Obama Scared Off On UN Vote

Not Surprising That He Caved
Updated: Saturday, October 24th
But first...........

       ...............Hillary Clinton, I believe, this week clinched her bid to become America's first female President. I am a lifelong conservative Republican and she will be the first liberal Democrat I have ever supported. It's not that I've become a liberal or a Democrat but in America's two-party political system it is plain that my party has been taken over by right-wing thugs. Thursday from 10 A. M. eastern till 9:00 P. M. eastern -- eleven hours -- Mrs. Clinton was grilled and battered on network television by seven right-wing thuggish Republican members of Congress. It was a ghastly and costly continuation of the politically motivated Benghazi investigations that right-wing Republicans are using to try to upend Clinton's presidential campaign. But yesterday's eleven-hour thuggish farce should have convinced voters, including conservative Republicans, that even the liberal Ms. Clinton is preferable to right-wing thugs.

         Trey Gowdy, the 51-year-old congressman from South Carolina, was Thug #1 in the 11-hour battering of Hillary Clinton this week. He is one of the Tea Party darlings who have usurped the Republican Party, which they then unconscionably use as a tool to expand their right-wing agendas. But Gowdy was joined in the dismal display by other thuggish Republicans -- such as Jim Jordan of Ohio, Peter Roskam of Illinois, Martha Roby of Alabama, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, and Susan Brooks of Indiana. The spectacle Thursday, with all eleven ghastly hours televised live by some networks, revealed a glaring weakness in the U. S. democracy. Small areas of the nation, like the district in South Carolina that Gowdy represents, can keep someone like Gowdy in Congress for decades. He then might pork-barrel goodies to supporters in that district but, while in Congress as an entrenched incumbent, he can forge legislation that harms everyone else -- Americans for sure but also citizens of other countries...such as, just for example -- Cuba!!

       Congresswoman Susan Brooks from Indiana was one of the more thuggish batterers of Hillary Clinton this week. She has been in the U. S. Congress since January of 2013 when she replaced Dan Burton. He had been entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Indiana from 1983 till he was succeeded by Ms. Brooks.

         Dan Burton is the "Burton" in the infamous Helms-Burton Bill that, since 1996, has severely harmed, deprived, and assaulted millions of innocent Cubans on the nearby island...all in the guise of hurting {or worse} the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro. In other words, Dan Burton, and now his successor Susan Brooks, might do the bidding of their small home district and right-wing groups such as the Tea Party, but they also, as members of the U. S. Congress, can harm all other Americans as well as innocents in other nations.

       On a more pleasant topic, Katy Perry, the American and international superstar singer, has had two recent joyful visits to Cuba. She posted photos on Instagram and her favorite was the one above. It shows her entertaining school children. Notice their joy, and the starry-eyed look on the face of the little girl in the lower-left of the photo.

Now back to next week's UN vote on Cuba:

          This week -- October 21st, 2015 -- The Huffington Post did something very, very rare for a media outlet in the United States. It amazingly featured a passionate article by a Havana-based Cuban journalist who is an expert on U. S. Cuban relations and she was allowed to present the Cuban side of a two-sided U.S.-Cuban issue -- namely, next Tuesday's UN vote on the U. S. embargo against Cuba. The Cuban journalist is Margarita Alarcon Perea {above}. She is the daughter of the 78-year-old Ricardo Alarcon who has been a dear friend and associate of the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro since the 1950s. Margarita, since her childhood and University of Havana days, has garnered great knowledge of U.S.-Cuban relations. She also served 14 years at the Cuban mission at the United Nations in New York and understands how that organization functions. Thus, it was fair...and surprising...that the Huffington Post permitted Margarita to express her...and Cuba's views...regarding next week's key vote about Cuba in the United Nations.

