Obama Said to Consider Easing U.S. Travel Restrictions to Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

Obama Said to Consider Easing U.S. Travel Restrictions to Cuba
August 07, 2010, 12:28 AM EDT
By Jens Erik Gould and Nicole Gaouette

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may ease travel restrictions on Cuba, allowing more Americans to visit the island on educational and cultural trips, said a U.S. official who declined to be named because he isn’t authorized to speak on the subject.

Obama first loosened travel rules on Cuba last year, making it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit and send money to relatives on the Caribbean island in a bid to help “promote the freer flow of information,” according to a White House statement. The official didn’t give additional details on what the changes would be.

Current rules allow Americans to travel to Cuba on educational and cultural trips if they are students or employees at qualifying universities and meet a set of additional requirements, such as doing research toward a graduate degree. All Cuba travel must be approved by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The broader travel ban is designed to isolate the Castro regime and keep hard currency out of the country.

Asked if the administration is considering easing the travel rules, Michael Hammer, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in an e-mail yesterday: “We will continue to pursue policies that advance the U.S. national interest and support the Cuban people’s desire to freely determine their country’s future.”

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-07/obama-said-to-consider-easing-u-s-travel-restrictions-to-cuba.html

[aquart]

1. Never mind ease. Abolish.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Nothing would convince us of the horrors of the "police state" faster than 1st hand experience!

No better way to show us they haven't been lying to us all this time than to let us go see for ourselves. That oughtta shut up us doubting Thomases.

Let US be the judge of how repressive they are, ourselves. That should teach us not to doubt the corporate media.

Let US see them shaking in their boots while we ask them if they are skeered spitless to criticize their gummint, in fear for their lives. Let US take a good look around to see all that censorship that blocks out information about the rest of the world.
Heck, it might move us to want to give even MORE money in taxes than the $30,000,000.00+ annually to the Radio and TV Marti stations to pipe in more US propaganda to them, since the tv stations and radio stations they get in Cuba from Miami probably don't give them all the filtered news they need.

Here's a "huge" song from Havana which also caught on in Miami and is wildly popular there, introduced to the Latin America forum by flamingdem:

Charanga Habanera feat El Chacal - Gozando en La Habana new version Video oficial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjp9wOQvn0

Charanga Habanera Y El Chacal - Gozando En La Habana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc1Fzns_Ryc

Lyrics for English speakers:

Cryin’ in Miami, Enjoyin’ in Havana – Charanga Habanera
September 8, 2009 ·

Somebody in Machetera’s house can’t stand Charanga Habanera. Well, they’re not totally Machetera’s favorite either…and let’s remember, they did record two versions of this song, one so the Cubans in Miami wouldn’t feel so bad (Crying Enjoying in Miami, Enjoying in Havana.) Cultural sensitivity? If you say so. Walter Lippmann over at CubaNews has been agitating for the lyrics in English, so here you go, Walter – Machetera will take a pause from saving the world just to help you out.

Ladies and gentlemen, now from Cuba,

what is it with Cuba that we’re doing it in English

better let it go, in Spanish HELLO!

Tell me, how’d it go for you, did you find happiness?

tell me, how’s it going, I’m doing great here

while you’re there, hey babe! Charanga Habanera!

They say she feels good in Miami, that it’s crazy,

but what’s missing is Havana, the gossip, the deliciousness

They say she has money, the car she dreamed about

but she can’t find in Miami what she left behind in Havana!

Now I’m going to tell you something that happened to me,

I, who loved her so much, but she left and left me behind

Lachy! She wanted to be famous and win a Grammy

so she left on an airplane for Miami to try her luck

(David) Hey chacal, I heard you

they say she feels good in Miami, that it’s crazy, but what’s missing is Havana,

the gossip and the deliciousness, uh huh

they say she has money (a lie!), the car she dreamed about (a lie!)

but she can’t find in Miami what she left behind in Havana!

