UN Spurns Cuba Embargo for 17th Year
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations General Assembly Tuesday snubbed the United States for its hostility towards Cuba, amid fresh calls for an end to the 45-year economic and financial embargo imposed on the socialist island.
On Tuesday, as many as 184 countries voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution demanding the U.S. lift 45-year-old restrictions on international trade with Cuba.
The vote broke last year’s record, when 183 countries endorsed the resolution against the U.S. embargo. The 192-member General Assembly has adopted 16 similar resolutions since 1992.
Like last year, in addition to the United States itself, the negative votes were cast by just three countries: Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. The only abstention was the small island nation of Micronesia.
Before and after the vote, speaker after speaker deplored the U.S. policy and said the sanctions against Cuba violate international law and the U.N. Charter.
The U.N. support for Cuba comes just a week after the U.S. President George W. Bush described Cuba as a “tropical gulag” and signaled his administration’s readiness to take more hostile measures to force an economic and political change on the island’s people.
In a major policy speech last Wednesday, Bush assured his support for those in and outside Cuba seeking to replace Cuba’s socialist democracy with a pro-U.S. economic and political system.
“Now is the time to support the democratic movements growing on the island,” Bush said, calling for the world “to put aside its differences and prepare for Cubans’ transition to a future of freedom and progress and promise.”
“The dissidents of today will be the nation’s leaders tomorrow,” Bush added in his speech, with family members of Cuban dissidents seated behind him on stage. “When freedom finally comes, they will surely remember who stood with them.”
For their part, Cuban leaders said Bush was trying to harass Cuba and threatening its entity as an independent and free nation.
“Mr. Bush: Your genocidal blockade, your support of terrorism, your murderous Cuban Adjustment Act, your wet-foot/dry-foot policy, your protection of the worst terrorists in this hemisphere, your unjust punishment of the Five Cuban Heroes who denounced the dangers for citizens of the United States and other countries to be killed in mid-flight, all these must cease,” wrote the Cuban leader Fidel Castro in a brief response on Oct. 21.
“Sovereignty is not negotiable,” he said. “The shameful tortures being carried out in the occupied territory of Guantánamo must also cease. We have never been intimidated by your threats to launch pre-emptive and surprise attacks against sixty or more dark corners of the world. Do not attack other countries; do not threaten humanity with a nuclear war.”
On Tuesday, speaking on behalf of the G77 and China, the largest political bloc of developing nations, Pakistani deputy ambassador Farukh Amil described the U.S. sanctions against Cuba as “a means of political and economic coercion”.
“The continued imposition of an economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba violates the principles of the sovereign equality of states and of non-intervention in each other’s domestic affairs, international human rights law and the U.N. Charter,” he told delegates.
Explaining why the European Union (EU) voted in favor of the resolution, Portuguese diplomat Jorge de Lemos Godinho said the U.S. measures against Cuba were “not acceptable.” In Godinho’s view, although the embargo against Cuba is a bilateral issue, the U.S. has extended it to other territories.
The embargo provisions contained in the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act put limits on EU countries’ trade relations with Cuba.
“The EU cannot accept unilateral measures imposed by the U.S.,” Godhino said, adding that in 1996, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a Regulation and Joint Action to protect the interests of natural and legal residents of the EU against the extraterritorial effects of the Helm-Burton Act.
The EU representative recalled that in 1998 at a summit, the U.S. had agreed to grant waivers to certain sections of the Helms-Burton Act. “The EU continues to urge the U.S. to implement its side of that understanding,” he said.
Among many others, diplomats from China and Russia, South Africa, Mexico, India and Mexico also made strong statements in support of the Cuban demand for the lifting of U.S. embargo.
Meanwhile, Ronald Godard, the U.S. State Department’s senior adviser for Latin American affairs, argued that, “The embargo was caused by Cuba in its denial of freedoms to its people” and that the “purpose of the embargo is to end the grip of the Cuban government on the Cuban people.”
Claiming that the U.S. is one of Cuba’s largest trading partners, accounting for more than 2 billion dollars in medical and agricultural commerce, he said the U.S. is also “the largest provider of humanitarian aid to the Cuban people.”
