(((My Fellow Americans))) #107: Martha Bueno & Zach Foster

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

[Music] we have sorely changed [Music] [Applause] [Music] from beautiful myrtleby south carolina you’re watching my fellow americans with your host spike cohen yes yes it’s me it’s me it’s me thank you for joining me tonight keep clapping clap for a free cuba how would we know that you wanted a free cuba if you didn’t keep clapping welcome to my fellow americans i am literally spy cohen and i am incredibly sunburned i don’t know how well that shows but i spent a good bit of the day at the beach and i feel it i don’t know if you can see it but i can feel it uh this is usually when i would go through all of our sponsors uh but unfortunately our guests uh uh have to go straight from this episode to an episode of their own show uh so we’re gonna go ahead and skip that but i am gonna say that this is a muddy waters media production check us out everywhere all social media all podcasting platforms go to anchor dot fm slash muddy waters to listen to leave messages and to donate go to muddywatersmedia.com for all episodes uh go to our store to buy our merchandise if you subscribe to us on youtube be sure to hit the bell i want your phone to explode every single time we go live every time we go live i want to thank you for tuning in be sure to share like comment subscribe bell do all the things fool the algorithm into thinking we’re the most popular thing on the internet right now that’s the most powerful thing you can do the last thing that i want is for you and your closest loved ones to miss out on a roughly hour-long libertarian podcast on a wednesday evening give the gift of spike cohen today kids love it folks i don’t have to tell you what’s been happening over the past few days we’ve been seeing what started as a protest and what looks more and more like an uprising happening in cuba and that leaves us with many different questions how do we get here what are we seeing that’s true or isn’t true what can be done to help or should be done to help um is this you know is this what it looks like or potentially something else and uh who better to answer that than two absolute experts in the field uh with libertarius hispanos uh let me uh introduce our guest first she is incredible she is running for the miami-dade county commissioner she is the daughter of cuban immigrants and she is a very active member of the liberty movement especially in the in south florida area ladies and gentlemen please welcome martha bueno and then he is also uh very well known and also incredible and lovely uh he is also uh the co-founder of libertarius espanol is very active in the liberty movement here in latin america ladies and gentlemen zach foster martha zach thank you so much for coming on oh they can’t hear you hold on i don’t know why they can’t hear you oh good okay say something now can you hear us yes there we go zach say something happens to the best of us yes okay there we are thank you guys so much for coming on before we get started i just i always ask my my guests the first time that they’re on the show uh who are libertarians what is it that brought you to libertarianism was it kind of an aha moment or sort of a gradual evolution over time everyone has their libertarian genesis story let’s hear yours and i guess we’ll start with uh with martha and then we’ll go to uh to zach martha um it was a slow progression i had voted republican and then realized that that was the big mistake and slowly realized somebody told me once i was a libertarian i was like i felt insulted and then i looked it up and i was like maybe yeah could be that’s funny and uh and zach what was your what was your genesis story former republican voter former cons actually took a lot of the principles to heart during the ron paul campaign season 2011 2012. that’s when i made my heaviest project uh progression away from just being a conservative towards being a libertarian over time dr paul’s ideas and his example showed me that uh there’s probably some truth in that old ronald reagan statement the essence of conservatism is libertarianism and also after 2012 election um i saw that the libertarians really were the only one some of those values to heart uh the republican party as an institution i could see even 10 years ago that it was totally screwed and it was no longer the place for me uh folks liked all the wars they did not want to end the fed that was just not a priority folks liked the war on drugs um the whole blue lives matter thing they hadn’t come up with phrase yet but they were very pro cop and anti anybody else even as early as a decade ago so i saw the writing on the wall and i removed my the situation and today most the maga movement is exactly who i predicted 10 years ago that they would be today yeah it’s not like they weren’t signaling it i you know even the things that they supposedly care about like taxes and the debt when they’re in office they spend just as bad as the democrats they tax just as bad as the democrats so we all certainly agree on that but whatever got you here we are certainly happy to have you uh i wish that we were here on more happy uh a more happy conversation to have although this potentially could end up being a happy conversation but um i certainly don’t have to tell the two of you that right now there is some turmoil which appears to be increasing turmoil in uh in cuba and uh before we get into what’s happening there is it possible can you guys talk briefly and and this isn’t really like a strict thing either one of you can talk and it’s more of a conversational thing more so than a strict panel but you know where did how did we get here how did these this current round of protests start or is this something that’s been you know that never really ended from the previous time how did we get here zach do you want to speak on that kettle’s been boiling for a long time the kettle has been boiling for a long time there have been hundred protests in cuba over the last year that we’re aware of uh just most of them are small locally based protests they don’t usually spread this time around there was a critical mass social media had a lot to do with it the fact that cubans have mobile phones and access yeah or encrypted app like whatsapp signal graham and a couple of others uh those things really helped with uh the catalyst but uh overall the two biggest catalysts i don’t know if you guys have ever heard of them uh one is communism and the whole economic system and repression that comes with soviet-style socialism and the other one not sure if you guys have heard of it or not but uh uh kovid and also coveted restrictions kind of a double whammy on one hand you’ve got position of all the resources in the economy in the hands of not only the state but