Then I recommend reading Said's critique of Walzer, "Michael Walzer's 'Exodus And Revolution'," Grand Street, Winter 1986. That might help.
While I've always acknowledged the social gains made in the Cuban revolution (its international medical aid is quite amazing), I've never been crazy about its government, and feel that long ago Castro lapsed into being a self-possessed blowhard.
That said, if the current system fell (as well it might), I'd be somewhat depressed, because the alternative would not be a democratic socialist government, but one open to US plunder and exploitation. That's the sad fact. Consider Nicaragua. Though the Sandinistas are still denounced as Stalinist mass murderers (Horowitz among them, Nathan), theirs was a considerably open society, esp when you factor in contra terrorism and that the US owned Nicaraguan airspace.
Does anyone think that if the US were to experience relentless foreign-sponsored terror aimed at its suburbs and farms resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, that it would tolerate a DC or NY newspaper cheering on those attacks while receiving money from the attacking power?
Yet, despite occasional harassment, the Sandinistas tolerated La Prensa. They also allowed US-funded political parties to run in national elections. The US openly said that a Sandinista victory in 1990 would guarantee more hostility. But the Sandinistas didn't cancel the election and jail or execute the opposition candidates. They went ahead with it, and we know the result.
Now, the signers of the petition might applaud the Sandinistas for their relatively democratic behavior. But such niceties are mere posturing in the current environment. The USG has blood in the mouth. We shouldn't be pointing to its next meal.
DP