I woke up today hearing that Fidel Castro was stepping down as leader of Cuba. I was surprised because I always figured he would stay in power until the day he died. I'm guessing he must be pretty close to death now and is trying to make the transition to a new leader go as smoothly as possible. Of course President Bush has tough words about it all - demanding (he always demands doesn't he) free and fair elections. What a sad joke.
I have thought for quite a while that we should open relations with Cuba. The only people being hurt are the Cuban people. Right wing Cuban-Americans (and the neo-cons they allied themselves with) have been calling the shots in our Cuba policy for the past generation. As far as I can tell it only succeeded in giving Castro an excuse for his poor management of the nation and some Cubans-Americans an excuse to act persecuted even while enjoying more advantages than virtually any other immigrant group in our history.
Perhaps with the changing of the guard there and (soon) here, we can brush aside all this pointless posturing and introduce a Cuba policy which does not embrace exclusion of those victimized by Fidel Castro nor favoritism to those who fled the island to live in the United States.
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