The problem with cults of personality is that they obscure institutional politics and collective consensus. The problem of transforming former President Trump into some sort of demon prince of all that is evil in the United States (at least according to his enemies and the political class to which they owe fidelity;As the Trump Administration Fades into the Shadows of History (and Myth) Lessons Left Unlearned) is that it also creates a false perception an equivalence of personal and policy evil. And so it was with great relief among Mr. Trump's enemies that they greeted his defeat in November 2020. This was especially so with respect to what this caste assumed would be a return to the policies of the prior administration with respect to Cuba. The idea appeared to be that there would be some sort of return to the "normal" the baseline of which was set by the Obama administration. That was a view shared in equal measure by both the policy elite in the U.S. and the leadership in Cuba. And it was in anticipation of these reactionary movements that both groups took steps that indicated a re-positioning to take advantage of the anticipated changes.
But of course, those expectations were based on false assumptions grounded in equally erroneous premises tied to the manifestations of a politics of cults of personality. That this reactionary movement has not occurred with the triumph of the Biden Administration has caused people no end of angst. No more no than with the 14 May 2021 announcement by Secretary of State Blinken that continued to list Cuba among countries "not cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts." This continues the policy of the Trump administration and in this case one made almost at the end of Mr. Trump's term of office.
The Cuban were incensed of course. And the American influencers were confused. Not that the decision was wrong on its merits; but that the decision "did not compute" on the basis of the assumptions created by the web of meaning built around the former president (and by reference to his policies) and the current office holder (by reference to his service in the Obama administration and the inclinations of those who manage the political party that made his victory possible). And thrown into the mix is the further development of the issue of sonic weapons attacks against US personnel which is gathering strength among influential sectors of vanguard groups in the US (eg HERE).
Indeed, here one has a very interesting case of the way that ideology shapes not just perception but meaning. In the context it also suggests the way that such meaning shaping also disciplines its implementation--suppressing actions that go against the reality perceptions around which decisions are supposed to be made. Wat makes it most interesting is the way that these webs of meaning that effectively obliterate the individual agency of decision makers by presupposing the way that decisions ought to go. In a sense, one can eliminate human personality (in the case of Biden) or funnel everything through human personality (in the case of Trump) to come up with expected and thus acceptable decisions. It is only one small step from this to the substitution of predictive analytics (incorporating these meaning making assumptions) for human decision making in politic, and the substitution of algorithms for democratic mass action to produce the human body required to fill the physical space reserved for them within institutions which they then minister but no longer lead. One gets a very good sense of the workings of the way that ideology guides perception and strategically builds narrative that may produce ideologically compelling but otherewise questionable narrative, by the recent turn in the development of a consensus narrative in the West about the possibility that COVID-9 was leaked out of the virology lab in Wuhan. The point isn't whether the narrative is right or wrong but rather of the way that ideology imbues facts with meaning that may make them meaningless except for ideological solidarity (for a great analysis in that context see HERE; compare also the press narrative of Mr Trump's assertions in 2020 (here) with those of Mr Biden (here).
The excellent reporting by Marc Frank for Reuters (Cuba says it is surprised and irritated by new U.S. terrorism charge) follows
Cuba says it is surprised and irritated by new U.S. terrorism charge
Marc Frank
Cuba charged on Tuesday that the Biden administration has continued the policies of former U.S. President Donald Trump against Havana with a decision to maintain a Trump-era determination that it is not fully cooperating in the fight against terrorism.
“I hereby determine and certify to the Congress that the following countries are not cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a brief note, which listed Cuba along with Iran, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Syria and Venezuela.
The note was signed by Blinken on May 14 but was not released until Tuesday.
“The slander is surprising and irritating as are the application of Trump's policy and his 243 sanctions,” the Communist-run country’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, tweeted.
Asked to explain the U.S. decision, a U.S. State Department representative said on Tuesday: "In making the annual determination on ‘not cooperating fully,’ we undertake a review of a country's overall level of cooperation in our efforts to fight terrorism.”
The State Department representative added the decision was made under a “separate statutory authority” than the one for state sponsors of terrorism.
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, vowed during his campaign to reverse some of Republican Trump's Cuba measures that “have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.”
He was vice president when former President Barack Obama agreed to a historic detente with then Cuban President Raul Castro. Trump, after taking office in 2017, re-imposed many of the restrictions on Cuba business and travel that Obama had eased or lifted.
Those who supported detente on and off the Caribbean island had high hopes Biden would quickly reverse Trump’s policy, but his administration has said a shift in policy toward Cuba is not among its top foreign priorities.
Calling human rights a core pillar of U.S. Cuba policy, a senior White House official told Reuters this month that Biden remains committed to promises of loosening the flow of remittances from Cuban Americans and easing restrictions on family travel to the island. But the official declined to say when such moves might happen. read more
Trump designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism just before leaving office, a designation the Biden administration says it is reviewing. Trump set the stage for putting Havana on the U.S. blacklist when in May 2020 he placed it back on the list of countries that do not cooperate fully with U.S. efforts to counter terrorism.
"This is odd since Cuba is already on the state supporter of terrorism list, which is obviously a more severe designation than non-cooperating," said William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University in Washington, referring to Blinken's note. He added the listing only restricted arms sales and had to be renewed by May 15.
Nevertheless, numerous experts said it was one more signal that Biden was not Obama when it comes to Cuba.
“Biden has been largely inactive and silent on Cuba policy, indicating a lack of shift away from Trump's posture," said Andrew Zimbalist, a Cuba expert at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
“To my knowledge, this is the first proactive policy step and, hence, appears to be a harbinger of a non-return to Obama's engagement,” he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment