Maybe we're isolated out here in the forest prime evil, but I don't
hear any 200%, love it or leave it, talk like I did back in the early
50's and into the 60's. There used to be a couple of night talk shows
in Seattle. They were political in nature, with a sprinkling from all
sides. But I'll never forget several folks who called first one show
and then the other, night after night, spreading fear over the "Red
invasion" that was coming. And of course we had our bomb shelter
period. Just let the good times roll.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/17/20, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl, I used to hear the right wing say things like that about anyone who
criticized the Bush administration as being unpatriotic and we need to get
out of their country. And then came the Obama administration and so much for
the respect for the president. Those very same red blooded flag waivers were
the first to call him the monkey in the white house.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 7:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Trump Hammers Cuba While Cuba Cures the Sick
Proud to be an American???
I become enraged when I read this sort of crap. I remember as a 14 year old
boy, saying some smart mouthed remark about Truman, and my teacher overheard
me. She took me to one side and said, "We must respect the Office of the
President".
Well, the present occupant has stunk up that office so badly that it will
take major fumigation and a new paint job before anyone else can occupy it.
My hat is off to those brave Cubans. Of course our Media doesn't give them
any space. Why can't we use just a few lines of our Media's Trump Trash
Talk, and say some kind words about Cuba?
Carl Jarvis
On 6/16/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Trump Hammers Cuba While Cuba Cures the Sick Not content to sabotage
Cuba’s domestic health sector, the Trump administration has been
attacking Cuba’s international medical assistance, from the teams
fighting coronavirus to those caring for underserved communities in
164 countries.
by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores
June 16th, 2020
By Medea Benjamin and
Leonardo Flores
Ateam of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help
the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the
sanctions screws.
This
time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the
principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country.
Also targeted was Marriott International, which was ordered to cease
operations in Cuba, and other companies in the tourism sector, an
industry that constitutes 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP and has been
devastated globally by the pandemic.
It seems that the more Cuba helps the world, the more it gets hammered
by the Trump administration. While Cuba has endured a U.S. embargo for
nearly
60 years, Trump has revved up the stakes with a “maximum pressure”
strategy that includes more than 90 economic measures placed against
the nation since January 2019. Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s ambassador to
Canada, called the measures “unprecedented in their level of
aggression and scope” and designed to “deprive the country of income
for the development of the economy.”
Since
its inception, the embargo has cost Cuba well over $130 billion
dollars, according to a 2018 estimate. In 2018-2019 alone, the
economic impact was
$4
billion, a figure that does not include the impact of a June 2019
Trump administration travel ban aimed at harming the tourist industry.
While the embargo is supposed to have humanitarian exemptions, the
health sector has not been spared. Cuba is known worldwide for its
universal public healthcare system, but the embargo has led to
shortages of medicines and medical supplies, particularly for patients
with AIDS and cancer. Doctors at Cuba’s National Institute of Oncology
have had to amputate the lower limbs of children with cancer because
the American companies that have a monopoly on the technology can’t
sell it to Cuba. In the midst of the pandemic, the U.S. blocked a
donation of facemasks and COVID-19 diagnostic kits from Chinese
billionaire Jack Ma.
Not content to sabotage Cuba’s domestic health sector, the Trump
administration has been attacking Cuba’s international medical
assistance, from the teams fighting coronavirus today to those who
have traveled all over the world since the 1960’s providing services
to underserved communities in 164 countries. The U.S. goal is to cut
the island’s income now that the provision of these services has
surpassed tourism as Cuba’s number one source of revenue. Labeling
these volunteer medical teams “victims of human trafficking” because
part of their salaries goes to pay for Cuba’s healthcare system, the
Trump administration convinced Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil to end their
cooperation agreements with Cuban doctors.
Pompeo then applauded the leaders of these countries for refusing “to
turn a blind eye” to Cuba’s alleged abuses. The triumphalism was
short-lived: a month after that quote, the Bolsonaro government in
Brazil begged Cuba to resend its doctors amid the pandemic. U.S.
allies all over the world, including in Qatar, Kuwait, South Africa,
Italy, Honduras, and Peru have gratefully accepted this Cuban aid. So
great is the admiration for Cuban doctors that a global campaign has
sprung up to award them the Nobel Peace Prize.
A Cuban medical worker disinfectants his hands before he boards a bus
at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, June 8, 2020.
