EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
End an Irrelevant Era: Lift the Cuba Travel Ban
The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter. The Central American Civil wars are over. The cold war is long dead, yet the United States still enforces a relic of that cold war with an economic embargo against Cuba. With a new administration in the White House ushering in a era of renewed diplomacy and international cooperation, isn’t it about time for the U.S. to do what most other countries around the world have done and normalize relations with its largest Caribbean neighbor?
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Americans defying what is now a half-century-old embargo. In the next few days over 250 Americans are traveling to Cuba. When they return on August 3rd, they will defy the ban on American citizens visiting Cuba. By doing this we all hope to draw attention to what is now an outmoded, outdated and irrelevant blockade of the island nation. We want to convince the Obama administration that now is the time to get rid of the travel ban and embargo.
During last year’s presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he was willing to sit down with Cuban leaders without preconditions. Hopes were high for the change that Obama had promised during his campaign for the White House. He has, however, been slow to implement any significant policy shift towards Cuba since taking office, worrying those eager to see a new relationship with the island nation.
This is why we are challenging federal travel restrictions and protesting the slow pace of change. We are glad that the Obama Administration now allows Cuban Americans to visit their relatives much more easily and send remittances back to Cuba. But what about the rest of us?
Cuba is often so vilified by politicians and the media in the U.S. that we often forget what it actually has to offer in the way of travel, education and culture. Cuba provides tremendous free medical and other educational opportunities for people from around the world. On a cultural level, Cuban music is one of the most vibrant and innovative forms in the world. Cuba is bursting with history and culture that has been preserved in ways that many other Latin American nations have lost. Finally Cuba can give us some ecological lessons, as it is one of the more innovative and green economies in the world. This policy not only hurts Cubans everyday, it also prevents Americans from better knowing our largest Caribbean neighbor.
We all had high hopes on January 21, but those hopes are eroding. One of the citizens traveling to Cuba is Diego Iniguez-Lopez a Cuban American who voted for Obama. He said, “I expected him to rescind the excesses of the Bush policies immediately. I applaud the small steps we have seen but he hasn’t gone far enough to address the embargo and how it affects the Cuban people and our ability to travel there.” Iniguez-Lopez has traveled to Cuba legally in the past, but this year he decided to defy the law.
Pastors for Peace, another group organizing a travel challenge of Cuba, says a full removal of the blockade on Cuba is essential. “The blockade of Cuba is one of the most nonsensical aspects of U.S. foreign policy,” said Reverend Lucius Walker founder of the Harlem-based IFCO/Pastors for Peace. “Now that we have a sensible president we have reason to believe that the policies will change-- but we are not waiting for that. We, like all good Americans, are moving ahead with our people-to-people foreign policy between U.S. and Cuba.” This year marks the 20th year that Pastors for Peace have challenged the U.S. embargo by delivering humanitarian aid to Cuba.
Instead of fading away over time various American administrations have strengthened anti-Cuba policies. In 1996 the embargo was strengthened by the Helms-Burton Act, which extended its remit to foreign business. Penalties can be imposed on other countries that trade with Cuban industries linked to expropriations of former U.S. companies. “These cold war policies remain in place due to the great influence of the Cuban-exile community in South Florida,” said Bob Guild of Marazul Charters who has helped organize travel to the island for over 30 years. Indeed the Bush administration tightened the screws on Cuba and groups organizing travel to Cuba in the past few years in an effort to curry favor with the Cuban-exiles, without realizing that opposition to the embargo is growing within the Cuban American community.
President Obama isn’t it about time for your administration to take a clear-eyed objective view of U.S. Cuban relations and unilaterally end the travel ban, the embargo and finally normalize relations between the two nations? Isn’t this the change we can believe in and hope for?
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
37 Comments so far
Show AllIf you use the specious logic that we need a Cuban embargo because they are ruled by a Communist regime and a potential threat, then why no embargo on China? China is the # 1 Communist nation in the world and could be potentially a real threat to the U.S.Talk about a double standard! And by the way, Cuban has one of the best health care systems in the world. Check it out for yourself.
Would you like to post a link to a credible source for your lies?