specifically the communist one-party state communist party and then on the other hand so not only is there not enough medications uh not no food people nutritionally are already compromised with their immune systems uh then the virus you know they can’t get ppe hand sanitizer it is very difficult to social distance uh when you’ve got to go to a crowded marketplace try to haggle for your living supplies it is very difficult to socially distance in these latino multi-generational households that you see a lot of in cuba like countries so between the covid and the soviet socialist economy and so repression and covet restrictions like literally uh nine o’clock curfew every night uh because of the pandemic because apparently the virus goes to sleep or the virus wakes up at 9 00 pm there you go so like 8 59 p.m you would see the national revolutionary police coming out of their their little blue light police cars or there would be state security agents and plane closed they would just get off a motorcycle or get out of a vehicle and start whacking people with their night sticks and footage of that started going viral so those were kind of the different catalysts coming from multiple directions and they converged together to make this perfect storm uh that we see going on in cuba and i guess the best word for it is a civil hurricane there is a civil hurricane in cuba right now you can add to that that we also had uh the issue in cuba of um the monetary change so they removed the dollar and now they can only use euros so that obviously made uh more difficult for sorry no i was just saying oh i i’m not talking yet no so yeah the the money situation in cuba um they removed one of the the currencies the dollar and so people are used to receiving remittances from the united states in dollar and they no longer were able to uh all of the stores were now in euros which was a big problem and then on top of that like zach mentioned all these other issues and um there’s just no no food there’s there’s no medicine and uh cuban government refused to take in the vaccines that that they were offered from the international it was just a lot of issues altogether now that’s interesting because i’ve read quite a bit in the last few days about this and i’m not sure that anyone mentioned the fact that they cut off the dollar which as i understand it was the main uh means of trade in in cuba uh especially in in the gray and black markets when did did that happen recently or was that something a few years ago when did that happen that happened at the beginning of the year so we had um they first removed cuba had three different uh monetary different uh monies that you could use it was the cuban one and then the dollar they removed one of the cuban ones and then now they remove the dollar and it has to be the euro that they can use and so you can imagine if you have a whole bunch of family in miami sending you money we’re not exactly able to send you euros and western union also stopped uh servicing the island so between covid and people not being able to actually travel to the island or receive things um you know just it was it really is like zach said the perfect storm what bitcoin is to the us dollar the us dollar is to the cuban peso and the main source of stability in a in a severely impoverished country they lost that and they’ve been getting progressively poor over the last seven months even from what they were at the beginning of the year so the desperation is high because dollars means you can get a gallon of milk dollars means you can get one or two fishes to feed your family for a day or two so the lack of dollars it creates problems for a lot of people so and they also remove the did you say they also removed the cuban pesos and now it’s only the euro that they use no no they had two different uh forms of currency they had um yeah it’s just too cute local the local peso and then there’s the convertible peso because the government wants to put another barrier in between uh the u.s dollar and the cuban people what they a few years ago is they created a convertible peso so instead of just going ba paying for things in us dollars like a lot of people like to do you got to go to a money exchange you got to pay a commission so your dollar will come out to like uh 0.97 cup they kept well you pegged really close to whatever the value the dollar was and so all the things that people previously would buy in dollars they would buy in cup so uh that was another thing that was really difficult for folks um a lot of their groceries used to just be in uh cup which is cool cuban pesos and then uh started a couple years ago a lot of the staple items you could only get with convertibles which is the one that’s pegged to the dollar so even within their own domestic currency people are paying dollar prices uh for crappier less trustworthy currency and top of that they took away the us dollar and then a lot of people who had maybe a few cups saved over they lost the value of that too because that particular currency is discontinued uh and cuba’s had to reevaluate their currency looked at statistics from their central bank i don’t know if they were trustworthy but that they probably inflated the crap out of the new currency in order to be able to cover it of course yeah they’re saying it’s worth something that everyone in the market knows that isn’t worth which is causing even worse economic devastation the same way that the u.s dollar is already a fiat currency and they’re fiating based on a fee right yeah yeah yeah with a with a spiraling economy so one thing that that i i noticed is that i’m always told well you know people say things are so bad in cuba but yet they have universal health care and they have you know the highest literacy rates in the world or in in the americas or in the western hemisphere or whatever metric they’re using and what i’m noticing is that two of the things that i keep being told by corporate us media one of the main things that they’re complaining about is healthcare is is lack of vaccines lack of protective equipment lack of hospital rooms in other words that their health care system is terrible so are is one of you gonna shock me to say that the the cuban uh socialist healthcare system is not what we were told it was the cuban socialist healthcare system is a disaster um and it’s unfortunate if people on the island don’t get the care so when michael moore went to cuba and he said look at these beautiful hospitals that’s like going to cancun to the like a five-star resort and saying mexico is wonderful look at all they have um no cuban hospitals are absolutely terrible and this was before the pandemic and then on top of a pandemic a worldwide pandemic happening the cuban government decided to spend less money on their infrastructure on their hospital they used