Cuba and North Korea

Van rants righteously on Sony's surrender to North Korean threats.

We should keep in mind that we are talking about the actions of a private company interested, we would think, in profits rather than politics.  Sony is a Japanese multinational corporation, of which Sony Pictures Entertainment is a part.  The movie in question, The Interview, is a Hollywood film with American actors.  Van draws the parallel to Rushdie.  That seems appropriate.  Sony likely figured they could expect no help or support from the American government.  I'm sure that's true.

The Founders saw the role of the federal government as limited, with only a few responsibilities.  Perhaps chief among those would be defending its citizens from foreign threats.  That can be a tough job.  It's much easier to protect the EBT cards of the voting class or to protect our children from education by forcing adoption of Common Core or protect the health care monopolies with Obamacare.

Sony can do what they want.  The movie is probably monumentally stupid anyway.  I certainly wasn't going to go see it.  For all I know, they may have made a deal with the Nork regime just to generate some interest.

UPDATE:  You may say I'm a paranoid, but I'm not the only one.  Others find the whole NK threat scenario questionable.



Then there is Cuba.  We who are old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis find normalization of relations with the Castros disconcerting.  It just doesn't seem right.

Cuba was a Soviet satellite country.  There's no longer a USSR -- theoretically.  Given the economic turmoil in Russia, one suspects that the Cubans are not getting much help from Putin right now.  The timing of the Obama regime's embrace of the Castro regime adds to the unease.  Is Obama seeking to bail out fellow socialist despots?

On the other hand, I'm not sure the embargo makes sense anymore.  It probably should have ended after the Soviet Union collapsed.  I don't think it's comparable to the Berlin Wall (from Too Much Bourbon, Donna), but there are reasonable arguments for normalization.  I'm not terribly upset about it, but I find that I cannot ever trust Obama to be working in the interests of my country.  I remain suspicious.