“Rather than voting for the resolution against the United States,” Godard added in a short statement, “the member states should oppose the Cuban government’s embargo on freedom, which is the real cause of the embargo.”
The Cuban government says the commercial and financial blockade imposed by the U.S. since 1962 has caused losses of over 89 billion dollars, which, at the current dollar value, account for no less than 222 billion dollars.
“Anyone can understand that the blockade is the main obstacle of the well-being of the Cuban people,” Cuban minister of foreign affairs Felipe Perez Roque told delegates. “It has constituted a systematic, blatant and massive violation of rights.”
“President Bush has urged Congress to maintain the embargo,” he said. “Indeed seven in 10 Cubans have lived their lives only knowing aggression against their country. The U.S. has ignored with arrogance and political blindness the 15 resolutions calling for the lifting of the blockade.”
© 2007 Inter Press Service
I still remember a couple of years ago, John Warner saying on Meet the Press that the embargo was beginning to work…Reality problem. When Condi Rice offered to help CUba with their education and medical system I wanted to yell, they are both superior to the US, they could be helping us. If you look at UN votes since the 60s you will see how often votes for things that will improve peace and people’s lives are carried by huge majorities with 1 or 2 in dissent, and always the US. We are a savage country.
The vote means little considering that Bush and most Democrats don’t care about the UN.
The average American has more common sense, and compassion, then the half-wits running the country, sad. How do these clowns get into office!
[quote]paulbk1977 October 31st, 2007 1:03 pm — How do these clowns get into office![/quote]
It’s called ‘freedom and democracy’ — U.S. imperial style. Like everything else in the ‘greatest democracy on earth’ the outcome is determined by corporate sponsorship, not by the wishes of ‘viewers like you. Thank you.’
Since 1962, Cuba has directly caused the deaths of how many Americans?
Since 1962, how many Americans have died in Vietnam?
Since 1962, how many people stationed on the 38th parallel in Korea, to make a statement to Communist China, have had their lived endangered, been injured or even killed to “contain” Red China?
Since 1962, how many Americans have lost thier lives in Panama, Honduras, Granada, the Domincan Republic and other American misadventures?
What is the common thread in this posting: we are trading with every country listed except one. We are buying/selling and making money off of every one of them except one.
And the one we are NOT doing business with, not bringing the munifisance of the US to: the one that did not cause the death of one American: Cuba.
Ask ADM, Wal-Mart, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Grumman, Boeing, Bally’s, Hilton and everyone else whether we should stillbe doing this. You know the answer.
Now, more than ever, this idiocy of the US, Israel, Palau and the 4th one, is out of step, out of touch and a sign of American bullying, of Bush and his predecessors catering to a very tiny lobby in South Florida, to the detriment to Cuba, the US and the world. Let’s shake hands with them, in front of the closed doors and see how much good it will produce. The current policy can only lead to the further erosion of what used to be a leadeship position in the world, cause obviusly the score is 186 -4 the world v the US+3
Idiocy, the government is led by idiots, leading idiots to idiotic ends…and no one ever follows an idiot (well except the US of A)
How do these clowns get into office? Simple look at the clowns in the presidential primaries. Will the one or two candidates who have any common sense and compassion get into office? Of course not. It always the corporate interests that win out. Were screwed! I am deeply shamed to be called an American. And I know that the sentiment is growing among any thinking man or woman that has half an eye to see the way our country really is. Instead of the red white and blue flag waving 4th of July, John Wayne mom and apple pie B. S. we were all sold as children.
Yet another source of shame. The Cuban People have responded with heart. They still love are even obsessed with the American People. I have considered that one solution to the impasse is to join up with Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Hati and the other Caribbean Island Nations to form a new nation of Caribe.
8 countries voted against, abstained or were absent. Who were they?
Only the US, Israel, Marshall Is and Palau voted against the resolution. Micronesia abstained.
Have been unable to determine who was absent.
Palau, the Marshal Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia are virtually controlled by the United States. You should see our fortress embassy in Palau. The Marshal Islands are still reeling from our nuclear testing, with cancers and birth defects. They can’t eat anything that grows there. They are dependent upon American canned goods, etc. The FSM has been fighting a losing battle for independence since WW-II. I don’t think they had much choice.
