Effects of the Platt Amendment

Of the reading that I just did, one part really stood out to me as being important, but also strange and ironic.  The section was titled "What were the early years of Cuban independence like and how did the Platt Amendment impact Cuba's political culture?" so it basically explained what the Platt Amendment did to the country of Cuba.

From this and previous readings, I know that the Platt Amendment was initially instated to place limits on Cuba's sovereignty, but also to help guide Cuba in its first steps as its own independent country.  The effect was not the same as the intention.  A few years after gaining their independence, Cuba had turned into a giant political war between the Liberals and the Moderates.  And people IN Cuba were so set on their opinion that they would do anything to get it across.  In fact, both sides asked for American intervention on the other side.  America was basically running the whole country of Cuba, with the political parties as puppets.

The Platt Amendment also gave America the right to control ALL of Cuba's economic things.  Cuba couldn't export or import from another country without the US's approval.

The Platt Amendment REALLY limited Cuba's independence, making their "independence from spain" not quite so exciting.

In addition, it seems that the United States was being kind of hypocritical.  In the US, in order to be president, you have to be BORN in the country.  This is to protect the interests of the people of the country and so that other people from other countries can't tell us what we think.  We then proceed to go into Cuba and completely control their government by appointing somebody that shares the interests of OUR country instead of that of the Cuban People.

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.

The Cuba Reader 1 - Autobiography of a Slave

Today, we were assigned to read the "Autobiography of a Slave" which was one of the only kept pieces of writing from a slave in Cuba.  It was written from the point of view of a slave named Juan Francisco Manzano and told the story of his experience on a sugar plantation in Cuba.  It was a very personal story that focused on many detailes of his life that a person wouldn't normally know just my meeting someone.  Honestly, the names were really hard to follow so I don't really know who is who, but I got the gist of the story and what happened to the main character.

I haven't read too many autobiographies of slaves in my years of school, but of the ones that i have read, this is by far the worst.  (Not worst as in most boring or something, but the slave was treated the worst).  In fact, the writer often skipped parts of the story because they were too violent or unpleasant.  

Now I know that I'm supposed to read this with the mind of a person reading this a long time ago, but the more personal a story is, the harder that is to do.  When I read this, I make a connection with the writer that you don't get in most readings, especially in history class.  It is almost impossible for me to comprehend what it is like to be kept against my will, purposefully hurt, and forced to do things like the things that this man had to.  Part of that, im sure, is attributed to my sheltered life in Lincoln Park and Francis Parker; but also to living in a country where things like this are no longer acceptable.  The writer may tell about how he was hurt, but those things don't mean anything to me because I have nothing to compare it to.  The concept of being beaten for what are truly petty things is so... so inconceivable.  I wanted to talk about that too.  Why are they punished for things like picking a leaf or letting a lantern go out?  What is the significance of this lantern that he keep talking about?  I mean, it's obviously a real lantern and not a metaphor, but why is so much importance placed in it?  I hope we can talk about some of these in class tomorrow.  I'll try to bring them up.

Obama's View on Cuba

On my desktop, CNN.com is my homepage for my web browser.  This gives me the opportunity to learn about things that are happening RIGHT NOW in the world as they are developing.  It also expands my knowledge of total global functionality and the ways that different people and countries interact with each other.  I can usually spend hours just clicking on the stories on the side of the story that I'm currently looking at and seeing where it takes me.  Usually, I end up in a dead end but sometimes it takes me somewhere relevant to what we are talking about in history class.  Recently, I found an article about a conversation between Fidel Castro and Barack Obama.  Well, it wasn't really a conversation so much as it was public announcements about the other person.  Childish public announcements.  Basically, Obama suggested that Cuba make changes in order to "improve bilateral relations" and Fidel responded by calling him stupid.  Just, stupid.  Obama responded by saying that they would be willing to make changes once cuba started actually caring about foreign issues and about its people.  Castro then responded with a quote in a Cuban news paper "How nice!  How intelligent!  So much generosity has failed to let him understand that after 50 years of blockade and crimes against our country, they haven't been able to bow our people."  Which basically means that Fidel thinks that even though America is attacking and secluding Cuba, the people are completely fine.  Neither part of that statement is true.  America has not been attacking Cuba and the Cuban people are NOT fine.  Something needs to happen soon or that whole country is going to fall into an even worse economic depression.  One that they can't get themselves out of.

This argument sounds like something that two ten-year-olds would be fighting about.  It sounds like something that "mom" would have to get in the middle of.  But in reality, there is no "mom" to settle arguments between countries, especially two countries as mature as the USA and Cuba.  And to be honest, I've never seen a political leader make a publicly sarcastic statement about another politician, especially the President of the United States.  I think that, as long as we are on the topic of Cuba, this should definitely be something to be raised in our future conversations.

Cuban Currency

This week, we watched a video/had a discussion on communism in Cuba.  One of the main points of both of these that I forgot to mention was the monetary situation.  Cuba has two currencies - the Peso and the CUC.  The CUC is currently 1:1 with the US dollar, but it fluctuates slightly back and forth.  The Peso is considerably less than the dollar or the CUC.  The problem is that there is a double standard, where anybody that works with the government gets paid in Pesos while anybody that works with tourists gets paid in CUC.  So basically, the jobs that would be regarded as crappy here in America are considered some of the best jobs in Cuba.  Another one of the misleading things about Cuba is the free education.  All education is free starting in kindergarden through grad school - meaning that ANYBODY can get a good education.  But the thing is, that education gets you NOWHERE.  Because professors, teachers, scientists, etc. are all paid by the government, they get paid in Pesos.  So basically, people working in cabs or on the street selling things are getting paid close to 100 times more than a professor or some other government worker.  And when people aren't motivated to go to school and become smart people, the whole country loses... intelligence?

This whole situation means that almost all of cuba's economy is based off of tourism - which is fine.  There are lots of places in the world with their main focus on tourism.  But with cuba, their BIGGEST POSSIBLE CUSTOMER is not allowed to go to their country.  Because American's can't go to Cuba, it cuts off a huge possibility for income from tourism.  That and the fact that only recently can people own private businesses specializing in things that they want instead of what the government wants.  Who wants to go to a place where there are no interesting stores or restaurants or fun things to do?  Nobody.  So Cuba is really in kind of a lose-lose situation here.  They don't have an export so they rely on tourism, but they don't have anything worth touring and their largest tourism contendor isn't going.  I think that SOMETHING should be changed in our relationship in order to help not the GOVERNMENT of Cuba but the PEOPLE of Cuba.  Which is hard considering most of the people ARE the government.  Apparently, Obama made a speech regarding the USA's view on Cuba really recently.  I'm going to research that and write another article soon.

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.