Occasionally I’ll discover a political book at a used book store. My latest find is this book from 1962 by William J. Lederer.

William, or Billy as I’ve come to call him, wrote a book complaining about some major government blunders and the ignorance of US citizens during the cold war. What follows are some brief descriptions of these problems:

1. We gave money to the wrong people in Laos and now the people of Laos hate us and the communists are well liked by the locals.
2. We gave money to the wrong people in Thailand and it’s not being used correctly.
3. We give money to Chaing Kai-shek and his nationalist army in Formosa, but China is still red and now Formosa doesn’t like us.
4. We supported Syngman Rhee in Korea and now the Koreans hate us.
5. Foreign students come to this country and learn nothing about our culture because we don’t invite them into our homes. To top that off foreign students are usually sons and daughters of diplomats, not the common people we should be trying to reach.

Billy then goes on to name the culprits. He points out failings of the government, the press and US citizens. Finally in the last few pages he offers some solutions:

1. Reinstate the draft and force young people to serve in a diplomacy force. They will learn foreign languages and work in foreign countries. As a bonus they get to see the world.
2. Revamp the foreign student program so the government pays to have foreign, working class teenagers educated in the US.
3. Educate US citizens by having them become pen-pals with people from other nations.
4. Try to minimize the use of foreigners in government.
5. Begin a service by which common citizens can send telegrams to the president at a reduced rate.

This book has a good smattering of communist bashing, including repeated use of the term pinko, which brought a smile to my face. It also has some great quotes like:

Every man on the street and woman in the kitchen…

That being said, it seems fairly radical for it’s time period. I think if you could remove some of the government force used to implement these programs they aren’t all terrible ideas. Interestingly enough he does mention the peace corps once in the book, but doesn’t go into detail about how they wage peace.

Mariela Castro has introduced a new bill to mandate positive rights for homosexual and transgender persons.  Among the rights are domestic partnerships, ID cards with the gender of your choosing and state provided sexual reassignment surgery.  The article covers some history of the persecution of gay people in Cuba and talks about the current state of the gay community.  We’ll see how this legislation does in the national assembly.

Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on cellular phone ownership.  He gives the impression that he’s hoping to help bolster the nations telecom infrastructure.  The article also mentions some changes in “buying” options for farmers.

I’ll be interested to see if the US continues to wage war with Cuba or if they change their policy in the face of Cuba’s current flux.