What we don’t kill or occupy, we blackmail. I think the Mafia won.
Does anybody who reads CD think that our current right-leaning President cares in the least what is voted on at the UN—except for the resolutions HE introduces?
Get Kucinich in the White House! (If you can’t get him, get Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Biden or Dodd.)
…yeah, and as a result of this landslide vote, is anything going to change?
A half century old failed boycott and the US’s only supporters are AIPAC and two islands that Amelia Earhart couldn’t find. What an absolute embarassment! Osama has more supporters than America under Bush. As I watch all those ‘candidate’ clowns making asses out of themselves I can only conclude that this country hasn’t a snowballs chance…
Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau’s pursestrings are held by Bush and his compliant Congress. They know on which side their bread is buttered.
AmeriKKKa the real threat to world peace and stability
I wonder if the rest of the world will ever have the balls to sanction us.
Call in our debts.
Put our officials on trial.
Cut of trade with us, because we are a terrorist nation.
And start picking up our people and torturing them like we do others.
I welcome it, because I feel only when we get a taste of our own medicine will people hit the streets and force change.
Until then people won’t give a crap.
Let the rest of the world be happy. I would gladly move to get a way from this place.
Every time some country is healthy and peaceful.
We go and fuck it up, with, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Missiles and Guns.
I hate it, and it sickens me all those that claim to be proud to be an American.
My children will never know the words….
~Future~
Future, I know I know, I’m a pie in the sky idealist, but I would like to see a seachange in the underlying principles of this nation of ours, ( practiced, NOT just preached) before I die. Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” was my wake-up call many many years ago. I am 61, with two wonderful adult children and two grandkids. I will not tell them lies about our history or our present dilemma but I will tell them we can be so much better and I for one am committed to doing everything in my power to make that happen. The lies and the enemy-patterning must be overcome! Can we do that much? I hope and pray we can.
[quote]Future.me October 31st, 2007 3:51 pm — I hate it, and it sickens me all those that claim to be proud to be an American.[/quote]
Nothing wrong with a certain amount of pride in being a member of the community. Not forgetting that that community includes lots of Americans outside the US of A, it has made some very worthwhile contributions to humanity and the world in general.
The problem arises from the ‘exeptionalist’ propaganda (’greatest democracy on earth’, etc.) that would put loyality to a particular system (political, economic, or whatever) and its symbols (flag, regimental colors, and so on) above one’s reponsibilities as a member of the human race and an inhabitant of our small and rapidly shrinking planet. It is that ‘exceptionalism’ that I find most troubling as what appears to be an ingrained and almost immutable part of the U.S. popular psyche.
It is despicable to know the US talking about “freedom”. Again Putin was spot on when Bush tried to “counsel” the former about “freedom” and “democracy”. Putin said with a wry smile that the Russia did not need the “freedom and democracy in Iraq”.
America is shameless to talk about “freedom” and “democracy”, when the entire world is watching what is happening now in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo…. The world also know about “American freedom and democracy” in Africa and Central and South America. The world knows about the American “freedom champions” such as Pinochet, Saddam Hussain, Shah of Iran, Marcos, King Abdullah of Jordan, Musharaf, Saudi kings, Mubarak…. America is one of the four countries (the other three: Canada, Newzealand, and Australia)to vote against the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Commenting on the US democracy, Joel Hirschhorn says: “We the people once owned our democracy. We elected “representatives” to run it for US. Have you noticed? Somewhere along the way we lost our democracy.
“It was foreclosed by wealthy and power elites that corrupted our “representatives” who literally sold us out. Our homeland was foreclosed right in plain sight. Sure, we citizens still reside in the USA, but we no longer own our democracy. We pay rent through our taxes. But we no longer have any equity. Our democracy is owned by the rich, and their partner foreign elites and governments, which is why in a strict sense it no longer is a democracy, but rather a plutocracy.
“Modern day aristocrats – an apt terms considering the many political dynasties in our ruling class - maintain the charade that America is still a democracy by letting us vote. They also give us many freedoms to distract us from our dire political conditions. They’re smart, so they limit our choices to the main parties that constitute the two-party duopoly. Even smarter, they convert consumer spending (that they spur) into economic inequality, making them, the rich, even richer and everyone else, all of us, poorer.”
