The Cuba Blockade is Firm, Says US Goverment
HAVANA TIMES, March 30 — Turning a deaf ear to the call of Pope Benedict XVI for the US to end its blockade against Cuba, the US government reiterated yesterday that it does not intend to change its policy that has been in place for more than half a century, reported dpa news.
“We’ve been pretty clear about why we are maintaining the embargo,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesperson.
“For too long we have been saying that our policy toward Cuba is centered on improving relations between the US and the Cuban people, and we have taken steps to improve such communication and cooperation,” said Toner.
Those supposed “improvements” aren’t recognized as such by Cuba, which views ??the embargo (or “blockade” as it’s called on the island) as the key form of hostiliy being used by the United States against the island.
Referring to the embargo during his recent three-day stay in Cuba, Pope Benedict said the lack of material resources in Cuba “is aggravated by restrictive economic measures imposed from outside the country, which weigh negatively on the population.”
The most effective thing the Cuban government can do to eliminate the criminal blockade is to refine the Cuban “model” of socialism, to make it into a model that is appealing for socialist transformation in the US and other capitalist countries. This restructuring would allow the transformationary movement in the US to win the masses to socialist consciousness and the transformationary program, and make a complete sea change in the US political situation.
But how would such “refinement” occur? It can only occur if the theoretical leaders of the ruling PCC come to a new understanding as to what constitutes workable–that is, real–socialism.
Real socialism is where the state does not own everything productive. It’s where most significant productive property is owned primarily by those who do the work, and the state only co-owns it partially and silently.
Until the PCC comes to this new political understanding, the US will maintain its blockade because it needs a failed model of state monopoly socialism in order to keep the US population from seeing a viable alternative to the old monopoly capitalist regime.