Raul Castro's daughter granted US visa

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro has been granted a US visa to attend an academic conference in San Francisco and another event, one of her associates confirmed Thursday.

The decision has already drawn fire from Cuban American politicians and on anti-Castro blogs, which argue that she is an apologist for the communist government her family has led for decades.

Mariela Castro is a noted advocate of gay rights as the head of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education, and has been pushing for the island to legalize gay marriage for years. She said recently that her father supports her efforts, despite his unwillingness to say so publicly.

Castro received a visa from the US state department and will chair a panel on the politics of sexual diversity at a gathering in San Francisco next week organized by the Latin American Studies Association, an official at her institute told the Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/17/raul-castro-cuba-us-visa

[azurnoir]

1. IMO it's time for the US to normalize relations with Cuba

the cold war has be over for more than 20 years

this is good news K&R

[cstanleytech]

3. I agree and there should also be open elections in Cuba

however I suspect neither relations nor elections will happen until after Castro dead.

[Mika]

8. Cuba does have open elections for all of their municipal, provincial, and national assemblies.

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-1997-98-Elections-Arnold-August/dp/0968508405


Been there. Seen it.

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www.smiletrain.org

[cstanleytech]

9. Really? So they have elections to elect the president and other political parties are allowed

and anyone who wants to run may do so and they no longer have to get the approval of the communist party? My they have come a long way then if thats all true.

[Judi Lynn]

10. They've come a long way since the days of US-supported Fulgencio Batista who ended elections. n/t

[Mika]

11. Here's a thread from the old DU (with the usual detractors and slanderers).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x31936

[cstanleytech]

12. Thanks.

Seems that their system has improved though its still got a ways to go but then ours isnt perfect either what with the virtual lockout we have by only having two major parties who do all they can to keep it that way not to mention the corruption of our government by corporations.

[Mika]

14. There are many variants to what are referred to as "democratic" systems.

As it is now, the state and national elected offices in the USA are hardly democratic anymore.
There's a one party system in the USA currently. The money party.
Glad to have opened your eyes to Cuba a tad.
Cheers.


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[Judi Lynn]

15. Thanks for reposting that thread, Mika.Delighted to be able to get it for my own files, finally! n/t

[Submariner]

2. The day Jesse F'ing Helms turned into worm food

is when this Cuba embargo crap should have ended, if not long before that hater's demise.

[magic59]

4. Good for her, I hope she has a pleasant stay

As for the Florida crybabies, the ones that gave us 8 years of Reagon and Bush, they can all take a flying leap.
Why not boycott communist China? Their human rights issues are far worse. But then we can't do that, too much money involved, might destroy our economy, our capitalist society. Guess we better keep picking on little Cuba.

[flamingdem]

5. well put - look at the face of crybaby Marco Rubio

[Judi Lynn]

16. That's so creepy coming from a man who has pretended his parents fled Cuba all this time,

only to be outed when someone took the time to check his real history and learned his parents "fled" from Cuba BEFORE the revolution!

What a typical Republican.

[fascisthunter]

6. stay away from Florida

sorry FL duers.

[jaysunb]

7. Why should this be such a "big" deal ?

They need to get over this vendetta. Sorry, that's just my opinion....

[Bucky]

13. If it wasn't for that damn embargo, Cuba wouldn't be communist today.

A love of Mickey Mouse and Levi Strauss undid Soviet communism. If we'd only been able to sell a lot of cheap crap to Cubans in the 60s and 70s they would've been begging for economic liberalization a generation ago.

[Mika]

17. I would never have bet on that.

Having been there, having family there and all. Cubans kicked out US crony capitalism in 1959. They don't want any part of it again.

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