Obama's Cuba visit

[Roger DeLaria]

This scene would most certainly have been unimaginable to the CIA, Military, and Govt. hawks back in JFK's day.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/how-obama-set-a-trap-for-raul-castro-221059

[John Dolva]

It seems to me that nothing substantial was accomplished.

Obama merely reiterated what most people think anyway which is that the blockade is crap (and always was).

There was no committment about returning the illegally occupied Guantanamo Bay.

Given that the President of Venezuela had just completed a visit, it would have been nice to hear a rational statement about that from Obama.

Just PR. Time will tell if anything meaningful comes from this.

[Brad Milch]

@Roger & John:

In keeping a few notes while surfing around the web I've noticed that there is somewhat heavy speculation that the Cuban government may release its Intel files on the JFK assassination, possibly telling us if Cuban or Soviet operatives did indeed offer LHO (or his imposter) a large sum of money (Hoover told LBJ it was $6,500 in their Nov 29 1963 White House phone call) to murder JFK. That, or additional info that may tell us who was impersonating LHO in Mexico City if LHO wasn't there.

I'm not holding my breath on any of those anticipations. It seems reasonable to me to expect that Cuba today stands to gain more financially by keeping quiet on what it knows about JFK's murder & not using its Intel data to blackmail USA Intel in exchange for flooding USA tourist & business dollars into Cuba. That makes more business sense to me than calling out the USA (or Soviet Union) for the LHO Mexico City shenanigans. It's long been reported that much of Castro's Intel originated from US backed anti-Castro double agents. It would not surprise me if Castro's Intel is a duplicate of what the USA Intel already had back 1963 (and vice versa).

It's been many moons since I put in some time in college. One of my Professors there was absolutely convinced that Hoover & LBJ initially planned on using the alleged $6,500 'LHO payoff' story to feed the public the week following JFK's ambush & murder. He believed the initial early newspaper reports of LHO in the market to buy a car in Dallas & allegedly telling the car salesman that he (LHO) was expecting to come into some serious cash soon were floated by Hoover, LBJ and/or the 1963 CIA for that reason. My professor believed the public would have bought a story like that after seeing LHO passing out 'Hands Off Cuba' leaflets & debating the merits of Marxism & diplomatic trade with Cuba on New Orleans radio earlier in 1963.

Who pulled the plug on going with the 'LHO was paid by Cuban or Soviet operatives to murder JFK' story that Hoover discussed with LBJ on the phone along with LHO's impersonators (not discussed by Hoover & LBJ on the phone) pointed back to those responsible for orchestrating & activating the Nov 22, 1963 ambush, reasoned my Professor, many years ago. That cloud of suspicion has hung over Cuba, Khrushchev's Cold War Soviet Union & The CIA for 53 years now.

Some think Cuba's government is ready to come clean of what it knows, but I'm not holding my breath. Money talks & Cuba has always been a poor, hungry country following Castro's dictatorship.

As an avid crabber, had I been able to visit Cuba with the POTUS, I would have asked to see that portion of the island where sea crabs walk across the land & streets to get to the ocean on the opposite side, asked if the crabs are edible & what was the penalty for scooping up a few of the crabs for supper (lol). Then I would have brought out my crab boiling pot & crab boil seasoning.

Brad

Edited March 25, 2016 by Brad Milch

[John Dolva]

The only file release I've heard of is something on the awful years of the US backed Generals in Argentina. (Apparently Obama is bringing some to Argentina during his visit to support the Vulture Funds rape of that country. I understand progressive groupings there are underwhelmed).

I read Granma and Prensa Latina regularly and have seen no mention of any JFK related file release.

The MC event is possibly pivotal. Though, as someone who believes the conspiracy on a street level is about the threat of changed economic conditions promised by JFK's Civil Rights Bill, I think it will pan out to be a distraction.

BTW Cubans are not poor and hungry. They've weathered the US illegal economic sabotage program very well. (proving that socialism is far superior.) , The last time there was a dictator in control of Cuba it was the US backed Batista.

