Crisis in Cuba Requires End of US Blockade Now

[Judi Lynn]

JULY 7, 2022
BY TOM WHITNEY

Friends of socialist Cuba like good news about that country. Now bad news has its use. Grief and hardship currently are such that, clearly, the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba must end at once. The harsh details, appearing below, testify to potential destabilization in Cuba, danger to Cuba’s socialist project, and the nefarious role of the blockade. A major mobilization against the blockade is due. The need for action is obvious.

The blockade, a 60-year-old relic of history, places few heavy demands on the U.S. public. No governmental funding is required. The Treasury Department issues fines and presidents make ritualistic declarations. People dodge travel restrictions. It’s a slow-motion affair. Distracted pro-Cuba activists may lose track of harassment details. Here they get a refresher course, for motivation toward action. It emphasizes blockade effects on people’s lives

In the Beginning

Cuba’s vulnerability is the result mainly of U.S. policies directed at “denying money and supplies to Cuba … to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.” The words are those of a State Department memorandum of April 6, 1960.

The flow of money to Cuba – international loans and export income –has long been feeble. International banks, financial institutions, and corporations handling dollars on Cuba’s behalf risk big U.S. Treasury Department fines. U.S. legislation blocks Cuba from importing the products of multi-national companies with branches in the United States – even food and medical supplies. For almost 30 years third-country ships docking in Cuba have been prohibited from entering a U.S. port for the following six months. Since 2019 the U.S. government has sanctioned Venezuelan ships carrying oil to Cuba.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/07/crisis-in-cuba-requires-end-of-us-blockade-now/

[jimfields33]

1. All they have to do is have elections

The Castro administrations for six decades must end or at least allow elections so the population chooses the president.

[TheRealNorth]

2. That would be fine with the idea....

But I wonder why we don't impose the same punishments on all the other dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia.

Thw truth is the media has a bias against left-wing leaders. Hugo Chavez was even called a dictator last night on MSNBC. While Chavez definitely steered Venezuela to a more authoritarian form of rule, I would say he was no worse than Orban, Erdogan, Bolsanaro, or the guys in charge of Poland. But you don't hear the latter being called "dictators". He'll, they only started calling Putin a dictator after he invaded Ukraine.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It's a shame more USA citizens can't be persuaded to start paying attention, and thinking.

It wouldn't have been nearly as easy for them to remain ignorant of what has been happening in the Western Hemisphere from the first days of policy by the US government toward all the countries below the southern US border.

It's a shame so many remain in the dark about the fact that the same government which employed slavery and racism from the first also applied the same values toward ALL the brown people in the Americas, except for the leaders who would put the interests of the US gov't, its military, and its industrialists and bankers ahead of its own citizens first.

So many wildly uninformed citizens have made it so easy for the greedy unscrupulous power-mad criminals to control politicians of similiar low values to do evil things throughout the Americas and anywhere else with weak leaders, and to direct violence toward the leaders who do put the people of their countries first.

[EX500rider]

3. Embargo, not blockade, very different things. nt

[Judi Lynn]

5. It's called "Bloqueo" throughout the Americas, as you know.

[EX500rider]

7. Incorrectly so

A blockade is an act of war where our Navy would block off any ship from going to Cuba.
An economic embargo just means we refuse to trade with them, big difference

[Judi Lynn]

6. Just found an interesting source moments ago which has helpful information for history-deprived

people who've never taken the time to think beyond what is given freely as public general "knowledge" formed to mold public "perception. "

~ ~ ~

- 19. American Empire



IV. Theodore Roosevelt and American Imperialism

. . .

The United States actively intervened again and again in Latin America. Throughout his time in office, Roosevelt exerted U.S. control over Cuba (even after it gained formal independence in 1902) and Puerto Rico, and he deployed naval forces to ensure Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903 in order to acquire a U.S. Canal Zone. Furthermore, Roosevelt pronounced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, proclaiming U.S. police power in the Caribbean. As articulated by President James Monroe in his annual address to Congress in 1823, the United States would treat any military intervention in Latin America by a European power as a threat to American security. Roosevelt reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine and expanded it by declaring that the United States had the right to preemptive action through intervention in any Latin American nation in order to correct administrative and fiscal deficiencies.18

Roosevelt’s policy justified numerous and repeated police actions in “dysfunctional” Caribbean and Latin American countries by U.S. Marines and naval forces and enabled the founding of the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This approach is sometimes referred to as gunboat diplomacy, wherein naval forces and Marines land in a national capital to protect American and Western personnel, temporarily seize control of the government, and dictate policies friendly to American business, such as the repayment of foreign loans. For example, in 1905 Roosevelt sent the Marines to occupy the Dominican Republic and established financial supervision over the Dominican government. Imperialists often framed such actions as almost humanitarian. They celebrated white Anglo-Saxon societies such as those found in the United States and the British Empire as advanced practitioners of nation-building and civilization, helping to uplift debtor nations in Latin America that lacked the manly qualities of discipline and self-control. Roosevelt, for instance, preached that it was the “manly duty” of the United States to exercise an international police power in the Caribbean and to spread the benefits of Anglo-Saxon civilization to inferior states populated by inferior peoples. The president’s language, for instance, contrasted debtor nations’ “impotence” with the United States’ civilizing influence, belying new ideas that associated self-restraint and social stability with Anglo-Saxon manliness.19

. . .

Creditors could not force settlements of loans until they successfully lobbied their own governments to get involved and forcibly collect debts. The Roosevelt administration did not want to deny the Europeans’ rightful demands of repayment of debt, but it also did not want to encourage European policies of conquest in the hemisphere as part of that debt collection. U.S. policy makers and military strategists within the Roosevelt administration determined that this European practice of military intervention posed a serious threat to American interests in the region. Roosevelt reasoned that the United States must create and maintain fiscal and political stability within strategically important nations in Latin America, particularly those affecting routes to and from the proposed Panama Canal. As a result, U.S. policy makers considered intervention in places like Cuba and the Dominican Republic a necessity to ensure security around the region.21

The Monroe Doctrine provided the Roosevelt administration with a diplomatic and international legal tradition through which it could assert a U.S. right and obligation to intervene in the hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the United States wished to promote stable, prosperous states in Latin America that could live up to their political and financial obligations. Roosevelt declared that “wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty.”22 President Monroe declared what Europeans could not do in the Western Hemisphere; Roosevelt inverted his doctrine to legitimize direct U.S. intervention in the region.23

More:
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/19-american-empire/