On Dec 23, 2006, at 2:00 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote in response to one of Yoshie's "it doesn't matter what we think" messages:
> Of course it makes no difference to Cuba. We are
> totally irrelevant. I have no illusions about that or
> any pretentions. But it makes a difference to us. And
> since we care, it matters at least to us.
It may matter to Cubans too. For all we know, there are sympathetic Cubans who'd like socialism without repression someday, and looking to leftists in the US and elsewhere for ideas and solidarity. I do believe that's true of China (the lbo-talk archives get a decent number of hits from China, as does my radio archive). Ideas don't have to have "social force" behind them to be interesting or useful.
Doug