Adios Fidel?
Fidel Castro celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday. It might very well be his last.
The nature of dictatorship is such that El Jefe Maximo has categorized his illness as a “state secret.” Witholding as much information as possible from the very people you claim to represent is a defining characteristic of any authoritarian regime which, after all, is based on a fear of its own people. Castro has deprived his masas populares of all basic rights of information for almost a half-century now. No one should be surprised that he cloaks what might be his terminal illness in layers of obscurity. Nothing is more important to Fidel than Fidel himself.
For two weeks now, Cubans have not had a satisfactory explanation of what ails the one man who holds all of their past, all of their future, all state power in his hands. His hand-picked successor, his brother Raul who has been given “temporary” rein, has not bothered to appear in public either. The Castro brothers have become as elusive, as chimeric to ordinary Cubans as –say– a juicy, ribeye steak that Cubans can dream of but rarely find in a store.
To mark Fidel’s birthday, the Cuban press [sic] on Sunday ran a picture of the octogenerian comandante holding up a recent paper and reproducing a brief statement from him, knocking down any speculation that Fidel had already died.
But veteran Latin American reporter Juan Tamayo writes in the Miami Herald that reading through what scant public statements have been issued regarding Fidel, one finds more questions than answers.
Indeed, a close reading of the material out there might suggest that Fidel is quickly dying.
I have no idea what the truth is. I will recount to you, however, one intriguing discussion I had a week ago with a local neurosurgeon, a long-time friend. I should first tell you that the doctor in question is himself a Latin American and just about the most ardent Fidelista that I know. So he had no interest in any gratuitous crepe-hanging. But he theorized that given the reports he has read in the news, Castro is most likely suffering from colon cancer. “That’s what usually causes the sort of intestinal bleeding that has been reported,” the doctor said. “The big question is if it has metastisized.”
At first, I just shrugged my shoulders at this speculation. My friend’s Bill Frist-like remote diagnosis, however, now seems consistent with the material reviewed by reporter Tamayo. It sure doesn’t sound like Fidel is coming back anytime soon and it looks like the regime is slowly softening the “masses” for the inevitable news.
Nor is that any wonder. I’ve spent enough time in Cuba to brazenly predict that the regime will not outlast Castro by more than a few months — if that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it collapsed within days of Fidel’s demise (A fair warning to American lefties still swooning over Fidel: prepare to have your sympathies directly challenged. If Cuban army troops or tanks are called out against rebelling civilians, to whom will your solidarity be directed?).
Meanwhile, I am inclined to agree with former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda writing in yesterday’s L.A. Times, that no matter what the details of Fidel’s illness, we can now declare that his era has come to a crashing dead end. The romantic notion of armed revolution in Latin America has — for better or for worse– come to a rather unglorious terminus. Says Castaneda:
With Castro’s fading, the hemisphere’s revolutionary school loses its inspirational leader. No possible successor — neither Raul at home nor Chavez abroad — could ever dream of replacing him in this context. In addition, Cuba’s transition inevitably will cast light on the true record of Castro’s regime — its failures, its deceptions and disappointments, its complicities and crimes, and its presumed accomplishments in education and public health. And because that record will be largely negative, continuing to be a revolutionary will be impossible. One needs a revolution to look up to, after all.
And there isn’t one. Castro’s promise to build a different sort of revolution, one that escaped the uni-dimensional aspects of the Soviet model and that would engender a “new socialist man,” strangled itself with a stultifying one-man dictatorship. Education was made free and universal but critical thought was rendered a crime.
Guevara’s attempt to export the revolution ended in ignominious collapse in Bolivia (well-documented and explained in Castaneda’s stunning biography of Che). Revolutionary movements in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil ended in similar disasters. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas briefly re-floated hopes of a new, humane model of transformation but today Daniel Ortega presides over the shell of a movement that more resembles the sordid Mexican PRI than the lofty dreams of General Sandino.
Havana has always buzzed with sardonic jokes — the natural by-product of a population that tries to carry on daily in a permanent state of uncertainty, duplicity and mind-numbing official bureaucracy. One of the most oft-repeated gags was the one about Fidel asking his yes-men flunkies in the Politburo if there was anything in the rumours circulating that day that the regime was about to collapse. After some nervous giggles, as the cabinet members stare at the desk in front of them, one of them works up the courage to speak out. “Comrade comandante,” says the one outspoken cabinet minister. “The truth is our glorious socialist government has already fallen. It’s just that the paperwork hasn’t yet been completed.”
That was then. This is now. Fidel’s offiicial exit from history may soon be signed, sealed, delivered and interred. Into the ground with him will go a half-century of a failed political project. It was about time.
August 14th, 2006 at 5:05 am
I enjoyed reading your post about Fidel Castro. It was very insightful speculation. I too believe that Fidel is on his last legs, and change is about to descend upon Cuba, sooner than later.
August 14th, 2006 at 5:36 am
One can only hope that the change in Cuba, what ever it may be is one dictated by the People of Cuba, including those who fled Castro’s version, not outsiders, not corporations, not other thugs like Chavez, but by the very people most likely to benefit from the change.
Let them be!
August 14th, 2006 at 5:52 am
Your post raises two questions to my mind in contemplating the aftermath of Fidel, one of an immediate nature and the other a more historical rumination.
The former: what sorts of adventurism can we expect from our rulers since they have proven themselves completely clueless about pretty much everything but especially nation-building? And is there anything we could possibly do about it?
The latter: after the dust settles, it will be interesting to look back on the last 50 years and try to gauge the impact of the Cuban Revolution on the continent, to what extent it stirred people to believe in the possibility of overthrowing corrupt dictatorships, how it influenced the reactions from the U.S. from the Alliance for Progress through the support for reaction in the Nixon and Reagan eras, with the human rights discourse during the Carter interregnum and the shift to support for a neoliberal model in the 1990s without the authoritarian gorillas that imposed it. Throughout it all, Castro was there giving the Americans nightmares–did this matter? I wonder.
August 14th, 2006 at 6:01 am
A “fauxtography” question– The white and black on that newspaper seems awfully white and black for newsprint appearing in a photo– has anyone seen an issue of that newspaper in the flesh? Is it that bright and high contrast? This traditional form of proof doesn’t prove much in this Photoshop day and age.
On the other hand, I find it hard to imagine the time at which some underling suggested to Fidel it would be a good idea to pose with a newspaper for when he’s dead. You don’t suggest that kind of thing to a maximum ruler.
The best thing about this photo is learning that while American college students wear Che T-shirts (proudly proclaiming their homophobia), the last Commie wears western sports-logo branded clothing. Adidas won the Cold War!
August 14th, 2006 at 6:47 am
“Meanwhile, I am inclined to agree with former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda writing in yesterday’s L.A. Times, that no matter what the details of Fidel’s illness, we can now declare that his era has come to a crashing dead end.”
Surprise. Surprise. Marc Cooper finds himself in agreement with a former leftist who served in the hated PAN party in Mexico, whose president was George W. Bush’s best pal south of the Texas border.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:18 am
I have problems with this notion that the Cuban regime will unravel simply because Casto is no longer there. A personality cult might fade because the personality has passed on, but the state doesn’t necessarily die with the personality. Did Egypt come apart when Nasser died? Yugoslavia’s steady process of disintegration owed less to the disappearance of a unifying Marshall Tito than to the forces unleashed by the dissolving Soviet Union–not to mention the centrifugal nationalist forces within Yugoslavia, forces that aren’t obviously in evidence in Cuba.
That’s not to say there won’t be significant change, but Raul Castro may turn out be the spearhead for it. William Ratliff, as a fellow at the reliably-conservative Hoover Institute, could hardly be called a Castro supporter, but he is also a realist. In his own speculations about a post-Fidel Cuba, he points out that Raul Castro might be very sympathetic to market reforms taking root, while at the same time maintaining party control of the state and public discourse. Just like what happened in another disastrous personality-cult communist state, after its strongman personality died: China.
http://www.hooverdigest.org/044/ratliff.html
More than anybody, Raul is responsible for political stability in Cuba. And in a transitional phase, that’s what matters.
What would make Raul a reformer as well, though? Perhaps the fact that he is Fidel’s *younger* brother could be a factor. In a fascinating (and apparently very rigorous) study of the effects of birth order on personality, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives,
http://www.sulloway.org/borntorebel.html
Frank Sulloway found some distinct patterns. One is that oldest children either tend to hew more firmly than most to the status quo, or — if they do rebel against it — they are more likely to resort to violence when rebelling against it. (A great many terrorists are firstborns.) Open-mindedness tends to correlate with birth-order, youngest children being the most open-minded of all.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:43 am
“the last Commie wears western sports-logo branded clothing. Adidas won the Cold War!”
That was damn funny…
August 14th, 2006 at 8:46 am
From someone who knew Fidel Castro well, the son of Pierre Trudeau – a very close friend of Fidel Castro:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1155420635589&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467
August 14th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Jorge Castaneda! This man is a pompous fake when it comes to his political analysis of Latin America.
How can you, Marc Cooper, gloss over Castenada’s overuse of the word “Chile” as the Castaneda ideal for the region when you yourself have been one of the biggest critic’s of post-Pinochet Chile.
His now infamous analysis of the so-called “two lefts” in Latin America is overly simplistic and dead stupid. I doubt the man has spent much more than a day or two outside of five-star hotel visits to Chile and Bolivia. To compare Bolivia with Cuba and Venezuela is absurd. To compare Morales, a leader who rose out of labor and cocalero movements to Chavez, an ex-military man, is well, ill-conceived. Moreso, Jorge needs to get past his superficial observations of personalities and look at concrete policy and results in said countries. Bolivia, as was noted in a recent Newsweek interview with Bolivia VP Alvaro Garcia Linera http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14098152/
is supremely careful with its economic management and is not, in the traditional of right-wing populist leaders of Latin America’s past, simply doing whatever is popular for the masses. But yes, Bolivia is also responding to a demand by the overwhelming majority for revolutionary change in a country that has essentially been a failed state for two centuries and engendered a racist system toward indigenous on the scale of South Africa apartheid. Sometime revolutionary change is just what is needed to correct structural poverty and racism and corruption in a country like Bolivia. The only people pining for the days of pre-Evo Bolivia are deranged people like Castaneda punditing from New York and its obvious unclear view of Bolivian realities.
