Hey everybody, welcome, here we go. It is that time again,
Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H
five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, also on cong
Pass ninety seven if you're in Manchester, and hello to all of our online
listeners across an Asia and around the globe. You can go to my website
Matt Connerton dot com for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact infolk show archives, etc. Etc. Today is Thursday July thirteen,
twenty twenty three, so nice to have you all with me. By
the way, played a couple couple songs there to open the show today.
We started with bleed Lines, the single from our friends in the band sepsis.
Part of why I played that is they've got a brand new video and
in fact, if you happen to be in Facebook in the chat room,
Jenny shared the link they've just released. Actually it went up last night on
YouTube. The brand new video from sepsis for the song bleed Lines. It's
really cool features the brand new lineup of the band, so I recommend checking
that out. And I really like that song A lot, so I figured
i'd play that today and it's a good excuse to let everybody know about the
new video. And of course I also played don't Cha, a little bit
of garage rock from our friend grim Rock, who joined us yesterday on the
show for the world radio premiere of his new single Don't Cha. He is
from the great state of Pennsylvania and he's by the way, he's been doing
a lot. If he's listening, thank you. He's been doing a lot
for a lot to really kind of promote the show and his appearance on the
show yesterday, and he's got a lot of people talking about it on Twitter,
which is really cool. So we appreciate that very very much. Tomorrow
on the show, we've got a busy show. Tomorrow we have, of
course Eric Pilch's classic film review and this week the subject is National Lampoon's Vacation,
very appropriate of course for the summertime. And then at five pm tomorrow
we're going to be joined by Dave Wally And this is kind of a special
one for me because Dave and I went to high school together and I've always
had a tremendous respect for him. Not only is he a great guy,
but a very talented musician, and so he's got this band, Satellite Union,
really really good. So he's going to be skyping in from Chicago.
That's where Dave is and that's where the band is based. I spent a
lot of time in Chicago as a kid because when I was when I was
a wee lad, a young urchin. Uh, you know, when my
parents split up, my mom ended up moving back to Chicago, where she
where she was from originally, so every summer I would get to spend spend
the summers out there with her. So I know that city pretty well myself.
But oh, I haven't been there in a while, I'll admit,
but it'll be it'll be really cool to talk to day of tomorrow and catch
up with him. So that will be tomorrow on the show. In fact,
I might even, uh, at the top of the hour today,
I might give a little sneak preview of a Satellite Union song. Not one
of the ones that Dave sent me. I'm going to save those for tomorrow.
But there's another Satellite Union song. I found online a video of a
performance from twenty twenty two, and I said, oh, I really like
this, So Melanie says, were you a crip or a blood No,
no, not in not in Chicago, Melanie. You're thinking of back when
I when I was in Compton, you know, Seetown, I was actually
a member of both the Crips and the Bloods. But uh, you know
I was pretty thug. That was a different time, though. Boy.
I'll tell you what if if you knew me back then, you'd be you'd
be afraid. You'd be afraid of me anyway. Uh, six zo three
two five O six ZO seven as a studio line six zo three two five
O six Z seven. I'm never quite sure how to go with that.
That's an old joke. I'm never quite sure how far to go with it.
I don't go as far with it as I used to. Um,
it's different, different times. Six zo three two five six Z seven.
You can also text me at six one seven nine one seven four four seven
six. I'm on social media at Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt
at Matt Connerton dot com. And of course you can interact endo Pine in
the Facebook live chat. But the melody's making me laugh in the chat room.
But the best thing to do so that we can hear and enjoy your
dulcet tones is to give us a call at six zoo three two five zero
six zero seven. Speaking of dulcet tones, we have a little bit of
a mystery um. Usually on Thursday afternoons, we are joined via phone by
our friend EASYG for his entertainment report. However, I realized today that I
haven't heard from him. And usually I hear from him in advance of his
entertainment report because he typically has a song request that he would like me to
play at the end of his entertainment report. It's usually something by either Amanda
McCarthy, Katie Dobbins or April Cushman, one of those three, because those
are the three entertainers he speaks about during his entertainment report. It's really the
it's really more of an Amanda McCarthy, Katie Dobbins, April Cushman report,
to be very precise about it. But I realized today, and I was
saying to Jenny earlier, you know, I haven't heard from I haven't heard
from EASYG. So we'll see if he calls at four fifteen, but I
don't know, and I don't see him in the chat room either, So
hopefully everything's okay. If we don't hear from him, he'd does have I
was. I ran into Kyle Heavy earlier. Of course, Kyle part of
the W M and H family. He ows his own show called Off the
Mark Sports on Sundays from I believe it's ten am to noon. But Kyle
and I were talking earlier, just stob briefly, and I said that Jenny's
saying Eric Agnet, Yes, easyg Eric Agnet. I was saying, you
know, Easy has a He has a little bit of a history of disappearing
for for months at a time. So I don't know. I don't know,
So we'll see, we'll see if we hear from him. But we'll
go ahead and say a load everybody on the Facebook live chat, and we
do have some something to get into. There's a particular a news item that
I think is being somewhat underreported. Shall we say that we're gonna get into
today, But yes, I did mention. Melanie is in the chat room.
And by the way, Melanie, I hope everything is good where you
are. Also, Jay Fed joins us in the chat as well and says,
good afternoon everyone, Good afternoon, j Fed. My thoughts are with
the two of you. Of course you are in Vermont and Vermont areas of
Vermont, I mean the pictures. I'd seen something Melanie had posted on Facebook,
and it's been in the news, of course that the terrible torrential downpours
of rain that left that area flooded. And to see the flooding in mont
Pelier is. I saw one news report that said it's actually worse than when
Hurricane Irene had hit. So it's pretty bad there. So I hope every
hope everything's okay. I hope you're both all right. It sounds like you
are, but boy, hopefully that that water recedes soon. And I did
even hear something about another storm system is moving in, so our thoughts are
with you there and everyone in the great state of Vermont. Jenny of course
is in the chatroom and says shalom peeps, and she did. She did
share a link, like I said, to the new video from Sepsis for
the track bleed Lines, really great great song. Eric Street joins us in
the chat and says, I thought Kyle could be the new entertainment reporter since
he sat at the desk the other day. Ah. Yes, Kyle Clayton
of the morning show. It was great to see him. He hadn't been
on the show in quite some time, but he came in the other day
because we had the try Combs here and he's really close friends with Ian from
the try Combs. And it turns out they had been in a band together
back in the day, which I meant to look up online. I wanted
to find that band, and I there might not be anything available anyway online,
but I am super curious. But DJ Steve is in the Facebook live
chat. Hello. DJ Steve of course joins us Friday Nights for Retro Spectrum
Radio with Paul c every Friday night from eight to eleven pm here on WMNH.
I have the honor and privilege of being one of Paul's co hosts on
that show, along with DJ Steve and of course Mike from Queen City Cabinetry.
Melanie says, Yep, governor is encouraging no one is on the roads
after four pm today risk of flooding and extreme wins. It just saysn't stop,
does it. I'm sorry to hear that. Melanie and Saturn, who
is from of course Greensboro, North Carolina, says, we say good afternoon,
hashtag Matt yesterday hashtag Matt Connerton. We say that new force of the
spark just comment to you yesterday. Alrighty, we are watching you from Greensboro,
North Carolina. I suspect it as much, I have to say.
I did kind of assume that that might be where you are watching us from.
Oh I do see sepsis as is in the Facebook live chat. Hello,
let me give the number again and then we're gonna get into something.
It's obviously EASYG is not called, so I guess he's probably disappeared once again.
Oh, Melanie says, I think a virgin or two should be thrown
into a volcano. You never know. It could work. Um, yes,
um, it could, but we don't know. Is there an active
volcano available to do that? Is? That would be my first question,
just, you know, because we have to approach these things, uh from
a pragmatic and practical standpoint. Oh my god, I just thought of something.
What if something happened with e ZG And Bruce. Maybe that's why I
haven't heard from him. So let me give the studio line again and then
we'll we'll get into uh. Oh, Rondo Favero joins us in the Facebook
lift had all the way from California, She says Callie in the house.
Uh six three two five six z seven is a number six H three two
five six zero seven. That is the studio line. Um, what I
wanted to get into today. And uh I this is one of those things
that it's not that the media is ignoring it. Sometimes when people talk about
things that aren't getting what they feel is a significant amount of attention in the
mainstream media, they'll say, oh, the mainstream media is ignoring this story.
You hear that a lot, and it's like, well, no,
the mainstream media is not ignoring it. I knew about that, and the
reason I knew about it is from the mainstream media. But this is a
particular item that I think is being not covered enough, and I'm a bit
alarmed by by what is happening. And it involves foreign policy. Obviously,
in the times that we live in, when we talk about foreign policy,
the first thing that people think about and discuss is of course Russia and the
invasion of Ukraine and NATO, and it's been a pretty big week on that
front. Of course, the announcement being made at the G seven that Ukraine
will be joining NATO in the future, not until after the current war is
over, you know. So we talk about that, and we talk about
the the decision by the Biden administration to give Ukraine cluster bombs to use,
which is very controversial. They're taking a lot of criticism from that, to
a large degree, from his own party, Biden's own party, the Democrats.
