HOly Smokes! Anyone seen this? THis is huge. Obama ready to end Cuba embargo

[Jammyisme]

http://www.upi.com/news/issueoftheday/2009/04/08/Obama-ready-to-end-Cuba-embargo/UPI-93491239207960/

Im shocked.

[Jammyisme]

read on:

Obama's calibrated messages to Havana have already provoked a positive reaction. Ailing 82-year-old Fidel Castro, the communist dictator of the island for almost half a century, asked three visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, "How can we help President Obama?"

Castro met with U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., and Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo. It was his first face-to-face meeting with any U.S. officials in the nearly three years since he had emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.

The visit reflected changing attitudes toward Cuba on Capitol Hill. The visiting Congressional Black Caucus delegation also met with Castro's brother Raul, who is the island's ruler. And last month a bipartisan group of senators including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the elder statesman on foreign policy issues among Senate Republicans, called for an end to the economic embargo on Cuba.

The once-strong anti-Castro feelings in Congress are easing, at least among Democrats. Younger members affiliated with the Cuban-American community are looking for a more open relationship with Havana, while the members who have ties to older Cubans want the embargo, started 47 years ago, retained. At least one Congressional Black Caucus member used the Cuban term of "blockade" to refer to the embargo.

For nearly half a century, maintaining the embargo against Cuba has been a third-rail issue in U.S. foreign policy: Democrats have been as eager to enforce it as Republicans. It was, after all, John F. Kennedy, the most revered Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt, who risked thermonuclear war to force the Soviet Union to pull its lethal intermediate-range nuclear missiles out of Cuba in the 1962 missile crisis. And it was never forgotten that Castro at that time was far more willing to risk a nuclear World War III than Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was.

However, Castro, while still alive, is now a frail and fading figure. More than 1.5 million Cuban-Americans currently have relatives back on their native island. And for Cuba, as for North Korea, being cut off from most of the world has only succeeded in keeping its old-fashioned repressive communist regime in power.

[Gambitt]

I've read a bunch of the reports, and while the thawing of relations is possibly good for some Economic advantage, I'm hoping it doesn't lead to an American "invasion" of consumerism.

We don't need a Wal-mart on Calle 62! (Steve, where's that "photo"?  )

One of the charms of Cuba for me, was the lack of American "bourgeoisie" in the resorts.  All countries have their Louts, but (in my experience) the US seems to have more than their share. 

 "Consumerism" isthe main reason we stopped going to Jamaica.

[Jammyisme]

 

Last year the Kremlin flew two of its front-line Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers armed with nuclear-capable, standoff air-launched cruise missiles to Latin America. But it was Venezuela that hosted them, not Cuba. The Castro brothers had become an almost-forgotten backwater even to Russia, the nation that backed and protected them for so long.

The outreach to Cuba could yet backfire on Obama. Raul Castro remains, like his brother, an unreconstructed communist revolutionary who regards the United States as the source of all evil in the world. However, if the outreach program succeeds, it may serve to dramatically reduce the Republican Party's already eroding historic lock on Cuban-American support, especially in the crucial state of Florida, the fourth most populous state in the United States, which is therefore of huge importance in the Electoral College.

Longtime opponents of Castro are certain to oppose Obama's moves toward ending the embargo, but they were his implacable opponents anyway. After 47 years, it looks like the embargo's day is done.

[Bulldog]

Yes it's been on CNN for a couple days, maybe good for Cubans in the long run 

lets talk about how it will effect Cuban life, not about Canadian tourist 

[Jammyisme]

I think this going to have a huge impact on the whole cuban life. A major change. For the good I hope.

[bmnichol]

Bulldog, that is the way I feel about this. I'm hoping this will be a good thing for the Cuban people.

[Milli]

lets talk about how it will effect Cuban life, not about Canadian tourist 

I'm hoping this will be a good thing for the Cuban people.

I am in full agreement here.  I have to catch myself when I read about possible changes in Cuba/U.S. relations and lament the possibility of not being able to escape to a country "trapped in time" where life is simpler.  But for the Cuban people life is hard.  Interesting times!