Cuba to Bloggers: We Beat You
Here’s the latest development from the First Free Territory in the Americas: Cuban security agents picked up prominent and dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez off the street and beat her when she resisted getting into the car. She was later released but is still barred from traveling outside of Cuba.
Sanchez is guilty, of course, of what we generally calls Thought Crimes. She doesn’t do anything dangerous. She does the same you thing you are doing. She sits at her computer and types on er keyboard. Of course, for governments that fear their own people, this IS dangerous
Yoani’s blog is one of the best available. Before you spew your justifications for muzzling her, why don’t you take ten minutes to read what she writes and then ask yourself which side are you on?
UPDATE: Given the general blockade of outgoing information imposed by the Cuban government, there are conflicting reports now as to whether or not or to what degree Sanchez was beaten. We know she has a bruised shoulder and neck. It’s possible that State Security only roughly pushed her into a car against her will. New Socialist Man, and all. Or maybe just plain, old-fashioned and cowardly goons beating up a defenseless woman.
November 7th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
She’s definitely exhibitting some pre-criminal dangerousness. Time to nip this thing in the bud, Comrades.
November 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
We should start a collection and send our favorite blogger, Woody down to Cuba.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
FOX should open a Cuba bureau.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Reading her blog, good as it may be, is not necessary if what you say happened is true. The government of Cuba is entirely in the wrong, full stop.
The apologists for repression will be here beating their breasts before long, though. They never let us down.
Of course it would be nice if we stopped our idiotic Cuba policy, but no one should be allowed to use that as a defense for tyranny as they like to do in Cuba.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
What Dan O said.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Marc, your first sentence is a delicious little pierogi.
Handy quick counterpoint about socialism is to travel over to Terry Glavin’s place for an intriguing video about America’s socialist export to our northern neighbors: http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/
Mr. Glavin also had a good post on Ms. Sanchez on Oct 14.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Atrocious writing alert.
Try to ignore the first sentence from the idiot @ 10:31 pm.
Sheesh.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:19 am
The apologists for repression will be here beating their breasts before long, though. They never let us down.
They call themselves the Venceremos Brigade.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
“Mr. Glavin also had a good post on Ms. Sanchez on Oct 14.”
A great source of information for those looking for ongoing apologetics for Israeli war crimes, islamophobic bllaber and such, all under the guise of some kind of demented pseudo leftist “solidarity”
November 8th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Um, blabber but y’all get the point
November 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Ahmed:
You can do better than that. I like milk and so does GW Bush and so? Mr. Glavin might be a so and so hyporcrite. Excuse me, but I THOUGHT we were talking about Ms. Sanchez and the cowardly Mr. Castro..
November 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
“All Dissent is Opposition; All Opposition is Counterrevolutionary”…
If one was creating a fair and just society, why would there be the need for suppressing peaceful dissent such as this? On November 6, Cuba’s most prominent blogger, Yoani Sánchez, together with blogger Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo, were abducted……
November 9th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I hate to bring more attention to an obscure, boring, know nothing crank but given the fact that Glavin’s blog featured non stop apologetics for the bombing of universities, mosques, human infrustructure, not too mention the killing of hundreds of kids in Gaza (all documented in the Goldstone report), and presented such barbarities in marxist type semantics of a besieged forward looking nation fighting global jihad, I’m not sure that my point is unfair. Jailing bloggers is wrong and although its off topic, I will say that Im happy that everything I’ve read about Bolivia would lead me to believe that they are building a model very different from that of Cuba. All that said, given a choice between Castro and Glavin, the latter who recently apprears to be auditioning for the role of Karzai’s chai walla, I’d go with Fidel
November 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Ahmed,
Nice to see YOU would go with Fidel considering you live 2500 miles from him and are free to come and go and even allowed the silly, tangential right of free speech on the Internet without being picked picked up by goonish state security agents. Very brave of you. Now that you are finished with your moral ice skating, with whom should someone like Yoani Sanchez go? You see, my naive hope is that she should be able to go with prinicipled humanists like yourself and receive unqualified support. But I guess that’s too much of a stretch.
Let me also remind you that Fidel Castro and his little brother are dictators who hold the fate of millions of people in their shaky little hands. Glavin, whatever his politics, is a guy with a keyboard who holds power over nobody. If u were in power, would u send secret police to shut down Glavin and rough him up. Or would you be strong enough to let him he say what we wants and confront him in the arena of ideas?
