Yesterday's L.A. Times reported Cuba and Mexico have now reached an accord on returning Cubans to their homeland when they are caught trying to pass through Mexico on their way to the U.S.  As reported by the Times, the number of immigrants trying to leave Cuba to come to the U.S. has tripled in the last year and has gone up ten-fold in the last four years.  

Ingratitude is a particularly ugly trait.  Obviously, none of these would-be immigrants have seen “Sicko,” and know how well they have it.

Perhaps on their return home, a re-education experience incorporating lectures from Hollywood stars would cure them of their apostasy.

The cost of the trip to Mexico can be as high as $15,000.  People have to save up for a very long time, just to make the first leg of the journey.

This is even more telling when one realizes that the vast majority of the information the Cubans receive is state controlled.  The information they get about the US is from people who have left, so they are reporting after seeing live in both countries.
 
As I have asked dozens of times, "Why do people want to come here?"  "Why do they want to leave their homes?"

Problem solved.

Meanwhile Russia receives an order for missiles.

-- Modified on 10/22/2008 5:56:21 AM

Personally, I'm not sure why the current foreign policy with Cuba exists.  They have never been a real threat to the US, especially since the breakup of the old Soviet empire.  The conflict that  we had during the Cold war was driven by the dominance of the Soviet Union who used Cub as a proxy in this hemisphere of the world.

I think we have had better success influencing "red" countries through economic enticement and dialogue vs what we have now.  Think about it, has our relationship or Cuba's political status changed since the end of the Cold War?  It has not.

Besides, I'm tired having to go outside our country to get a really good cigar

It simple, Einstein -- ECONOMICS ... How many Canadians or Brits or Germans, in comparison, come over?

The same thing is happening in Europe with Africans & Eastern Europeans coming to the EU.





-- Modified on 10/22/2008 2:18:24 PM

One of the fallacies of the Obama campaign is his belief that we have to talk to people.  He is fooling people by making them think we are not doing so.

In fact, we are "talking" to Cuba, and have always done so.  There is a U.S. "Interest Section" in the Swiss (I seem to remember) Embassy.  This is our "de facto" diplomatic section.  

There are several countries with whom we do not have formal relations, but we are in contact with all of them, often directly, at other times indirectly.  There is no country with whom we do not have some type of contact.

A classic example is N. Korea.  While we have no formal relations, we have negotiated very successfully to have them demolish one of their reactors.

WHen Obama has said that we need to talk to hostile nations he is distorting the question. We already do and always have.  The question is on what level?

Cutting off "formal" embassy-level contact as a "punishment" for disfavored contact, and going to a lesser level of contact is not an idea of the Bush Administration.  It has been done for as long as nations had diplomatic relations.

And it will be done for the next 4 or 8 years.

After we nuke Iran and North Korea, of course!

Its a leftist attempt to skew the vote. Now they can have real people to claim all those bogus regestrations.

The foreign policy with Cuba is driven by the numbers of exiled Cubans living in Florida, and not just in the state, but within a single county of that state. Over half of all Cubans in the United States (52%) and over three-fourth (78%) of all Cubans in Florida live in just Miami-Dade County.  This extraordinary concentration of Cubans means that 8% of the State's electorate lives in South Florida, and Cuban-Americans have been the deciding voters
in several national races.

With Florida's 27 electoral votes, and it's position as a swing state with a sharp partisan divide, the importance of Cuban-Americans in national politics is magnified.

Both parties pander to Cuban exiles' desire to strengthen the U.S.'s anti-Castro policy.  Truly, democracy at work.

And they find illegal immigrant status in the US is far better than in Mexico. I doubt the first thing Cubans think of is our generous medical system. The medical system in Cuba is badly broken because everything else is. "Sick-O" is a bad digression, since it didn't make the point that it was better to live somewhere else, only that the US medical system underperformed, and our pseudo-patriotism about it is ill-chosen, and that by comparison, other countries do better with theirs. When talking about Cubans expatriating, I question whether this belongs anywhere.

The economy is so poor in Cuba that doctors drive cabs and wait tables. It has maybe the most educated population in the Western world, I hand them that, but that goes to waste because the economy can't flourish for them.

Cuba was a hotbed of organized crime prior to Castro. It's difficult to say if it will return to that state after the Castros.

They want the same thing that immigrants have wanted ever since they started coming here.

FREEDOM AND LIBERTY.

I know people from New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, England, France, and I don't know where else.  They all come here for the same reason.

This isn't listing the other places like Nigeria, Mexico, etc. I would expect poor people to try to come here.  The amazing thing is when the quotas are full from all the Western European nations where they have everything Obama promises.

What the Cubans want is that they can work and achieve.  They don't give a rat's ass about the f___'in health care system in Cuba, Sweden, Germany, Italy, or any where else.  

They will take the U.S. with its flaws, because those flaws come with freedom.

The people paying a prince's ransom to escape from the S-Hole Cuba want the same thing that my grandfather wanted in 1910 when he came here from Russia.

They don't want western Europe's nanny state. Cubans are not trying to get to Spain.

Cuba is just one more failed socialist prison state.  People would rather get eaten by sharks than live there.

The thing that just upsets me is people living here can't understand why people are dying to get here.

Canadians come here far more than Americans go to Canada.  WHY? that is why Cubans come here.