{"id":3369,"date":"2020-12-19T00:42:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T00:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/?p=3369"},"modified":"2020-12-19T10:23:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T10:23:07","slug":"confronting-and-ending-the-us-blockade-against-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/confronting-and-ending-the-us-blockade-against-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Confronting and Ending the US Blockade Against Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

W. T. Whitney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


U.S. news reports rarely touch upon the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba. The blockade destroys people\u2019s lives and threatens the island\u2019s economy and Cuba\u2019s economic development. Damning evidence appears in the Cuba\u2019s Foreign Ministry\u2019s most recent report on adverse effects. Its authors refer to \u201cthe longest-lasting<\/a> trade embargo in modern history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How long is long? It\u2019s been in place for 60 years. If from there you go back only five 60-year chunks of time, you might have greeted the Puritans arriving in Boston. Meanwhile, \u201cCuba bashing<\/a> is like ordering pizza; \u2026 cheap and easy and everyone likes you for it.\u201d \u2013 in the words of Cuba analyst and lawyer Jos\u00e9 Pertierra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here we try to account for the blockade\u2019s long life; we propose a new approach toward ending it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-blockade activists have generally operated on the assumption that if public and elected officials actually understood the horrors of the blockade, they would come together and finish it off. The blockade, it\u2019s been variously pointed out, is illegal, cruel, immoral, bad for U.S. businesses wanting to sell to Cuba, bad for potential U.S. importers, bad for U.S. tourists, and bad for U.S. fans of Cuban culture, music, and sports. Yet no large, sustained protest movement ever materialized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally, it seems, blockade opponents have never confronted the reality of powerful forces mobilized against them. Masters of the blockade, with the machinery of government at their disposal, enjoy free rein. Well-crafted blockade regulations are in force. And the resistance movement is small; its leadership, divided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dedicated activists often rely on what looks like magical thinking. They presume that if something ought to happen, it will happen. It\u2019s a fantasy politics which New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (December 13) characterizes as \u201cdreampolitik.\u201d Currently, for example, Trump die-hards insist, despite the facts, that he won the presidency and that President-elect Biden has socialist leanings or enables socialists or communists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two other factors are crucial. One: many members of the public, sympathetic though they may be, are not yet prepared to take a stand in favor of ending the blockade. Moved by a prevailing narrative that associates social radicalism with societal destabilization, they may hold Cuba at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another is the problem of how to overcome the legacy of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. Among other nefarious provisions, that legislation awarded Congress sole responsibility for changing blockade regulations, in particular, for closing it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some suggest that inasmuch as the blockade hasn\u2019t worked to cause regime change, it must disappear. They don\u2019t realize that the blockade is programmed to last exactly as long as the revolutionary government lasts. \u201cBut you must \u201ckeep the foot<\/a> on the snake, don\u2019t let up.\u201d That was New Jersey congressman Robert Torricelli\u2019s advice in 1992 as he introduced new blockade legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foundational purpose<\/a> of the blockade was to inflict suffering and distress upon the Cuban people to induce them to overthrow their government. The blockade serves as one of many tools for protecting global capitalism and maintaining U.S. hegemony abroad. There is bonus value. Its existence cements the loyalty of the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan exile communities to rightwing candidates in U.S. elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The need is therefore great to radically alter the manner of resisting. Struggle against the blockade now takes place as a single issue, walled off from other good causes. It\u2019s a side show in the three-ring circus of U.S. politics. However, if efforts to end the blockade were included in a multi-faceted program of progressive change, and if the fight proceeded on those terms, then the odds of finishing off the blockade would surely improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An anti-capitalist or left-leaning political party would be leading the charge. After all, the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade is a key part of the ceaseless U. S. war against communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packaging a demand in class-struggle wrapping did the trick in bringing about universally available healthcare. Following World War II every industrialized capitalist country in the world, except one, established some kind of care system for all people. A socialist political party, labor party, or strong union movement was operating in each of those countries, except the United States. That\u2019s the one country that does not allow for universally available healthcare. Its labor unions are weak and there\u2019s no socialist party competing in elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

W.T. Whitney Jr.<\/strong> is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Counter Punch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W. T. Whitney U.S. news reports rarely touch upon the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba. The blockade destroys people\u2019s lives and threatens the island\u2019s economy […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":3370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8346,"url":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/cuba-scores-a-big-victory-in-the-un-general-assembly\/","url_meta":{"origin":3369,"position":0},"title":"Cuba Scores a Big Victory in the UN General Assembly","author":"Editorial Team","date":"December 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The United Nations General Assembly on November 2 voted to approve a Cuban resolution that, unchanged over 31 consecutive years, calls for an end to the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. 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