Cuba: breaking the psychological blockade on US notions of what’s possible

Cuba: breaking the psychological blockade on US notions of what’s possible

Wyatt Miller, member of the Anti-War Committee, delivered this speech at the Cuba solidarity protest in Minneapolis on 2/27/22

Cuba is a beacon of hope for people in the United States. In every field of life here, we are told that the conditions of this country—our cruel healthcare system; our racist, murderous police forces; our deteriorating working conditions; our absent job security; our public schools that are constantly under budgetary and political attack—are somehow only natural. Cuba shows that not only is another reality possible, it already exists only a few miles from US shores, in a country with deep historical and cultural ties to our own.

That’s why delegations like the ones our friends have just returned from are so important. For those of us who have never been to Cuba, having friends and comrades travel there makes it more real, even if we can’t experience it ourselves. It helps break not only the economic blockade on Cuba, but the psychological blockage this deplorable US system tries impose on our notions of what is possible.

A few days ago, Biden’s top national security advisor on Latin America Juan Gonzalez told Voice of America News that the new sanctions on Russia are deliberately set up to hurt trade with Cuba as well as Venezuela and Nicaragua. After 60 years of blockade this is unconscionable, but moreover this shows why the anti-war movement can’t pick and choose which US wars we oppose. The US government understands best how the wars it wages are all interconnected, and they are using this current period of jingoistic hysteria toward Russia to build support for their attacks on the peoples of Latin America who are standing up.

Here in the belly of the beast, supporting the people of Cuba means opposing all US wars and interventions.

When the people of Cuba are under attack, what do we do? STAND UP FIGHT BACK!