Castaneda is a con man who has done grave damage to US perceptions of Latin American politics with his irresponsible, superficial and unsubstantiated analysis of the politics in the region.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:18 am
That picture of Castro reminds me of the one of Chairman Mao swimming in the Yangtze River when he was age 73, and the picture just showed his head on the surface of the water, which was a doctored picture–much like those of our press today. The Chinese government said that Mao swam nine miles in just over an hour that day. Many in the West knew better, but those in China knew that this was a statement and they better tow the line. http://edition.cnn.com/2000/US/12/25/photo.fakery/index.html#4
Of course, Cuba could come out with a convincing sports picture of Castro at bat. Look at his uniform and shoes in the picture here: http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/castro.asp . Must be pre-Adidas. (Good comment, Stevez.) Man, if I were that pitcher I would have thrown a fast ball so hard and so high and so tight that it would have ended Castro’s regime immediately.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Trudeau Jr.’s meditation on Fidel’s “greatness” strikes me as the epitome of a certain clueless, condescending and obnoxiously elitist “political” perspective that often infects upper-class quasi-”leftists”:
“They (Cubans) do occasionally complain, often as an adolescent might complain about a too strict and demanding father…(long snip)…The death of a father so grand and present as Castro will…immortalize him in the minds of his children.”
Overall, a much creepier character study of both the subject and the author than could possibly have been intended.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Brian Jones: You can call Jorge a lot of things but pompous fake hardly applies. Your argument, as far as I can tell, is bereft of any arguments! What’s your point, other than that you dont like Castaneda? Wouldnt you say it’s just a tad early to make such positive judgements as you are about Bolivia? No matter how much you love Evo he’s hardly been put yet to the test.
Reg: Thanks for your comments. It’s always amusing me to how the warmest regards for Fidel always come from people living very comfortable outside of Cuba.
When one has to actually wake up in Havana, in a house where the electricty and water go on and off, where the ration card covers about 20%of your real needs, where a monthly salary wont buy one steak, where the free hospitals are also free of rx medicines, where the same dictator has been on the tube for 47 years saying the same thing over and over and over again and where, if God Forbid you have a real education you find there is nothing to read, things somehow dont look quite so great. Do they?
August 14th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Edward Boorstein, “The Economic Transformation of Cuba”, Monthly Review Press”:
By October 1960 most of this administrative and technical personnel had left Cuba. The Americans and some of the Cubans were withdrawn by the home companies of the plants for which they worked, or left of their own accord: they found themselves unable to understand the struggle with the United States, unwilling to accept the new way of life that was opening up before them.
The Revolutionary Government had to keep the factories and mines going only with a minute proportion of the usual trained and experienced personnel. A few examples can perhaps best give an idea of what happened.
Five of us from the Ministry of Foreign Commerce, on a business visit, were being taken through the Moa nickel plant. In the electric power station–itself a large plant–which served the rest of the complex, our guide was an enthusiastic youngster of about 22. He did an excellent job as guide, but his modesty as well as his age deceived us and only toward the end of our tour did we realize that he was not some sort of apprentice engineer or assistant–he was in charge of the plant. I noticed that he spoke English well and asked him if he had lived in the States. “Sure,” he answered, “I studied engineering at Tulane.” As soon as he finished, he had come back to work for the Revolution and had been placed in charge of the power plant.
In another part of the complex, the head of one of the key departments was a black Cuban who had about four years of elementary school education. He had been an observant worker and when engineer of his department left he knew what to do–although he didn’t really know why, or how his department related to the others in the plant. Now to learn why, he was plugging away at his minimo tecnico manual–one of the little mimeographed booklets which had been distributed throughout industry to improve people’s knowledge of their jobs.
And so on throughout the Moa plant. The engineer in charge of the whole enterprise, who had a long cigar in his hand and his feet on the desk as he gave us his criticisms of the way our Ministry was handling his import requirements, was about 28 years old. His chief assistants were about the same age and some of them were obviously not engineers.
Yet Moa was made to function. Even laymen are struck with its delicate beauty–a testament to American engineering skill. ‘Es una joya’–it’s a jewel, say the Cubans. It is much more impressive than the larger but older nickel plant at Nicaro. Shortly after the nickel ore is clawed out of the earth by giant Bucyrus power shovels, it a pulverized and mixed with water to form a mixture 55 percent and 45 percent water. From then on all materials movement is liquids, in pipes, automatically controlled. The liquids move through the several miles of the complex, in and out of the separate plants, with the reducers, mixing vats, etc. Everything depends on innumerable delicate instruments, and on unusual materials, resistant to exceptions high temperatures and various kinds of chemical reaction. The margin for improvising in repairing or replacing parts is small-much smaller than in the mechanized rather than the automated Nicaro plant. Yet the Moa plant was in operation when we were there: two of the main production lines were going-and all four would have been going jf it had not been necessary to cannibalize two lines to get replacement parts for the other two.
Except that Moa was an especially complex and difficult operation, jt was typical of what happened throughout the mines and factories, and far that matter in the railroads, banks, department stores, and movie houses that had been taken over. The large oil companies had expected that the Cubans would not be able to run the oil refineries. But they were wrong. When a co-worker and I talked to the young administrator of the now combined Esso-Shell refineries across the bay from Havana, he said, only half-jokingly, that he was about two lessons ahead of us in his understanding of how the refinery worked–and I wondered how it was kept going. But we had been around the ten minutes earlier and there it was–going.
A textile plant was placed in the charge of a bearded young man of about 23 who had impressed Major Guevara with his courage and resourcefulness in the Rebel Army. The former Procter and Gamble plant, which each year turns out several million dollars worth of soaps, and tooth paste, was run by a former physician who, besides being generally able, knew some chemistry. For many months, the Matahambre copper mine was in the charge of an American geologist, a friend of mine. After coming to Cuba to work for the Revolution, he had been pressed into service, though he was not a mining engineer and had never run a mine, because he was still the most qualified person available. He had to educate himself rapidly in mine ventilation; this was one of Matahambre’s biggest problems at the time. I went through the mine with him once end it was obvious from the way the men treated him that he had gained their respect for the way he was handling his job.
Once an economist from the Ministry of Industry and I visited a large plant near Matanzas that produced rayon for tires, textiles, and export. We sensed at the plant that the harassed, outspoken administrator, almost the only engineer left, was all but sustaining the whole operation by himself. We got into a conversation about him with one one of his assistants. It turned out he had a bad leg of some sort which was giving him trouble; his father, who had owned valuable property in the nearby swanky bathing resort at Varadero was out of sympathy with the Revolution; and his brother, also an engineer, had left for Venezuela or some such place. But there he was, holding a meeting with his staff at 11 P.M., using all his energy to help keep the rayonera going.
When you walked through a Cuban factory, you didn’t need to be told that it was under new management–you could see and feel it everywhere. In the Pheldrake plant for producing wire and cable, formerly owned by Dutch and American interests, the whole office of administration was filled by men in shirt-sleeves who were unmistakably workers; the engineers had gone and the workers had taken over. On the main floor, a group of them were struggling–using baling wire techniques–to repair one of the extrusion machines so that the wire required by the Cuban telephone industry could be kept coming. In a large tobacco factory, the administrator was black; in the metal-working plant formerly owned by the American Car and Foundry Company, the head of a department turning out chicken incubators was black. Black people had not held such positions before the Revolution.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Thank you Junior for the latest news — from 1960! And from a rigidly ideological journal! That ought to really help us understand Cuba in 2006.
Workers in many Cuban industries are now “rented out” to foreign capitalists who pay bargain rates in hard currency to the CUban state. The Cuban state in turn pays the workers in worthless pesos. The capitalists love the arrangement: it’s cheap, the workers are well-educated, there are no real unions, and the Communist Party imposes an austere workplace discipline. And no distinction is made between black and white workers. They are equally exploited by their bosses.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I don’t know enough about Fidel and the Cuban Revolution to have thoughts about post-Castro Cuba that would mean a damn but I am sure of one thing. When Castro goes the most disappointed people will not be left wingers there or here but the exiles in South Florida who believe that they will be welcomed back to Havana with Flowers and sweets. At least Achmed Chalibi was (and is) a con man. But these frail survivors of Batista will be in for a rude awakening.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I’ll take Monthly Review any day over the Miami Herald slop you prefer.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Boorstein’s account of revolutionary tourism is now, incidentally, nearly 40 years old. Perhaps not quite as embarrassing or utterly “Potemkin Village” in retrospect as reading Sydney and Beatrice Webb on the wonder’s of Stalin’s Soviets, but not what I would consider even remotely convincing evidence for Castro’s economic successes, the triumph of “worker’s democracy” and human rights – or even the elimination of racism on the island.
From my own, often narrow, social-democratic perspective, one of the biggest beefs with Castro is that he makes it appear that in order for a Latin American country to achieve universal health care, high rates of education/literacy and low infant mortality, they need to trade off the freedom to form independent political parties, open elections, a free press, an entrepeneurial economic sector and any right to organized dissent. That’s about as perfect an argument as the bourgeois elites who mostly control those societies could ask for.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Junior.. when u get tired of MR I also have some Gideon bibles that you might enjoy. You are doing nothing but displaying your ignorance and your bias. You are saying that you would rather read an ideological report from 45 years ago than a news report from today because the latter is “slop.” Think about how much you, in the end, have in common with characters like Bush/Cheney who are also allergic to the slop of facts. It’s a little scary.
Just so you know (tho Im sure it will make no difference inside the world you live) that the Miami Herald reporter Tamayo has an extremely liberal rep; he broke many of the key stories revealing the contra war and has even free lanced pieces to The Nation.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Michael Turner, your predictions make sense. But there are a couple of conditions here that didn’t obtain in the case of Mao and China: the huge exile/expatriate community just a few miles away, and the ability and willingness of the U.S. government to intervene in many, many ways.
If Raul is any kind of reformer, here’s one reform that would be at the top of my list: admit the Red Cross to inspect the prisons. Cuba is one of the few remaining countries that don’t permit such access.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I have no doubt that the Miami Herald writers are liberal. But that is my problem with you. You don’t have the guts to identify yourself as a liberal–one of those people who prefers capitalist reform.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Fascinating column, Marc.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Junior
Lol. I repeat LOL. You purer than thou lefties are reall hung up on identity aren’t u?
The implication of what u say is that somehow my falsely masquerading as a lefty misleads the masses. I’m happy to know I have so much influene.
I’m not quite sure I understand why u allege how I identify myself is a question of courage. Unlike you I sign my name and write publicly. I hardly hide my views.
