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Good news

In reply to FanAttick

Progress is progress ... let's hope it comes to fruition, and we see a difference in approach by the US, which will be sure to make a difference in the Cuban politicians' frame of mind. But don't expect Cuba to buckle .... under any excess pressure.

If it comes to fruition, this will finally be some change we can believe in!

Obama finally displays some spine and vision after nearly 6 years!

In reply to jacksprat

nothing to lose, lost both houses and in the second half of the second term.

Those fugging, nasty raasshole repubs will oppose this bitterly. I hope President Obama doesn't blink first.

Long, long time this should have come to pass .....let's get it done now.

In reply to camos

I agree but real conviction is also about pursuing your vision when there is indeed something at stake.

This is great news, since I’m scheduled to be moving to Cuba for a few months next year!

Obama needs the repubs to end the embargo, but there’s a lot he can do in the meantime, like taking them off the list of state sponsors of terrorism and allowing them to use USD for international trade.

In reply to JohnBull

Just heard this idiot Rubio on CNBC trying his best to defend the status quo. What a prick. Who the hell fool this guy that he is presidential material?

Very intriguing development. I bet the Caribbean at large will be following developments closely.

In reply to FanAttick

It was a stupid policy anyway. Cubans were given automatic legalization upon entering the US. Let them wait in line like everyone else.

In reply to Tryangle


will Cuba suck all the tourists from the rest of the Caribbean?

In reply to camos



I'm booking my flight to Cuba as we speak..

I'll stay at Sandals Royal Havanna,,,

In reply to FanAttick

As usual folks here fail to look beyond the Cuban / American thing, this has everything to do with boxing Russian president Putin into a corner, Putin goes to war in 2015.

Study FDR Japan relations in 1940-1941 and you'll understand why.

In reply to ToldUSo



You are absolutely right...Putin overplayed his hand..he doesnt have the resources to help Cuba so Cuba is looking to their Northern Neighbors to secure their future..

Marco Rubio is a dunce of monumental proportions..he just said that God gave the Cuban people under the US constitution inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...

Well congrats to Obama, finally common sense is prevailing, Cuba would of changed many years ago if this embargo was lifted earlier.

In reply to FanAttick

Putin's biggest mistake is that he came out against the New World Order about 6 months ago, that a big no no, the New World Order and the Central Bankers run the world.

Note that I always stressed the importance of the Pope and the Catholic Church, note who brought Cuba on board, note who fell the old Soviet Union, yes the Pope, that is one powerful position that is not readily recognized because of its lack of transparency.

The Pope is one of the principal leaders of the New World Order. This is not Obama, this is all the New World Order, just like opening China was not about Nixon, it was all about the New World Order.

In reply to ToldUSo

You were doing so well with your first post in the thread.

In reply to camos

No doubt...

I have touched on this before. Right now Cuba is a big tourist draw fi many reasons...tourism industry flourishing. When the gate buss, not going nice pon other islands.

Jamaica and Bahamas might get di biggest blow.

In reply to np

Obama has just destroyed di man who was Jeb's road kill two days ago - Rubio. Total confusion among Republicans

In reply to ToldUSo

man stop drinking so early in the day

In reply to Lenks

It wont be nice for Cuba too.

If you parallel what happened to Romania, Berlin after the Wall went down and the Soviet Union, if things really open up, Cubans themselves will welcome the raping of Cuba.

The "I'm okay with Torture" party is not very concerned about human rights in Cuba.

In reply to Commie

If local Cubans rape it, fine. But the last thing you'd want is for those old gangsters and their offspring in Miami to return to Cuba and rape it without grease.

Local Cubans have suffered and sacrificed too much for decades for that old gang to return and reap the most benefits coming from any thaw in relations between the US and Cuba.

In reply to Disciple in reply to ToldYouSo

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In reply to Ewart



MSNBC just broadcast a clip of Mama P kissing Raul Castro..

Agree. Cuba is suddenly the big draw, the new player on the scene for many Americans.

Oddly enough I think Jamaica and Bahamas have established themselves well enough to handle things, the smaller places like TCI may take a bigger hit.

In reply to ProWI

The problem my friend is that people drop their guard when this thing called freedom is supposedly on offer.

With open borders I can tell you that the first thing you will have happen is a strange phenomenon where those that are in Cuba will likely run as fast as they can and those that are not will come a plundering.

Its happened everywhere else, why not Cuba ?

In reply to Tryangle

Everyone will take licks.

In reply to Tryangle

we will be fortunate initially ,in that I think they will limit tourists access to small areas of the country.

Mi just love how RJR dug up di tape with Michael Manley normalizing relations wid Cuba and defending Cuba's sovereignty from di 1970s.

