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TechnoratiBarack Obama Shakes Hands with Hugo Chavez
US President Barack Obama has shaken hands with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, a bitter foe of the former Washington administration.
The surprise encounter came at the opening ceremony of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where Mr Obama has made Cuba a key priority.
![[Barack Obama exchanges a friendly handshake with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (Photo: AP)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/obama-chavez_1386798c.jpg "obama-chavez_1386798c.jpg")
After several days of the US and Cuba trading warm words that have hinted at a
détente after a half century of hostility, Mr Obama said that he was seeking "a
new beginning" with Havana.
But it was his unexpected handshake and the smiles he exchanged with Mr Chavez that caught many at the summit by surprise.
Mr Chavez's populist government in Caracas has sought to generate support by railing against Washington at every opportunity. He once described President George W Bush "the devil".
But he was warned by his fellow Latin American leaders last week that he must tone down his anti-Americanism at the summit.
Asked what he had said to Mr Chavez, Mr Obama replied with a smile: "I said como estas".
Mr Obama meanwhile made his diplomatic overtures to Cuba as he joined 33 other leaders of Western Hemisphere states at the summit in Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago late on Friday.
Only Cuba is not represented after being thrown out of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in 1962.
But Mr Obama said: "The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba. I know there is a longer journey that must be travelled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day."
His comments came a day after Cuba's President Raúl Castro said that the communist island state was ready to discuss "human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners - everything". Significantly, he also acknowledged that the regime "could be wrong".
Mr Obama announced earlier in the week that the US was easing restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban-Americans and challenged Mr Castro to make concessions of his own.
In his speech in Trinidad, Mr Obama renewed his promise for his administration to engage with the Cuban government "on a wide range of issues", including human rights, free speech, democratic reform, drugs, immigration and the economy.
"Let me be clear: I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking," the president said. "But I do believe that we can move US-Cuban relations in a new direction."
Earlier, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also welcomed Mr Castro's comments. "We welcome his comments, the overture they represent, and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond," she said.
In another sign of changing times, the OAS Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza, said he would ask the 34 member nations to invite Cuba back into the fold. Mr Insulza is known for his political caution and is thought unlikely to have floated the idea without the approval of Washington.
White House aides said Mr Obama had been particularly encouraged by Mr Castro's concession that Cuba "could be wrong".
However, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made clear that while Mr Castro's new openness to change was welcome, the US was not abandoning its demand for Cuba to start making concrete moves toward greater freedoms.
"They're certainly free to release political prisoners," he said aboard Air Force One as Obama flew into Trinidad. "They're certainly free to stop skimming money off the top of remittance payments as they come back to the Cuban island. They're free to institute a greater freedom of the press."
89 Comments so far
Show AllAdvice to neocons:
Diplomacy can work. Really! Like it or not, imperialism unifies a lot of people ... against the imperialist.
What interests me now is to see if Chavez and Obama can go the distance. Time will tell. And in the interests of both parties involved, I hope it does.
Obama seems to side with those who argue he's merely putting up a good-cop act. Asked about the handshake at a press conference, he said:
"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interest of the United States."
He is still a national chauvinist. He still thinks that states represent the interests of their people, and that the interests of the people of the United States and those of Venezuela are opposed (as if it were the Venezuelan people that bailed out Wall Street banks with my money, sent one of my childhood friends to die from a sniper in Iraq, and used my taxes to pay the cops who have beat up good friends of mine during peaceful acts of political protesting!).
You have to be pretty foolish to think that a handshake means there has been a change to something so fundamental about Obama's outlook.
Perhaps Cuba could be convinced to return nationalized assets by example. U.S. could return Cherokee land for instance.
Why stop at Cherokee land? Why not give the country back to all indians?
Awesome.
Exactly :-)
In November 2005, USAID ("From American People"!) paid Creighton University of Omaha's School of Law 750K for a study titled How to Recoup Assets in Cuba with the goal to hasten the peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.