A lot of Democrats are criticizing him for it. I actually agree with
the decision. I think it's necessary to do, but I understand it's,
as we say, it's something upon which reasonable people can disagree. So there's
been a lot of news lately, but there's something that is connected with all
of this that is not getting talked about that much. So again, it
is being reported on. For example, if you go onto the Google and
you type in Cuba, Russia, China, you will in fact find search
results on mainstream media outlets. Oh hello to Dylan Reynolds who joins us in
the Facebook live chat. It's been a great musicians. So you will find
stories. The mainstream media is covering this. But again, you know,
at any given time, there's only so much oxygen. Yeah, because there's
only so much time you have in a newscast and on these shows. And
but you'll notice again I mentioned Russia, China, and Cuba. So we
talk a lot about Russia these days. Obviously when we talk a lot about
China, we're always talking a lot about China. We don't talk much about
Cuba. Now, why is that? Well, just not much to say
about Cuba, right, Well, here's the problem. Actually there is,
and this is the part that I think is being not discussed enough. What's
happening right now with Cuba. And I'm pretty bothered and I'm upset that this
is happening. And I'm going to explain you in some detail in a moment,
but it's these current conditions were avoidable, and there's a significant amount of
blame to go around, and the blame that I will be assigning today for
the current situation, as I see it, will be bipartisan in nature.
I can assure you of that. But the problem is, and if you
saw my post on social media earlier, you might have an idea of where
I'm going with this and why I'm thinking about Cuba. Two things. So,
China has been really cozying up to Cuba, and they seem to be
developing quite a relationship, and China seems to be using Cuba to spy on
the United States, or that seems to be their intention. At least Cuba
not too far. I don't remember offhand how many miles it is off off
of the coast of Florida, but you know, Cuba's not far, not
far at all. Uh. Strategically, if you are an enemy of the
United States, and we have seen this in history, if you are an
enemy of the United States, if you can somehow get yourself set up in
Cuba where you can do things like spy on the United States because of the
close proximity of Cuba where you can spy on the United States, well you're
you're you're in a pretty good position there. That's a that's a good thing
for you to have, right Or if you're in an if you're an enemy
of the United States and you would like to well it's been a long time
since we've used a phrase like this, but if you're an enemy of the
United States and you would like to potentially be able to launch a first strike
in a nuclear standoff on the United States, boy, having some having some
missiles in Cuba would sure media or advantage wouldn't it. Kruschev certainly thought so,
and Kruschev is long gone. But well, we'll get to that.
By the way, though, before I go any further, I want to
alarm anybody. There's no I'm not saying that they're actively putting, once again,
putting nuclear weapons in Cuba to hit the United States. I'm not saying
that. No, no, no, Just to be clear, no,
no one is reporting that, nothing like that. But I'm concerned because so
not only is Cuba getting very cozy with China, but we seem to have
a rekindling of an of an old relationships, shall we say, with Cuba
and Russia, and in fact a navy Russia just sent one of their navy
ships to Cuba, and Russia is helping them out with their oil situation.
Apparently Cuba needs oil, and so we seem to be we seem to be
seeing a great strengthening of that relationship, a restrengthening of that relationship. That's
a big problem. We'll get into more details, but just looking at it
in a broad sense, we don't need our two greatest adversaries in the world,
China and Russia, to be having a strategic relationship with Cuba, the
island that is not far from the coast of Florida. This is a problem.
And again, this is something that I think is going largely unnoticed.
It's not that it's not being reported. Obviously, how did I know about
it if it's not being reported. It is, but I think it's a
bigger problem. I think it's a bigger danger than people might realize. And
I'm a little bit frustrated that it's not getting more attention because I would like
to know what the Biden administration is doing about this, and I'm not getting
any particular impression that they're doing much now in terms of blame, I said,
the blame is bipartisan. Well, here it is. And we'll again
we'll get into some more details about it, but just speaking about it broadly.
So the Obama administration, and we'll go through the timeline in a moment,
but just just broad strokes to start. So, the Obama administration really
tried to sort of normalize relations and really sort of an outreach program with Cuba,
involving, in fact, not without a lot of controversy and criticism,
but President Obama at the time actually going and visiting Cuba. When was that
in twenties, toward the end of his presidency. We'll look at the timeline,
but actually, some really cool pictures that came out of that. Actually,
it was pretty amazing to see President Obama on the streets of Havana or
Havannah, depending on how you say it. How does Urge Overkill say it.
In that song they say sister Havana, I think they say Havanah.
And I supported that. Again, I understood some of the criticism, but
I supported it because I felt that strategically, again, we want to doesn't
mean we have to like them and buy them. I mean, I don't
mean anything against the Cuban people, not at all, not whatsoever. But
it doesn't mean we have to like Castro. Of course, Fidel Castro is
dead and he was replaced by Raoul Castro. And you know, people get
people got very uneasy about images of Obama hanging out with Castro at a baseball
game, and you know, these are things that really bothered some people.
But I felt at the time, from a practical and a pragmatic standpoint,
it made sense and it was probably long overdue, to be honest with you,
and I thought so because the Cuban missile crisis, even though it happened
before I was even alive, which I'm really glad about. I would not
have wanted to live through that because well, we'll get to that, but
but I thought it made sense. Unfortunately, and here's where the blame starts.
After Obama, Trump administration comes in, predictably, they start trying to
undo much of what Obama did. And you know, historically, you see
that that's not that unusual, right when a new president comes in who's a
different party, of a different party than the previous president, they try to
undo a lot of things that the previous president did, so not surprising in
that sense. But one of the things that the Trump administration immediately undid was
most of the if not all, of the progress and goodwill and all of
it that this new relationship that Obama had established with Cuba. They Trump came
in and they basically undid it all. So back to square one there.
And then the Biden administration came in, and I remember at the time thinking,
you know, hopefully they can reset things with Cuba. That would be
wonderful because I thought that what the Obama administration did was very positive. Nope,
the Biden administration came in, and they did actually try to reinstate some
of the Obama era policy, but I'd say overall a pretty meek and meager
attempt at it. I understand coming in they had their hands full with the
pandemic and this and that. But you know, I would kind of think
that once Russia started indicating that they were about to because it wasn't a huge
shock when they invaded Ukraine. It was looking like it was going to happen
months before it did. You know, you would think it might occur to
somebody, Hey, Russia's really getting out of control here. Maybe we need
to make sure that things are stable with Cuba so that the Russians don't try
to try to rekindle that relationship with Cuba because it seems like we're about to
be at odds with Russia. But no, the Biden administration didn't do a
whole hell of a lot in terms of that. So there's plenty of blame
to go around. And some of you might think, Matt, is this
really a big deal. Why are you so concerned about Cuba. You're overreacting,
It's not really a priority. Well, you know, if you know
anything about the Cuban missile crisis. Some people thought that too back in during
the JFK administration, nobody cares about Cuba. What do we care about Cuba?
Yeah, nobody cared about Cuba until there were images aerial photography of the
Russians installing nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba, and all of a sudden,
everybody cared a whole hell of a lot about Cuba. Now, part
of why I might be a little extra sensitive to this is so I wasn't
alive when the Cuban missile crisis happened. And again I'm very glad for that,
because that would have been something frightening to live through. I especially probably
would not have handled it particularly well. Oh hello to Amiriam Banish in the
chat room. I would have been pretty freaked out because I grew up growing
up in the eighties, you know, I grew up with obsession is too
strong a word, but an unhealthy preoccupation, shall we say, with the
threat of nuclear war. I was very worried, and I did let it.
I expended a lot of mental energy on it. I'm worrying about it.
Some of that is human nature. We all tend to worry to varying
degrees about things that we can't control. That was my big thing growing up.
And my dad, who you know, he listens to the show.
I mean, he can attest to that. I remember having conversations with him
about it, with my mother about it, with my stepmother about it.
It was it was something that was on my mind a lot more than it
should have been. This may be part of why I was so um.
I've always been so fascinated by you know, obviously I love history, but
if you were to ask me, is there a particular aspect of history that
I'm you know, sort of that I find more interesting than any others?