to spend i think it was about three percent of their gdp on on health care and they decided to cut it down i think it was between one and two percent after that so and that money the money that they spent they actually used it to build new hotels so of course in the middle of a worldwide pandemic when people aren’t traveling the cuban government decides to upgrade their their infrastructure on travel and not the cuban people but yes you’re right there’s there’s no hospital beds there’s nowhere for people to go there’s no medicine and then the worldwide community was like hey we’re gonna give you some some vaccines and cuba was like no thanks we’ve got our own the soberanados which is not even out of uh trials um and so uh yeah that’s that’s a pretty bad situation yeah the hospitals are completely collapsed because of the pandemic we’re talking about people packed in sardines people sharing hospital beds uh you know people have to lay a sheet down like on the the crack tile floor because they’re just out of bed you got people all over the stores and into the hallways like sardines we have gotten direct evidence of this uh from our brothers and sisters in the cuban lp um martha’s got reloaders down there we have other means of communication with folks on that island so from all these different angles in diff the island and different stratas of cuban society we are getting the same information that are completely collapsed a lot of the people are screaming for vaccines people have been vaccines for several months now also let me qualify uh vaccinations your body your choice right well these folks have bought into what the science conventional science is saying they have made their choice uh they believe that they would be stronger and physically better off having this vaccine that they would have a chance to survive this pandemic because their own government and its completely centralized not just socialized but completely centralized healthcare system does not have the ability to care for them they are very desperate the hospital system is collapsed yeah this isn’t just uh uh single-payer health care this is government right this is like the va but for everybody in the comments yeah yeah it’s a va for all uh victoria donatis says they don’t feed the people in the hospitals either if you’re hospitalized you have to make sure you have family come to feed you while you’re bedridden which means of course that the virus is spreading even worse because there’s people going in who aren’t sick already and yeah that’s lovely um so uh you also have a lot of people going hungry in the hospital bed if their relatives have been arrested or but it’s just do not have food because a lot of people aren’t dead they just do not have food anymore and again other other governments a bunch of ngos that have nothing to do with politicology have made multiple overtures hey let us in we have a whole bunch of food and a whole bunch of medicine that we can give and just like the old soviet government just like north korea it is all politics and they say no thank you we have everything under control there is no pandemic crisis only 1 500 cubans have died in the pandemic which is hilariously laughable yeah so it’s it’s politics above all they’re not willing to admit there’s a problem so however many people have to die which is that’s the story of state communism right it starts to fail other people say hey would you like some help and they go no this glorious revolution is working great and meanwhile people are dying left and right what if anything would either of you say makes this current protest or uprising or whatever you consider it different from the other ones or is it different is it just that we’re paying more attention or is this something that’s happening is this is this you know people say it’s happening is is this happening or is it a little bit of media hype this is yeah this is happening we don’t know if they’re going to lose but this one is significantly different from all the rest the protesters have never taken it this far before we’re talking about people these cars uh after they deployed the police and the military to start firing on protesters with live ammo around the country different people in different neighborhoods uh started uh basically storming different government buildings storming police stations uh in most of these cases the regime you know sent reinforcements to take these places back but the regime is growing weaker and weaker they’ve already had to uh [ __ ] a bunch of their troops from occupation duty in venezuela to come back to cuba to repress the cuban people and protect the castro’s regime and in addition to that uh there’s rumors nicholas maduro has already offered to send venice troops to cuba we don’t know if the cubans are going to need them um i don’t think there’s going to be a real venezuelans in cuba there’s a lot of even soldiers in venice who are dressed in venezuelan military uniforms just like there’s other cubans in nicaragua where they were nicaraguan uniforms because right they learned from the pr disasters that were the iraq and afghanistan wars of abu ghraib i just look at the the way more benign photos of like you know some 19 year old uh pfc like who’s never been out of youngstown ohio before and now he’s doing a search of iraqi female civilians uh all of those things look really bad in pictures so uh in order to go do their thing in other latin american countries the cubans will wear the host country are the host regimes military uniform and they actually have dialect training so that they learn how to speak in that country’s dialect to hide this information there is a fabulous report that anybody could look for and download it’s called cubezuela chronicle of intervention and it is about how the castro regime militarily conquered venezuela using uh political methods um and other unconventional methods what we would call fourth generation warfare uh mixing military action with civilian action do you guys remember when uh the russians were invading crimea there was the little green men that were saying oh we’re the crimean self-defense force yeah and then after they start storming places all over eastern ukraine you see mobs of civilians charging military bases and they got no weapons they’re just charging military bases and taking them over while the little green men stand like a hundred yards back and watch um very to what the the cubans have done there except they’ve definitely ratched and they’re at the point now where they have to bring home their colonial occupation duty troops to repress people on the island the regime is in that danger of collapsing and uh for today for example the vice minister of the interior ministry uh which is like their their version of homeland security uh so the secret police state security