In my thread here regarding Bush blowing the national debt out of the sky, I quoted an Associated Press story that briefly touched on something that interested me, but I don't know where to find more information.
Several legislative provisions that drew White House veto threats are also being dropped from the final bill, aides said. These include lifting restrictions on trade with Cuba and easing limits on aid to overseas family planning efforts.
I'm not real sure what this means. Does it mean that the proposal to lift restrictions on trade with Cuba was demanded to be removed before the budget was approved? If so, I would like to know both who proposed and supported the proposal to begin with, and who was the opposition?
I am strongly in favor of lifting restrictions against Cuba; I think what we are doing their is ridiculous, that they should be permitted to govern themselves however the hell they see fit, that it's none of our business, and that all we are doing is making things worse for people who deserve better.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, it is clear that Communism is not the threat it was once perceived to be. With a relatively respectable relationship developing in the last few decades with Russia, it hardly seems that Cuba will turn into the staging ground for an all-out attack/invasion of the U.S. by the Commies. I'm just not worried about it.
I believe we should stop pressuring Cuba to be more like ourselves and not only leave them in peace, but maybe even throw them a bone in terms of assistance with revitalizing infrastructure, trade, manufacturing, technology, travel industry, etc in order to make them instead a powerful ally.
Cuba is one of those issues I flip flop on in my mind all the time.
I can't seem to come to a rational conclusion. Growing up in Florida, you meet a lot of ex-Cubans. They tell you some scary stuff that goes on down there.
Sure, they got free health care, but they also come and get you in the middle of the night if you disagree publicly with the government.
They used to at least, I don't know how much of that goes on today.
Most of them want the sanctions against Castro and communism.
But even the Cuban community is divided. Some of them want the sanctions lifted.
I think if they opened up the markets, like China is doing, the free market and materialism will overtake the communism part.
So, part of me, says, yeah, open up the markets, let the trade flow freely.
But the other part of me wonders if it sends the wrong message to those poor saps in Cuba, that have no free speech and a dictator is control of their lives.
I hope I live long enough to see Castro die, and Cuba going to some sort of free society, so I can go down there and visit. It would be like going back in time to the 50's.
It's almost 100% old time 50's cars down there from what I hear.
Heck, we have free trade with China. Why not? Open the trade doors to all our former and current enemies. And after that, let's open our borders to them too.
The world is just one big happy family isn't it? So let's prove it. Free trade with everyone, import the world, their people, and their problems.
And export exactly what? We no longer have a manufacturing based economy. And this will destroy us....in fact it already is. We are a service based economy. And exactly what is the world going to want from us after they have learned all they have learned from us? They will say, bye bye we don't need you anymore.
Our weapons? Our star wars systems. Because quite frankly besides beer, beverages, food and weapons, we sure haven't been producing a whole lot.
(And remember, software, movies and music can be pirated...so these are not soluble exports.)
SWTT - err.. we manufacture a LOT of stuff here. We outsource some manufacturing for electronics and plastic & soft metals moulding for components or even complete products.. however those offshore manufacturers are only the lowest bidder. They are still American products. In fact, if we were to go to war with those countries or they were somehow wiped out tomorrow and that offshore manufacturing source were to suddenly become unavailable to us, we can manufacture the product right here in the states, albeit at higher cost. Ultimately, we don't offshore anything that we can't do ourselves.
Furthermore, when it comes to offshoring manufacturing, we're not exactly sitting there training the manufacturer's employees on how to design products. What makes contract manufacturing so desirable to export is the low cost. Guess why it's low cost: because the labor is cheap. Guess why the labor is cheap: because they are unskilled laborers. They're not engineers or designers. They're not taking our ideas and then telling us to jump off a cliff because they don't need us any more.
We have fantastic design & engineering in this country. We have manufacturing right here, but off-shoring labor makes it more cost effective for our companies which enables them to deliver superior products at reasonable prices to the public. If you recall 486 computer systems being more than $1000 about 12 years ago as I do, then you might appreciate how offshoring has kept amazing technologies like Pentium 4 systems under $500 today. Current desktop computers are the equivalent of super computers at that time!