Hey wait. Maybe Michael Berube invented you just to re inforce his arguments.
August 14th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
This was a very interesting and sobering article, which should be taken seriously by those who have clung to the revolutionary zeal and romanticism of decades past. Having been a former denizen of that crowd until recent years, and having read (and disagreed with some of) your views on other issues of the day, I confess that I half-expected some glossing over of the harsh realities there. But this commentary has the ring of accuracy and clarity. I have read other commentary on Cuba of late, and I think it is interesting that some of the writers have adamantly insisted that Raul will assume power (if he hasn’t already) quite seamlessly, yet your analysis seems quite persuasive. . I would be interested to know your thoughts on this, and why it appears that Raul may not carry the day.
August 14th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Marc: It is early to pass judgement on Bolivia, thats precisely one of many reasons why Castaneda’s bullshit about two lefts in Latin America is such a farce. Castaneda was raving about the dangers of populist Evo back in March, less than two months into the Evo government. I would be willing to wager that Castaneda, if he has ever been to Bolivia, it has not been within the past five years or so, and if he has been here, it was only a brief 5-star stop in the very insulated government events he took on as the highly compromised minister to Fox.
Bereft of arguments, friend, that is what Mr. Castanenda brings to the table, not yours truly, who did in fact present evidence and arguments above defeating the crap Castaneda is spreading. You don’t know me from Adam, have not published a book on Che, but I am in Bolivia at least four months each year and the facts are what they are. The Bolivian reality and Castanenda’s fantasy world imagination of Bolivia are two different things altogether, of course. I have read Castaneda’s foreign affairs crap on the left in Latin America — there is no empirical, real-life data to back up his thesis. He is going on superficial personality assessments and is not presenting government policies and data to prove his points.
Check out more ways to break the con Castaneda is seeking to spread about LatAm:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/maxwell_a_cameron/2006/05/dichotomizing_latin_americas_l.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/maxwell_a_cameron/2006/06/the_rightwrong_left_shibboleth.html
(Am posting this again as am not sure if I am beling censored, got a message that my post are “under moderation”)
August 14th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Part Two: I believe if I have too many links in my posts they are automatically blocked?
And this much different analysis of the region from your The Nation, which seems increasingly to the left of you on these issues:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/grandin
The same Greg Grandin, who is a Latin American history profressor at the same NYU as Castaneda, said in a recent Counterpunch article:
Other supposedly objective comments come from the center-right — NYU’s Jorge Castañeda — to the Right-Right — Johns Hopkin’s Riordan Roett — of the political spectrum. Its worth noting that Roett’s primary claim to fame was a 1995 memo he wrote while an emerging-market consultant to Chase Manhattan Bank urging the Mexican government to “eliminate the Zapatistas†and to slowdown democratic reforms. Now that’s “meddlesome.â€
And this, another related critique of the absurd two-left thesis, this about another Latin American amateur analyst, Franklin Foer, who apparently buys the Castaneda garbage sale:
“Foer’s presentation of Latin American politics as a contest between two lefts, one acceptable and one not, is overly simplistic. Latin American leaders themselves don’t buy it. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, has been one of Chávez’s biggest defenders—not, as Foer deduces, because he is scared of his base, but because the two share many goals, including diversifying sources of investment and furthering regional economic integration. Even Chile’s former President Ricardo Lagos, the kind of responsible, left-of-center politician extolled by Foer, recently told the United States to back off its criticisms of Venezuela. It would be a “mistake,†he said, to “demonize Hugo Chávez.†Foer should heed the advice of the Latin American leaders that he respects. See the rest at this link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/letters/3
August 14th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Part III: sorry for the multiple posting, but have been spammed block or something.
Marc: While Castaneda has raised up Chile as the model for the rest of the region(see: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11902205/site/newsweek/ ), were you not the same person who heavily criticized post-Pinochet Chilean neoliberalismo — or have your views on Chile changed?
August 14th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Trudeau’s point is undeniable, whether you like Castro or not. Like the great Pierre Trudeau, Richard Nixon, Nikita Kruschev, Mao or De Gaulle, Castro is possibly the last living twentieth century true statesman. Prove me wrong.
Castro is more popular among Cubans than Bush is among Americans.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I see no one has responded to my questions. Although the back and forth purse-whacking is very entertaining, I thought they were worthy of attention from somebody. Oh well.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I see people are now saying that this is a page proof, not the actual newspaper. Makes you wonder if the picture was really taken recently– I mean, it’s not like the story on the cover, even if it is the current issue, is “Britain Arrests Freedom Fighters In Bomb Plot” or “Oliver Stone’s 9-11 Movie Fails To Reach Box Office Heights Of His Castro Interview” or something that they couldn’t have faked months ago. It looks like the Cuban equivalent of the annual New Archeological Finds About Jesus story that Newsweek runs each Christmas.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Excellent piece, Marc. As far as Fidel’s future goes, I think you are exactly right. It sounds like colon cancer, and whatever the prognosis is, the Cuban people are being fed the information slowly and in doses so that it may be absorbed without a devastating grief response.
There is no way that I will challenge your knowledge of Cuba and Latin America generally, but I can’t help but wonder whether our historical view of Fidel and the Cuban revolution shouldn’t be tempered by a sensitivity to the bullying nature of US policies since the mid sixties.
It seems like the revolution’s fate was sealed in a three stage process: (1) the Bay of Pigs invasion followed by the 62 missle crisis created a chasm between the US and Cuba that remains still;
(2) Cuba became almost wholly dependent on USSR and its client nations for trade and financial support; and (3) the collapse of Soviet communism deprived Cuba of its distant partners, but did nothing to bridge the gap with the US. It is at point 3 that Cuba became a truly impoverished nation, and a consensus began to build that the Cuban revolution was a failure.
Certainly economics is not the only measure to judge the success or failure of the revolution. Whether it survives the death or incapacity of Fidel is certainly one test. Universal principles of human rights and political freedoms provide others. Still, Cuba is one tiny island, and yet today is host to the US Marine/CIA playground at Guantanamo Bay. Harsh scrutiny must be balanced by a recognition that this small island and its political leaders have shown a remarkable amount of courage and some creativity to have survived in the face of intense opposition by the world-dominating power of its time, just 90 miles away.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Marc wrote:
“The nature of dictatorship is such that El Jefe Maximo has categorized his illness as a “state secret.” Witholding as much information as possible from the very people you claim to represent is a defining characteristic of any authoritarian regime which, after all, is based on a fear of its own people.”
In “Worse than Watergate,” John Dean makes a similiar argument regarding the secrecy and lies of the Bush administration and, coincidently, about Cheney’s heart disease, especially before the 2000 election. The American public was denied knowledge of Cheney’s serious heart disease when choosing in the presidential election. And we were misled about the seriousness of his heart attack(s?) early on in the administration.
August 14th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Some responses….
Cummings, you take the cake. You must be a clairvoyant if you claim to know Fidel\’s popularity rating. I\’d be interested to know how you gauge public opinion in a country where public opinion is illegal. Here\’s the sad sad truth… as big as a nitwit as Bush is, and as unpopular as he might be, he\’s a much more LEGITIMATE ruler than Castro who has not submitted his rule to any sort of popular vote in 47 years. Say what you will about American elections, and there is plenty to say, but they beat the hell out of the Cuban model.
Timotheus: I will address your points. They are excellent ones. The answers are implicit in your queries. The Cuban revolution had a profound effect on the continent. It indeed inspired many to stand against their own dictatorships. It forced the U.S. to compete as you point out in the Alliance For Progress.
That makes the rot of the revolution so muc more tragic. As I said in an earlier post… the Cubans bit the apple. A revolution betrayed is wore than none at all.
Brian Jones… Well, well. Let\’s see… you cant figure out why I have been so critical of the Chilean government would like Castaneda who praised the same govt? Could it possibly be that he and I simply differ? Funny thing.. I agree with Chris Hitchens about religion but disagree with him about Iraq! My my. I think Chomsly is pretty solid on Vietnam and yet has no idea what he\’s talking about when it comes to Panama. I humbly believe this is what is called critical thinking — as opposed to mindless cheerleading.
I generally agree with Castaneda\’s views about the two latin american lefts. I think he overstates the positive in the social democratic model. He might overstate the criticism of Evo though I fully agree with his take on Chavez. So what? So we disagree on some r maybe many specifics. I hope to never find anybody with whom I say, I agree with him 100%. That sort of mindless crap is better to left to Cuban classrooms where grammar school kids are taught to sing the praises of a living dictator (Imagine the outrage of American lefists if American schoolchildren were forced to recite poems praising Bush. Unfortunately, Ive been in Havana wth some of those lefties and have seen them mist up with emotion when a room full of 7 year olds began shouting slogans in favor of Fidel).
I can tell you this much… between the current Chilean model (with all of the flaws I have always noted) and the Cuban dictatorship, I will happily choose the former. No questions. No doubts. No hesitation. No regrets. I havent changed my views on neo liberalism. But neitehr have I changed my views on basic freedom and human dignity.
August 14th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I asked a week or so back and I don’t think anyone said anything… how DOES Castro remain in power? If the people are angered that the revolution has been betrayed, why no counter revolution? Do they hate Castro but hate getting pushed around by the U.S. even worse? Is he simply the devil they know? Is it that he retains countrol of the military?
August 14th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
wall….. ur joking, right? U dont know how Fidel holds onto power? The old-fashioned way that any dictatorship does: by exercising a total iron-clad monopoly on all political power, all militray power, all of the media and making illegal any sort of organized opposition, dissent or even criticism. Does that help u understand it better?
Just like Bush or Cheney, if you dissent from him you are a traitor. The only difference is that he actually puts u in jail.
Turning over power to Raul — the head of the armed forces– would have been called a military coup in just about any other country. The only reason it wasnt is that Fidel outranks Raul and the military was already effectively in power.
August 14th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Reg you asked about Castro’s mthods of staying in power and whether or not he makes a virtue of dictatorship. I’m afraid he does for the simple reason that, thanks to Nixon and Kissinger, one lession learned in Latin America is that elections will not be enough if the US wants you ouT – see Allende. The answer is ruthless policing of possible dissidents and strong control of the the military. Chavez has learned this. Its too bad but that is the Law of Unintended Consequences for you!
