Lots going on this week, so I’ll comment on a few random things. Stop me if it gets confusing.
Cuba vs. Cuba. The spectacle of Cruz and Rubio spouting anti-immigration rhetoric in a kind of xenophobic pissing match is hypocritical beyond belief. Here are two examples of the offspring of Cuban exiles, their parents having arrived in the United States under the extremely preferential terms that have been in effect for Cuban immigrants since the early 1960s, an experience nothing like what immigrants from other Central American nations have to deal with. When you leave revolutionary Cuba and go to the U.S., you have a golden ticket. You’re practically guaranteed a green card and a place in the exile community. Compare that with what you face when you run here escaping the drug gangs in El Salvador – a cell in an outsourced cinder-block detention facility and an eventual boot out the door.
The Cuban exile policy is the perfect illustration of what these GOP pols complain about with regard to incentivizing the influx of undocumented immigrants, and yet they have no problem with folks flocking here from Cuba because they can’t earn a lot of money back home. But when it comes to families running for their lives from the hell holes we helped destroy during the 1980s, that’s different. If the likes of Cruz and Rubio had had their way, Cuba would be a free market basket case like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and every other disaster area we “helped” over the years. Of course, then the legions of exiles fleeing drug gangs would find no red carpet on these shores.
Get the lead out. The water crisis in Flint Michigan reminds me of the slow motion disaster that was New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, when every level of government seemed paralyzed by a kind of neoliberal lethargy. We are not seeing government rushing to the aid of the people their austerity programs have poisoned. Who says austerity doesn’t ruin lives? For chrissake, it doesn’t even save money. The financial cost (to say nothing of the staggering human cost) of a generation of young children stricken by lead poisoning far outstrips the amount of funds it would have taken to keep Flint on marginally potable water. Someone needs to go to jail over this, but since the crisis mostly affects people of color, that seems doubtful.
Iran lets the neocons down. They were hoping for another hostage crisis, but were sorely disappointed, I expect, when the Iranian government released captured U.S. naval personnel after 16 hours. This is the sort of touch point that would have started the neocons’ much sought-after war with Persia back a few years ago. No such luck, boys and girls. Though my principal question is, what the fuck were our sailors doing there? Who sent them on this fool’s errand and why? No answers yet.
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jp
Obama’s shift on Cuba is instructive in a lot of ways. For one, it is wildly popular, with something like 60% of the country in support. That has been reflected in polls for quite a long time. Second, it does help to lay bare the true nature of the relationship. Just listening to our diplomats lecture Cuba on human rights issues is enough irony to last a decade in and of itself. For chrissake, we can’t even claim to hold to a high standard on human rights even within the confines of Cuba itself!
North Korea. When you produce a movie that makes a joke out of the assassination of the leader of a garrison state, its back against the wall for decades, you should respect a negative reaction. Agents purportedly working for North Korea have threatened violence against theaters running “The Interview”, promising 9/11 type attacks, somewhat incredibly. SONY Pictures pulled the film, generating a mountain of criticism. An AP article suggested that SONY feared hostilities against Japan by a nuclear-armed North Korea.