You know, anything Cold War related is really interesting to me. I'm fascinated
by anything related to the Cold War. And if I were to pick a
particular point during the Cold War that I'm especially fascinated by, it's the Cuban
missile crisis. I'll read any book, watch any documentary, you know,
whatever it is about. The Cuban missile crisis just absolutely a fascinating moment in
history to me. And thank god JFK was there to get us through that,
and he had some really good people around him. He also had some
people who maybe didn't have the best judgment, but fortunately their voices were not
ultimately the ones that JFK chose to listen to. That's why you might have
heard me say it on the show. Whenever I hear somebody start talking about,
Oh, we need to be doing so much more, and we need
to get NATO right in there and confront Russia directly, and we need to
send in American troops and push rush out. You know, I hear people
say some things that I think sound completely irrational and insane and potentially self destructive
and armageddon inducing. I'll often refer to that as Curtis LeMay syndrome. And
if you know anything about the Cuban missile crisis, and you know who General
Curtis LeMay was, he was probably the number one guy who was in Kennedy
Zier telling him, Hey, look, let's let's just do this. Let's
just go and start bombing. We gotta bomb Cuba, we got to take
out those missiles. Let's just do it now. We're not gonna We shouldn't
be waiting for them to uh, you know, we shouldn't be doing all
this back channel negotiation and whatnot. We should just go in and let's let's
hit him. And Kennedy said, well, if we do that, how
are they going to respond? And by the way, Dean Atchison said at
the time, well, what they will probably do is they will probably confront
us in UH, in Germany and UM and then it just escalates from there,
the point being it would ultimately ask scalate in a nuclear exchange and that
would be it. None of us would be sitting here. So but yeah,
you know, General LeMay was you know, and I'm sure he was
a good man, but he was like, yeah, let's just because he
told Kennedy he doesn't think that they will respond, because if they respond,
then things will escalate and we know where it ends up. So but he
was just itching. LeMay was itching to go in, and thank god Kennedy
was, you know. And Bob McNamara too, who, of course is
takes an incredible criticism for his role in the Vietnam War, criticism that I
think is warranted. And if there's a great documentary about McNamara called Fog of
War where he's interviewed throughout the documentary and it's really good and really compelling.
You should see it. If you haven't. I highly recommend it. But
McNamara was one of the cooler heads again during the Cuban missile crisis who helped
get us through that. So McNamara deserves credit too for his role there,
not for his role in Vietnam however, in my view, that's my opinion.
But um, we obviously were caught off guard by what was happening in
Cuba and the fact that those missiles were being put in and you know,
JFK and his administration got us through that. But a lesson that obviously,
some people did learn from it because we've been warned about this over the decades.
We've been warned about this by some people who've said, you know,
we might want to do something about strengthening our relationship with Cuba, even though
Fidel Castro and again he died and then was replaced by Raoul Sroin, even
though Castro is a bad guy, and we don't ever want to look like
we're from a human rights perspective, we don't ever want to look like we're
approving of anything going on there. But you know, we have an embassy
there obviously, but we might want to be making a little extra effort to
keep things very copasetic with Cuba, because if we don't, someone else may
come in. The Russians may come back, or China might come in and
fill that void that we're not filling, and we're not showing any interests or
inclination to ever compromise. Not compromise, but but you know, in terms
of lifting some trade restrictions or whatever it may be, you know, maybe
some sort of an olive branch needs to be extended to keep history from repeating
itself as history often will. And I'm worried that that's where we're ending up
now. Chris Porrior was also known as Crispy, a comedian. He says,
we need to stop the posturing by Russia and China, and if Trump
was still in he just would have handed handed us over and still might if
Trump if Trump's are elected. Oh do you mean Ukraine handing Ukraine over?
Well? Trump has said that he could have that solved within twenty four hours,
but the problem is we all know what that means. Well, how
would you possibly just have that solved in twenty four hours. There's only one
way you could do it. You could tell putin you can have it,
and that's it. Trump was never a fan of NATO to begin with,
which means if he gets elected in twenty twenty four, he might then have
to deal with the reality that Ukraine is at that point now a part of
NATO. If if the war is even over by the which I'm actually skeptical
that it will be. I think it's going to drag on, potentially for
years. I really do. I don't see any evidence of the contrary,
but that's that's me. Melanie says, I have a preoccupation with the Dead
Rising since watching Night of the Living Dead in the third grade. Yes,
I can understand that. You know, what film I did see when I
was a kid was not in the third grade, certainly, but um,
I was pretty young actually the day after, and I remember a conversation my
dad probably will remember this too, a conversation with him and my stepmother about
whether or not to let me watch it. But I'd say it's a good
film. But it's weird to say it's a good film considering what the subject
matter is. I mean, it's frightening, but I don't think it.
I don't think it did any harm seeing it because I was already so preoccupied
with nuclear war. What you know, I don't think it made me any
more afraid. Certainly didn't make me any less afraid either. I think it
was a wash. And Saturn says, in the chat room, Trump Trump,
Trump, We say, Melanie says, true story. I've always mapped
out at least two escape routes to escape zombies everywhere I have ever lived.
Well, that's very m That's like a survivalism, except instead of planning to
go into an underground bunker, you plan to escape your You plan your escape
from zombies. And Saturn says, Trump just got something going on. We
say, we ain't going to like it. We said, all right,
Melanie says. My therapist says, I'm doing much better. I'm just kidding.
She doesn't say that. Roni Favero says, the day after gave me
nightmares. Yeah. See, in my case, I was already having those
nightmares. So I don't I don't think it much mattered. But so the
point is, the broad point is, and then we'll get into some some
of the details on what is happening right now with Cuba. This is being
overlooked to a large degree, and I'm very concerned. Let's well, let's
look at China first. We've got a couple of things on this. Oh
you know what this is from the Hill dot com. Now this is actually
this is an opinion piece written by Arturo mcfield's who writes for the He writes
a national security column, an opinion column for The Hill. Let's see what
he has to say about this. For the last sixty four years, the
Cuban dictatorship has been one of the main threats to democracy in Latin America into
the security of the US. Since the nineteen sixty two Cuban missile crisis,
following the Russian spy based establish in lords the Bejucal I'm sure I'm not saying
that correctly facility, and finally, with the twenty nineteen chapter involving Chinese espionage,
Havana's regime has continued to open its stores to America's most dangerous geopolitical enemies.
In nineteen sixty Cuba became the first country in Latin America to establish diplomatic
relations with Communist China. Since then, political, military, and economic exchanges
have been increasing, particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union. Last November,
China approved one hundred million dollars to rescue Cuba from itself inflicted economic collapse.
By the way, I didn't see. I didn't even realize that.
That totally got past me. I did not know that. I knew that
Cuba had a diplomatic relationship with China going back to the sixties. I did
not realize this though, about the one hundred million dollars rescue package that China
had approved for Cuba. That completely got past me. Oh, hello to
Greg Joseph in the Facebook live chat, he says, sending love and respect
for the work you are doing educating the people. Thanks a million, thank
you. Yes. Greg Joseph, of course from Clemento's another one of our
great sponsors here at WMH ninety five point three, and he's a frequent contributor
on the Morning Show as well. I love hearing Greg on the Morning Show.
He's got he's got kind of an understated sense of humor that I find
very funny. Says here last November. Okay, so we covered that.
Okay. So, although Havana and Beijing have maintained a spy base since twenty
nineteen, and by the way, I didn't know that either. I didn't
realize that either. I thought that that was a more recent development, but
it's not. Intelligence cooperation between the two countries has continued above and beyond that.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the two regimes are negotiating the establishment
of a joint military training base on the island, just one hundred miles away
from the Florida coast. Yeah, that's not good. That's really not good.
The US has also reported the activities of the Chinese cele communications giants Huawei
and Zte in the same area where the spy base is supposed to be located.
This century, the Castro dictatorship and its progeny have helped forge and maintain
the current dictatorships of Venezuela and Nicaragua, both politically and militarily. Cuban advisors
are present in these two countries to pull the strings, offering intelligence support and
training to their policies. I'm sorry to their police and armies. Cuba also
maintains a close political and ideological relationship with leftist presidents in Brazil, Colombia,
and Mexico. Brazil and Mexico have supported the Cuban medical brigades, considered a
model of modern slavery. According to the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders. The
regime keeps ninety four of the salaries received by fifty thousand doctors in different parts
of the world. Yeah, I've read. I've read some about that.
We have a Oh thought we had a call? Do we have a call?
Nope? Go Yeah, I've read some about that. And by the
way, it's things like that that I understand make it difficult, make it
difficult for us to extend that olive branch. I understand that. But I
just wish if I could turn back time to quote share that we could have
at least maintained that sort of normalization of a relationship that the Obama administration had
established, because I cannot help. But wonder had that not continued, even
if it didn't necessarily progress, but just continued, Maybe, just maybe in
the year of twenty twenty three, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about the
Chinese having a military base on an island one hundred miles off the coast of
Florida. Maybe it says here. Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution
and the Missile Crisis, Russia has been the main military partner of Cuba's regime.
