SANITY RETURNED, AND INSANITY BEGAN THIS WEEK IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

SANITY---For 50 years our  policy towards Cuba hasn’t worked. It’s past time for major changes, even the small ones President Obama set in motion this week. And, as dozens of Kentuckians who have visited Cuba recently would tell you, the Cubans they met will welcome the changes and Americanos there.

They seek our music, our culture, our visitors, our dollars…and our trade.

Therein lies the major rub. The US economic sanctions against Cuba remain…initiated by a hostile Congress years ago and thus outside Presidential pardons. American business has been salivating for years to do business in  Cuba..as all our friends do--Canada, Britain, France, Mexico, etc..and yet, the GOP, the party of business, wants to stop what the President has done, and hold back US businesses from trading there.  Give me a break.

INSANITY---While I recognize the issues of possible censorship raised by North Korea’s apparent hacking of Sony Pictures, as the President outlined..our motion picture industry often censors itself..what was the last picture you saw on corruption in China (the single biggest market for US films outside the USA) for example. These are serious, but so are other issues.

A freshman lawyer on his first case could win millions if Sony released the film, and some local theater had a bombing, or an Aurora, Colorado type shooting. (Remember Aurora?) This is a real concern for Sony, and theater goers!

But, let’s go to the beginning of this film. We are told it’s a satire, though none of us have seen it. The basic idea: two US comics are drafted by the CIA to KILL the new North Korean president. KILL? That’s against the law (though the CIA has violated that law as it has so many others. FUNN-knee? I’m rolling on the floor with laughter.  Helluva premise for a film..a bad premise. See what trouble it has gotten us into.

We don’t even know what policies the new, young guy will pursue. He’s reported to like Western films, music, and whiskey (bourbon?)  He MAY be better than his dad, and yet, without giving him a chance, we want to knock him off? Great foreign policy that.

But---don’t any of our Sony execs, or US foreign policy people remember..the US tried, officially and unsuccessfully  to kill Castro. And when JFK was murdered among the major rumors, for years, was that the Cubans were behind it as retribution. That’s what makes foreign policy  often such a slippery slope. Normally, it’s bad enough..without a quarter-baked idea for a lousy film screwing things up even more.

I'm just sayin'...