What about wire-tapping, president’s signing statements, imprisoning American citizens without any charges, colour-blinded (in)justice system, socio-economic apartheid against the minority communities……..
It is high time for the American public to retrospect and look in the mirror (not a distorted mirror), and also ask its government for checks and balances so that atleast in the near future America may restore and enoy “democracy” and “freedom” on its soil.
Cubans do not need a “lecture” from the Americans about “democracy” and “freedom”. It is the Americans who need a lecture from the Cubans on democracy and freedom.
If one looks at the history of voting in UN on Israel’s policies against Palestinians, it is the same four countries that voted along with the US!!!!!!!!
End the embargo. I look forward to seeing if Castro enables his citizens the freedom to travel- including families.
[quote]gandhi October 31st, 2007 4:47 pm — Even smarter, they convert consumer spending (that they spur) into economic inequality, making them, the rich, even richer and everyone else, all of us, poorer.[/quote]
A highly cogent point. It’s our money that they use, in conjunction with the rights associated with their court awarded ‘corporate personhood’, to augment their power over us.
In effect, we vote with our dollars as consumers to hand over to them their much more effective and meaningful ‘votes’ as ‘the people’ to whom governmental authorities are obligated.
We are not only the authors of our own predicament, but its funders as well.
Read Public Law 107-243, which is the AUMF that authorized the use of military force against Iraq.
One of the two goals listed was to force Iraq to obey UN Security Council resolutions. (Yes, that’s officially why we invaded Iraq. That, and stopping Iraq from being a ‘continuing threat’ to the US).
So the US does consider the UN important, when it serves our interests.
The world is aggregating against the US, slowly but surely. The Russians and Chinese have begun military cooperation. Latin America is forming its only bloc.
If we continue the way we have been, soon the only question will be whether or not we take the whole world down with us.
Recall the entire government…lock, stock and barrel. Start again..save a few like Byrd, Kucinich, Ron Paul…maybe a couple others. Throw the rest out. Have a direct election. Revise the Constitution. Put the perps in balls and chains. Abolish lobbying. No more campaign contributions. Equal TV time for everyone. Put the MSM in the People’s hands. ON and on and on and on. “You might say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”……JL……..
Thank God for the Marshall Islands and Palau. Fortress America does not stand alone!
How is this fair when only a few countries voted against.
When the states they want democracy what they are really saying is they want corporate entities all over the world.
It isn’t working well here we not only have pockets of poverty we have villages too.
Only in america can people be brainwashed by their television sets in their $5O0,000 homes that they are free. Miss a payment and see how free you are.
I guess most are too proud to admit they eat oodles of noodles or a can of beans living in the land of plenty.
Castro won.
viva la Cuba!!
What a true swine America is proving to be, perhaps the Cubans should look forward to when America and the mafia ran the whorehouse called Havana!! Myer Lanski for mayor! America the disgusting!
The fact that the Bush regime is still ‘hating on’ Fidel Castro is a measure of the mafia’s control of the white house. Those disgusting old dinosaurs are slowly dying off.
International pressure is helpful.
Why in hell we never made Cuba part of the US just as Puerto Rico I don’t know. But I do know that the embargo is one of the most stupid things we have done. Open the doors to peace, prosperity and travel, Bush, you ignorant idiot.
A citizen of Cuba does have the right to travel, if he can afford to. Their airport in Havana is an international one.
Wanna see rogue nations? They are “United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau.”
My suggestion to the later two on the list. Think again, who you associate with.
Little wonder that the U.S. hates Cuba with an unrequited passion. After all, the revolution took all the land on the island away from corporate america and distributed it amongst their own people so that now 85% of Cubans own their own land and homes and only 15% pay rent. That human trash which runs the U.S. would like everyone to believe that socialism means everybody living and working on a communal farm and sharing the same underwear, but what they are really afraid of their own citizens finding out is how much superior the socialist system is when compared to their own capitalist gulag.
The U.S. has over two million people in prison, over 40 million without health coverage and more than twice that amount who can’t come close to affording higher education. In Cuba, the percentage of population in prison is less than a quarter of that in the U.S., everybody has full healthcare from cradle to grave and everybody has free access to as much education as they can aspire to, and that includes all associated costs.