Last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shogu met with his Cuban counterpart,
Alvero Lopez Miera. After the abort of rebellion by Wagner mercenaries in Russia,
Putin has reportedly looked to Cuba for more soldiers to continue his war of aggression
against Ukraine. According to prisoners defenders, Russia and Cuba have reached an agreement
that would send Cuban soldiers to Ukraine, paying each of them two thousand dollars
per month, but the island's dictatorship would naturally keep between seventy five percent to
ninety five of their income, since this is how dictatorship's work. While China
advances its commercial relationships in Latin America, seizing key industries such as lithium,
copper, and telecommunications, Cuba has an extensive political and ideological network throughout Latin
America and even in the US through the Salpolo Forum and the so called Solidarity
Networks. Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and Congressman Michael McCall,
Republican of Texas are calling on the Biden administration to give a classified briefing regarding
the reported Chinese spy facility in Cuba. Okay, well thank you Senator Bob
Menendez and Congressman Michael McCall. I'm glad that somebody in the government is paying
attention, and I would support them in that. I would hope that the
Biden administration will give them that briefing. Giving the political, economic, and
security threat posed by Cuba and China, a comprehensive response is urgently needed.
Partnerships with other democratic nations in Latin America should be strengthened, both in the
field of security and in commercial matters. It would be a very big mistake
to neglect such hemispheric threats or underestimate the dangerous strategies of such regimes as Cuba,
China and Russia. So that's the opinion piece on the hill. And
let's also look at this. Let's continue on the China portion of this,
and we'll get to the Russian part, probably in the second hour. This
is a big topic, obviously, so we will continue. Actually, no,
I think change change of plans. All right, let's look at this.
We'll go ahead and get to the Russia part. Here. Um,
this is from the Havanah Times. This is from right out of Cuba,
right out of Cuba media. Here it's an article titled relaunching relations between Cuba
and Russia. Just that phrase gives me a chill. Um. Let's see
Cuba and Cuba and Russia have announced plans to strengthen their economic and trade relations,
but experts doubt that they can achieve a new bilateral golden age, and
they glimpse geopolitical interests in difficult times for both countries. This week, the
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero is in Russia for the Eurasian inter Governmental Council in
the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, while the opposition warns of a new
Russification quote unquote. The visit, the last after those of several ministers and
President mcguel diaz Canal himself last November, comes shortly after Havana announced preferential treatment
for Russian investors from transfers of agricultural land for thirty years to tax exemptions.
These measures complete a flight of announcements, including the entry of three Russian ruble
banks on the island and the presentation of a package of reforms. This kind
of gets into the weeds a little more than I want to. You know
what, I never liked the Havana Times anyway, I'm kidding, I've never
had any opinion. I do want to look at the timeline though, and
then probably in the second hour, we'll get more into the Russia part of
this, with um, the Russians now supplying oil to Cuba. But there's
a great this is from CFI dot org Council on Foreign Relations dot org.
It's a timeline of US Cuba relations and it's pretty pretty informative. But where
I want to actually pick this up is twenty eleven to twenty thirteen, and
we'll go forward from there because I want to look at again, Um,
well, we could go back. We actually could go back to nineteen sixty
two. Now maybe we should actually, now you know what, we should
go back to nineteen Let's go back to nineteen sixty growing antagonism between the United
States and Russia. I mean, I'm sorry, the United States in Cuba.
Just just we'll kind of speed through part of this. But I want
to get to because ultimately where I want to end up is U when you
know, we had an opportunity to really kind of improve things long term and
then we didn't. But we have a call. Hi, Welcome to Matt
Connerton. Unleash. Who is this? Oh knee, how mom, Matt
oh Bosha? Ridley pancha bhaja? Uh? Is that Cantonese? What is
that? Oh? That's Mandarin. I just think I'm Ridley, but I'm
a beginner, Ridley. I I yes, I'm sorry, Dave Ridley.
You know I often, uh, this is a failing of mine. I
often get Cantonese and Mandarin confused. Yeah. I don't really know much of
anything about Cantonese. In fact, I don't really understand. You know,
whenever you search, like when I if you want to say so much,
well, what happens is when you try to figure out what you're speaking or
what you're listening to, it will tell you that you're speaking Chinese or you're
here you're listening to Chinese, and then it called it Chinese simplified in Chinese
traditional. I know that Chinese traditional as Mandarin, but I don't know what
the difference is between Cantonese and Chinese simplified. Do you uh? You know?
I actually I do know, but it's just too much to get into
here. Yeah. Well, anyway, I'm just gonna say I told Cold
War two, Cold War two point zero, I don't know how to say
that in Mandarin. I have no idea. Ah, yes, yes,
I go ahead, Dave, I am surious, serir thoughts. Well,
yeah, so this is really tough. You know. Look from a pro
freedom standpoint, if you look at the history of the First Cold War,
the United States was more of a pro freedom place than the Soviet Union was.
But in finding the Soviet Union, it eviscerated some of its own freedoms
and we haven't gotten those backs yet. In addition, obviously it committed a
lot of abuses in in beating the Soviet Union. Does that make sense?
Say it again, Dave, I just, I just I'm not sure I've
quite followed all of it. I definitely got part of it. But yeah,
say it again if you would. I guess what I'm trying I guess
what I'm trying to say is what's happened before is what will happen again.
The US will be more pro freedom than China, but it will lose some
of its freedoms in fighting China. Does that make sense? The US will
lose some of our freedoms in fighting China. Yeah, just the way we
lost some of our freedoms in fighting the Nazis and then fighting the Soviets and
we never get them back. Can you expand on that, because I'm actually
not sure exactly what you mean. Well, I hope I'm not starting to
drift off topic here. But just for example, the reason we have income
tax withholding is because they started withholding income taxes to paper World War two,
because its temporary wartime measures that's been in effect since I think nineteen forty two,
So we can expect that kind of thing to happen again in fighting this
actual legitimate threat from China. It's just it's gonna they're gonna use that as
an excuse to take our freedoms away here. But do you think that it's
Some people think it's inevitable. I actually don't call me an optimist. I
think there are a lot of reasons to believe that it's actually not inevitable war
with China. But do you think that it is because you sound like you're
pretty concerned. Well, yeah, I mean cold war is inevitable and we're
already in one. Yes, but there are solutions. They're all kinds of
solutions. It don't cost taxpayers a dime, and the government wants to cover
those up. They don't want anyone talking about it, and no one does
talk about it, it seems like, and that the obvious one is just
to let us defend ourselves. They've got the American people so twisted into not
over what guns they can even own, and and all the permissions they have
to get to own a gun or to carry a gun, and so for
some you know, that just all needs to go away, and then we
don't have to worry about having this expensive, federally funded centralized defense. So
you're not interested in So I assume you're not interested in defending Taiwan if it
comes to that, Well, anyone who wants to help defend Taiwan should have
the full moral support of the federal government. I think they shouldn't. They
should, you know, that should probably be encouraged. But people, there's
no it's not right to steal from taxpayers to send the money off to Taiwan.
It's just it's not right for the federal government to centralize the process of
defending Taiwan. It's something to be done by individuals, companies, organizations,
militias, that sort of thing. Yeah, well, I understand what you're
saying, but it's not that's never going to be the reality of how any
of this works, so well as not as long as the federal government is
monopolizing defense, right, which is what I mean by that's not ever going
to be the reality of how any of this works, because that's never going
to change. What's the reality of how it works in Switzerland. But this
ain't Switzerland, and it's never going to be. That's the whole point,
and that's why we have these problems. Right. Switzerland is not having these
problems with China. And by the way, either is Closta Rica, which
has no military at all and no and no allies. But when you say
are problems with China, what do you mean exactly? Because when I think
of problems with China, I think about things like them. See you know,
they seel our intellectual property, they spy on us. They Um,
I mean, what do you what do you mean by problems with China?
Well, I'm more concerned about their interference with free speech in America, which
it's not very intense yet, but there have definitely been some high profile cases
where they interfered with people's ability to speak against their government, even though they're
like Anglo Americans living in America or African Americans living in America. They have
nothing to do with China except opening and closing their mouths in criticism of its
government. Are you talking about those? Uh? Well, give me an
example. Well, it wasn't there an NBA guy who made some pro Taiwan
statement or made pro Hong Kong statement or something that he was forced to retract
it, right, right? I somewhat remember that, Yes, yeah,
And there was also I think, well there's an NBA official who was forced
to do that, or I think there was also a player, and you
know, we're there's there was also that example of the there was a student
in Australia who just led this really minor, like twelve person sign wave in
support of Hong Kong or something like that at university. And he was he
was such a small event and such an unimportant thing. I don't even think
he was on time to his own protests, right, It was just almost
a non event. And suddenly, out of the blue, these these goons
show up and start beating up the protesters, like the the you know,
the the twelve point five you know, twenty year olds holding a little sign.
