American businesses preparing to flood Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

American businesses preparing to flood Cuba
Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EST January 27, 2015

MIAMI — American diplomats completed their first high-level meetings with their Cuban counterparts in Havana last week. Now come the suits.

A wave of U.S. business leaders are preparing to flood the island to explore new opportunities and to learn about a market that has been largely closed for 50 years.

As part of the deal between President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro to normalize relations, the two sides agreed to open new trade channels for farming equipment, construction materials and a wide variety of other resources for Cuba's emerging private entrepreneurs.

That interest has been so intense that membership in the United States Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, a group of businesses that want to increase trade to the island, has doubled to 50 in the month following the announcement.

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/01/27/cuba-american-business-trips/22362883/

[Demeter]

1. I hope they find no markets there

for their cheap Chinese crap in oversized Walmart big box stores and their GMO food and their bankster financing.

So what would be left? The indoctrination- based educational supplies? Big trucks with monster wheels?

Cuba doesn't need or want to become a little USA, or even another Puerto Rico.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. US retirement community is what I see. Businesses will cater to tourists and expats

initially. Both Cubans entrepreneurs and American investors will reap the profits. Manufacturing and agricultural sectors should follow that will help more ordinary Cubans. But I am not sure how wonderful it is either.

[FrodosPet]

3. So we should keep the embargo?

Every time I point out the severe destitution and decay in Cuba, I am told it is because of the embargo. But now that there are signs of the embargo being lifted, Castro supporters are in a panic. It's like "OMG, we can't blame the problems of state control crushing the economy on the U.S. anymore!"

So, other than everyone wearing ushankas or berets while quoting Marx and Trotsky, what should the United States do in relation to Cuba?

[Judi Lynn]

4. Pity you don't communicate with people who go to Cuba.

There are innumerable stories which have been related by Cuba travelers, starting YEARS ago about tourists they've met from other countries, like Canada, etc. who have told them over and over that travelers absolutely DREAD the day the US will open the floodgates and Cuba gets overrun by U.S. interests.

Many have mentioned they have gone there precisely to see Cuba before the US Americans destroy it.

Has absolutely nothing whatsoever with "Castro supporters," as anyone sober would grasp. These people are tourists, not "commie lovers."

Maybe there's a conservative site where people welcome lunatic right-wing name-callers and hate mongers would enjoy your compulsion.

[FrodosPet]

5. I got banned on my first and only post at FreeRepublic!

If your information and opinions are superior to mine, why are you afraid of me and trying to shut me up?

I may be wrong, but I did not realize that having questions and concerns about socialism and the draconian measures historically used by socialists in power to stifle dissent made one a "lunatic right-wing name-caller and hate monger".

And when I start talking about marriage rights, universal health care, maintaining public education, ending the prohibition on cannabis, preserving a woman's right to control her body, distributed private ownership of economic resources (particularly in minority communities), and going hard after financial fraud, the right wing really doesn't care to associate with me.

So even if I don't pass the purity test...even if I am currently supporting Hillary Clinton for President...I think this is the best place for me.

BTW...I've seen the expression Sandinista and Chavista used so often, I did not realize Castroista would be considered name calling.

[Marksman_91]

6. It's funny how hardcore leftists are going crazy over this whole US-Cuba approximation

When it comes to supporting it, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. So when the US doesn't lift the embargo, it's "BOO! US is EVIL! They're keeping the Cuban economy from developing," and then the embargo seems like it might be coming to an end, it's "BOO! US businesses will turn Cuba into a capitalist dream!"

[Judi Lynn]

8. Cuba has already BEEN a "capitalist dream."

That's when the poor didn't have a chance to go to school, could kiss their own asses goodbye if they got sick, since they had no way to afford doctors, and many, many of the poor had intestinal parasites, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no running water, etc., etc., etc.

The people who did just fine were the elitist Spanish, and US citizens working for US-based companies, like United Fruit, owned originally by the Rockefeller family, and eventually became "Chiquita Banana."

