Democrats eye Cuban-American vote

By Rafael Lorente
Washington Bureau
Posted August 30 2003

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic Party and several of its presidential candidates are hoping to take advantage of the White House's recent troubles with Cuban-American voters in South Florida.

Stoked in part by Cuban-Americans angry with President Bush for not doing enough to end the four-decade rule of Fidel Castro, Democrats see an opportunity to cause trouble for the White House with a key constituency in a key state.

... Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, one of the leading Democratic contenders, has expressed concerns about Cuba's human rights record. He is also reportedly reconsidering his past opposition to the current U.S. embargo on trade and travel with Cuba in light of Fidel Castro's crackdown on dissidents this year. Because of the crackdown, which included dozens of arrests and long prison sentences for dissidents and independent journalists, Dean said the U.S should not seek to improve relations with the island.

Other Democratic candidates, including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, have met with Cuban-American leaders and are said to be considering the issue. Already, three Democratic presidential candidates -- Florida Sen. Bob Graham, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri -- are embargo supporters and allies of powerful groups in the Cuban-American community.

More...
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/miami/sfl-0829acuba30,0,702523.story?coll=sfla-news-miami

Considering the BIPARTISAN MAJORITY in Congress and most State Legislatures that want the embargo and travel ban lifted it sure like like Dems are right out to lunch on this one!

SHAME SHAME SHAME!

The embargo hurts Cubans more than it helps.

You might find this statement from John C. Breckenridge, the Undersecretary of War, written on Christmas Eve, 1897 very illuminating. It's an old, old conflict:

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

Also, they had absolutely no respect for the lives of the Cubans then, either, which you can see in the same article:

(snip) This population is made up of whites, blacks, Asians and people who are a mixture of these races. The inhabitants are generally indolent and apathetic. As for their learning, they range from the most refined to the most vulgar and abject. Its people are indifferent to religion, and the majority are therefore immoral and simultaneously they have strong passions and are very sensual. Since they only possess a vague notion of what is right and wrong, the people tend to seek pleasure not through work, but through violence. As a logical consequence of this lack of morality, there is a great disregard for life.

It is obvious that the immediate annexation of these disturbing elements into our own federation in such large numbers would be sheer madness, so before we do that we must clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. (snip/...)

The Breckenridge Memorandum
http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/bmemo.htm

This might throw a bit of light on just how much we have ever intended to actually "help" the Cuban people.

I'd be very surprised if they suddenly became Democrats.

http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html
Scroll way down to see the scam that John Ellis("Jeb") Bush and Armando Codina pulled in the taxpayers.

There's so much which has happened with the Bushes and the Cuban rightwing exiles, since before the Bay of Pigs, even.

Interesting results from Jeb Bush + exile terrorists 2,470 entries
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Jeb+Bush%22+%2B+exile+terrorists

On George H. W. Bush:
(snip) In 1953, Bush got money from Brown Brothers Harriman and, with partners Hugh and Bill Liedtke, formed Zapata Petroleum. By the late 1950s they were millionaires. Bush bought subsidiary Zapata Off-Shore from his partners and went into business on his own in 1954. By 1958, the new company was drilling on the Cay Sal Bank in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. These islands had been leased to Nixon supporter and CIA contractor Howard Hughes the previous year and were later used as a base for CIA raids on Cuba. The CIA was using companies like Zapata to stage and supply secret missions attacking Fidel Castro’s Cuban government in advance of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA’s codename for that invasion was “Operation Zapata.” In 1981, all Securities and Exchange Commission filings for Zapata Off-Shore between 1960 and 1966 were destroyed. In other words, the year Bush became vice president, important records detailing his years at his drilling company disappeared. In 1969, Zapata bought the United Fruit Company of Boston, another company with strong CIA connections. (snip/...)

http://www.famoustexans.com/georgebush.htm

George H. W. Bush + "Bay of Pigs" 1,240 entries
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22George+H.+W.+Bush%22+%2B+%22Bay+of+Pigs%22&btnG=Google+Search

^

Bush will get 80% to 90% of the Florida Cuban vote no matter what the Dems do.

...I only hope we don't see the "other Democrats" turning tail on this one too...it is a morally bankrupt position and with considerable support for lifting the Embargo, what can they be thinking? We are seeing the best conditions in at least 20 years set up for a strong progressive voice to defeat not only Bush but to set back the entire neo-con agenda...are the Dems going to blow it?