that’s all part of the interior ministry the number two guy in that department resigned today um out of conscience because he does not agree with the regime’s hyper-violent response to these protests and we’re talking about a guy who has played the game for years he played the good kami good castriesta good revolutionary game and finally he’s done because this is the first time in many many years that the regime has deployed not just the police against civilian protesters but the infantry so this is completely different than what we’ve seen before this or at least in in our in our time i mean this is they’re bringing back their forces that have been doing you know expeditionary and occupational stuff in other countries you have top level officials uh that are are are going away i can’t help but think the fact that you know in the past it was always the castro regime regime first with fidel in them for a few years with with raul and now it’s miguel diaz-canel who i actually had to look up to know who even was the president i can’t help but think that’s at least somewhat and maybe i’m wrong but is is that not possibly someone spurring up people saying you know we’re not even fighting the i realize raul castro is the president of the of the cuban communist party but this sort of idea of like it’s already crumbling we’re just oh we just have to give it a final push i don’t think it has anything to do with miguel diaz being the person that is running running the country um i think it has more to do with again this perfect storm of what happened and then on top of that cubans have been fearful of their their government because of course they they all they’ve known is that their government will beat them and take them and put them in prison camps and do all these horrible things to them but finally the hunger and the pain that they’re feeling is so intense that they’re like we’re done we’re done we are not even scared and that was one of the chants we saw um in the first protest the first day they were saying we’re not scared and so that was beautiful to watch i have to say finally after 62 years the cuban people decided we’re we’re done with this we we don’t want to keep going down this path and um a big role in that was was social media most cubans have now some access to the internet and to social media and so they are were able to see um what’s going on around the island which is something that had not happened before they didn’t get access to the internet until december of 2018 where cell phones were really uh starting to reach the island and so that is the big difference that’s why we’re actually seeing it take shape now and become a real thing and that’s why i think most cubans are um you know i have to say it’s it’s half like elated we’re excited that what’s gonna happen and then scared um himself said that uh he sent the troops to fight back so he’s basically declaring a civil war in the country so this unelected president is declaring a civil war um and directing the troops to fight against people in cuba that have no means no way to protect themselves yeah it’s a civil war where side is armed let me make it absolutely clear for the listeners the continuity of power in this regime it is still the casper regime if raul castro is palpatine diaz canel is snoke palpatine is not a big chair but he is still very much of all the evil crap that’s going on in the galaxy so diaz canel is the guy who’s filling the chair right now and he probably will for another 10 years if the regime does not fall meanwhile raul castro’s grandson and raul castro’s son-in-law are in the cat and raul castro has been working on purging fidel’s descendants from the party so that his descendant was in control so diaz canel is the guy who’s in the chair right now but it is still the caster regime and raul castro retired in the same sense that don ko retired became michael’s consigliere right so this is not just the castro regime it’s the raoul castro regime where he’s even purging of the of the fidel castro regime to make it clear this is the road okay so this cuba is what 90 miles away from the u.s from its closest point in the u.s this is a country that is nearer to us than all but a handful of countries um and we also have a very sizable uh cuban american population here uh and so for that and many other reasons even more so than other countries that have you know similar uprisings we feel a connection i hear over and over again including from libertarians who we are not known for being interventionists hearing over and over again there has to be something we can do and i i think i i would imagine that we all agree that you know a pentagon u.s military intervention you know a la baya pigs ask afghanistan iraq iran yemen syria libya egypt uh um you know um tunisia all these other countries how that goes uh but it feels like there there needs to be something that can be done and the things i think of off the top of my head are number one stop punishing cubans who are trying to escape the castro regime to come here that that not only should we be i mean we’ve we’ve or we the government has gotten rid of the so-called wet foot dry foot policy i think at this point they need to just completely scrap everything and say if you come over here during this as a cuban then you’re you know automatically uh assumed to be an acai lee unless uh unless we can prove you guilty of something um i also think that and we can talk more about this in a bit that uh there are a lot of ways in which direct trade with the cuban people could help um and also uh i think that there is because i hear a lot of people who they’re not saying the government should go do something they’re saying i wish i could help i wish i could send something i wish i could go over there i think the government should be getting rid of any of the so-called neutrality bans or neutrality laws that make it illegal for an american citizen to go and help uh intervene or or or or liberate or be involved in in a conflict in another area again not the government getting involved simply allowing people to choose to do that if they wish what are some things that you believe that we can do uh what if anything do you think that the us government should be doing or not doing and then what if anything do you think would help that the american people can do as as individuals and as a as a collective that we can be doing to help yeah so i’m sorry to cut you off there at the end so first and foremost i think that the what the us government can do is remove proclamation uh 6867 which prohibits people americans from going into cuban water so we can’t even go to cuba now that has to be the most um just insane thing even when the hong kong protests were happening or protests anywhere in the world americans can go we can do whatever we want but not