[lbo-talk] Al Giordano (Narconews) on Obama's Latina American speech

[John Thornton]

Jeremy D. Roberts wrote:
> Mr. Giordano is a staunch Obama-ite, but still lucid in his analysis...
> http://narconews.com/Issue53/article3110.html
>  
> " ......
> “The Glass Is Half Empty”
> Take those statements from Obama’s address all lined up together and he offered the same tired fare regarding US-Latin America policy as that served up by his predecessors in the White House, offering failed policies, and myth-based rhetoric, doomed to more failure (and replicating more misery, imposition and authoritarianism upon Latin American peoples) over and over and over again.
> And yet…
>  
> “The Glass Is Half Full”
>  
> If the words above replicated and perpetuated some of the most problematic parts of 28 years of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush policy and propaganda toward Latin America, significant and substantive parts of the rest of Obama’s speech broke decisively with other, just as destructive, doctrines.
> Obama’s policy break that the news media focused on most was his repeated vow to ease the US embargo of Cuba, in two ways with which Obama has now driven a stake through the GOP’s dominance of Cuban-American votes in Florida and elsewhere.
> ......"

Doesn't it depend on how the embargo is eased as to whether it is a 
positive or negative?
Expensive personal computers, expensive cars, designer personal good, 
cash etc. that are distributed unevenly are only going to work to 
destabilize Cuba.
I'm pretty sure Obama understands this and I would expect this to be the 
goal of many of those in the US who wish to ease the embargo.
He supports letting Cuban-American's in Florida who actively seek to 
overthrow Cuba's socialist govt. send cash to family and friends in Cuba 
who both desire and work towards that same goal.
Letting the US overtly as well as covertly finance Cuba's right-wing 
opposition is a good thing?
Hardly a glass half-full in any objective lucid analysis.
"driving a stake through the GOP's dominance of Cuban-American votes in 
Florida and elsewhere" counts for what exactly?
Possibly picking up two or three seats in the House?
Well that's certainly a prize worth undermining all of Cuban society to 
gain!

Obama is hardly the first Democrat to call for an easing of the embargo.
This reads like an analysis almost desperate to find something to 
differentiate Obama from other Dems and so inflates extremely minor 
differences in phrases used into something significant.
His "staunch Obama-ite" tendencies are certainly in full view. 
Statements about how Obama has a "penchant for listening to what is 
happening below the radar of outmoded 'conventional wisdom'” when 
compared to Clinton or other politicians sound sophomoric enough one is 
tempted to laugh.
When the author writes "When was the last time – if there ever was one – 
that a US presidential nominee spoke in terms of a “top down” versus 
“bottom up” dialectic regarding democracy in the Americas? That 
listening ear of Obama’s is revealed once again." does he really want a 
list of such instances? Does he really imagine that no other President 
or Presidential hopefully has spoken in the same manner?
This article makes some decent points but the fawning over Obama is 
nauseating. As it would be if a similar article was written about any 
other US politician you care to name.

John Thornton