It certainly looks like it if the Dem candidates and majority of DUers are any indication when it comes to this issue!

Dems have already let a veto proof bipartisan majority opposed to the embargo handed to them on a silver platter slip through their fingers out of ignorance and apathy and hypocrisy.

At this rate the chances that Dems will wake up and put 2+2 together and come up with a well reasoned stance and some backbone before the election looks very remote indeed.

A: They misrepresent Dean's position. Dean didn't say the U.S. shouldn't look to improve relations with the island "ever" as the article implies, but rather, "at this time." He is still against the embargo, but he thinks that Castro's human rights abuses is a factor that has to be considered before the embargo can be lifted. Dean fears that lifting the embargo will not help the Cuban people if by doing so it tacitly endorses Castro to further abuse them. It is reasonable to conclude that Dean will want certain conditions to be set as a prerequisite for the purpose of protecting the Cuban people.

B: They show no evidence that Dean has met with exiles, or was in any way modifying his position to pander to exiles. The author ASSUMES the latter to be a FACT.

C: Buy lumping Kerry, Graham, Lieberman, Edwards, and Gephardt together while only superficially elaborating on their positions, they spin this as shameless, opportunistic Dems trying to take advantage Of b*sh's perceived weakness, regardless of what's right- a popular rethug talking point which has gained considerable traction within the mainstream public.


Let's put our personal differences aside for a second so we can see this article for what it really is- a sloppy, biased attack on the Democratic Party.

is not mine, perhaps because I am not a Democrat. It is so disheartening to see supporters of these candidates unwilling to take a critical look at that candidate's stands and instead excuse and equivocate about short sighted pandering when it is done by their candidate, while attacking it when done by the others.

Do you have evidence of Dean's short-sighted pandering outside of your own opinion?

Am I not supposed to refute base suspicion and innuendo being presented as fact?

---

It is disheartening for me to see people so eager to cynically find faults in others, that they can't concede the possibility that others are genuinely trying to do what is right. I know cynicism is rewarded far too often in this twisted, corrupt world, but a critical eye should work in both directions.

when the candidates talk about the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia and Israel in the same breath as Cuba. Until then, I'll call it as I see it - pandering. And stupid pandering. The Democrat candidate is not going to get that vote.

"Dean fears that lifting the embargo will not help the Cuban people if by doing so it tacitly endorses Castro to further abuse them. "

This is illogical.

Do DUers really think that the Cuban people would let Castro rule them with an iron fist, especially considering their performance against the murderous, brutal, US backed Batista dictatorship?

Is it possible that DUers really think that Castro holds a gun to Cuban's heads to get them to develop a 1st class universal health care system, 1st class full education resulting in 99% literacy, a peaceful gun violence free culture that is a wellspring of music, dance, and all of the fine arts? Do DUers believe that Castro forces this on the Cuban people? It just seems to be such a disconnect from reality to believe such a thing.

There are no armed soldiers on the streets anywhere in Cuba, oppressing anyone. Cubans wouldn't stand for that shit for one minute.

The Cuban people, together, have built Cuba into what it is, and what the Cuban people have, today.. a free, civil, democratic & social country.

Its too bad that American government policy seems to be that we need to deny American's freedoms and rights to travel to Cuba to see any of this for themselves in order to bring more (perceived) freedom to Cubans.




"It is reasonable to conclude that Dean will want certain conditions to be set as a prerequisite for the purpose of protecting the Cuban people."

As noted before, the Cuban people don't need nor want "certain conditions to be set as a prerequisite for the purpose of protecting the Cuban people".. they are doing a pretty good job themselves.


WB: Learn from Cuba
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/learn.htm

At the same time < as sanctions and the Soviet collapse>, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it’s been enhanced, according to the WDI.

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990.  That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

I agree, there are many wonderful things about Cuba. Thank you for pointing them out. But I fear things in Cuba aren't as entirely rosey as you make them out to be.

Is that Cuba arrests US government financed dissidents for treason.

Funny how so many supposedly progressive democrats believe the US government propaganda about Cuba to this day hook line and sinker no questions asked.

