General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama's remarks in Cuba today were absolutely perfect.
Just the right combination of humility, emphasis of common interests, standing on principle, optimism, and respect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/americas/obama-and-raul-castro-to-meet-in-pivotal-moment-for-us-cuba-thaw.html?_r=0
katmondoo
(6,454 posts)It will be hard, I don't see anyone that really is above him. So thankful for the last 7 years.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)I was not happy with his first term. But I think he has done a great job his second term. He has let his own values and judgment determine his decision-making, and that has served him well. If the next President is Trump or Clinton, I am sure I will miss him.
Mika
(17,751 posts)I hear variations on that used by everyone who supports the change in tactic.
What is it that the continuum of administration after administration -many using military assaults, biological warfare, terrorism, and all using sanctions - has wanted to work or accomplish? Clearly, considering the long standing record of US/Cuba history and the valiant defense by Cubans to this day, it has not been something that Cubans wanted.
I'm just suspicious of this language of "the old way didn't work (on usurping the Cuban vastly popular revolution, now the Government of Cuba), so we're going to change tactics" (connoting a new methodology of usurping the Cuban vastly popular revolution, now the Government of Cuba).
Otherwise, I am cautiously optimistic. Glad our President has made this move. As are most all of my friends and mi familia in Cuba.
Vattel
(9,289 posts)To be charitable, he mostly seemed to be saying that the embargo didn't benefit the United States or Cuba. What I liked was that even as he emphasized respect for freedom of speech and other basic political rights, he conceded that the US may not be fully respecting rights such as the right to adequate healthcare.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)I think that's what's being said, anyway. For more than 50 years, our relations with Cuba have been dictated by a coterie of Cuban expatriates who demanded the toppling of the Castro regime. Fidel Castro outlived just about all of them, contributing to their bitterness at being driven out of their country.
These folks are not done complaining yet, over the least little thing:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15032737/historic-game-cuba-ignores-pain-many-people-endured
The "new way" seems to be to ignore - at long last - the expatriate community in South Florida, or at least to balance our relations with Cuba by taking into account the opinions of the other 300 million people in the United States. My reading of the new way is that these expatriates seem torn between the bitter struggle they lost and the prospect that relations with Cuba could get back on solid footing, which would make their pain or suffering or loss meaningless.
Pain, suffering and loss are invested with only as much meaning as the sufferer can instill in it. Nobody else is required to find any meaning in another's loss (which, I hasten to add, doesn't mean that others can't or shouldn't find meaning). But that demand for meaning has driven our country's policy for more than half a century. It's become family legacy, no more present for the vast majority of present-day Americans than Hoovervilles or the Dust Bowl.
TlalocW
(15,359 posts)He said that his being in Cuba signified a new day... Una nueva dia. It should have been, "Un nuevo dia."
Ima voting for Trump now.
TlalocW
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)Vattel
(9,289 posts)flamingdem
(39,304 posts)He's won the hearts of the Cubans and I think Raul Castro likes him a lot!!!
Vattel
(9,289 posts)I know he wouldn't take the job, but he would be a killer SOS.
flamingdem
(39,304 posts)I think he'll do something very interesting though.