Tom Hayden's Blog, page 23

Ending the Cuba Travel Crisis

[image error]There is an opportunity for President Barack Obama to begin rolling back our Cuba sanctions policy by finding a bank willing to do business with Cuba so that hundreds of thousands of Cubans can spend the holidays with their families. The main reason the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC cannot process visas and passports is because no bank is willing to handle the financial transactions. The reason the banks are afraid is the US sanctions policy and Cuba’s listing on the global terrorism list. So the irrational US policy has come full circle: Obama's policy of expanding and normalizing purposeful travel to Cuba is prevented by Obama's embargo policies. It's an opportunity to begin lifting the embargo, but chances are the administration is too timid, for now, to fully undo its own senseless policy.  

The Assassination, JFK, and Cuba

[image error]When the murder of John F. Kennedy was announced, as my plane to Minneapolis was landing, a young man behind me wearing a Goldwater button leaped up and cheered. He quickly returned to his seat amidst stony silence. I deboarded long enough to make contact with some waiting student contacts, turned around as quickly as possible, flew back to Detroit, and then spent several days huddled with close friends in Ann Arbor. One year before, the Cuban missile crisis had turned life upside down. Now, the assassination became a second unthinkable catastrophe, and once again the subject of Cuba was in the air.

Afghanistan - A Bandaid on America's Defeat

Looks like a victory for Afghanistan in its role as the graveyard of empires.

It appears that the US troop commitment will decline from 105,000 to 6,000-9,000 under the current White House plan, about half the number advocated by the Pentagon. American special forces will continue - at a slower rate - to knock down village doors and drag away suspected terrorists, with immunity from Afghan law. Afghans relish getting jurisdiction over US contractors. While there will be US troops for training and "counterterrorism", Afghanistan will be denied a NATO umbrella of protection. The commitment will last until 2024, though the White House says the American troops will be gone far earlier.  

Speculation on Cuba

When I look up from my immersion in writing this book on Cuba and the US, all the signs point to the second scenario described below, a goal of normalization by the end of President Barack Obama's second term.

Senate May Cave on Egypt Coup

[image error]A behind-the-scenes battle is brewing in Washington over bending a United States’ human rights law "to give the administration some flexibility" in supporting the Egyptian military which is now placing President Mohamad Morsi on trial on capital charges after overthrowing him July 3, 2013. The changes are likely to be debated behind closed doors in the Senate committees on foreign relations and appropriations. "It's all about not breaking US defense contracts and incurring the penalties," says one observer.

Bill de Blasio: Harbinger of a New Populist Left in America

[image error]The overwhelming support of New York City voters for Bill de Blasio is the latest sign of the shift towards a new populist left in America. De Blasio owes his unexpected tailwind to campaigning on issues considered by insiders to be too polarizing for winning politics.

Those Five Blue Spying Eyes

[image error]The Edward Snowden revelations should focus attention on the secret dominance of the Anglosphere, known as the "Five Eyes", of the global surveillance elite - the privileged sharing of secrets between the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These remnants of the British Empire still view the outside world with elitist suspicion. The "outsiders" include Germany's Angela Merkel, Brazil's Dilma Roussef, France, Mexico, Spain and Ireland's Mary Robinson, who was forced out as the UN's human rights commissioner early in the Iraq war, and, of course, Russia, China, southern Europe, and all leaders from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

A Reachable Shore: US-Cuba Diplomatic Relations

[image error]It may never be announced until it is too late to stop, but the United States and Cuba are moving steadily towards rapprochement by the approximate time that President Barack Obama and the Castro brothers leave power. Whether the goal is achieved depends partly on debates within the Obama administration and whether the Cuban lobby continues its decline.

California's Progressive Leverage

[image error]Governor Jerry Brown is finding California to be an effective Archimedean leverage point in shaping a progressive alternative to a federal system stalemated by the New Civil War. The latest example is a West Coast pact to combat climate change by the governments of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, a region populated by 53 million people with a GDP of $2.8 trillion.

See "The Square" This Week

[image error]No one should miss "The Square", a courageous, stunning documentary that follows real human beings "live" as they go through the 2011 uprising in Cairo's Tahrir Square, without knowing their own fates much less the fate of their revolution. Then, remarkably, once the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, has been overthrown, the same masses rise against his successor, the elected Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamad Morsi. As the film ends, still in real time, the audience will feel as close as possible in the confines of a movie theater to their lives being turned upside down.