National Summit on Cuba in 2002, proclaiming that "the embargo against Cuba is the stupidest law ever passed in the U.S." But wait! Jimmy Carter, while president, imposed more economic sanctions against more nations than any American president in modern history.
Whoops! I forgot! These were against Rhodesia, South Africa, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, the Shah's Iran and Somoza's Nicaragua. Carter was extremely selective in imposing his sanctions. He was careful to impose them only against U.S. allies. Regarding a regime that stole $2 million from U.S. citizens, that murdered countless U.S. citizens, that imprisoned more of its subjects than Hitler or Stalin, that tried to cajole Khrushchev into nuking the U.S., that acts as a training center, resort and refuge for terrorists – regarding this regime, well ... we need to lift any sanctions and promptly embrace them.
Another star speaker at this Conference is Castro's very own trade minister, Pedro Alvarez. He'll recite his script via teleconference. Sadly, this will make any question-and-answer session a bit awkward.
"Senor Alvarez," an attendee might start, "the Paris Club of European creditors reports that you owe them $3.8 billion. They say this debt dates back to the mid '80s and is seriously in arrears. They even say that since June of 2001 you've stopped returning their calls.
"Also, Senor Alvarez, Mexico's Bancomex says it recently closed its offices in Havana and froze Cuban assets in three different countries in an attempt to recoup its staggering losses from financing trade with Cuba. Even South Africa, we hear, was forced to shut off its trade with Cuba.
"Senor Alvarez, could you please give our attendees some ... Senor Alvarez? ... Senor Alvarez? Sorry, folks, seems we've lost our connection with the Cuban minister of trade."
The hosts and sponsors of this Summit to herald Cuba as a prime investment partner will want to avert the eyes of attendees from a Miami Herald article that – by an interesting twist of fate – coincides with their Summit. "Many Foreign Investors Being Booted out of Cuba" reads this week's catchy headline.
"It's outrageous!" The Herald quotes a Spanish businessmen leaving Cuba. "I've gone through endless meetings for more than a year with no result in terms of recovering our investment. They are trying to wear me down," he whimpered.
"What I can't accept," wailed another European businessman," is simply being booted out of here with no solid guarantee I will ever get my money back!"
Our hearts bleed for these unfortunate gentlemen.
Cuba is by all accounts the most beautiful island in the Caribbean. If they could get rid of Castro and the other thieves, they would have more investors than they knew what to do with.
There's a sucker born every minute.
What a dolt.
I hope every second member of the audience is an= US intelligence agent. This conference sounds like fertile ground to pick up some of Castro's stringers, as well as hate America first leftists.
You should know something about Spring Hill. That college works lock-step with whatever the city establishment (which is somewhat conservative) wants. It's been that way since the beginning.
The reason the Mobile business community seems so enthralled with these Cuba things is simple. When Cuba is reopened, by default, they are going to become our biggest trading partner. Not to mention, it would probably prompt the city fathers to seriously consider an international airport.
Look at the former Soviet Union, how many former Communist officials now hold positions of power or prestige in the new capitalist Russia..........
Essentially, much of the same is going to happen when Castro dies. The regime is Castro, I give it at most, 2 years after he dies.
But alot of those mid-level guys, they will have a position of influence in the new Cuba, and that's who the city fathers are trying to reach out to. All these mid-level officials who will have clout in post-Communist Cuba.
Right now, we are trying to shift back to trade based economy, as opposed to the industry based economy that has predominated since WWII.
Also, by having such an event like this in Mobile, quite frankly, increases the chances that more conventions (of whatever stripe) will come to town, and that could be useful in recruiting businesses here.
Just wait until China "nationalizes" the thousands of factories that were built with foreign capital. It will easily be 100 times as much.
Yes, bu the very first thin Castro did was go door to door and confiscate the guns.
I cannot wait for this pig Castro to die. I swear that before the end of my life, I will piss on his grave.
GET IN LINE, SUCKERS!!!
I. CUBA: HARD CURRENCY DEBT* (Dec. 2004)
CREDITORS BY COUNTRY DEBT (in US$)
Japan (1) $2.331 billion
Argentina (2) $1.967 billion
Spain (3) $1.765 billion
France (4) $1.316 billion
Venezuela (5) $992 million
China (6) $682 million
Mexico (7) $480 million
Italy (8) $447 million
United Kingdom (9) $371 million
Germany (10) $317 million
Netherlands (11) $295 million
Russia [post-Soviet era debts] (12) $235 million
Czech Republic (13) $226 million
Belgium (14) $221 million
Panama (15) $200 million
Canada (16) $90 million
Austria (17) $79 million
Brazil (18) $40 million
Trinidad & Tobago (19) $30 million
Uruguay (20) $30 million
Sweden (21) $22 million
Undisclosed Foreign Financing (22) $258 million
Other Historic Debt (23) $893 million (est.)
*On the basis of Nov. 2004 exchange rates and rounded to the nearest million.
TOTAL $13.288 billion (est.)
II. CUBA: NON-CONVERTIBLE DEBT (2004 Est.)
CREDITOR GOVERNMENTS DEBT (in Transferable Rubles)
Russia [Soviet-era debt] (24) 20.848 billion
Romania (25) 951 million
Hungary (26) 200 million
Poland (27) 70 million
TOTAL 22.069 billion
Come to think of it, we should have annexed Mexico after the Mexican-American War. But that's another thread.
Hindsight = 20/20
With all due respect, I think that the Mobile city fathers need to realize that:
A. They won't make any money in Cuba while Castro still lives, embargo or no embargo.
B. any business deal they cut with Castro will die with him. The next government of Cuba, whatever it is, is unlikely to honor Castro's debts and contracts.
Great post.
We also should have tried to move on Canada again post 1812, especially when you consider all the mineral resources that country has.
Not to mention, we could have saved them from becoming, well... Canada.
I am convinced that among most of my peers in the business community, there is a genetic inability to comprehend the various manifestations of and variations on the theme of Lenin's NEP. As a guy a few posts back remarked, there's a sucker born every minute.
We'll see ...
Seizing the means of production, an age old Communist goal. Also, some Mobile booster earlier in this thread talked himself into thinking that the West has done very well in the "former" Soviet Union - what with all those "former" KGB people being the ones we're doing business with. There are more ways than one to seize the means of production ...
Well, what other solution do you have.
I wish Castro would die tommorow, let me make it clear, I don't want to business with Castro, but, I have no problem trading with a country on the market system, even if that market system is a bit shady.
Admittedly, pinning all our hopes on the death of Castro is not good business strategy, but, there are not many other solutions out there (other than selling the entire city to David Bronner)
Our Chamber of Commerce has been a complete joke, if they came up with a good promotion, we would easily be in the league of Savannah and Charleston when it comes to tourism.
But once again, no one advocates these ideas, nor an idea which I have personally been trying to push (with no luck, I should note) that Mobile should run a national ad campaign coming into direct competition with New Orleans regarding a certain holiday. We could certainly accomadate a crowd of 300,000 or more.
So my question to you is, ok, so, we won't do business with Cuba, ok. What solution do you have to spur the economy in this city.
Get Benchmark Electronics to locate facilties there. Woo Solectron, Flextronics and Celestica. Compete with Huntsville.
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