As the study's title reveals, the core intention is to set the basic mechanisms for recouping billions of dollars for those (USans, Cubans, and European colonialists) whose assets were seized after the revolution in 1959.
From Creighton University Cuba Claims Study Tainted by USAID $750k Funding, by Oskar Garcia, at http://havanajournal.com/cuban_americans/entry/creighton
-university-cuba-claims-study-tainted-by-usaid-750k-funding/
The United States’ relationship with Cuba could be renewed if Cuba shows signs of a burgeoning democracy. But Cuba is obligated by international law to compensate owners of seized property, and settling American claims would be essential to rebuilding the tie.
Nearly 6,000 American claims have been determined valid by the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, which the study values at about $6 billion in current dollars, with interest. The claims are wide-ranging, from homes to corporate assets, sugar mills and oil refineries.
The study suggests that if Cuba tried to pay the claims back in hard currency, it would be able to pay only a few cents on the dollar, and Cuban assets frozen in the United States would hardly dent the claims.
Instead, the study suggests settling claims in ways that will foster Cuba’s growth, by giving claimants development rights and tax breaks or other opportunities for financial gain.
“It’s not going to be a one-size-fits all deal,” Borchers said, but settling the claims is linked directly with lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
And, of course, the whole USAID Cuba Program is hypocritically packaged as an effort to advance democracy, with "Major Mission Elements" as stated:
Strategic Objective: To help build civil society by increasing the flow of accurate information on democracy, human rights, and free enterprise to, from, and within Cuba.
1. Building Solidarity with Cuba's Human Rights Activists
2. Giving Voice to Cuba's Independent Journalists
3. Helping Develop Independent Cuban NGOs
4. Defending the Rights of Cuban Workers (!!)
5. Providing Direct Outreach to the Cuban People
6. Planning for Transition ("Meeting Basic Needs in the Areas of Health, Education, Housing, and Human Services" (!!), among others.)
(Excerpts from USAID Cuba Program, at:
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/latin_america_caribbean/country/cuba
/overviewupdate.html)
The road map is there. I doubt Pres. Obama would go astray.
The worst thing about communism is what comes after - people of Poland.
it might be good to be a bit suspicious of obama's motives in relations to cuba and venezuela. plenty of people in the US think the best way to deal w/cuba is to reintegrate it into the capitalist world. that obama has anything else than that in mind here is most certainly wishful thinking.
Most people on Common Dreams are staunch capitalists.
But you are of course right. Obama is the capitalist "good cop".
Honestly, the way I see it (and this is a controversial viewpoint among socialists), the era of Leninism is over; the sooner these last vestiges of it (Cuba, North Korea) liberalize, and the sooner the nominally "Communist" capitalist countries change their names (China, Vietnam) and become openly capitalist, the sooner the project of a truly Marxist, truly working class, truly grassroots, truly international socialist revolution can begin.
That's not to say that I root for these countries to become U.S. vassals like so much of Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe--I obviously don't. But that's more from my opposition to imperialism and the worst aspects of globalization than because I see their social systems as containing an exact model of the future society.
Whatever. There is one thing I'm sure of, namely that neoliberalism is dead and gone, and that socialism--whether by that name, or another one--is the future.
unionave, you start off great. you're right, people don't just decide one day to go hate someone. however, hatred is not limited to race and religion. throw in actions and behavioral patterns as well.
it's almost a certainty that mr. chavez was being polite in calling the great bush "the devil." and that most likely was for public discourse only. behind closed doors he probably called him a lying, cheating, useless, dumber than drunk piece of shit. which bush is, and so much more. not sure where you were for the last eight years, or if you're aware of "what our last president did..." during those eight years, but for most of us here, there's no revelation.
if you're being sarcastic (a poor attempt), it escapes me and i apologize.
A DRUNK dumber than drunk piece of shit :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GhPDL3VSo4
Excellent work. Now this is President Obama.