And it turned out in the Beijing embassy got involved in the university ejected
the young man who organized up the sign wave instead of coming after the people
who beat him up for no particular reason. This is all videotaped. They
ejected the student because the university was bought by the bought and paid for essentially
by the Chinese government. And so that's just an example of how free speech
is interfered with closer to China, and they're they're expanding their interference with free
speech to the US. UM. I do remember you talking about that story
with the protester and getting beaten up, and uh, pretty wild. Um
well, I mean, you know, the reality is that there's a larger
reality and part of this is part of why I don't think war is inevitable.
Uh particularly but um, we are so economically interlocked with China. Um.
I think probably more than a lot of people realize. Um, So
there's no it's not like it's not like our relationship with Russia, for example,
where we can just say, well, you know, screw you,
we don't want your oil, you know, we being NATO, I guess,
um. But with China, it's it's very very complicated and and we're
very economically dependent on each other, and the Chinese are much more economically dependent
on the United States. And I think people realize too, some people I
heard. I heard one analyst saying that, you know, people think of
China as like, you know, like like the US is six feet tall
and China is like ten feet tall, and it's really the other way around.
But um so, I don't know what the solution is. They're always
They're always going to have influence here. Dave, Are you the one who
originally brought up the the Chinese police stations operating in the United States? Was
that you they're not well the ones I was talking about, or not police
station, you were talking about the Confucius Confucius Center. That's right, the
Confucius centers. Okay, it was my dad who brought up the police stations.
Yeah, that that really shocked me. But um so, what's what
what's the answer, Dave? If realistically, now I understand what you would
like to happen, but realistically, knowing that we are economically interdependent, and
knowing that, uh, you know that the situation is what it isn't terms
of the federal government controlling defense, what what do you think should happen?
Well? The realistic thing to hope for is that the United States government does
not make any new steps to limit gun rights. Right, so just make
sure making sure that Americans maintain at least what rights they still have in terms
of the ability to defend themselves. That would probably be the realistic thing to
hope for. Um. Well, that's the that's not going to change.
I mean, you know, we're not going to continue We're we're not going
to not have gun rights. Uh, certainly, even even if they are
somewhat more regulated. But um, but I don't think that has any effect
on our foreign policy with China. I mean it doesn't. Well it's it
should you know, the gun gun rights are a key element of any sort
of domestic defense. Oh, domestic. Yes, that this is the reason
why this is the reason why Ukraine was invaded was because they didn't There's a
key reason. I think it was a deciding factor was if there were not
enough guns in the hands of civilians. Seven seven guns civilians. Yeah,
in New Hampshire. It's in New Hampshire. It's one hundred and twenty guns
for hundred civilians. You can't imagine that that doesn't have a big impact on
the decision of anyone to invade. I understand, Dave. I think I
think we might have been talking about two different things because I'm not I'm not
talking about invasion. I'm talking about a war with China. But I'm not.
I'm not talking about China trying to invade the United States. I can't
imagine any circumstance under which that would happen. That would be uh. I
understand their long term planners. You know, they've got fifty year plans,
one hundred year plans and whatnot. But I don't think they're planning to invade
the US. I'm not. I'm not when I talk that's yeah, go
ahead. That's the reason. That's a reason why they're not planning on hitting
the United States. They would be able to do something like that in certain
there'd be certain circumstances where they could if United States people didn't have gun freedom.
Does that make sense? I disagree with you there. I mean,
I'm pros I'm pro two A and I support gun freedom. But um,
we've got quite the nuclear arsenal. So even if even if we were to
do something like what Australia did and confiscate guns, we've still got a whole
lot of nukes, So I don't think China would be I don't think anyone
would be interested in invading the United States. I think if if we were
to get into some sort of a war with China, it would be over
Taiwan. It wouldn't be the Chinese coming to American soil. Yeah, but
just just bear in mind how how much it frees up the US military for
individuals in the United States that we've kind of got their back here right Like
the United States military could they could send all the US military out of the
United States if they want wanted to. Every last soldier could be sent away
from the United States and it would still be able to defend itself because of
the gun freedom and the large number of firearms. Does that make sense?
That does no? I understand what you're saying logically. Mike from Queen City
Cabinetry points out in the chat room, they would be too tired to fight
from swimming all that way. That's a good point. I don't know how
many boats they have. I know they've got a huge army, because you
know, it's a lot of they don't have. I think India now has
the largest global population. If I'm not mistaken. I think China's second.
Is that correct? Do you know, Dave? Actually, I don't know
if India history pasted him yet. I think India has, but I could
be wrong. Okay, Now what about so what about Cuba? Any any
thoughts there? Well, I'm not sure exactly what you know should be done.
Just as long as it's not an act of aggression, go for it.
Anything it's not an active aggression, It's fine to do against this Chinese
base or against the government of Cuba or anyone else. The problem is if
the federal government is taking action against some base in Cuba using your tax dollars,
that's an active aggression against you. Yeah, well, I know you
and I see that differently, both in a broader sense, and I would
say, more specifically, if if something is being done using my tax dollars
and to protect to protect me, and you might say, well, how
is it the government's job to decide for me? What is it or is
not in the best interests in terms of my protection? I understand, But
but I guess what I'm thinking about and what I've been taught about today really
is I just wish that that this wasn't even on the table in terms of
China potentially having I mean, I guess it hasn't happened yet, but potentially
even having a base in Cuba, because I wish that we had continued the
Obama administration policy with Cuba where we were kind of trying to normalize relations and
get things to a more positive place where someone like China or Russia would not
come in and kind of fill that vacuum, you know what I mean.
Yeah, Well, but again, it's also important to keep things in perspective.
Look how many military bases? Well, I don't know what you tell
me, what is the number of military bases that the United States has within
one hundred miles of China. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that
number is. I don't either, But the US has eight hundred military bases
overseas and constantly putting military bases right X two countries that it's hostile towards.
Right, there's that saying. You know, you know, obviously Iran is
the aggressor because look how close they put their country to our eight hundred military
bases. Right. I understand your point, Dave, I do um,
But again, I just I think back to um I don't know how much
of the show you heard earlier, but I talked a lot about the Cuban
the Cuban missile crisis earlier. And um, when you're talking about putting,
when we're talking about a Chinese base one hundred miles off the coast of Florida,
UM, I get very very concerned, and I just feel and that's
I mean, that's how that's how China looks at Taiwan. They said,
that's that's the American military base, you know, ninety I guess, about
ninety miles off the coast of mainland China. We don't have an actual base
on Taiwan, do we, Well, not a big one. I don't
think there's US troops there, but I don't think there's a de facto like
official US MILITI. There's not an official US military base on the island of
my knowledge. Yeah, I didn't think so that would be because I don't
I don't think the Chinese would tolerate that. UM. I think if we
tried to put an actual military base on Taiwan, UM, I do think
it would be uh, that would be akin to actually them putting a military
base on Cuba. UM. But I'm very worried about that. Well,
I'm sorry, oh I was saying, but I'm very worried about this go
ahead. Well again, that's the other solution is for the Taiwanese government to
stop taking its people's guns, and they have its situation as Taiwan is much
worse than than the one in Ukraine was before the invasion in terms of in
terms of guns freedom. You know, Ukrainians had seven guns per one hundred
civilians and Taiwan has officially zero guns in the hands of civilians per hundred civilians.
So their government has brought their their bad defense on itself, their lack
of defense on itself. I see, yeah, I didn't know that about
Taiwan. It doesn't surprise me, but I didn't know that what the policy
there was. And obviously the Thaiwan they do have a Taiwanese military, but
it's it would be no um, no match for for for China. Uh,
that's uh, that's for sure if they do ever decide to move on
Taiwan. Well, what do you think about that? Do you think that's
inevitable that the Chinese decide? I know Ji Jingping has said it will happen,
but he never says when, And again I remain cautiously optimistic that it
won't. But what do you think do you think it's inevitable? No,
I don't think it's inevitable. Uh. The Chinese revert they're sort of reverting
to the reverting to totalitarian, isn't now. So that's going to start damning
their economy and shutting down the progress that they made, So they will start
following. Probably eventually this move will catch up with them, and it'll start
affecting their technological lead wherever they have one, because you can't be totalitarian and
have a you know, decisive technological lead, you can't maintain that. I
think I think it's going to start a rooting. I'm not sure, but
that's what I hope will happen. Their economy, as pretty fragile as it
is, they've did a horrendous job, as we all know, managing COVID,
and uh, they're they're in a lot of they're in a lot of
economic trouble right now, by the way, and I hope you'll take this
as a compliment. Dave Rondo Ferverro in the chat room says, Uh,
the guy on the phone sounds exactly like the back in the day talk show
hosts Dick Cavett. And I never noticed it before until Ronda pointed it out.
But you do sound like Dick Cavett. Oh great, you're you know
Dick Cavett. Right, Well, I saw just a couple episodes that I'm
not very with him. My dad used to watch Dick cave It when I
was a kid. He would he would watch him every night. And um,
yeah, I like to have it. But you do sound like him.
You do have a very similar voice, You're you you speak a little
bit faster than he does. Dick cav It kind of um speaks a little
more slowly, but but your your actual voice is h is very very close.
