>So what if dissident groups in Cuba get money from a foreign power.
>So did the CPUSA. Did that justify McCarthyism?
Receiving money from a foreign power makes you subordinate to the said foreign power. The CPUSA's policy and rhetoric often followed the vicissitudes of Soviet politics, more often than not to the detriment of the CPUSA's own fortunes (though on at least one occasion -- the CPUSA's commitment to black self-determination -- the Soviet policy appears to have made it stronger, rather than weaker). Surely this is a point that the self-styled "democratic left" should be able to understand.
If the foreign power in question is committed to furtherance of unfettered capitalism, as the USA is, any receiver of its donations who has an interest in workers' rights and well-being gets committed to self-destruction.
Beth Sims writes in _Workers of the World Undermined: American Labor's Role in U.S. Foreign Policy_:
***** FTUI's grants, like those of the other institutes, helped fight the Cold War as well as providing services and support that many foreign unionists were seeking. In Poland, for instance, the institute not only helped Solidarity in its battle to organize an independent union. FTUI grants also bolstered those elements within the Polish trade union that were most dedicated to eradicating communist influence in the country and were most amenable to conservative economic and political strategies. By helping to keep the fires of protest lit in Poland, the U.S. federation also helped bring down the communist government.
<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Labor/AFL_CIO_WOTWU.html> *****
Today, Solidarity is nothing.
To repeat, any "democratic left" petition critical of the Cuban government's harsh sentencing of Cuban "dissidents" should criticize US funding of the said dissidents, as it is not good for Cuba, the "dissidents" in question, and the USA. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>