What does this half-witt at the telegraph mean by "railing against Washington" or "anti-Americanism"? If Bush or his psychopathic neocon cohorts were anything it was NOT American and NOT Washington. They were the criminal deceivers and hijackers posing as something other than what they actually were, treasonous terrorists out to bilk and otherwise do grave harm to the USA for their twisted interests. They orchestrated 9/11 to facilitate the invasion of Iraq and the multi-trillion dollar heist of the US treasury.
Chavez's smelling of sulfur, the Devil, was spot on. He really is a fantastic man so long as he holds true to the spirit of freedom. He has pulled the country out from enslavement and empowered his people in a very few years time despite massive efforts against him.
Skimming??? Freedom of the press??? What is that??
We are free to break up our media conglomerates owned by criminals who have worked daily to undermine the forth estate, oh and talk about SKIMMING!!
Well I'm still happy, perhaps only because things have been so horrible. But there are other reasons to hope that Obama is becoming aware.
I wonder if Hugo took a whiff of Obomber to see if he smelled like sulfur?
The wise will understand that Chavez is not really a socialist, rather a left-leaning petit bourgeois nationalist capitalist. Obama represents the "liberal" side of American imperialism, and there is no reason that there cannot be peace between Chavez and Obama, but it will be a peace that requires wholesale concessions by Chavez, and none by the good-cop Obama.
Real socialists call for the global overthrow of capitalism by organized labor led by a communist vanguard. To call for anything else is ignorance or treachery.
i like both chavez and castro (so much better than the clowns we get in the US), but i am afraid that in the end you will be proven right. i hope not, but "normalizing" relations w/the US may be too great a lure for them to reject.
as for james stirling's comments....the pristine, functional, efficient, egalitarian democratic capitalism he espouses is no less fanciful than international revolutionary communism. and that, in the end, is the problem w/castro and chavez. their willingness to embrace capitalism, albeit of a more "mixed" w. european style, will ultimately devolve into its more rapacious, american-style form. it's already happening in europe. capitalists will not accept the limitations on profit-making. that's the problem.
My dream is not fanciful or even difficult to achieve. We just need to realize that our country is being destroyed and we must act urgently. There are only a few tweaks we need to add to the foundation(USA is the longest continuous governmental system in the world and has done relatively well until recently although we could have done much better). All we need to do is ban all money or gratuities of any kind in politics. No jobs in the public sector and no funded cheerleader organizations. We must have an absolute across the board ban and very stiff penalties for violators. We must STOP treating our representatives as something similar to royalty. The average person can't even see them or talk to them on the phone.
If you want a job in politics or in the government you must agree not to go into any regulated industry for life. It's a choice one would have to make and good solid people who care about the nation wouldn't mind making although it would be a great sacrifice. We have to stop regulatory neutralization by what is effectively just bribery. These things must be made major felonies. People need to realize how bad things are and I think they do. Zero budget campaigns where all modes of communications have fairly distributed channels would have to be set up to replace our current system. Take out the psyops of the American people where you turn people into zombies who wave flags for the criminals that are stealing from them. We effectively just need the raw information about the candidates and additionally the ability to vote them back out of office if they fail to live up to their campaign promises.
It is not impossible but you can't have any thing good with any sized group of people unless you have fair and reasonable rules that keep us all within the bounds of getting a reasonable amount of good out of life.
The founding father's should have incorporated these things into the constitution and that would have prevented the mess we now have. Strangely they talked about all of it in their writings, very prophetically.
Make it absolute treason to give or receive any benefit of any kind in any phase of politics with the violators on both sides receiving swift and sure punishment. There are a few more features I'd add to the new Constitution but all of them would have no problem passing with very great levels of support nationwide.
"USA is the longest continuous governmental system in the world and has done relatively well until recently although we could have done much better"
But surely you don't believe that stability is valuable in itself? Dictatorships can be stable. China (to pick every right-winger's favorite scapegoat) is stable. In fact, Swedish PM Göran Persson created a small scandal for praising China's stability in 1996 when he said "To me it is enormously striking what political stability means for economic development when you look at the Chinese example."