Um, well, Dave, we're we're we're well past the top of
the hour, so we should we should let you go and we we've got
to get to a break. Did you have anything to add? No?
Thanks? Okay. Oh by the way, pork Fest that's already coming,
gone right, yeah, I could bosh you just call him separately about all
the Porkfest news. Well, now I'm curious did anything because when you had
called before, you said there was some controversy about involving a couple of the
speakers like RFKA didn't want any guns in the room, and some other guy
was threatening to cause a problem if there were trans people or something. Did
anything, Did anything happen the rf case thing went smoothly. Carla Garrick,
the president of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence or the former president of it,
was able to heckle him a little bit or something, or she jumped
up and asked him a question about New Hampshire declaring independence and whether he would
whether he would fight us militarily if we did that, right, and he
answered kind of evasively, he said that he wants to bring people together.
And the other thing that happened with regard to the guy that was the guy
that was making threats against like he said, if there anyone tries to do
a drag Queen story hour, I'm going to come get him, you know,
or something. He didn't sound like he was going to physically do something
to them. Yeah, So this resulted in someone having like a transit story
hour or whatnot. Uh. The guy who was making the threats, like
this big speaker who was going to come in and like a paid speaker,
I guess he just never like he never showed up. And I think he
was like arrested them the week before the fork Fast or something like that,
really, and I think it was an unrelated arrest. He was in an
event or something like it. So I think he was in jail or something
when when fork Fast happened, or that's my understanding. So that's pretty dramatic,
and there's other stuff that happened. But I should just call it in
separately enlisted all. Yeah, I am. I am very curious to hear
about it, so please, yeah, call call back soon about that.
But do you do you know the identity of the person yet or or no?
I feel like it's something like I just I never can say it correctly,
but I'm just afraid I'll say the wrong name and implicate the wrong person.
Yeah, I have it, I have it in my head, but
I'm just afraid to say it. Is it a long name. It's not.
It's like a two syllable thing. Okay. I keep meaning to know
that before I call you, and keep forgetting to look it up. I'm
just super curious. I tried to find out myself. I just I looked
online and I couldn't. I couldn't figure it out. But I'm just very
I'm just very very curious. Well, all right, Dave, did you
want to plug anything Ridley Report or an NH exit or anything before you go?
All I've taken enough of your time, all right, Dave. Well,
I do enjoy talking with you, and I appreciate the call. Thanks,
Matt, all right, you got it? Bye bye? All right.
That is Dave Ridley from the Ridley Report and NH Exit. We will
let's do this because yes we are late for Oh actually we have another call.
Let's see. It looks like our friend Ron is on the line,
so we always have time for Ron. Hey, Ron, Hey, Matt.
I'll try to be brief. I've got kind of questions and thinks that
I can, you know, take answers off the year. I'm sure I
was misinterpreting what Dave was heading at with arming the civilians. Um, you
know, wars are just fought conventionally, not by you know, a handguns
and back guards. But that's I think that would only cause anything. I
think he knows it would only cause walm and good. Even if everybody,
every family had guns, it would just cause Woma good he does. What
I wanted to ask, so, is um with Cuba setting up, with
China setting up a base in that sort of up only one hundred miles from
my from from the US? What we would just talk about is that really
matter? Because the United States has more nuclear vessels than anybody else, and
like a large of quantities of nuclear vessels, So we kind of already have
a base at sea anywhere any time between the air, between the carriers and
the fighters and and all of the above. So I don't know, it's
just there's one hundred miles away be matter because well, you know what,
what does that matter? You could get a plane in the year I'll kind
of shoot down anything kind of rapidly from if they're only a hundred miles away.
I mean, I don't know. I'm just saying this. We don't
need to have a base that close because our basis are all over the seas
between the submarines and everything else, right, you know. So, And
the last thing I wanted to say was this wasn't even commented. I wanted
to ask Um, I hear all these countries you know where this one I
wrote that just wore, and this one and this one and this one.
But it is Japan falling all of us. I haven't heard much about Japan.
Yeah, I mean just this, Um, there was a dumb question.
No, No, not at all. There was something about Japan recently.
Actually, um, I forget what it was now, though I might
look that up during the break. There was something. I mean, we
don't hear a lot about Japan. You know, they don't go to war
with anybody. Um, they do have nuclear weapons, but um, we
don't hear a lot about Japan. But there was something recently foreign policy related
that was important regarding Japan. And I can't remember what it is, but
I will look it up. Ron. I'm glad you asked about that because
it was okay. And last pace, Yes, the sanctions that got imposed,
do they affect I'm not saying US Japan. Are any of the sanctions
that we have polls on these other places. Does that affect Japan's ability to
get products and manufacture and create? I mean, I don't know. The
sanctions would seem like they were doing good, but I don't hear anything about
it anymore. Sanctions on who um, Oh my god, I'm nervous,
and now you get me on this spot. Oh that's okay, I mean,
yeah, go ahead. No. Um, when Trump was in place,
UM, sanctions were put in place against I wasn't as a freshet,
I'd tell you, I don't know, just seem the next stanctions were pres
it pulls everywhere and it was affecting everybody. Um have we and we've been
listening the sanctions under Oh do you mean that? Do you mean the tariffs
that were imposed on China? Because Trump was very big on having a trade
war with China, and we thank you, thank you. Yeah, not
not sanctions, but but tariffs and um, some of those I think a
few of those have been rolled back under Biden, but most of those have
remained in place from what I understand, which actually surprises me a little bit.
I thought more of those what would have been rolled back, but maybe
because things are so tense with China, they're leaving them in place. But
but yeah, there were those tariffs that Trump did put a lot of tariffs
on China. All right, Matt, I h I really loved you show.
I wish you could want it to lad Flock today. Me too,
me too, But thank you, Ron, I appreciate it very much,
and I appreciate the call. All right, buddy, all right, Ron,
take care bye bye. All right, that was our friend Ron.
Let's get to a break. But Ron did ask a couple of very interesting
questions that will address on the other side. But we'll get to a break.
I'm gonna play a track from Where Did It Go? Oh? Here
it is. I'm gonna play this song so tomorrow on the show. I'm
very excited because in the second hour, we're gonna talk to my old friend
from high school, Dave Wally, and he's got this band, Satellite Union,
and we're gonna play. This is a performance, live performance of that
I found on the website for his band, Satellite Union, and the website
is Satellite Union music dot com. Dave sent me some specific tracks to play,
but I'm gonna save those for tomorrow. But I found this and I
really like it. The name of the song is if You Don't Go and
this is really really cool. So we're gonna play, and we're going to
show some love to our amazing sponsors, and then we will be back with
the balance of our program today and we'll answer those questions, those other questions
that Ron had. Welcome back everybody, as we cruising our final segment today
of Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from the studios of w m
n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire,
also on Comcast ninety seven. If you're in Manchester and hello to Oliver our
online listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my
website Matt Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options, social media links,
contact in folk show archives, etc. Etc. Today is Thursday,
July thirteen, two thousand to twenty three, so nice to have you all
with me. By the way, that song I played as a live performance
of If You Don't Go from the band Satellite Union, and tomorrow on the
show in the second hour, my friend Dave Wally will be skyping in all
the way from the Windy City, Chicago to talk about the band, and
Dave and I will get caught up. We're old friends. I actually went
to high school with Dave, so I'm really looking forward to this. Dave's
a great guy and enormously talented, and he sent me some tracks for tomorrow.
But I found that live performance online of that song and I said,
you know what, I think I'm gonna play that today, kind of give
everybody a little sneak peak. So that'll be tomorrow on the show. And
of course we also have tomorrow because it will be Friday, Eric Pilcher's Classic
film review and this week the subject is National Lampoon's Vacation, so that will
be tomorrow as well. So we have a busy, busy show tomorrow.
But if you'd like to join us today, six ZO three two five six
Z seven is a studio line six ZO three two five six seven. You
can also text me at six I'm sorry six one seven. Uh see,
I screwed myself up. Wow, I never do that. Six one seven
nine one seven four four seven six. I never screw up the phone number.
Six one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm all worried
about this whole Cuba stuff. I'm distracted. Let's see. I'm on social
media at Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at Matt Connerton dot com,
and of course you can interact and no pine in the Facebook live chat.
But the best thing to do so that we can here and enjoy your
dulse at Tones is to give us a call at six three two five H
six Z seven. By the way, speaking of the Facebook lap chat,
I see a new name in there. Lewis Tivee joins us in the chat.
Hello, just uh and again just to follow up. Oh, and
Joe Friday joins us in sus Aloha peeps, Aloha to you. Joe Friday.
Ron had asked some questions during his when he called in earlier regarding Japan.
