Is America Sorry

President Apology

Adopting the same pragmatic policies they once slammed Nixon and Reagan for, lefties praise a new era of safety and peace, if only we relax and enjoy the dictators so we can be safe. I note that this is after telling us that hanging with dictators caused 9/11. I would have thought that post 9/11, the safety of the United States isn't the just the point. Demonstrating solidarity with people oppressed by these dictators is. Never-the-less, I am puzzled by President Obama's simultaneous desire to apologize for American policies in Latin America, while at the same time he blocked the trade initiatives that could have made genuine amends. He has taken the United States firmly out of the liberation business, into the abandonment of trade business and calls that an improvement of human rights. Such pragmatism, of course, is cloaked by the incessant reminders of how sorry I should be.

President Obama Receives Anti-USA Book From Dictator Chavez.

I Should Be Sorry Too

If I were to listen to the left wing, I should should bow in humble sorrow before poor old Fidel Castro. Poor old, grandfatherly Fidel! How arrogant that we Americans ever question that Fidel would have so many people in prison. They were guilty for the obvious crimes of acts against the powers of the state, illicit association, disrespect of the Commander in Chief, being a Jehovah's Witness, or defaming Heros and Martyrs (citation)? I should hate George Bush for the POW camp at Guantonimo, but I should love Fidel despite the fact that his entire country is a POW camp.

Party for the People, Presidents for Life.

And I should apologize, too, for having asked Hugo Chavez to support free speech. And I should apologize for asking where the vote is. It was wrong to believe that the people of Venezuala would want to have any other President but Chavez. I should never mention that best American President and policy for Hugo Chavez was George Bush and $100/bbl oil, as opposed to Barrack Obama's $40/bbl. I should feel ashamed that Venezualan budget crunch, might force that other socialist hero, Daniel Ortega, to seek help from his Iranian friends.

Daniel Ortega Visits the Ayatollah

I Should Ignore American Values

I should join the American lefty in his overestimation the nobility of the Latin American leftist. I won't ask "Where is the middle class in Cuba, Venezuala or Nicarauga?" I won't point out there is none; that, those countries have two classes, very wealthy friends of the dictator, and the poor. I won't ask for a date as to when the socialist revolution will elevate everyone to the same wealth as Fidel or Hugo. I will respect the supporters of these dictatorships as they spin poverty into nobility. I will ignore the overall gut wrenching backwardness of these people and focus on a few token improvements, such as cuban doctors. These advocates are sadly like the battered wives who defend their violent husbands by pointing out that the blows are not so severe when the dishes have no spots. I will support their self destruction.

I make peace with the lefty and will forget about individual rights, freedom of speech, and other values enshrined in our own bill of rights. The USA has its own revolution it seeks to share. I will ignore people sitting in jails in Latin America for the exertion of natural rights that the American Left takes for granted. The third world lefties, unlike their jet flying multimillionaire faux progressive Americans and Europeans, spend their days evading police, nursing broken limbs, clawing a simple word of hope into a jail cell wall. I will join the President as turns his back on them, and send a clear message that America is on the side of the most brutal.

For this is the Democratic Agenda: We claim to appease the world, suspend our faith in freedom. Standing up for freedom, they say, is an ideological mistake made post 9/11. It's time to be practical again. We will be nice, and suppress our sense of justice in the name of popularity among tyrants, and the already unkept promises of our own safety.

But We Should Not Make Real Amends

This appeasement carries with it no penance. For all of these sins, all of the wrongs of the United States, all of the suspension of disbelief, the not too surprising result is that the Democrats don't actually want to do anything that would improve the lives of Latin Americans. I'll overlook the fact that Latin America tends to shoot itself in the foot by continually nationalizing foreign investments. And, while I am against trade imbalances it seems to me that Latin America might deserve more American trade largesse than the Chinese. It wouldn't take a lot of trade to actually make a material difference to Latin America. The fact is, there is no better way to uplift Latin American workers than billions of American consumer dollars to create millions of jobs throughout the region. Perhaps American trade might be restructured so that the lion's share of imports come from Latin America rather than Asia. This would go far to stem the rising tide of violence and lawlessness in the region, and, offers the benefit that overland trade on our side of the world is intrinsically more secure than trade by sea.

President Obama offers nothing.

What amends did President Obama offer to the people of Guatemala? The USA's support of some brutal actions by the United Fruit Company leave an ugly legacy, but, President Obama opposed a free trade agreement with Guatemala.

What amends did President Obama offer to the people of Chile? The United States is widely rumoured to have assasinated their head of state, Salvadore Allende, and supported a dictatorship there in his place. President Obama, as a Senator, opposed free trade with Chile.

If President Obama wanted to make amends for the US support of the Contras, might he have offered a unilateral trade concession to Nicauragua? Allow them to export some small amount of goods to the USA as a show of faith? No, he did not even do that.

The great spin of our day is that, while President Obama talks about how the US involvement in Latin America should not be reduced to purely military interventions, it was President Bush that worked to lift up the continent through trade. President Obama has closed that door, and for that, no amount of apologies will replace the good will trade engenders. No amount of foreign aid will replace the self sufficiency and hard earned cash trade might have earned.