America's "democracy" (such as it is) is only 89 years old, dating to the passage of the 19th amendment. That's not even counting Jim Crow laws, which disenfranchised Southern blacks into the 1960s.
For that matter, the Soviet Union introduced universal suffrage in 1918, two years before the United States.
Bottom line, I really can't imagine the point of praising a political system for its longevity. And I doubt that you apply that same standard fairly to history (if you did, you would probably regard monarchy quite highly).
Redtide. I was in Florida when they had a bout of red tide.
My concern is that you think anyone that doesn't fall for your viewpoint is working for international imperialism. I'm not and I nearly wholly disagree with you. The fact is capitalism has proven itself capable of producing vast increases in proper wealth (better distribution than any other system) for everyone and vast increases in technology more completely equally distributed.
But for capitalism to function at it's very best it must have the check of a powerful and very free democracy which in turn is facilitated and checked by a truly free press. We must not allow bribery of politicians and we must have unfettered access to information, the complete truth, all the time. Only the whole truth will set us free.
With this mix of things there is nothing a free market economy can't do to make our lives better. I do believe police services, fire and even medicine are best served with a primarily socialist model although broken up where free market can add to the process. Socialized medicine has proven itself we just need to make sure ours is the best it can be.
With the truly free market controlled by proper laws created by a the free and powerful people of a free democratic state we'd have boundless natural and clean energy and electric cars that don't pollute. This mix of a strong free democratic society and a free market we have never had completely thanks to the pollution of bribery in politics, which I believe is the root of things like big-oil, war and torture. We must outlaw bribery, that is, any money of any kind in politics.
What you are saying is that a communist, basically single corporation run state, is better. It may sound good, but it is about as bad as you can get. It puts all of the power into very few peoples hands.
Now this similar concentration of power and wealth is happening in the US and UK more and more but it is not because of capitalism but because we have allowed criminalistic morons to hijack our societies.
They are low-life-scum-criminals. I wish people would stop calling them the elite. They couldn't possibly be lower. They are destroying everything we and our forefathers have ever worked for. I mean everything without the least regard for decency of any kind whatsoever.
Fascism, bad.
"What you are saying is that a communist, basically single corporation run state, is better. It may sound good, but it is about as bad as you can get. It puts all of the power into very few peoples hands."
That's not socialism, that's not what Marx called socialism, that's not what socialists call socialism, and what you describe--"a single corporation run state"--is a system that has only ever come into existence in states under overpowering imperialist pressure, and led by people whose overriding goal was to industrialize their countries at a rapid pace, not to establish workers' control or put into place democratic levers of control for a democratically-planned economy. You have a lot to learn about the history of world Communism (which does not equal small-c communism, or even small-s socialism).
Utter nonsense: There is no such thing as a truly free market.
Sioux Rose
JAMES: Your idealism is compelling; but given the reality that greed tends to run rampant and those with money (success in said capitalist system) then reach out to buy politicians/policy, and/or to own media to shape a consensus around false representations of policies, protocols, and events... a certain contamination sets in. Until the whole basis for electing officials is altered, expecting the checks and balances you relate remains a fantasy, quite a dark one given who's taken over the reins of this government.
Who offered that letter? It is an excellent one. Hope Obama reads the book.
This form my Brother in Toronto, via Canadian media reports:
At the Summit of the Americas, Hugo Chavez gave Obama a copy of the book we all know well but Obama never heard of called, "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent," by Eduardo Galeano. Then Obama heard Daniel Ortega critique US/Euro imperialism in the Americas. What was the President of the USA's response? "I didn't come here to debate the past," Obama said. "I came here to deal with the future." He said that he hopes Ortega isn't blaming him for stuff that happened when he was a baby.
He then offered this open letter:
Dear Mr. President,
To paraphrase the Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer there is no cheap healing. Grave crimes committed in the past can not be wiped away just by saying its time to move ahead. You must acknowledge the crimes committed by the USA against its neighbors in Latin America. You must express sorrow for the suffering it caused to millions of human beings. You must put those words into action by offering concrete proposals for repairing the damage the USA has caused there. You must resist the temptation to get defensive when other leaders like Daniel Ortega express real emotional anger to you about real crimes done in the past to the people of Latin America by the government of the USA.
