McCain, Obama clash over U.S. Cuba policy

Source: Miami Herald

McCain, Obama clash over U.S. Cuba policy
John McCain used a Cuban Independence Day speech in Miami to hammer Barack Obama on foreign policy as Florida takes center stage in the presidential campaign.
Posted on Wed, May. 21, 2008

BY BETH REINHARD AND CASEY WOODS
breinhard@MiamiHerald.com


Foreshadowing a fierce contest for the nation's largest swing state, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama clashed Tuesday over Cuba in an ongoing foreign policy skirmish played out for Florida's potent Hispanic vote.

Speaking in Miami on Cuban Independence Day, McCain assailed Obama for his willingness to broach talks with the communist regime about democratic reforms, saying it would send ''the worst possible signal.'' Obama struck back a few hours later on CNN, arguing that McCain would continue President Bush's ''failed'' policies.

Even before Obama's televised retort, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton jumped into the fray, clearing her schedule for rallies Wednesday in Miami, Sunrise and Boca Raton that will overlap with Obama's first trip to the state this year. Obama's three-day swing Wednesday-Friday will include mega rallies at 20,000-seat arenas in Tampa and Sunrise and smaller gatherings in Miami and Boca Raton.
(snip)

For decades, the GOP has rallied Florida's politically influential Cuban-American community against the common enemy of communism. President Bush spoke in Miami on Cuban Independence Day in 2002. So did Ronald Reagan in 1983.

But with growth among immigrants from other Latin American countries, the 2008 election will test the traditional alliance between the Hispanic community in Florida and the Republican Party. Hispanic Democrats now outnumber Hispanic Republicans in the state.




Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/541014.html

We should fully engage with Cuba. Its not doing anything but keeping a small minority of vindictive Cubans happy and keeping me off of those great beaches. :)

There must be developers willing to sell their first born to get a toe hold there.

The only thing missing is me on my fourth mojito and some bikini clad locals.

This embargo has to stop. I'm in love with Cuba.

then Cuba would seem to be the logical place to start. Why Miami? That city has no control over the Republic of Cuba and it never will.

Cuba has a very robust democracy, and it also has paper ballots which are hand-counted.

But the issue in the US is always about the so-called lack of democracy in Cuba. Even people who are championing the right of Cuba to exist as an independent nation, who don’t want Cuba to become a neo-colony of Bush’s imperio-fascist empire in the US, they are under the impression that there is not any kind of working democracy in Cuba. So once Fidel or Raul is gone, the whole process can begin.

Canadian Arnold August traveled to Cuba and studied this question of democracy in Cuba in detail. His book, “Democracy In Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections” has been largely ignored if not banned from exposure by the corporate press, so really you have to do a little searching to find it. It is currently being published by Editorial Jose Marti, ISBN: 0-9685084-0-5, with a $24.95 list price.

This book is a first hand study by Canadian Arnold August, of how the "rule of the people" is carried out in Cuba. He examines two constituencies -- an urban district in Havana and a rural district in Cienfuegos Province. he spent months studying the electoral process in order to present a description of the nomination process, elections at all levels and accountability to the citizens. August examined the operations of municipal elections in the period from June 1997 to February, 1998.

Candidates need no money to run, nor for that matter is it allowed. A typical biography for the ward being surveyed:

"The biography of Jesús Pastor Garcia Brigos tells the voters that he was born in Havana in 1961 from a working-class background, and that as a husband and father to two girls he works as a researcher with the Institute Of Philosophy at the CITMA (Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment) after having completed his doctorate in Philosophy. He is a member of the Comité de Defensa de la Revolución, the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, Civil Defense and the Territorial Militia. His biography reveals him as a person active since 1969, first in the youth movement in the late 1960s to later on being secretary of his union local at the place of work in the 1980s, as well as carrying out voluntary work such as contributing to build the Pan American Olympic site. In addition to being elected as delegate to the Municipal Assembly of Plaza de la
Revolución since 1986, as well having been elected in the past to the Provincial Assembly of Ciudad de la Habana, most of his current work has been dedicated to writing and speaking nationally and internationally on the development and improvement of democracy in Cuba and especially the two distinct themes of governing and the electoral process."


Arnold August's book is available from amazon.com.

As an excellent RealAudio intro to his book, the following files were recorded off the soundtrack to his 2001 lecture at the Civic Media Center, Gainesville, Florida, which is shelved as a video there.

note: for best results, keep the speaker volume low, use headphones or a low-powered (not amplified) set of speakers. The CMC is located by a busy street near UF (University of Gainesville, Florida), you can sometimes hear the traffic as background noise, and I didn't filter out much, so noise will be more audible with hi-powered speakers.


Intro, origins, Havana municipalites


Havana municipalities, Nat. Asmbly., nominations, election campaigns


election campaigns, choosing candidates, ballots


Municipal and Nat. asmby.


some Q&As, selecting/nominating candidates, municipal level

that all agreements made in the early 60's will be gone. I hope Cuba comes around, I am sure they will see they are the product of a failed model. The communist experiment died with the politburo. I doubt they will choose to follow the path of N. Korea.

It would be fun to play a few hands in the copa..

had never been put in place Castro would have been out of power 30 years ago. Dumb move by it's proponets back in the 60's.

50,000 square feet of silence!?

Go home, hillary. You've gone past the point of boredom.