Hubris

First off, let me apologize to any of my regular readers. Do you really exist? Are you just a figment of my pride? Regardless, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post. I'd like to say it's because I've been so dedicated to work, but really I just have a hard time making myself write. Once I get started, however, it's not too bad. Maybe if I got more comments...

Gadzooks called me "Faust" today. I really wasn't sure that was applicable to me, even though I was tempting him. I was just giving him an invitation to come see Tron at Cinerama next Tuesday instead of going to rugby practice. I realize that he was just calling me a tempting devil, but I still wasn't sure that Faust was appropriate. Faust, you see, is a classical story where an alchemist, possessed of his hubris, makes a deal with the devil. He believes that he has outwitted the devil (never a good bet!), but he ends up coming to a bad end. I wasn't tempting him with my services, I don't think that he would come to a bad end just from seeing Tron, and the only hubris that could possibly be involved is his own estimation of his rugby skills.

Hubris, you see, is fatal pride. Unless the rugby game coming up is against the All Blacks, I don't think that there should be any fatalities; if the game were against the All Blacks, I don't think that one practice is going to save anyone unless we spend the whole time doing Duck and Cover. A much better example of hubris, I think, would be if someone were to assume that they wouldn't get in trouble for going to Cuba. If a US citizen, who is restricted from spending money in Cuba, were to then post pictures of their travels to Cuba, that would just be silly.

Why is there an embargo against Cuba, anyway? Mostly, it's in place because of the nationalization of foreign assets that occurred after the Cuban Revolution in 1960. The biggest losers in this nationalization of foreign assets were the United Fruit Company and ITT, two of the biggest and most corrupt of the American corporations involved in Central and South America. The United Fruit Company had extensive ties to both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and was involved in propping up corrupt dictatorships not just in Cuba, but also in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras. They also helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala, when it looked like they weren't going to continue to support the oppressive policies that allowed United Fruit to stifle competition. ITT was also an aggressively and oppressively monopolistic company with extensive Latin American holdings; they were involved not only in supporting Batista in Cuba, but also in the Pinochet coup in Chile.

Wow. No wonder Castro thinks it's best to continue to give the US the finger! He certainly has a track record of doing that. For example, when Carter said he would accept Cubans who wanted to leave the oppresive political climate of Cuba, Castro promptly sent the US 150,000 criminals. Nice move, Fidel. In fact, Castro has done things like that pretty much every time it looked like the relations between the US and Cuba might be thawing. I personally believe that he must be doing it on purpose, to keep Cuba isolated from the US, so that his personal agenda of revolution and social engineering can proceed without interference from the US. I wonder how long he is going to keep it up; it's been almost 50 years. Is that enough to reshape Cuban society into the image he wants? Will things change significantly under his brother Raul?

In truth things have already changed a lot in Cuba. Foreign investment is rapidly increasing as European companies invest in the tourist industry there. I wonder what it would take for the US to ease it's blockade. According to the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, it would require free and fair elections, movement to a free market economy, and the possibility for opposition political parties. Even if the market controls the government has in place are eased under Fidel's successors, I don't see that happening anytime soon. It seems really strange to me that we're so restricted in our outlook to Cuba, but we don't have a similar outlook towards the oppressive policies of, say, Saudi Arabia.

Oh yeah, they have oil. Wait, guess what! Apparently Cuba recently found a bunch of oil in their territory. I expect a thawing of relations very shortly. I just hope the dollar is still worth something by the time I'm allowed to travel there.