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Message |
    
zoe
Citizen
Username: Zoe
Post Number: 304
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 5:00 pm: |     |
Fidel Castro, the world's longest ruling leader, turns 77 today. Supporters Stephen Speilberg, Barbra Streisand and many of your fellow MOL'rs will be celebrating communism and it's favorite leader right here on MOL later tonight. Don't miss it. Come celebrate, enjoy it while you still can.
Hey, whatever do you suppose happened to those folks who drove that green truck over last week?
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REBORN STRAW
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 936
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 5:24 pm: | |
Jimmy Carter will be sure to send Fido a card.
I guess Jimmy Peanut forgets the Cuban criminal exodus into the U.S. during his short, brutal four years in office. |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 907
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 5:49 pm: | |
Are you saying, Zoe, that it was wrong for the Bush Administration to ship them back? I certainly think it was and so do Republican lawmakers.
6:12 p.m. EDT August 11, 2003 (from Google News search)
MIAMI -- Hispanic lawmakers are turning up the heat on President George w. Bush, warning him if U.S.-Cuba policy isn't overhauled, he may get burned by them in the 2004 election.
Republican representatives from South Florida, 13 of them, have signed a polite but direct letter to the president urging him to overhaul U.S. Cuba policy or face the wrath of Cuban American voters.
Rep. David Riviera and his colleagues say they're upset for many reasons, including incidents like a recent one in which Cuban refugees, who rigged an old Chevy truck to cross the Florida straits, were sent back.
The GOP House members are also upset the administration negotiated prison sentences for Cubans who stole a boat, and that no one in Cuba ever sees TV Marti, which is jammed, despite promises from the president to get a signal through.
The unhappiness of many South Floridian Cubans could be bad news for a president who won 80 percent of the Cuban vote in 2000 while winning Florida by just 537 votes.
In their letter, the lawmakers warn, "We cannot guarantee that in next year's election Cuban-Americans will provide Republican candidates for federal office the unprecedented levels of support garnered in past elections.
Cuban critiques of current policy say if Bush doesn't overhaul U.S.-Cuba policy they may not vote for a Democrat next year, but they also may not vote at all. |
-af
Citizen
Username: Java_drinker
Post Number: 267
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 5:57 pm: | |
Zoe,
They fell under the "wet feet" rule and were shipped back to Cuba. |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 908
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 6:07 pm: | |
And even well-informed conservatives like Virginia Postrel take a positive view of the Mariel boatlift. This from the conservative Reason magazine:
"Bill Clinton is a cowardly man. He is afraid, above all else, of political defeat. Castro has played masterfully to that fear, forcing a change in three decades of U.S. immigration policy and shoring up his government's waning legitimacy in the process. . . To Clinton, the 1980 Mariel boatlift will always be the Mariel disaster. U.S. immigration policy is driven by fear of 'another Mariel.'
"But the Mariel disaster is a myth. Of the 125,000 Cubans who fled Castro in 1980, maybe as many as 5,000--a mere 4 percent of the total--were prisoners and mental patients Castro wanted to get rid of. Of those, the U.S. government is seeking to repatriate 1,500, slightly more than 1 percent of the total. Yet this tiny fraction is constantly cited as evidence that Mariel was a disaster.
"In fact, South Florida absorbed the refugees with some adjustment pains but without long-term trauma. Research by Princeton economist David Card suggests that the influx of Mariel refugees didn't even drive down wages or raise unemployment among existing Miami residents. Instead, the newcomers increased the area's overall wealth. Human beings are valuable, even in crass monetary terms; they produce as well as consume. . . .
"How many Marielitos were criminals is a matter of some dispute and depends on how you define criminal. Some of the refugees were in fact political prisoners; others had been imprisoned for petty theft or prostitution, still others for being homosexuals. The U.S. government considered all of 60 sufficiently dangerous to detain immediately. About another 2,000 have been arrested for crimes in the United States serious enough to warrant repatriation to Cuba; Cuba has taken back about 600 of them.
"I refer readers who want more details on the Marielitos to Charles Oliver's well-researched article in Investor's Business Daily, September 23, 1994.
"The broader point is this: It is profoundly dangerous to deny freedom to individuals by lumping them in a group and letting the government determine the worthiness of that group. It is even more dangerous to base the worthiness test on a tiny fraction of the total group. Yet this kind of guilt by association is driving the entire immigration debate (not to mention the gun-control debate)."
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zoe
Citizen
Username: Zoe
Post Number: 306
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 9:53 am: | |
Harpo, yes, in my opinion it was wrong to send them back to Cuba.
I do not fall lock step behind our current President. Contrary to the belief of many MOL posters, I have disagreed with numerous things that Bush has done. However, overall I support him far more than disagree.