The U.S. also hates Cuba because every time they have encountered Cubans in battle situations the Cubans have trounced the U.S. and their mercenaries. Among other achievements, it was Cuba which rid the world of that racist apartheid regime of South Africa by beating the U.S. backed South Africans in Angola. What really bothers that scum in the U.S. hierarchy now is that Cuba is making and exporting doctors and education and that sets a real bad example.
The Military Industrial Government Complex is the greatest criminal undertaking ever by known sentient species. Peak oil will someday soon mean the end of the USA as we know it today, good riddence. The future though will be mass starvation and regional war lords or worse. Especially worse if some amoral predator lets those nukes fly.
1) This is yet another issue on which the Dems and Repubs largely agree.
2) This is yet another issue on which the US is acting brutally and unfairly.
3) This is yet another issue on which the US is outside the mainstream of world opinion and international law.
4) This is yet another issue on which the world bases its hatred of the US.
Bese mi coolo blanco grande, asesino BUSH~!
Por favor perdone a nuestros lideres para la estupidez, Senor Presidente Castro, por favor.
Those scary Commies in Cuba have been superceded by the scary Terr’ists that are everywhere, even inside those who dissent against BushCo. There’s a new bogeyman in town.
Cuba demonization is soooo 60’s. (And no wonder the Revolution happened, when the assholes in the US were mistreating Cuba.)
Lets get back in touch with our brothers and sisters to the south. We have a lot to offer each other and a lot to learn.
“Now is the time to support the democratic movements growing on the island,” Bush said, calling for the world “to put aside its differences and prepare for Cubans’ transition to a future of freedom and progress and promise.”
He failed to add, “like we’ve brought to Iraq”.
I wonder why?
If the world community were smart, they would bite the bullet and declare the United States a pariah nation. Put us in Coventry. No trade, no communications, no banking, no negotiations, no nothing, until the United States puts its house in order and decides to join the community of civilized nations.
If, eventually, the United States decides it wants to abide by the international treaties and accords that it once signed, then discarded under der Bush; if it decides to trade equitably with the world instead being “rip off central;” if it begins to support the international agreements on arms limitations, bans on mines and cluster munitions; begins looking after the environment instead of exploiting it as a cash cow, then perhaps the world would grant probationary status until we proved we meant it.
Someday, perhaps we could earn full membership.
Sigh.
Maybe I’ll get some quality cigars now!
I’ve always thought Castro was a courageous man. Mostly because as a child, my father told me the truth about why the Cuban people rallied ’round him when he had had enough of The U.S.’s, (insert Evil Empire) trained chimp Batiste turning his country and countrymen into whores for the pigs from the “good ‘ole” United States of Amnesia. From Mass murderer/war criminal “Ike” sending the Toadies (insert C.I.A.)to Iran in ‘53 to make their oil available to the corporations you drones seem to worship to SwineBush convincing “our boys” to slaughter 1.2 million, (and counting), human beings. Wanna worship this cesspool? go ahead. A nation of sheep, led by a cartel of whores, controlled by Israel/big business. Welcome, to the REAL Evil Empire.
libertas said:
“If the world community were smart, they would bite the bullet and declare the United States a pariah nation. Put us in Coventry. No trade, no communications, no banking, no negotiations, no nothing, until the United States puts its house in order and decides to join the community of civilized nations.”
The problem is not us, it’s our oligarchy…and theirs.
and don’t forget hurricane katrina,when Fidel offered medicine & doctors for NOLA, our spiteful president preferred to see our people die.
Cuba also has disaster plans being prone to hurricanes & has always evacuated 100% of their endangered citizens, another pitiful comparison for capitalistic Amerika.
my country has become pariah extraordinare.
When the day of reckoning comes & a real coalition of the willing join together they just may be greeted as liberators with
flowers, candy and cakewalks.
Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak OIL
Welcome!
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
That’s pretty cool. What’s really nice is that Cuba has been able to withstand all of the attacks against their honorable society by the evil scumbags which run the U.S. The fact that they are sitting on top of one of the most abundant unproved reserves of oil in the world doesn’t hurt either.
