We're still boycotting Cuba because...?

[edhopper]

Communism and stuff?
Except China and Vietnam are okay to do business with?
Because the Dems have won Florida in three of the last four Pres. elections without the vote of the aging reactionary right wing Cubans there? (who will never vote for a Dem anyway)

This is just another of our shameful policies we refuse to address as a country.

[Scuba]

1. It's like trickle down. It hasn't worked yet, but just needs a few more decades.

[malaise]

34. Getting up off the floor

[NuclearDem]

2. Well, with China and Vietnam, it's alright because they let us use their sweatshops.

Cuba just routinely hurts our feefees

[edhopper]

3. What if we promote it

as a source of vintage American cars?
And then there are all those great baseball players we could get.

[KansDem]

16. Don't forget Cambodia

The big-box retailers now have clothes made in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

How many Americans died in Vietnam? 58,209
How many in Cuba? 4 during the "Bay of Pigs"

But Cuba remains "off limits?"

[RC]

21. How many non-Americans died in their own country?

Why do they not count?

[KansDem]

31. They do...

I was responding to why the US continues to boycott Cuba when we lost 14,552 times more Americans in Vietnam.

[RC]

32. OK. But...

It always seems to be American deaths that matter, no matter why we are wherever warring in the first place. The many civilians we kill, quite often have no place to go. They are killed in, or around their homes. Those we kill, are still people too.
That is where I was coming from.

But anyway, thanks for the clarification.

[aptal]

4. I have wondered the same thing.

I am surprised Obama hasn't done anything about it. Makes no sense to keep up the nonsense.

[edhopper]

6. I think

he just doesn't want to use the political capitol and have another avenue of attack from the RW.
The only reason to do it is it's the right thing, and i don't think that is enough for him.

[aptal]

8. Maybe towards the end of his Presidency?

I hope so.

[awoke_in_2003]

28. LBJ once said...

that if he walked across the Potomac the headline would read "LBJ can't swim". They are going to attack Obama no matter what he does.

[Blue_Tires]

13. He's taken some baby steps with loosening the travel restrictions

but normalized trade relations is something that needed to happen years ago...It can only benefit both countries....

[Brigid]

5. I have no idea.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Precious bodily fluids

Must protect.

[Vox Moi]

20. … from the International Communist Conspiracy

Pinkos and Fellow Travelers and Card-Carrying members lurking in our midst.

[awoke_in_2003]

29. You ever see a commie drink water?

[aristocles]

9. Because of the political clout of the Cuba-American lobby in the US

They'll never forgive the loss of their plantations and casinos.

[edhopper]

12. Except they don't really have that much clout

Obama winning Florida twice and all without them.

[Blue_Tires]

15. Ultimately, (no matter who is running things in D.C.) the U.S. absolutely HATES

to admit we as a country were hopelessly wrong about something and would much rather hold on to the wrong side of history until the absolute bitter end...

[former9thward]

25. Not true.

Obama got 53% of the Cuban-American vote in Miami on election day in 2012. Romney won in early voting and absentee votes and won the overall Cuban vote only by a margin of 52% - 48%.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/08/3087889/poll-obama-got-big-share-of-cuban.html

[edhopper]

36. I was talking about the old guard

RW Cubans who fled Cuba. I think many of the next gen Cubans born here would like to see the boycott lifted.

[X_Digger]

39. Or what once was that group, yep. n/t

[JHB]

10. Because no Republican wants to be the one who "surrenders" on this...

...and no Democrat (or not enough) want to have to scrape off the crap the RWers will throw at them.

The people willing to fanatically fight over it are the RW Cubans, and they want the boycott. At least, for now. Check back in a few more years, after both Castros and more of that generation on both sides have shuffled off this mortal coil.

[jberryhill]

11. It will destroy the aftermarket in '59 Chevy parts

[Blue_Tires]

18. Well that, and our baseball All-Star game

will look like an intra-squad scrimmage of the Cuban national baseball team....'Merican ballplayers won't even be able to get a goddamned job!

[joelz]

14. It sets a bad example when a poor nation can provide its citizens

with universal health care free university educations and produces so many doctors per capita,unfettered capitalism really doesn't want it citizens seeing this shit in fact it has passed laws prohibiting them from traveling to the island.Well at least they seem to have giving up on murdering Castro...little baby steps to start.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Because Black Beans and Rice don't have the same positive impact as egg-rolls and chow-mein.

[Vox Moi]

19. I always thought that boycotting Cuba was counter-productive

Even if you thought that Communist Cuba represented a great menace to The American Way, the boycott was dumb.
What if we had, instead, traded freely with Cuba and allowed tourism and cultural exchange?
That would have created a large body of vested interests in peace and communication and trade on both sides that would have given the US far more influence, culturally as well as politically, than a boycott.