Feel free to believe what you want from the wiki. There's plenty of links there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
I have met people like you and won't try to change your beliefs.
if you feel that someone's personal experience in a regime similar to Cuba's is not enough feel free to use google and look it up.
You'll never be convinced tho. I met a lot people like you.
Next best thing is to actually travel to Cuba and see for yourself. If you are a USAn the esiest eay is to go thru Mexico (Cancun maybe) ot Toronto (canada). I recommend Cancun, that way there'll be no questions when you come back with a tan :)
"In a regime similar to Cuba's"?
We're combining hearsay with guilt by association. Can I judge the US by Mexico? After all, the countries are pretty similar -- North American, post-colonial, predominantly European languages, beaches on both sides, leanings towards laissez faire capitalism in nominal democracies with purchasable officials.
What's the diff?
Good point on the embargo, I suspect though that Mr. Moore presented it as a bit better that it really is. How good are their doctors? No one really knows.
Double-granted that Moore's partisan, but Cuba's sent its doctors to many places to almost universally appreciative reviews.
Then, American doctors are hard to rate since they have to serve so many masters. How they heal anyone with the lawyers at their heels, the pharmaceuticals soaring around awaiting corpses, HMO's snarling from their lairs, sabertoothed insurance companies waylaying patients and nothing but their bill collectors to gird their loins with I cannot say.
If I get seriously ill in the US and remain conscious and ambulatory, I'll head to Mexico (I mention this because Americans seem to find it counterintuitive).
Some Mexican doctors are terrible; some are very good. They tend to be less well equipped, but the good ones exercise better judgments than American doctors, on the average, because they do not have to satisfy lawyers, hospital procedure, or insurance companies.
I'd sooner go to France or Cuba, but I guess hospitality has its limits.
Henry8 claims, "How good are their doctors? No one really knows."
Meaning that since Henry8 doesn't know, and ignorance is virtue, then nobody knows.
How about checking infant mortality rates?
Oh - facts? Liberal bias.
I believe that it is unconstitutional to allow only some Americans to travel to Cuba because they have family there. Why don't they return permanently to Cuba if they miss their family so much?
Sure, who are these weak and miserable humans, missing these things they call "family" and "loved ones"?
Amen. Americans should be able to travel to Cuba for the health care.
Sioux Rose
HUMBABA: Given the costs, and that Cuba is only 90 miles south of Key West, there'd be a virtual exodus there (and I think I'd join in) to take advantage of THEIR medical benefits and generosity. Hence, the embargo, which also keeps Americans "inside the gate" so their pockets can be more efficiently picked when the legislation to FORCE us to buy health insurance is made firm and "legal." Laws based on extortion are not laws I would personally respect. Let's all go sailing south!
"Let's all go sailing south!"
Fine idea. A "Lift the Embargo" flotilla. Bet we could get a lot of people and celebs to go. After hurricane season would be good and would give people time to organize it.
Sioux Rose
EZE: You sail, too? Imagine the publicity--perhaps closed out in US media, but the vision seen 'round the world (serving as quite the PR problem for Obama, yes man to every crowd and/or contingent) if a flotilla did get underway, its mission, acquiring health care for U.S. citizens. Michael Moore took his one little boat, but if this grew into a real statement, it could grab some headlines? Or am I dreaming that we live in a democratic republic with a press that sometimes gets it right?
Nobody tells me where I can and cannot go, if I am willing and welcome. What spineless person allows another to trample this freedom? The embargo has failed on all of its stated purposes. End it, and move on to the next important issue. We have a lot on our plates.
.
The embargo exists to punish Cubans for taking a market from American capital, primarily from the mafia, but also from GE and similar quasi-legal players. They threatened Castro; he nationalized their holdings, drove them off the island, and announced socialismo cubano in quick succession.
Outside the one brief, chilling episode with the missiles, US-Soviet relations had little to do with it.
Sadly, the embargo is more relevant today than ever, though I'd love to see Washington get over the whole sour-grapes approach.
Washington currently faces what amounts to a soft insurrection across most of Latin America as the US redirects forces to the Middle East.