If you wanted to use your spare time in a way which would really help you, it would be tremendous if you started doing the homework needed to get the real picture of Cuba's history, and the U.S. control of that history all these long, LONG years. You, too, could have a clue about what has really happened if you only bothered to spend your own energy looking for the only answers that matter.

[Marksman_91]

9. So what's your take on this then?

Do you think allowing American businesses to operate in Cuba again will bring back the Batista years (which I agree weren't kind to the Cuban people as well)? Or do you think it'll allow the Cuban people live more prosperously?

[Judi Lynn]

11. One American business which operated freely was the U.S. American Mafia.

They ran the nightclubs, casinos, hotels, and other establishments much farther down the ugly line, and turned Havana into a true cesspool. The U.S. Navy started using Havana as a Rest and Recreation spot for its sailors who needed to go ashore for leave.

The people of the Revolution went into the streets, and emptied out their vice-dens, piling up their equipment in the streets, and setting it all on fire.

The Revolution threw OUT the U.S. Mafia, the corrupt, brutal government, the death squads which had stalked Cuban citizens through the streets, kidnapped them, tortured them, killed many of them, threw out their bodies in the streets, hung them from street lights, or cut their bodies into large pieces and hung them from trees.

[center]

Mothers of murdered young Cubans marching in Santiago de Cuba





Sone of the Santiago de Cuba mothers getting hosed down by Batista's national police.[/center]
The right-wing is putting its hopes on the possibility they will be able to find enough people in high places who would love to get bribed handsomely for helping US interests steal back the island and their homeland.

[Oele]

17. Judy, do you think the embargo should stay in place then?

To protect the Cuban people from US businesses?

[Marksman_91]

22. Still waiting for a clear and concise answer

Do you support the idea of allowing American businesses to trade and operate in Cuba? Or do you prefer the embargo stays in place?

[Bacchus4.0]

20. I am guessing, since they won't explain, that it would involve trade but without US business

interests operating too much in the island. Not sure how Cuba is going to raise funds to purchase what they need, or what they would export to bring in revenue if no foreign investment in the island itself.

[Judi Lynn]

7. You didn't realize?You're unaware that attempting to claim posters are commie-lovers is name-calling

?????

It's been going on since the '50's, at least. Right-wing hate mongers have tried to destroy U.S. citizens by trying to tie them to what they perceive to be "commies" of various strains, hoping to be able to degrade their image in the minds of human beings. It's an attempt to whistle to their fellow fascists to join their assault upon their target.

Dog whistling. Who doesn't recognize that a mile away?

We've all heard it forever. It can't be explained away, or misrepresented. It is what it is.

It's a right-wing thing.

[FrodosPet]

10. When have I used the term "commie lovers?"

I concede that having a full-time job and other interests prevents me from being a Cuba expert. I'm doing the best I can to develop a fact-based opinion on what my country should do that best helps both nations.

I used the term Castro supporters, and even Castroistas, to delineate people who specifically support the policies of Fidel and Raul Castro, and of the current Cuban government. Never in my life, online or off, have I ever called anyone a "Commie Lover" or "Pinko" or any other pejorative. It's not my thing.

But you have no problem calling a life-long Democrat a "Right Wing Hate Monger" over a difference of opinion on Cuban socialism. Why is that?

[Judi Lynn]

12. Sulk, if you must. That's fine. We all recognize dog-whistles. n/t

[Zorro]

13. It's no surprise you can recognize a dog whistle

[Judi Lynn]

15. Totally predictable comment from the guy who was deleted for calling DU'er women "old biddies." n/t

[Zorro]

21. I was deleted?

Then how can I still be here? And have been since 2001? Longer than you, newbie?

[Judi Lynn]

32. Your post was deleted. n/t

[polly7]

25. Seriously?

LOL.

I suddenly want to see pictures of this poster.

C'mon Zorro!

