Posted by
Jeff S on Sunday, April 26, 2009 12:23:51 AM
On April 23rd, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin posted a floor statement wherein he stated:
"We should not be closing the doors to Cuba. We should throw them wide open. I had some friends who recently went to Cuba, through Mexico, with a visa. They came back and said, "You know, they are still using oxen for power in their agriculture."
Yoking oxen, in the 21st century, 90 miles offshore from the United States? If they knew and could see what modern agriculture could bring to them, if they could understand what freedom meant, even more, we would have a greater chance of bringing real change to Cuba."
The internet has a colloquialism for my reaction, it's called 'facepalm'.
Let me get right to the heart of the matter with an open question to Senator Durbin: Senator, is it possible that it's not a matter of Cubans knowing of such technology such as a combine and automation but that they are nearly the most abjectly poor nation in the hemisphere because they've been choked to fiscal death by a self aggrandizing, despotic dictator?
Durbin's statement assumes that Cubans must be completely out of touch with the century. That or he thinks they are just darn stupid.
I would assert they are neither. What evidence do I have of this? People in boats risking life to float across what is tantamount to an ocean to get to Florida. Seems they think there is a better world in America. See, the Senator also pointed out that his Lithuanian mother was not exposed to the Western World until openness came about in her country. For that I am glad for him and his mother. Lithuania is not Cuba and Cubans appears to know the difference.
By inference of his mothers story, the implication is that there is some comparative but it does not factor things like people trying to escape the island or dissident activities. Both things that need foreknowledge of a better life for them to occur.
If it weren't enough that he has separated himself from what is political reality, he lead to his summation with this:
"Some of the cold warriors that I hear on television, the commentators just cannot get over that (edit: engaging the despots). They cannot imagine that we would change a foreign policy that we have had over the Bush administration years, a policy that sadly did not reach its intended goals of better relationships and better respect around the world."
Revisionist history does seem de rigueur these days in DC but I seem to still remember that not engaging Cuba has been a policy since the Kennedy Administration which equates to a half century of policy. I don't think Bush is to blame for this since he didn't make or change an ongoing policy. What's odd is that prior to his blaming Bush, he pointed out that '50 years of policy has not worked' If Bush was to blame, I don't recall him being president for 50 years.
Did I mention that I had a hang nail? Yep, Bush's fault.
Still, Senator Durbin veers dangerously close to reality until he does the political equivalent of a swing and a miss by saying this: "It is a poor country, a nation that struggles with natural disasters as well as poverty of its own creation..."
Dick, you were on fire there.
That is until you finished with this:"...and one that would be open to change and opportunity."
Last I heard was that Raul and Fidel weren't running on a Hope and Change platform. They weren't running on any platform.They are dictators! My dusty dictator handbook does explicitly state that change is bad for dictator business.
Again: facepalm