[Brad Milch]

The Castro brothers have PR agents running all over the Internet. Jeff Morley's site catches a lot of them. I steer clear of all of them & argue with none of them, regardless where on the planet they may seem to exist.

For those of us old enough to remember when Castro's Cuba was a parking lot for Soviet nukes aimed at the USA, that alone is all that needs to be known about Castro's regime. Dressing a snake up in a satin ballroom gown doesn't change the fact its still a snake, regardless of how many tails it grows. A snake is programmed to bite regardless of how shiny PR agents polish it up.

In my humble opinion (I was one of those in middle school hunkered under our desks during the nuke alerts during the Cuban Missile Crisis), JFK should have listened to his war hawks & rid Cuba of the cancer that had infested it. The only time a person is truly cancer free is when death of the host it thrives on occurs.

Those that advocate giving the Cuban snake a second chance are cordially invited to position themselves at ground zero when the 1st nukes strike the ground.

Brad

Edited March 25, 2016 by Brad Milch

[Michael Walton]

I think what Obama has done is admirable for the very reason that if the people running the government 53 years ago and not been a bunch of paranoid kooks, it wouldn't have taken this long to have a U.S. president down there today. As Kennedy said in his American University speech (I'm paraphrasing here), yes, we can have different ideologies but we're all human. In other words, the world's not perfect but there's no reason why we can't at least try to get along.

But when you had government people using assassination to benefit their corporate cronies and wild-eyed, cigar-chomping generals breathing down your neck, trying to reach out to your enemies back then was next to impossible.

Further proof, too, that is *could have been done* back then - American and Russian astronauts have been working together in space for, what, 20 years now?

One correction for Brad. You said:

...LHO's impersonators (not discussed by Hoover & LBJ on the phone) pointed back...

It actually was discussed and mentioned on the tapes. Hoover said to the effect, "The voice and appearance of the man in Mexico is not the same man we have in the Dallas jail."

This, to me, is a huge revelation because it proves, beyond any doubt, that Oswald was nothing more than a patsy, being set up to make him look like a wild-eyed Marxist rubbing elbows with Russian assassins in Mexico.

[Douglas Caddy]

Kennedy assassination aborted U.S. reconciliation with Cuba

Sierra Leone Times Wednesday 13th May, 2015

From the article: In October 1963 Kennedy met with the editor of the Socialist newsweekly L'Observateur, Jean Daniel, knowing he was visiting Cuba in early November 1963 and was hoping to interview Castro. "I believe there is no country in the world, including all the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation are worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my own country's policies during the Batista regime," Kennedy told an amazed Daniel.

"I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America."

"I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra when he justifiably called for justice and specially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption," Kennedy said. "I will go even further to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear," Kennedy told the reporter.

------------------------------------

And this today:

http://www.infowars.com/obama-theres-little-difference-between-communism-and-capitalism/

Edited March 25, 2016 by Douglas Caddy

[Roger DeLaria]

When Castro Heard the News

by Jean Daniel

The New Republic 7 December 1963

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WCHN.pdf

[Roger DeLaria]

War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Europe Goes Nuclear; Interview with Jean Daniel, 1986

http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_AD5E116E1049423592E4B2E6FCAB92C5

[Michael Walton]

In my humble opinion (I was one of those in middle school hunkered under our desks during the nuke alerts during the Cuban Missile Crisis), JFK should have listened to his war hawks & rid Cuba of the cancer that had infested it. The only time a person is truly cancer free is when death of the host it thrives on occurs.

Brad, I really don't think you understand the dynamics of what was going on down there. Try, if you can, to put yourself in a Cuban of those times's shoes. Here is a country letting folks from another country just 90 miles away letting them come down to carouse and gamble, while foreign corporations were paying their fellow citizens next to nothing (slave labor).

How would you feel if another country was doing this right in your own backyard and your government was letting them do it? For better or worst, Castro was tired of this and wanted to try to bring some form of government to his country other than the corruption that currently existed there. I'm not saying Castro was perfect, but that's the essence of what was happening.

