In an Esquire magazine article entitled "End the Cuba Embargo, Now" Walter Mead makes a very good case that the American embargo of Cuba should end, and now. Not only would it help Cuba but it would strengthen America's position in the Western Hemisphere.
As he makes his case, he draws the reader's attention to the powerful political alliance of Cuban Americans living in South Florida – primarily Miami. This coalition ("Miami") has had a stranglehold on American-Cuban foreign policy for thirty years, regardless of who lived in the White House. (Side note: Mead points out that this political bloc also had a hand in getting Bush elected in view of his tough talk toward Castro/Cuba as opposed to Clinton's more conciliatory tone.) Miami, he says, plays into Castro's hands in a variety of ways. At one point, Mead makes the statement that Castro "plays Miami like a violin."
It's when he speaks of the politically active former Cubans now living in exile in America that he makes an interesting comment. He said:
The first reason is that Miami politics is exile politics. Exiles everywhere
always make the same mistakes: They consistently underrate the solidity of
the regime they fled and exaggerate their own future role. Exile society is a
hothouse of gossip, intrigue, and breathless rumors about imminent splits in
the leadership, the imminent death of Castro, or some other miraculous
development that will bring the whole ugly government down. Miami over-
estimates its importance and the importance of the embargo to life in Cuba;
after forty years of exiles and their-nine years of embargo, they still think that
success could be just around the corner.
I saw some interesting parallels that fit some ex-JWs. Not in total, of course, but some.