Does Cuba have a real shot at Freedom?

[dan_bgblue]

Also in the Miami Herald, Syra Ortiz-Blanes reports that this week Cuban dissidents were briefly able to use Google to undermine the communist dictatorship before the Alphabet subsidiary restored the regime’s preferences:

For a few hours, Cuba’s storied Revolutionary Square, where Fidel Castro once gave hours-long speeches to the masses, had a different name on Google Maps this week: Freedom Plaza.

A group of Cubans on the island and in the diaspora launched a campaign to change the name of the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana to the Plaza de la Libertad — and succeeded, though only temporarily.

User requests for the switch made it through Google’s system, the company confirmed, but were eventually flagged and the name reverted back to its revolutionary idiom.

Osmani Pardo, a Cuba-based activist, said the loose-knit network, whose exact size is unknown, aims to empower the Cuban people to assign new words and language to government-run institutions.

Now this is the kind of renaming project all Americans should support. Certainly few historical figures are more deserving of cancellation than the murderous Castro.

Imagine if social media networks could somehow be used to undermine tyrants and open closed societies. But how?

Wall Street Journal ("Also in the Miami Herald, Syra Ortiz-Blanes reports that this week Cuban dissidents were briefly able to use Google to undermine the communist dictatorship before the Alphabet subsidiary restored the regime’s preferences: For a few hours, Cuba’s storied Revolutionary Square, where Fidel Castro once gave hours-long speeches to the masses, had a different name on Google Maps this week: Freedom Plaza. A group of Cubans on the island and in the diaspora launched a campaign to change the name of the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana to the Plaza de la Libertad — and succeeded, though only temporarily. User requests for the switch made it through Google’s system, the company confirmed, but were eventually flagged and the name reverted back to its revolutionary idiom. Osmani Pardo, a Cuba-based activist, said the loose-knit network, whose exact size is unknown, aims to empower the Cuban people to assign new words and language to government-run institutions. Now this is the kind of renaming project all Americans should support. Certainly few historical figures are more deserving of cancellation than the murderous Castro. Imagine if social media networks could somehow be used to undermine tyrants and open closed societies. But how?"

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[Doc]

No.........

[KeithKSR]

It would be odd if Cuba moves toward a more free society at the same time the Dems drag the US toward totalitarianism.

[suncat05]

No..........whatever freedom movement the Cuban people will try to use, the Communist government in Cuba will crush it like an irritating little gnat.

And I have few doubts that some entities within our own government will help.

[dan_bgblue]

The protesting citizens are pleading for US assistance. If the US government fails to hear their pleas, and act on them, China is willing and able to step in and set up shop in the Caribbean. Cuba will become a Hong Kong in the western hemisphere.

[MickintheHam]

The protesting citizens are pleading for US assistance. If the US government fails to hear their pleas, and act on them, China is willing and able to step in and set up shop in the Caribbean. Cuba will become a Hong Kong in the western hemisphere.

Obama failed the Iranian people when he had the chance. What makes anyone think Biden will be different?

[suncat05]

The protesting citizens are pleading for US assistance. If the US government fails to hear their pleas, and act on them, China is willing and able to step in and set up shop in the Caribbean. Cuba will become a Hong Kong in the western hemisphere.

As chummy as Biden is with China, that deal has already likely been signed & sealed for awhile now.

[dan_bgblue]

Need to tie him up and put him back in his basement.

[Basket Case]

The protesting citizens are pleading for US assistance. If the US government fails to hear their pleas, and act on them, China is willing and able to step in and set up shop in the Caribbean. Cuba will become a Hong Kong in the western hemisphere.

Not only is the US not assisting the Cuban people, the Dept of Homeland Security Secretary explicitly said that any Cuban trying to enter the US will not enter the US. They will be referred to a third country for settlement. This is absolutely mind boggling and infuriating to me. Potential refugees that are certainly oppressed are not allowed to enter but you open the SW border to whomever wants to enter, no questions asked?!!

[catmanjack]

Two faced double standard primarily for their gain.

