Congress Upholds Ban on Cuba Travel

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3381627,00.html


WASHINGTON (AP) - House-Senate bargainers
bowed to a White House veto threat on
Wednesday and upheld the four-decade old ban
on most travel to Cuba.

Though the Republican-run House and Senate had
separately approved provisions earlier this year
lifting the ban, negotiators dropped the language
from a compromise bill.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., an advocate of lifting
the ban, tried persuading lawmakers to settle for
a narrower provision allowing travel to the
Communist-run country by farm groups promoting
sales of agricultural products. But it died when
House bargainers refused to accept it on a voice
vote.

``It means nothing if this bill is not signed into
law,'' said Rep. Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, the
chief House negotiator.

a policy that hasn't worked for forty years is certainly the way to go. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Keep doing the same thing and expecting different results? Goddamn Republicans.

Democratic Presidential Candidates on Cuba
http://www.lawg.org/pages/new%20pages/Misc/prez-candidates1.htm

Huh?

We've watched them strip out the language for a number of years so it really came as no surprise. Flake and others have interesting comments in today's Herald, something DEMS could learn from. Note that the director of US-Engage and their 600 companies are still saying F*ck You to the Bushistas as the "remain as committed as ever".

<clips>

..."There is something out of whack with how the Cuba language was removed,'' complained Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. ``It was stripped by staffers even before members of the committee formally met. There was no vote taken. Poof, it just disappeared into the congressional ether.''

...''We will never have a rational Cuba policy as long as presidential campaigns are perceived to end in Florida,'' said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who sponsored the end of the ban in the House.

In Havana, the Cuban government criticized the decision. The Ministry of Foreign Relations issued a statement saying that GOP leaders and anti-Castro activists in Miami were ``violating the rules and regulations established by the Congress itself.''

...Jody Frisch, director of USA Engage, a coalition of 600 companies, agricultural and trade groups, predicted that support for the Enzi-Baucus bill would grow next year.

''We remain as committed as ever,'' Frisch said.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/7262413.htm

out of Cuba forever.

He's been damned lucky so far. Sooner or later, the American public is finally going to overcome this ignorant nonsense, and destroy the embargo and travel ban to Cuba emphatically.

The will of the people usurped--AGAIN!! But right behind these articles are several about trade with Cuba continuing. The anti-Cuba fanatics are on their last leg and they know it. My thought is that this is gonna backfire on little Busho--the business lobbies have much deeper pockets than the CANF and others who oppose the normalizing of trade with the island.

<clips>

...The Cuban authorities have accused Mr Bush of using "undemocratic" tactics to overrule a majority in Congress.

Senator Max Baucus said a few individuals overriding the will of Congress set a "dangerous undemocratic precedent".

Correspondents say the president is trying to keep the powerful Cuban exile lobby in Florida on board ahead of next year's presidential election.

"Politics have triumphed again over principle," said Republican congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3269601.stm

They have no wars, their people are fed and have healthcare. Cubans respect their leader and elect him back every time.

What's wrong with this picture?

No, we don't all think that Cuba is perfect & that Castro is a total hero.

Most of us object to not being allowed to go & see for ourselves. We also wonder about such fierce sanctions against one regime when our government rushes to invest in China--with a far worse human rights record.

All I can say is DUH.

WeirdSceneGoldmine: That sucks - we may learn something positive from Castro They have no wars, their people are fed and have healthcare. Cubans respect their leader and elect him back every time. What's wrong with this picture?

YOU: No, we don't all think that Cuba is perfect & that Castro is a total hero.

---

The World Bank reported that Cuba’s health and education ranked number one in Latin America in spite of U.S. embargo. While back in the USSA millions live in the street and beg for food, university education is affordable for only a certain segment, and 41 million are without healthcare insurance. Indeed we could learn something from the Cubans.

BTW, Not only does the USA lead the world in executing juvenile offenders, it ranks third in the world for the number of executions. Along with China and Iran, the United States is known as the "Axis of Executioners" because they execute more people than the rest of the world. And you point your finger at China and Cuba and cry "human rights abuses"!! LOL Now that's hypocrisy. Get a clue.

The wealthy USA has an AIDS rate more than ten times that of poor Cuba.

