Sen. Dodd wants to end Cuba embargo

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Sen. Dodd wants to end Cuba embargo
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007
BY BETH REINHARD
[e-mail]

On the eve of a presidential forum targeting Hispanic voters, Democratic candidate Chris Dodd seeks to one-up his more popular rivals by coming to Miami on Saturday to demand an end to the trade embargo with Cuba.

The stance, guaranteed to kick up a backlash among hard-line Cuban exiles, puts the Connecticut senator at odds with the Republican field and most of the Democrats. When Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, announced in Miami two weeks ago that he favored allowing Cuban Americans to freely visit and send money to family on the island, he said he supported the embargo because it would serve as leverage against the repressive regime.
(snip)

In a statement given Friday to The Miami Herald, Dodd favors opening a U.S. embassy in Havana, allowing Americans to do business there, and nixing TV Martí, the U.S.-funded broadcast routinely blocked by Cuba.

''I believe the time has come to say publicly what many Americans believe -- our Cuba policy has neither served America's interests nor brought democracy to Cuba,'' reads the speech Dodd plans to give in Miami today. ``It has only served to strengthen the current regime. It has been an abject failure.''


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/229895.html

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Alrighty!

[Lobster Martini]

1. Come on, it's only been 45 years--give it a chance to succeed!

I'm practicing--I expect to say the same thing about the "surge" in 2052.

[tanyev]

8. Stay the course!

[Cha]

2. I agree but who would

be the boogie man for all those exiled Cubanos?

[cigsandcoffee]

3. I wish they would. The embargo is a ridiculous holdover...

...like sodomy laws or those goofy wigs in the British legal system. If our government were so concerned about Communism, why are we all smoochy-smoochy with China and Vietnam? A good Cuban cigar is worth twenty freighters full of crappy Chinese plastic rubbish.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. I don't know

I kinda like those wigs :)

[Crunchy Frog]

4. OK, he's my guy.

:)

[GOPNotForMe]

5. Good for him! Maybe others will follow.... nt

[Judi Lynn]

7. Cubans have referred to the U.S. as "Yuma," as some travellers have noticed,

and it has been explained to them to have been derived from Cubans' seeing the movie "3:10 to Yuma," which was released in the 1950's. Apparently they're going to be ready to see the remake of the movie soon:

Cubans to see new La Yuma
Town name is lingo for United States, dating to 1957
By WILL WEISSERT | The Associated Press
September 4, 2007

HAVANA It's not big or famous and it's certainly not close, but Yuma, an Arizona desert town near the borders with California and Mexico, is Cuba's most talked-about American locale.

"La Yuma" is Cuban street lingo for the United States, and "Yumas" can be Americans or foreigners from any non-Spanish speaking country.

Many trace the term to 3:10 to Yuma, the cowboy classic based on an Elmore Leonard short story that arrived here after it hit U.S. theaters in 1957. The slang should get a boost with the release of a remake of 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, opening in America on Friday.

"A new movie could mean Yuma is used more by young people who know nothing of the original," said Fernando Carr, who writes a column on language for the official magazine Bohemia.

Washington's embargo prohibits most U.S.-Cuba trade. But American films are commonly shown on state TV and in crumbling 1950s theaters where tickets cost less than a U.S. nickel. A thriving black market for pirated DVDs and videos also likely will ensure some Cubans see the 2007 version of 3:10 to Yuma.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flhcubayuma0904nbsep04,0,6935583.story

[Jacobin]

9. I didn't think presidential candidates were allowed to say anything

about policy that made sense.

:shrug:

What's up with that?

[ohio2007]

10. the same old song and dance for years

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/18/cuba.vote/index.html

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/news/aa101900a.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3209555.stm

1996;
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1996/vp960306/03060815.htm

[Peace Patriot]

11. Don't believe anything Christopher Dodd says. The man is a snake-in-the-grass.

Christopher Dodd was a chief engineer--along with Tom Delay and Bob Ney--of the so-called "Help America Vote Act," the bill that appropriated $3.9 billion to fast-track electronic voting machines all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY progamming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

That WAS the fascist coup, in my opinion. October 2002. Same month as the Iraq War Resolution. IWR guaranteed unjust war; HAVA provided the means to shove the unjust war down the throats of the American people--56% of whom opposed it at the beginning (Feb. '03), and a whopping 70% of whom oppose it now. It was to defeat that great, peace-minded, justice-minded, progressive American majority that "trade secret" vote counting was devised

Key player in the political establishment's decision to end American democracy, at least in a formal sense: Christopher Dodd. Our democracy still lives on in our hearts, but it is effectively, operably over. We no longer have control of our election outcomes. Our vote counting has been made completely non-transparent, DIRECTLY controlled by corporations with quite direct ties to the Bush Junta and extremist causes. We have NO RIGHT to review this secret code. In many cases, there is NO PAPER TRAIL--a recount or audit isn't even possible. This outrageous assault on our democracy took place under the radar of the American people, with both parties keeping a lid on it, and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies black-holing this, the most important news story in our history.

