I don't really know the answer, but I do know that most of the exiles who came over in the initial wave (and a good part of their children and grandchildren) hate Castro passionately. A friend of mine was married to the granddaughter of Cuban exiles, and her entire family still plans to celebrate the day Castro dies.

They did not feel "exceptional." They lost everything, were forced to flee their homes due to political persecution, and that experience defined their lives. This is not unusual among refugees from a war.
Germans systemically confiscated and stole artworks from Jews and other minorities while murdering them. I applaud the efforts of the last eighty years to find these works of art and return them to the descendants of their original owners.
Europeans stole great art from every part of the world. I applaud efforts to force former imperialist countries to return these works of art and properties to their original homes.
Would you ask the same of Palestinians who lost everything in the 1948 war?
Would you ask it of the descendants of the Jews who took almost 2000 years to get their property back after the Romans forced them out.
The Lenape were not at all happy bout the Dutch Swindling them. They should seek redress in the world court from the Dutch.
The American Indians sought redress for the theft of their land and the return of their property and their cultural objects. Why shouldn't the Cubans have the right to take the Cuban government to court?

I think some kind of payment for the property stolen from them is quite reasonable, but it isn't part of the embargo.

Finally, the embargo was enacted by Congress and it will remain in place until Congress removes it. That is not likely to happen until 2017, at least.

Obviously you are the most best informed expert on US/Cuban relations in the entire world so I'm sorry my simpleton mind was deficient.

I bow to your omnipotence

It wasn't a flame. I gave you information you did not seem to be aware of.
Best informed, no.
Informed, yes.
Omnipotence is all powerful.
Omniscience is all knowing.
I am neither, but the context of your sentence seems to indicate "bowing to my omniscience," which would be a damn silly thing to do since no one possesses that quality.
I think it is important to be informed about public policy.
You said you didn't understand, and I provided some reasons why some older Cubans feel unhappy.

Fulgencio Batista, who had served as the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became President for the second time in March 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and cancelling the 1952 elections.[11] Although Batista had been a relative progressive during his first term,[12] in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns.[13] While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure,[14] Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organised crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy.[14][15][16]


"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."

— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[26]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution


Besides which, Cuba offered compensation for what was taken long ago.

families in prison, and lives uprooted. They are somehow guilty for Batista's crimes.

They were refugees, like the Palestinians, like Jews and gypsies after WWII, like a million who fled the Iraq war, like all the American Indians, the Vietnamese, the boat people, and they lost everything.

I don't get the callous give a shit attitude about people.

It is not necessary to agree with their politics to understand that they were screwed quite royally by Castro and his regime.

I am glad that Obama has moved to change our relationship, but I still feel for the refugees and understand why many of the older Cubans are upset.

I think that is called empathy.

And in the larger sense, our own capitalist class & political class has been stealing from us the last 30 years. But all's fair in love and war, we're just supposed to shut up & take it.

Castro offered compensation and paid out a bit to those who'd take it long ago.

No, I don't feel empathy; not for people who were rich in Cuba, left it & got richer. Former Cubans have plenty of political power; more than I do. Why should I feel sorry for them? I have no power in my own country and I have lost everything. I will never get back to where I was before I die. You have no "empathy" for me, and neither do they.

for the Miami 'gusano' (Castro's humorous term of endearment for the bourgeoisie who fled the Socialist revolution in Cuba). Of course the Cuban bourgeoisie supported Batista; he kept their bread buttered. No matter that illiteracy rates among the proletariat and peasantry hovered near 90%. No matter that infant mortality among the proletariat and peasantry was sky high. Nope, the only thing that ever mattered were the fucking property interests of the bourgeoisie.

Fuck that!

I wish you would make this an original post of its own. Even if you choose not to, Bravo!

they all feel they'd have gotten everything back, including another tinpot dictator from within their ranks. That's why they're passionately anti Democratic Party, Kennedy thought it was a goofy idea and didn't want to pick a fight with Russia, so he overrode the CIA and military.

They've been twisted up with rage for 50 years now, pretending Batista Cuba was the Garden of Eden, seeing everything through foggy rose colored glasses, missing the misery most Cubans existed in.

They have never come to terms with losing, which makes them a great fit with the spiteful Republican Party.

I'm delighted the hard freeze is over. I'm delighted the embargo will eventually be lifted when we get a sane Congress. This is at least 23 years overdue, it should have happened in December 1991 when the USSR broke apart.

to founder but they figured they'd mousetrap JFK into backing that failed expedition with U.S. military force. (IIRC, JFK called Nixon while the shit was hitting the fan and Tricky Dick, who had been the architect of the fiasco while Ike's VP, recommended that JFK send in the Marines. Thank God, JFK rejected Tricky Dick's advice.) JFK took his lumps and shit-canned Dulles, thereby setting in motion a 50-year conspiracy theory industry (among other things).

There are some who came to this country with significant wealth gained under the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. They set up shop in South Florida and continued to live middle to upper class lives. What causes these people to seethe is the fact that they could have generated even more wealth, had their assets not been confiscated and nationalized by the government.

Then there are the people who initially supported Castro and the Revolution, in order to overthrow Batista. These people, including such prominent families as the Bacardis, had all their assets confiscated and nationalized (without compensation). They've spent considerable time and money trying to get back at the Castro regime and have cultivated American political assets toward that effort.

There are also loyalists who committed unspeakable crimes on behalf of Batista, who fled when they realized their dictator would be overthrown. They, too, were welcomed to South Florida.

So you have a lot of people who hate the Castro regime and everything that it stands for. But, these people don't have the right to hold the rest of us hostage. We should be free to travel and free to engage in commerce with Cuba. That, more than anything, will hasten the demise of the Castro government. However the Miami Mafia loves to have their favorite whipping boy because it gives them political power.

Good on Obama for taking this weapon away from them.