5 minutes before this post you were saying it's an embargo, not a blockade. Now it's a 'boycott'. I don't trust people whose arguments constantly shift to meet the rhetorical needs of the moment.

You don't like the Cuban government because they're communists, OK fine. I don't like the American policy of starving people for years on end while making high-minded sermons about the moral imperfections of the Cuban government.

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Manuel_D 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I should have been more explicit that I was using boycott as an analogy to an embargo, in contrast to a blockade which unilaterally prevents countries from trading through military force.

An embargo is analogous to a boycott: you and your friends decide not to shop at a given store. But people who disagree and still want to shop have the ability to do so.

A blockade is like people standing around the store with batons and pepper spray, promising to apprehend anyone who tries to shop at the store.

The latter is obviously a much more forceful move. In fact, it's an act of war.

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kyboren 3 hours ago | parent [-]

But the US also limits their patronage of other businesses whose owners shop at the store. And because the US is such a rich and great customer, while Cuba is broke and their shop has empty shelves, other business owners generally avoid going to CubaMart.

It's not a blockade, and everyone involved is simply exercising their sovereign rights. But it is mildly coercive. Which, obviously, is the whole point.

	▲	Manuel_D 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, but the point is, it's not a blockade. Loads of people are calling it a blockade, and correcting that piece of misinformation is the root of this whole thread. If people want to say that the embargo is coercive and bad, that's fine.

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kyboren 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

OK, then forget the sermons; how 'bout this?

The USA, like all serious countries, seeks to defend and advance its interests. Those interests include the suppression of self-declared enemies like Cuba and Iran, or seeking regime change so they cease being self-declared enemies of the US.

The irony of your claim that the US is starving the Cuban people is that in fact, the US could go that far and it would actually end the enmity from Cuba. But they haven't and they won't. It would harm other interests, possibly engender enmity elsewhere, and outside of total war Americans don't play the game that dirty.

But if people widely believe that's what the US is doing anyway, and they're "doing the time" without having actually having "done the crime", then considering that actually doing it would end the enmity from Cuba, it starts to look awfully attractive to Just Do It. So claiming that they are, when they actually aren't, only makes it more likely that they will.

Anyway, given that both ex-communist states China and Russia have demanded economic reforms from the recalcitrant Cuban regime--which have not been forthcoming--and that food is not embargoed, I think the impoverishment and hunger of the Cuban people can't credibly be blamed on "el bloqueo".

Cuba now imports their sugar--from the US of all places! You really think that it's American policy starving Cubans?