with cuba and so that right there is just cruel and inhumane and um you know cubans here in miami are asking the government to do something and biden hasn’t even really paid any attention to it and then you have republicans on one side that are saying we want full intervention uh the mayor of miami just said that he would he would love you know to keep bombing cuba on the table as if that was even something that we’d consider i mean where are we gonna bomb we’re gonna bomb our own people and so the republicans are back and forth democrats are nowhere to be found and meanwhile you know myself as a cuban i have to sit here and watch as my own family is being shot at and and being hurt and and all these things and there’s nothing i can do i can’t even send them food there’s nothing i can do it is such a horrible situation because even if you know let’s just say i wanted to go there and i risked my life to get there the moment i stepped back on foot on american soil i mean i i risk prosecution what this is such a cruel policy i don’t understand uh why the united states really decided to just tie our hands and say you know what too bad watch from a distance yeah yeah exactly can what what types of policies or or just actions by individual americans do you think would help in this situation if anything well right now there are thousands of boats around harbors in florida and a few other harbors around the gulf states primarily cubans who but also a lot of americans from other ethnic groups who feel some kind of personal connection to the cause a lot of these folks who live in the southeast they have cuban buddies they have cuban co-workers and a couple of cuban girls when they were going to florida international university you know the list goes on oh anglo-americans americans even americans and cuban immigrants uh have been co-existing for 150 years uh if not more so right now as i said there are thousands of boats votes that are forming a huge armada of humanitarian aid it is a civilian armada of humanitarian aid a lot of them are still they’re still docked uh florida harbors others are anchored just outside of cuban international waters right now there’s like a big old ring around the island right now of boats with not weapons but food and medicine and they’re just circling or they’re anchored and they’re waiting for the green light not from the cuban government but from uncle sam to say we’re not gonna stop you uh because everybody knows where they’re gonna go everybody in one of those boats knows where the hell their relatives are on that island and how to get there uh there are over a million uh cubans living inside the united states um and and i don’t even know how many of them were born in cuba how many of them were born here but over a million people yeah there are a lot of united states who for ethnic reasons have a direct tie to what’s going on only 90 miles away from from south florida um it would be one thing uh if this was another country that we had no connection to whatsoever um but this is something where a lot of american citizens already have connections so we’re not out americans intervening in the affairs of another country talking about family members doing whatever they can to save the lives of their blood relatives primarily from starvation or from illness from the pandemic but more immediately at the moment from the bullets of the security forces yeah yeah we’re we’re talking about individuals who are choosing to provide humanitarian aid or if it reaches a point to help along in the fight as opposed to the military-industrial complex using this as an excuse to profit by billions and you know create yet another long-term occupation and all of that it’s it’s two completely different things i i’ll tell you part of the reason why we reached out to have you two on is because i don’t trust american corporate media on the left or right side i don’t trust cnn i don’t trust fox especially when it comes to foreign policy stuff because there are so many people running a multi-trillion dollar industry around shaping what we think about people in foreign countries especially when it comes to conflict and war that i just don’t trust them i’ve never for a second thought that the castro regime is a good thing but i’ve always been careful to not fully fall you know i remember i mean the saddam hussein regime was a terrible regime but i remember falling for the propaganda back when i was in neocon that there were all these iraqis there that were just waiting for us to bomb the crap out of them so that they could welcome us as as as liberators and that just it wasn’t true um and so you know i know that that’s the wrong thing but i like you said the government’s simply allowing the american people to help our family and friends in cuba cuba is different than almost any other country it’s similar to like if something happened in canada uh or or something like that or mexico like the the level of ties that we have is on a different level i am as white well right now i’m burning red but i’m as white as anglo as it gets like i am the most ashkenazi ashkenazi jew ever and i have just ties that i’ve made with with people in the in the libertarian community in the latin dance community that are are cuban or or half cuban or something like that this feels different because i know people who either live there or who have immediate friends and relatives who live there and it feels different this would be like if something was happening in oregon or in canada or in you know or in texas or something like that um so it’s a completely different thing i do want to talk about one one last thing before because i know you guys got to go soon i want to talk about the embargoes because there’s been all sorts of talk about the embargoes i’ve even weighed in on the embargoes i will say that i believe that the embargo should be lifted if for no other reason than it takes away one of the biggest uh talking points that the cuban regime that the castro regime has oh this is all happening because of the u.s embargoes no it’s no it’s not but if for no other reason than that but from what i have read and you can correct me where i’m wrong while there is some trade between cuba and and and america the fact that they cut off uh the ability to extend credit to uh cuban uh exporters even small exporters and also the fact that um which even is even more important now because they’ve cut off uh the the dollar and the and the in the cup um that in addition to that there are also a number of organizations and organizations adjacent to those organizations that my understanding and you can correct me where i’m wrong my understanding is that it is almost effectively impossible for cuban exporters to be able to trade with the us and vice versa am i wrong on that is there a vibrant trade happening