Mike from Queen City Cabinetry set in the chat room. I think it
was either we were sending troops there to train their troops or we are having
our troops there. Yeah, we um. You don't hear Japan come up
a lot in foreign policy discussions, but I do know that Japan gets very
nervous about and we're not gonna get into this today in detail. We won't
have time. But North Korea, of course constantly saber rattling every now and
again, and sometimes I get concerned that it's becoming increasingly common, these test
launches of missiles and shooting them right over Japan. And you know, Kim
Jong un, we have to figure out how to contain him and control him,
and that can just keeps getting kicked down the road, doesn't it.
But uh yeah, so Japan is always very nervous. Another thing that Ron
had asked about, by the way, was what Dave Ridley was saying about
guns. No, you you did not misunderstand him. Ron. What the
argument that Dave was making. And this is something that you often hear.
You'll hear Second Amendment activists say this, and you know, and I'm a
I'm a pro Second Amendment guy. That's an issue where I tend to be
more conservative. But of course we live in New Hampshire. Where you're in
New Hampshire, we're one of the most heavily armed states in the entire country,
but we're also one of the safest, interestingly enough, But you'll often
hear activists say that part of the reason why the United States never gets invaded
is because so many people here have guns. So if anyone tried to invade
the United States, there would be somebody hiding behind every bush with a gun
waiting to shoot them. Now, the context that Dave Ridley was bringing that
up in, though I thought, was a little again, I had to
push back on it a little bit because I understood what he was saying.
I understood his point but and it's not that he's wrong. From a logical
standpoint, of course, it would be difficult to invade the United States because
not only do we have the largest military in the world, exponentially larger than
any other military, certainly with what we spend on it, but we are
also a such a heavily armed populace. But the thing is, even with
us being so heavily armed as individuals gun owners in the United States, we
still have the largest military in the entire world. No one is ever,
ever, ever going to invade us, regardless of whether the citizen re is
armed or not. Joe Farriday says, shout out to firefighters, police and
first responders. God bless them, be safe. So I think that answers
Ron's question. Oh no, I'm sorry. So the other thing that's right.
There was another thing Ron brought up, and it's it's a he makes
a good point. Does it really matter if the Chinese do establish a base
on Cuba because we have bases all over the world and we have the military
capability to shoot anything down, to fuse any situation, etc. In other
words, even if they do have a base in Cuba, is that really
a threat to US. Now, my response to that would be whether it
is a direct threat or not. First of all, I think it could
be. But I'll circle back to that the broader point that I would make
about that, and this is kind of the underlining point of what I've been
talking about today in terms of Cuba and they're ever growing relationship with China and
of course the rekindling, to an extent of their relationship with Russia. The
broader point is that we don't need our enemies being able to set up shop
and spy on us or established themselves in any way militarily one hundred miles off
the coast of Florida. Even if even if what happens there and what is
established there is not necessarily a threat in the sense that it's not anything that
we can't handle, it certainly doesn't feel very good, and I think it
would be destabilizing. Sorry, I just got a weird pop up on my
computer that distracted me. But going back to would it be a direct threat,
Well, what if the Chinese, the Chinese, they have nuclear weapons.
What if the Chinese, in the course of setting up their base there,
they put nuclear missiles there? Allah the Cuban missile crisis and what we
had to deal with with Russia. Now that is a direct threat. The
whole reason in sixty two with the Cuban missile crisis, why that was so
harrowing and so dangerous, And again, as I talked about in the first
hour of their show, thank god we had a president at the time,
JFK who was able to you know, Shepherd and stewarts us through that that
terrible time. I mean us, I say us as in America. I
wasn't here yet, And like I said, I'm glad I wasn't. I'm
glad I wasn't alive for that because that would have been terrifying. So I'm
glad that. You know, if you talk to somebody who does remember it,
yeah, they'll tell you it's pretty pretty scary because at any given moment,
you know, they knew it could be the end. But the reason
that was so massively destabilizing was because that gave the Russians first strike capability to
the extent that first strike capability matters in the terms of global thermonuclear war.
If nuclear war breaks out, you know, it'll ultimately even if you're not
in a blast zone, there's going to be radiation, and there's going to
be a nuclear winter that will kill everyone on the planet anyway, So it
almost doesn't matter who has first strike capability. But if you've got nuclear missiles
one hundred miles off the coast of Florida, you can probably get those in
the air pretty quickly and hitting the United States before we have any chance to
respond. And that's scary to think about. So it does matter in the
sense that. Look, and I'm not naive, I understand that even if
there is not a military base near the United States it is occupied by a
foreign power, there are nuclear submarines that can launch missiles, that can sail
up nice and close, not sail what do you call it sailing, You
don't sail underwater, But anyway they can get in there. You can get
in with a nuclear submarine, probably largely undetected, and you can launch something
right off the coast and hit US. I understand that. I'm not naive
to it. But again, the idea of the Chinese having a base,
because once that military base has expanded, remember when the Russians first started putting,
they hadn't become operational yet. Okay, they had to set them up
and I'm sure the technology has changed over the decades. But when the United
States first detected that there were Russian missiles on the island of Cuba via that
aerial photography, it's not like we knew. I mean, obviously we knew
that the Russians we're bringing something to Cuba. Anyone could see that, could
see those ships. But we didn't know what was on those ships. And
you know, it could have been could have been anything, could have been
food, you know, grain for food, could have been anything. Right,
we didn't know they were missiles until they were spotted from the air.
Now you could see it with a satellite. I mean, I think we
had satellite technology then too, but not like now. But you know,
but there were flyovers that were done by the military to they were able to
take those pictures, and then those pictures were you know, those were clearly
missiles. Again, they weren't operational yet, and then it became a race
against time. Well, you know, what do we do. Do we
go and bomb Cuba and bomb those missiles where those missiles are and wind up
killing a whole lot of Russians in the process. Do we do that?
Because those missiles were going to become operational. And by the way that that
timetable kept getting moved up, where you know, JFK was told, okay,
well we've got we've only got so many days until those missiles are operational,
and then it became actually, probably within the next forty eight hours,
those missiles are going to become operational, and thank god, you know,
we're not for the back channel communication that was happening, you know, thank
god Khruschev back down and that was the end of that. In exchange for
the Jupiter missiles in that we're in Turkey at the time, I think that
we had there. Those were actually scheduled to be decommissioned anyway because they were
outdated, so they need needed to be taken down and disassembled. But the
Russians didn't know that. So that was something that JFK could offered a cruse
chef, We'll take those missiles out that you don't like sitting there on your
doorstep in exchange for you taking your missiles out of Cuba before they even become
operational. And that's ultimately what happened. But yeah, the idea of the
Chinese having a base on the island of Cuba again one hundred miles off the
coast of Florida is unacceptable and we cannot We cannot have that. Lots of
comments in the Facebook live chat, so I do want to get to some
of these. Crispy says, China needs us and we need China, but
NATO now out guns everybody. China needs us and we need China, referring
to of course, says Dave and I were talking about the interdependence economically,
we are intertwined and which I hope will will prevent ultimately prevent war. And
Saturn says, we hashtag Matt Connerton. We have to take a shower and
so enjoy your afternoon show. Thank you, en Saturn, you enjoy your
shower. Crispy says, sorry, but guns are nothing compared to bombs,
and China can't afford to attack us, and we can't afford to attack China.
But we do need to protect Taiwan at all costs. After all,
a bully regime won't be stopped until they are stopped. Yeah, I,
and that is something that we've talked about on the show too. I had
some criticism of President Biden when he said flatly that yes, we would defend
Taiwan when he was asked, This was months ago, when he was asked,
if China were to move on Taiwan, would we defend Taiwan? And
Biden said yes. I'm personally a big fan of strategic ambiguity. Although I
also found it fascinating that in that moment, you know, when people were
kind of pulling their hair out saying, Wow, I can't believe Biden just
discarded strategic ambiguity. Strategic ambiguity, of course, being where you keep your
opponent off balance by not letting them know exactly, by not telegraphing or saying
outright exactly how you might respond to whatever move that they make. You know,
it's a bit of a chess game. It all is right in terms
of foreign policy, and you don't want to You don't want your opponent to
know what your move will be in response to their move if you can help
it. And I had some criticism of Biden for that, but it was
interesting how when everybody was so upset, everybody just kind of collectively forgot that
George W. Bush had done the exact same thing. When George W.
Bush became president. It was very early in his presidency, so early I
believe it was before nine to eleven happened. It was within that first eight
months he was asked the same quite almost the exact same scenario. He was
asked by somebody, what will you do? What will the response be if
China were to attack Taiwan? Will you defend Taiwan? And he said yes,
and same thing. People people went nuts, well, what about strategic
ambiguity? He just went said it out loud, he can't do that,
but so it had already been done by a previous administration. Strangely enough,
I thought Trump recently in an interview was it with Bret bare That interview with
Bret Bair I thought was disastrous for Trump in a lot of ways legally.