Let’s see, Bush stole the elections of 2000 and 2004 in Florida, with the help of Miami’s Cuban Mafia and the ultra-Right-Wing religious nuts.
Now he sends our tax dollars to the far right churches, and supports every crackpot idea the elderly Cuban Dons of Miami dream up. Bush and his buddies are true believers: They expect the 2nd coming to occur on their watch.
Capable of ignoring all evidence to the contrary, they eagerly await the demise of Fidel, as if that will change the equation. The Cuban people made their choice years ago. Those who voted ‘NO!’ live in Miami
“you drones seem to worship to SwineBush convincing “our boys” to slaughter 1.2 million, (and counting), human beings. Wanna worship this cesspool? go ahead. A nation of sheep, led by a cartel of whores, controlled by Israel/big business. Welcome, to the REAL Evil Empire.”
don’t lump us all together. some of us are working for real change. sure it’s easy to sit and deride us all from the comfort of your keyboard. I for one would like this horrible “embargo” ENDED NOW!
United Nations General Assembly
Resolution No. A/RES/62/3
Plenary, Agenda Item No. 21
Meeting Record: A/62/PV.38
Date: 30 Oct. 2007
Press Release: GA/10649
Vote: 184-4-1
Draft: A/62/L.1
Topic: Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10649.doc.htm
Vote details were:
For: (184 nations)
Against: Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States.
Abstain: Federated States of Micronesia.
Absent: Albania, El Salvador, Iraq
Considering the countries to whom we have granted Most Favored status for trade (including People’s Republic of China — human rights violations, lead in toys, plastic derivatives in food, etc), Russia, etc. etc., does this make any sense?
And didn’t we grant them that status so that our free markets and ideas would “infect” them with a love for freedom (a plan that is working exceptionally well in Iraq, for example).
And as far as I know, we still gobble up Venezuelan & Iranian petroleum. Perhaps that’s the key: if petroleum reserves were discovered in Havana Bay, we’d be trading with them all right.
As elderly as I am, I still HATE it when I have to ask questions on subject matter I am ignorant about.
For example, when I was eight years old, I lived at the Williamson dairy farm in Michigan, It was located somewhere in the thumb of the state. It was a showcase farm, largest wood barn in the state, prize cattle and a blue ribbon bull named John. John liked me, I snuck silage to him when ever I went up into the hay loft to pitch down hay.
One cold day, I was assisting the owner and his son, putting up electric fencing along the road to the upper 80. Merlin, the owners 30 year old tobacco chewing son, asked me to run back to the tool shed and get a box of bolts which were lying on the bench, __ (next to the FORGE). Wanting desperately to please this man who seemed to dislike me for some unknown reason, I raced off as fast as I could. When I got into the large tool shed, I was lost. ___What is a FORGE I wondered? After awhile I became panicky, didn’t have a clue of where to look for tha box of bolts.
After a time, which seemed to be an hour to me, Merlin came in gave me a vicious kick in the rear and called me a damn fool. He picked up a box of bolts lying on the bench next to the FORGE and stalked out. ___ I then knew what a forge was. I should have learned a lesson, to not be afraid of being ignorant and asking pertinent questions ___ even if I show my ignorance.
So now, in my seventies I ask. ___ If the UN, whom the United States is a member of, has voted to have the United States end the unfair embargo agaisnt Cuba with a vote of 184 to 4, doesn’t that mean the embargo will end? ____ If not, why in hell not? Are we so above the rest of the world, we don’t have to listen and comply with reasonable requests of other members of the human race, who may live in other countries? If we don’t have to comply with UN votes, what use is a UN and why is it headquartered in our contry? ___ Am I stupid, or are our leaders insane?
Time will come when we
will shudder; we knew! And did
nothing. I do, now.
Maybe the UN should invert the resolution. Rather than voting to end the embargo (which the US can veto with a single no vote), the UN should vote on a resolution to continue the embargo. Then the vote would be 184-4 against the resolution (and the US’s “yes” vote would not matter since other permanent members of the security council would have vetoed the resolution).
You didn’t help my ignorance DON. I still don’t understand it.
