Hanging on to stupidity

For the 17th consecutive year, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to urge an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. According to the AP, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque expressed hope that our next president will take a fresh look at the issue and respond to the international appeal. We'll see. Politicians, especially those in Florida and those who might need to win Florida in a presidential election, have cowered in fear of the Cuban-American population and refused to do the right thing. The only effect the embargo has had is to make life tougher on the average Cuban citizen. Do you really think Fidel Castro and his hierarchy suffered one iota as a result of the embargo? Of course not. And noted foreign policy expert George W. Bush has actually tightened the restrictions over the past eight years. Why? Well, U.S. diplomat Ronald Godard says it's the fact that the Cuban government is undemocratic and restricts political and economic freedom. Oh, I get it. We don't deal with governments that are undemocratic and restrict political and economic freedom. But, um, wait a minute. It seems to me that we still buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of crap every year from China. Aren't those the same people who brutally repress their people, crush free speech and have billions of folks living in squalor? Hmmm. And it also seems that many of our major corporations are making huge investments in Russia. Did I read recently about them rolling tanks into a neighboring country, and about their leader becoming more and more of a dictator? And, wait a minute, aren't we still buying oil from crazy Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez? And it seems to me we have been pretty buddy-buddy with Saudi Arabia, the country that brought us most of the 9/11 hijackers. But trade with Cuba? Hell no! They're bad.