Bonhoeffer said there is no such thing as "cheap grace." There is no such thing as cheap healing either. You will have little success moving forward until the past is dealt with. You can not sweep it under the rug.
Signed,
SD
Good point, SD. I would hope to see Mr. Obama exercise the courage to apologize to all those nations and peoples we f----d with over the centuries. It would take a similar level of courage shown by Australia's PM Kevin Rudd who formally apologized to the "Lost Generations" of indigenous Australians, even though he personally had nothing to do with the genocidal atrocities committed in the past.
Thank you. I'm glad they told him the score in no uncertain terms. But hey, at least he didn't get that stupid look Bush would get and say that he didn't know what Ortega was talking about and then smirk at the camera.
It looks to me that president Obama is interested in getting along with other countries, not trying to tell them what they must do, or threatening them if they don't obey US rules. I only hope this relaxation of tension does not result in US entrepreneures going in to Cuba and wrecking it.
Newspaper articles typically lack context, but they don't have to devoid of it. It would have been good if the author of this article had mentioned that Cuba has been the target of U.S. hegemony for decades, including invasions and assassination attempts, such as the U.S. murder of Che Guevara and targeting of Castro, along with an economic embargo that's essentially an illegal act of war.
And, of course, the United States' secret branches have carried out much the same skullduggery in Venezuela too.
-TIA
Well, that is all rather well-known.
One thing Obama brings to the table that the fat boy from Arkansas and the spoiled rich kid from Texas and Massachuseets can't, is that he has lived in a third world country as a child, and has relatives in Africa. He has the third worlder's perspective of the "Ugly American". He doesn't have to be a socialist to understand Chavez and Castro, just a decent person without the "America is always right" propaganda we all grew up with. (He can be a real goofball with the Brits, though.)
Its ironic that he also doesn't have the "white society owes me a debt forever" attitude that so many African Americans have, while many southern whites are talking secession because they just can't tolerate a black president.
I don't think America is ready for Obama.
Obama does not have a third wolders's perspective of the Ugly American. He lived in Kenya during the early 1970s when Kenya was in love with the US.
He lived in the Luo west where the "enemy" was the Kikuyu who gained control of Nairobi and the central government by geographical advantage and through Jomo kenyatta, the first president of indedendent Kenya.
Obama had some of his childhood in the "missionary" west of Kenya where most education was provided through church schools. Since most of the money for these schools came from the US and Europe, there was no hatred of the west among the educated elite.
Obama spent a few years of his childhood in Kenya...That does not make him an African. And, most Africans love the US...they do not view us as imperialists like their former masters from Europe.
Lathin America is different. They have lots of reasons to be pissed with us.
He also lived in Jakarta from age 6-10 and saw first hand how the wealthy expatriates from foreign oil companies and governments lived in luxury in the midst of Indonesia's unbelievable poverty. Same imperial story, different continent. Foreign companies arrive and extract minerals, but they and the well connected keep the wealth, and the poor stay poor.
Just a minute.
You need to remember that many folks live in Third World countries and choose never to see any of the uncomfortable bits of reality.
Plenty of them even live in Mexico--in sheltered, gringo communities.
I think that the meaning of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’s statement really communicates: “…the US was not abandoning its demand for Cuba to start making concrete moves toward greater” *capitalist* market-expansion.
That note in mind, I am very interested in the kind of handshake Obama and Chavez shared--this is not your old-white-boy-network handshake by any means. Well done.
nia savage
detroit, mi usa
The handshake was cool, I have to admit. I don't think Rahm will like that at all. Obama is about to have his leash tightened. Not that he's done anything of substance, but the elite demand a lot of cow towing.
Deepa
"In his speech in Trinidad, Mr Obama renewed his promise for his administration to engage with the Cuban government "on a wide range of issues", including human rights, free speech, democratic reform, drugs, immigration and the economy."
