History 101

I have been outed as a geek of history by Bubblewench. Actually, I outed myself a few days ago but she beat me to it, I just didn't know she had. The subject: Cuba, land of rum and good cigars. I'm told they even had some great golf courses at one time.


One supreme commander (forgive me, I just watched V - the miniseries) for 50 years is amazing in this day and age and the fact that this country could do nothing to change that fact has to be a significant portion of the story in years to come, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba's major benefactor.


The leaders of our country have given lip service to the Cubans that would like to see the end of the Castro regime, just to placate them and to woo their support in every major election since the fall of Batista. Only one President attempted to do anything at all and his effort was just a walk down a primrose path to failure that was initially laid out by Eisenhower. Every administration since then has contributed to a failed policy of isolation, even though they were still able to bring in some of those fine cigars.

Now the question is, with Fidel stepping down will anything change? Will Raul make an overture toward the U.S. after the upcoming election (it sure as hell won't happen during the reign of GWB)? Will he take the country in a democratic direction? Will our new President take the first step and say to hell with the silliness of past policy just because of a few Cuban crybabies in Florida that seem to have had past Presidents by the balls and squeezed whenever anyone brought up the possibility of normalized relations (did I mention they make great cigars?).


Time will tell but I don't think that we can depend on Raul to take the offensive. If we are to normalize relations, it will have to start with us.


Having said all of that, I must admit I have not given much thought to the Cuban situation in quite some time and my interest in history tended to lean more towards 3 periods, colonial America, the movement west and the post civil war period.

Disclaimer: Even though I have referred to cigars numerous times in this post, it has been nearly a year now since I last had any taste of tobacco.