Cuban embargo: makes no sense

[Ocklawaha]

Glad to see more open minds here on the history records. I have been debating and fighting with the history community establishment for years to examine the legality of the Federal governments war against the South, 1861-65. If one doesn't want to admit that the South was right, at very least they should be able to see that Lincoln broke every law in the book, in an undeclared, illegal war of conquest. Panama is likewise illegal, and was seized by American troops using the excuse that US Policy in 1901 was that EVERY people in the America's has the right to self determination. When in FACT that was everybody except: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Maryland, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona! So the seizure of "Panama" from Colombia, another crime? Then there was WWI, we were actually friends with the Germans and the Britt's. It was Germany that discovered that we were smuggling weapons and ammunition to the British military aboard commercial vessels. They found a huge shipment of munitions were about to sail on the Lusitania, and demanded it be unloaded. We refused. The Germans then took out full page advertising in all of the Northeastern press, "DO NOT SAIL ON THE LUSITANIA, she is a ship of war and will be targeted as such." The Germans were right, it sailed, they sunk it, we declared war!

So yes, I too think far too much is put on one side of the story, it's just with Cuba and their government, there are way too few pointing out the truth about these people.


OCKLAWAHA

[Bostech]

History is written by historians appointed by winners.

[samiam]

After the Federal governments war against the South most state rights where striped from every state.

[Dog Walker]

Including the right to own other people as property.

[ben says]

History is written by historians appointed by winners.

In most cases, yes, you're dead on.

But I think it's fair to point out--almost mandatory, in light of his recent death--the historian Howard Zinn.

I linked it already in this thread--but please check out A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present.

[buckethead]

Including the right to own other people as property.

To own a person's right to his income is to own the person.

[samiam]

One of the reasons for the civil war

In March 1861, the New York Evening Post editorialized on this point:

That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.

[samiam]

At Jamestown, Va. in 1611 a group of Scottish women and children were sold as slaves. 7 years later in Jamestown the first Africans were sold in slavery. From 1611 until 1865 people from virtually every society on earth were sold into slavery in North America. Citizens in each of the thirteen colonies enslaved people, but slavery was viewed as a southern institution after the early 1800's. Along the coastal areas of the South a majority of the slaves were black. In some inland areas whites and Native Americans outnumbered black slaves.

It goes without saying that slavery is an abomination.

[Cricket]

Let's get back to Cuba ...

My guess is that if Castro had not embraced communism whole hog he would still be our friend today. He would have been okay with us if he had become a moderate dictator like Tito.

Don't forget we were still fond of Fidel even after he got rid of our good friend, Batista. America could tolerate a corrupt Cuba in the days of Batista. But communism, never!

Remember, communism has always been our bogeyman.

[Bostech]

Yeah only of Fidel had accepted mafia and their US bosses to run their country,everything would be OK.

Yeah,right winger posters are not giving up with their version of history and whos good and bad guy.

[BridgeTroll]

  those darn right wingers...   Someone here insisted every president and congressperson since Kennedy is a terrorist...   So what does that make you?

Why even as we speak those famous right wingers Hillary and Barack are trying to figure out how to impose an embargo on Iran...

Those darn right wingers...

[Ocklawaha]

yeah.  funny how our right wing posters never seem to know who allende or pinochet screwed over, raped or killed in backstabby power moves.

Including the right to own other people as property.

Really? Are you certain that the North didn't do the same thing? Better check the record friends, because THEY HAD SLAVES TOO! In fact the Confederate States Constitution outlawed the slave trade, and the US Constitution did not! The north (Ken Burns) Boasts that 90,000 African Americans fought for the north, but he never told his viewers that an estimated 350,000 fought for the south. The north had (until Korea) the US Colored Troops, they had a limited MOS, and drew pay at half the rate of the white units. The Confederate National Army had a similar program in the last months of the war (the only ones Mr. Burns mentioned) but from the first battle, thousands of "men of color" fought on the battle line as Confederate STATE troops, which drew identical pay, and experienced no segregation. At both the Gettysburg and the "Confederate Park" reunions of veterans of the war, the black Confederates found the government had not constructed tents or dormitory's for them, as officially, "THEY DIDN'T EXIST," So their brothers in gray, agreed en masse to surrender their bunks to their comrades and sleep in the tent cities. Amazing that this makes some folks so uncomfortable.

Even more interesting, those who attacked my comments on Castro and Che as being "right wing wacko rage" spun right around and jumped in bed with the same right wing when my comments threatened the American's ill founded worship of Lincoln and his war criminals. We all tend to toss that baby out with the bath water if the subject gets tender. As a historian I could have had even more fun with this... I know Stephendare knows... For example:

Japan was a member of the allies during WWI, and while the Pacific was not a major theater of that war, the Austrian-German empire had a number of Pacific colonial possessions. Coming off Admiral Togo's humiliating defeat of the Russian Imperial Navy in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan was in a power position to help us defeat the Germans. As a result of WWI, Japan obtained her first Imperial Colonial Possessions. Korea and Manchuria were both LEGALLY annexed by Japan after the Bolshevik Revolution, demonstrated that a newly aggressive Communist Soviet State could be held in check by this feisty little oriental power. When the League of Nations created the Washington Naval Treaty and the Arms Limitations, it was clear that the West was worried that Japan was a bit too strong (even though she was a loyal Allie and trained her officers in the US and Brittan). So the treaty was created to give the United States and Great Brittan FIVE capital ships for each THREE that Japan could have!! The Japanese protested, then walked out. So we froze and "Embargoed" their assets. On December 8, 1941 (Tokyo time) they suddenly balanced that naval ratio. You have to ask yourself, WHO'S FAULT WAS THAT?

OCKLAWAHA

[JeffreyS]

A lot of arguing on a topic where everyone seems to agree we shouldn't be using a trade embargo.

[Cricket]

those darn right wingers...   Someone here insisted every president and congressperson since Kennedy is a terrorist...   So what does that make you?

Why even as we speak those famous right wingers Hillary and Barack are trying to figure out how to impose an embargo on Iran...

Those darn right wingers...

It is not a matter of rightwing or leftwing, it's all about our foreign policy madness regardless of who is in power. We all know who is driving the Iran embargo, it is ofcourse Israel who has us in their back pocket. And we know who is driving the Cuban embargo, it is our own south Florida voting bloc of exiles.


By the way, where is that "someone here insisted" quote. I would like to read it.

[BridgeTroll]

Here ya go Cricket...

I am quite informed and am quite familiar with the incident you cited...

The term remains a bumper sticker.  But feel free to call Kennedy and every president and member of congress since then terrorists... It is silly.

I will agree that it certainly is a national policy worthy of review and probably time for negotiations to normalize relations.

I didn't mean to call you, in particular, ignorant. Just a general statement. Most of America (misinformed) has no idea what happens, ever, outside of their own bubble.

But yeah, I do think Kennedy, and every President thereafter is a terrorist. How many children/civilians has Obama killed in Afghanistan over the past year and a half? How many children did Clinton kill in Iraq with economic sanctions (economic terrorism)...800,000 to 1.5 million. How many people did Bush kill? Over 2 million...

Let's be real here--we aren't what we say we are.