Cuba

[Casey Jones]

Yeah, like they're doin in Seattle.
Busses only lanes on both sides of what used to be a four lane thoroughfare.
Chop out the center three lanes of what used to be a four lane thoroughfare for the trolley tracks.
And the bicycle lanes on one side (sometimes both sides) of all the other streets making them moar narrow.
And Jersey barriers closing off one of two downhill lanes for the bicyclists so they don't have to compete with cars.
One of the highest car tab and gasoline taxes in the states.
Yeah, REAL helpful…

Not only.

One problem we have with the US rail infrastructure is, it's hard to move...to relocate.

Plant goes up - during WWII. Major steel mill. The site CHOSEN was chosen because it was half a mile from a rail yard and on a trunk line.

For, say, the Delaware Lackawanna & Western railway.

Time moves on. Steelworker unions get militant - and the company that owns the mills is sold to a multinational Globalist concern. It has steel mills in Belgium, mills in India...and in the US.

There is a major difference between operating a plant and BLEEDING it. That is what happens here. Capital improvement stops. Maintenance is limited to what cannot be deferred. Meantime, the smirking lower-management gives the union goons all they demand. HOORAY!

AND....the DL&W railroad is merged; and then the Erie-Lackawanna bankrupted, forced into a much larger corporate ownership, Conrail. And in the course of a decade, the DL&W lines are ripped out. The plant has to either maintain an access industrial spur, or ship by truck.

Meantime, a new technology - mini-mills, with electric furnaces. Going up everywhere. The old mill cannot be revamped.

The owning company, a subsidiary of Big Global Steel, is bankrupted. And all the rail lines, including the ones that remained and connected to the industrial spur...are now "not cost effective." And are abandoned.

Building new rail lines to the new mini-mills is often not possible - over a million dollars a mile, AFTER the land is bought. So Big Rail just cedes that business.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. I just described the last years of Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna plant, their last.

The same applies to streetcars/LRT. The fashionable, desirable neighborhoods NOW, are likely to be filled with hominoid dross in 20 years. God, I've seen THIS - both in Cleveland and Houston.

In Cleveland, the city built the Red Line heavy-rail commuter line, electrified, to take the place of the Cleveland Streetcar Company, when it closed in 1950. It ran from the Windermere neighborhood in East Cleveland, to the West Park neighborhood, with plans to extend to the airport.

It did make the airport. But no one living in Windermere goes to the airport, except to work as a custodian or porter.

And no airline passengers would take the dangerous trip. Anyway, they come from far outside Cleveland.

There is not the money to re-route the rail system. GCRTA did explore buying the old Nickel Plate mainline through town to run gas-powered railcars - and played with the idea with a demonstration project in 1985. Even if the county got the rail line for free, the cost of operation, people, training, rail dispatch, maintenance, was far more than they could even raise off UMTA in Washington. Even though they love choo-choos in the UMTA.

It makes no sense. Buses work far better.

But the imbeciles in government, are not only not very bright, they're of arrested development. Still want to be playing with toy trains.

 

[Cigarlover]

The Embassy of the United States of America in Havana (Spanish: Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América, La Habana) is the United States of America's diplomatic mission in Cuba. On January 3, 1961, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower severed relations following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_States,_Havana#cite_note-1"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a> In 1977, U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Cuban leader Fidel Castro signed an Interests Sections Agreement that permitted each government to operate from its former embassy in Havana and Washington D.C., which were called Interests Sections; they were prohibited from flying their respective flags. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Raúl Castro and U.S. president Barack Obama restored full diplomatic connections on July 20, 2015.

Thank you. I did not know that.

 

[searcher]

Donald Trump says US will take over Cuba 'almost immediately'​

President Donald Trump said Friday during remarks in Florida that the United States would take over Cuba “almost immediately,” suggesting an aircraft carrier could be positioned offshore after the conflict in Iran.

The comments came the same day Trump signed an executive order significantly expanding U.S. sanctions on the Cuban government and its affiliates.

Cuba’s government, foreign companies doing business on the island and U.S. allies in the region could face heightened pressure amid a sharp escalation in rhetoric and economic penalties.

Newsweek has contacted the White House for clarity on what Trump meant.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...most-immediately/ar-AA22dLdI?ocid=socialshare

 

[Lancers32]

Looks like Trump wants everything West of Europe and East of China.

 

[Cigarlover]

The peace President thats been taken over by the neocons.

Yea lets go after Cuba, the one country thats invaded absolutely 0 other countries in the last 60 years. Well, more than 1 but they have nothing to fight with. Probably dont even have fuel for the 1 mig they own. LOL.

 

[Cigarlover]

There was an agreement for the US to never invade Cuba if they gave up Russian missiles. Never formalized but up until now it was adhered to by the US.

Never trust the US in any negotiations. Not once in it's history has it ever adhered to any treaty or agreement.

