Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Blog 9: When Someone Says Freedom....
This week I wanted to expand on one of the discussion questions for Chomsky that we did for Professor Stark. One of the first ones that he asked was to compare the definitions of freedom held by the United States and that by Cubans. So I got to thinking. My definition of freedom usually follows along with the rights laid out in our Constitution "freedom of speech", "freedom of press" and the many others that our nation was built upon. And eagles. I always think of eagles. But what I found interesting was that in the book the United States viewed freedom as specifically pertaining to foreign private enterprises. Are they going to have the freedom they need to make a profit? Or will they freedom to trade with whomever they choose? In Cuba however, they defined freedom as no longer being dominated, constricted, and veritably ruled by a foreign country. In this case, the United States. I want to point out the irony of this. As I see it, in the most simplistic way of explaining it possible, our wonderfully free country got mad at and turned the entire world against Cuba because they desired what we had. It's like an argument that would be overheard on an elementary school playground. How can we as a country claim to be based upon people's rights and freedoms when we do not allow others to do the same? How can we start one of the most historical pieces of our time with "We the people," if we show so little compassion for any "people" who are different from us, who have a different definition of freedom? All in all I agree with a lot of your postings considering the lack of education concerning Cuba. I had next to none in high school and absolutely zero before that unless you consider learning its geographical location an education. I almost feel as if the United States has almost censored that part out of our curriculum because I am certainly not impressed. And if that is the case, I'm not sure my definition of freedom really holds up to reality.
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I really liked the point you made here! Everything that we have learned about the relationships between the U.S. and Latin American countries lately have led me to see the U.S. as hypocrites and childish. The government continually made decisions that benefited the rich foreign companies in other countries over doing what is right for the people. No one is allowed to tell the U.S. what to do, but we can go and involve ourselves in everyone else's business.
ReplyDeleteI was really intrigued by your point that the U.S. tried to turn the world against Cuba and practically ignore their existence. I came across this picture yesterday, on twitter of all places, and it made me think of this point. (I can't post the picture in the comment but I'll add it to my blog.) Overall the caption of it is "George Washington Dunking on Communism" and you see China's communist leader being dunked on and Abraham Lincoln boxing out Joseph Stalin in the background. The U.S. classifies Cuba as communist, so why wasn't Fidel Castro put in the picture? The Soviet Union has ended years ago, but Joseph Stalin was in the picture. It just adds the point that American curriculum basically ignores the huge part Cuba plays in recent history.