Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing …

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.11.2.0139
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Pages: 139-141
• Author: Al Campbell

IJCS Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/ijcs/

EDITORIAL

INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING . . .

Al Campbell1

University of Utah, USA

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different

results.

(Popularly though incorrectly attributed to Einstein)

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

(Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar)

Once again the United States has decided to dramatically intensify its blockade

(technically a particularly extreme embargo) of Cuba. Long an advocate of tight-

ening the blockade, (then) National Security Advisor John Bolton was unmuzzled

by Trump on 17 April. The potentially most far-reaching change announced in his

luncheon speech at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables was the decision to no

longer waive the implementation of Title III of the Helms–Burton Act. Title III

allows US nationals, including people who are currently US nationals who were

not yet US nationals at the time of their alleged loss, to file suit in US courts against

any person using any property they claim they owned a half a century ago. Major

allies of the US such as the European Union and Great Britain (and many other

countries) have passed laws declaring the extraterritorial provisions of the

1 Al Campbell is a retired Professor Emeritus of Economics from the University. Relative

to Cuba, he is the Assistant Editor of this journal. Besides his ongoing research on the

political economy of the Island, he is particularly interested in providing platforms

for Cubans to be part of the international academic discussion on Cuba, to present

their ideas on what is happening in Cuba. His edited Cuban Economists on the Cuban

Economy (2013, University Press of Florida) and the currently contracted book on

cooperatives in Cuba are collections of works by Cuban authors on these subjects,

translated for presentation to the English-speaking world.