Castro is a hero.. as are all of the Cuban people who, for forty plus years, have stood up and fought and worked for their hard won rights and sovereignty and dignity.


http://www.cbcfhealth.org/content/contentID/1537&relArticleDisplay=5

Cuba maintains the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the Western Hemisphere -- 0.03% of the country's population is estimated to be HIV-positive, compared with 0.42% of the U.S. population

On the right of the same page you'll see these stats,

HIV/AIDS infection rates in the Caribbean are among the highest in the world second only to Sub-Saharan Africa.

As of December 1999, there were 360,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. By the end of the 2000, that number had grown to an estimated 390,000.

In the English-speaking Caribbean, HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death among men between the ages of 15 and 44 years.

In English-speaking Caribbean, 35% of HIV positive adults were women.

Approximately one out of every 300 people living in the US Virgin Islands is living with HIV/AIDS.

-



Viva Cuba!

Cuba is also a dictatorship. Picky, picky.

Same ol line of crap I see, muddle.

So, according to you Cuba's excellent universal health care system and excellent universal education system is forced on Cubans and their children by dictatorship?

Please explain how that works.


Cuba's democracy is much more representative of the will of the people than in the USA.

The Cuban citizenry desired and pushed for a full high quality health care system accessible to all.. with hard work and representation they got it. The Cuban citizenry desired and pushed for a full education system accessible to all.. with hard work and representation they got it. The Cuban citizenry desired and pushed for independence and full sovereignty, full union representation and fair labor standards, full housing rights, full social safety net.. and they got it by being fully active in politics in Cuba.

Your oft repeated refrains of Cuba's "dictatorship" completely disregard the actions of the Cuban people and their government.


You, Muddle, have never been to Cuba, and you lack understanding of Cuba's electoral processes, but yet, you choose to repeatedly spew the bought and paid for wingnut US government/Miamicuban "exile" propaganda, despite ovewhelming evidence otherwise. Hmmmm.

---

FYI - Here are some of the major parties in Cuba. The union parties hold the majority of seats in the Assembly.

http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/cu.html

* Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) {Communist Party of Cuba}
* Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba (PDC) {Christian Democratic Party of Cuba} - Oswaldo Paya's Catholic party
* Partido Solidaridad Democrática (PSD) {Democratic Solidarity Party}
* Partido Social Revolucionario Democrático Cubano {Cuban Social Revolutionary Democratic Party}
* Coordinadora Social Demócrata de Cuba (CSDC) {Social Democratic Coordination of Cuba}
* Unión Liberal Cubana {Cuban Liberal Union}

Plenty of info on this long thread,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6300&forum=DCForumID70


http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

--

Representative Fidel Castro was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of District #7 in the city of Santiago de Cuba.
He is one of the elected 607 representatives in the Cuban National Assembly after the elections of 2002-03. It is from that elected body that the head of state is nominated and then elected. Raul Castro, Carlos Large, and Ricardo Alarcon and others were among the nominated last year. President Castro has been elected to that position since 1976.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/do/Dorticos.html

Dorticós Torrado, Osvaldo

1919–83, president of Cuba (1959–76). A prosperous lawyer, he participated in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement and was imprisoned (1958). He escaped and fled to Mexico, returning to Cuba after Castro’s triumph (1959). As minister of laws (1959) he helped to formulate Cuban policies. He was appointed president in 1959. Intelligent and competent, he wielded considerable influence. In 1976 the Cuban government was reorganized, and Castro assumed the title of president; Dorticós was named a member of the council of state.

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.attcanada.ca/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html#Democracy

Or a long and detailed version here,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books

The Senate endorsed it 59 to 38 last month and the House by 227 to 188 in September but

Cuba travel victim of unilateralism
By The Helena Independent Record, Montana
Sunday, November 16, 2003

Sen. Max Baucus and fellow supporters of legislation letting Americans travel to Cuba were dismayed last week to hear that a conference committee had stripped the provision from the Transportation Department’s $90 billion spending bill.

Both the House and the Senate had voted by comfortable margins to include the provision, so it was highly unusual for the conferees to drop it. But, as it turned out, the Cuba provision had been removed from the bill by committee staffers even before the conferees met. “Poof,” said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., “it just disappeared into the congressional ether.”

Of course, it wasn’t a matter of going poof. Arguments about travel to Cuba had been about whether it would hurt or help Castro, but the salient fact was that President Bush, careful to appease Florida’s large Cuban voting bloc, had wanted the provision gone. So it went.