If your fantasy were true then you should ask yourself why isnt Oswaldo Paya in jail, why isnt Elizardo Sanchez in jail.

Based on the same logic as the support for foreign (US) funded, backed, and organized "dissident" groups with connections to Miami based terra groups operating in Cuba who's treasonous goal is to overthrow the Cuban government, I guess DUers wouldn't mind support for foreign based terra organizations funding groups of "dissidents" in the USA with the treasonous intent of overthrowing the US government?


There are many legitimate political parties and voices of 'opposition' in Cuba that are pure domestic product. Its the foreign funded and organized so called "dissidents" that are as unwanted in Cuba as Al Queda is in the USA.


If Americans were not travel banned by their own government from going to Cuba, then this would be common knowledge in the US.

Cuba isn't ANYTHING like the picture that the anti Cuba crowd paints.



" But I fear things in Cuba aren't as entirely rosey as you make them out to be."

I never said that things were rosy in Cuba. I said that the Cuban people worked together and worked hard for what they have. They are a poor country, but they marshaled their resources very efficiently to build out a real and complete social system. Castro didn't do it alone. They worked through many hardships. Hardships that would have been lesser had the US not hindered almost every step of the way.

It is good to hear from someone who knows and loves Cuba.

For the record, I'm in favor of lifting the embargo.

This is an example of what you are up against:

--snip--

The human rights group Amnesty International documented that, less than a month before the Enzi bill was proposed, the Castro government had arrested 75 dissidents. After one-day trials, most were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years. Three prisoners were reported executed after being caught attempting to hijack a ferry to sail to the U.S.

Jack Guiteras, a Cuban-American who is the owner of Lorraine Travel in Coral Gables, Fla., started his agency business in Cuba in 1948. He is more offended by the efforts of Cuba travel supporters than most others.

“It is appalling that no matter what Fidel does, no matter how his government behaves in subjugating the Cuban people, such as this recent imprisonment of the majority of the dissidents, these lobbying efforts gain strength,” said Guiteras. “It is a well-greased, well-oiled strategy for people who have something to financially gain from opening the country to travel. These are people who have no concern about the moral aspect of how they make their money.”

--snip--

http://www.traveltrade.com/headline_news.jsp?articleID=3229

Whether it is Castro, or the Castro government, someone is responsible arresting dissidents- and no, I will not accept the explanation they are all foreign ops. Am I not supposed to believe Amnesty International? Are they just making things up?

Despite the attempts by the US State dept and the press to merge the two seperate incidents, the three violent criminals who held guns a knives to the heads and throats of children to hijack a harbor ferry, and then took the vessel out into the rough Gulf Stream where it ran out of gas (it was a harbor ferry) and nearly killed all 35 tourist hostages on board, are in no way connected to any political dissident movement.



I'm not overly concerned with the mewlings of Cuban "exile", Jack Guiteras, a Cuban-American who is the owner of Lorraine Travel in Coral Gables, Fla., because he is represents a miniscule demographic of opinion, even among Cuban-Americans.


What Americans should find offensive is that while Americans are denied their full travel rights to go to Cuba, Cuban-Americans like Jack Guiteras have their full travel right and can go to Cuba unfettered by the US government sanctions.

And I have mine:

The bi-partisan effort does seem a bit suspicious to me. It hardly seems logical that rethug corporatists have Cuba's best interests at heart. I only hope that when the embargo is finally and rightfully lifted, there are safeguards in place to see that Cuba is protected.

"I only hope that when the embargo is finally and rightfully lifted, there are safeguards in place to see that Cuba is protected."

Cuba has been doing business with the rest of the world. Its only the US that has kept a lid on itself regarding Cuba trade. Keep in mind that the lifting of the US sanctions is not like Cuba will be granting American businesses a carte blanche to do whatever they feel like. They will have to deal with Cuba on the terms that the Cuban government agrees to and according to Cuban law, just like everyone else already does.

I don't happen to share your faith in the Cuban government, because I believe there are evil and corrupt men in Cuba, just like anywhere else.
I fear that when the embargo is lifted, the power grab that will result
will be bloody and ruthless. Human nature being what it is, there is too much money at stake for me to think otherwise.

I also know that there are good men in Cuba. It is my fervent wish that they are the ones who will ultimately prevail.