Both Castro and Ho Chi Minh were very interested in establishing good relations with the US. We refused both, and ended up with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Viet Nam War.

[wercal]

22. The original boycott was in response to Cuban siezure of property from

US Citizens and companies. There used to be all sorts of resorts down there (Lucy met Ricky at one of these), and other businesses owned by US citizens and companies.

That was how it started...its amazing its been perpetuated for so long.

[HereSince1628]

23. Because corporate run America can't forgive Cuba for nationalizing corporate assets.

Which I know is weird and irrational since, in the various investment schemes that have blown up the US economy, it was corporations that were stealing from everyone and they were forgiven.

[valerief]

24. They haven't said, "Uncle." nt

[get the red out]

26. I've wondered the same

Senseless.

[liberal N proud]

27. We hate our neighbors syndrome

And 50 years is not enough.

I don't understand what the whole thing is about anymore. We once boycotted them and banned travel because they were a communist regime and the whole Cuban Missile crisis. I don't think they have anything that can harm us. It is all gotten stupid.

[beachbum bob]

30. 2013 and I still don't believe

that POT is still illegal and we don't have normal relations with Cuba

[NightWatcher]

33. it makes the cigars that much sweeter, being verboten and all....

[MineralMan]

35. Becuz they's Commnists!

That's why. The Republicans are still looking under their beds for Communists. They have not progressed in any way since the 1950s.

We have to make them irrelevant. That's our job in 2014 and 2016.

GOTV 2014/2016!

[Vattel]

37. We are boycotting Cuba to fight Al Qaeda.

[K.O. Stradivarius]

38. Classic car collectors and enthusiasts will desend on the island

like a plague of locusts on the day the embargo is over

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yank_tank

[xchrom]

40. they're SCARY!11

[indepat]

41. TPTB have long since decided Cuba must be taught a really good lesson, that the price for

messing with Uncle Sam will be high, vengeful, and long-lasting.

[onethatcares]

42. beause they have those

old American cars that we can't get here anymore.

[Taitertots]

43. People in control need to destroy Cuba because otherwise it would be prosperous

Right wingers want Cuba to hold up as an example of how poorly anyone who doesn't practice unregulated capitalism will end up.

[jwirr]

44. Because a lot of old Cuban immigrants are still demanding that we do so. They have all too often

backed the rethugs and have refused to even consider what the rest of us might want after all these years.

[maxsolomon]

45. Let's ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DEMOCRATIC Congresswoman

On Bill Maher, she claimed that oppression in Cuba was getting WORSE since Obama relaxed travel restrictions. She's hardcore opposed to lifting the embargo, and was talk-over-Bill vehement about it. I know she's a FL rep, but she sounded like a Cuban Exile mouthpiece.

Thats a DEMOCRAT, people. Lord knows the GOP isn't about to initiate it.

Nothing that requires Congress will get done while Obama's in office. He'll have to do as much as he can alone, and he won't do anything, even hint at changing the policy, until the new congress is voted on in 11/2014. It would give the GOP a line of attack on Dems.

This country is pitiful.

[davidn3600]

46. Cuban-Americans are a major political influence in Florida...especially South Florida.

Even Democrats like Wasserman Schultz feels that influence in the constituency. She's from that general area.

Look what happened to Ozzie Guillen (Marlins manager) when he complimented Castro...the hispanics in Miami were bringing out the pitchforks. And Major League Baseball suspended him for 5 games and had to publicly apologize profusely. Imagine what would happen if you are a politician down there and said good things about Castro or Cuba?

You cannot go down to Miami and talk good about that Cuban government in any way. You will not make it out of there alive.

It's not only Castro and communism though. The Cuban-Americans don't like the Democrats because of JFK and the Bay of Pigs. They viewed the mission as a betrayal by the Democratic party against their people.

[maxsolomon]

47. you don't have to say good things about the Cuban government

you just have to support lifting the embargo and trying a new tactic - engagement. 50 years of futility - it isn't going to break cuba's government.

the exile community controls our policy and our politicians cower in fear. 99% of america could give a flying fuck about their property rights.

[edhopper]

49. So if this segment of the FL Cuban

community never votes for a Democrat. And since the Dems don't need them to win Florida. And since the majority of non-Cuban Floridians probably don't support the embargo. (I grew up in Florid, and there wasn't even support then outside the Cuban community).
Why do the Dems still support this?

[Demo_Chris]

48. Because Cuban American's want the boycott. nt

[edhopper]

50. Fundy Christians

want to ban abortion and Gay marriage, we don't let them dictate our policy.