August 14th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
I’ve been heavily critical of Castro, and I’ve also been to Cuba, not as an official visitor. I backpacked there for a month, and while there was some criticism, in fact everyone knew everything vix-a-vix the rest of the world. Information flow was fine. People were perhaps overeducated and having a lack of knowledge based sectors within which to work – PHDs getting good salaries in tourism. All in all, Castro seemed quite popular, and people seemed to separate their respect for him protecting them from Yanqui collusion and their disapointment at lack of certain formal freedoms.
I think Cuba needs to democratize, but I’m not alone in thinking that better not to democratize than to do it at the behest of Carl Gershman.
August 14th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
One can only hope that the change in Cuba, what ever it may be is one dictated by the People of Cuba, including those who fled Castro’s version, not outsiders, not corporations, not other thugs like Chavez, but by the very people most likely to benefit from the change.
You had me up to the second comma. Change will not come to Cuba from the outside including from the exile community with perhaps a few exceptions. There is far too much bitterness between much of the exile community and those in Cuba.
By the way, if you want to read a great book on life in Cuba, I recommend Isadora Tattlin’s Cuba Diaries.
From my own, often narrow, social-democratic perspective, one of the biggest beefs with Castro is that he makes it appear that in order for a Latin American country to achieve universal health care, high rates of education/literacy and low infant mortality, they need to trade off the freedom to form independent political parties, open elections, a free press, an entrepeneurial economic sector and any right to organized dissent. That’s about as perfect an argument as the bourgeois elites who mostly control those societies could ask for.
Amen.
August 14th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
rlc – “the Law of Unintended Consequences for you!”
On the flip side of the coin, I doubt those were Unintended Consequences.
August 14th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Not joking really, and I accept what your saying. Yet don’t the judges, cops, teachers and journalists who have to hold up Castro’s iron hand feel something for him other than fear and silent contempt? Aren’t some of them old enough to have had expectations from the revolution; was there ever a credible challege to his absolute power? We normaly hear of closed societies being cut off from the rest of the world, but could this truely be the case with Cuba?
I suppose if the old guy is in the home strech we will all know soon enough. Remember the somewhat smug and jingoistic “Twilight Zone” where Peter Falk played a Castro prototype, whose wild ego led to a quick end for him and his revolution? You couldn’t help feel Castro made a fool out of Rod Serling every third or so Thanksgiving. I hate to wish for anyone’s death; even if Bill O’Reilly calls him one of the great villians of the twenteth Century. So I say… Long Live Peter Falk!
August 14th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Marc: Castaneda over-generalizes the left, and makes faulty assumptions, which you apparently have bought into. I referenced his views on Chile, which is a lot more relevant to the two-left LatAm analysis than Vietnam is to Panama or religion to Iraq. His views on Chile are indicative of his overall analysis of Latin American politics. For someone who seems to have spent a lot of time in the region, you should know very well that each country here is very different with completely different cultural and political circumstances. There are not two lefts, there are multiple lefts. The Chavez regime is different from Castro, and the Evo governnment sure as heck is different from the both. No leftist-led government is a carbon copy of another in the region. The Evo regime has a lot of populist-sounding rhetoric booming from Evo from time to time but if you take a look at its economic management its really only making reforms and not changing the basic economic structure. As for democracy, its all relative, but I would dare say the democracy in Bolivia is functioning better under Evo than it is under your George Bush. Unfortunately, people like you, who spend 90-95 percent of their time in the US, don’t have too many sound information sources but fact is the Evo government is completely unique as is Bachelet’s govt. is different from Lula’s.
Its a shame you have to make generalizations — I hope one day when you have the time to dig deeper you will also understand the highly outrageous spin that Castaneda is passing off as analysis. The man is a pompous fake indeed based on his two-left thesis he keeps pushing. Am sure he did a beautiful job on his Che novel, don’t really know and don’t care to know after seeing his other works, but since you thankfully believe in critical analysis do look beyond his so-called worn out credentials and try to come up with your own educated analysis of the region.
August 14th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
One more thing, I, too, would choose Chile over Cuba. That said, what freedom of press do we have in Chile — its controlled by the poltiical right. The Congress and political elections, both are still rigged to keep a political right lock on power. And as for human dignity, what human dignity is there in Chile with a minimum wage of about $250 a month and the large part of the people destined for cancer from one of the smoggiest cities, overuse of hazardous pesticides, toxic mining pollution, approval of dirty pulp plants everywhere, rivers and lakes treated like sewers, more. And then there are the all too common general labor abuses, such as in the salmon industry, where 17 workers have died in the past 18 months in “accidents.” Official poverty may have fallen, but the majority of Chileans still live an undignifed life in which, if they want to buy anything, worth a damn, they will have to pay it off on credit for the next 10 years or more. Everyone below the rich class are mostly in debt. And Castaneda says we should all “develop a taste for Chile.”
August 14th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I Certainly Didn’t Celebrate Yesterday…
Yesterday was Fidel Castro’s birthday and I suppose there is no greater evidence of the cult of personality that surrounds him than the fact that the nation is celebrating. Gee, I always thought that a revolution was about so much…
August 14th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
A book about an earlier generation of Marc Coopers.
—-
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
By Frances Stonor Saunders
The Cold War was such an utterly unique historical period that it’s likely the next hundred years will be filtered through its prism. One has only to witness the Elian Gonzalez farce to realize that for some people, it is forever 1962, and the world is forever divided into twin empires, eternally opposed. The truth, of course, is that there is only one remaining empire, and now is the time for reflection, for a reasoned and lengthy analysis of what the Cold War cost the world, in bodies lost in battle, and in spirits crushed by McCarthyism and Stalinist purges.
Frances Stonor Saunders attempts analysis of one facet of America’s Cold War lunacies in The Cultural Cold War. She details the efforts the CIA made through its front group, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and various shadow-funded foundations, to influence the artistic, literary and philosophical environments of postwar Europe towards the American ideal and away from the beckonings of Communism. In so doing, she manages to make the US government look thoroughly foolish and ham-fisted, and while that may not be any astonishing achievement, it provides entertaining reading.
Much of this material, while factually unfamiliar (though the list of folks who took government checks is pretty astonishing: Jackson Pollock, Irving Kristol, Andre Malraux, Reinhold Neibuhr, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Spender, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and many, many others), is nevertheless ideologically unsurprising, and will dovetail nicely with the previously existing assumptions of the book’s intended audience. Those who reflexively distrust government will find plenty here to confirm their suspicions, and those who continue to place blind faith in their leaders will likely dismiss the book out of hand and unread.
It would have been easy to make The Cultural Cold War a broad satiric swipe at the mythical “Ugly American” attempting to foist his jazz and his abstract expressionist painters, and, most importantly, his lofty pronouncements on democracy and capitalism, on the shivering refugees of Europe who, like bums at a Salvation Army soup kitchen, resigned themselves to sitting through the sermon if they wanted the sandwich afterwards. This is why it is to Saunders’s credit that she does not attempt to make light of any of the material she presents. She treats the CIA’s insistence that the work of Jackson Pollock represented some sort of insurgent Americanism that would in some undefinable way trump realism and Stalinism at once with utter deadpan dignity. And she treats the men of the CCF and the CIA, and their various efforts, with respect as well, recognizing that they felt grave import weighing upon their actions, that to them this was no whim, it was the Final Battle, fought day by day, heart and mind by heart and mind. And so, though at the end The Cultural Cold War indicts those it describes, it does so fairly, and does not whitewash the enemy they believed so dangerous then.
Times were different then. Today, the idea that the CIA would found a literary and cultural journal (Encounter) and would fund touring art exhibits (mostly through the New York Museum Of Modern Art, which was intimately linked to the agency) seems absurdist. The belief that this might foster a general freedom of thought, which would somehow magically evolve into anti-Communist thinking, could almost be the basis for a Pynchonesque satire, were it not for the knowledge that many readers of this book will already likely possess about just how insane things really got in the Fifties and Sixties. There’s not much room for satire when the unvarnished truth, analyzed in sufficient depth, induces jibbering, lunatic laughter. As William Fulbright is quoted here:
The effect of the anti-Communist ideology was to spare us the task of taking cognizance of the specific facts of specific situations. Our “faith” liberated us, like the believers of old, from the requirements of empirical thinking…Like medieval theologians, we had a philosophy that explained everything to us in advance, and everything that did not fit could be readily identified as a fraud or a lie or an illusion…The perniciousness of [anti-Communist orthodoxy] arises not from any patent falsehood but from its distortion and simplification of reality, from its universalization and its elevation to the status of a revealed truth.
The Cultural Cold War is fascinating because it reveals yet another shadow of the Cold War. It may be all the more captivating for those who did not live through the times it describes. For those (like this reviewer) who are too young to have any but the vaguest idea what the world was like when there really was a worldwide – and on some level viable and threatening – Communism, this book may come as a harsh history lesson indeed.
August 14th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
One can only hope that the change in Cuba, what ever it may be is one dictated by the People of Cuba, including those who fled Castro’s version, not outsiders, not corporations, not other thugs like Chavez, but by the very people most likely to benefit from the change.
Yeah, and what’s wrong with corporations having a say-so? Corporations aren’t some mystical entities. While they represent jobs and prosperity for the Cubans, they also represent the investments from groups which include retirees and pension plans–and, these people had their assets stolen right from under them by Castro, so there should be some inclusion of these businesses in whatever set-up follows–if they want America to help rebuild.
And, if they don’t, then it’s probably going to be too bad for them, anyway, because we’re not going to allow government owned Chinese businesses to establish a base in Cuba just to start a cold war all over again.
Being realistic, Cuba needs to expect a lot of American involvement in its restructuring and development–and, it will be better because of it. The Cubans will welcome with open arms and amazement the first WalMart in Havanna. Plus, with American involvement, Cubans can start getting parts for the 1956 Chevys and Buicks that they have been driving for decades.
I hate to say it, but the Cuban people are probably too indoctrinated or uneducated to know what is best for them at this point. The U.S.–and its corporations–can provide the money and leadership to help rebuild that country and put it on the right track. (And, I have more faith in WalMart than I do the U.N. and big-government solutions.)
August 14th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Cultural Cold War – fantastic book. One problem is the author’s portrait of Dwight McDonald (who redeemed himself later in life) -he was still brilliant, if misguided. He felt he was using the CIA – there is not enough on him in particular and seems to paint him with the same brush as Irving Kristol
August 14th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Woody,
I was quoting GM.
You underestimate the intelligence of the Cuban people. It is truly patronizing to say that they don’t know what is best for them. Think how you’d feel if someone said that about you.
