It's always nice to see America stand on principles

Cuba has been in the news this week, with Castro going in for surgery and relinquishing the duties of government to his brother. Our government has said they won't lift the embargo on Cuba until they go all democratic on us, even if Castro dies. Good to see us standing on principle - we won't do business with a horrible, oppressive Communist regime! Yay, America!

Of course, it's never really black and white. Buried in the back of Sunday's Arizona Republic was this story, which is about the one thing that could get us to lift the embargo: Cuba's oil. Yay, America!

As long as I have been able to think about it I have been against the embargo on Cuba. It doesn't hurt Castro at all, it hurts the people we're supposedly trying to help - the regular folk, it panders to a ridiculously tiny number of people in Miami (who can't be that strong a voting bloc, can they?), and we don't seem to have much of a problem dealing economically with an even worse regime, China, so it's hypocritical. However, I did enjoy, in a perverse fashion, our government's dogged determination to keep the embargo in force, even after the Cold War made it obsolete. But now - they have something we want. Principles be damned!

The thing that bugs me the most about this is that I'm sick of everyone pretending that governments have principles. The people know they don't. The politicians know they don't. I would love to hear an expression of Machiavellian or even Bismarckian policies from a politician - actually, all politicians. People would act shocked, but at least they would know that these politicians are hard-edged realists. This embargo is not about Communism at all. It's about pleasing a small vocal minority who would scream bloody murder if we traded with Cuba. At least acknowledge that!

Anyway, look for the embargo to end in the near future. And listen for the justification. It should be fun.