(Chacal raps…)

Honey, why you crying? Thanks to you I bought me a

computer…

If you left babe, you’re gonna suffer, what can you do?

what use is Mickey Mouse to you if you like Elpidio Valdes?

an Audi for me…

…and the money for you

to live the story, what a story, I’m still eating

soyburger but I’m content

(Chacal raps…)

(Dantes) …and now she calls me crying, she says she can’t find the way,

that she feels bad, that she misses everything about Cuba,

she misses Los Van Van, Hectico and PMM,

she misses La Charanga, and the guy she loved the most

(Randy mc) and I keep on Charanga-ing just the way I like

You crying in Miami, me enjoying Havana

you crying in Miami, me enjoying Havana

She’s sad because there’s no Capri or Tropicana there

you crying in Miami, me enjoying Havana

she misses my Havana Club and the Bucanero she used to drink

you crying in Miami, me enjoying Havana

How long, babe, ‘til when?

if you act like a yuma, you have to take a fall

how long babe, ‘til when?

if you act like a yuma, you gotta go down

Falling, falling falling

if you act like a yuma, you gotta go down

falling, falling falling

if you act like a yuma, you gotta go down

She’s speaking English with me and I don’t know what she’s saying

If you act like a yuma, you gotta go down

Ready, let’s enjoy!

Clap your hands everyone,

everyone sing!

Tell me, how’d it go, did you find

happiness?

Tell me, how’s it going, I’m doing great here

and you there, babe!

tell me, how’d it go, did you find

happiness?

Tell me, how’s it going, I’m doing great here

and you’re there, babe!

(Chacal) Hey sweetie, I’ll go my own way and won’t

change it for anything

that’s why I take care of myself, that’s why I keep on doing

what I want, what I really want!

from cuartel pavel, frank dos metra, repeat,

Walk so you can learn

this is so you can enjoy and not get on my case

Ok, ok, why do you want bread when I’ve got coffee cake?

get it?!

http://machetera.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/cryin-in-miami-enjoyin-in-havana-charanga-habanera/

[aquart]

3. Eh, we visit police states all the time.

Like, say, CHINA?

Lotta fun places with nasty dungeons on this planet.

[Judi Lynn]

5. It's very possible they have been keeping us out of Cuba because they KNOW we won't find

what they've been telling us about Cuba to be true. Maybe they believed they would be able to take over Cuba first, regain control of the place and no one would be the wiser.

Florida Cuban Republican "exile" Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has said publicly that her family moved to Florida, thoroughly expecting to only be here a few months, and then the U.S. government would overthrow the revolution and they would all go right back and resume their lives just as they were.

That's overlooking the fact the Cuban people COULDN'T STAND IT when they were there running their country, and that's why they threw them out. Small, insignificant detail, apparently, to the old oligarchs.

[nyy1998]

13. +1

Add Vietnam and Singapore to that list...

[bherrera]

8. USA should reward Cuba's move towards capitalism

I believe the Cubans are now moving towards capitalism, as they have announced the Cuban people will be able to have their own businesses and hire other Cubans as employees. This is the beginning of the end for the harsh marxist brand of communism used by the government, and the new pragmatic move should increase freedom and living standards. Thus it is important for the USA to recognize the Cubans realize they made a mistake moving towards the system they had before, and they should abandon the economic embargo.

The Cubans, as other peoples around the world, will eventually move to a form of capitalism mixed with socialism like we have in Spain. This has been shown to be the best solution for the masses.

[Mika]

10. "it is important for the USA to recognize the Cubans realize they made a mistake"

Huh?

Get real. Cubans suffered under the jackboots of occupation for far too long. Then, they rose up and kicked the US backed blood soaked dictatorship out.

Remember the Maine?

The Breckenridge Memorandum
We must clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We must destroy everything within our cannons’ range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconnaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts and is forced to undertake dangerous and desperate measures.

-
To sum up, our policy must always be to support the weaker against the stronger, until we have obtained the extermination of them both, in order to annex the Pearl of the Antilles {Cuba}.

J.C. Breckenridge, U.S. Undersecretary of War in 1897

Then came the US's Platt Amendment

It took about a half century for the uprising and the Revolution.


Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

Nope. Cubans don't think that they made a mistake, and they don't have their heads buried in the sand.

Been there. Seen it.

---

[Judi Lynn]

15. Amazing how little US American governmental attitudes didn't change after 1897.

Cuba was US property in their minds, occupied by a bunch of lesser people (except for the ruling class) who needed stomping into the dust, smashed into complete subservience to U.S. Interests.

Outsiders remained ignorant of the conditions which propelled Cubans into not one but TWO separate revolutions, relying only upon shreds of propaganda tossed them by the popular U.S. media, as portrayed by Randolph Hearst's words to his photographer in Cuba so long ago, "You provide the pictures and I'll provide the war." How things have NOT changed.