Regardless, fixing Cuba's problem is not a matter of simply lifting the embargo. There are legitimate dangers which must be addressed, and enormous obstacles which must be confronted. As I have stated, I do believe it is the right thing to do. I just hope it is done in the right manner- as much so as possible.

We probably still disagree on this, and i would like to continue this debate at another time. I will be able to get in to more specifics then. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I wish you well.

Every other country on the planet has normal diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba with no problem so what are the "enormous obstacles" and "legitimate dangers" for the USA to do so?

There was no "power grab" when the Rest of the World thumbed its nose at the USA's embargo so why should there be one when Americans finally lift themselves out of their self-imposed embargo?

and their zombies, like that poor unre-elected Senator Bob Smith, whom you may remember for his Moment of Greatness, when he flew the Miami Distant Relatives of Elian Gonzalez all the way to the Air Force Base, where the child was reuniting with his father!

(snip) 5/14/2000
Senator Says Elian is Being Drugged
Associated Press

SALEM, N.H. (AP) - A U.S. senator said he believes Elian Gonzalez is being drugged to make him more amenable to returning to Cuba, and called the Maryland compound where Elian is living "a concentration camp.''

In a speech Sunday, Republican Sen. Bob Smith said the 6-year-old is being "re-educated'' by Cuban visitors to the compound in preparation for an asylum hearing Thursday.

"They've already found tranquilizer drugs with the doctors. I think you can reasonably assume that on May 11 the little kid is going to come say 'I want to go back to Cuba,''' Smith said.

Elian's pediatrician, Dr. Caridad Ponce de Leon, was with a group of Cubans that flew to the United States on April 27 to spend time with the boy, whose mother drowned during their escape from Cuba in November.

Cuban state television reported that U.S. Customs agents took medicines including tranquilizers from Ponce de Leon upon her arrival. Authorities said Ponce de Leon cannot practice in Maryland and will get the medications
back when she leaves.

The drugs included the sedative phenobarbital, anti-bacterial medications and an asthma medication.

Federal authorities said they were part of the doctor's regular medical kit, and they had no information about what she intended to do with them.

In his speech, Smith also said he deplored Elian's living conditions in Maryland.

"Right now, this little boy is in a concentration camp on American soil,'' he said. "It's surrounded by Communists. He's got his Communist playmates there so they can re-indoctrinate him.''

http://www.freeworldalliance.com/newsflash/pre_2002/newsflash185.htm





On edit:

Bonus link, satirical "NH Senator Bob Smith Eats Elian's Rabbit"
http://www.thumpcity.com/Elliott/BobSmithandElian.htm

During the Elian debacle, do you remember when Bob Smith & Dan Burton went to Miami to serve Elian with the congressional subpoena? They paraded the six year old, subpoena in hand, in front of the press with Bob Smith front and center with Elian on the shoulders of Orlando Bosch, the terrorist who bombed a Cuban airliner killing all aboard (mostly children). Its pretty hard to stoop lower than to parade a six year old hostage on the shoulders of a murderer/terrorist for political pandering purposes. Its shameful that some DUers worship these anti Cuban/ anti American "exile" cretins.

I had heard that Orlando Bosch hung around the Gonzalez house, but had no idea they'd gone that far.

Letting a mass murderer anywhere NEAR a kid is, shall we say, ODD?


The victims of Cuba's most deadly terrorist bombing were guilty, explains Orlando Bosch from the sanctuary of his west Miami-Dade home

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2001-12-20/feature.html/1/index.html

Anyone wanting to know more about this savage will surely have lots to choose from in any serious internet research. He has connections that go all the way to the White House.

If you give those bastards an inch, they will take everything.
The difference between Cuba's relations with the US and the rest of the world can be distilled into the following word: neo-cons.

If the embargo is lifted- with bi-partisan support- you can be certain they will do their damnest to ensure that the government falls as well. And yes, they are working with the exiles, as well as the dissidents,to accomplish this goal.

Not all of the Miami exiles are like this, and not all of the dissidents deserve their punishment. Legitimate freedoms have been quashed in an effort to prevent this fate. And many refugees have fled Cuba as a result of actual oppression.

