Image courtesy of Steve Conover's Flickr page - Cuba: https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveconover/848909720/in/photolist-2i1Thu-dNNpgS-h58MWC-ukgo6E-ensih1-cuPak-5GP95u-bG6X2x-G4KbF-8U2mdL-J8ud4-4oqAye-4ZAc5k-BN2GA-47VrGN-86u15k-v7buV-ceZzoL-DZrWp-iEGHsE-5Hgkn2-dH85A2-6HzSRV-zwKEu-anV74M-63gneu-8HrMV2-c66o3S-4KMMCr-oweQoH-fYCsrv-gHgf1-7y9c2B-7RtjnJ-65dAGq-mWL9jh-DDhH6-6HXxGf-enrCG1-4KMJKe-sGpYG-7JZWQE-63c77F-kroqFk-7JZWmw-fNyKYf-6gqPJ-5BRRqH-7JZWfu-4fAFAU
In just the latest of the bad news and even worse policies coming from the White House these days, President Trump today decided, effective immediately, to end the Obama policy of opening relations with Cuba. Suggesting that Cuba was still effectively an old style communist dictatorship still under the thumb of the Castros, Trump spoke to extremist Cubans vehemently opposed to opening relations and ending the long-time boycott of Cuba by the United States, a policy dating back to the days of JFK.
It is also a policy that the United States stuck to doggedly, long after the rest of the world abandoned it as hopeless, while Cuba has begun to open itself to the outside world over the last couple of decades or so now. Indeed, tourists from other western countries, including western Europe and Canada, have been able to visit Cuba for many years now, and the island nation has been trading with other countries as well, opening itself up increasingly to western style commerce more and more.
President Obama decided that the United States is behind the times in this regard, and decided, finally, to reverse course and begin to open up relations with Cuba, which is almost a neighbor of the United States, being less than 100 miles of the coast of southern Florida.
For many, it seemed like another positive sign coming from Washington that more enlightened policies were allowing the United States to recover from the idiocies and excesses of the Bush administration. Much like joining the Paris Accord, and at least trying to end the wars in the Middle East
And now, we have someone even worse at the helm. And with a flip of his wrist above his tiny hands, suddenly the United States is, once again, going back in time.
Yes, once again, we are returning to Cold War-era policies, dating back all the way to the Kennedy administration!
As if this was not bad enough, the man child president asked the rest of the world to follow his lead on this policy!
Can you imagine? This most ridiculous, most absurd figure, this supposed "leader" who shows no leadership abilities whatsoever, this fake president, has taken it upon himself to reverse almost all the progress made towards Cuba, and then asks the rest of the world to follow his example!
He is already the laughing stock of the world with his idiocy and arrogance, and yet, he thinks himself a genius and a de facto emperor. He is making a mockery of the country that he "leads" once again, and is so full of himself as to suggest openly that his worthless leadership is the model for the rest of the world to follow, on top of everything else!
Now, to be fair, not everything will be shut down. The American embassy in Havana is staying, and commercial flights will still fly from the United States to Cuba.
However, Americans will face increased restrictions on travel there, and there is a definite closing of possibilities for better relations and possibilities.
Indeed, once again, President Trump manages to find new and innovative ways to bring America backward politically, and to disappoint any who hoped that the United States could and should pursue better relations with the rest of the world.
These are mediocre times. Ideally, we would have a great leader who could help transcend these times, and bring out the best in the country, make people hope again. Give the country some sense of direction or purpose again, as we seem to have lost our way.
Instead,we have the most mediocre leader in our nation's history, and instead of rising above the fray, this man is lowering the standards for the rest of the country, to sink as low as his standards. He has nothing to say about anything of import, and yet tens of millions of Americans felt so attracted to his loud, brash style and relentless, excessive self-promotion, that he was ultimately elected president. In this day and age, when shock value and ratings seem to count more than anything else, and when style clearly weighs more heavily on the minds of far too many than substance, it not only figures that we have a "leader" who represents those shallow values, but it is actually rather fitting. We are going in the wrong direction as a country (and have been now for some time), so why not elect someone who will take us even further along in that direction?
As mentioned before, ad nausea, this president is a disgrace, and our collective decision to put a pitiful man like this into office will live in infamy for a long time in our history. Frankly, we will be defined by this decision for the foreseeable future in the eyes of the rest of the world, although it is too late to do anything about that now.
That said, these kinds of stories of his bad decisions are just too much. We need to resist this, because it really is such a lack of vision and imagination in the White House. There is no leadership, and what passes for leadership is really a bunch of spoiled, privileged, overgrown brats who want to turn back the clock to an earlier time in this country's history. The thing is, we are the only nation trying to do that, and it is pointless and hopelessly futile. Time moves forward, and we should be going forward as well, trying our best to adapt to a changing world, instead of pretending that we can undo all of the changes that have occurred, and trying our best to force replays of a game the ended a long, long time ago. Indeed, as a nation, there was a time when we were successful, when we were used to winning. Trump promised to get us there again, to "Make America Great Again," but it should be perfectly clear to one and all by now that Trump is full of hot air, and has absolutely nothing to say about this nation's future.
We are better than this, and need to resist these ridiculous, counterproductive policies that are making America weaker, not stronger, and which are making this country, and indeed this world, worse, rather than great again.
These are mediocre times. Ideally, we would have a great leader who could help transcend these times, and bring out the best in the country, make people hope again. Give the country some sense of direction or purpose again, as we seem to have lost our way.
Instead,we have the most mediocre leader in our nation's history, and instead of rising above the fray, this man is lowering the standards for the rest of the country, to sink as low as his standards. He has nothing to say about anything of import, and yet tens of millions of Americans felt so attracted to his loud, brash style and relentless, excessive self-promotion, that he was ultimately elected president. In this day and age, when shock value and ratings seem to count more than anything else, and when style clearly weighs more heavily on the minds of far too many than substance, it not only figures that we have a "leader" who represents those shallow values, but it is actually rather fitting. We are going in the wrong direction as a country (and have been now for some time), so why not elect someone who will take us even further along in that direction?
As mentioned before, ad nausea, this president is a disgrace, and our collective decision to put a pitiful man like this into office will live in infamy for a long time in our history. Frankly, we will be defined by this decision for the foreseeable future in the eyes of the rest of the world, although it is too late to do anything about that now.
That said, these kinds of stories of his bad decisions are just too much. We need to resist this, because it really is such a lack of vision and imagination in the White House. There is no leadership, and what passes for leadership is really a bunch of spoiled, privileged, overgrown brats who want to turn back the clock to an earlier time in this country's history. The thing is, we are the only nation trying to do that, and it is pointless and hopelessly futile. Time moves forward, and we should be going forward as well, trying our best to adapt to a changing world, instead of pretending that we can undo all of the changes that have occurred, and trying our best to force replays of a game the ended a long, long time ago. Indeed, as a nation, there was a time when we were successful, when we were used to winning. Trump promised to get us there again, to "Make America Great Again," but it should be perfectly clear to one and all by now that Trump is full of hot air, and has absolutely nothing to say about this nation's future.
We are better than this, and need to resist these ridiculous, counterproductive policies that are making America weaker, not stronger, and which are making this country, and indeed this world, worse, rather than great again.
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