Thursday, September 3, 2009

Odds and ends

  • Twenty-four dissidents signed a statement supporting the Juanes concert, calling it “a great opportunity to advance reconciliation among all Cubans, and to leave behind the hatreds that for so many years have poisoned our patria.” What a bunch of commies! (Reuters coverage here, excerpts and signatures here).

  • Speaking of commies, the communist Chinese are giving Cuba a new $600 million line of credit, including $260 million for grain purchases.

  • AP: A Miami federal judge awarded a $27.5 judgment to the family of a Cuban political prisoner, to be paid by the Cuban government and Communist party, to compensate for the distress that the incarceration of Omar Rodriguez Saludes has caused.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

interesting article from havana note. points out that the embargo is still based on the trading with enemy act, that can only be used in time of war -- so US still considers itself at war with cuba. and that of course puts cuba's right to defend itself in context.
also it again stresses the embargo is a violation of human rights, cuba's restrictions of CIVIL rights is nothing compared to the HUMAN rights abuses the embargo imposes.

Anonymous said...

Categorizing a country's right to refuse to trade with another country as a violation of that country's human rights is a complete joke and is not taken seriously by any adult policymaker.

chingon

Walter Mercado said...

I eagerly await Amnesty Intl's condemnation of the Obama adminstration's threat to suspend Millenium Challenge Fund humanitarian aid to Honduras.

Anonymous said...

i own a business in USA and want to trade with cuba. its my right to do so, but my government's dictatorial practice makes it illegal. wtf, i thought that's what the cuban side did. if the US govt doesn't want anything to do with Cuba that's fine, (war being the only reason to not trade) but what the hell has that got to do with my company? and when it comes to selling medicine, that is a human rights abuse. chingon, you once again leave no doubt as to what an idiot you are.

Charles A. Donate said...

Those US companies, who desire to exchange goods and services with the present ruling power in Cuba, are merely operated by unprincipled individuals. I ask those companies what type of blood they are made of to carry such baseless principles? For those who profess the US as operating a "dictatorial practice," your judgement has without doubt been poisoned by misinformation. You know nothing of abuse, and you are not, in any fashion, socially or politically conscious of Cuba, and the great infierno that it has been for the past fifty years under the dehumanizing regime of Fidel. Go ahead and feed the fire with your goods and services--you and China will prove to be the purveyors of another fifty years. Once again, I ask what blood are you made of, you unprincipled being?

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:05, sure...you are US "businessman." If you were a real U.S. businessman and wanted to trade with Cuba then you would already know what the rules and laws are -- and they don't bar the sales of medicine and medical equipment. Nice try, bootlicker.

chingon

leftside said...

As Amnesty pointed out, Cuba is not able to make much use of the medical exemptions because of a requirement for sellers to "monitor end users." This is practically impossible. Therefore Cuba only buys a million dollars of equipment, despite their attmpts to buy much more. This is compared to hundreds of millions of food.

Anonymous said...

chingon, what the hell is wrong with you? you really are someone who either can't read english or refuses to understand. the point is moron, is that there is MORE business to do in cuba than just medicine and food (which is still highly restrictive, if you knew the rules) the point, and read this part slowly so you can understand, is that my government should not bar me from doing business in cuba if I want to -- and it's not food or medicine related. the point is, again, even if you move your lips when you read thats ok, that my government should not dictate to me who i should and should not trade with. now, do you understand or do you need little pictures as well?
and here's another concept, hope you can grasp it, why is the government dictating to me that i can't bring in Cuban products to sell. because trade is a two-way street (sorry, lots of difficult ideas here for your narrow mind, but do your best to take them all in)

and for anon 116, (chingon unsigned?) you're kidding right? who owns more US debt than any country in the world, who does the US trade with to the tune of billions of dollars each year. and the govt doesn't tell me not to trade with them. China of course, and no one seems to mind.
so keep those wonderful mccarthy speeches going, they were great in the 50s and still quite amusing now.

Anonymous said...

"chingon, what the hell is wrong with you?... the point is moron, is that there is MORE business to do in cuba than just medicine and food.... my government should not bar me from doing business..."

Oh, I get it now! So it *is* a crime for Cubans to do business inside their own country, such as growing and selling food, but it is *not* a crime for Americans to enrich a hostile regime? Just think how much Pan American Airlines would have profited from selling Saint Che and his Merry Men airling tickets to Bolivia!

Where was Mr. Anonymous/Lefty when the evil American empire violated the human rights of the Japanese by refusing to sell them scrap metal before certain trivial events occurred at Pearl Harbor?

(Not that Pearl Harbor can be compared in any way, of course, with the Worst Terrorist Act of All Time, i.e. the genocidal yanqui nuclear attack on Hiroshima!)

Anonymous said...

anon 7:02, thanks for proving my point that you don't "own a business in USA [sic] and want to trade with Cuba" but just another ideological hack/regime bootlicker who prowls this blog.

chingon

Anonymous said...

anon 7:02, thanks for proving my point that you don't "own a business in USA [sic] and want to trade with Cuba" but just another ideological hack/regime bootlicker who prowls this blog.

chingon