Paradigm-shift: beaver tail replaces boots but still no cigar...

When George Bush travelled as President of the US, it was not uncommon to see a few boots launched his way. When Barack Obama travels as the US President (he has only one trip under his belt but we can assume that that is only the beginning), he is showered with affection, and can stroll off the beaten-path for a Beaver-tail (a large slab of dough covered in a decadent sauce), and be mobbed by admirers.

Why do we like him so much, and dislike his predecessor so much?

I wrote in an earlier post that he is, simply put, more likable. But he is also, it would seem from this vantage-point, more centered, politically, ideologically and intellectually. He is able to connect with people, all kinds of people, and not only because he is President.

In looking at some of his early decisions, he is trying to set a tone that underscores fairness. However, there are criticisms. In today’s Toronto Star, Thomas Walkom asks if Obama is a closet conservative (see http://www.thestar.com/article/590950). He argues that his policies are not profoundly different from the Bush orientation, although the style and desire for rapprochement with the world certainly are.

Obama has sent envoys out to the far-reaches of the world, including Syria, North Korea, and Pakistan, and that is a good thing

The world wants him to succeed because the world needs the US, not the US with 750 military bases in a hundred countries, the massive armaments-industry that floods the poorest of countries with weapons, the focus on economics over people and so but the US that spurs on innovation, reaches out to people, has the potential to share, and cultivates a vibrant cultural mix that can be as powerful and uplifting as it can be hegemonically debilitating.

I agree with my friend Emery Hyslop-Margison that Obama has already, by his presence, his comportment and his identity, made a significant change. I can see some of this in the way the media reports on issues, in the way that students, including my own, react to him, and in the way that the world has embraced him. Although there is literally an economic melt-down taking place in the US, strangely, a lot of people have hope, and have hope in and for Obama. How and why the crisis reached the proportion it did, and how and why the insanity in Iraq reached the proportion it did, will be left for another day.

The question of whether Obama is able to change the political and economic culture of the US, to make it more humane for its people, will also be left for another day.

I do want to raise an issue that has gone under the radar, between the boots and beaver-tails.

The US, for almost 50 years, has blockaded Cuba. The blockade has included extra-territorial legislation against Canada and all other countries. It is deprived Cubans from pharmaceuticals, 75% of which are developed in the US, food, and trade, not only with the US but with other countries. Cuba poses no threat militarily, it has no proverbial WMDs, it has sent thousands of doctors and teachers around the world, and it is a country that has been a force of goodwill at many levels. Cuba has had to re-build its economy, which saw a staggering 70% disappear over night in 1990. Cuba has brought the world more than baseball, rum, salsa, the Buena Vista Social Club, and sandy beaches. It has also brought humanity, shared it, cultivated it, and richly participated in trying to build a better world. Indeed, Cuba is not perfect but why punish this small island nation for 50 years??????

With all of the aid offered to so many countries, why should Cuba be punished in such a way?

Some fifty years ago, the US-backed dictator Batista fled the country. No Cubans left on the island wanted a return to the gambling, prostitution, racism, and branch-plant mentality that reigned under the US. Cuba negotiated reparations with every country in the world as it nationalized industries. The US would not negotiate. The US mafia-connection in Cuba is well known, and explains, in part, the US foreign-policy position (do a google search and you will come up with quite a variety).

Much could be said but the question is: how can the US continue to hypocritically blockade Cuba when it doesn`t do the same elsewhere?

If Obama believes in engagement, in talking with others, in seeking peace, in respecting nations, in cultivating a more respectable image for the US, will it be possible for him to sit down with Cubans to do so, to end the illegal, criminal, immoral blockade, to remove the US military presence from territorial Cuba in Guantanamo, and to demonstrate that the US can be a force of good?

This is not a trick question, nor is it meant to infer that Cuba is the one and only litmus-test for Obama. It is merely a plea for Cuba to also enjoy the hope and change that Obama has inspired. I, by no means, seek to imply that Cubans are holding their breath, nor that they will not continue to struggle regardless of what happens. My concern is more that Cuba deserves better from the US, and I sincerely hope that Obama will seek the truth when it comes time to review the US policy against Cuba.

We can learn a great deal from Cuba. Americans should not be prevented from travelling there. More of Cuba, as many Canadians know, is not a bad thing. Canada also has work to do but removing the blockade is pivotal clearing the agenda.

Peace

Paul