Todd Gitlin on Cuba after a visit in 1967.
Pg. 169 of, "The Dark Side of the Left, " by Richard J. Ellis, recommended to me by Bill Domhoff. "Like (Dave) Dellinger, Gitlin insulated the Cuban Revolution from criticism by insisting that to understand it in American terms of formal civil liberties, electoral processes, or economic statistics was to 'imprison' it. Such measurements,'miss that powerful, tranfusing, distinctive tone, those qualities of the ordinary life of ordinary Cubans which simply defy description in the securely narrow categories of liberal thought. They miss fraternity, they miss ease within discipline, they miss the spirited critical consciousness at the very center of revolutionary life.' Liberal doubt, Gitlin continued, 'cannot encompass the enormity of the revolution: it asks the wrong or the most inane and naive questions' The Cuban revolution was, 'at another level of experience altogether,' and to gage it by Western standards made no more sense than measuring weight with a ruler."
"Insulting" Chavez in Venezuela carries a twenty month sentence, btw.