        Margarita Alarcon's article in the Huffington Post resonated with typical Cuban passion against the U. S. embargo of Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962. She discussed President Obama's brave efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and she referenced Obama's plea for the U. S. Congress to finally end the embargo. Then she wrote: "His reasoning has less to do with the atrocity that the Embargo has been, subjecting the Cuban people to deprivations and hardships that go beyond reason; the Embargo has been qualified by many as the longest form of warfare against a sovereign nation in the history of the world. Whatever the case, whether you do away with it because it's insane or inhumane, the gist is to do away with it!" Margarita Alarcon wondered why the U. S. democracy, even with a decent two-term President who strongly opposes the embargo, can't do away with it. She discussed the three basic components of the U. S. government -- Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. She then asked: "Will this presidency actually prove to the world that real democracy can actually happen? Will the executive branch {president} instruct its State Department to instruct its Ambassador to abstain during the vote next Tuesday? It would be a first and definitely a vote, if not a political step, in the right direction." Simple words, passionate words, and -- I repeat -- it is amazing that any major media source in the U. S., in this case the Huffington Post, allowed a Cuban journalist to present Cuba's views on next week's UN vote on the embargo.

        The above graphic represents Margarita Alarcon's compilation of some international quotes regarding the U. S. embargo against Cuba. "A pesar de todo" means "notwithstanding" and then this graphic uses quotes from other sources, such as the UN and Amnesty International, regarding the embargo. In addition to the enormous harm it has done to totally innocent Cubans on the island since 1962, it has been just as harmful to the reputation and image of the United States, which is of no concern to pro-embargo zealots, especially the six Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress, including two first-term Senators running for President. Propagandized U. S. citizens have been proselytized to accept it, but the rest of the world, including America's best friends, literally cringe in embarrassment and shame. That has been reflected each of the last 23 years by a resounding vote in the United Nations. In recent years the vote has been 188-to-2 with only Israel, in all the world, supporting the U. S. position on the embargo. Americans, even self-proclaimed democracy-lovers, are supposed to ignore the lopsidedness of the 188-to-2 UN vote.

        President Obama is deeply ashamed that the embargo, in place since 1962, has remained through the first seven years of his two-term presidency. He has remarkably and bravely managed to defy visceral Cuban-Americans and their right-wing sycophants in the U. S. Congress to make great strides towards normalizing relations with Cuba, including the re-opening of embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. But only Congress can lift the embargo and a mere handful of self-serving zealots will not allow that to happen because the Castro Industry is too lucrative. That's why, in her Huffington Post article, Margarita Alarcon wondered what role, if any, democracy plays in U. S. policy pertaining to Cuba.

        Last month officials in the Obama administration purposely informed the news media, including the Associated Press, that President Obama planned for the U. S. to abstain on next Tuesday's vote in the UN regarding the embargo. That, of course, would have been unheard up...it is the U. S. embargo, for heaven's sake!! But this week The Guardian in London reported that, not surprisingly, Mr. Obama has been, uh, persuaded to not tell his UN ambassador to abstain. The pressure was obviously serious...and cruel...just as it was way back in 1963 when President Kennedy told his staff of his plans to normalize relations with Cuba. In addition to Kennedy and Obama, the two other Democratic presidents -- Jimmy Carter in the 1970s and Bill Clinton in the 1990s -- also encountered serious and cruel pressure when they indicated their plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Of course, since the 1950s all Republican presidents have been in the pockets of the anti-Castro zealots who have dictated America's Cuban policy since Castro's Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed/run-for-cover Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959...at least chasing its leaders to safe havens in South Florida, New Jersey and, eventually, in Washington itself.

           This is a photo of Ricardo Alarcon and Fidel Castro taken in 1959, the first year of revolutionary rule in Cuba. Ricardo is the father of Margarita Alarcon, the Havana-based journalist that the Huffington Post, remarkably, allowed to present Cuba's views leading up to Tuesday's UN annual vote on the embargo.

Ricardo Alarcon and Fidel Castro have remained close friends since the 1950s.

         Next Tuesday -- October 26th -- President Obama will again be embarrassed by the UN vote regarding the cruel U. S. embargo against Cuba. It is also assumed that he is ashamed he has backed off his plan to have the U. S. abstain during the voting process. Once again it will prove to the world that the U. S. democracy, in the grips of a handful of Cuban-Americans and their right-wing Republican sycophants, is not strong enough to remove a cancerous affront that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the entire world opposes. Mr. Obama is the fourth of the four Democratic presidents since 1962 that have tried, and he has tried the hardest. But his failure regarding the embargo is mostly a reflection that this generation of Americans is not courageous enough to do what Margarita Alarcon called "the right thing."

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