Today that changed. Whilst at my workplace it was business as usual for a while, I was happily ignoring the noise produced by the radio DJ's, they were for the most part (I presume) spouting their usual shite. Then, suddenly, there was one story I couldn't help but become interested in. America is lifting its illegal, petty, and thankfully unsuccessful trade embargo with Cuba.
For a moment I was happy. As you really should be with this kind of news. It surely is a good day for the people of Cuba, no longer shall they be the subjects of unfair, punitive, economic sanctions for daring to seek a path different from the American ideal.
Maybe this is a new America which does not wish to impose its own ideology on every nation in the world, one which doesn't shape its foreign policy exclusively in the terms of its big businesses interests, one that will not attempt to interfere in the running of a populace beyond its own borders.
Then I paused and sighed as I remembered that it was the most powerful of the western capitalist nations and the least likely to live and let live. Much like Britain, France, and pretty much every other imperialist nation from Holland to the new kids on the block in China, America does have a long and continuing track record of manipulating or coercing foreign populations and their 'elites' into situations that further their own agenda.
The extent to which this will happen in Cuba is anyone's guess, but as we know from both current events and history the last remaining superpower does not like having leaders on its doorstep which don't have big businesses, or more specifically American big businesses, best interests at heart.
My main worry is that the free elections which will happen sooner or later, and will be demanded by more than Owen Jones and the other pro-plutocrats, will not be won by a man or woman the people. Rather I see that too being manipulated and warped in favour of a pro-western, free market loving, sycophant. Should it not be the case, could you realistically see any scenario where another election is not forced upon the nation through international political will? I cannot.
I foresee only one outcome for the country, and it is a bleak one. It too will become a budget America. A nation of McDonalds on every corner, of dawn til dusk iPod advertisements, a twenty-four hour Disney channel, huge influxes of aspirational propanganda telling the Cuban people that they too can live the American dream... and within a few generations, a nation of rampant exploitation among the swelling lower classes and a small, burgeoning bourgeois elite, increasingly being marketed both nationally and internationally, as proof that rampant capitalism has the ability to improve everyone's life.
Congratulations Cuba on your impending cultural homogenization. Say hello to the Western Hegemony that will soon be dictating your every action.
Maybe this is a new America which does not wish to impose its own ideology on every nation in the world, one which doesn't shape its foreign policy exclusively in the terms of its big businesses interests, one that will not attempt to interfere in the running of a populace beyond its own borders.
Then I paused and sighed as I remembered that it was the most powerful of the western capitalist nations and the least likely to live and let live. Much like Britain, France, and pretty much every other imperialist nation from Holland to the new kids on the block in China, America does have a long and continuing track record of manipulating or coercing foreign populations and their 'elites' into situations that further their own agenda.
The extent to which this will happen in Cuba is anyone's guess, but as we know from both current events and history the last remaining superpower does not like having leaders on its doorstep which don't have big businesses, or more specifically American big businesses, best interests at heart.
My main worry is that the free elections which will happen sooner or later, and will be demanded by more than Owen Jones and the other pro-plutocrats, will not be won by a man or woman the people. Rather I see that too being manipulated and warped in favour of a pro-western, free market loving, sycophant. Should it not be the case, could you realistically see any scenario where another election is not forced upon the nation through international political will? I cannot.
I foresee only one outcome for the country, and it is a bleak one. It too will become a budget America. A nation of McDonalds on every corner, of dawn til dusk iPod advertisements, a twenty-four hour Disney channel, huge influxes of aspirational propanganda telling the Cuban people that they too can live the American dream... and within a few generations, a nation of rampant exploitation among the swelling lower classes and a small, burgeoning bourgeois elite, increasingly being marketed both nationally and internationally, as proof that rampant capitalism has the ability to improve everyone's life.
Congratulations Cuba on your impending cultural homogenization. Say hello to the Western Hegemony that will soon be dictating your every action.
