One of the great favors that US imperialists and Cuban exiles have done socialist Cuba is to organize the Bay of Pigs invasion:
***** Cubans Celebrate Bay Of Pigs Victory BY ROGER CALERO
...Thirty-five years ago, in less than 72 hours, Cuban workers and farmers - organized in the popular militias and the Cuban armed forces - defeated a U.S.-led counterrevolutionary invasion at Playa Girón (also known as the Bay of Pigs). The mercenaries hoped the invasion would spark a popular revolt in Cuba that would justify direct military intervention by the U.S. government aimed at crushing the socialist revolution.
"They tried to plant fear in us about communism, even though we did not know what socialism was," said one of the participants in that battle at an event organized by the UJC [Union of Young Communists], called "A Meeting of the Generations."
"We embraced the revolutionary cause because we knew our lives had changed."...
<http://www.themilitant.com/1996/6021/6021_16.html> *****
Both Cubans and Americans remember the Bay of Pigs invasion to this day.
At 9:24 AM -0400 5/1/03, Nathan Newman wrote:
>From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>>In any case, the Casey letter is not a petition but a position
>>statement as to how the self-described "democratic left" regards
>>the Cuban government -- as "just one more dictatorship." The
>>CPD petition is more an attempt to pass its wish for the wish
>>of the Cuban people, assuming, without evidence, that the
>>democratic will of the Cuban people exercising the right to
>>self-determination would necessarily coincide with its wish
>>that all Cuban "political prisoners" be released.
>
>Well in the absence of democratic elections in Cuba, who actually
>knows what the self-determination of the Cuban people is? Which is
>precisely the problem. By having a dictatorship, Castro opens the
>door to a range of people to speak in the name of the Cuban people,
>since they can't speak for themselves. Which makes a Bush invasion
>more possible since it will be done in the name of the Cuban people
>with plenty of Miami Cubans speaking in the name of a country whose
>people cannot themselves speak without risking jail.
There are books and articles about experiences of participatory and representative democracy in Cuba.
Arnold August, _Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections_, <http://www.ifconews.org/august.html> -- Cf. <http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2000/420/420p28.htm>, <http://pnews.org/art/demcuba.shtml>, & <http://www.uvm.edu/~wmiller/cubandemocracy.htm>.
Peter Roman, _People's Power: Cuba's Experience with Representative Government_ -- Cf. <http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/445/445p27.htm>, <http://www.geonewsletter.org/roman.htm>, & <http://www.uvm.edu/~wmiller/cubandemocracy.htm>. [_People's Power_ was also reviewed in _Science & Society_ 65.2 (Summer 2001) and _Monthly Review_ 54.9 (February 2003), but the reviews are not available on-line.]
See, also, the Cuba issue of _Socialism and Democracy_ 15.1 (Spring-Summer 2001) -- the introduction to Section II "Government" is available at <http://www.sdonline.org/29/feature2_29.htm>. -- Yoshie
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