between cuba and the us tell me about this there is complete there is trade between uh cuba and the united states and cuba and brazil mexico china i mean there’s there is trade so i agree with you the only thing that the embargo truly serves at this point is just an excuse for the cuban government to say look they were a failure because of america and all their evil uh you know evil policies and whatnot the embargo started uh at the very beginning of the of the castro regime because uh the fidel castro ended up expropriating american businesses and american money so you know there’s a reason for it and and they’re the moment that they just remove it it’s like saying well you know your possessions your private property doesn’t mean anything the embargo also has as um you know one of the things that they ask for to remove it is human rights violations to cease in cuba uh the ability to have free and fair elections so there are a lot of points to this that are absolutely fair and by removing it we’re just saying well i guess your your rights don’t really matter on the flip side of that like i said there is trade um it only limits some things and it limits the cuban government from getting credit from the united states which considering how much bailout we give to um foreign nations and stuff the moment cuba we extend credit to them and then they don’t pay which is what they do with everyone else american taxpayers are going to end up paying for it so you know it’s funny to hear libertarians especially say we should remove this embargo i mean do you want to give them credit do you want your tax dollars to go to fund this regime is that what you’re saying i i don’t i don’t want tax dollars to fund the regime or to fund bailouts but if they’re i i don’t want there to be a block between a uh a an importer here and an exporter there or vice versa and and we can’t export guns to them that’s like those are the the type of thing and there’s certain ministries uh the the um uh the war like the war industry we can’t trade with with cuba’s um military so there are certain blocks that yes absolutely are real but food medicine most goods that people need you can trade between the united states and cuba that is a complete myth that you cannot yeah we can do business with cuba today in cash which doesn’t mean physically briefcases of cash it means they actually right it means an actual physical actual liquid assets as opposed to credit right yeah also uh you gotta take with a grain of salt a lot of the economic reports that show what cuba’s biggest industries are and who their biggest trading partners are because you see stuff like uh russia venezuela things like that uh that’s all crap uh those industries like yes they really do trade with those countries which ooh you know that that’s obviously a really devastating embargo uh if they’re able to have multiple countries that trade with but a top industry in cuba is remittances from people in florida period or whatever village no no no no one of the top industries in cuba is remittances from americans period we are a resourceful bunch we absolutely um will find ways to send our people money i love it listen i have no problem with that yeah i unfortunately spent between 25 and 50 a month uh on cuba state uh state-owned phone company to get phone credit for our cuban libertarian friends uh and i make that purchase with an american credit card with an american business address and all that stuff and electronically it still goes through directly to cuba so yeah that’s a very devastating embargo they’re getting my money every month now for the last four years well and it’s certainly not about i know it’s referred to as whatever spanish is for the blockchain all you bernie bros i have not obligated the castro regime than you have okay that’s because the whole economy is centralized and and i would like us to support our cuban brothers in putting an end to all that nonsense yeah yeah and i want to say that i’m sorry yeah no don’t go in that the embargo does you know yes the embargo might have some some small fraction of of something that happens with the economy but really cubans can’t fish cubans can’t grow their own food cubans can’t make their own things so that really is the reason why cuba is the way it is not the embargo yeah no and i i illegal small business without a government-approved small business license a very interesting thing when i otherwise will arrest you when i first heard people from from that had come here from cuba describing what they could or could not do i thought this is almost identical to what i hear natives on reservations being told by the bureau of indian affairs what they can and can’t do where they’re and with similar results you know massive amounts of impoverished impoverishment high levels of addiction high levels of overdose high levels of disease much lower life expectancy like literally all the things that happen in cuba and in the native reservations and for the exact same reasons you have a highly centrally planned authority that’s telling you whether or not you can do something and 99 of the time the answer is no or they make you wait forever to find out but if you try to do it without their permission they immediately come in and stop you and and punish you for doing it um now uh i i guess the last thing if we you said so the there are actually members of the libertarian party of miami that are as far as we know currently being held by the castro regime is that correct no not the libertarian part of miami the cuban libertarian party oh i’m sorry i thought i said cuba i apologize so the libertarian party of cuba that are being that are being held by the castro regime yes although there are many libertarians in the northern cuban province of south florida who are very concerned about the situation but yes the ones who are detained are cuban grown libertarians in cuba well we we certainly they’re worse than detained we don’t know where they are they are disappeared yeah we’ve had really radio asylums from our libertarian brothers for the last three days uh the evening of the first protest the first day of protesting was the last that we got news from the havana libertarians and there’s quite a few that’s actually the biggest chapter of all of them what we do know from that sector is that yesterday the specific neighborhood where most of the havana libertarians live which is called arroyo narango uh it went it was flying the proverbial you know what was flying yesterday and the civilians took over another police station but because we’ve had radio silence from the havana libertarians for the last couple of days we have no idea if they were arrested on the first day of protests or if they were caught in one of the sweeps on the second and third day of protests or if any of them