Lifting the embargo without taking the proper precautions could plunge Cuba into a very dark place. The neo-cons would like nothing better than to see Cuba become ruled by a free-trade, open market puppet government receptive to American interests. As far as what the precautions should be, I haven't as of yet given it enough thought, and I am open to any insight on the matter.

But I am conviced that a bi-partisan agreed end of the embargo comes with some very grave and serious strings attached.

Ever read it? Nah, the Dems are no threat to Cuba eh?

feels very strongly in favor of dropping the embargo immediately, as well as the travel ban.

His offices have been bombed, and exile thugs broke into Radio Progreso, his radio station, and beat an employee, in an attempt to get to him.

Here's a history of the twisted travel ban here, using only a small segment as a focus:

(snip) 1969

Dec The first Venceremos Brigade arrives in Cuba with 216 members to work in the sugar harvest as an act of solidarity. It is the largest group to travel since the imposition of the embargo and travel ban.
1970

Feb The first Venceremos Brigade returns to the U.S. and the second Brigade with 687 U.S. citizens departs via plane and ship.
1972

May The Center for Cuban Studies is established in New York to promote cultural and academic exchange.
1973

March The Center for Cuban Studies offices are bombed.
1974

Jul 10 The U.S. Treasury Department issues regulations that allow scholars, journalists and correspondents to pay Cuba for travel and living expenses if the traveler first gets a passport validated by the State Department for travel to Cuba.
Sep 11 OMEGA 7 terrorist organization is founded in the U.S.
1975

Oct 17 A bomb, later attributed to Bay of Pigs veteran Rolando Otero Hernandez, goes off at Miami International Airport causing considerable damage but no injuries.
Nov Prime Minister Fidel Castro conveys a message to U.S. reporter Kirby Jones that Cuba is prepared to permit a limited number of visits by Cuban Americans to visit their relatives for humanitarian reasons.
1976

June Former CIA operatives including Orlando Bosch found the CORU terrorist organization which is soon involved in more than 50 bombings, and, quite likely, political assassinations.
July 9 CORU bomb set off in luggage at Kingston Airport, Jamaica.
July 10 CORU bombs Cubana Airlines office in Barbados.
Aug 18 CORU bombs Cubana Airlines office in Panama.
Oct 6 A bomb planted aboard a Cubana Airlines plane explodes after the passenger jet takes off from Barbados, killing all 73 people aboard.
1977

Mar 19 President Jimmy Carter does not renew the ban on travel to Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia and North Korea.
Mar 21 The Carter Administration lifts the ban on U.S. citizens' spending dollars in Cuba.
April Anniversary Tours sends first 'legal' U.S. tour group to Cuba since the Revolution. Interplanner and Caribbean Holidays also begin sending tour and study groups.
May 25 A bomb exploson in the Florida offices of Mackey International Airlines leads to cancellation of the airline's plans for charter service to Cuba.
Sep 1 Cuba and the United States open interests sections in the two countries.
Dec 23 First Antonio Maceo Brigade arrives in Cuba. The brigade is made up of young people whose parents took them out of Cuba when they were children. The Brigade becomes a regular event with participants from the U.S. as well as other countries to which Cubans emigrated.
1978

May 9 Treasury Department allows travel-related transactions by Cuban visiters to the U.S. Treasury also allows payment, by special license, to Cubans and U.S. citizens for public exhibitions or performances in each others' countries.
Jul 28-Aug 5 The 11th World Festival of Youth and Students takes place in Havana as 18,500 delegates from 145 countries, including 600 from the U.S., attend hundreds of events.
Sep 6 At a press conference with Cuban American journalists, President Fidel Castro proposes a "dialogue" between Cuba and Cubans living in other countries. This leads to the formation of the Committee of 75, a group of Cubans living abroad who shared a committment to this dialogue.
Nov 20-21 The Committee of 75 and Cuban officials hold the first of two negotiating sessions in Havana, the beginning of the "Dialogue."
Dec 8-9 At its second session, the "Dialogue" results in agreements on the release of political prisoners, working towards reunification of separated families and allowing Cubans abroad to visit relatives.
Dec 29 Omega 7 bombs the Cuban Mission to the U.N. and the Lincoln Center, cancelling performances of Orquestra Aragón.
1979

Jan Omega 7 bombs Viajes Varadero travel agency in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which organizes travel of Cubans visiting relatives in Cuba.
Feb Growing out of the Dialogue in December, 1978, Marazul Tours, Inc. is founded in New York and Washington D.C. by Francisco Aruca, Rafael Betancourt and Vivian Otero to facilitate the visits of Cuban Americans to see their relatives in Cuba. More than 100,000 Cubans visit in the next year. (snip/...)

http://www.marazulcharters.com/history/

There are TONS of references to bombings of travel agents who don't toe the Miami Cuban "exile" line you will discover if you take some time doing any kind of research.

