Politically (in)Correct Destinations - Page 3

xort · #21 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

While you're visiting cuba, don't forget to ask about the hundreds of journalists in jail right now for questioning the castro govt. Nothing like some freedom of the press, or is that freedom from the press? Sounds like castro just needs a "Fairness Doctrine" and he'd avoid all that mess.

I wonder how many people who complain about 'buy american' or boycott walmart also complain about the ban on visiting cuba.

Valiente · #22 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by danjarch

I'm sorry, Valiente that you know longer feel safe coming through America. We're working on that one. Down here in Florida we are losing around 3 billion dollars a year, because of real and perceived visa problems, that foreign travelers are dealing with. There has been a lot of international business conferences held in Europe because not all the corporate officers could get visa's. Hopefully we'll have more of this sorted out before you set off for your trip.

I hope so as well. I'd like to cruise the Cheasapeake and there are a lot of boat gear clearance places in Florida I would like to patronize.

It's not so much about safety as it is about unreasonablie search and seizure and the fact that the first time the **** hits the fan, America's leaders seem willing, even eager, to chuck a lot of "freedom froms" out the window, all in the dubious name of national security. There's also a strong perception among we benighted foreigners that you won't obey international law if it's inconvenient, and that you are happiest when third parties lie back and shut up.

To me, that spells "rogue state". Not in every way, naturally, but in the very ways a foreign sailor approaching U.S. waters needs to heed if he doesn't wish to be molested in or near your water frontiers.

Do I object to being boarded for safety inspections or identity checks? No, of course not. Do I object to drug searches when I dock? Well, a little, but when in Rome...Do I care to hear a single damn word out of a Patriot-powered Coastie on the topic of my possibly sailing to Cuba, with Cuban rum bought legally in Canada and charts to Cuban waters, which is a country with whom, rightly or wrongly, Canada has had diplomatic relations for decades?

Yes, I do. Freedom of movement and all.

Do I want to see U.S.C.G. personnel on my boat in Canadian waters? Only if I'm saving them from a sinking Zodiac, as per the sailor's obligation.

I know these guys (well, mostly guys) have a large and nearly impossible job. But securing America shouldn't involve trampling the rights of its own citizens, and it shouldn't involve harassing foreign-flagged yachts because they might be going to the U.S.'s enemy of the week.

But thanks for your thoughts. I hope that reason (and money) will prevail, and the Coasties will concentrate on LPG tankers more and 40 footers a little less. The former, if exploded in Jersey, would make the Twin Towers look like a brush fire.

Valiente · #23 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by xort

While you're visiting cuba, don't forget to ask about the hundreds of journalists in jail right now for questioning the castro govt.

Give back the Canadian you're holding illegally in Gitmo, or compensate the Canadian you transshipped illegally to your pals in Syria for a year of torture and we'll talk about hundreds of Cuban journalists. Or we could simply talk about the American journalists, military personnel and scientists getting leaned on daily because they aren't with the Bush program.

Obey your own ******* laws and bloated rhetoric, and we'll talk. Meanwhile, I'll read up on the average American supporters of one of your creationist presidential candidates:

http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com...female-sodomy/

I was 3/4s of the way through this before I grasped it wasn't satire, but real opinions held by real political supporters. If that's the typical ignorance prevalent in America, why the hell would I ever want to bring my family there?

danjarch · #24 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

Didn't take long for this thread to become politcal. You might as well speak your peice now CD. I guess if we ever have a big sailnet rally. It will have to be in the middle of the Atlantic or somewhere like it. Either way, conservitive or liberal, I'm going to photoshop you and your little dog Toto too.

sailhog · #25 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

Valiente,
Surely you realize that the blog you posted is not representative of the "typical ignorance" of your American friends here on this forum. We Americans are a stupid and selfish bunch, but so are the citizens of every other nation if you pluck out their Brownback and hold it up as representing the entire country. My point is this: You seem to be promoting the same kind of narrow-mindedness that you're attacking in your post.

Valiente · #26 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailhog

Valiente,
Surely you realize that the blog you posted is not representative of the "typical ignorance" of your American friends here on this forum. We Americans are a stupid and selfish bunch, but so are the citizens of every other nation if you pluck out their Brownback and hold it up as representing the entire country. My point is this: You seem to be promoting the same kind of narrow-mindedness that you're attacking in your post.

Yeah, I know. It's a feeble attempt along the lines of Swift's "A Modest Proposal". And while it's not representative of my American friends here, it's emblematic of a certain type of defiant know-nothingism (an old U.S. political term, I believe) that has taken fairly deep root in your country in recent years. I got involved in an online squabble a few days over the fate of Tammy Faye Messner, whom in the rush to feel sorry for a dying celebrities, seems to have encountered societal amnesia over her vile frauds and culpability in bilking the religiously credulous. Instead, it was as if dying of cancer horribly (an unfortunately common end) somehow wiped that slate clean.

I think my main point (and I keep getting sidetracked) is that the thread was started to highlight various dodgy or politically unpleasant cruising destinations that one might wish to visit, holding one's nose, so to speak. It saddens me greatly that I have to put the U.S. on that sort of mental checklist due to what I consider to be its own political failings. And if that sounds "liberal" or "bleeding heart", rest assured, I would sell barbed wire to a gulag if it paid for boat parts. But I dislike hypocrisy and the "big lies" told the world in the name of "the war on terror", so like the equally phoney "war on drugs". That terror war, as it affects long-range cruising, is a real and ongoing disincentive to visit the United States for some folk, and not just the people who find the current geo-political situation predicated on a ripe line of crap.