What can we export to Cuba? The answer is anything! We manufacture EVERYTHING in this country. Cars, books, aircraft, electronics, musical instruments, food - you name it. You shake a stick at FOOD exports!? Agriculture is a HUGE industry here and we still have farmers being paid not to harvest when those things could easiy be exported, especially to countries as nearby as Cuba.
And the last point I would add is that unless I'm mistaken, trade restrictions against Cuba don't just affect U.S. imports for the Cubans, but imports from the world over. A veritable blockade keeps their country locked into a permanent 1954 setting. Even if you were concerned about Cuba "running off with all our good stuff", why would you want them to be forced to live in poverty and not be able to obtain ANYTHING that they need from the world abroad? I think they've done an amazing job surviving as they have, but I think their suffering should be brought to an end. It takes nothing from us, and we are merely snuffing them out for no reason other than old-hat superstition (Commie-phobia).
SWTT, your response is quite bitter and sarcastic and delves into all the problems that plague our society, but your response makes it sound like we should stop exports completely and be fully isolationist which to me just doesn't sound healthy. If you don't want to export anything from the U.S. to Cuba, fine - by why support choking off their supplies from the rest of the world as well?
Whidden, we will live to see the death of Castro, and indeed he may be replaced by someone who is more of a progressive thinker. But I also think that more free market economy flowing through their country would realize changes that are gradual and sweeping. Ultimately they're no threat to us in the first place.
Sean Kelly said this in post #5 :
Whidden, we will live to see the death of Castro, and indeed he may be replaced by someone who is more of a progressive thinker. But I also think that more free market economy flowing through their country would realize changes that are gradual and sweeping. Ultimately they're no threat to us in the first place.
I don't think they are any kind of threat to us. Back in the 60's, yeah, now, no.
Putting sanctions on them to protect the USA is a dead argument. I think we still are trying to beat communism in Cuba because of the dictator part of it.
The lack of freedom and basic civil liberties is Cuba.
I'm all for that. For putting pressure on the country so the people can have more freedom. I just don't know if sanctions help or hurt that.
An aside point: When they do get free someday, get prepared for a flood of Cubans into Florida. And I mean a lot. So many it will be on the news and hurt the state economy.
Now, they trickle in and are absorbed, but when the "wall" is torn down someday, it's gonna be a mass exodus.
Last edited by Whidden on 11-22-2004 at 12:22 AM |
Sean,
I was just commenting on how our economy is changing largely from a manufacturing base to a service base.
My real concern is that we WON'T have much left to export. We are importing far greater amounts than we are exporting....if you look at the past 50 years or so.
And free trade is skewed largely to benefit the foreign imports than our exports.
This could very well be the destruction of our economy even more than attacks from the outside.
Do you have any idea what exports of high technological items does to our national security? There was a time not too far long ago when the greatest technology we would export to China was....the etcha sketch.
I believe it's extremely naive of corporations and our government to believe that just because we exercise trade with countries who have either in the past or currently been against us...that this exchange will lead to harmony and acceptance of our love of liberty and democracy.
SWTT - okay - your concerns are valid, but are quite separate from the topic at hand: whether trade restrictions with Cuba are just, necessary, and who in our government still supports it and who does not..
Cuba's threat to our national security was purely based on the mythical notion that Communism was gearing up efforts to take over the world. Clearly that hasn't happened and, if anything, many people have in the last hundred years come to realize that Communism doesn't really even seem to work all that well... soo where's the threat? Way I figure if we were to exchange favors there would be no particular reason for animosity at all...
I remember when Elio (was that his name?) was sent back to Cuba. There was word that he would go through some communist indoctrination training before being reunited with his father. Doesn't foster much of free thought when children go through "mind control" camps.
Kinda sounded a little like US public education to me.
11-18-2004 08:20 PM