You will remain far more serene as a travel agent if you fall in line with the ruling Battistiano exiles, and, as they do, rail against cleansing the relationship with Cuba.

They don't take criticism well, something the "Battista-lovers" side-step. Here's a photo of Emilio Milian, a Miami Cuban "exile" who spoke out on his radio show against the "exile" violence:


April 1976: Severely injured WQBA news director Emilio Milian is assisted after a car bomb exploded beneath him

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2000-04-20/mullin.html

DU is a wonderful resource. I am glad to see information representing all sides of this issue.

and spend all the money there they want but American-Americans are not free to do so and Jack Guiteras and his ilk want to keep it that way!

In March of this year Bush loosened the travel restrictions on Cuban-American "exiles" so more are free to travel to the island and increased the amount of money they're allowed to spend there 10 fold!

Over 120,000 Cuban-American "exiles" visited Cuba last year and their over $1 billion a year has been Cuba's largest single source of revenue for several years now!

Apparently Dems like to be treated as second class citizens in their own country and also want to keep it this way!

Go figure!!!

nt

the record is skipping again.

Heaven forbid! I just really don't understand why so many people sympathize and glorify Fidel Castro here.

"I just really don't understand why so many people sympathize and glorify Fidel Castro here."

No one is glorifying Castro here. I'm just pointing out the works of the Cuban people together. Castro isn't responsible for everything that happens in Cuba, he's just one old man.. little more than a figurehead now. The power in Cuba lies in the elected Cuban National Assembly (the Cuban parliament). The power in Cuba lies in the hands of the Cuban people.

It is the anti Cuba crowd that obsesses over Castro. The Cuban people don't.

If Americans were not travel banned by their own government from seeing Cuba for themselves, then this would be common knowledge here.

Free Elections? Then please tell me who has run against Castro, what years they ran, and how much of the vote they got?

I just don't understand why people worship this evil dictator.

.. despite getting the answer

Plenty of info on this long thread,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6300&forum=DCForumID70

For over 4 years now a BIPARTISAN MAJORITY in Congress and most STATE LEGISLATURES have voted to lift the embargo.

So why do so many supposedly progressive democrats here on DU have so much difficulty getting such simple, well documented, irrefuteable facts through their heads?

I won't be an apologist for the Cuban dictator.

and oppose the will of the bipartisan majority in the process.

Hmmm?

Even the majority of Cuban-Americans in Florida want the embargo lifted for crying out loud!

There is no excuse for a Democratic candidate to support the US embargo on Cuba. The embargo is a crime against humanity.

The Miami Mafia, aka Cuban-American rabble of CANF, are a hate group and are also well known anti-Semites. One of their goals is to replace Castro with a Christian fundamentalist government, one in which the only official religion is the Catholic religion, not the Catholic religion we all know in America, but the Spanish-based Opus Dei version of it.

The Fidel bashers on DU always gloss over the anti-Semitism of CANF. The only time the Jews were not subjected to persecution or harassment in Cuba was during a brief Marxist fling Cuba had in the 1920s, and after the victory of the Cuban Revolution.

We progressives need to educate our candidates to the truth about Cuba, and once we get them elected, we need to put their feet to the fire and demand an end to the embargo.

Does the Democratic Party intend to pander to other hate groups for the sake of a few votes? If you do, then how about going for the white supremacist vote and the homophobes?

The white supremicist element and the homophobes are THE violent wacko wingnut Miamimafia.

I'll bet you may have seen this story, already, of a Catholic from New York who moved to Miami, and who had social and political views diverging from that of the group you described. He had campaign stickers on his RV, which he drove to church, where it was attacked by some radical exiles:

(snip) He joined an organization called Citizens 4 America, one of several groups formed in response to the perceived anti-American sentiment running through factions of the Cuban-American community. He even began volunteering on behalf of Jay Love's campaign for county mayor.

