🚀 go-pugleaf

mcline@crosslink.net writes:
> jdean@PostOffice.chv.va.us (John Dean) wrote:
> 
> >At the end of January, 1996, an organization called Pastors for Peace
> >will be delivering computers to INFOMED, a project of the National
> >Center for Medical Science Information in Cuba.  
> 
> Why aren't they donating the computers to needy Americans????
> Or if they feel a compelling reason to go beyond our borders to a more
> needy contry, why not Haiti, the Dominican Republic, or Trinadad.  Why
> give support to a government which by policy, suppresses it's people,
> and holds them in virtual bondage?
> 
Every organisation has its own purpose.  To ask why it isn't
doing something else is a product of limited thinking.  If
there actually are any Americans who could use this equipment,
I'm sure that one of the existing service organisations would
collect them and find a way to distribute them.  But the
minimum level of technology necessary for usefulness here is
such that the machines in questions would find no takers
anywhere in the US.

You simply can't expect *everyone* to feel the same way about
Cuba that you do.

> The United
> >Nations provided the servers for this project, but end-user terminals
> >are scarce in Cuba, and any old PC, XT or AT machine will do the job.
> 
> So in other words, send them your junk.  Who cares if the 10 MB hard
> drive has only 4.5 mb of readable sectors, the fan squeeels and the
> monitor is dim.
> 
> >Cuba is a poor country, but it has a very good health care system, which
> >delivers care to the public at no cost. 
> 
> Except for the cost of freedom, liberty, self determination, etc., for
> it's people.
> 
> >  Unfortunately, the US actively
> >works to keep the Cuban people from acquiring needed resources.  The
> >embargo of trade and travel to Cuba has been extended, in recent years,
> >to attempt to prevent other countries from trading with that nation, as
> >well.  This aggressive stance by the United States has so far been
> >unsuccessful in toppling the present government, but it has had the
> >effect of keeping us as US citizens from knowing very much about our
> >neighbor to the south.  The US embargo is universally condemned by the
> >international community.
> 
> Does this make it wrong.  Just because an idea isn't popular with the
> "world", is it a bad idea?  The US position is one of morality, based
> on the tenants which we (most of any way) hold so dear... liberty,
> freedom, self determination.  
>
The United States has supported governments that have been much
more repressive than Cuba was even at its worst.  The foreign
policy here is more a vestige of the cold war policy than one
based on present day circumstances: it was designed to punish
Cuba for its alignment with the now defunct USSR and to prevent
to same from using Cuba for military purposes.  It rather
surprises me that the Clinton administration is not working to
redefine US-Cuban relations in the light of changing world
conditions.
> 
> >This aggressive stance by the United States has so far been
> >unsuccessful in toppling the present government,
> 
> I love it when folks (liberals) want it both ways...boycott Rush
> Limbaugh, let the embargo take it's time to work on Iraq, but... the
> embargo of Cuba is wrong, imoral etc., hasn't worked and won't work.
> 
What on earth is this about Rush?  Please.  I had red herrings
for lunch yesterday, and my stomach is still bothering me.  No
more, plese.

Acutally, I don't think the embargo is a good idea in Iraq
either.  A *real* embargo, enforced with naval power that has
the authority to shoot at will, is a powerful and legitimate
tool in times of war.  In times of peace - even such a tenuous
one - an embargo is rather ineffective as a bully stick.  It
has been my observation that the longer a goverment remains in
place with a managable level of internal and external
pressures, the more stable and less repressive it becomes.
Repressive measures are usually taken as responses to serious
threats to a government's existence.  The most effective mesns
for helping to improve both the material and political
conditions of the people of Cuba is for the US to open a
dilogue with the Casto government, settle as many differnces as
can be agreed upon, and remove whatever obstacles have been
placed in the path to peace and prosperity.

-- 
andy		acs6j@virginia.edu