The Traveling Salesman President in Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

March 25, 2016
The Traveling Salesman President in Cuba

by Nelson Valdes

On the afternoon of March 21, I watched on television President Barack Obama meet and speak with Cubans who are involved in some type of commercial enterprise. The Washington crowd calls them “emprendedores.” (“go-getters”) Most were young urbanites of a nascent new class. They are apparently the hope of the Foggy Bottom strategists; the makings of the Cuba Obama says he wants. The US media at times calls them “a new class” – meaning a new class of people favorable to capitalism. A few of them spoke to the US president or answered questions that he had, seemingly assuming that their needs or difficulties could be addressed by the man in the White House. But capitalist magic does not work like that.

One person, a bit older than the newbies, spoke on behalf of a cooperative of agricultural workers. This fellow knew what his agricultural cooperative was doing and what the workers needed. He was precise and to the point. Obama did not seem to understand or did not want to address what the Cubano was saying about the impact the US embargo/blockade was having on his cooperative. The encounter with the budding capitalists was what Obama went to Havana to hear and the second encounter was one he needed to ignore as it represented Cuba’s revolutionary answer to the first one.

At one point, the US president went off in a different direction and referred to Shark Tank, one of his favorite TV shows. Yep. It seems that Barack Obama, after all, likes a Cuban — you know — Mark Cuban, one of the rich capitalists who dispense advice and sometimes money on the show to contestants with Great Ideas for not very important products. Perhaps Obama thought that that show should be a daily habit for all those enterprising Cubans. (There is no Shark Tank to help out farmer cooperatives.) Perhaps a Cuban version of the show could be called “El Garrotero” — the loan shark.

The show could even be exported to Cuba in one of the weekly paquetes. Or, perhaps it is already part of the paquete. The Paquete Semanal (weekly packages) are widely exchanged hard drives of pirated popular culture products. It might be interesting to explain to Cubans that they are already enjoying a common form of entrepreneurial capitalism in the paquete, which, after all, is capitalists capitalizing on other capitalists.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/25/the-traveling-salesman-president-in-cuba/

[forest444]

1. His sales pitch failed in Argentina however.

Besides the ill-advised timing of the visit (on the 40th anniversary of the coup), Obama made the unfortunate faux-pas of taking off his wedding ring before shaking hands with a group of young people who had just sat through his speech (!).

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.perfil.com/politica/Obama-se-saco-el-anillo-mientas-saludaba-a-los-jovenes-en-la-Usina-del-Arte-20160324-0045.html&prev=search

The takeaway is that he arrived in Argentina alienating the left, and left insulting the right.

[Judi Lynn]

2. That's funny! I've never seen anyone do that. I'll bet there's a good explanation, however.

I'll bet it's possible he has lost some weight recently and didn't have the ring altered, and feared the ring might fall down around the feet of the people he was meeting or something, and get lost.

I've heard people claim someone is so crooked you might want to count your fingers after shaking hands with him. I'm pretty sure President Obama is too suave to do anything that rude intentionally.

Have you heard any more on it? It would be good to hear his explanation, however, to put the students' minds at rest.

[forest444]

3. Good call, Judi.

You're right: the President does look as though he's lost a few pounds over the last several months (not that he needed to!).

Neither President Obama, nor anyone else in the White House, has made any comments as to this particular flap. Your guess, however, probably in fact the right one.