That much of the world (in partnership with U.S. “elites”) treats the hapless American taxpayer about like Mr Haney treated Oliver Douglas, Bernie Maddoff treated his clients and the world treats Rodney Dangerfield has become a campaign theme of enormous popularity and consequence. I think you know for which campaigner.
Well, there’s one issue one which the American taxpayer can look across the oceans, touch his nose with his thumb, extend his hand, and fan his fingers while snickering “NEENER!...NEENER!...NEENER!--You SUCKERS!”
You see, amigos: the taxpayers of nations from France to Spain to Germany, from South Korea to Japan and from Russia to Brazil –taxpayers of all these nations have all been shamelessly burglarized by the Castro-Family-Crime Syndicate (called “Cuba” by the mainstream media and Obama State Dept.)
Of course we don’t hear or read much about this burglary in the media. What we read is how these economically-sophisticated nations all “trade” with “Cuba,” --and that because of the machinations of the sinister and sleazy “Cuban-Exile Lobby” American businesses and their workers miss out on this financial bonanza of “trading with Cuba.”
“Yes, Middle America!” goes the mantra. “You are being denied the boons of lucrative financial transactions with Cuba because of a sleazy, foreign-born cabal of snickering, black–mustachioed mobsters we all learned about in Godfather 2 and Scarface! How long will you stand for this!”
Or so the mainstream media and Obama State Department paint the “embargo” picture.
Actually, in Oct. 1960—right after Castro’s gunmen stole $7 billion from U.S. businessmen and tortured and murdered a few who resisted-- President Eisenhower imposed the first economic sanctions against the thieving, mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring Stalinists who (still) run Cuba. These sanctions grew into one of the CROWN JEWELS of recent U.S. foreign policy: the Cuba “embargo.”
President Eisenhower, by the way, at much prodding by Vice President Nixon, was the one who got the ball rolling on what became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. Unfortunately the ball landed in JFK’s lap. Had Nixon won in 1960, some bandit/murderers named Fidel Castro and Che Guevara would merit less Wikipedia column inches today than Pancho Villa.
At any rate, these much-maligned (especially by international elites from the Council on Foreign Relations to The Trilateral Commission to The Davos Group) economic sanctions against Cuba account for the sense of smugness and jocosity with which Americans can view the rest of the world on the issue of “trading” with Cuba. (Actually I refer to the smugness and jocosity displayed by the tiny number of American revelers who actually know what these sanctions do.)
So come on, amigos! Learn and join us—join our Memorial Day party! In brief:
No actual “embargo” of Cuba exists. Webster’s defines “embargo” as “‘A government order imposing a trade barrier.” As a verb it’s defined as “to prevent commerce.”
And yet according to figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. has transacted over $5 billion in trade with Cuba over the past 14 years (as a result of a Clinton executive order/loophole.) In fact, up until five years ago, the U.S. served as Stalinist Cuba’s biggest food supplier and fifth biggest import partner.
Fortunately, for over a decade the so-called U.S. embargo has mostly stipulated that Castro’s kleptocratic/Stalinist regime pay cash up front through a third–party bank for all U.S. agricultural products; no Export-Import Bank (U.S. taxpayer) financing of such sales.
Enacted by the Bush team in 2001 (to try and patch up a Clinton loophole) this cash-up-front policy has been monumentally beneficial to U.S. taxpayers, making them—as oft-mentioned hereabouts--among the very few in the world not stiffed by the Castro regime, which per capita-wise qualifies as the world’s biggest debtor nation, with a credit–rating nudging Somalia’s and a relentless record of defaults.
The Castro brothers have gleefully fleeced taxpayers from the European Union to Canada, from Mexico to South Africa—in brief, the taxpayers of virtually every nation whose government granted trade credits to these kleptocrats.
The Castros stuck it to Mexico again two years ago, when its state development Bank Bancomex wrote off almost $500 million Cuba owed them from 15 years back. The Castros stuck it to Europe back in 1986, defaulting on most of their debt to the Paris Club. Fifteen years later the Castros stuck it to French taxpayers again for $175 million.
Recently Europe’s “Paris Club” of Cuba creditors finally wrote off $11 billion’ the Castro Crime Syndicate (called “Cuba” by the media) stole (called “loaned” by the media) from them.
All of those Castroite burglaries are on top of the $30 billion in Castroite debt Putin’s Russia “wrote-off” just last year. So, amigos, when you hear or read the usual claptrap in the media and Obama State Dept. about the “Cuba embargo” simply replace that term with “trade credits from the U.S. tax payers to the world’s biggest deadbeat/crooks” and you’ll get to the essence of the issue.
Despite the mainstream media/Obama State Dept. depiction, few issues so starkly symbolize the divide between main-street America and international elites like the Cuba “embargo.” Lest we forget, another name for the Cuba embargo in its current form is the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, sponsored by these quintessentially Red-State Republicans (Jesse Helms, North Carolina, Dan Burton, Indiana, seen here with a signed copy of a book which celebrates the great man’s legislative work.) Then the bill was constitutionally voted upon and passed by U.S. legislative branch, to the still sputtering rage of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members always seem to lead the charge against the Helms-Burton Act.
And oh, almost forgot: historically among the biggest ranters and ravers against the so-called Cuba embargo (alongside the Council on Foreign Relations) were the rulers of the Soviet Empire. Indeed they birthed and orchestrated the very “anti-embargo” propaganda campaign. And for obvious reasons: they were desperate to snooker the U.S. into bankrolling their most loyal terror-sponsoring satrap.
“Nothing doing!” Thanks to the embargo! So the Soviets were forced to pump almost Ten Marshall Plans ($50 billion) into Castro’s Cuba– a key element in finally bankrupting the USSR.
So to the celebrations for all of the exhilarating economic victories for the American taxpayer listed above thanks to Eisenhower’s “embargo,” we can also add celebrations for the fall of the Evil Empire!