Yamil Lage
|
AP
The Trump administration is not just libeling doctors, but the whole
country. In May, the State Department named Cuba as one of five
countries “not cooperating fully” in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
The main pretext was the nation’s hosting of members of Colombia’s
National Liberation Army (ELN). Yet even the State Department’s own
press release notes that ELN members are in Cuba as a result of “peace
negotiation protocols.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called
the charges dishonest and “facilitated by the ungrateful attitude of
the Colombian government” that broke off talks with the ELN in 2019.
It should also be noted that Ecuador was the original host of the
ELN-Colombia talks, but Cuba was asked to step in after the Moreno
government abdicated its responsibilities in 2018.
The classification of Cuba as “not cooperating” with counterterrorism
could lead to Cuba being placed on the U.S. State Sponsors of
Terrorism list, which carries tougher penalties. This idea was floated
by a senior Trump administration official to Reuters last month. Cuba
had been on this list from 1982 to 2015, despite that fact that,
according to former State Department official Jason Blazakis, “it was
legally determined that Cuba was not actively engaged in violence that
could be defined as terrorism under any credible definition of the
word.”
Of course, the United States is in no position to claim that other
countries do not cooperate in counterterrorism. For years, the U.S.
harbored Luis Posada Carriles, the mastermind of the bombing of a
Cuban civilian airplane in 1976 that killed 73 people. More recently,
the U.S. has yet to even comment on the April 30 attack on the Cuban
Embassy in Washington D.C., when a man fired on the building with an
automatic rifle.
While there are certainly right-wing ideologues like Secretary Pompeo
and Senator Rubio orchestrating Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, for
Trump himself, Cuba is all about the U.S. elections. His hard line
against the tiny island nation may have helped swing the Florida
gubernatorial campaign during the midterm elections, yet it’s not
clear that this will serve him well in a presidential year. According
to conventional wisdom and polls, younger Cuban-Americans – who like
most young people, don’t tend to vote in midterms – are increasingly
skeptical of the U.S. embargo, and overall, Cuba isn’t the overriding
issue for Cuban-Americans. Trump won the Cuban-American vote in 2016,
but Hillary Clinton took between 41 and 47% percent of that
electorate, significantly higher than any Democrat in decades.
As an electoral strategy, these are signs that Trump’s aggression
towards Cuba may not pay off. Of course, the strategy might not be
just about votes but also about financing and ensuring that the
Cuban-American political machinery is firmly behind Trump.
The strategy has certainly not paid off when it comes to achieving the
goal of regime change. The Trump administration is arguably farther
from achieving regime change in Cuba now than the U.S. has ever been
in over 60 years of intervention. During Trump’s tenure, Cuba calmly
transitioned from the presidency of Raul Castro to that of Miguel
Díaz-Canel. In 2019, Cuban voters overwhelmingly ratified a new
constitution. These aren’t signs of a country on the brink of collapse.
All Trump has achieved is making life more difficult for the island’s
11 million inhabitants, who, like people all over the world, have been
battered by the economic impact from coronavirus. Tourism has
collapsed. Income from remittances has tanked (both because of new
U.S. restrictions and less income in the hands of the Cuban diaspora).
Venezuela, once a major benefactor, is mired in its own crisis. But
Cuba’s economy, which was forecast to contract by 3.7% before the
pandemic hit, has been through worse, particularly during the 1991 to
2000 economic crisis known as the “special period” after the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
A change in the White House would bring some relief, although Joe
Biden has staked a rather ambivalent position, saying he would restore
relations as President Obama did, but adding that he was open to using
sanctions as punishment for Cuba’s support to the Venezuelan government.
It’s clear that from now until November, and perhaps for four more
years, the Trump administration will pummel its island neighbor. Cuba
will continue to seek global condemnation on the blockade (the 2019 UN
vote was 187 against vs 3 in favor—the U.S., Brazil, and Israel) and
continue to show what a good neighbor looks like. It responded to
these latest provocations in the way that only Cuba does: with more
global solidarity, sending
Covid-19 healing brigades to Guinea and Kuwait a day after the June 3
round of sanctions. A total of 26 countries now have Cuban medical
personnel caring for their sick.
That is the kind of goodwill that money just can’t buy and it greatly
presents a stark contrast to the Trump administration’s shameful
behavior during the pandemic. Back in March, as Cuban doctors arrived
in Italy, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa tweeted:
One day we will tell our children that, after decades of movies and
propaganda, at the moment of truth, when humanity needed help at a
time when the great powers were in hiding, Cuban doctors began to
arrive, without asking anything in return.”