participated in the storming of the police station because the regime has cut internet and social media to most places on the island and most of the folks in the libertarian party i’m sorry they just don’t have uh what what it takes to set up a vpn i have to say that i did receive a picture from my family in cuba they had four police officers dedicated to the front of their house all day today so from morning till evening these officers did not move so um you know it’s it’s scary it’s scary for all of us here it is incredibly scary it’s also completely unsustainable for the regime to keep multiple police officers at every household that something is it already looks like something is giving there if you’re saying that there are are civilians taking over uh entire police stations and precincts so i i know that you two have to go and uh i guess i will just to mention we’ve already watched a number of videos uh verified of the security forces breaking the doors into people’s houses and summarily executing people in their houses yeah it’s this is so also one thing uh there’s a list of disappeared persons in cuba uh officially disappeared like confirmed by human rights groups disappeared no word to them one of the individuals on that list is a woman named marisol pena she is from the cuban libertarian party in the province of gamaway her and her husband were both arrested on the 12th not only is marisol totally disappeared nobody has any idea or clue where she is nobody has heard from her no proof of life but the rest of her family has no idea where her child is so her child has also been missing for several days so this is uh everybody who considered themselves a libertarian and anarchist classical liberal paleo libertarian paleocon whatever freaking hyphenation that you want to give yourself even though we allegedly don’t believe in the hyphenation stuff these people they’re us they are our brothers they they do and say and believe the same things that you do and this is what’s happening to them so do you guys want to get embargo tourettes or as free and autonomous individuals do you want to help other free and autonomous individuals from a place of good faith act as individual free people to save their blood relatives and their friends that’s a question for all of you guys ponder it yeah we we talk a lot about fighting the cult of the omnipotent state this is the cult of the omnipotent state actually breaking into people’s homes killing them disappearing them we’re seeing an uprising against that that that’s that’s not does not excuse what happened to uh george floyd ahmad arbory um and and just that the legions and legions of of more victims of police brutality here no of course that said in that country george floyd happens every day yeah and we know this because we have libertarians who tell us this yeah it happens as a matter of policy um i do know that that you both need to go on to your your next thing that you’re recording so i just want to give you a chance to say anything any last words i know we we kind of talked pretty in depth about this but any last words that you want to give before we uh before i send you off on your before i let you guys go to your next thing that the floor is uh is either one of yours or both of yours exactly and proclamation 6867 or at least grant a 48-hour window for non-prosecution i mean come on man at this point the u.s government is a bigger obstacle to cuba’s freedom than the cuban regime just because of that stupid law that’s preventing the one thing that would alleviate their crisis from getting there remember we’re not talking about sending the third marine division to havana we’re talking about let cubans go home and help their families with food and medicine that’s what we’re saying without risking prosecution back here yeah yeah couldn’t have said it better myself that would really be the biggest thing we could do if everybody would just tweet send out an email call your representatives let them know that this proclamation which was not even signed by congress it’s just an executive order uh signed by bill clinton in 1996 so it should be pretty easy to remove if we all did that you know that would be something great for the island this is literally something that joe biden can just repeal without going to congress or anything else it’s an executive order yeah okay well i will certainly we’re going to put up some stuff about that uh and proclamation six eight six seven i knew generally about the order but i didn’t know exactly what it was called so we will certainly do that um martha uh zach thank you again so much for coming on uh again hopefully next time that you come on we’ll have a cheerier subject to talk about maybe we’ll come on to have you come on to talk about the successful uprising and the and the liberation of the cuban people hopefully yeah we’ll let you know free cuba was actually free or if we had to pay for it i’ll let you know i appreciate that thank you both thank you for coming on and enjoy the rest of your day thank you so much have a great night you too well that’s there is no way to talk about that uh to to have a uh funny conversation about that that is what is happening in cuba is absolutely devastating it is um yeah again we know that things like this are happening in other countries we know that things like this are happening in fact in on a massive scale in yemen we know that things like this happen in uh afghanistan right now with the taliban taking over afghanistan and before that with the with the the us-led puppet regime doing what they were doing in afghanistan we know that those things are happening around the world and the people that those things are happening too aren’t any less human or any less deserving of freedom than the cuban people this is closer to where i live than california is i think it’s closer to where i live than new england is um this is close both geographically and uh relationally and ethnically cuba i mean we often joke that cuba’s the 51st state or that you know that the northern uh northern province of of cuba which is in south florida that there is a a direct um tie between the cuban people and the american people and to see this happening uh it’s time for it to end and uh the biggest thing that can be done right now is for joe biden to repeal proclamation six eight six seven so that uh cuban americans and cuban exiles who are here can go back to cuba to help bring supplies and food and help to their family members and loved ones without risking prosecute prosecution back here that’s more important than the embargo that’s more important as zach and martha said that’s it’s actually more important it’s more harmful to the effort of freeing cuba than anything that the castro regime itself is currently capable of doing um this is probably the single biggest