Cuban-Americans Prepare for Travel Rules

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Tue, Jun. 29, 2004


Cuban-Americans Prepare for Travel Rules

JOHN PAIN

Associated Press


MIAMI - A day before tough new U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba went into effect, hundreds of Cuban-Americans scrambled to get onto packed flights Tuesday to visit their families in the communist nation.

Many were angry that there were not enough seats for them all.

At one point, about 200 people waited to check in at Miami International Airport, chanting, "We want to fly!" and "We must go to Cuba!"

"The whole world can travel to their countries whenever they want, but we can't," said Jorge Luis Rodriguez, who was trying to visit his sick 81-year-old mother outside Havana.

The new rules that begin Wednesday are part of the Bush administration's attempt to hasten the fall of Cuban President Fidel Castro, but they have also split the politically important Cuban exile community in an election year.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/9040050.htm
(Free registration required)

[bluestateguy]

1. I suggest they take that anger with them into the voting booth

25% of the Cuban vote, that's all we need.

[lapfog_1]

2. Those folks in your pictures

sure look like godless commie TERRORISTS to me!

But this thing bothers me...

With the godless commies in China... we have to travel and do
billion dollar deals and so on, because we know that the more
they are engaged with the west, the better and communism will fail
from within BUT

with godless commies in Cuba... we have to isolate them and allow
no food or medicine (or tourism, apparently), so that the people
will suffer greatly and blame their leaders so communism will fail
from within.

OK, what's the logic again?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Logic's hard to find in that position, isn't it?

This position has remained unchanged since 1897, except for the time we had US-approved brutal dictators in place there.

This memorandum was published in 1897, written by the Undersecretary of War, John C. Greenwood. This part is charming:

We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army.

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/bmemo.htm

What about this gem?

"Cubans ought to be taken by the scruff of the neck and shaken until they behave themselves."
U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, 1906

http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~godfried/cuba.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you see, whatever it is that gets some of these guys' panties in a bunch started long before communism as we know it loomed into view!

[struggle4progress]

4. This is so wrong.

Ending the embargo would let families get together. And it would be good for business.

[Billy Burnett]

5. We don't see any Dems speaking out against this do we?

As a matter of fact, my sources inform me that Mr Kerry will continue the embargo and travel sanctions if elected.


When it comes to US/Cuba relations, dem party = repug party

[struggle4progress]

6. I can't predict what Kerry will do.

But I do believe if our side showed a bit of courage, we'd find enough Republican business folk who want access to the Cuban market to make it worth reaching across the aisle on this one.

[Vogon_Glory]

7. This Is Where The Reality Check Starts

The new travel restrictions for Cuban exiles are where so many of the Cuban exile community get to find out the effects of the Boosh regime catering to the furthest right of the Cuban exile community's de facto "leadership" first-hand. The exiles-turned-American citizens who smugly sat back while the likes of George Bush, Tom DeLay, and Otto Reich have restricted the right to travel of their fellow American citizens now get to find out for themselves just what the consequences are for writing the Boosh regime a blank check with their votes. Reality has a rude way of cutting through the rhetorical BS and for demolishing cloud castles.

I doubt that very many Cuban Americans or Cuban exiles read DU posts. I doubt that very many of them have been swayed by the rhetoric, the passion, or the facts we put in our posts. But despite my opposition to the new travel restrictions, I believe it will prove an invaluable learning experience for those Cuban American voters for learning about the ideology-bound callousness of US Caribbean policy firsthand.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Cuban "exiles" posted daily at the old CNN political message boards

and they were posting up until the final day the boards were open, when a fellow CNN poster told us about DU. I would quite imagine they look in from time to time if not frequently, since they know people post here who are interested in Cuba.

I know a poster from an old Delphi message board who is a bouncing-off-the-walls "wife of an exile" (so she claims) who knows all about DU, and she consistantly throws herself at anti-travel ban posters whenever possible, using every bit of venom in her body. It would be a shock if she DOESN'T participate here.

During the heat of the Elián grab by the drunken great-uncle Lázaro Gonzalez, in Miami, "exiles" posting nearly crowded non-Cuban posters off boards.

There were some completely well-balanced ones among them, who favor normalizing relations with Cuba, incidently.

[Vogon_Glory]

9. Most People Ignore The News Until It Hits Home

Most people ignore the news until it hits home. Most people feel that they are too busy to keep up with the news either through the corporate broadcast media or on-line. I confess that I have enough spare time to post here on DU; many people do not. The new travel restrictions are going to gore more peoples' oxes in ways that the Elian Gonzalez imbroglio did not.

I expect that the new travel restrictions are going to anger previously apathetic Cuban exiles-turned US citizen/voters and also those who have been giving the likes of the hermanos Boosh and the hermanos Diaz-Balart the benefit of the doubt. The right-wing Cuban on-line activists may rail and scream at their fellow Cuban emigres or at the sons and daughters of those emigres, but there'll be little the self-proclaimed on-line exile leadership can do when people are looking at their candidates and voting their choices. Running into the realities of the new travel restrictions, more than heated Internet exchanges, does more to change peoples' minds.

As for your "wife of an exile" acquaintance, I'm sure that she'd quickly find herself running afoul of the DU board monitors and, quite unlike the state of affairs at the big Nutt/Chase ISP I once subscribed to, she'd be bounced off the boards.