All very good questions Doug. And, I do have to admit to having conflated positions in my Rage lately.
Sure, no argument that Cuba, with it's 350 or so political prisoners, is heaven compared to Haiti or El Salvador(or Argentina), now).I rooted for the FMLN in the 80's. How could one not when one knew about the slaughter of '32 in the thousands of peasants and Communists. After, reformists and revolutionaries alike were rebuffed ion their attempts at peaceful change in the late 70's. After Archbishop Romero was killed by D'Aubisson? Violence, under left auspices, is an unfortunate necessity, when all other options fail. And 99% of the time those peaceful options fail because of thugs armed and trained by Uncle Sam.But, the proximate target of my bitterness, is narrowly focused on the folks like Carrol, Yoshie and Charles, that apologize for the other Uncle, the one named Joe. And he ain't Hill. Or Hill & Knowlton. Or Hills Brothers. Or The Mills Brothers. Or The Sisters Of Mercy.Or Even The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Michael Pugliese, thinking he should call in sick and see the movie on the Cockettes! P.S. oops forgot to make my main point. All those revolutions that were/are opposed by the USG would/could have been strengthened, if their leaderships had truly practiced those methods that Mao spoke of. A revolutionary democracy was needed. But then that isn't was Leninism is and was. Of coarse, those revoltionary parties would have never been able to seize power w/o using militarized, monolithic party discipline. Such is the (tragic) dilemma. The bourgeoisie will never cede power (or any other ruling class in history) w/o a recourse to violence but, how can the Left escape the political and psychological costs of seizing power and holding it using the same methods our opponents use? I suspect that only folks like Barrington Moore in, "Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, " Arno Mayer in, "The Furies, "and Eli Sagain in his latest, offer apposite lessons.