Once Again, there exists a double standard revealing a fundamental contradiction in the capitalist’ argument:
Trade with a totalitarian system( such as Burma or China) can loosen them up and lead to democracy. Trade with a socialist/totalitarian system only strengthens their grip(such as Cuba or Venezeula). I must conclude that socialism is the enemy and not the lack of freedom. The U.S. government and its lackey states must really despise the poor and refuse to give them any hope.
VIVA FIDEL
I hope Castro lives long enough to see Bush and Cheney go to jail and a democrat like Obama get elected.
If Hillary is elected she will be very calculating as usual and nothing will change. Sigh, yawn, moan, groan, sleep.
This embargo violates my right to go to Cuba Freely… I wonder if the ACLU would take a class action case for Civil Rights and our constitutional and inalienable human rights. Wouldn’t it be cool if the UN followed this up …I doubt the UN ever followed up on declaring this Embargo a hate and war Crime against Humanity.
It is obvious the world is against it from the vote so now they can say why they are against it and than it would be a step further to freedom…. Our own Freedom.
Well I Dreamed it!
Hey Kem Patrick,
General assembly votes aren’t considered binding by the U.S. The U.S. only considers things which go through teh Security Council binding. (that way the U.S. can veto anything it doesn’t like.)
Seeing the Democratic candidates for president deliver their most important points of their candidacy Tuesday night clarifys for me that Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s presidency will bring real change for this country and in our foreign policy. His honesty and directness will restore our standing in the world community. I believe that he would also call an end to the nonsense and ignorance that has been prevalent among our past presidents who punished the people who were trying to have a better life and reward the dictatorships of those like Pinnochet and Saddam Hussein.
This country and the world will just be a better place when Dennis Kucinich becomes our president.
Who appointed the US the keeper of anything? The US can’t even take care of its own yet constantly sticks its nose into other nations’ business. Who, in his right mind, wants ‘American style democracy’ which is nothing but corruption, greed and decadence.
Vera, you hit the nail on the head!
“Who, in his right mind, wants ‘American style democracy’ which is nothing but corruption, greed and decadence?”
Our policies demand it be accepted in total.
Our controlling oligarchy and its allies thrive on their profits from the corruption, greed and decadence we export.
We judge peoples as backward who have a history of societal ethics and morality.
How about mounting a blockade against the BushCheney oligarchy and regain the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?
JohnR wrote:
“I must conclude that socialism is the enemy and not the lack of freedom.”
COMMENT:
Socialism can mean a nation of people owning all of the means of production in common as in the Marxist vision. However, that is but one vision.
Socialism in its purest and simplest form merely means collective ownership. The various theories and practices of collective ownership may be as modest as a society of farmers owning a threshing machine; a community of several villages collectively owning farmland, a woolen mill, and community dining halls, as once did the Amana community in Iowa; citizens owning their own power plant run by their city’s government; or citizens owning their own health insurance run by their federal government like Medicare.
Socialism has always been the hated enemy of the ruling/owning/investment/predatory class, because any means of aggrandizing wealth through owning or controlling or exploiting the means of production such as through land, rental properties, and all natural resources (oil, gas, coal, minerals, forests, etc), food production and distribution, insurance, health care, postal service, that is owned collectively by all the people, prohibits the ruling/owning/investment/predatory class from exploiting that resource or service and therefore prohibits exploitation of the people that own them.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. —Abraham Lincoln
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. –Robert Green Ingersoll
Capitalism survives only upon the labor of others. If a capitalist can’t own the means of production, he/she can’t own those that do, can’t exploit the labor of those that do. Those in the collective are free like birds beyond the reach of the predatory cats. And like the cats, the capitalists will keep yowling and swinging their paws in frustration, anger, and hatred of that in which they cannot get their greedy claws.
That’s why capitalists hate socialism. That’s why socialim is the enemy of capitalism.
advocate
To add to your comment:
When I try to think this through, I almost tend to see the term ‘capitalist’as keeping me from thinking clearly, because it suggests to me that I should picture a real individual, a capitalist. The term ‘capitalism’ helps me a bit more.
