I what turns out to be the type of journalism that’s been lacking, Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle hammered this former GOP senator for the support of a ridiculous Cuba policy that only hurts Americans. At one time he used the Sarah Palin defense. But there is a reason why a sect of Cubans is forcing Trump to reverse Obama’s opening to Cuba.
Ali Velshi did not let the former senator get away with his support of a silly Cuba policy
Ali Velshi & Stephanie Ruhle hammered Former GOP Senator Mel Martinez on his defense of Trump’s reversal of Obama’s new Cuba policy. It’s real journalism.
Former Senator Mel Martinez appeared on MSNBC in an attempt to defend Donald Trump’s reversal of parts of President Obama’s change to America’s inconsistent and failed Cuba policy. Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle did not allow him to get away with spinning.
I wrote the following when President Obama made the change and the media, and a sect of Cubans started hyperventilating.
Why is it that few ever discuss that exiles that worked with Fulgencio Batista, the ‘overthrown’ president of Cuba, were a part of a sadistic government that pilfered its people? Why is it that very few know that Fulgencio Batista and his cronies left Cuba with millions? Why is it that many are more concerned with the semblance of democracy in Cuba than real democracy? Cuba was not a democracy under Batista, under Fidel Castro, or under his brother Raúl Castro. Cubans suffered and are suffering under them all. Fifty years of bad U. S. policy simply made the pain worse for the average Cuban.
While many times American foreign policy is cloaked in the ‘glory hallelujah’ of democracy and freedom, that is seldom the case. Cuba was a playground for American business and the American mafia. Fulgencio Batista as dictator ensuring less than optimal progress of many classes of his people was in the best interest of those ‘businesses’. Castro fighting for a proletariat was not in their interest.
The America plutocracy has always supported a semblance of democracy at home and dictatorship (well, less than optimal semblances of democracy) abroad. One just need remember Philippines, Panamá, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua, and Haiti just to name a few. Anyone wonders why America had good diplomatic relations with Apartheid South Africa, a country much more brutal than Cuba? President Reagan believed constructive engagement for South Africa was the answer – which, in effect, is the new Obama policy toward Cuba.
Martinez was unable to give a coherent reason for treating Cuba any differently than China, Russia, Turkey, or elsewhere where gross human rights issues abound. It is ironic that he used the Sarah Palin reasoning. This time it wasn’t that he could see Russia from his house but that Cuba is ninety miles away. Velshi and Ruhle, in fact, made it clear that it hurts us more than it hurts Cuba as other countries fill the gap we leave open.