24 April 2007

Florida Spreads its Sunshine

Floridians have many fears these days. There’s Hurricanes, plummeting real state values, taxes and insurance premiums are going through the roof if you’re lucky enough to still have one. Then there’s ………..Cubanophobia.

Yes, the Sunshine State is in the grips of another attack, this time in Tallahassee, our State Capital, geographically, the armpit of the State.

Last month, the US spent God knows how much in taxpayer dollars to conduct a multi-agency drill to prepare for and prevent the mass migration that is feared when Fidel Castro dies. The exercise was called “Vigilant Sentry” and right in the middle of the thing a bunch of Cubans showed up in Halouver Beach, undaunted and undetected.

This must have set off the Panic Alarm so……

Florida lawmakers joined emergency planners and policy wonks Tuesday in contemplating what the eventual death of Fidel Castro would mean to Florida.

Federal Agencies predict that Florida’s idyllic way of life is at stake with as many as …gasp… 8,000 to 10,000 Cuban refugees could make it to South Florida after Castro dies. News Alert: That’s the amount of visas the US gives away every year! And, where do they think these Cubans wind up? Oshkosh?

But analysts at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies estimate that it could be 500,000. 500,000! That’s 4.5% of Cuba’s population. Even if you could cram 5,000 Cubans on the world’s biggest cruise liners, that would be like 100 cruise liners full of people. At 25 per boat, that would be something like 20,000 boats.

With these dire predictions, Florida’s politicians can only come up with ONE solution:

Support a free and democratic Cuba so Cubans wouldn’t have a need to abandon their country?

NO!

But plans to offset that migration center on helping Cuba help Cubans -- by developing more jobs and a better economy in the communist country.



YES! You read that right. Pay off the Castros so that they don’t send their huddled masses yearning to be free over here to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave because we don't freaking want them!
"Many analysts believe the real Cuban change will not happen in Havana," said Jorge Pinon, a senior research associate at the institute. "It will happen in Washington."

Among plans the institute is exploring is the conversion of Cuba's sugar cane fields into ethanol-producing facilities. Such a transition could provide 212,000 jobs for Cubans, Pinon said.
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But hey, we Cubans run US foreign policy. At least that’s what I’m always reading. So our elected Cuban-American politicians will surely have a strong and energetic response to this total betrayal of what America stands for, right?:
And that troubled some of the South Florida lawmakers attending Tuesday's policy briefing.

"How is the U.S. going to give preferential treatment to a country that does not have democracy?" challenged Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami.
Wow he doesn't sound troubled to me more like subdued.
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We already have our Coast Guard circling Castro's island trying to prevent any escapes and once they catch escapees, they send them back on the taxpayer's dime.
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Now they think that by giving the Cuban regime business, that somehow, that's going to better the lives of Cubans? As if Castro and company wanted to better the lives of their captives! As if the reason people risk their lives to make it to the US is only economic.
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Maybe next, they'll fund the building of the Cuba wall, kindda like a Tropical Berlin Wall to keep spics out.
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What Am I Thinking?, This is America, They would never build such a wall.

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