It’s up to Cubans to decide what is best for Cuba.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
“the Cuban people are probably too indoctrinated or uneducated to know what is best for them at this point”
The flip side of Castroite and faux-”left” condescension as regards the Cuban people…wingnut crypto-fascism
And, of course, the ignorance of Cuban education levels is rather astounding.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
“Think how you’d feel if someone said that about you.”
Randy, are you suggesting that perhaps I should apologize to Woody for perpetually calling him a moron ? I’d argue that there’s a distinction to be made between reacting to a specific case of proud and loud idiocy and ascribing intellectual-challenge to an entire nation.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Let me be the first to say that Raul Castro demonstrates his usual rather unimpressive capacity for non-dogmatic thinking in his blog comments here. That said, I would suggest that he’s got bigger problems than Marc Cooper if he wants to continue to keep his little uniform spotless over the next several years.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
The big story out of Latin America right now is the stolen Mexican election, yet the media ignores it.
They only care about freedom and democracy for certain groups, not for everybody.
HYPOCRITES
August 14th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
“hate to say it, but the Cuban people are probably too indoctrinated or uneducated to know what is best for them at this point.”
Many people all over the world were saying the exact same thing about Americans following Bush’s reeclection. Having spent alot of time overseas a couple years back I can tell you that the sentiment was widely held. Now I can guess what Woodsters objection would be to these internationals (especially frech ones) trying to dictate to Americans whats best for them. Well perhaps he should heed his own counsel
August 14th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
I’m not expert on this question of education in Cuba, but one could do worse than start examining the issue with a look at this report from 1998, based on UNESCO data. I would, of course, expect the Woodies of the world to reject it out of hand because, you know, the United Nations is _____________, ___________, ________ and _____________. (Fill in the blanks.) And, of course, their research is obviously less reliable than that of a random blog-junkie who routinely invokes the wisdom of Neil Boortz and Ann Coulter.
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_sch/assignment1/1998cuba.html
Incidentally, speaking of the UN, has anyone else seen this Glenn Greenwald piece on Ambassador John Bolton’s interview with the hysterically loonytoons banshee, AtlasShrugs ?
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/08/bush-administrations-chosen.html
Is there no sewer these Bushbots won’t traverse in their efforts to marshall their “base” ?
August 14th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Randy, G.M. and I don’t always agree.
Randy, reg, & Ahmed: how can you expect someone to be educated when they have lived in a government media controlled environment all of their lives? It’s not condescending. It’s reality. And, they are ignorant without information.
The East Germans, according to my friends from West Germany, had lived under state control so long that they had ceased to be able to see what was best for them–which was to give up dependence on the state.
And, Ahmed, it’s confirmation to me that we did the right thing if the French disagree with us. At least we have a free press and free access to the internet to gather information to make decisions–unlike Cuba and China. What the French don’t realize is that the American psyche has been to reject what is European in favor of what is expressly American and best for us. Forgive me for liking cornbread better than french patries.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
reg, you’re right. If it’s from the U.N. it lacks credibility. Thank goodness John Bolton takes no prisoners with them.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Sorry, one final one.
reg, that education study, biased as it may be, covered math and reading. So? Did they teach critical thinking? Did they teach economics and government in such a way that students could question the Cuban system? Did they allow the Cuban students access to the same textbooks that they use in France and the U.S. (except in Spanish)?
Answer: Heck, No!
If selecting a new government and economic system was dependent solely on math and reading, then the Cubans might have a chance. However, switching them back to a system of democracy and free enterprise after having been brainwashed for years against those is like trying to convince you that Reagan was the best President of the 20th Century–an impossibility to anyone whose mind has been packed with lies about the benefits of communism.
Do you think that Elian can come back after Castro kicks off?
August 14th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
But Woody, Reg didn’t grow up in Cuba. So why can’t you, with your mastery of critical thinking, convince him that Ronald Reagan was the best President of the 20th Century? It’s a mystery.. I’m calling in Columbo.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
When will one of you “armchair Cubanologists” at least acknowledge US responsibility for the authoritarian rule of Cuba since the revolution.
Numerous terrorist actions by the US designed to destabilize the Cuban economy throughout the sixties and seventies, a debilitating blockade resulting in economic isolation and poverty. If Castro HAD initiated elections, The NED would have turned them into a farce; as in Nicaragua, the US would have initiated relentless military pressure to coerce the Cuban electorate to “do the white thing”.
Offer up your platitudinous railings against Castro’s iron hand rule of Cuba – in the next few months you’ll see the US invoke the Monroe doctrine once again and the poverty in Cuba that people like Marc Cooper are so quick to point out, will look like shangrila in two or three years. Demonstration elections, US-backed death squads are Cuba’s future as the US turns it into the next Haiti
August 14th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
So in other words, Comrade Watters, you are in full agreement with the Bush administration: outside threats justify authoritarian powers! If Fidel can justify 47 yrs of one man rule and the suspension of all civil liberties because of the low intensity war that the US waged against him, I would think the Bushies could easily justify what they have done in the wake of 9/11. In fact they do.
Ive never been able to figure out why a popular revolution, and the Cuban revolution was popular, would restrict internal democracy in the face of an outside threat. What better time to trust your own people and expand democracy in order to make ur own government that much more popular? Or do you believe the CIA has supernatural powers? And that no matter what Castro did, the U.S. would be able to rig and sway an internal election? If you believe that thaan there really is no point in social change, is there?
In any case, even if one justifies Cuban repression in the face of cold war threats, why are those measures still justified today? Dont the same supporters of Fidel simultaneously laud Hugo Chavez for holding elections? Why cant Fidel do the same? How would holding elections benefit the U.S.? Unless you believed Fidel would be voted out/ At this juncture, Bush and Catsro need each other to justify equally noxious policies/
Anyway, Watters, you’ve got a great future in Alboerto Gonzalez’ Department of Justice. You have quite similar views on democracy — though he has not yet proposed measures as extreme as those that you defend.
To Karen: I dont know what city you live in, but the L.A. Times has provided excellent ongoing coverage of the mexican election. Dont you think ur overstating things somewhat? Probably not.
August 15th, 2006 at 12:57 am
Nell writes: “Michael Turner, your predictions make sense. But there are a couple of conditions here that didn’t obtain in the case of Mao and China: the huge exile/expatriate community just a few miles away, and the ability and willingness of the U.S. government to intervene in many, many ways.”
There is a very rough parallel with China even there, however: Taiwan, for many years a personality-cult state, being backed by the U.S during the Cold War. Admittedly, the parallelism is very slight — Taiwan as a kind of Miami? One might as well call Taiwan “China’s Cuba”. Neither fits very well.
The Cuban predicament is arguably unique.
August 15th, 2006 at 5:56 am
The main problem with almost anything Marc writes about Latin America is that it’s always chock-full of Marc’s own emotionally-driven conjecture. Marc is generally quite heavy on conjecture but light on facts.
“Nothing is more important to Fidel than Fidel himself.”
Hmmm. How would one presume to know what really motivates Fidel’s political decisions? It seems to me that just about anybody could offer up any number of plausible explanations as to what makes Fidel tick, but I figure that most people wouldn’t presume to know which explanation was closest to the mark. But we always have the resident blowhard to serve us up some hot and juicy conjecture.
“But veteran Latin American reporter Juan Tamayo writes in the Miami Herald that reading through what scant public statements have been issued regarding Fidel, one finds more questions than answers.”
Ah, yes, Marc, I see that you really know how to pick your sources. Juan Tamayo is the same reporter who literally cheered on the coup in Venezuela in 2002 (and got the story totally wrong). While coup leader Pedro Carmona was dissolving the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the country’s Constitution, Tamayo politely described Carmona as “mild-mannered.” On the very day that Carmona was jettisoned from power by a massive popular uprising of Chavez supporters, Tamayo reported: “There were few signs of Chavez’s once massive support: just some 25 high-school students who stood near the presidential palace and briefly chanted ‘Chavez! Chavez!’”
Tamayo may be a veteran journalist, but he also has a penchant for sticking his head in the sand when he and his editors find it politically expedient for him to do so. No surprise that Cooper listens to this guy.
“I’ve spent enough time in Cuba to brazenly predict that the regime will not outlast Castro by more than a few months — if that.”
You’re quite the wishful thinker, Marc. When Fidel dies and your prediction proves as bad as your reporting, I’ll be sure to remind you of what a pitiful journalist you’ve become.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:14 am
Wall, reg cannot be convinced of things good from conservatives and the free-enterprise system because he has been living in a narrow world of his own, not much different than the Cubans. Note that I added this when I said that they/he couldn’t be convinced: …an impossibility to anyone whose mind has been packed with lies about the benefits of communism. Just because I have critical and logical thinking doesn’t mean that I can expect other to.
The most qualified Cubans to determine the future direction of Cuba are those who have lived and studied in freedom and democracy and, yet, have a love and passion for their country of origin.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:56 am
“The most qualified Cubans to determine the future direction of Cuba are those who have lived and studied in freedom and democracy and, yet, have a love and passion for their country of origin.”
You think, honestly, thatt Cubans will welcome those Chalabis with open arms and sweets? I bet you’re a fan of Angela Merkel, right wing Geman leader – hey did you hear she grew up in the GDR? She must be unqualified!
August 15th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Woody, but Reg grew up in a free society, so how did he get boxed into this narrow world of his own… unless, nah, it couldn’t be…wait…just maybe, ah….YES, YES, it is in fact the RIGHT WINGER who lives in a narrow little world world of his own, based on arrogance, too much entitltement, utter lack of accountability, the religious (but flexable) trumping of reason, and the just below the surface reminants of white rule. It is in fact the right winger, with his vain, fearful “faith” in the supernatural, who robs a free society of the best of it’s potential.
Somebody wrote a silly “Counterpunch” piece echoing what Cooper was saying the other day. Alterman makes fast work of it here….. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-alterman/the-stupidity-of-our-disc_b_27270.htlm
August 15th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Cooper: Ive never been able to figure out why a popular revolution, and the Cuban revolution was popular, would restrict internal democracy in the face of an outside threat. What better time to trust your own people and expand democracy in order to make ur own government that much more popular?