The original wave of Cuban political exiles who fled from retribution after the Revolution didn't bring with it any of the Cubans who had first hand experience of the POOR majority of Cubans. They came with the Mariel Boatlift. People like Professor Alfredo Jones came who has provided excellent material on how the poor in Cuba HAD to live then, and it was squalid, the suffering was enormous. People living on the land owned by the big plantation food producers had to beg at the back door of the big house for food after dinner at night for their children, had to beg the owner to give them written permission so they could go to the doctor if they were ill, had to live beside big ditches of raw sewage, etc., etc. No running water, the same kinds of conditions mentioned in your own stats.

All US Americans have heard has been handed to them by angry prosperous former landowners, business owners, politicos who fled, or Americans who used to go there to play at the casinos, and the beaches, etc. It never occurs to them there was a HUGE majority living on seasonal work at slave wages, at best who did ALL the essential work in Cuba, and kept the place moving, which was pinned down under a wildly brutal US supported corrupt government which tortured and brutally killed leftists, did its brutality in ways to leave messages to potential future dissent, like throwing dismembered bodies into trees, hanging them from streetlights, etc.

According to former C.I.A. agent Phillip Aggee, our own C.I.A. helped Batista set up his own torture dungeon in Havana well before the Revolution.

Minimally bright people should have already put the pieces together by now. It would take far more effort to avoid not seeing the pattern, getting the picture now.

Thank you for supplying some facts, real information building blocks to prompt people to start THINKING about Cuba, start doing their own research, start thinking for THEMSELVES in the future once they realize how far astray the corporate media does and will lead them if they are gullible.

[Mika]

21. Transference. Many Americans think that Cubans are as underinformed as themselves.

Cubans are well aware of the results of disaster capitalism and the US's involvement in/creation of Latin American murderous tyrannies.

They have their great grandparents and grandparents to tell them of the hardships of pre-revolution Cuba, not to mention Cuba's Latin America history classes taught in school.

The new generation of Cubans are not unaware of our world.

---

[Judi Lynn]

24. Elian Gonzalez! Wow. So hard to believe it was only 10 years ago

when he was held captive in Miami in his drunken great-uncle Lazaro's house, completely surrounded by crowds of Cuban "exiles" who came there daily to adore him, and rage against the government which had determined it was the legal, and appropriate thing to do in sending him back to Cuba with his father, step-mother, two step-brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, 2 grandmothers, 2 grandfathers, neighbors, teachers, and schoolmates!

Same people who went berserk and burned tires in the streets, trying to bring Miami to a complete standstill when they didn't get their way.

It doesn't seem possible only 10 years could have lapsed since then!

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/elian/elian-ileana.jpg

He is shown being held aloft by Cuban Republican
Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

[Vidar]

4. High time. Castro asked us for help before he began his revolution,

but we turned him down, just like we turned down Mao's requests for aid during WWII. Obviously, we backed a couple of real winners in Chiang Kai-shek & Batista, but that's our style: always back the more corrupt alternative.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Ouch. It's tragically true. We'll never see anyone admit it, either. n/t

[Mika]

22. Nixon showed Castro the door.

Told Castro to fuck off.

---

[rug]

28. Reagan backed the Taliban.

[a la izquierda]

7. Yay!

I'm not bold enough to sneak back in the US after visiting Cuba via Mexico. My friends (one of whom is only a permanent resident) had such a hard time.

[Submariner]

9. I heard somewhere that Cuba would not stamp

an American passport, or some of them, if requested, so that the American would not get in trouble back in the U.S. Any truth to that?

[a la izquierda]

11. Yep, it's true...

two friends of mine went a few years back. They ran out of money, and were thus at the mercy of two of our British friends-luckily I warned them NOT to use their debit/credit cards. But that was really the only problem.

[Paladin]

12. Decades Overdue.

The moronic, outdated restrictions on Cuba have kept Castro in power far longer than he otherwise could have dreamed of, and bolstered the fortunes of a bunch of far right-wing politicos in Miami. Everyone else has been on the losing end. Obama ought to move on this, as in tomorrow morning...

[Arkana]

14. About damn time.

The embargo hasn't worked and Castro outlived everyone who tried to kill him in the 60s and 70s.

[Mika]

17. What do you mean by "The embargo hasn't worked"?

Do you mean that we should have used more effective ways of overthrowing the sovereign government of Cuba? Or do you mean that we should just let Cubans in Cuba alone and let them figure out their own systems?

FYI - just like Americans, Cubans like and respect their nation's revolutionary heroes (that the Castro brothers are).

---

[Arkana]

23. Er, no.

My point was that the only way to "beat" Castro at this point is to open relations back up with Cuba. I've been saying that for ten years--it takes away any arguments the Cuban government has about us being "unreasonable". Banning trade and all commerce with Cuba didn't "beat" Castro, so perhaps it's time to go in the other direction.

