Solidarity With The Cuban People? Or With the Cubans In Florida?

We stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and condemn the suppression of the media, speech and protest.

We also call for an end to the U.S. embargo and additional Trump-era restrictions that are profoundly contributing to the suffering of Cubans. pic.twitter.com/Fw6Quv5TAN

— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 16, 2021

If I followed the discussion with James Carville on MSNBC (via Sirius, I was in the car travelling for more Hill Country peaches) Saturday correctly, he thought this was a terrible take on the situation in Cuba.

I guess except A) I had no idea what he was talking about at the time; 

B) the only people it offends are people who don't like AOC anyway;

C) if I hadn't looked this up, I still wouldn't know what Carville was wringing his hand about; and  

D) I don't really buy the argument that Dems lost votes nationwide over the "Defund the police" issue (he brought that up to, as another example of Democratic fecklessness from the "young" who don't understand.  I guess that's me, too, since I'm younger than him.).  And even if they did, I still don't think what's going on in Cuba, or what AOC tweets, is of grave national interest.

Weird, it's almost like those anti-protest laws were made for specific types of protestors https://t.co/4zl0mIlEFp

— David, Socialist Martial Artist 🥊 (@Dave0fReckoning) July 17, 2021

This issue probably resonates more.*

I don't dismiss the troubles in Cuba lightly.  But experience tells me this doesn’t have national/local impact (and definitely not in ‘22). I was still holding a pulpit on 9/11/01.  Most of the members of my church, elderly and of my generation, didn't seem to much care about what was going on in NYC. Sorry, but it was far away and nobody knew anyone who lived there. Cuba isn't even in America, and from what I'm seeing, the marches against the Castro/communist regime are all taking place in....south Florida.  So....

The mayor of Miami (I think; I could be wrong about the city) apparently urged Biden to make airstrikes on Cuba.  Which, frankly, is insane.  Then again:  Florida, man. Biden wants to pick up people fleeing the island and take them to Gitmo for processing and transfer to other countries, which strikes me as quite sensible.  What else are we supposed to do?  Invade Cuba to get back the property some Floridians lost 60 years ago?  Turn Cuba into Iraq, or Afghanistan, because we have the military to knock everything over, but no capabilities for building it back?

As for the embargoes, I suspect most people of AOC's generation agree with her (as do I):  what's the point of those now?  I never really understood them and I was around when they were imposed. We can critique any sanctions on any country on the basis it hurts the people, but we can't say that about Cuba?

That the Cubans deserve a better government goes without saying.  That the U.S. has done anything constructive towards that end since Castro took power, is a point of argument.  That we should work multinationally to help the Cuban people, is clear.

Anything else is just eyewash.

*Yes, the Florida law is a terrible law, and watching this protest undermine the very justification for it cooked up by the Florida legislature is like watching a raging river undermine the foundations of a bridge to nowhere that nobody wanted built anyway except the contractor who got the public contract.  Very simply, you can't enforce a law selectively:  allow protests over conditions in Cuba, but not over conditions in Florida, or the death of George Floyd, etc.  Authorities in Orlando have destroyed whatever foundation the State of Florida thought it had for that law.  It's a bit of shadenfreude to see it, that's all.