Occupy Cuba

Today in class, we talked a lot about how to ask good questions to prompt more interesting blog posts.  After the reading that I just did, I can think of a few questions that I could write a lot about.  The reading was a brief history of the United State's involvement in Cuba over the past 100 years or so.  And my #1 question is... Based on our past interactions with Cuba, what would happen if we dropped all travel restrictions and bad feelings about the country and its people?

First, I want to talk about a few things from the reading.  I didn't realize how quickly our relationship with Cuba changed from really good to really bad.  We first went into Cuba to HELP them fight against the Spanish.  Then, when we beat the Spanish, we were like

"Oh by the way, we're staying here."

And we MADE them put the Platt amendment in their constitution which basically said that we could have three military bases and a few ports IN Cuba and they couldn't do anything about it.  In fact, we still have one of them left called Guantanamo Bay.  In fact, I'd love to spend a whole class period talking about Guantanamo Bay, why we have it, what we do there, and things like that.  It's a really interesting topic.  Anyway, from a little extra research that I did, I found out the Las Vegas was basically created because Americans couldn't go to Cuba anymore to do their gambling and partying.  So I've brainstormed a few things that might happen if we WERE to open Cuba back up the the United States.

• HUGE development all over the country by wealthy Americans
• Minor decrease in visitors to Las Vegas
• Major decrease in visitors to other surrounding caribbean countries and islands
• Lots of job opportunities for the people of Cuba in the field of tourism and hospitality
• Big update in Cuban supplies (like cars and other materials)

These are just a few things.  I think it'd be really fun to have this as a class activity, and we could put all of our lists together and discuss which ones really belong and why.

Cuba Video Notes/Thoughts/Questions

Yesterday, we watched a documentary on the situation in Cuba.  It appeared to be one or two guys with a small, handheld video camera asking people on the streets questions.  Many of the responses were a surprise and weren't what I was expecting.  For example, he asked many people what they thought about certain political things and almost everybody said that they didn't want to talk about politics.  At first, I didn't know why, but then I realized that in a country without freedom of speech people have to be very cautious about what they say on film.  They don't know what is OK to say so they just don't say anything.  The video spent some time talking about the economic crisis that was happening in Cuba and the effects it was having on most of the people.  Then it said that, in order to combat the economic crisis, Cuba was selling 1 million licensees to open up private businesses in their homes.  This would hopefully stimulate the economy enough to keep the country alive.  The documenters also interviewed people who owned private businesses who said that they were really enjoying being in control of their own money and sales; especially since they were making significantly more money than they were making working for the government.

I had a few questions about the video but mostly about the choices that people made.  When Che Guevera died, Fidel Castro completely changed around the economic system of cuba to match that of the Soviet Union and of Communist China.  This is understandable, since the USSR and China were trying to spread communism to as many parts of the world as possible.  But didn't Cuba realize that these systems were failing and that switching to this economic type would only ruin the country?  Or were they left out of all of the russian secrets until the very end?  Who knows.