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Cuba - sponsor of terrorism, hasn't done a single act of terror in generations.
Israel - not a sponsor of terrorism, used pagers and walkie talkies to kill several hundreds of people, some of which literal children.
Yeah, ok US.
Too bad that that's not in the interest of ol' papa USA.
The Cuban people can keep suffering because of idealistic arrogance from their big fat capitalist neighbour.
The designation is particularly ridiculous considering it was the US that ran a campaign of terrorism against Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose
BRICS payment system can't come online fast enough. Dollar based trade was the worst thing to have happened to the global economy.
America: You want to exist? Looks like you’re gonna be a part of OUR economy then.
Would be a real shame if something happened to all your assets that are stored in our financial system.
When you think about it, Cuba is still being punished for being an ally of an empire that hasn’t existed for over three decades.
They're being punished for not handing over their country to an empire that still very much exists.
Cuba is being punished because it's a threat of a good example for the rest of Latin America. How long do you think US puppets would last if Cuba was allowed to be prosperous.
All in the name of South Floridian votes. The Dems will (hopefully) eventually realize they lost that state years ago and stop doing dumb shit for votes.
Who knows, though? The American empire's thirst for blood and foreign suffering often seems bottomless.
The Dems will (hopefully) eventually realize they lost that state years ago and stop doing dumb shit for votes.
Challenge level: impossible.
The Dems STILL campaign as if it's 1992 and that the least aggressively far right Republicans and the independents to their immediate left are persuadable and therefore the key to victory.
They're not. These people would rather die than vote Dem and the VAST majority of them will either hold their noses and keep voting for the fascist party or stay home.
Meanwhile, the more the party courts absolute monsters like Dick Cheney, the more leftists that weren't going to are gonna stay at home rather than vote for people endorsed by some of the worst war criminals in the history of the US government.
Just to forestall any bad faith accusations: I'm not saying that I endorse not voting. For the record, I don't. I'm saying that that's what's going to happen if the Dem leadership and election strategists don't wake the fuck up and realize that things have changed since the rapist from Arkansas was elected over three DECADES ago.
You nailed it in the first paragraph. It’s domestic politics. Cuban immigrants have a large voting bloc in a swing state.
American national politics work off of a system designed 250 years ago to maintain a balance of power between rebelling colonies trying to form a nation-state. Any amendment to the Constitution requires the agreement of either a supermajority of Congress or a supermajority of the states themselves. Neither of which are even a slight possibility in the foreseeable future.
It’s deeply ironic that the US is such a young nation, but is crippling itself based on relatively new traditions that were always designed to be changed as needed. Changing with the times was foreseen by the Founding Fathers, who are revered as gods but whose actual views are rarely analyzed in depth.
Instead, the pull toward white Christian nationalism has destroyed all the Enlightenment ideals the country was founded upon, and the freedom for each generation to choose its own path at a fundamental level, which was explicitly the Founding Fathers’ original design, has fallen victim to partisan politics.
All because they survived the US's best attempts to destroy them.
Until now. And I'm afraid that's the point the USA government wants to make with this barbaric measure. They will only leave Cuba alone if the American people demands it in exchange of enough votes or until the USA becomes a contested hegemon or until Cuba gives away everything they've fought for decades because, shit, it sure is terrible to keep holding on. To me, it doesn't matter if they can't resist anymore and give everything away, they are already a nation of giants, but I will always hope for the people of the USA to finally take over their electoral system and start taking decisions by themselves as in a true democracy.
Good news is that US can get fucked at this point. Cuba can trade with BRICS completely outside the dollar. Meanwhile, the burger empire can seethe and cope over it.
They can also use their navy to make a full blockade.
That would be risking WW3, even during the Cold War the US didn't dare blockade Soviet ships coming to Cuba.
During the Cold War there was a chance USSR would intervene. Who would intervene right now?
I imagine Russia would. Not because they want to defend communism in Cuba, but because they would want to show that they can't be bullied by the US. We already saw an example of this with Russia doing naval exercises with Cuba just recently. I also can't imagine that the US would dare attack Chinese ships going to Cuba. As long as there are nations that can't be bullied by the US who are willing to trade with Cuba there's nothing the US can do.
This is why the financial system is such a big factor. When everybody was using SWIFT for international trade, the US didn't have to threaten military conflict. They could just do sanctions or cut countries out of SWIFT. That was enough of a deterrent to make trade with Cuba unappealing. Now that more and more trade is happening outside the dollar, that threat is no longer there.
I imagine Russia would
Start a hot war against USA in the central Atlantic? Pentagon would go ballistic, as in "ballistic missiles", and even if the war stayed conventional, Russian navy would be in a huge disadvantage there.
I mean Russia would continue doing trade with Cuba regardless of what the US says. And if US started sabre rattling then Russia would send armed ships to escort its cargo ones. Even the US wouldn't be crazy enough to directly attack Russian ships trading with Cuba.
We can only hope this happens soon.