There can be a better dialogue between the US and Cuba only when both the countries acknowledge honestly their own shortcomings with regards "democracy", "freedom", "Human rights".... The above article and the statements of US government officials reiterate the traditional perception that "the US is the champion of human rights, freedom and democracy". This needs to go. Then only there can be a better dialogue.
Deepa, so true.
"The above article and the statements of US government officials reiterate the traditional perception that "the US is the champion of human rights, freedom and democracy". This needs to go."
Yeah ... sure ... i dont think we are about to let go our grip on the 'humanrights-democracy-freedom' franchise yet. Like every franchise there is a price. We can sell Cuba the rights to our Rights franchise in exchange for sole access to their markets. Its a fair exchange - we put a stamp of approval on 'their' humanrights-democracy-freedom issues and they acknowledge we are not hard-core Imperialists after all. Everybody wins except certain universal concepts.
Two points:
#1. I lived in Venezuela for most of the year 1998 and have visited there a few times since then. I knew both rich and poor people there. Just about all poor people support Chavez and most rich people oppose Chavez. Poor people are the majority of people in Venezuela, so if one believes in democracy, then support the people's choice of their leader. BTW, just like in the USA, the rich control the media in Venezuela.
#2. Having traveled and worked in several Third World countries, I can say this as a fact for me. I have seen a lot more doctors and teachers from Cuba than from the USA in my travels and the USA has a much larger population than Cuba. I have, also, seen a lot more USA military than Cuban military in my travels. If there is a God, who do you think He will favor: a country that exports doctors and teachers or a country that exports military?
Actually Cuba did export its military to Angola as well as a few Caribbean islands. It may have been a few decades ago, but don't think Cuba under Castro has been free of being imperialistic.
Hahaha. Cuba's "imperialism" in Angola was directly aimed at, and achieved, an end to apartheid. You just made a point for the pro-Cubans.
Don't be foolish--when Cyba sent military troops to countries such as Angola it was not to TAKE OVER those countries.
That would have been imperialistic.
They sent troops to help countries determine their own post-colonial futures.
There is some really sloppy thinking going on in this thread.
For Castro, that was one of the toughest decisions that he has had to make (according to what was written in the late Jamaican PM Michael Manley's Book: "Jamaica - Struggle in The Periphery"). Castro had agonized over the decision to send Cuban troops to fend off the US and Apartheid South Africa's proxies in Angola.
Yeah - to fight on the side of the PEOPLE.
Cuba had 500,000 troops in Angola. Defending Angola from the Racist USA supported South African controled invasion of Angola. As soon as Angola was safe from South Africa the 500,000 Cuban troops left in three months.
Oh ok, thanks for the info. I wonder how Cuba got 500,000 soldiers over there, then out again so quickly.
They also exported their military to Tanzania under Nyerere.
Some of the best agricultural advisors for underdeveloped countries.
USAID had a hard time getting their agricultural advisors out of the capital city. Too far from the commissary and the cocktail parties.
We could learn a lot from Cuba...
Aside from Cuba's useful policy of urban farming, I'm not sure their agriculture people are too good at teaching methods of self-subsistence...Cuba still grows too much cash crops and imports too much of its food.
I'm very happy to see the sincere smiling going on between these two. I think Hugo Chavez is a brave new leader with the right ideas. Socialism in some form is what human beings need in order to be community oriented, interdependent cooperative assets to each other and the world. I also am skeptical. The U.S. is not the "good guys" in the world anymore. I would hate to see Chavez lured into a capitalist trap and Obama being his downfall.
People do not wake one morning and decide to hate some one . Hatred is usually instigated by some religious group or some racial group . But for one person to call another person "THE DEVIL" some thing has to have caused it . I can understand a self appointed religious leader advocating "TAKE HIM OUT" because that kind of leader needs an enemy to enhance a position . But that so called leader never said why "WE COULD TAKE HIM OUT" . Now that they need not fear reprisals from this administration maybe some reporter with spine could ask our new friend , Mr Chavez , what our last president did to be called "THE DEVIL" and let the rest of us know his answer . This could be the revelation on the century .