Deading wid laff

heard US making Seaga basador!

In reply to camos

Yes and we still need to support normalization of the relationship

In reply to Chrissy

Mek me join you sis! You gwine see more of this as time goes by!



Dedding wid laff!





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In reply to camos



And he would take up the appointment too!


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In reply to Chrissy



Just last week I was watching this series

In reply to FanAttick

great strategic move by Obama.. this and immigration reform. Lets see the republicans oppose them, and further lose the hispanic demographic. Illeana Ross Lethan is here bitching on TV that Castro is a terrorist. Her rhetoric is really old.

A too-long delayed iniative but I can't see the Reublican-controlled senate ever approving an ambassador to Cuba...

In reply to FanAttick

Obama should have done this 6 years ago. Elected as THE Agent for Change, he is late in underlying that promise/ mandate.The road and pathway would have been much smoother when he had control of Congress for the first Two years of his Presidency. He will now have to fight and engage those whom he abhorred amd of the reactionary force in getting this through Congress.He will but he will have to fight to get this and other pieces thruough Congress.
Look for him to bow to Repubnuts and Wall Street even more to preserve his legacy.
But as they say,better late than never.

In reply to hubert

Lifting Cuban embargo over providing Health Care for Americans?
Do see the pushback from Democrats as well as Republicans? I don't think that would have been a good first term push.

Obama would've lost a second term had he pushed this in his early presidency. Those Cubans in Little Havana would have rebelled and pushed for voting against him.

As Caribbean nationals we're all romantic and misty eyed about Cuba but US has no such view or obligation. Cuba passing a new foreign investment law earlier this year and putin's re-engagement may be the catalysts that spurred PBO to act.

Sigh. Now I'll need to find another warm sunny place with no Americans

In reply to Arawak

try Florida!

In reply to Arawak
Spoken like a true true Canuck. ..

That's the lament of Canadian & Cuban alike

http://t.co/TJTA9k3PVp

New York Post front page. Nice daily double there.

In reply to Curtis

Actually, growing up mostly in the Bahamas, where you tend to see the lower class of American tourists, I thought I did not like Americans.

Then I went to Mexico and discovered Europeans.

Americans, not so bad....

In reply to Lenks

BINGOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Mek dem jamaicans sell all the red beads they can NOW yeh.

@RMc@

In reply to Chrissy

This is just further confirmation that, in spite of her size, Jamaica has tended to always be on the right side of history. The USA has now seen the light.

Recall that long before Jamaica had taken a principled stand on bilateral relations with Cuba, Jamaica was also the first country in the western hemisphere to officially ban trade and travel with the vile, fascist apartheid government of South Africa.

Yesterday's announcement is a fundamental sea-change and a tremendous show of common sense. The USA will now join Jamaica & Cuba on their way to the Mountain top-for the First Time, At Last !

WE KNEW WHERE WE WERE GOING!!!

In reply to jacksprat


Yuh gotta give credit to Joshua...He was right. Blinds was wrong..

In reply to FanAttick

Of course Blinds was always wrong! He lacked Joshua's vision!

In reply to Arawak

Brethren from La Belle Province are a handful too in Cuba

All Caribbean tourist regions better brace...

I know Bim caters to the higher level of tourist or so they intend

But maybe is time Cuban artistes can make the rounds and spread the joy

In reply to jacksprat


I guess you could say those who are blind have problems with their vision.




But seriously, Michael's vision was always a universal vision. He was the first leader to recognise the simple geography of Cuba being 90 miles away from Jamaica; that the two countries would be competing for several money earners including tourists and sugar, and that therefore it would make sense to restore Jamaica-Cuban relations so that they could co-operate instead of compete.

Hence Jamaica helping Cuba with tourism and Cuba helping Jamaica with mini-dams and doctors.

Michael saw the need to embrace a much wider regionalism than the former British colonies in the Caribbean, and that included what he would refer to as The Caribbean Basin. And yes, that also included Florida!

Of course, some of his ardent left-wingers, seeking their own future glory, took that as an invitation to go further...

And so we saw, as we see today with Obama, the (additional) problem of the enemy within.

But.... history will be much kinder to Joshua than his raucous detractors have been.



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In reply to Ewart

Comrade leader was decades ahead of his time!

In reply to Curtis

Ugh, yes. Speaking French must do something to your ability to join the *back* of a queue, rather than push in front of everyone else.

LOL, look at all the brainless lefties singing better must come.

Joshua sided with Cuba on ideology, not pragmatism. Reminds me of a lot of the posters on this thread... full of ideology but not a shred of common sense.