[Zorro]

37. Yet another wrong assertion from the LatAm forum's touchy resident pedant

Pretty much par for the course, though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1108&pid=7638

[Bacchus4.0]

19. lol nt

[polly7]

26. 'lol' at 'dog whistle' towards a woman ....... you stay classy now! nt.

[Bacchus4.0]

30. sorry, I didn't realize JL was a woman n/t

[polly7]

24. What's that supposed to mean?

Are you calling Judi Lynn a dog?

I'd be careful ........ you're not showing much more intelligence than that of a comatose slug right here and sound like a misogynist *.

[FrodosPet]

14. If you recognize it, then it is not a dog whistle

This is a dog whistle:

[Judi Lynn]

16. How could you have ever avoided learning what "dog whistle" means in this context?

You couldn't have possible been reading anything at D.U., clearly. The term has been in use for years.

Quick description from Wikipedia, pretending you don't already know:

Dog-whistle politics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only used as a pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for example by empathising with racist or revolutionary attitudes. It is an analogy to a dog whistle, whose high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs, but is inaudible to humans.

The term can be distinguished from "code words" used by hospital staff or other specialist workers, in that dog-whistling is specific to the political realm, and the messaging referred to as the dog-whistle has an understandable meaning for a general audience, rather than being incomprehensible.

Origin and meaning[edit]

United States[edit]

The phrase "states' rights", although literally referring to powers of individual state governments in the United States, was described by David Greenberg in Slate as "code words" for institutionalized segregation and racism.[15] In 1981, former Republican Party strategist Lee Atwater when giving an anonymous interview discussing the GOP's Southern Strategy (see also Lee Atwater on the Southern Strategy) said:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[16][17]

U.S. law professor and author of the book Dog Whistle Politics Ian Haney-López described Ronald Reagan as "blowing a dog whistle" when Reagan told stories about "Cadillac-driving "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps" while campaigning for the presidency.[18][19]

Journalist Craig Unger wrote that President George W. Bush and Karl Rove used coded "dog-whistle" language in political campaigning, delivering one message to the overall electorate while at the same time delivering quite a different message to a targeted evangelical Christian political base.[20] William Safire, in Safire's Political Dictionary, offered the example of Bush's criticism during the 2004 presidential campaign of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision denying the U. S. citizenship of any African American. To most listeners the criticism seemed innocuous, Safire wrote, but "sharp-eared observers" understood the remark to be a pointed reminder that Supreme Court decisions can be reversed, and a signal that, if re-elected, Bush might nominate to the Supreme Court a justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade.[10] This view is echoed in a 2004 Los Angeles Times article by Peter Wallsten.[21]

According to William Safire, the term "dog whistle" in reference to politics may have been derived from its use in the field of opinion polling. Safire quotes Richard Morin, director of polling for The Washington Post, as writing in 1988, "subtle changes in question-wording sometimes produce remarkably different results.... researchers call this the 'Dog Whistle Effect': Respondents hear something in the question that researchers do not," and speculates that campaign workers adapted the phrase from political pollsters.[1]

In her book Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia, academic Amanda Lohrey writes that the goal of the dog-whistle is to appeal to the greatest possible number of electors while alienating the smallest possible number. She uses as an example Australian politicians using broadly-appealing words such as "family" and "values", which have extra resonance for Christians, while avoiding overt Christian moralizing that might be a turn-off for non-Christian voters.[2]

Australian political theorist Robert E. Goodin argues that the problem with dog-whistling is that it undermines democracy, because if voters have different understandings of what they were supporting during a campaign, the fact that they were seeming to support the same thing is "democratically meaningless" and does not give the dog-whistler a policy mandate.

Economist Paul Krugman in The Conscience of a Liberal (2007) extensively discusses the subtle use of dog-whistle political rhetoric by William F. Buckley, Jr., Irving Kristol and Ronald Reagan in building the rightist "movement conservatism".