===
Cuba’s repression is directly at people who line up at the trough of the National Endowment for Democracy, etc. The arrests that Cooper bleats about were made because Cubans were getting funded by the USA. Any government in the world has the right to crack down on this kind of subversion. Imagine what would happen if it was discovered that Iran was funding some radical Islamist group in the USA. We have already seen many people thrown in jail for far less serious offenses and the USA was never invaded by Iran as Cuba was invaded by USA-backed mercernaries. Cooper should get a job with the NED where his talents would be put to better use. As a journalist, whose obligation should be to dig for the deeper truths, he sucks.
August 15th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Castro really is a Roarsach test for the left isn’t he? I don’t know how popular he is at home but I seriously doubt the masses there are yearning to throw off the commie yoke. Sadly, most people don’t give a damn about civil liberties if they’re feeling well off (look at US reaction to the PATRIOT ACT, NSA evesdropping Etc.). And life for most Cubans appears to be better than before the Revolution. Of course if you were a landowner its different but that is whyGod made Miami!
Reg, I really doubt that US policy intended Latin America to form repressive regimes that were anti-american. I doubt if Fidel would be on the shitlist if he hadn’t nationised (without compensation) US assets. And Marc, would Allende have been overthrown if he had left Anaconda alone?
August 15th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
You wonder why I said that you were being condescending, Woody? Here’s why:
“The most qualified Cubans to determine the future direction of Cuba are those who have lived and studied in freedom and democracy and, yet, have a love and passion for their country of origin.â€
Congratulations, you have just stuck your finger in the eye of every Cuban dissident and everyone involved with the Varela Project.
It takes nothing but blissful ignorance to ignore the contributions of people such as Elizardo Sanchez, Oswaldo Payá, Raúl Rivero, Nelson Alberto Aguiar RamÃrez, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés, Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, Oscar ElÃas Biscet González, Carmelo AgustÃn DÃaz Fernández, Luis Enrique Ferrer GarcÃa, Luis Milán Fernández, Félix Navarro RodrÃguez, Héctor Palacios Ruiz, Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello and the others who have been imprisoned in Cuba for the nonviolent expression of their beliefs and whose yearning for freedom has been so deeply felt that they were willing to suffer in Cuban jails for it.
Richard,
I think allowing Soviet missiles 90 miles from Key West played a major role in getting him on Washington’s shitlist and keeping him there. I was in the first grade in Miami during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I got walked home by National Guardsmen in squads from school every day. I remember it like it was yesterday.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Randy, you’re always so eager to try to prove that you have some superiority and special knowledge, but you fail time and again in your attempts to discredit my comments. Really.
You list thirteen dissidents (whose names are not of particular importance in the discussion but must make you feel good that you could look them up), and that’s supposed to overrule my statement that people who have more knowledge of a subject are better qualified to make decisions on it?
Your “rebuttal” (Hah!) doesn’t come close at all to saying that the average Cuban, who has lived his life under Castro and who has been blocked from seeing outside news and information from the free world, would be as good or better in determining the future political and economic courses of Cuba than Cuban people who have lived in a free society and have been allowed to see uncensored news and have gone to schools that teach more than the communist line of thought.
In fact, rather than thinking that I’ve stuck a finger in their collective eyes, the people you list would likely agree with me–if they’re not total idiots, too.
Randy, quit wasting my time.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
“Reg, I really doubt that US policy intended Latin America to form repressive regimes that were anti-american.”
rlc – I misinterpreted your meaning.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Woody,
You do not know what you are talking about. You probably don’t even know what the Varela Project is.
who has lived his life under Castro and who has been blocked from seeing outside news and information from the free world, would be as good or better in determining the future political and economic courses of Cuba
Woody, I corresponded with Claudia Marquez via e-mail when she was in Cuba. Her husband was one of the dissidents arrested in 2003. When Eric Umansky reported from Cuba for Slate.com in 2004 I gave him her e-mail address. Ann Bardach gave him her phone number. He met with her in Cuba. Feel free to e-mail him if you have any doubts. His blog is listed on Marc’s blogroll.
So your basic premise that the dissidents in Cuba have been blocked from news about the world outside Cuba, like virtually 100% of what your write, is simply not borne out by the facts.
Have you never heard of Radio Marti?
In fact, rather than thinking that I’ve stuck a finger in their collective eyes, the people you list would likely agree with me–if they’re not total idiots, too.
The only idiot here Woody is the one you shave in the morning. You’ve demonstrated that you simply have no idea what you are talking about. Your bullshit insults the bravery of those who have risked their lives in Cuba on behalf of freedom in Cuba.
August 15th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Just for the record, Woody, Claudia wrote me after having found my blog while on the internet. Here’s what she wrote:
The only reason why I would mention this contact now is the fact that Claudia left Cuba.
Your basic premise, then, Woody is utter
nonsense.
August 15th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Sorry I wasn’t clearer on that. What will we do for entertainment when Fidel is gone?
Off-topic: I hope everyone got to hear of Sen George Allen’s little “gaffe” in Va the other day when he welcomed a native born Virginian of Indian descent to the US and called him “maccaca” which is not a term of endearment but was French Settler (Pied Noirs in Algeria) talk for the natives meaning, roughlym “Wog”. And Fred Barnes wants this clown to run for President!
August 15th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
What will we do for entertainment when Fidel is gone?
There’s always Chavez . . .
August 15th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
I find myself harping on about principle here a lot. Now I want to know how anyone (cummins et. al.) can defend Castro. As democrats we have no choice but to regard Castro and his ilk as enemies of political freedom–the very idea we ought to hold most dearly. If you find yourself on this blog singing his praises or defending his regime, then I suggest you’ve lost sight of that paramount value, and perhaps you’re not a democrat, in which case you’re the enemy of that dread word word ’round these parts–liberalism. And I would suggest it’s worth revisiting the original meaning of that word extant before the hijacking of it by Lee Atwater.
That doesn’t mean US policy has been wise or that radio Marti was a good idea by any means, but pointing out US blunders doesn’t constitute an adequate defense of fifty years of repression. Fifty years of repression and political monopoly requires an extraordinary justification and I simply can’t come up with one. If you can then you have a vastly different understanding of the legitimate basis of power and government than I have. And you scare me.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:53 am
Reply to Marc Cooper:
Re: Your use of the term “low intensity warfare” to describe The US terrorist war against Cuba.
The military force of 2,600 men landing on the shore of a small country could be categorized as low intensity only because some CIA snafu failed to provide them with aircover. Luckily for the people of Cuba, your hero JFK was Commander-in-Chief at the time and not General Eisenhower. If the CIA hadn’t screwed things up (and no, I dont ascribe supernatural powers to the CIA, but I sure wouldn’t want to be on thier shit list either) and the Bay o Pigs had become a beachhead, is it inconcievable that the US would have conjured up some pretext
for outright invasion?
Was anything outside the realm of possibility in the early sixties when your hero came within minutes of destroying the world in order to prevent Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba? (therefore mirroring the long established US nuclear missiles located on the Turkey/Soviet Union border). A quote from Robert McNamara in 1962: “If I were a Cuban…I would have shared the judgement… that a US invasion was probable”.
Marc, if you were a Cuban who had a loved one among the 400 killed by the US terrorist bombing of a Cuban factory in 1962, perhaps you wouldn’t throw around the term “low intensity warfare” so nonchalantly.
The Cuban revolution was a house of cards politically, in the 60s and economically since its inception. Since you are, at times, a perceptive commentator on Latin American affairs, I’ll abstain from pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of US anguish over Castro’s excesses given the incredibly worse atrocities in the rest of the region. Your perceptivity tank is ‘running on empty’ however, when you attempt to compare the threat level of the band of Al Quaida misfits to the threat level that the US posed to a small, island nation off of its shores.
As to your question of “why are (Castro’s excessive) measures justified today”? You’d have to ask him. Maybe a more insightful question (which you would probably would have thought to ask on your show, Radio Nation – why do you consistently ‘dumb down’ on your blog as compared to your other media ventures?) would have been: why are the Cuban people not rising up against Castro?
Esp. now (since you feel that “the Cuban revolution WAS popular”). Has there been a Cuban Tienamen?
Maybe the people of Cuba occasionally look across the tranquil waters of the Carribean to thier neighbors and are not too eager for a Haitian future?
August 16th, 2006 at 6:15 am
Oh, Randy. You’re so important. However, most people secure within themselves wouldn’t go around dropping names. Oh, and I’m not projecting.
But, you’re living in a dream world if you don’t think that the last two or three generations of Cubans have been indoctrinated in their schools and had very limited access, if any in most cases, to information from the U.S. Again, Cubans living in America have had more access to the free press and were not taught in schools that communism was the best system–unless they studied journalism at So. Cal. How many Cubans do you think have internet access, much less unrestricted access and even computers for that matter? And, don’t try to claim exceptions as the rule.
Your claim that Cubans know the same information as their relatives in the U.S. in extremely laughable.
So, why deny that people with more information will be able to make better decisions? Maybe it hurts your self-esteem. Well, go back and read your own posts about yourself to feel good. That would make one person who cares.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:34 am
From a New Yorker Magazine profile on AIDS physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer:
Leaving Haiti, Farmer didn’t stare down through the airplane window at that brown and barren third of an island. “It bothers me even to look at it,” he explained, glancing out. “It can’t support eight million people, and there they are. There they are, kidnapped from West Africa.”
But when we descended toward Havana he gazed out the window intently, making exclamations: “Only ninety miles from Haiti, and look! Trees! Crops! It’s all so verdant. At the height of the dry season! The same ecology as Haiti’s, and look!”
An American who finds anything good to say about Cuba under Castro runs the risk of being labelled a Communist stooge, and Farmer is fond of Cuba. But not for ideological reasons. He says he distrusts all ideologies, including his own. “It’s an ‘ology,’ after all,” he wrote to me once, about liberation theology. “And all ologies fail us at some point.” Cuba was a great relief to me. Paved roads and old American cars, instead of litters on the ‘gwo wout ia’. Cuba had food rationing and allotments of coffee adulterated with ground peas, but no starvation, no enforced malnutrition. I noticed groups of prostitutes on one main road, and housing projects in need of repair and paint, like most buildings in the city. But I still had in mind the howling slums of Port-au-Prince, and Cuba looked lovely to me. What looked loveliest to Farmer was its public-health statistics.