I remember living in Jamaica when Manley was in charge. I remember all the government projects he got started. How many of those ever got completed? Seems like most ran out of money halfway through, and then another one started up somewhere else after a stirring speech. Man was a beautiful talker.

Remember Gun Court, and indefinite detention? How did all that pan out for Jamaica?

Smaddy remind me please... what did Joshua actually accomplish for Jamaica? Not saying Eddie was even a little bit better, but I guess that's my point. Jamaican polytrickians are all the same.

In reply to Ewart

True, and especially so when some of those "raucous detractors" continue to wear their ignorance & backwardness like a badge of honor!

And you notice how some of these same dinosaurs are left pining for the 'good old days' when they could treat their maids however they wished and paid them, if they did so at all, whatever little pittance they had a mind to, without being constrained by any minimum wage laws?

I am sure you are old enough to remember when the government of Jamaica invited Dr Martin Luther King, Jr to Jamaica when he was under siege back home for his principled opposition to the Vietnam War?

Or when Jamaica took the lead, including after the Gleneagle Accord in isolating Apartheid South Africa and lobbying for the release of Freedom Fighter Nelson Mandela who was dismissed by these same forces as a "terrorist" "communist" and other epithets?

Notice how Dr.King and Mandela are now embraced by these same backward & ignorant forces now that it is convenient and fashionable to do so?

History has a way of absolving visionary and principled individuals. And it is true that those who forget history, assuming they knew it in the first place,are condemned to repeating it!

In reply to Arawak

there were no incomplete projects?

In reply to Arawak

Go tell that to all the people who were able to get degrees when he opened up university education to them.

And I know that is the anthem of "the upper St. Andrew chattering classes" but you are totally wrong about "ideology over pragmatism."

Sing a different song. That one outta tune.


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In reply to Ewart



I posted this earlier..posting it again

Brian Meeks sums it up nicely...at minute 3:22 - "for the other Jamaica - the Jamaica of the wealthy - things were quite allright. They had done very well in the 60s.."


At minute 6:44 Beverly tells the story of Kissinger telling Manley to come down to Ochie to see him...what a fcuker bright and outa order...phew!

As Joshua says at minute 8:22 "as long as this party is in power - we intend to walk through the world on our feet and not on our knees"...pity Blinds didnt get the memo...

In reply to FanAttick

heard a similar story on Gill Noble 'tell it like it is' from Dudley Thompson, but he said Kissinger was at Half- Moon in Mobay.

Cuba messed up.

Instead of shaping its socialism to be able to deal with the outside, like China, or even a democratic socialism like most of Scandinavia, it has kept conditions which make opening Cuba to the US a literal nightmare.

Be careful what you wish for...

In reply to FanAttick

Blinds saw himself as PM... And then he used the bauxite companies resistance to paying a fair price for bauxite to get the Yankees on his side in that effort.


And that created volcanoes producing the hot lava of propaganda -- some of which we are still hearing today, even on this MB.



It also produced some 2,000 murders between 1976 and 1980 and the murderous gun culture that still besets us.





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In reply to Ewart

And then got the hell out.

In reply to Arawak



its remittances from those expatriate Yardies who got degrees under Joshua that Blinds used to artificially prop up the Jamaican dollar....

In reply to Arawak

It would certainly have been more difficult to get out without the degrees!





But you are beginning to understand....


So let's dig a little deeper.

From the time of Emancipation and Apprenticeship, governments of Jamaica have had one task that has proven insurmountable: how do we find work in this feeble economy for all our people?

Educating them for export is certainly one of the ways, although no government today is going to admit that.

In any event, the ratio of educated:non-educated people living in Jamaica is much higher now than when you left. The problem is still how to find jobs...


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In reply to Ewart



also very interesting that Wackie's adopted democratic socialist country Oh Canada brokered the deal between the US and Canada...

In reply to Fantattick & Ewart

These are the ones who would relish things going back to the way they were. All those newly educated children of the underclass effectively destroyed their reserve pool of potential maids and gardeners!

Soon, some these newly educated and empowered Jamaicans became "lefties" and started talking nonsense about 'worth" "dignity" and "rights" and other concepts unpalatable to these dinosaurs.

Thankfully, some who were craving the status quo have seen the light, if somewhat belatedly, which is why all strata and cross-section of Jamaican society now seem to speaking with one accord be in applauding the thawing of relations between the USA and Cuba. Jamaica, under Michael Manley, was light years ahead of many of them

In reply to Curtis

spot on, but this is a long over due. Obama's legacy just got bumped X 100.

In reply to FanAttick

Always ...and forever ... wrong ...