Until recently, Cuba was the only example of successful resistance. Now more moderate resistance and less centralized resistance has managed, for the moment, to survive. Que vivan los Bolivarianos, but the coup over Zelaya in Honduras shows that the United States, international capital, and the CIA have not abandoned the Americas to peaceful change.
you are little more than property, and your owners don't want you in cuba because they fear you might get to resenting the arrangement.
souix rose, i'm leaving from long island sound sept 1 headed south and cuba looks mighty interesting...
Sioux Rose
COLD: I had a moment of inspiration (or whimsy) and bought a sailboat last year. A darling, well-built and aged gracefully little Islander, but then realized how much stamina and skill are required to properly make use of it. Lucky you! I am a cerebral creature who tends to draw my polarity--men who can fix anything on a practical plane--into my life. I honor those who can survive by fixing things, or sailing off to more welcome, exotic destinations. I grew up on Long Island, so your maiden voyage brings up nostalgia in me. Two of my sisters live in NYC and I may go for my birthday. Have a GREAT trip... wherever the winds that dance between fate and caprice take you!
I think it is absolutely stupid to continue an embargo on Cuba. The U.S. is losing just as much economically as Cuba.
Biden seems to speak for Obama on these matters. He said that he and President Barack Obama "think that Cuban people should determine their own fate and they should be able to live in freedom." So they don't plan on lifting the embargo anytime soon.
What a laugh! Cubans have better heath care than we do-most Americans are no more free than the average Cuban.
Lifting the Cuban embargo was the first thing Barack Obama should have done when he took office. Why don't we have an embargo on Chavez and Venezuela? After all, that country seems more of a threat than Cuba. Perhaps we need the oil.
Maybe America has just never gotten over being embarrassed by the Bay of Pigs.
I am with Chameleon on this one. I can't see the point in trading freedom for free meds. Why would I accept free medical care from someone who wants to put me in jail for speaking my mind?
BTW in Sicko, Cuba ranks lower than the US in healthcare.
How so?
Cuba's infant mortality is lower than the US (yes, narrowly) while her GNP per capita is less than a tenth that of the US.
Your point about the Cuban press is well taken, though I'm guessing you're someone with something to say and little or no need for medical care.
On the other hand, in post-industrial countries outside of the US, where the government has not had to undergo an invasion, an embargo, and apparently hundreds of assassination and, by extension, coup attempts, oen can get low cost medical care, too.
And most of them have more freedom of the press than the United States, where 4th Amendment rights have been in eclipse for nearly a decade.
The myth of Cuban healthcare is just that, a myth. Cuban hospitals are unsanitary. Medicines are in short supply. Cuban doctors do not have as difficult a process of becoming doctors. And infant mortality as an indicator is bunk. Its easily manipulated by terminating high risk pregnancies.
Cubans are not healthy because of their health care system, they are healthy in spite of it. Cubans eat fewer fats in their diet and are most active physically. Less heart disease and diabetes.
I wonder how well a Cuban system could handle a nation of overweight citizens who eat a high fat diet and live sedantary lives?
The Cuba arguement is just a canard to argue in favor of taxpayer funded health care.
guesswho, you seem to have put your finger on it. here in this country we are debating ad nauseum healthcare, (actually it's healthcare insurance debate) not of course, health. not only do we in the usa have(generally), highly manipulated food, but sedentary inactive lifestyles and lots of contaminants in our environment. the cuban lifestyle is healthier, thus necessitating less "healthcare"... and some may say "oh, but their standard of living is lower" to which i would reply, "really?"
Even if Cuba had absolutely nothing to offer, what did it ever do to the US to deserve such cruel treatment? What Cuba does have which the US doesn't: HEALTH CARE FOR ALL! For once, I would like to see the US pick on a country larger than it instead of always on a smaller one. This is sheer cowardice.
none
none
I love CUBA. Love cigars. Love Cuban rum. Love the music. Love way the resort opened the pool gates to sixty little brown kids for swimming lessons each afternoon. The USA has nothing to offer Cuba that they won't get back in spades.
"federal travel restrictions"
"Land of the Free"
can you spot the disparity?