[Mika]

25. Thinking the US/Cuba relations would have ended Castro is foolish.

The Cuban people in Cuba revere the Castro brothers. Only the Cuban people can affirm or "beat" the Castros. Its their choice, and they've made it.

How do we know what would have happened w/o US sanctions?
Cuba might have been even more successful at their socialist revolution with more money to invest in it.
This might have empowered the Castro era revolutionaries even more - their ideologies and tactics might have spread over the Latin Americas faster.

Its an unknown unknown, and a topic subject to oversimplification.

---

[Arkana]

29. The Castros are no saints--they still jail political dissidents and do everything they can

to silence different opinions.

[Mika]

30. Silly. Please explain Elizardo Sanchez, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, Joani Sánchez, etc etc.

You know very little about Cuba, except RW talking points.

The recently jailed "dissidents" (the 75) were convicted of treason - for taking money from declared enemies of Cuba - the US government and Miami based exile terrorist groups - and convicted of acting as undeclared agents of a foreign government, and organizing ops for both.

This was proven in an open trial with ample evidence from Cuban security agents that had infiltrated the traitorous groups. Names, dates, video, audio, photos, money. All organized by the US interests section in Havana (including smuggling in money under diplomatic protections from Luis Posada, Santiago Alvarez and other Miami based terrorist exiles to their operatives in Cuba).

Its easy to regurgitate US anti Cuba red herrings. Not easy to get to what is actually going on in Cuba for Americans, due to the US government's ban on American travel.

If any of the above mentioned names don't ring any bells, then spend a little time to do some elementary research. Or, just continue to spew RW talking points about Cuba.

---

[Judi Lynn]

32. If American citizens had committed the same crimes here, they would be in prison HERE

as it's against OUR laws here, as well, even though this Congress has authorized paying these traitors for their services. They would not be doing it if it didn't benefit them very well.

[robcon]

16. Let's hope he eliminates all restrictions.

Although Castro won't allow significant U.S. tourism, the visitors will only help the island get rid its dictatorship.

[Judi Lynn]

18. "Castro" has "allowed" all the U.S. visitors traveling there through 3rd countries all these years.

At the present time, they STILL do it, and Cubans manning the airport will stamp a blank piece of paper which Americans put in their passport while on the island, and remove it before they come back to the States.

When Jimmy Carter was visiting Cuba, one of the U.S. reporters decided to do a "man on the street" moment with people passing by and he accidently stopped an American who wouldn't give him his name, since he was there illegally. Ha ha ha. Hot one. Big moment in tv news.

They used to go to Canada and travel to Cuba along with regular Canadians until the F.B.I. started haunting the Canadian airports, demanding to see the passenger manifests, skulking around, and the terminals and waylaying people coming back from Cuba and demanding to see their identifications if they suspected they were Americans, then grilling them, searching them, making reports on them, etc.

Canadians have gone to Cuba for vacations, etc. for DECADES, along with Europeans, Asians, Australians, Latin Americans, Africans...

Do you actually expect other people to believe Cuba doesn't know anything about the rest of the world, and has been kept isolated by "CASTRO?" Tourists go there CONSTANTLY.

http://peach.rlsl.org.nyud.net:8090/files/2008/07/america-sees-world.jpg

http://media.ebaumsworld.com.nyud.net:8090/picture/Staton666/AmericanWorld.jpg

[Mika]

19. We've always been at war with Eastasia!

Big Brother will frown upon you for such thoughtcrime.

---

[Glimmer of Hope]

20. Are those Sarah's maps?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. "Castro won't allow significant U.S. tourism" -- Eh? How so? Please elaborate.

[jmcauliff]

26. Make sure the change happens this time

People who care about a more reasonable relationship with Cuba should make their views known quickly to the White House.

This overdue opening almost happened in April 2009 but the Administration backed off to placate Sen. Menendez.

Context here http://thehavananote.com/2010/08/contradictions_between_past_an_1.html

and suggested action here http://www.change.org/petitions/view/mr_president_dont_wait_for_congress_to_open_travel_to_cuba

[Judi Lynn]

31. Very useful links. It would be a shame if, when the Democrats finally have the majority,

Robert Menendez will get the chance to derail this overdue progress again.

Thanks for making these links available.

Welcome to D.U. :hi:

[Bluebear]

33. Let's consider a survey to possibly ease it and move forward to contemplate it.

:silly:

[Judi Lynn]

34. Don't want to do anything reckless, however! It's only been 50 years. n/t