This is a reply to the whole damn thread. And I have to say that I would rather stand next to Yoshie, and even go to jail with her than stand next to Chuck, who it seems will cheer on U.S. sponsored counter-revolution, for the sake of his ideological purity.
And let's agree, that this is more important than any thing I might say about deconstruction or any other delusion of grandeur of the clerical classes. .
In the first place, the problem is here in the United States and not in Cuba, and the problem is with all of us. ( I can hear Carrol objecting to this, but please read on.) Maybe, that is my petty bourgeois moralism coming out, and I am sorry to Doug and Justin and others with whom I largely agree, if they think I am blaming them. I don't exclude myself.
Try to imagine the United States in the same position as Cuba. Try to imagine a super-power thousands of times more powerful than the U.S. united against the U.S.; perhaps some united coalition of Europe, the old Soviet states, Japan, China, and all of the oil countries, plus all of the countries in our hemisphere. Then try to imagine this ultra-super-power repeatedly invading us, bombing our hotels and airplanes, repeatedly attempting to assassinate our leaders, poisoning our livestock, and trying to spread diseases that make our cash crops useless, employing biological warfare of all kinds, recruiting "exiles" from our country to form secret armies to attack U.S. interests around the world. Try to imagine all of this if you can. Then what do you think would be the human rights reaction of the U.S. rulers in relation to its "dissenters", not only Yoshie and Doug, but Chuck. And then if this unimaginably large imagined coalition, also imposes blockades and embargoes on the U.S. so that even the most basic economic functions are made to scream, what do you think the reaction of "our" rulers would be?
The point is almost mute because nuclear bombs would have already slaughtered a billion or so people in the countries that supported the coalition against God's chosen country.
But supposing we didn't destroy half (or all) of the world in our God ordained rage, what would have happened to civil liberties in this country?.
All one has to do is to look to the evidence of the past and the present. Not only would masses of "dissenters" be in gulags, that would dwarf the gulags of the Japanese internment, but they would probably also dwarf the gulags of the old Soviet Union. Not only would habeus corpus be suspended for enemy combatants, but most on this list would already be labeled "enemy combatants." There would be fundamentalist "Christian" and KKK death squads in the streets, kidnapping and murdering homosexuals, blacks, union members and other people of color and many of these death squads will be composed of cops.
The Cuba of the 60s, 70s, and 80s would be a human rights haven compared to the U.S. under similar circumstances. In fact compared to U.S. sponsored and created "death squad democracies" and terror regimes through-out Latin America -- Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, -- Cuba was a human rights haven. It was a human rights haven also for exiles from those terror regimes. Compared even to the totalitarian state of Mississippi during the 50s and much of the 60s, Cuba even comes out smelling like roses during its worse period of human rights violations.
But even this comparison doesn't get at the heart of the matter. Because the point is that this country, the United States, has committed and committing human rights violations in Cuba, And where is the resounding sound of "human rights" intellectuals standing up and protesting U.S. committed human rights violations in Cuba? Well nowhere. Because we don't even recognize our responsibility.
The amount of hypocrisy that is evidenced by U.S. intellectuals criticizing Cuba for human rights violations after the campaign of terror that our tax dollars sponsored against Cuba is more evidence of the inability of our intellectual culture, an inability to even conceive of the meaning of "responsibility". Good, go ahead, "admit" the human rights violations in Cuba, even blame Cuba for them. But there is one thing that all of us on this list could do immediately to stop a fair amount of human rights violations in Cuba. Stop or try to stop our country from sponsoring human rights violations in Cuba. Every terrorist act, and attempt at economic destruction, sponsored by the U.S. in Cuba is a human rights violation.
So all of you who want to stop human rights violations in benighted Cuba, just remember hypocrisy begins at home. We will continue to live in the Republic of Hypocrisy in the near future until most of us realize that the country we are responsible for is the United States not Cuba. We are more responsible for the repression and murders we commit in Cuba than for the what ever repression the Cuban regime commits in Cuba.
Well I guess, I am old fashion to think that the main enemy is at home. But that is too gentle. At the moment, as far as I cans see, the only enemy is at home.
Jerry Monaco -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061224/77313176/attachment.htm>