More...
http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2003/11/16/build/political/compromise.php?nnn=3

Lift travel ban to Cuba? Nope! Re-election is more important
Monday, November 17, 2003

... The real reason congressional Republicans intervened was the cold calculation that Florida, decisive in Bush's last election, will be so again in 2004 and there was no sense offending the state's 800,000-plus Cuban Americans.

Thus did political expediency outweigh Americans' right to travel freely.

http://ww2.saukvalley.com/opinion/279137204389395.bsp

I was hoping we'd see how the White House would handle this veto.

but even the Dem p/residential candidates can't do that!

With democracy like this, what moral authority do Americans have to criticize Cuba?

What a damn shame to have our rights run roughshod like this by Castro's cousins (the Diaz Balart brothers).

And we dare call Cuba undemocratic?

:argh:

Get all the weekend boaters out of Miami and the keys and have them make a detour via Havana. This boycot is absurd. Cuba is less than 100 miles from the US!

I think people ought to just start going there. Actually,most of the boaters I know down in the Keys go over there anyway:)

Good luck dodging Homeland Security keeping an eye on you if you do go, legally or not.

Perhaps if hundreds of thousands stood up to Uncle Sam and went anyway and had the guts to speak out about it you might get somewhere but what are the chances of that ever happening?

Plan to ease Cuba sanctions foiled
GOP kills measure to avoid Bush veto

Christopher Marquis, New York Times Thursday, November 13, 2003



Washington -- President Bush's allies in Congress quietly eliminated a widely supported provision easing restrictions on American travel to Cuba from a major appropriations bill to save him from embarrassment over his political designs in Florida, officials from both parties said on Wednesday evening. (snip)

(snip) Since the language of the Cuban travel provision approved by the House and Senate was identical, it would not ordinarily have been subject to action by the conference committee, which sought to reconcile differences in bills that finance the Treasury and Transportation departments, advocates say. But GOP committee leaders were determined to remove the Cuba measure, aides said. (snip)

(snip) Some congressional officials said they were appalled that the will of Congress could be thwarted in the back-room negotiations that drive conference committees. Republican leaders have removed Cuba-related language at the same juncture in previous years, though never against such an overwhelming mandate from their colleagues.

"The fact that it could be undermined is mind-blowing," said Steven Schwadron, the chief of staff of Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass. "It suggests that a handful of people can vaporize the will of the majority."

(snip) "The administration takes a hard line meant to please a certain crowd in Miami," he said. (snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/13/MNGPU30QO71.DTL

November 14 / 23, 2003
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Democracy or Oligarchy?
By TOM CRUMPACKER

A New York Times story on November 13 by Christopher Marquis is quite disheartening for those of us who still want to believe we live in a democracy rather than an oligarchy. The unconstitutional Cuba travel restrictions were first enacted into law in 2000 by Senator Trent Lott (Senate majority leader) and Congressmen Tom Delay (then majority whip) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R., Miami). In a stacked "conference committee" on the approved bills allowing sales of medicine and nutritional food to Cuba, they added a provision codifying the travel restrictions, which had nothing to do with the medicine-food bills and had not been debated or voted on.

… Every year since then the "party leaders" have refused to allow the proposed bills repealing the restrictions (supported by substantial majorities) to come to the floor, or be debated or voted on. Meanwhile the Bush Administration's yearly requests for enforcement money for the restrictions have been turned down each year by 55-60% majorities in both chambers.

… But the pandering is not to Cuban-American voters (9% of Florida's registered voters). Recent polls over the past two years (which Mr. Bush is surely aware of) show 70% of Florida's Cuban-Americans want the restrictions repealed. Rather Mr. Bush is pandering to wealthy, reactionary Cuba "hard-liners" who fund his national campaigns, most of whom are not Cuban-Americans or from Florida, although some are.

Once again a very few powerful men have overruled the clearly expressed will of our Congress. Why do our so-called representatives allow this to happen? How can we accuse Cuba of being undemocratic? Are we a democracy or an oligarchy? Only if we face reality can we change it.

http://www.counterpunch.org/crumpacker11142003.html

Annan expects US to end embargo on Cuba

www.chinaview.cn 2003-11-12 09:19:29


LIMA, Nov. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations expects the UnitedStates to lift the economic sanctions against Cuba, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said here on Tuesday.

Annan, who started a two-day official visit to Peru on Tuesday,told reporters that the UN General Assembly "has been very active on the need to lift the embargo against Cuba."