I think it is a system that demands of the people who are in it, particularly the ones who are rewarded by it, to hate socialism…or any other system that threatens capitalism’s hegemony. Capitalism demands of the people in it that if they wish to maintain their positions and continue their climbs to the top, that they do what is good for the system. And so they buy governments, use government resources to further capitalism’s ends,buy pr to spread their messages, and buy ways and means of crushing their competitors,- competitors like socialism.
Capitalism is about accumulating wealth (not creating wealth, as their pr keeps claiming), and so the system does what it has to do to accumulate wealth. It demands of its people that they say and do to this end.
People within the capitalist system have (often) a split between their humanity and meeting the demands of their system,-that’s why they need a lot of martinis and visits to Las Vegas, a lot of extremes to validate their humanity. When some person in capitalism dreams of the big score, the big deal, they are dreaming, not so much of doing it for the company, but of freeing themselves of being dependent on the capitalist system that they are a part of. It’s the only way they can save their humanity.
People within capitalism want their lives to have meaning, same as most of us. But, for meaning, they take on the antipathies of the system, so that a upwardly mobile management type will display hatred for socialism,- sometimes pathologically.
There has always been comment about socialism for the rich and free enterprise for everyone else. The present Iraq/Afghan adventure reminds me of that. (Surely the public expense on the military for these two adventures is one of the greatest subsidies to capitalist corporations in a long time.)
There is also the comment that the less rational an argument, the shriller has to be the defense of that argument. Methinks that the defense of capitalist corporations is going to be getting a whole lot shriller as this century goes on, to the grief of a lot more of us.
I was watching the news last week at lunchtime to see how things were going with the fires raging across southern California. It’s the largest displacement of people in California history. Instead of news on the fires, I got George Bush live, talking about this 50-year standoff against Cuba as if it were the most vital thing on his plate at the moment.
Did he give a tough guy smirk while talking?
Socialism in it’s purest form is not about a dozen guys owning a threshing machine that everybody wants to use but nobody wants to fix. Socialism in it’s purest form is the kind of democracy that the ancient Greeks dreamed of but which they did not practice. It is the people in the government, chosen by the people, ensuring that all vital services of the nation are managed efficiently so that all citizens of the nation can benefit equally.
The imperialists would have everybody believe that private property and socialism are incompatible but that is not the case. There is nothing wrong with someone making money off of what they produce or create. The dividing line is between what belongs to the nation and what belongs to the individual in the sense that natural resources can only belong to the nation but books or music or a better mouse trap belong to the creator.
When led by a few lawmakers, socialism and capitalism invariably fail. When the people are the lawmakers, they succeed. Mike Gravel’s National Initiative for Democracy makes the people the lawmakers:
http://www.nationalinitiative.us/
I was reading La Prensa [Cuban on-line newspaper] and came across an article/petition from the International Action Center founded by Ramsey Clark in Washington DC. basically, it petitions for solidarity against Bush and his threats against Cuba.
The petition is here: www.iacenter.org cubacampaign07sp.shtml English: www.iacenter.org cu
I think you can easily google La Prensa - I read it weekly…
Fidel is a dictator of course but in comparison to the Bush junta and war machine amerika, what a breath of fresh air to see a people snub the evil that unbridled capitalist greed and ignorance that poor amerika represents. We know in our hearts and souls that a system that takes care of its people first will survive long after the throwaway society that feeds off the rest of the planet is long buried under the hubris and hypocrisy of its miserable insatiable elite
Viva Cuba y America sin “amerika”!
I think the leaders we’ve had for the past few decades in the U.S.( Republicans and Democrats ) really despise the laboring class and use mass media to brainwash the general population to do the same. Moreover, they’ll support right-wing guerillas in Nicaurauga and elsewhere who are bent on violently smashing any social programs that benefit the poor. All of this leaves me feeling distraught.
I don’t support socialist dictators any more than I do fascist ones. But universal healthcare and education like they have in Cuba are unqualified virtues of that society.
And if Venezeula and Bolivia successfully reform their societies to be more equanimous, I think I’d rather live there than in the U.S.
There is no such thing as a “socialist dictator” because socialism and dictator are two descriptions which are incompatible, so you should quit with that diversion. Fidel is elected to his position.
Hugo and Evo also were elected with overwhelming majorities and their societies are already reformed. All that needs to be done there is to consolidate and improve their gains.