So the embargo doesn't work...
That's not what the Cuban government says. In an article published on Prensa Latina (which we don't link to here) Cuba claims the embargo has cost the country $86 billion since it was first implemented. Not that you can believe a single statistic Cuba releases but certainly the embargo has cost Cuba a boatload of dollars. Dollars that would be be further used to enrich castro and his sycophants and to finance Cuban internationalist adventures around the globe and NOT spent toward helping everyday Cubans. So next time somebody tells you the embargo doesn't work, tell them that Cuba seems to think it does. If it didn't work why would there be so much pressure to remove it?
2 comments:
I am with you until the last sentence: "If it didn't work why would there be so much pressure to remove it?"
Most Americans don't care if it works or not (of course the embargo keeps money away from Fidel) - if that is how you are defining "work".
Many want to take away embargo simply bc/ it is "inconsistent with traditional American liberties" --- regardless of what is happening in Cuba.. Cuba is repressed yes, but is it Nazi Germany ? No way
See also:
"Trends: American Attitudes toward Cuba" in Public Opinion Quarterly (vol. 65) p.g. : 585-606.
Remember this is mainstream scholarly journal - and the article used random sample methodology and had a good sample. .
from the surveys: (most from Gallop)... in 2000 63 percent of americans favored ending embargo , and many others "didn't know" .. few supported the embargo..
If you believe so much in democracy then why doesn't our Cuban policy reflect the majority will of the people of the US?
for sure, the number of americans wanting to end the embargo is higher now than in 2000.
It reflects the will of the American people inasmuch as the leaders who were Democratically elected have, as a whole, approved of the policy.
We don't have a direct democracy where people vote on issue after issue. The polls are irrelevant. If you polled people about speed limits and had to abide by those polls we'd have higher speed limits and speeding tickets would cost less.
If we had a poll about property taxes and had to abide by that poll we would have much lower property taxes.
We have a representative Democracy. We understand that when we elect an official that they may implement policies we don't personally agree with. When the disagreement between voter and official becomes too great that official is voted out of office.
Democrats and Republican administrations have all maintained the embargo since it was started. Nobody (to my knowlege) has lost their seat because of supporting the embargo which tells me that regardless of any poll lowering the embargo is not that important to Americans.
If you want to know my opinions about the embargo and why we should maintain it (because I can't rehash them every time a new reader comes along) do a search using the search box at the top of this page.
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