During the 2008 Democratic primaries, several writers criticized Hillary Clinton's campaign's reliance on code words and innuendo seemingly designed to frame Barack Obama's race as problematic, saying Obama was characterized by the Clinton campaign and its prominent supporters as anti-white due to his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as only able to get black votes, as anti-patriotic, a drug user, possibly a drug seller, and married to an angry, ungrateful black woman.[22] Obama was himself accused of dog-whistling to African-American voters by using a blend of gestures, style and rhetoric, such as fist-bumps and walking with a "street lope," that carefully affirmed and underscored his black identity.[23][page needed]

In 2012, journalist Soledad O'Brien used the phrase 'dog whistle' to describe Tea Party Express representative Amy Kremer's accusation that President Barack Obama 'does not love America'.[24]

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

[Demeter]

18. Give it up, JL. I appreciate the defense, and the need to clean up DU, but

Any post authored by a hobbit-reference name is a troll, and out for my blood. Don't know what attracts him/her/them....but it can't be anything to their credit.

I'd hate to think that somebody's livelihood depends on beating me up on DU. I get enough of that on the condo board.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Their posts always resemble crank calls. Pathetic way to try to waste other people's time, isn't it?

Entirely malignant way to earn a few bucks.

You're right about names saying volumes about the troll. Should be a quick way to recognize who's not worth the effort.

[Judi Lynn]

28. Do take the time to point out the whoppers and half-truths. Put y'r money where is thy pie hole. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

29. New York Times: U.S. Companies Clamor to Do Business in New Cuban Market

U.S. Companies Clamor to Do Business in New Cuban Market
By JULIE CRESWELL
DEC. 18, 2014

PepsiCo wants in. So do Caterpillar and Marriott International.

Within hours of President Obama’s historic move to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba, companies in the United States were already developing strategies to introduce their products and services to a market they have not been in for the better part of 50 years — if ever.

“Cuba is a potential market for John Deere products and services,” Ken Golden, a spokesman for Deere & Company, a leading maker of farm and construction equipment based in Illinois, said by email.

But while there may be robust opportunities for some companies, especially those selling products or goods that could be viewed as enhancing Cuba’s own domestic production or helping to develop its underused resources, other companies could get the cold shoulder.

“For a company like McDonald’s, the Cuban government is going to ask, ‘How does McDonald’s coming in and selling hamburgers help the economy of Cuba?’ ” said Kirby Jones, founder of Alamar Associates, which has advised companies on doing business in Cuba since 1974. “It’s just not going to be like other regions where you see a McDonald’s on every corner.”

Despite Cuba’s long stagnation and isolation from the global economy, the potential trade opportunities go both ways. While some Americans will be itching at the opportunity to obtain the famed Cuban cigars more easily, the country also has a surprisingly robust biotechnology industry that makes a number of vaccines not now available in the United States. Another hot spot for the economy could be mining, as Cuba has one of the largest deposits of nickel in the world.

While United States companies are eager to establish a toehold in the country, many expect former Cuban businessmen and leaders in the rum or sugar industries to lead the charge.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/business/us-businesses-assess-cuba.html

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Nothing but the best for His Highness.

[Bacchus4.0]

31. McDonalds are very popular in Latin America n/t

[FrodosPet]

33. If and when I go to Cuba

I want to go to a locally owned non-chain restaurant serving Caribbean food, not McDonald's or BK or TGI Fridays.

Cuba desperately needs building materials and skilled tradespeople - carpenters, plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc a lot more than it needs Big Macs.

[Bacchus4.0]

34. Me too. Just saying they are popular. KFC too. I eat at local places or regional chains,

not US when traveling. When you can get a $10 dollar plate of seafood that would be $50 in the US, its a crime to eat at a US fast food chain.

[Judi Lynn]

35. They've been wearing these shirts in Cuba for years:

Last edited Thu Jan 29, 2015, 08:19 PM - Edit history (1)

[center]

McShit[/center]

[hack89]

36. Why not let the Cuban people choose?

perhaps they want a Big Mac.