Posted on 03/08/2009 10:33:59 AM PDT by Veto!
Lefties around the world are jumping for joy. It appears our president is so concerned that folks in Latin America don't very much like the US (when have they ever?) that he sees normalizing relations with Cuba as just the thing to get all those socialists in Latin America saying nice things about America.
THEN HE QUOTES THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian:
President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.
The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of "Yankee" cooperation.
more at link above
One question, Barak, are you planning to extend welfare payments to Caribbean nations?
I can just see 0 and Mrs 0 descending into the cheering crowd throwing American dollars at everyone present.
At last I understand that ‘repairing our image abroad’ means sucking up to local, tacky little socialists.
The only upside to this that I can see is that Cuba might be open for the world to see what a craphole of a country it really is vs. the lefty Fantasy Island that it’s often portrayed.
How many billion dollars of our money will O give to Fidel just to appease him?
I agree completely. It will be interesting to see what happens after the Castro family is gone.
because Stalin, Mao, Adolph and Benito are dead, Zer0bama will dance with the last of these devils by the pale moon light.
Cuba is open to the rest of the world,,but not a lot of people go.
I kinda now favor offering the a carrot and stick. Free trade with the US, but they liberalize their economy and human rights. I don’t think they will take it.
If people in Latin America, don’t like the US, why are they all wanting to come here? This guy is a fool and a lier.
raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo.
Anyone stupid enough to do “business” with these bandits deserves to lose everything.
I was there ten years ago when Clinton didn’t care who traveled to Cuba. I saw the wreckage that passes for a city, walked and drove all around, made friends, cried at the plight of the oppressed people.
But HoWood creeps travel to Havana too and never seem to see a single problem. If there’s a certain route from the airport into town that doesn’t pass through the slum that is Havana, we were not able to find it. And we looked. The airport isn’t bad. Maybe they helicopter celebs in and land on the Nacional lawn. The one hotel in town where the water and power stay on.
Now that we are stuck with this fool, I hope I hope he continues the maddening pace of his rush to socialism. It can only hasten the critical mass of misery necessary to raise the uninformed from their stupor and rise up at the ballot box in 2010 to begin taking back our government.
This little stunt will not play well in Florida.
The celebs get the 'Thereisienstadt' view of Cuba.
“Hey Fidel, is that your AK-47 or are you just glad to see me?”
Yes, reparations for stolen property is the issue. Just ask the Miami Cubans who’d like to be compensated.
Big US companies like ADM want to do business in Cuba while the people are still enslaved. They have their eye on gorgeous fertile farmlands there. Low wages, you know, which would never translate to lower prices for us.
Someone with more time than I have should research ADM and other companies who want to move into Cuba to see how much they contributed to 0’s election. They backed Clinton, I know, and were leaders of the charge to return Elian Gonzalez to the commie gulag.
This trip to the Carib summit will play exceedingly well with Floridians from the Carib region, who may or may not outnumber the Cubans here now. Lots of Caribbeans come here for work. I’ve met many, and basically like them. Those I know are charming, church-going, hard-working citizens.
Admittedly, I don’t know whether there are inter-island group tensions though. Do the Cubans hate the Barbadans? Beyond me.
Sounds awful. One thing about Holywood libs, and middle-class to well-to-do libs in general, that I’ve noticed, is that they seem to perceive certain demographic groups (”the poor,” black people, etc.) as sort of “scenery.” They probably see the slums as slightly romantic and certainly “authentic,” and fail to have any sense of true empathy for the inhabitants as struggling human beings. Makes it easy for them to live in their bubble. So I can see how a limo ride through the slums may not have made the same impression as a walk or a cab ride did for you.
From the website of the Marxist think tank, Institute For Policy Studies...
Obama’s Agenda for Change and the 2009 Summit of the Americas
excerpt:
'Yes We Can' — Change for the Americas Coming from Below
Hemispheric resistance to the first attempt by the U.S. to force the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) on every nation on this continent led to its eventual defeat at the IV Summit of the Americas, held in Argentina in 2005. The organizers of the April 2009 V Summit of the Americas had hoped to focus on a social agenda of providing a decent living for all those who call the “Americas” their home. The emergence of the PPA, or Bush’s Plan B for the FTAA, represents a threat to the urgent need of having all nations in the hemisphere focus on tackling the disparities that make the region the most unequeal in the world.
