Miami Is Still Sort of Havana North
Embassies in Havana, Cuba and Washington D.C. reopened yesterday, about seven months after President Obama announced a change in policy that had been in place for about fifty years.
Marco Rubio has announced there won't be an American Ambassador to Cuba while he is the Senate. The Diaz Balarts and Illeana Ros Lehtenen and Carlos Curbelo also spoke out against the change in policy. The English version of the Miami Herald covered about 2/3 of the front page with a picture of the Cuban Military Guards that raised the Cuban Flag in Washington D.C.
The local news all covered the story from Little Havana and from the Versailles Restaurant where a distinctly older conservative crowd hangs out and anti Castro Brother politics will be discussed on a daily basis. Folks from both sides of the issue had their signs and the conversation was loud.
Congress won't change the embargo policy and the United States won't be giving up Guantanamo. Carnival Cruise Line will be establishing periodic cruises to the island and banking relationships will be established so folks can use credit cards.
Locally, this seems that Cuba will be gaining quite a bit, while the benefits to the United States will be marginal in the short run.
The old guard of Cuban refugees isn't getting any younger and Castro's rise to power was brutal. Allowing more travel between the two countries may not make the country more democratic directly but it may help foster changes that will help the Cuban people in other ways.
This change is big news in Miami and South Florida. But in a relatively strange way not as big a story as it might have been a few years ago and maybe this is really something that is going to be positive in spite of the naysayers.
I'd bet against Obama visiting Havana while in office but I bet there would be more than a few folks down here that would take my action on that proposition.
Marco Rubio has announced there won't be an American Ambassador to Cuba while he is the Senate. The Diaz Balarts and Illeana Ros Lehtenen and Carlos Curbelo also spoke out against the change in policy. The English version of the Miami Herald covered about 2/3 of the front page with a picture of the Cuban Military Guards that raised the Cuban Flag in Washington D.C.
The local news all covered the story from Little Havana and from the Versailles Restaurant where a distinctly older conservative crowd hangs out and anti Castro Brother politics will be discussed on a daily basis. Folks from both sides of the issue had their signs and the conversation was loud.
Congress won't change the embargo policy and the United States won't be giving up Guantanamo. Carnival Cruise Line will be establishing periodic cruises to the island and banking relationships will be established so folks can use credit cards.
Locally, this seems that Cuba will be gaining quite a bit, while the benefits to the United States will be marginal in the short run.
The old guard of Cuban refugees isn't getting any younger and Castro's rise to power was brutal. Allowing more travel between the two countries may not make the country more democratic directly but it may help foster changes that will help the Cuban people in other ways.
This change is big news in Miami and South Florida. But in a relatively strange way not as big a story as it might have been a few years ago and maybe this is really something that is going to be positive in spite of the naysayers.
I'd bet against Obama visiting Havana while in office but I bet there would be more than a few folks down here that would take my action on that proposition.
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