Many things affect a public’s health, of course—nutrition and transportation, crime and housing, pest control and sanitation, as well as medicine. In Cuba, life expectancies are among the highest in the world. Diseases endemic to Haiti, such as malaria, dengue fever, T.B., and AIDS, are rare. Cuba was training medical students gratis from all over Latin America, and exporting doctors gratis— nearly a thousand to Haiti, two en route just now to Zanmi Lasante. In the midst of the hard times that came when the Soviet Union dissolved, the government actually increased its spending on health care. By American standards, Cuban doctors lack equipment, and are very poorly paid, but they are generally well trained. At the moment, Cuba has more doctors per capita than any other country in the world—more than twice as many as the United States. “I can sleep here,” Farmer said when we got to our hotel. “Everyone here has a doctor.”
Farmer gave two talks at the conference, one on Haiti, the other on “the noxious synergy” between H.I.V. and T.B.—an active case of one often makes a latent case of the other active, too. He worked on a grant proposal to get anti-retroviral medicines for Cange, and at the conference met a woman who could help. She was in charge of the United Nations’ project on AIDS in the Caribbean. He lobbied her over several days. Finally, she said, “O.K., let’s make it happen.” (“Can I give you a kiss?” Farmer asked. “Can I give you two?”) And an old friend, Dr. Jorge Perez, arranged a private meeting between Farmer and the Secretary of Cuba’s Council of State, Dr. José Miyar Barruecos. Farmer asked him if he could send two youths from Cange to Cuban medical school. “Of course,” the Secretary replied.
Again and again during our stay, Farmer marvelled at the warmth with which the Cubans received him. What did I think accounted for this?
I said I imagined they liked his connection to Harvard, his published attacks on American foreign policy in Latin America, his admiration of Cuban medicine.
I looked up and found his pale-blue eyes fixed on me. “I think it’s because of Haiti,” he declared. “I think it’s because I serve the poor.”
August 16th, 2006 at 6:51 am
This article from Alternet should remind everybody except the most hardened ideologues like Marc Cooper why Cuba has to remain vigilant. The US invaded Afghanistan because it was sheltering terrorists. Maybe Cuba should invade the USA for the same reason.
—
Cuban Exiles Wage War of Terror
By Frank Joyce, AlterNet. Posted August 16, 2006.
Anti-Castro terrorists based in Florida have carried out thousands of attacks against civilians, often with the full knowledge and support of the U.S. government.
It wasn’t Libya, Afghanistan, or any other Arab-based group that first blew up a commercial airplane. Al Qaida had nothing to do with it. That first attack, on Oct. 6, 1976, came when Cuban-American terrorists and mercenaries blew up a Cuban civilian airliner. All 73 on board went down to a fiery and gruesome death, including the teenage members of the Cuban fencing team returning from a competition in Venezuela.
This tacitly U.S.-supported terrorist crime never appears on the “history” list of incidents involving civilian airliners, at least not in the U.S. media. Why? Cognitive dissonance is one explanation. The syllogism goes like this: The United States is a good country. Terrorism is bad. The United States funds and protects terrorists. Uh-oh — we certainly can’t talk about that.
In Barbados, where the bomb was placed on the Cuban airliner, the mercenaries were tried and convicted for the crime and served time. But the planners and instigators of the plot, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, got away clean. Posada is today being protected by the U.S. government from an extradition demand by Venezuela, where the crime was planned. (In a delicious irony, the U.S. government’s position is that he can’t be extradited to Venezuela because he would be tortured there.) Over the objections of his own justice department, George H. W. Bush in effect pardoned Orlando Bosch. He is today a free man living in Miami where he gives gloating TV interviews about his role in blowing up the plane.
The Cuban airline bombing was anything but an isolated incident. On Sept. 4, 1997, as on other occasions, U.S.-sponsored terrorists set off bombs in Havana hotels and restaurants. This time, one killed a tourist from Italy, Fabio de Celmo. Over the years death and injury to civilians has come from thousands of other attacks carried out in Cuba and elsewhere by land, air and sea against villagers, fisherman, children, tourists and diplomats by terrorists based in Florida.
The Al Qaida-like network — which includes Alpha 66, Omega 7, Brothers To The Rescue, and Commandos L and others — is as active today as ever. Just last month, Commandos F-4 held a press conference in Miami to announce they had successfully carried out sabotage raids in Cuba in four different provinces. A few weeks earlier police raided the California home of Robert Ferro, a self-proclaimed member of Alpha 66. Police and federal agents seized 35 machine guns, 13 silencers, two short-barreled rifles, a live hand grenade, a rocket launcher tube and 89,000 rounds of ammunition. Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat were busted about a year ago with a similar stash in Fort Lauderdale. The defense claimed by all three is that they were acting as members of organizations working with the full knowledge and support of the U.S. government.
These arrests, by the way, do not mean that the U.S. government is aggressively trying to contain these terrorists. The raids are about window-dressing and deniability. They are not about a genuine effort to stop the Cuban exile terrorists. On July 10 of this year the “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,” headed by Condoleezza Rice, issued a long-promised report. It sets out U.S. plans to increase and intensify support for those trying to overthrow the government of Cuba. The version posted on the website is 93 pages long; the entire report is 450 pages. Most of it is “classified.” The secrecy is not about protecting aid to dissidents in Cuba — it’s about protecting terrorists in Florida.
Enter the Cuban Five
Someone should make a movie about the Cuban Five — Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerro, Fernando Gonzalez, Gerrardo Hernandez and Ramon Labinino. They are poets, pilots, engineers, artists, college graduates, husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, Cubans, Americans. But that’s not why the movie.
The movie is about why they are in five different maximum security prisons in the United States. Two of them are American citizens by virtue of having been born in the United States. Their parents were refugees from a Cuban dictator: Fulgencio Batista. When Batista was deposed by the Castro-led Cuban revolution, they returned to Cuba to live and raise their children.
The Cuban Five volunteered to come to Florida in the mid-’90s for the purpose of becoming “eyes and ears” into the plans and activities of the Florida-based terrorist groups. The escalation of efforts by groups like Alpha 66 and Commandos L drove the timing of their mission. The terrorists were openly targeting Cuba’s growing tourism industry, which was being expanded to offset the loss of aid to the Cuban economy from the former Soviet Union.
The Five succeeded in infiltrating some of the most dangerous groups, but in September of 1998 they were arrested by the FBI. In a harbinger of post-9/11 civil liberties erosions to come, they were denied bail. They were placed in solitary confinement, separated from each other and their families. Their attorneys were prevented from gaining access to the evidence to be used against them at their trial. They were charged with a raft of crimes, including allegations of “conspiracy.”
None of the accusations alleged any violent acts on their part. The Five’s monitoring activities had nothing to do with threatening the United States in any way. Their mission was to protect Cuba. The only way you could argue otherwise would be to concede that the terrorists were carrying out the official foreign policy of the United States.
In 2001, 33 months after their arrest, their trial began in Miami, Florida. Before and several times during the trial, their court-appointed attorneys requested a change of venue on the grounds that the pro-Cuban defendants could not get a fair trial in Miami. The attorneys proposed Fort Lauderdale, just 25 miles away. Their change of venue motions were repeatedly denied.
The trial lasted six months. It included testimony from Cuban exile terrorists, a high-ranking assistant to the president of the United States, and generals and admirals from the U.S. and Cuba. On numerous occasions there were rowdy demonstrations outside the court room by anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Some of the demonstrations specifically targeted members of the jury. The trial got zero media coverage outside of Miami.
Despite incredible holes and contradictions in the government’s case, the Cuban Five were found guilty on every count that had been brought against them. The jury even convicted the Five on charges the judge instructed them did not meet the burden of proof. Rene Gonzalez was sentenced to 15 years. Antonio Guerro to life imprisonment plus 10 years, Fernando Gonzalez was sentenced to 19 years, Gerrardo Hernandez was given two life sentences plus 80 months, and Ramon Labinino was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 18 years.
The conditions of their incarceration have been cruel, unusual and in violation of many rights and privileges accorded to other prisoners. Of the eight years total each has already been incarcerated, much of their jail time has been in solitary confinement — even though they are model prisoners without a single blemish on their record. Two of the five have never been permitted visits from their wives.
In 2005 the convictions were overturned because a three-judge panel ordered a new trial because Miami was such a demonstrably unfair place to try them. But on Aug. 9, the full Appeals bench overturned that decision. Nine other grounds for reversing the convictions now await decisions by the three-judge panel. It is also possible that lawyers for the Five will appeal the 11th Circuit Court decision on the venue issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Why the Cuban Five matter
Ignore what you think about Cuba, pro, con or indifferent. Consider instead what kind of country you think the United States should be in the 21st century.
As a nation, are we truly against terrorism, or is it just a term we use to demonize those whose goals we oppose? Does not the mistreatment of the Five reveal that the underpinnings of the mindset that has brought us to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo runs deeper than the presidency of George Bush?
And as long as the U.S. government supports the terrorists in Florida, by what moral authority does the United States tell Iran and Syria they have no right to support Hezbollah? If Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorist attack, why doesn’t Cuba? Why doesn’t the media ever raise these questions?
Doesn’t the disproportionate influence of the Cuban exile community have an enormous impact on our political destiny? For all the ruckus about whether the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC has too much influence on U.S. foreign policy — viewed in proportion to the size of the Cuban exile population, AIPAC’s clout would be tiny.
Could Florida play the “super-state” role it does in U.S. politics without the part played by the Cuban exiles whose first loyalty is not to the United States? All of the Bushes — George I, George II, Jeb — are up to their eyeballs in these activities. In addition to his terrorist activities against Cuba, Cuban-American Luis Posada Carriles was also a major player in the Iran-Contra affair. As some may recall, that whole operation was run out of George Herbert Walker Bush’s office when he was Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Jeb Bush recently appointed the son of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista to the Florida Supreme Court. Janet Reno, then U.S. attorney general, was already contemplating her run for the U.S. Senate from Florida when she sanctioned the trial of the Cuban Five in the first place.
Aren’t we all at risk if the right to a trial away from a lynch mob atmosphere is diluted, if the most basic rule of evidence can be ignored because “the end justifies the means”? What does that kind of reasoning do to the rule of law?
The Cuban Five have already been in jail for eight years. Even if one were to grant that they committed technical violations of U.S. law, such as failure to register as foreign agents — something the defense does not concede — the time they have already served would constitute excessive punishment. Doesn’t our own sense of justice argue that they should be released, or at the very least be given a fair trial?
Author’s note: Up-to-date information on the Five is available at FreeTheFive.org.
Frank Joyce is a journalist and labor communications consultant.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:27 am
Why do I defend Castro? I don’t. I think states need formal social freedoms as well as economic freedoms. As of yet, the only people trying to change Cuba want to get rid of the economic/health care/free education freedoms. As of now, they don’t have social freedoms. Both are neccessary. The States lacks the former. Cuba the latter.