Chavez has been very clear from April of 2002 as to WHY he called Bush The Devil.
Where the hell have you been for the past 7 years, shopping?
Chavez will not be lured into any capitalist trap. He is a true socialist and much too smart for that. The smiles did seem sincere. I almost think Obama admires
Chavez and wishes he could be as courageous in standing up to the greedy capitalists. Then again, maybe it's just more phoniness from Obama.
Check out the picture! That's a soul shake. The rightwing loony media will go crazy. Obama may be short on substance, but what style.
The moment I have been waiting for! Obama and Chavez are the best leaders we can hope for inthis moment in time.
This demonstrates the beginning of a reconciliation,
and I applaud both leaders for this gesture at the Summit of the Americas.
It is a "courageous good will gesture," as ezeflyer noted.
This is great ! Just what we need to see. Now lets get some action !
Thank you President Obama for your courageous good will gesture toward Venezuela and Cuba in the face of right wing opposition and threats.
This was not a "courageous" act. I tend to agree with those who caution, "Beware the man who speaks with a forked tongue. Obama is quite facile with the cosmetic gesture.
Amen!
Maybe Hugo Chavez has infected Mr. Obama with something of the spirit of socialism with that secret power handshake.
Chavez can't be trusted at all. This will end badly, though I'm sure you will all blame it on the US.
Middle of the road my ass. That's how all the Regressives I know refer to themselves. None of them want to admit that they support the outlandish BS coming from Rush and Fox. And I can't blame them. Why don't you just come clean and admit you're wrong. Then after a long sweaty workout, or a good drunk and a puke, come join us on the progressive front. There's plenty of room for us all. Peace!!
Very enlightening post, dipstick.
It sounds hopeful, but beware,Cuba, of the American corporate suits when they start decending on Havana with money and drugs. Remember Michael Moore, something about running and hiding when the white American male shows up in a suit.
Next come the developers and condos and shopping malls on Cuban beaches.
That had a lot to do with why we were ran out of Cuba, right? The
"suits" from America wanted to run everything.
Any chance of an admittance the US "could be wrong" on some counts too?
Like the many assassination-attempts on Castro?
Or on demanding that Cuba remain a vassal-state of the USA?
Or that "socialism" - on the principles of "Freedom, Equality, Soldiarity" and "From everyone according to ability, to everyone according to need" - might have some good parts the US would benefit from adapting?
And - let's face it - this sounds like Obama's talking about US banksters and corporations:
"They're certainly free to stop skimming money off the top of [...] payments ... They're free to institute a greater freedom of the press."
Don't forget the Cuban 5!
Among the people the Cuban five spied on were the Elian Gonzalez family. If you are a foreigner and come into the US and spy on American families b/c you don't like their politics you have committed a crime. The Cuban 5 are right where they belong.
Yes, truly the Cuban 5 are worse than this man, who still walks free:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles
Or these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacardi#Castro
You can't be for real.
Lous Carriles was just indicted.
The Bosch character is a criminal but the family is permitted to oppose the Cuban government. Now if they go down to Cuba and do it they will be arrested by the Cuban government...just like the Cuban 5 were arrested when they came into the US.
I'm not only real, I'm also logical. Maybe you should try it sometime....
For anyone who did not have time to read my links, here is what "steel_gray" is equating...
This:
-(Allegedly) spying on Elian Gonzalez' family.
With these:
"Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles (born February 15, 1928) is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-Castro militant. A former CIA operative, Posada has been convicted in absentia of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Western hemisphere, including involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-three people and has admitted to his involvement in other terrorist plots including a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable Cuban hotels and nightspots."
