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Conservatives say two members of the “Squad”, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mich.), made a secret visit to Cuba to meet with socialist leaders. I’m furious. I’m not the least bit upset. In fact, I wish we had stayed a little longer. Let me explain why.
Half a century ago, when President Richard Nixon visited China, one of his opponents in Congress argued, “There’s nothing wrong with President Nixon going to China. There’s nothing wrong with him coming back.”
I won’t go that far, and I respect the right of members to fight for their political agendas, no matter how much they disagree. But if they had stayed in Havana a little longer, they might have seen what a socialist “worker’s paradise” was really like and changed their politics as a result.
As domestic border crisis worsens, Progressive House Democratic Party secretly conducts “human rights” trip to Cuba
If they had extended their visit by a week or two and asked to meet with members of the opposition to the duly elected socialist regime, such opposition would be… in prisons… or in cemeteries. It turns out that it doesn’t exist. Cuba’s dictatorial regime never allows opposition members to serve in the government, let alone campaign for public office, or even stay out of prison.
Representatives Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, and Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, visited Cuba but were unable to spend enough time to truly understand the horrors of socialism. (Getty Images)
If they had stayed longer, they might have realized that the living wage policies they are fighting for here in the United States are a sick joke to Cuban workers.
Just 90 miles from Miami, where the entire country (aside from its leaders, of course) lives in dire poverty, the Cuban exiles live in the largest colony the world has ever known. It is the driving force behind entrepreneurship. But you won’t find anyone making anywhere near $15 an hour from one end of Cuba to the other.
If someone in our traveling party became ill while in Cuba, we would have learned just how embarrassingly poor Cuba’s health care system remains. One visit to Havana’s emergency room will make both members grateful for the gold-plated health care they receive as members of Congress.
A longer visit would also allow them to learn more about Cuba’s close ties with China and Russia, along with Iran, which fuels more terrorism and economic turmoil than any other country on earth. It might have been.
If he had had some time in his hotel room, he could have watched the funeral of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who was murdered by Putin’s regime. Because he dared to do what members do every day: express opposition to the country’s political system.
After another week in Havana, members may have lost loved ones, including children, siblings, parents and grandparents. Of course, they could return home whenever they felt like it, unlike Cuban citizens who have been denied the right to travel and have been separated for more than half a century from loved ones they may never see again.
The great Cuban pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez famously secretly left Havana in a small boat and made the perilous 90-mile journey to the American coastline. It essentially took an act of Congress for his father to get permission from the Cuban government to come to the United States to watch his son pitch. Oh, wait, the representatives are members of Congress! Therefore, they could arrange visits to their loved ones whenever they wanted.
With more time on Cuban soil, they might have learned more about how Venezuela’s once proud and successful economy collapsed under the twin forces of socialism and corruption. Socialism sounds great in theory, but when you have the opportunity to see the impact socialism has had on a country with resources and human capital like Venezuela, you start to wonder: Will socialism work everywhere? Become.
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Before Barack Obama became president, when he was a graduate student at Columbia University, he read countless books on socialism. My sense is that, like the two people who recently visited Cuba, he may have started reading any number of books on socialism, but none of the three have finished any of them. I think.
Finally, if the members were so anxious to lead a socialist government, they could have simply stayed in Havana and stood for election there. Their politics were undoubtedly attractive to the leadership and could have guaranteed them election and re-election for as long as they chose to serve.
If they had stayed longer, they might have realized that the living wage policies they are fighting for here in the United States are a sick joke to Cuban workers.
However, there’s just one problem. If members became Cuban citizens to serve in the Cuban government, they would lose the freedom to travel that they take for granted as American citizens. And they, like the rest of the unfortunate souls in Havana’s “worker’s paradise”, will be stranded.
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Of course, they could always try to convey a message to El Duque.
Maybe he could lend them his boat.
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