Because U.S. corporate interests had the the U.S. government's ear (doesn't it always seem that way?) the government was *not* going to disrupt the status quo. Do you really think Eisenhower, Dulles, and Nixon really cared about the average Cuban citizen?

Now let's just imagine that JFK had already been president when Castro took over. And JFK made a speech like the American University one, only it's along the lines of, "It's time for the citizens of Cuba to have real representation from their government." I guarantee you that Castro would have gone running to JFK to make at least some kind of political connection with him. Instead, Eisenhower, Dulles, and Nixon rebuffed Castro and the rest, as they say, is history until as you see it now 53 years later with a U.S. president down there.

I'm sorry to say that the desk diving drills you went through as a kid were not caused by Castro or even Russia. If we had had government officials right after WWII who were thinking on terms of working together with other nations, instead of being paranoid kooks only protecting their corporate interests, there would have been no desk diving drills.

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/opinion-sabotaging-u-s-cuba-detente-in-the-kennedy-era/

[Michael Walton]

http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/opinion-sabotaging-u-s-cuba-detente-in-the-kennedy-era/

Douglas, thanks for posting this. This is what I was trying to describe in my earlier post above yours to Brad. Thank you.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Well first off, I don't think it's effect on the Cuban people will be just P.R. And Brad, students were hunkering down under their desks long before the Cuban missile crisis.

"Those that advocate giving the Cuban snake a second chance are cordially invited to position themselves at ground zero when the 1st nukes strike the ground."

Boy I don't know Brad, you seem to have great uncertainty about where this is all headed. I personally think that's one of the easier questions of the future. Despite the current official posturings. Cuba with it's dirt cheap economy and relatively educated population will become a great source of cheap labor for the worlds multi national corporate engine. From what I'm gathering, Isn't that what you want? .When it's said throughout Cuba that the average Cuban will always remember Diez y Siete de Diciembre, as a historic day in Cuban history. What do you think that means regarding the average Cuban's thoughts about America finally opening diplomatic relations with Cuba, that they dread it and are hell bent in starting a war about it?

How many generations of politicians have been held hostage by the Florida anti Castro Cuban community. Clinton wouldn't touch it.One thing I've never figured out is why would would Cuban Americans for generations (50 years) help foment a policy toward Cuba that would virtually ensure that they would never reunite with their own relatives? If Clinton, (who was probably the first President who could have) actually opened had opened the doors to Cuba 20 years ago, do they really think they would be hard core Socialists (or Communist, whatever you choose) now? Is it really just about one man, who probably wouldn't have chosen to ally with the Soviet Union had he not been shunned by the military and government establishments in Washington? It's almost as if they feared if we opened relations with Cuba, and their relatives started coming into the country, after a few weeks they'd have to eventually kick their deadbeat relatives out of their verandas. Ok, maybe that's not fair, but the official stance of anti Castro Cubans toward their homeland shows absolutely no foresight, and in result, really a callous concern about the long term plight over the economic futures of their relatives, and incredibly poor judgment.

Isn't it interesting when Marco Rubio is asked his reaction to Obama's opening of Cuba, you can see a general disdain, but it's like, Oh well, it certainly wasn't the end of the world. It as if after 50 years of kicking and screaming, it turned out to just be a paper tiger. It was just a stupid, hostile policy that for at least the last half was allowed to go because almost no one among them, had the courage to speak out against it. Even after everyone knew, it had outlived any usefulness.

[Roger DeLaria]

Cuba: How is Fidel Castro viewed in the eyes of Cubans?

https://www.quora.com/Cuba/How-is-Fidel-Castro-viewed-in-the-eyes-of-Cubans

There are some very interesting topics to the right of the article that are worth exploring.

[John Dolva]

It looks like the few contributors to that site left Cuba because they are more interested in capitals baubels than concrete realities though admittedly they all acknowledge the fact that all Cubans are entitled to free quality education and healthcare. There are no homeless people. Everyone eats enough and live secure lives. Not only that, all Cubans can be proud of a country that supports in real ways people and countries that are suffering the effects of rapacious captalism. All in spite of the economic war that Washington wages. Truly an example to the world of what can be done.