"The US government knows our position on the issue and we look forward to the lifting of the economic sanctions against Cuba," added Annan during the joint conference with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo.

Last week, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling for an end of the economic, financial and trade embargo kept by the United States against Cuba since 1960. (snip/...)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-11/12/content_1173781.htm

And what do our 2004 "Democratic" p/residential candidates have to say about this travesty? Hmmmmm.

to step forward to say this is the last time we're going to screw around with this stupid Miami Mafia-pleasing filthy game.

The time is perfect, while it's still fresh in everyone's mind.

The whole thing is grotesque, with the nutcase Republicans huddling, and stripping the eminently popular travel ban removal amendment from the bill, just to please the Chimp, and save _him from embarrassment.

Look at DUers apathetic interest and support for example. There ought to be outrage but few give a damn.

After committee the bill goes back to the House and Senate for a final vote so Dems still have a chance to pull the rug out from under Bush IF they really wanted to.

to reek of hypocrisy to the core and the hope that no one notices it. Just watch!

oh well... that's congress...

Only totalitarian governments restrict the travel of their citizens.

Democrats should make this an issue without regard to the flaws of the Cuban government. American liberty, not Cuban liberty, should be the focus.

<clips>

As Republicans were rolling cots into Senate offices Wednesday for a filibuster over judicial nominations, GOP leaders were rolling over for the White House on Cuba.

Behind the scenes, House and Senate negotiators bowed to President Bush's veto threat and pulled from a spending bill an amendment that, in essence, would have lifted the four-decade-old ban on most travel by Americans to the island. The last-minute reversal came despite recent votes in both chambers to rescind restrictions that have helped to keep Cubans powerless and subservient to Fidel Castro.

...President Bush waved his veto toward Florida, where Cuban-Americans exiles in Miami-Dade County demand the continuation of a futile policy in exchange for votes in next year's election. Republicans in Congress said they killed the travel provision to spare the president embarrassment. In fact, they held back the country and denied the Cuban people another chance to claim some freedom.

<http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/friday/opinion_f34b11bcf206714700f3.html>

Language was stripped before the committee formally met.

<clips>

...“I think the way it was handled was highly improper,” Baucus said.

Enzi was miffed that the conference committee never voted on whether to include or eliminate the provision. It simply was not in the conference report approved on Wednesday night.

“There is also something out of whack with how the Cuba language was removed,” Enzi said. “It was stripped by committee staffers even before members of the committee formally met. There was no vote taken on the measure. Poof, it just disappeared into the congressional ether.”

It now must be passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president to become law. President Bush has said that his administration is vehemently opposed to the provision and a member of the administration sent a letter to lawmakers warning that the bill would be vetoed if it included the provision.

<http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/11/14/build/nation/50-cubatravel.inc>

with its own zippy first Alabama-Cuba Conference!

(snip) UA hosts first Alabama-Cuba Conference
By Tiffany Summerville
Administrative Affairs Editor
November 17, 2003


Today marks the beginning of the first University-sponsored Alabama-Cuba Conference, coinciding with International Education Week, which will showcase various aspects of Cuban and Latin American life through 23 sessions held today through Thursday.

Some sessions will focus on various Cuban aspects, while others compare Cuban life and cultural with that of the United States. All of the University's colleges, as well as the UA libraries, department of student affairs, Natural History Museum and international programs, among others, are sponsoring the conference.

Conference director Lawrence Clayton said the idea for the conference began through a longstanding interest the University has had in Latin America and specifically Cuba, which has sparked more interest in the past four years.

He also said the conference, which has been in the planning stages for around a year, stemmed from the Cooper Cuba Initiative, which allowed UA faculty, staff and students to travel to Cuba to study, teach and conduct research. UA Board of trustee member Angus Cooper and his brother, David, contributed $50,000 to the initiative. (snip/...)

http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/11/17/3fb872e20be5b

Now isn't that interesting? Bush tries to keep all Americans other than Cuan "exiles" and their lovely children from going to Cuba, yet our country's interest in Cuba grows by leaps and bounds by the moment.

All the stories and articles we've been fed don't seem to be doing their job in keeping us skeered of Cuba!

Why is it ok for China, a Communist country, to take our jobs and ship billions of dollars worth of cheap plastic crap over here every year to stock our Wal Mart stores, but, American citizens can't take a vacation in Cuba? Isn't there something wrong with this picture?