Information about RSS

Why Do Liberals Hate the Poor in Cuba?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

President’s Obama’s much-ballyhooed campaign promise of “change” has received yet another setback. This time it’s respect to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, which has been in existence for some 50 years. Obama, who wowed and wooed the crowds during his presidential campaign with promises of “change,” has decided to continue the embargo.

Never mind that the UN General Assembly, in a 187-3 vote with 3 abstentions, condemned the embargo. (Israel and Palau joined up with the United States). Alas, even that was not enough to cause Obama, the great believer in democracy, to change half-a-century of a cruel and brutal U.S. policy toward the Cuban people.

What this means is that President Obama will continue threatening, prosecuting, and punishing Americans who have the audacity to believe that where they travel and how they spend their own money is none of the U.S. government’s business.

Do you want to know the most hypocritical part of Obama’s latest no-change policy? It’s that favorite mantra that liberals employ whenever someone objects to one of their socialistic programs: “You hate the poor!”

Well, it would be difficult to find a better example of the poor than the Cuban people. I have been to Cuba. Just about everyone is poor, the exception being those at the top of the political echelon.

Liberals know this. Nonetheless, their model change-agent, Barack Obama, decrees that the U.S. government will continue to do its part to keep the Cuban people impoverished with the continuation of the embargo.

Will liberals hurl their favorite accusation in Obama’s direction: “You hate the poor!”?

Not likely. Liberals might have done that when George W. Bush was continuing the Cuban embargo. But this is now their man in office. So, most of them will shut their mouths, seal their lips, put aside their pens, and praise Obama for being their “leader for change.”

Oh, and it actually gets better. President Obama’s ambassador to the UN, Susan E. Rice, blamed the misery of the Cuban people on “the Cuban government’s airtight restrictions on internationally recognized social, political and economic freedoms.”

What she’s referring to on the economics part is Castro’s socialist system. She just doesn’t feel comfortable using the S word. But imagine: even while doing his best to saddle America with one of the biggest socialist programs in U.S. history — government-provided health care — Obama audaciously blames much of Cuba’s poverty on Castro’s socialist economic system.

Gosh, I wonder why Rice failed to mention that free health care in Cuba is the pride and joy of Fidel Castro? Or that the socialist Castro is also a firm advocate of Social Security, welfare, and equalization and redistribution of wealth.

Obama says that as soon as Cuba conforms to U.S. standards of behavior, he’ll take another look at the embargo.

Yeah, as if that kind of political pressure has been successful. After all, I did mention that the embargo has gone on for 50 years, right?

I wonder how Obama, who has continued the Bush administration’s war on terrorism policies, would respond if Cuba (or China, Russia, or Venezuela) imposed an embargo on the U.S. to force the U.S. government to give up invasions, wars of aggression, occupations, embargoes, torture, kidnapping, rendition, and overseas prisons.

Given that Obama promised change and has steadfastly delivered no change, Americans would be justified for asking their lawyers whether it’s possible to sue Obama for fraud. It will be amusing to watch Obama running for reelection in 2012 as he wows and woos the crowds with, “Reelect me for change, and this time I really mean it.”

So what if the poor in Cuba have to continue suffering for a few more years.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.