Comment to “The useless Cuba embargo” By Jim Ryerson + music video

By Jim Ryerson
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr
(jim [at] travelingman [dot] net)
Oct. 31, 2008

When I started traveling to Cuba ten years ago to make documentary films about the country’s music and culture, I was fairly certain that the embargo and travel ban could not possibly continue. Seeing Europeans and Asians, and our fellow North Americans from Canada and Mexico traveling around the country, enjoying the beaches, and most importantly interacting with the fantastic Cuban people, I felt that surely the time was ripe for change in this most futile of foreign policies. But when the Bush administration came in, with their ties to the most reactionary of the Miami Cubans, the stranglehold on Cuba only got tighter. Now there is potential for realistic change in this failed half century of aggression which only hurts the average Cubans who, remarkably, still think of Americans as their friends.  Those of us who have been fortunate enough to be able to experience that friendship can only hope that other Americans who choose to do so, will also be able to feel the embrace of this remarkable culture. It’s been way too long.

Jim Ryerson is a documentary film producer specializing on Cuba, which he’s visited more than 30 times. He formerly worked as a television news reporter in Los Angeles, and has won numerous national and international awards for his work. His documentary on the U.S. embargo, Looking for Cuba is currently on the film festival circuit, and he has 3 other documentary projects regarding Cuban music, art and culture, currently in editing. You can see clips from our films at http://www.youtube.com/user/tmanjdrjr.

Comment in response to:

The useless Cuba embargo

America’s economic sanctions on Cuba, now 50 years old, are a failure.

Los Angeles Times
October 29, 2008

Among New York’s rites of autumn — the marathon, the rainbow of leaves in Central Park, the sudden profusion of wool overcoats — a new one has emerged at the United Nations. In each of the last 16 years, the General Assembly has voted to condemn the United States for its embargo of Cuba. This year’s ceremonial vote takes place today, and if it’s anything like last year’s, it will be overwhelming. Only Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau stood with the U.S. in the 184-4 tally last October.

Washington doesn’t and shouldn’t design its laws around U.N. opinion, but it’s instructive to learnwhat even this country’s closest allies think of the Cuban embargo. Colombia, one of only a handful of Latin American countries whose government remains firmly pro-U.S., stated in a U.N. report on the issue that it “thinks this kind of action should stop and that member states should move ahead with building relations of friendship.” In the same report, the European Union said that it and its member nations “have been clearly expressing their opposition to the extraterritorial extension of the United States embargo.”

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via The useless Cuba embargo – Los Angeles Times

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Sexto Sentido – Musica Femenina de Cuba.

tmanjdrjr

Live performance by Sexto Sentido (Sixth Sense) a 4 member acappella group filmed in Havana, Cuba. Musica Femenina is the story of the famed “Girl Bands of Cuba”. Filmed over 10 years, the documentary features the performances, and daily lives of these all-women groups Filmed on location in Cuba in digital video, Musica Femenina highlights more than 10 groups and individual performances by some of the “divas” of Cuban music. For investment information please contact jim@travelingman.net.

see

Open the door to Cuba By Jim Ryerson + Carnaval De Cuba (vid)