Help Cuba Recover From Hurricane Ike

I was appalled to read this morning that the U.S. offered the Cubans a paltry $100,000 to help with their Ike aftermath. And to send in some damage assessment teams.

The Cubans said no thanks to the money and that they had the damage assessment under control.

But the Cubans politely asked, would you pretty please lift the trade restrictions so that we can buy lumber and other building supplies? And if you could also pretty please sell us some food supplies, on credit, that would also be helpful.

Our benevolent government said no to the Cuban plea.

We've had Cuba under an embargo for decades now. To what purpose? The Soviet Union is gone. Cuba no longer has a communist patron. China is still, supposedly, communist, be we trade with them like maniacs. And China has nukes. And an awful lot of Chinese. Cuba is just a little island that drives around in American cars from the 50s.

Cuba poses no threat to America. America does pose a threat to Cuba.

I think it's time to be good neighbors and even though we don't like our neighbor's way of doing things, they are still our neighbors. And they need help. And if we help our neighbors it is more likely we'll get them to think of us more kindly and be more open to our suggestions as to how they run their house, than if we treat them like the bad neighbors from hell.

Yes, I know the anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Florida would go all ballistic if the U.S. suddenly adopted a more enlightened policy towards our communist neighbor.

But. It's the right thing to do. Any country that gave us Ricky Ricardo, I want to be friends with.

Below is video of what Cuba just went through with Hurricane Ike. I wonder if Cuba will offer to send in a damage assessment team tomorow to Texas? And $100,000.

Abusing Human Rights

Yesterday the United States State Department released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world.

China was chastised for repressing freedom of speech, religion and the press, along with prison torture and forced confessions. Cuba was criticized for prisoner abuse, life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrests and denial of fair trials. Russia was cited for, among a few other things, problematic elections. (See Texas Caucus Debacle)

Was it not Jesus who is reported to have said "let you among me who is without sin cast the first stone."? Did Jesus also not say something like, "don't worry about the sand in your neighbor's eye, worry about the sand in your own eye."?

I don't bring up Jesus and his supposed words due to me being some sort of proselytizer living in the buckle of the bible belt. Rather I bring up the supposed words of Jesus because many in the United States like to think of this nation as being a Christian nation. A Christian nation which somehow tends to sort of ignore basic Christian values. As practiced by the original Christian. That being Jesus.

And so how do we Americans have the gall to go about pointing out other nation's human rights violations? Are we without sin? Have we not as a nation cast the first stone a time or two?

America has more people in jail than any other nation on earth. America has a higher percentage of its people behind bars than any other nation on earth. We execute people. Who are sometimes later proved to be innocent.

In America you can get handcuffed, strip searched and thrown in jail due to a 6 year old $20 bounced check that you had no knowledge of. I really can't imagine Jesus handcuffing and strip searching someone over a 6 year old bounced $20 check. The same thing can happen to you for annoying a prosecutor by calling him an idiotic baboon. Currently, here in Texas, there are thousands of arrest warrants out for citizens who have committed no crime, but instead got in to the system for the most innocent of reasons. Innocent reasons, I say, not crimes. I wrote about this in a posting I called The Soviet State of Texas. It shocked me that such things could occur here in America, where we are the supposed champions of human rights world wide.

Did the State Department cite the United States for violating the human rights of young Americans who were sent to invade a sovereign nation for bogus reasons, where no weapons of mass destruction have been found and where, yesterday, the U.S. admitted there was no tie to Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda?

Was the United States cited by the State Department for the human rights abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad?

Did the State Department cite the United States for the practice of waterboarding?

How about for holding prisoners without charge at a base on an island the State Department did cite as a human rights abuser, the base being Guantanamo Bay and the island being Cuba?

Okay, one thing I'll admit, if I were in China, Cuba or Russia I would be afraid to mouth off about my government's hypocrisy like I'm doing here. That is a good thing. But a better thing would be if my government did not give me so much material with which to point out the absurd hypocrisy of the United State's overbearing and self-righteous chastising of other nations for their supposed human rights abuses.

Let's get ourselves a totally clean American record and then start preaching to the rest of the world. Until then the United States should shut up.

In my humble opinion.