I think Dodd is some kind of stealth candidate. He is a Bilderberg Group member. He voted for the war. Now he says he's against it. Bullshit. He'll say anything. He needs an illusion of some kind of constituency, so Diebold/ES&S can pay him off, with good showings or wins in the early primaries. He's merely playing the Left. No sincerity at all, in my opinion. I can't stand Hillary, but at least you can see who she is. Not so Dodd. You can't see who he is. On the record, he is a warmonger and a corporatist, who sold us down the river, and is now spouting Leftist "talking points." He gives me the willies!

I know that election time is a time for news ideas to be floated, and for political discussion, as we vet the candidates and as they try to distinguish themselves. I understand this, and I know that a good idea can be floated by someone whom I otherwise might not like. It doesn't necessarily taint the idea. But this is different. Dodd--a DLC 'Democrat'--and the very one who destroyed our election system--is now spouting one Leftist idea after another. This has nothing to do with Cuba or sane U.S. policy in Latin America. This has to do with DODD! I don't believe him. I don't trust him. I think he's playing us. He's trying to ride the Leftist movement into fascist power.

[robcon]

12. It's good that someone is bringing up the idea of ending the embargo..

It's about time to end that stupid idea.

[JCMach1]

13. It always galled me we still trade with China and Boycott Cuba

[dipsydoodle]

14. Not sure what his other policies are

but this issue seems to convey he's got at least half a brain.

BTW - In odd posts in the past I've mentioned Cuba welcoming US$'s from European tourists who go there in abundance. I rechecked with my son and some friends and found I was wrong. Apparently they refuse to accept them wanting £'s and Euros only.

[Vinca]

15. I'm actually surprised, given the oil found off Cuba's coast,

that Shrub hasn't offered up the Lincoln bedroom to Castro. The embargo is foolish, IMHO, especially since we do billions of dollars of business with China.

[Vidar]

16. Good for Dodd. . . on this issue.

[Vogon_Glory]

17. When Even Eyes on the Right See That It's Not Working...

Although I've been aware that Senator Dodd was not one of the Tuff-on-Fidel crowd for some time, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my maternal uncle a few years ago. My maternal uncle was anything BUT DU material--he'd been a committed Republican and economic conservative most of his adult life, worked in Republican Party campaigns, was a hefty donor to Republican political campaigns, and even knew no. 43 personally. But even my maternal uncle, as conservative as he was, could see the obvious--that the US government-imposed trade and travel restrictions weren't working--AND SAID SO.

I can't help but wonder just how many other people on the right--admittedly no ideological friends of ours, but folk who still claim to believe in reason and the truth, even if they often strongly disagree with us--have also come to the conclusion that the trade and travel restrictions don't work and it's time to pull the plug on them.

They'll probably join us when the spirit and their economic interests move them (At least in farming districts). I am increasingly of the belief that the impetus for the end of the US trade and travel restrictions will come from without south Florida, not from within it. I suspect that the last holdouts for the embargo and the travel ban will be among the remaining Cosmic Commie Killers among the US-born Republican right, holy warriors for Jayyyyy-ssssusss-uh among the religious conservatives, and the hard-line exiles.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Americans Break Law to Visit Cuba

Sept. 10, 2007, 1:18PM
Americans Break Law to Visit Cuba

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

HAVANA — Barack Obama would lift restrictions on visits by Cuban Americans to the hemisphere's only communist country if elected president. A growing chorus of Democratic and Republican lawmakers would go even farther, loosening the U.S. embargo enough to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.

But thousands of U.S. tourists already travel to Cuba behind Washington's back, and many say being sneaky is part of the fun. Some are scrambling to get to the island while Fidel Castro is still alive, fearing the U.S. government could scrap the travel ban once he's gone and bring profound change to Cuba.

"The fact that you're not supposed to be there, that was the top for me," said Amit, 29, a New York City native who visited Cuba in September 2006, shortly after the 81-year-old Castro fell ill and ceded power to his younger brother.

"I was like, 'It's time to go,'" said Amit, who asked that his full name not be published to avoid U.S. fines. "You just don't know what Cuba will be like after Castro's gone."

More:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5122668.html