"Embittered Bacardi helmsman Jose Pepin Bosch bought a surplus B-26 bomber with the hopes of bombing Cuban oil refineries (the bold plan was foiled when a picture of the bomber appeared on the front page of The New York Times). He was also allegedly involved in the CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro; documents uncovered during Congressional investigations into John F. Kennedy's death bring to light a message outlining how he had plans to assassinate Castro, his brother (Raúl Castro) and Che Guevara. The RECE (Cuban Representation in Exile) also receives funding from Bacardi family members.
"More recently, Bacardi lawyers were influential in the drafting of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which sought to extend the scope of the United States embargo against Cuba. In 1999 Otto Reich, a lobbyist in Washington on behalf of Bacardi Rum, drafted section 211 of the 1999 Omnibus appropriations act, a bill that became known as the Bacardi Act. Section 211 denied trademark protection to Cuban businesses products expropriated after the Cuban revolution, a provision keenly sought by the Bacardi family. The act was aimed primarily at Havana Club brand in America, which had been registered by the Cuban government. Section 211 has been challenged un-successfully by the Cuban government and the European Union in US courts; however, the act has been ruled illegal by the WTO (August 2001). The U.S. Congress has yet to re-examine the matter."
Where exactly did i equate the actions of Bacardi to the Cuban five?
I wasn't even the one who brought up the Bacardi family.
When the Cuban 5 entered the US without registering themselves with the US government they violated the laws of the US. I did equate that if the Bacardi family were to walk down main st. in Cuba they would like wise be arrested but this was in no way comparing the actions of the two parties...you should read slower next time so you don't get confused.
If an American citizen were to travel to Cuba and spy on Cuban citizens what do you think would happen?
And a national chauvinist to boot (what does them being foreigners have to do with *justice*? National borders are all but meaningless to anyone with the slightest radical political conscience).
"What does them being foreigners have to do with justice" Well in the US if you are an agent of a foreign government, like the Cuban 5 were, then you are required by law to register with the US government. Failure to do so will result in prison time. It's our law. You are required to respect our laws when you are in the US. If you don't like the law or feel that you are unable to abide by it then you ought not enter the US.
Now it's your right to have the believe that borders are wrong...just realize that NO nation in the world subscribes to your beliefs. It would seem that "National borders are all but meaningless to anyone with the slightest radical political conscience" is the position of a microscopic fringe movement.
Good luck getting your party on the ballot...
No one here wants to hear your bullshit. Why don't you hop in a time machine and go annoy some ancient progressives by arguing against the anti-pragmatic and fringe nature of the abolitionist movement. Quit wasting my time.
So you're comparing slavery to borders?
Exactly -- it's okay if western union skims 10% off the top, but not the cuban government. And it is okay for the US to limit the remittances, too. And don't get me started on free press or political prisoners. Okay for the US to criminalize poverty and cage more people than any country in the frickin' world. Disgusting.
But I loved this part: "Como estas." Not "Como esta", but the familiar form. Not sure if Chavez is smiling because it was so unpresidential of him to do that, or because he thought it was so cool. I feel very strongly it could be either way.
Looking at the picture more, I am thinking that Chavez is feeling hopeful. When I heard him speak in 2006 at the WSF, he talked about how great it would be if one day, the people of the US woke up and joined Latin America in the people's struggle against the greedy neocons and military/industrial complex and reclaim our world and resources for the goal of sustaining life on the planet. (but I am sure the little attempt at Spanish (using the friendly, familiar form) gave him at least a little chuckle -- it would just have to).
the article was going great until "... the whitehouse spokesman robert gibbs..." he's gotta go.
still, there is hope, if only a sliver.
White House spokespeople always suck. That's their job, they're the President's CYA people.
But Dana was a cutie!
And yeah...Condie is a piece of ass as well...
Cut it out you guys. Enough with the woman-hating language.
Crap! She is a vile and repulsive nazi. She has prostituted herself to some of the vilest scum on earth.
I was going to make a nazi fetish joke here, but nevermind
Was anyone else as surprised as I was that Cuba is offering talks on every issue? Looks like diplomacy can work...who would have thought it? Certainly not the neocon psychos that ruled us for almost a decade.