I don’t trust America’s agenda for Cuba. Cubans – in Cuba – not terrorist exiles – can plan their own destiny. I know from Cubans that they’d prefer Castro to the Gusanos.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I think economic freedoms, including free education, are more important than formal democracy. Who was better for Pakistani civil society? Corrupt dictators or Musharaff?
August 16th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Yes, I’m ont liberal – the above comment may have been over the top – there are plenty of problems with Musharaff. My point is that my values, my “Vision” don’t encompass the same thing as bourgeois liberal democrats who prefer social to economic freedom, who would trade social welfare for civil liberties. I prefer both, but to humanity’s survival, the former is more important.
As someone said before, how do you think the US government would treat “dissidents” funded by Iran?
August 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Cummings: But why the false choice? What about my desire for formal freedom and civil liberties suggests that I don’t also support a generous set of social services particularly for the poor? These things are not exclusive. I would be curious to know why you think they are.
Furthermore, I think you understate the need for public freedom, which by another phrase, is limited government. No, not Newt Gingrich’s limited government, but Jefferson’s limited government. I think, if there is one thing that we can count on, it’s that people are corruptible and power will, without exception, be abused. Thus it is imperative that power be limited in government to protect people from it’s arbitrary exercise.
What I find so disturbing about your cavalier attitude towards formal freedom, is the myopia over this abuse of power. You paint a rosy picture of a soft economic cocoon all the while ignoring that life might consist of more than just getting warm oatmeal and health care (not that these things are unimportant). But you value this to the exclusion of all other political values, or at least this trumps all other political values for you and I think this valuation ends in tyranny by necessity. You seem ok with this, and I find it noxious. Guess we just disagree.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Because those supporting Anti-Castro programs “on the ground” as opposed to idealistic visions are implicitly supporting the plans of the Miami Mafia and American Capital (see the Economist etc.) in their vision for a Post-Castro Cuba.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Dan O’s mistake, implicit in the American understanding of government, is that it should not be participatory, therefore there has to be limits. I’m for unlimited government, like Bolivarian Circles, etc. by the governed. All power to the real Soviets, so to speak (i.e. what Soviets were) – this is indeed the Wobbly vision. Not limited but SELF government. I know we don’t see that in Cuba, but there is a better chance that Cuban party members will push forward this idea than Uncle Sam.
August 16th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Woody,
It is so typical of your inability to argue your point like an adult that you are completely unable to address the facts brought up in my posts.
Your presumptious, ill-informed poppycock has been proven wrong yet again. You do not know what you are talking about.
As for the comment about my name dropping, you’re being silly. All I did was demonstrate that I have a better grasp of the facts than you do, something that most of the commenters do here on a regular basis.
You also completely ignore the independent libraries that so many have bravely established. If Cubans in Cuba didn’t have a desire for freedom, then they wouldn’t set off on rafts to cross the Florida Straits.
Even our own government believes that the opposition to Castro in Cuba will play the major role in Cuba’s transition to democracy. Why do you think Colin Powell, when he was SOS met with Oswaldo Payá in Washington?
If we were discusing North Korea, I would agree with you. However, your one size fits all form of arguing limits you here.
You’re ill-informed, Woody. You’re incapable of critical thinking. Own up to it. That’s the first step to healig yourself.
Warm regards,
Randy
August 16th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
I respect independent libraries, but whats so independent about libraries started by US funded NGOs. Cubans funded and helped by Colin Powell et. al will have no credibility unless of course they make a solemn unbinding promise to not privatize any of Cuba’s social gains. Capital won’t allow that. This is why I don’t trust the Cuban opposition, who may be sincere but I believe are dupes.
August 16th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Thank you Michael Kennedy for the fine postings. They are a great “reality check” for the many bloggers (and the site owner)who need some perspective on the Carribean.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Randy, the fact that you keep pushing that Cubans have equal access to news and information as people in the U.S. makes you ill-informed or too proud to admit when you are wrong.
August 17th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Woody,
If you want an object lesson as to why so many of the commenters on this blog think you are intellectually and otherwise dishonest and full of shit, that last comment you made is a fine example.
You are a mendacious liar. I never wrote that they had equal access to news and information as people in the US.
I merely disputed your claim that the average Cuban has been blocked from seeing outside news about the world and thus is less qualified to lead a democratic Cuba. I refuted your comments by citing the active dissident movement within Cuba. I never wrote that they had equal access.
You are a fabricating liar who, when he doesn’t have the facts on his side has to make things up.
What you wrote was your spin on what I said. You lack the intellectual capacity to see the difference between my factually supported argument that Cubans are not completely blocked from news about the outside world as evidenced by the active and vibrant dissident movement there and your fantasy that I am making the case that they have “equal access to news and information as people in the U.S.”
So much for your vaunted (and self-proclaimed) analytical skills. Good luck finding your ass with both hands.
I apologize, by the way, for writing eat shit and die the other day. You may have a number of odious and reprehensible qualities, but I have no evidence that cannibalism is among them.
Warm regards.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Uh, Woody, your arguments are quite disturbing. I often disagree with Randy (he even barred me from posting on his website), but the notion that Cubans in Cuba should have the first say in how their country is run is pretty irrefutable, on both moral and practical grounds. Wake up, fella.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
And by the way, there are a hell of lot Castro supporters in Cuba too, and they have every bit the moral right of all other Cubans to determine their country’s political destiny.
August 17th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Justin, I never said what you think, and I’m ignoring Randy because he’s twisting in the wind trying to justify a stupid position and resorts to name calling and vile language.
I just made a comment that those with the most information, who happen to live in America rather than Cuba, can make better choices with that additional insight. I didn’t take a position as to what level of participation that they should have.
August 17th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Woody,
You’re lying again. You cannot show that I wrote “that Cubans have equal access to news and information as people in the U.S.” simply because I never wrote anything of the kind.
You’re a baldfaced, shameless liar. Go read Matthew Chapter 7 before you start accusing others of name calling.
August 17th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
It’s about context, about how one weighs competing forces.
In the article JCummings refers to, Alexandre Trudeau reminds us that “never in modern times has a small, peaceful country been more subjected to unfair and malicious treatment by a superpower than Cuba has by the United States.â€
Chomsky (among many others) has reviewed in great detail Washington’s relentless 40-year terror campaign against Cuba.
But reading Marc Cooper’s synopsis, we’re (once again) to understand the “failed political project†as basically Castro’s fault, unconnected to the difficulties of trying to modernize while under grave assault.
So the truth is, we really have no way of knowing what might have been (nor what could still occur) under different (that is, relatively normal) conditions.
Chomsky often refers to thought experiments one might engage in. Just imagine if — say in 1970s — the US had changed course and signed a comprehensive peace and economic cooperation treaty with Cuba, nullifying economic sanctions and paving the way for firm Cuban security (as Cuba has no other “natural†enemies) — that is, treating Cuba as it does other nations in the region (whose governments, admittedly, have largely allowed US capital to make use of their resources and populations as it sees fit). What sorts of political and economic developments would have followed?
Prof. Niall Ferguson writes that “the US economy is mind-bogglingly enormous—two and a half times as big as the next largest economy in the world and almost as large as that of the six other members of the Group of Seven combined.†There is actually no form of terrorist attack, not even a dirty nuke set off in a metropolitan area, that could threaten the civic/political structure and larger economy of the U.S. And yet last year the Washington Post reported that, for the first time in history, the Pentagon is studying scenarios for implementing marital law in the case of a second terrorist attack.
Imagine that the sun started rotating around the earth and suddenly the US found itself the (relative) economic/geographical size of Cuba, being economically strangled by a Havana, now with the world’s most powerful military and an economy which is “mind-bogglingly enormous?†Can anyone envision a scenario where the US state would begin dictatorial control of information, movement, communication?
August 18th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Here is my earlier statement that Randy disputed: The most qualified Cubans to determine the future direction of Cuba are those who have lived and studied in freedom and democracy and, yet, have a love and passion for their country of origin.
The corollary to that which was argued is that Cubans do have equal access to news and information, which Randy accepted when he wrote: I merely disputed your claim that the average Cuban has been blocked from seeing outside news about the world and thus is less qualified to lead a democratic Cuba.
Uh, huh… Sure Mr. Expert on Latin America. Cuban kids learn all about the good of America and the good of capitalism and free-enterprise. Mr. Expert forgets that Cuba blocks transmissions from the Voice of America and TV and Radio Marti. As for the schools, Rolando Alfonso Borges, head of the Ideological Department of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee said, “The front line of political-ideological work with children is school, and the first soldiers are teachers and other education workers. We have to put our hearts into political-ideological work, and it must be done in a systematic way, where each section of the educational system has specific responsibilities that it must account for and which the party must control.” Then more on the the children: (Cuba) has created a junior version of neighborhood spy networks for children ages 4 to 13. The agency reported in January that the first children’s committee was formed in Cuevitas, near Santiago de Cuba, under the motto: “Vigilance, fundamental duty of the child.”
We could go forever, but my statement was never proved wrong by Randy, and to say that it is wrong is to say that the Cuban people do have equal access to news and information.
You’re pretty sad, Randy. I’m not a liar. Maybe you’re just stupid–besides being a psycho.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:05 am
This argument is absurd. Both Randy and Woody accept that America should have a say in Cuba. Woody thinks that the exiles themselves shouldd run shit. Randy thinks Colin Powell’s pet dissidents should take over. The pretext is that Castro supporters and Cubans who may not like Castro but also don’t like Miama Mafiosos and US supported dupes, should not have a say.
My own experience with Cubans shows that if one isresourceful, all the world’s information is available – not just Cuban or US
August 18th, 2006 at 11:49 am
J, once more, I didn’t say who SHOULD decide but, rather, that the people with the most information (as in almost anything) are in a better position to reach the best decision.
I feel that the overwhelming masses of Cubans have been isolated from information and indoctrinated, which handicaps them. Randy disagreed and tried to convince us that Cubans could access whatever international news that they wanted, although he could only name thirteen.
August 19th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
I think that Cuba’s future should be voted on by baseball fans when they fill out the ballots to pick the All Stars. And, here’s the real story on Castro’s surgery: Castro Passes Pitching Duties To Brother While Undergoing Tommy John Surgery
(Now, let’s see how many people on the left, few of whom have a sense of humor, will take this seriously.)
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