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Things in Cuba have gotten really, really bad. I do believe I\u2019ll be having the honor of taking Cuba. The United States has imposed a punishing full trade embargo on Cuba since \u2014 \u2014 and now the Trump administration is doubling down by putting another embargo on top of that embargo. For months now, the U.S. has blocked fuel imports. Whole Cuba is in a blackout. That has pushed this island of 11 million people to the brink of societal collapse. And it\u2019s on purpose. Jeff. Nice to meet you. That\u2019s me, Jeff Seal, a video journalist and comedian. And when I landed in Cuba few weeks ago, it was as if the United States had turned the lights off of the whole island. I saw grocery stores with empty shelves, pharmacies were running out of medicines, and the President of the United States has only let in one single Russian oil tanker in four months of a fuel embargo. He\u2019s still trying to figure out what to do next. Whether I free it, take it \u2014 I think I could do anything I want with it. Yeah you can\u2019t just \u2014 that\u2019s not how \u2014 \u2014 Anyway, I was there with the Nuestra Am\u00e9rica convoy, bringing 50 tons of medical and school supplies, food, solar panels and battery packs. My dad came in 1970 with the Venceremos Brigade. During the 1970s, hundreds of young Americans circumvented U.S. travel regulations to go to Cuba to harvest sugar cane and experience the Cuban revolution firsthand. Yep, that\u2019s pretty how he explained it, although hopefully I won\u2019t also get an F.B.I. file. Anyway, while in Cuba, I tried to meet as many people as I could to understand what they think about the U.S.-Cuba relationship. I wanted to know: Is Trump actually going to be the one to win over Cuba, or is the embargo still just a total failure? What would your message to Donald Trump be? What would you say? Easing of restrictions does not help the Cuban people. In fact, the project to overthrow the Cuban government started when Donald Trump was still in short pants and Fidel Castro came to power. And you can go to see the memorandum on Lester Mallory. Wait. Who\u2019s Lester Mallory? Well, he\u2019s this stuffed shirt right here. He wrote a classified 1960 memorandum that laid out the policy rationale for the U.S. embargo on Cuba. It said that because Fidel Castro\u2019s Communist government was so popular, the only way to undercut his support was \u201cto bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.\u201d It does seem that the Trump administration is finally bringing this nearly 70-year-old memo to fruition. He wants to be the one to finally achieve what no other president has been able to do \u2014 \u201cAll my life, I\u2019ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba\u201d \u2014 overthrow the Cuban government. I do believe I\u2019ll be having the honor of taking Cuba. Well, some of the Cubans I talked to didn\u2019t think so. It\u2019s my personal opinion: You cannot change the economic trajectory of Cuba, as long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it. It\u2019s a broken, nonfunctional economy. Since Fidel Castro and Che Guevara took power in 1959, the United States government has tried to overthrow a lot of countries, and it doesn\u2019t always work out to our advantage or for the people who live there \u2014 you know, like Vietnam, for instance, or when we toppled the Iranian government in 1953 or this time in Iran, when we \u2014 I don\u2019t \u2014 I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening there. Did we win? But now the U.S. Department of Justice has indicted Ra\u00fal Castro, just like they did to Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela before they kidnapped him \u2014 er, I mean, before they arrested him. Good night. Happy New Year. For over 60 years, no matter how much suffering it\u2019s inflicted on the Cuban people, the United States hasn\u2019t been able to overthrow the government of this small island just 90 miles off its coast. And people like Roberto are very proud of that. There\u2019s four things that the Cuban government has been defending all the time: health for free, education for free, access to free culture, access to sports. Still, I did meet people who wouldn\u2019t mind a closer relationship. I love American people, with a few caveats. What about the American government? No like. No like. No, no, no, no. The relationship between the Cuban people and the United States people has been always good. The problem is there is a small sector of Florida. Ah, Florida, the land of no personal state income tax, most of the Cuban diaspora and my boy, Marco Rubio. There\u2019s no oil blockade on Cuba per se. Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening with Cuba, OK? Venezuelans have decided: We\u2019re not giving you free oil anymore. But many people told me they don\u2019t blame the U.S. embargo for their problems. Cuba block everything here. OK, from who? From U.S.A.? \u2014 Yeah. \u2014 It\u2019s not beginning now. \u2014 It is \u2014 \u2014 \u2014 Yeah, but it\u2019s worse now, no? No, it\u2019s bad, but it\u2019s the blockade inside Cuba. Instead, they blame their own government, currently led by President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel. To be fair, people here have been mad at the Cuban government for very real reasons for a very long time. There\u2019s political repression, economic mismanagement and mass migration off the island. But either way, if the goal of the 1960 memo was disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship, and the current Trump- Rubio Cuba policy is to create unlivable conditions on the island, that appears to be working. But Americans should feel ashamed that our government is punishing a whole population to force regime change. It\u2019s yet another example of the indifferent cruelty of the Trump administration. That doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s going to have an easy time taking Cuba. Taking Cuba. We\u2019re not going to bend our knees. We\u2019re going to hold on. I\u2019m going to fight for our principles and for our country till the end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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