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U.S. won't allow Cuba to play in Baseball Classic

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Cuba won’t be allowed to send a team to next year’s inaugural World Baseball Classic, the U.S. government told event organizers Wednesday.

The decision by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was conveyed to Major League Baseball on Wednesday, according to Pat Courtney, a spokesman for the commissioner’s office.

A permit from OFAC is necessary because of U.S. laws governing certain commercial transactions with Fidel Castro’s communist island nation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10471155/
 
Once again the people of Cuba suffer because of that scumbag.
 
Yeah man, let's keep on banging our national head into the same brick wall for 43 years without achieving even a whiff, a trace of what this stupid ****ing embargo was supposed to accomplish.

And let's let it keep affecting sports and the arts, that'll really rattle the cages of their military-industrial complex.

Yeah. That's the ticket.
 
NaboCane said:
Yeah man, let's keep on banging our national head into the same brick wall for 43 years without achieving even a whiff, a trace of what this stupid ****ing embargo was supposed to accomplish.

And let's let it keep affecting sports and the arts, that'll really rattle the cages of their military-industrial complex.

Yeah. That's the ticket.
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Well, there's two ways to look at it:
1. the embargo has deflated the standard of living in Cuba because the United States is Cuba's most logical trading partner, and the Castro regime has been hurt by it, but has held on despite that.
2. Cuba has replaced the gains from American trade in other ways so the embargo is useless, and Cuba is a Third World nation because of Castro's mismanagement.

Frankly, I'm not sure which is correct, though I suspect it's some of both.

In any event, the State Department has LONG held a very firm line against trade with Cuba, so I can't imagine anyone expected them to reverse course now.
 
phunwin said:
Well, there's two ways to look at it:
1. the embargo has deflated the standard of living in Cuba because the United States is Cuba's most logical trading partner, and the Castro regime has been hurt by it, but has held on despite that.
2. Cuba has replaced the gains from American trade in other ways so the embargo is useless, and Cuba is a Third World nation because of Castro's mismanagement.

Frankly, I'm not sure which is correct, though I suspect it's some of both.

In any event, the State Department has LONG held a very firm line against trade with Cuba, so I can't imagine anyone expected them to reverse course now.
Click to expand...

Hey, you won't hear me say that Castro's a great guy, or hear me espousing his literacy rates and all that crap. Not that literacy is worth a **** when the only thing to read has to be approved by the government.

But the stark, irrefutable reality is that the embargo has not worked. In all these 43 years, it has failed to make Castro give even one centimeter over it.

In fact, the embargo has bolstered him, both with the Cuban people who align with him (out of need or convenience) and with most of the rest of the world; his people have been galvanized by his rhetoric that the embargo is a sign of the US's hostility and ever-imminent plan to invade the island - also, nothing fills people with more determination and pride than being told that they are sacrificing their own comfort for the cause - for the nation. The sheep really eat that stuff up; look at how Bush convinced the people of this country to accept 2-hour delays at airports just so the Feds wouldn't have to front the expense of a couple of Air Marshalls on each flight. But don't get me started...

The embargo has served to engender both sympathy for the poor little tiny caribbean nation, while increasing already existing animosity toward America and its policies among the rest of the world; even England, our stolid friend, trades enthusiastically with Cuba.

So let's review; the embargo:
  • Hasn't worked;
  • Has actually turned out to be a valuable tool for Castro to unite his people around a tangible cause that they can see, feel, taste;
  • And has cost us whatever goodwill was available to us around the world after our adventurism in the Persian Gulf.
Wow. Just wow.
 
I'll go further with this embargo thing, beging the forgiveness of all except Phil...

All those years we were in a cold war with the Soviet Union; spending billions after billions to "keep up," to counter every move, to isolate them.

And when did the Soviet Union fall? Five years after the first truckload of Pepsi-Cola Hit Moscow.

Economic pressure can't be created by someone who doesn't have anything to offer. But get them to where they think they "need" the **** you're selling, and they're yours.
 
All good points. There's little doubt that the embargo has not succeeded in its goal of toppling Castro. But, I think you overstate the hostility factor and the international condemnation factor. Most of Western Europe uses the embargo as an opportunity to get into a market free of US competition. They're thus indifferent to the concept from a political POV.

However, there's no denying that the influx of American goods and services helped bring down the USSR. Once people got a taste of the Big Mac, the whole rotten edifice caved in soon after. So, it certainly begs the question of why that approach wasn't tried in Cuba, apart from the obvious answer of "because no one wants to look like they've caved in to Castro".
 
Dont they play in the olympics when its held here? I like it when they keep politics out of sports. Boycotting olympics, etc, I dont like that crap.
 
phunwin said:
All good points. There's little doubt that the embargo has not succeeded in its goal of toppling Castro. But, I think you overstate the hostility factor and the international condemnation factor. Most of Western Europe uses the embargo as an opportunity to get into a market free of US competition. They're thus indifferent to the concept from a political POV.

However, there's no denying that the influx of American goods and services helped bring down the USSR. Once people got a taste of the Big Mac, the whole rotten edifice caved in soon after. So, it certainly begs the question of why that approach wasn't tried in Cuba, apart from the obvious answer of "because no one wants to look like they've caved in to Castro".
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Because the Cubans stomped the crap out of the USA in the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco. It's about saving face, by not allowing Castro to look like he won or beat the USA. No formal declaration of war was made before the Bay of Pigs it was a CIA designed hostile takeover of a soverign nation.
 
I hope they end this Cuban embargo soon so I can buy some real Cohibas. :lol:

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