In reply to Commie

That bolded comment had to have been done in order to secure Cuba's fledgling nation and govt at the time and until NOW ... from numerous CIA attacks and attempts to overthrow ... and turn back time!!
REMEMBER - after the Bay of Pigs and the numerous attempts at killing Castro et al (they did get Che and Cienfuegos)--- there were many many numbers of CIA encounters/moves .... but the rebels had their own "double-agent" on the inside of CIA - so many of those attempts were thwarted!!

The cuban leadership had to be smart about its protection until NOW -- that NEEDED protection, and carrying it through has lead to all this that is BEING DISMANTLED. Great MOVE POTUS!!

In reply to Arawak

NHT and maternity leave with pay are but two benefits that are courtesy of Joshua.

Assata Shakur is shitting bricks right ya now.

In reply to jamgirl
...State sponsored education for all; Minimum Wage; Expansion of the JAMAL literacy campaign to the point where illiteracy was virtually eliminated; Giving Jamaicans that look like you and me untrammeled access to our best beaches and hotel-as guests and not just as servants, etc.

But why waste time outlining these things when we know that enlightenment does not easily breach a closed mind!!

In reply to JahJah

Yes!!!

As should Cuban exiles, and Miami residents, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who were both implicated in the terrorist downing of Cubana Airlines flight 455 in 1976. 73 innocent passengers were killed-including many Guyanese teenagers-on a flight that started in Barbados and had scheduled stops in T&T, Cuba and Jamaica.

In reply to jacksprat


Joshua wasted Arawak them money pon po people!

In reply to jacksprat & JahJah

That's assuming she's still in Cuba but yeah if she's still there shit just got very real for her.

In reply to jamgirl

Here are a few more accomplishments

when will Obama pardon Marcus Mosiah Garvey? will it ever happen?

In reply to analyst-kid



If a man steal a mango or breese blow off Chrissy's dress...

In reply to jacksprat

You and I both know USA don't play this game fairly. Such is life.

In reply to jamgirl

I sure hope she isn't. I want her to live until she is very old and mek it bun dem.

In reply to jacksprat

?

In reply to jamgirl

Portia should be ashamed of herself! She has done nothing to advance the cause of women or children after such sterling example by Michael!

However, not too late - time is on her side!

In reply to hubert

?

You fellows understand American politics or you just spouting off?

In reply to ArawakJoshua sided with Cuba on ideology, not pragmatism.

Amazing how easy it is after all these years to evoke controversy and passion when dealing with Manley of the 70s.
I don't believe that it is correct to say that Manley sided with Cuba on ideology. Cuba was/is a Communist State . As such, in large part, the means of production and distribution are owned or controlled by the state. Manley never espoused this . He was a democratic socialist in the mould of some of his contemporaries such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Olaf Palme of Sweden or even our own Tommy Douglas of Canada . Manley believed that the state should assist its citizens to acquire and therefore enjoy all or at least most of their human and fundamental natural rights. State assisted Education, health ,reform of the legal system , reform of the tax system etc. etc. In these respects he was no different from Britain's post war Prime minister Clement Atlee who transformed Britain into a more egalitarian society following his defeat of Churchill. In his foreign policy, Manley championed the Non aligned movement and campaigned unceasingly for the establishment of NIEO – new international economic order- and the abolishment of apartheid.

Manley was an ideologue . He had to be. His ideology was democratic socialism and he attempted to use these ideological principles to transform the Jamaican society. He went a long way in achieving significant changes. I often believe that he was stymied by the US, also by the lack of proper democratic socialist understanding by some key functionaries in his party and government and by his own reluctance to micro manage his administration. If a leader is going to make wholescale and drastic changes , he must be on top of just about everything administratively. Manley left too much to his ministers. In the process there were waste particularly of the first IMF loan , ill thought out administrative procedures and a failure or reluctance to nip kleptocracy in the bud.Was he a pragmatist in the 70s? Not really . He stuck to implementing his ideological principles when he should have been more pragmatic and alter course towards the end of the 70s when things were not going too well. On the other hand, he became the model pragmatist when he formed a government again in 1989. But then, most people don't remember him for his 89-92 tenure.

In reply to DonD

Co-sign.




By then, something else had come into play and it was very difficult for him to shift gears.





You got that right again!

In reply to Ewart
By then, something else had come into play and it was very difficult for him to shift gears.

Difficult but not impossible.
Always remember Trudeau altering ideological course and imposing Wage and price control in 1975 after campaigning against it. Then of course there was Bush 1 infamous read my lips utterance re non raising of taxes.

A few cosmetic overtures to the business and some of the alienated middle classes for a start might have helped.I am sure you are more qualified to speak about this than myself, but I feel that by 1978, Manley had become a hostage to the more radical elements in his party. The funny thing is that by then, it was becoming more and more obvious that Seaga as part of the international conservative wave was going to win the next election.