Outside of the campaign, is there really a debate on this issue? The is likely a "we need an enemy close to us" camp, but other than them, who?

I think you meant 47 years ago.

The idea was to break off ties and impose a trade embargo, which would pressure the Castro regime and help improve the plight of the Cuban people. That was nearly 57 years ago. We have precious little to show for it.

PLEASE, don't make me feel older than I am. The Cuba embargo was instituted in Feb 1962, a mere nearly 47 years ago.

Every little bit counts at my age;>

the only people we ever punished with that embargo were the poor of Cuba (which ended up being pretty much everyone). We didn't hurt Castro in the slightest. It is shameful that in order to appease a small group of people in the US, we hurt a large group of people in Cuba.

Lifting the embargo on Cuba truely would be change I could believe in.

Now Ileana Ros-Something is going to claim that Obama blindsided her with this, when if she'd only taken his calls she could have been the first to know. ;)

It is sort of like we have been frozen in time until a generation departed the scene. They have. It is time to reengage with Cuba. That will be best for everybody except those few remaining old men who think we are going to reinstall them as "leaders" in a liberated Cuba.

After 47 years of failed policy it is obvious that engagement is the only way to move Cuba to democracy.

Funny how an embargo on Cuba is so crucial, but engaging with China is OK.

Right. Wing. MORONS.

"That will be best for everybody except those few remaining old men who think we are going to reinstall them as "leaders" in a liberated Cuba."

It also won't be good for the current rulers of Cuba.

Ninoska Pérez, director of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council, dismissed the results.

''I am tired of these polls that mean nothing,'' she said. ``The point is that three Congress members who support the embargo were elected by an overwhelming majority of the people. The reelection of these Congress members tells me that this sample is not a majority. I don't believe this poll.''

It's funny how incumbency can help politicians get re-elected, even if they're out of step with public opinion.

Moron.

"More than one out of two" is "more than half." Wouldn't it have been easier, and more direct, to say that?

Oh, and despite Steve still refusing to blog about this, we could have an actual Green elected to Congress to replace the corrupt William Jefferson in LA-2nd District.

Steve, why aren’t you posting information about this?

You can do better. Why aren’t you?

It's funny how incumbency can help politicians get re-elected Racer X

I wonder if the people who ran against them took a different stance on Cuba. It seems that CW in FL is just that you have to hate Castro. Period.

jeffF,

Good point. Engagement is something the Castro brothers can't be happy about.

Of course Obama will have the backing of corporations eager to exploit Cuba. I support improving the health care of the nation but not exploiting its resources.

Most Jewish Americans are quite a bit less hawkish than most gentile Americans, but the subset of the American Jewish population that is organized to influence US policy to the advantage of Israel is very, very hawkish.

It looks as something similar is true for Cuban Americans

An american relationship with cuba....what will chavez do???

In all fairness, Cuba is still demonstrably a Marxist-Leninist state; China, by economic definitions, meets the criteria for fascist. The GOP has no trouble trading w/fascists, but Marxist-Leninists are beyond the pale.

,
-Z

"We didn't hurt Castro in the slightest."

The way I see it US policy helped him stay in power. Without our embargo and other internal meddling Castro would probably be long gone.

For any government failings and suffering of the Cuban people he could point a finger at the US and say "there is the source of our problems."
(which was probably true to a large extent)

It is a good time to end stupid foreign policies dictated by organized minorities and big money.
Above goes for our wildly skewed and counterprodcutive policies in the Mideast too.

The dark heart of American politics is the triangular connection between the CIA, the mafia and the Cubans.

And the line that runs straight from that to Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

See David Kaiser's scholarly 'The Road to Dallas' and also Joan Didion's 'Miami'. The exiles felt that JFK had completely betrayed them: embracing them whilst negotiating with Castro behind their backs. For different reasons so did the Mob-- they helped his election and then he betrayed them.

Even granted that Oswald acted in the shooting, alone (and we'll never know, because that picture of Howard Hunt in the police lineup has never been validated, and never will) the list of coincidences, and the involvement of a dying Jack Ruby, is very long. On the lone gunman thesis, though, one is reminded of the line from Full Metal Jacket 'this shows us what a trained Marine rifleman can do'. Quite-- Oswald was capable of that marksmanship.

There must be presumed to be at least some threat over Barack Obama, and indeed to any American president who has a realistic chance of opening up the lines of communication to Cuba.

We must hope exile politics has changed, and that the key players are dead.

May be! If we were nice they would send us Cuban doctors What a capitalist country needs is a little compitition. I would like to corner the market in old car parts too.Oh yeah,I like rum and lime and coke. But that's a differnt story.

Are you forgetting? He back-tracked on that CONSIDERABLY during the summer. It's a marginal improvement at best.

Not that I have much sympathy for those lispers .(Haha! Hispanic Classism!)

I predict with normalized relations with Cuba they'd be some sort of democracy in ten years. We'd coop them into our way of life in no time.

The fact the embargo (or "economic blockade" for it punishes foreign companies that trade with Cuba) is ineffectual and has arguably helped Castro politically, is a fine argument for its abolition. But, how about the moral argument? How abominable it is to try to overturn a government by blocking their access to food, medicine and other staples for their people! It has been a crime of aggression perpetrated for 47 consecutive years!