Did the US agree to never invade Cuba again? - Mike Gravel

Did the US Agree to Never Invade Cuba Again? The question of whether the US pledged to never invade Cuba is complex. While there isn’t a formally ratified treaty explicitly forbidding an invasion, a specific, informal agreement was reached during the Cuban Missile Crisis that did involve such...

www.mikegravel.org

 

[Casey Jones]

Looks like Trump wants everything West of Europe and East of China.

End-stage growth of a failing empire.

What it is, is the Ruling Elite Class's denial of reality - that things are crashing down.

 

[nickndfl]

Cuba should be opened up. As far as owning any damage caused by the USA, it's a reasonable tradeoff. The majority of the people have poor living standards and nothing to lose.

It would cause Miami to boom even more and turn into the economic engine of Latin America. There would be billions of dollars invested into Cuba and it could be another country that could ultimately buy our treasuries.

 

[Casey Jones]

Cuba should be opened up. As far as owning any damage caused by the USA, it's a reasonable tradeoff. The majority of the people have poor living standards and nothing to lose.

It would cause Miami to boom even more and turn into the economic engine of Latin America. There would be billions of dollars invested into Cuba and it could be another country that could ultimately buy our treasuries.

It is not our possession or our property.

At some point, the fate of Cubans depends on Cubans. We can't impose "democracy" - how many neoliberal Nation-Building exercises do we need to fail at, to grasp that?

 

[searcher]

Just a thought by why not come to some kind of deal / treaty with Cuba where any and all sanctions are lifted, normal trading is begun, travel between the U.S. and Cuba is normalized & mayhaps help them financially in return for intelligence & military installations on the isle? Could be a win - win.

 

[Casey Jones]

Just a thought by why not come to some kind of deal / treaty with Cuba where any and all sanctions are lifted, normal trading is begun, travel between the U.S. and Cuba is normalized & mayhaps help them financially in return for intelligence & military installations on the isle? Could be a win - win.

That would require rational, sane, intelligent government and officials.

Have we any of that, of those?

 

[nickndfl]

The Cuban government like many or most in Latin America is corrupt. Even more than the USA. The USA should approach Cuba like the Marshal Plan after WWII (eleven).

 

[Fatrat]

Cuba should be opened up. As far as owning any damage caused by the USA, it's a reasonable tradeoff. The majority of the people have poor living standards and nothing to lose.

It would cause Miami to boom even more and turn into the economic engine of Latin America. There would be billions of dollars invested into Cuba and it could be another country that could ultimately buy our treasuries.

Ahhh, don't look now, but you just described most Caribbean countries. I cruised a few and most were poverty stricken messes.

 

[Fatrat]

Besides, the Mafia still thinks it should own Cuba.

 

[Casey Jones]

Besides, the Mafia still thinks it should own Cuba.

Would it hurt to let them keep on thinking that? Cuba run by the Mafia, was a fun, desirable resort area. Yes, even the Cubans benefited - not as much as the Families, but they had good jobs and many, good lives.

Side note: One historian I heard, discussing the current collapse of Las Vegas...delved into its history. I knew much of it - a railroad tank town, always something happening as the trains came in, the crews went to their dorms or looked for a brothel. Twenty-four-hour lunch counters. Plenty of card rooms and faro games - neither legal nor illegal; Vegas was wide-open.

But that's all it was. A railroad crew-change and watering point.

Until Cuba fell to Castro. I forget the name, of the first Mafia don who opened The Sands, on what became The Strip...but the aim was, to recreate Havana. Las Vegas was chosen because there was almost nothing there, including legal oversight. What government there was, was open to "dipping the beak" - getting a cut in the action.

So, starting with nothing but a vague idea, and an agreement that Las Vegas would be a neutral town for all the Mafia families...they built. And they wanted the public to accept it, so, in addition to the private games and accommodation for the high-rollers, they had restaurants and buffets operating below cost. They had rooms for the Little People, at about cost. Laws remained loose - there was vice law, it was only enforced if things got to egregious. Keep it on the down-low, and all the hooking, all the rigged games, all the rolling of belligerent drunks, could go on apace.

And even as Vegas got cleaned up of the Mob money in the late 1960s, the new gaming companies used what had been, as their model. They wanted a clean show, but they wanted to keep the attraction. Typically, a corporation would be the owner of each casino - like Caesar's Gaming, or Circus-Circus Hospitality.

Steve Wynn launched the mega-casino model, and in answer, corporations merged to where now there's only IIRC, two. They own all the major casinos. Own the BUSINESSES - they sold the land and structures, to REITs. Which makes a difference, because now the operating corporations have no incentive to continuously upgrade facilities. Just run things into the ground - and cook the books to make the quarterly reports look good.

That is what's happening now.

If Vegas got re-Mafia-ized, it would be its salvation.

 

[Lancers32]

Bugsy Siegel I think with the support of Murder Inc.