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Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?

by Greg Kafoury
. . .

In his speech to the Cuban exiles, Senator Obama said he was willing to meet
Raul Castro, but declared that members of the exile community would have to
have "a seat at the table." This is the sort of precondition which Obama had
previously ruled out, and the likelihood of Castro sitting down with exiles
is beyond remote. Obama said that the release of political prisoners would
have to be on the agenda, yet the exiles' notion of who is a political
prisoner consists largely of those who not only resisted the regime, but who
took money from the American government, and coordinated their efforts with
those who supported the overthrow of the regime. (See " Cuba: U.S. Diplomat
is Accused of Delivering Cash to Opposition," N.Y. Times, 5/24/08.)

While Obama spoke in favor of allowing Cuban-Americans to more frequently
visit their families in Cuba and to send money to them, these reforms are
widely popular in the exile community. Most tellingly, Obama failed to
oppose the Bush Administration's ban on ordinary Americans traveling to Cuba
on educational tours, tours that until 2004 allowed thousands of Americans
to visit Cuba, and to come to their own conclusions about the Cuban
Revolution.

Worse yet, the same Senator Obama who only a year ago supported ending the
embargo declared that the embargo would continue until Cuba knuckled under
to American demands.

In 1959, Cubans overthrew a dictator who was in partnership with the Mafia
and who allowed Cuban workers and natural resources to be exploited by giant
American corporations. In response to their nationalizing American assets,
the Cubans faced nearly fifty years of U.S. sponsored invasion, embargo,
sabotage, terrorism, and attempts to assassinate their leaders.

Yet Obama spoke not a word of how the restrictions of political liberty in
Cuba are linked to Cuba's struggle to maintain independence in the face of
relentless attempts by a succession of U.S. administrations to use their
great power to bring Cuba to heel.

Senator Obama spoke not a word of the accomplishments of the Cuban
Revolution, the world-class health system, the high quality education, rural
development, cutting edge research on infectious diseases, and the provision
of thousands of Cuban doctors to the most disease-ridden, God-forsaken
corners of the earth.

Senator Obama essentially gave the same kind of speech on Cuba that we have
heard from American Presidents for the last fifty years. Where is the
"change" that we have been waiting for, that we have been promised so
repeatedly?

We have been down this road before. In 2004, progressives lined up behind
Senator Kerry, and progressive organizations made no demands upon him. The
anti-war movement folded its tents. After this early and unconditional
surrender on the part of the American left, Senator Kerry moved sharply to
the right .The Democratic Convention was militaristic in form and corporate
in policy. The candidate who had called himself "anti-war" wound up running
against Bush's war policy from the right, calling for tens of thousands more
troops, and criticizing Bush for having pulled back from Falluja simply
because of the massive civilian carnage. Yet for all of this appeasement of
the right, Kerry lost the election. Shortly thereafter, Bush leveled
Falluja, and four years later American forces have been bombing major cities
in Iraq.

*Greg Kafoury* is a trial lawyer and political activist in Portland, Oregon.
He can be reached at kafoury at kafourymcdougal.com.
full at:
http://counterpunch.org/
[lead story there right now]


On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Walter Lippmann <walterlx at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> This is false.
>
> Unlimited visitation by Cuban-Americans to Cuba, and sending of
> remittances is NOT the "hard-line program of the most reactionary
> elements of the Cuban exile community." The statement is FALSE.
> It is factually, empirically, and politically FALSE.
>
> The ultra-reactionaries want NO visitation and NOT remittances. There
> is a split among Cubans over precisely this point.
>
> Some of the newer, younger and less ultra-right elements, themselves
> opposed to the Revolution, want visitation and remittances so that
> they can get THEIR snouts in the trough transporting the money to the
> dissidents and so forth, but we should be clear that the ending of
> limits on Cuban visiting their homeland, however it's motivated, is a
> good thing in and of itself.
>
> Some people would prefer that Cuba remain poor, but pure, but Cuba
> does not impose restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting, except for
> rightist reactionary terrorists. Then it's up to the Cubans to decide
> who they let in. The more people who can legally go to the island,
> the weaker the blockade is. It's really just that simple.
>
>
> Walter Lippmann
>
>