The particular areas where I disagree? Well, for one I think the boarders should be shut down, and all illegals identified, evaluated and perhaps sent packing. I also disagree with the massive farm subsidies given. There are other areas too where I think he should have taken different action, but I strongly believe him to be a leader. He is willing to take a stand and that's important. too frequently we see politicians, especially career politicains use the polls exclusively to lead. That thankfully he does not do. |
parkbench87
Citizen
Username: Parkbench87
Post Number: 296
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 12:31 pm: | |
Screw Castro.
Today is also my Daughters 1st Birthday. Unlike Castro she is not ready to shave.
However I must admit I always loved his Convertible Sofa Beds. |
ashear
Citizen
Username: Ashear
Post Number: 670
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
Cool, its my daughter's 2nd. |
FreeTibet
Citizen
Username: Freetibet
Post Number: 10
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 6:29 pm: | |
he needs a 5000000 gun salute for his birthday (blindfolded, standing in front of them) |
tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 1643
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 8:46 pm: | |
One has to wonder if Castro would still be in power were it not for our domestically-driven policy of intense hostility. We should have declared him too boring for words after the Berlin Wall came down, normalized relations and watched him struggle for survival in the light of day without an enemy. |
FreeTibet
Citizen
Username: Freetibet
Post Number: 11
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 9:25 pm: | |
support of castro from the international body has stregthened him, not our distaste for him. but then again, the US in USA is there so they can blame us.
cut off a man's hands, and he eats with his mouth, cut off a man's source of food and he dies.
- Tarthang Tulku |
Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 1967
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 9:30 pm: | |
Query:
We did business with the communist nations of eastern Europe; they are now free.
We boycott Cuba; it is not free.
Comments? |
FreeTibet
Citizen
Username: Freetibet
Post Number: 12
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 6:10 am: | |
hello ? cuban missile crisis, aiding the soviet empire to build up against us, does this ring a bell ? again, only if the pansies in europe would back us instead of thinking it is not an issue. and as far as "doing business" with communists nations of eastern europe, i am assuming this is after RR deposed of the evil empire, correct ? |
tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 1644
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 6:30 am: | |
Dearest FreeTibet,
The chronology of events is actually relevant in this case. While the USSR was pushing world communsim, containment of Cuba made sense. Following the fall of the USSR, it didn't, but it continues because of the Cuban lobby in Florida and elsewhere.
Anyway, Nohero has an interesting point. For what it is worth, we could have pursued trade with Cuba while pursuing a policy of containment. We certainly did this with the USSR and the Warsaw Pact nations. |
zoe
Citizen
Username: Zoe
Post Number: 308
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 9:18 am: | |
Yeah Tjohn, "we could have pursued trade with Cuba while pursuing a policy of containment," what are you nuts? Oh yeah, I guess in your world you're used to getting it both ways.
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tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 1645
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 10:23 am: | |
Irregardless of my mental condition, I was simply building on Nohero's observation that we pursued trade with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations while pursuing a policy of containment. What we did have in place were controls intended to prevent the USSR from obtaining industrial tools they could use to manufacture sophisticated weapons.
I say again, Cuba is the best current example of a foreign policy driven entirely by domestic political interests as opposed to a cold consideration of our national security needs. |
zoe
Citizen
Username: Zoe
Post Number: 309
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 11:12 am: | |
I disagree. I think you should take a closer look at our overall immigration policy. Now there is a much better example of "a foreign policy driven entirely by domestic political interests as opposed to a cold consideration of our national security needs". Our foreign policy with Cuba pales in comparison.
What does Cuba have that we need? Well quality baseball players and old American cars come to mind. However, I have always admired the work ethic of every Cuban-American that I have ever met. It's a pity they cannot export that, since it is in such need in our country. There are too many lazy Americans, and people on the public dole. |
Dave Ross
Supporter
Username: Dave
Post Number: 5015
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 12:21 pm: | |
last time I checked we still do quite a bit of business with China. Our boycott basically doesn't touch fidel and his buddies, only cuba's disenfanchised population. I guess it still feels good to fight commies somewhere in the world, even if it has to be a banana republic. oooh, we so tough. |
Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 1969
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 12:23 pm: | |
I'm surprised "Free Tibet" wasn't right on top of that China trade thing, Dave ... |
parkbench87
Citizen
Username: Parkbench87
Post Number: 298
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 12:37 pm: | |
Did I mention that the 14th was my daughters 1st Birthday and Ashear's daughters 2nd birthday? |
FreeTibet
Citizen
Username: Freetibet
Post Number: 13
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 3:20 pm: | |
i would have been but i am actually quite busy earning an income for myself most of the time. hard working, conservative and always right. thats me ! (but thanks for thinking about me and my distaste for China, nohero) |
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