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Guantanamo No Mo

To Cuba
(Skip to the end to see what this is about)
I've been to Cuba. You should go. They won't stamp your passport if you don't want it, and as long as you don't spend American money there, you do nothing illegal.
One distillation of political theory I enjoy goes like this; Political models fall somewhere between these two extremes; The Jungle, or the Zoo.
Perhaps we have a Jungle here in the United States of America. Certainly, Cuba qualifies as inhabiting the other extreme, a human Zoo where people are given coupons for food, free health care, one shirt and a pair of pants each year, free education, and lots of political indoctrination.
The thing that truly amazes me about the Cuban people stems from Cuba's performance in events such as the Olympic games. How does such a small country manage to excel far beyond what one would expect statistically? Their pride, sense of identity, love of life, and national exuberance should be admired, applauded, and emulated.
Cuban music probably inspired the earliest and most basic rhythms of Rock and Roll, if you can believe Ruben Blades in his movie "Crossover Dreams" and fundamentally the songs "Twist and Shout" and "La Bomba" are identical. Musicians from all over the world jump at the chance to go to Cuba and study, and rightly so. Their music has evolved into one of the richest traditions on the planet, complex and sophisticated. It almost goes without saying they have the best dancers; I saw four year-old children with body motions that would shock and embarrass anyone from a culture like ours, with roots in Puritanism.
The Cubans love US Americans, (they begged me for tee-shirts with the Stars and Stripes) but remain confused about our government's policies. We became indebted to the Cuban-American community in Miami because of the guilt of not offering air support in their failed attempt to re-conquer the island with a military organization that we trained. We have also invested about nine billion dollars to ensure the success of the Cuban-Americans in Miami and have enjoyed using them to infiltrate and wage covert and overt wars throughout Latin America. In the mid-nineties, some Cuban-Americans were actually registering their lost property on the island to reclaim it after Castro's fall! They close art gallery shows (with FBI help!) if 'Island' Cuban art would be shown, they've made a hero out of a man who bombed a plane full of Cuban athletes. Thankfully, the mastermind of the most intolerant group of Anti-Castro supporters died, and the second generation Cubans don't share their parents need to move back to the island. We have used these expatriate Cubans to wage war when it would be embarrassing for the US to be directly involved. It was a Cuban that broke into Nixon's Campaign headquarters in the Watergate hotel. The expatriate Cubans, that once ran the old regime and profited from the world-class Casinos, helped developers in the US create such gambling havens as Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
The Miami community currently produces one of the largest and most powerful International Spanish-Language TV networks. They enjoy fantastic wealth and their 'flexible' morality allows them to open their arms to all despot political leaders-in-exile from all over Latin America.
In short, the "exiled" Cuban-Americans in Miami are useful to our Government and Military. So we embargo the island to keep the exiles happy.
The Cuban revolution occurred because of social inequalities. Unfortunately, it seemed to me those inequalities still exist; the white people fill the Hospital's higher echelons and the ranks of trusted Cubans that are allowed travel abroad. And what's worse now, THEY HAVE NO MONEY! A waiter in the tourism industry makes more than a doctor, on tips alone. Because of our embargo, they have no access to the best medicines and health-care technology.
The Cubans also know, as our media has shown us, that we have tried to get rid of Castro by various covert means, even attempting to poison his cigars or boots, once with the intention of making his beard fall out! They suspect that the US government, or Miami-based anti-Castro groups with US Government approval, have dropped not only anti-Castro pamphlets but agents of biological warfare that have caused diseases in humans, livestock, and crops. The Government (Castro) accuses us of dropping grenades and weapons, of allowing the embargo to go on in spite of the societal damage; to the health of Cuban citizens and to their economic well-being.
The worst effect of our ill-thought embargo makes a Hero out of Cuba and Castro; the little upstart underdog that survives in spite of being a scant ninety miles off our shores (Key West) and betrays our political cowardice in the face of an obviously flawed social experiment that continues under a Dictator that won't allow elections. And perhaps he's right, and that his role as benevolent Dictator-Father of the country protects Cuba from the worst of American influences; rampant consumerism leading to a loss of traditional and cultural values. But still, all people deserve a democracy (with a guarantee that the U.S. will respect the outcome!)
Our Airline industry spends MILLIONS each year for the right to fly over Cuban airspace, and they save money on fuel because of it.
The Cuban Government has NEVER cashed one of our checks for 'renting' the tip of the island where we have our Guantanamo military base.
I mention all this for you to think about BEFORE YOU VOTE FOR A MAN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT WHOSE BROTHER OWES HIS POLITICAL AGENDA TO THE EXILED CUBAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY.
There are Bushes everywhere, it seems. Can we talk about China?

Go to Cuba, see for yourself, make friends. That's a much better way to ensure that when Castro goes, the Island Cubans won't be at the mercy of the radicals in Miami, and we won't have to suffer the international shame of allowing those consequences.