According to Obama, “what's good for the people of the Americas is good for the United States.” Among the specific proposals Obama has made (political freedom and democracy; freedom from fear and security; freedom from want and opportunity) in the “New Partnership for the Americas” document, he says that “it’s time for a new alliance of the Americas” that leaves behind “eight years of failed policies” and “top down reforms”, and puts forward instead an “agenda that advances democracy, security, and opportunity from the bottom up”. For Obama to make good on his vision for a new "partnership" in the Americas, the divisive Bush PPA initiative must be laid to rest well before the April V Summit of the Americas gets underway.
The 2009 IV Peoples’ Summit in Trinidad and Tobago
On April 17-19, 2009, the IV Peoples Summit will be taking place in Port of Spain, Trinidad (while heads of state are simultaneously meeting at the V Summit of the Americas).The message of a "change agenda" for the hemisphere will be brought to the island nation by social movements coming from all points in between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego. A key focus for discussions during the People’s Summit will be the economic meltdown hitting the capitalist system, and the opening that this provides for the implementation of a peoples’ agenda promoting sustainable development, social justice, equity, and peaceful coexistence.[ie, communism/socialism -etl]
In conjunction with the Hemispheric Social Alliance, social movements present in Trinidad and Tobago will be providing a "change agenda" that, in large measure, will likely be echoed by representatives from many of the newly elected governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. The V Summit of the Americas will be an ideal setting for Obama to signal a new respectful and consultative role for the US in the Americas as well. Will Obama avail himself of the opportunity to take this courageous step forward? Ojalá!
Source: Institute For Policy Studies (IPS):
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/933
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A little background on Leon Panetta, Obama's choice for CIA Chief...
"In April 1985 [Leon] Panetta joined with 13 of his leftist congressional colleagues — including Ron Dellums, Don Edwards, George Miller, Christopher Dodd, and Les Aspin — in sponsoring a 20th anniversary fund-raising gala for the pro-Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which had been described by Brian Crozier, director of the London Institute for the Study of Conflict, as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB." The IPS was originally funded with millions of dollars from the Faberge perfume magnate and Communist Party member Samuel Rubin and his wife."
"Readers who recall the movement to impeach Bill Clinton remember that one of the charges raised by Clinton's critics was the conflict of interest created when individuals connected with the Chinese Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) — such as John Huang, Charles Trie, and James and Mochtar Riady — helped funnel contributions to the Clinton reelection campaign. Afterwards, the Clinton administration lobbied for granting COSCO a 10-year lease on the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California.
During a March 1997 edition of CNBC's Equal Time program, California Republican State Senator Dick Mountjoy noted that COSCO-linked arms dealer Wang Jun had been granted personal access to President Clinton, and that Wang's business associates had smuggled illegal assault weapons into California for delivery to street gangs by making use of a ship owned and operated by COSCO.
Mountjoy then stated:
The next thing you know, (then-Chief of Staff) Leon Panetta is down here negotiating that port for the Chinese.
There is much more to the COSCO-Long Beach connection than we have room for here, but a good summary of the threat the arrangement made to U.S. security may be found in an item inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon on May 20, 1997.
Even the most unbiased of observers may legitimately ask: Why on Earth is an individual who helped negotiate the turnover of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to the communist Chinese, thereby creating the threat to U.S. national security described in the Washington Times article by Rowan Scarborough and inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep. Solomon, being considered for a top position at one of our nation's most critical intelligence agencies?"
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/655
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From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: Institute For Policy Studies (IPS)
IPS’s [Institute For Policy Studies] Washington, DC headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. Cora Weiss headed one of the IPS's most successful forays -- into Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church's Disarmament Program, which sought to consolidate Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe -- in the name of "peace." In 1982 Weiss helped organize the largest pro-disarmament demonstration ever held. Staged in New York City, the rally was attended by a coalition of communist organizations. During her decade-long tenure at Riverside, which became home to the National Council of Churches, Weiss regularly received Russian KGB agents, Sandinista friends, and Cuban intelligence agents. Weiss became infamous for her role in the psychological warfare conducted against U.S. prisoners of war held in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.
The Liberation News Service, which is a news source for hundreds of "alternative" publications nationwide (with antiwar, Marxist-oriented perspectives), was founded in 1967 with IPS assistance."
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
My opinion — totally unsubstantiated — is that, as long as Castro lives, Cuba is being punished for Castro’s role in the assassination of John Kennedy. Call me loony, but the suspicion exists.
that noise you just heard was JFK flopping in his grave...
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