[Doc]

Not only is the US not assisting the Cuban people, the Dept of Homeland Security Secretary explicitly said that any Cuban trying to enter the US will not enter the US. They will be referred to a third country for settlement. This is absolutely mind boggling and infuriating to me. Potential refugees that are certainly oppressed are not allowed to enter but you open the SW border to whomever wants to enter, no questions asked?!!

Keep in mind the differences.

1) Cubians tend to vote conservative where as Central American refugees go left

2) Cubians are fleeing actual persecution by a totalitarian government where as most of the central American are fleeing climate change (per the administration). Of course climate change has no borders but that is besides the point

3) Cubian refugees would likely populate FL whichbis a swing state, swinginging it to the right. That is not a democratic goal.

[CitizenBBN]

Keep in mind the differences.

1) Cubians tend to vote conservative where as Central American refugees go left

2) Cubians are fleeing actual persecution by a totalitarian government where as most of the central American are fleeing climate change (per the administration). Of course climate change has no borders but that is besides the point

3) Cubian refugees would likely populate FL whichbis a swing state, swinginging it to the right. That is not a democratic goal.

Bingo. They are the wrong kind of immigrants for the current Administration. They are the immigrants who largely vote Republican. Those SOBs can rot at sea for all this Administration cares.

And no, I don't think that's overstating the case. They are doing everything possible to let in as many immigrants in Texas as possible, and not even scheduling them for hearings or court dates or otherwise tracking them in any way.

yet they immediately announce that only Cuban refugees/immigrants will be apprehended and deported to a third country.

there's no other conclusion.

[dan_bgblue]

I saw a state department official on the news last night and he warned the citizens of Cuba not to try and emigrate via boat as it was terribly dangerous.

I do not recall any speeches by the state department warning the folks from central America that a 2,000 mile hike with small children and worn out sandals was putting those folks in peril of poisonous snake bites, attacks from nasty cartel drug runners, a lack of food or clean water, and protection from sunshine and global warming.

[Doc]

I saw a state department official on the news last night and he warned the citizens of Cuba not to try and emigrate via boat as it was terribly dangerous.

I do not recall any speeches by the state department warning the folks from central America that a 2,000 mile hike with small children and worn out sandals was putting those folks in peril of poisonous snake bites, attacks from nasty cartel drug runners, a lack of food or clean water, and protection from sunshine and global warming.

Do you actually believe those people made a 2000K trek on foot?

[KeithKSR]

Do you actually believe those people made a 2000K trek on foot?

Not with the condition most are in when they arrive at the border. They are being delivered to the border.

[dan_bgblue]

If the Cubans want to migrate

The people of Cuba are demonstrating extraordinary bravery by rising up for freedom and democracy against their brutal communist dictatorship. President Biden is reacting with a disgraceful display of foreign policy clumsiness.

The epitome of this was a July 13 statement by the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who arrived in America from Cuba in 1960 as a refugee. Mr. Mayorkas paid lip service to the idea that the Biden-Harris administration and the Department of Homeland Security “stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and their call for freedom from the repression and economic suffering that the Cuban’s authoritarian regime is causing.”

The secretary’s words that followed, however, undercut that: “The time is never right to attempt migration by sea. To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: if you take to the Sea, you will not come to the United States.... Any migrant intercepted at sea, regardless of their nationality, will not be permitted to enter the United States..



they just need to take a boat trip to Matamoros then walk across the border.

[CitizenBBN]

If I were a billionaire I swear I'd park a cruise ship off the Cuban coast and take in everyone who got there, then go to Mexico and walk them across the border with TV cameras rolling.

If any people in Latin America are deserving of asylum for seeking to flee tyranny and oppression it's the people of Cuba. Other nations are bad but Cuba should get you in the front of the line.

Of course to a growing part of this country cuba isn't even an enemy anymore, or even a bad place.

If ever there was proof that socialists want equality of outcomes, even if that just means making everyone (except themselves) poor, the political lines we see drawn over Cuba is that proof.

[dan_bgblue]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-havana-protests-biden-aoc-ocasio-cortez-alcantara-osorbo-ferrer-diaz-canel-11629044444?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=7&mod=WTRN#cxrecs_s