After continued prodding by Father Hopkins and other church members, Buonamia and his wife agreed in late August to come back to Saint Philomena. On Sunday, September 3, the couple, having spent the early morning campaigning for Love, drove to church in their recreational vehicle, which had several large “Jay Love for Mayor” signs affixed to it. Buonamia says he warned Father Hopkins that he would be driving the RV, and the priest said it would be fine. Buonamia parked in the rear of the church parking lot. “I was trying to obscure it as much as possible,” he says. “We knew it wasn't Love territory, but it never dawned on me that people would get physical over this.”

Soon after arriving, Marisa Buonamia was accosted inside the church by Eladio Armesto-Garcia, a former Republican state representative, who served in Tallahassee from 1992 until 1994. He told her to move the RV immediately. She refused. “I told him: “This is a democracy,'” recalls Marisa, who hails from Panama. Next Armesto-Garcia confronted Buonamia.

“He was very agitated,” Buonamia remembers. “He starts screaming at me in Spanish that Jay Love is a homosexual and that I'm supporting homosexuals and that I have to get my RV out of there. I told him it is not important to me what he thinks. I'm here to go to Mass, and I asked him to leave me alone. He then screamed at me in church that he was going to beat the shit out of me when Mass was over.”
(snip/...)

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2000-09-21/defede.html

You may remember a BIG noise in Miami in the last campaign cycle, in which a group, "Take Back Miami-Dade" submitted a blob of names on a petition focused on removing protections from the gay community. The spokespeople who did most of the press interviews were the same nutball, Eliado Armesto-Garcia, and his sister!

(snip) Steve Satterwhite

Members of Take Back Miami-Dade deliver a potentially explosive (and possibly fraudulent) petition minutes before the deadline



From the Week of Thursday, February 1, 2001

The petition drive aimed at repealing Miami-Dade County's human-rights ordinance, which protects homosexuals from discrimination, is a time bomb capable of ripping apart the community if it is certified by county elections officials. So say members of SAVE Dade, the nonprofit political organization that worked for passage of the ordinance two years ago. With that threat in mind, volunteers are determinedly trying to defuse it before it can explode.
About 150 SAVE Dade members have been poring over 10,000 pages of signatures collected by Take Back Miami-Dade, the group that organized the petition drive. According to spokesmen for SAVE Dade (Safeguarding American Values for Everyone), the results are disturbing. The petition forms, they assert, are riddled with discrepancies serious enough to merit criminal charges. Thousands of irregularities -- from allegedly forged signatures to fraudulent notarizations to duplicate names -- raise suspicions about Take Back Miami-Dade's tactics. "We did not expect to find anything close to what we found," says Jerome Baker, a SAVE Dade spokesman. "When you add it all up, I'm telling you it stinks."

Eladio Armesto-Garcia, chairman of Take Back Miami-Dade and a former Republican state representative, admits to errors but scoffs at the suggestion of criminal intent. Petition circulators, he says, did not ask those who signed to show voter identification cards, nor did they check driver licenses to verify identities. They were in no position to authenticate identification or determine whether someone had signed more than once. "People who signed at the Orange Bowl may have forgotten that they also signed at church," Armesto-Garcia speculates. "After all, we're humans, not machines." (snip/...)


Eladio Armesto says homosexuals take advantage of their legal position

You may also remember the Cuban exile extremists who threw such a fit in Miami 3 years ago, demanding to be able to stand close to the people going into the Latin Grammys (where they could, as per usual, hurl D-cell batteries, bottles, eggs, rocks, and bags filled with human excrement at the Cuban Grammy nominees) that they took the show back to Los Angeles.

The exile hate-radio hosts, from what Miami posters related on the old CNN US/Cuba message board, started a vicious hate campaign against jews, having decided the producer of the Latin Grammys was a jew, and went into a total hate-fest, vicious, vicous bilge screaming out of the stations day after day after day, followed by some demonstrations. All anti-Semetic. If Americans outside the city, who don't speak Spanish had access to what was really being said, they'd surely get a new view of these guys, altogether.

And that's just scratching the surface, for sure.

asses!!!! This small group of idiots cannot be allowed to control the agenda for the majority!