The guy wrongly stated that the embargo hasn't changed since Kennedy (Trump ratcheted it up right before he left office). He also keeps calling the Cuban government "Leninist*. No offense, but he sounds radlib at times.
i believe Clinton also tightened the screws after 1992, when Cuba lost the USSR as an export market. if the writer is a big lib, it makes sense they wouldn't mention this as it was a very difficult time for Cuba, and it was a move calculated to kick the people while they were down and push them into despair. many Cubans fled during this period (referred to by Cubans as the "Special Period") due to the massive shift in diet and land use since Cuba's constitution guarantees food as a human right.
i read it before a research trip there (homestays, countryside travel) on the advice of the american guy who lives there part year and organizes the trips for academic research. the writer is not a leftist, but they detail how the embargo works, how the US tightens the screws (often) and relaxes them (rarely). no one else on the trip read the book, because they are PMC lib douchebags, so i became the defacto guy to ask questions to.... but every time i would articulate one of the features of the embargo the libs would recoil in horror.
i have a very low opinion of my fellow americans, but i sincerely believe if americans knew how the embargo worked, they would not support it and probably speak out against it. even most garden-variety chuds. i've told stupid chuds about it and the response is universally "that's shitty. no wonder they don't like us." the irony being that Cubans like Americans and recognize that we don't really know what our government is doing and wish we could travel there more easily, talk to them, and see how things are.
Americans who do support the embargo are either 1.) completely ignorant about it or 2.) legit brain damaged psychopaths who would enslave the people of the island to work on a giant sugarcane plantation that the US deeds to them.
--edit: upon reading that twitter thread, the author is a clown. hardly a mention of the embargo and when it does, it downplays it significantly. it not just block US exports. it fines companies that have operations in the US a million dollars per instance of engaging in a transaction with a cuban entity which operates using "stolen" property from american corporations (which is everything). also, any shipping traffic that stops at a cuban port cannot use a US port or US-aligned port (which is almost all of the carribean, as they have signed these mutual defence treaties designed to isolate cuba) for a period of 6 months. there is so much more going on with it that is set up to just isolate the shit out of cuba.
Every president has screwed with the blockade, typically making it more extreme.
Carter temporarily fought with it a little but Reagan dialed it up to new heights immediately.
Bush Sr. codifies it into law with Congress, preventing presidents from meaningfully ending the blockade.
Under Clinton there's the Helms-Burton Act, though Clinton makes small relaxing tweaks to the blockade late in his second term.
Bush Jr. does his best to apply maximum pressure and end the Cuban government, creating and funding new and large working groups for how to do so, following their policy recommendations. Their explicit goal is "regime change" and their demands are primarily privatization; they often forget to slap on the liberal "democracy" pretext.
Obama relaxes some restrictions but if he wanted to make long-lasting change, he'd need to change the law. He makes no attempt to do so and his changes are summarily undone by Trump.
thorough thread on the situation
The guy wrongly stated that the embargo hasn't changed since Kennedy (Trump ratcheted it up right before he left office). He also keeps calling the Cuban government "Leninist*. No offense, but he sounds radlib at times.
Yeah, on Obama's very small list of Good Things was loosening the embargo, and Trump brought it back up to where it was before and more.
Putting Cuba on the terrorism watch list is the fucking height of hypocrisy.
Vaccine and medicine terrorism
i believe Clinton also tightened the screws after 1992, when Cuba lost the USSR as an export market. if the writer is a big lib, it makes sense they wouldn't mention this as it was a very difficult time for Cuba, and it was a move calculated to kick the people while they were down and push them into despair. many Cubans fled during this period (referred to by Cubans as the "Special Period") due to the massive shift in diet and land use since Cuba's constitution guarantees food as a human right.
a good book about the history and details of the embargo, the longest running and most inhumane, is in this book: Cuba: Confronting the U.S. Embargo by Peter Schwab.
i read it before a research trip there (homestays, countryside travel) on the advice of the american guy who lives there part year and organizes the trips for academic research. the writer is not a leftist, but they detail how the embargo works, how the US tightens the screws (often) and relaxes them (rarely). no one else on the trip read the book, because they are PMC lib douchebags, so i became the defacto guy to ask questions to.... but every time i would articulate one of the features of the embargo the libs would recoil in horror.
i have a very low opinion of my fellow americans, but i sincerely believe if americans knew how the embargo worked, they would not support it and probably speak out against it. even most garden-variety chuds. i've told stupid chuds about it and the response is universally "that's shitty. no wonder they don't like us." the irony being that Cubans like Americans and recognize that we don't really know what our government is doing and wish we could travel there more easily, talk to them, and see how things are.
Americans who do support the embargo are either 1.) completely ignorant about it or 2.) legit brain damaged psychopaths who would enslave the people of the island to work on a giant sugarcane plantation that the US deeds to them.
--edit: upon reading that twitter thread, the author is a clown. hardly a mention of the embargo and when it does, it downplays it significantly. it not just block US exports. it fines companies that have operations in the US a million dollars per instance of engaging in a transaction with a cuban entity which operates using "stolen" property from american corporations (which is everything). also, any shipping traffic that stops at a cuban port cannot use a US port or US-aligned port (which is almost all of the carribean, as they have signed these mutual defence treaties designed to isolate cuba) for a period of 6 months. there is so much more going on with it that is set up to just isolate the shit out of cuba.
Every president has screwed with the blockade, typically making it more extreme.
Carter temporarily fought with it a little but Reagan dialed it up to new heights immediately.
Bush Sr. codifies it into law with Congress, preventing presidents from meaningfully ending the blockade.
Under Clinton there's the Helms-Burton Act, though Clinton makes small relaxing tweaks to the blockade late in his second term.
Bush Jr. does his best to apply maximum pressure and end the Cuban government, creating and funding new and large working groups for how to do so, following their policy recommendations. Their explicit goal is "regime change" and their demands are primarily privatization; they often forget to slap on the liberal "democracy" pretext.
Obama relaxes some restrictions but if he wanted to make long-lasting change, he'd need to change the law. He makes no attempt to do so and his changes are summarily undone by Trump.
Biden has continued Trump's policies.