thing um and there are probably many other things that can be done too but you know we talk about how can you help you can help by being allowed to help and not being in trouble with the federal government when you come back home this is not sending people to the other side of the planet in iraq or iran or china or mongolia or you know yemen or afghanistan or something like that this is people that can take their boats their you know their personal boats across to to uh to cuba to bring help that’s needed um um look at the the the comments here uh eskimo libertarian uh nalix says i want to help uh jacob labelle um says that they’re they’re americans in the same way that mexicans and canadians are yeah that this is this is the north american caribbean section of the planet this is our this is our sphere of of humanity literally our neighbors and they’ve suffered too long uh 90 miles away from our shores uh desiree elizabeth’s wright says um yeah wait this needs to be i’m gonna be putting something up about this uh either later this evening or tomorrow uh but this is something that needs to be done um and uh i i don’t you know i usually try to find a funny way to parlay into in you know to the next thing but there there isn’t one this is brutal thing that’s happening right now and it has the spark of a potential hopeful uprising to make this be the last time that this happens in cuba at least under the castro regime um but yeah reach out to your reach out to biden reach out to your uh to your senators and congressmen reach out to uh all of your representatives and let them know that you want joe biden to repeal uh proclamation six eight six seven executive order six eight six seven um uh i am because i’m i i am uh uh remiss not to do so uh i am going to uh go over our uh sponsors um because they are our sponsors and uh we are uh you know they pay to have it on but i certainly um we’re not gonna do it in the in the the funny way that we always do it um in fact i’m on the wrong what happens if i switch we’re about to see what happens if i do something there we go all right uh let’s see cumberland cannabisco cumberlandcannabisco.com uh for viable ethical and effective cannabis products in cumberland county uh tennessee uh joe siloski is running for pennsylvania governor if you’d like to help him become the first libertarian governor ever go to joe siloski that’s j-o-e-s-o-s-o-l-o-s-k-i dot com mud water a coffee alternative i drink it myself it’s very effective uh it has masala chai cacao mushrooms turmeric sea salt cinnamon and that’s it go to muddywatersmedia.com mud to purchase them today jack casey has two books the royal green and uh silver throne in silver throne um available at the royalgreen.com he has a third book crowned by gold coming out summer of 2021 um jonathan riels is running for congress but he is not acknowledged as a real candidate yet by the fec but you can help change that uh by helping jonathan reach his five thousand dollar goal by going to jonathan dot cash uh fierce luxury by ashley featuring high-end bags such as hermes and coach and others um and uh if you want to consign something with her you can do so at a 30 fee which is 20 less than typical for online consignment shops fierce luxury by ashley.com adderpan is a scary game that apparent people are into uh it’s available on steam for five dollars if you want to be very very very scared uh be sure to do that uh of course the uh music to this and every the uh intro and outro music to this and every episode of my fellow americans comes from the amazing talented mr joe davey that’s j-o-d-a-v-i check him out on facebook on uh soundcloud go to his bandcamp joedaveymusic.bandcamp.com incredible music just dropped a new album i think it’s like 25 to buy his entire discography go ahead and do that shout out to tehran turks’s mom and him as always uh folks tomorrow night uh is uh the writer’s block with matt wright i’m not sure if we if he knows who his guest is but he hasn’t told me yet if he does uh but be sure to tune into that tomorrow night uh on friday uh go to um right back here for uh cajun and eskimo from bayous to igloos and their show is at 9 30 pm eastern i believe and uh and then this weekend join me in in beautiful tarpon springs florida i’m flying in tomorrow to tampa join me on saturday for the spike cohen and the philosopher range event and reload gun range in tarpon springs go to faux events or pho events p h o e v e n t s dot com uh to for more information and to register for the event i’d love to see you there and go pew pew pew with you uh in florida i will see you there uh and then next uh monday join us for the next episode of uh mr america the bearded truth i know that jason came on briefly uh before i uh i went live to uh take some more hot sauce because he’s uh he said he’d do it and he’s doing it and if you want to help him uh go to uh or if you want to help him and me and matt raise money for a family in need i will put the link uh in the in the comments um five one nine ccc two two hold on let me make sure this is the right one before yeah no it is all right that is the um that’s the the link to for us to help uh this family in need uh matt and jason and i are helping and you can help as well by going to that um and then join us next tuesday uh for the muddy waters of freedom where matt wright and i parse through the week’s events like the sweet little cherubs that we are there will not be an episode of my fellow americans uh next wednesday because next wednesday at around this time i will be one of the opening speakers at freedom fest and then i will be doing uh panels and interviews all through that week so i won’t be able to do an episode of my show but join me next week uh where my guest will be luffine uh of freedom formerly of freedom fiends and uh he is was my first guest uh so we’re gonna we’re gonna see how far along i’ve come as a host to have him back on um so uh folks thanks again for tuning in to this uh to this episode of my fellow americans uh maybe not as fun and entertaining as uh one as as we’ve had in the past but certainly an informative one and an important one so again remember repeal six eight six seven uh let joe biden know that we need to end that and uh i hope that you enjoy the rest of your evening thank you for tuning in i’m spike cohen and you are the power god bless guys [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] the life i’ve lived brings light to kindness all you need is a sign put a cease to the crimes put an ease of the minds like mine sometimes darkness is all i find you know what they say about an eye for a night in a time where the bloody the blood who am i to deny but cry when a loved one dies i recognize that’s my sister mother father brother is [Music] tell me why [Music] a change make a change [Music] you