But one thing I did give Trump credit for. I thought he gave a
smart answer. And you won't hear. Look the list of things that I
give Trump credit for, and if you're a regular listener, you know how
I feel about Donald Trump. It's a short list. But I did think
something really smart that he said during that interview was when Brett Baer asked him
about what would your policy be on if China were to move on Taiwan.
Trump said, well, I'm not going to answer that. But but Jijing
Ping he knows what I would do. I thought that was a smart because
that is strategic ambiguity. I'm not going to answer that hypothetical, but he
knows what I would do, so it's strategic ambiguity, but with a little
bit of a threat underneath. I thought that was I thought that was a
smart uncharacteristically, so let's see. Oh my goodness, Scott Robinson said in
the chat room. Now, this is in response to what Ronda said about
Dave Ridley. Sounds like Dick Cavett, which I'd never noticed before. But
Scott Robinson said, the difference being with Dick Cavett. Dick Cavatt didn't hate
America. I don't think Dave Ridley hates America, but he does want to
leave America. He wants for newer listeners who don't know the reason Dave Ridley
mentioned Nhxit, or maybe I mentioned it. He didn't want to be a
shy about plugging anything. Today. Dave Ridley is part of a secessionist movement
called nh Exit, and they want to secede from the United States and have
New Hampshire be its own country. But I don't think he hates America.
I wouldn't. I wouldn't characterize it quite that way. Crispy points out US
dollar is strongest dollar than any other country. That is true. Chrispy also
points out our nuke submarines are everywhere. That is also true. And I
think that goes to Ron's point. Joe Friday says, bad guys will get
weapons. Responsible weapon owners don't need to secure them, don't leave them in
an unlocked car or a closet. Absolutely, we only have a little bit
of time left, but if you'd like to get in with a quick call
six three two five six seven six three two five six seven. I did
want to go through this timeline just quickly. This is from CFR dot org,
This timeline of our relationship with Cuba, which has been the subject today
on the show. But we're gonna pick it up at nineteen fifty nine,
and we're gonna try to get all the way into the present day with this
time permitting. So in nineteen fifty nine there was growing antagonism. Castro nationalizes
all foreign assets in Cuba, hikes taxes on US imports, and establishes trade
deal with the Soviet Union. So this is prior to just a couple of
years prior to the Cuban Missile crisis. So Castro is getting cozy with Cuba
and antagonistic toward the United States. We're going to kind of speed through this,
so I'm gonna leave a lot of this out. But nineteen sixty one,
of course, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Executing a plan developed and
approved by the Eisenhower administration, JFK deploys a brigade of fourteen hundred CIA sponsored
Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro. The Cuban military defeats a force within three
days after several mishaps, disadvantage the invaders and reveal US involvement. Despite the
failed invasion, US administrations over the next several decades conduct covert operations against Cuba.
Okay, here we go the main event, or at least we're getting
to it, Okay, So nineteen sixty two. In February of sixty two,
the Kennedy administration imposes an embargo on Cuba that prohibits all trade. Cuba,
whose economy greatly depended on trade with the US, loses approximately one hundred
thirty billion dollars over the next sixty years according to Cuban government and UN estimates.
All right here it is the Cuban missile crisis from October fourteen to October
twenty eight. This is this is the big one. This is again to
me, this is the single most fascinating moment in American history and also the
most terrifying. US spy Saddle I discover the Cuba has allowed the Soviet Union
to build nuclear missile bases on the island. In response, Kennedy demands the
Soviet weapons be removed and orders a naval quarantine of Cuba, igniting a thirteen
day standoff. By the way, they were very careful to call it a
quarantine and not a blockade, even though it really was a blockade. But
a blockade is considered an act of war, so they were very careful,
you know, a little semantic game, but they called it a quarantine for
that reason. With the threat of nuclear war on the horizon, the US
negotiations with Russia. Negotiates with Russia via back channels. As the crisis nears
its third week, Kennedy secretly agrees to withdraw US nuclear missiles from Turkey within
a few months if the Soviet Union withdraws its missiles from Cuba. And again
those missiles were outdated anyways, and they were already scheduled to be decommissioned.
But Krushchev didn't know that, didn't need to know that. Kennedy also pledges
to invade Cuba. Soviet Premier Nikita, by the way, and you know
the reason that he needed to say that was because of the Bay of Pig.
Had the Bay of Pigs not happened, maybe there would never have been
any paranoia regardless. Okay, So Nikita Khrushchev accepts the deal and announces that
he will order the missiles removed. The following July, Kennedy prohibits US nationals
from traveling to Cuba. So we're going to kind of skip forward here.
There was a little bit of diplomacy here and there, but in March of
nineteen eighty two, US labels Cuba a terrorism sponsor nineteen ninety two US titan
sanctions after Soviet collapse. Um, I'm skipping ahead because we're so low on
time. We're gonna go although, oh remember the nine ten ninety nine,
Wow, that was all the way back then, the Elian Gonzales controversy,
I always thought they shouldn't have sent him back. They took him to Disney
World. How could they send him back after taking him to Disney World.
Okay, we're gonna skip all the way forward to the Obama administration. Okay,
So December of twenty fourteen, A moved to restore diplomatic ties. Barack
Obama and Raoul Castro announced they will restore full diplomatic ties following the exchange of
a jail US intelligence officer for the three remaining Cuban five prisoners. All right,
So that was the beginning of that. And in twenty fifteen, Cuba
was removed from the terrorism list in twenty fifteen July of that year, US
and Cuba reopen embassies. In twenty sixteen, Obama made in March of twenty
sixteen, Obama makes a historic visit to Cuba. In November, Fidel Castro
dies, but Raoul was already running things because Fidel was in poor health.
And then Trump came in and in June of twenty seventeen, Trump reinstated travel
and business restrictions, and in September of twenty seventeen, US cuts embassy staff
in Cuba. This is what I was talking about at the top of the
show. There was a lot of work done during the Obama administration to re
establish diplomatic ties and try to normalize things. And Trump came in and they
dismantled all of that. And then Biden came in and you know, made
a pretty meager attempt at re establishing some of it, but really didn't do
much. In May of twenty twenty two, Biden eased Trump era sanctions.
But that's about it. So the point of all that, and again,
it was a long way to get there, I know, because I started
this all the way at the beginning of the show today. But I go
back to my original point, and if you've hung in with me for the
whole thing, I appreciate it. But my original point was we're at a
point now where we're worried about Cuba. They're growing relationship with China, and
they're sort of a re establishment of a strong relationship with Russia. Cuba this
island that is one hundred miles off the coast of Florida, and this is
strategically very bad for US. And this is being not covered enough in the
media in my opinion. It is getting mainstream media coverage, but not enough.
This is an important moment in this whole as as as we continue to
have problems with our two greatest adversaries currently in the world, Russia and China,
and we've got this island of Cuba, who during the Obama administration made
a good faith attempt and made some real progress in terms of re establishing our
relationship with Cuba in a very positive way. Trump administration come in and came
in and dismantled that. Biden administration came in, failed to re establish most
of what Obama had done, and so there's blame to go around. I
blame both the Trump and the Biden administrations for the fact that now again without
us having a positive strategic relationship with Cuba, of course, of course our
adversaries fill that vacuum, and we didn't even get to a lot of what
Russia's doing right now. We talked a lot about China, we didn't even
get to what Russia's doing with Cuba. And it's I mean, we did
a little bit, but you know, in terms of supplying them oil and
so forth, because Cuba's having a rough time right now, kubas having a
very difficult time. They're having their own energy crisis. Maybe we could have
helped with that and had a good strategic relationship with that little island that sits
one hundred miles off the coast of Florida, But no, we let somebody
else do that. And I think that this is a very dangerous moment and
it's probably too late for us to do anything about it now in terms of
Cuba. But none of this had to happen, as my point, and
I blame both the current administration and the previous administration for allowing this to happen.
And it didn't have to be this way. That's my view of it.
All Right, we are out of time, don't forget tomorrow. We
got a big show tomorrow. Of course, we have Eric Ulter's classic film
review National Lampoon's Vacation, the original Vacation film, and then and then in
the second hour tomorrow we have Dave Wally from the band Satellite Union skyping in
from Chicago. Really looking forward to that. And if you miss any part
of today's show, it'll be up in just a little bit at WMH radio
dot org and on my website Matt Connerton dot com. And thank you to
Dave Ridley and Ron of course, both for calling in and everybody in the
chat room and easyg if you're listening, I hope everything is okay. He
might be taking another break. There was no entertainment report today and I haven't
heard from him, so hopefully he's all right. Hopefully all as well.
But that's gonna do it for us for now. I'll leave you with a
little more Satellite Union, a little more, a little more of a preview
for tomorrow's show. Really looking forward to that. And I'll talk to y'all
a little bit later. Oh and if you're listening live on Thursday, coming
up next immediately after this show, Through the Stage Door, hosted by the
Great Rob die On. All right, I'm out of here, by everybody,