November 9th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Why the fake outrage. I just said that I’m happy Bolivia seems to be embracing a model very differrent than that of Cuba, and stated that while I know almost nothing about Yoani Sanchez the very idea that she would be imprisoned for the crimes of “blogging” her thoughts strikes me as an assualt to the very idea of a humane, egalitarian society, which I believe in. It also demonstrates how scared the Cuban government seems to have become of their citizens. It sucks. Period. Full stop.
As for Glavin, it wasnt me who brought him up. Have a cursory read thorugh the Goldstone report, a document authored by a man of rather impecabble credentials, who identifies as a liberal Zionist with strong ties to Israel. Read about the use of white phophorus, the bombing of mosques when they were packed full of citizens at the time along with the decimation of the American university and other educational infrustructure in Gaza. Your bete noir Kucinich was one of the only members of congress to vote against condemning the report and spoke eloquantly about the cruel process happening in front of him in congress, which made a mockery of the very idea of universal rights. Glavin may care about the rights of a Cuban to blog but at the same time, post after post provides, in recycled trot language, support for the killing of 400 Palestinian children. Sorry if I dont find that all too impressive. Thats just me, man
November 9th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Or would you be strong enough to let him he say what we wants and confront him in the arena of ideas?
Uh, that’s pretty clearly exactly what he did.
November 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Talk about suppressing dissent:
Democratic consultant says he got a warning from White House after appearing on Fox News
‘We better not see you on again,’ the strategist says he was told by a White House official.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
What was it at the UN.. a resolution passed something like 173-3 calling for an end to the embargo?!
In 1992 the same vote yielded 87 abstentions.
Marc seems selective in his application of real politique: Health care,,,’this is the best you guys are going to get’ Cuba,,,’as long as there is one goon there will be no normalization of relations’
November 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
For what it’s worth, Marc’s opening line to this thread made me think about the video at Glavin’s blog. Just thought the comparison of socialism into Canada as an American import was quite a contrast to the socialism that Fidel imported from the USSR. Perhaps, history will absolve the U.S., eh?
I won’t use any bandwidth to defend Terry Glavin’s political positions-folks can go read him or not – but I find comrade Ahmed’s preference for a dictator over a journalist underwhelming.
Hopefully Ms. Sanchez can remain strong and healthy enough to out-live the Castro brothers.
And yeah, we oughta can the embargo.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
I don’t defend a “dictator” over a journalist, dude, where on Earth did you get that from? What I said is that no one should take the flake Glavins’ protestations about freedom of expression too seriously given the fact that it’s a freedom he denies to the hundreds of children killed in Gaza and the students of universities bombed by Israel, in war crimes laid bare by not only Goldstone but Amnesty, B’tselem, Human Rights Watch and the like. That he chooses to frame murder, targeting of civilians and the use of white phosphorus. all in the context of a broader infrastructure of occupation, itself sustains by racism, as some kind of enlightenment style popular front trotkysist struggle against the backward forces of the “muslim east” makes Glavin a particularly creepy and stupid fellow. I have yet to come across anyone who takes Glavins nonsense seriously.
Again, targeting of Sanchez, bad
November 10th, 2009 at 12:06 am
You called me dude.
Cool.
RIng a bell?
“All that said, given a choice between Castro and Glavin, the latter who recently apprears to be auditioning for the role of Karzai’s chai walla, I’d go with Fidel”
Okay. I get it: you didn’t really mean what you said. Fine.
And I’m going to decline to chase after whether or not Mr Glavin’s got the right position on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nor am I interested at the snide little dig at Karzai. Mr. Glavin’s position are his and those who are interested can go dig them out themselves. Your take on Glavin is duly noted. I insist we just agree to disagree on him.
But all that is small potatoes. You know, ‘it was 20 years ago today…’
Is there going to be a “General Jaruzelski” in Cuba after Fidel dies? I have a firm belief that Free Speech is destined to dominate the world. Even Cuba. I’m betting Yoani Sanchez believes that, too. Ahmed, why the hell won’t Fidel let the Cuban people be free?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:09 am
rob.. I can answer that question. if cubans were allowed to be free they might choose against freedom. isn’t that obvious? or, isn’t that always the answer? we can be trusted with freedom, but they can’t. they might squander it on counter-revolution.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Let me repeat again that whatever the rationale, the jailing of a freaking blogger is vile and atrocious. Marc obviously doesnt believe that Cuba is the worst human rights violator on the planet but his policy that because Cuba claims socialist ideals our critiques of its repressive policies are needed. A variation, I guess, of Chomsky’s position that as citizens of the empire who often directly fund all sorts of atrocities, our eyes should be focused to the barbarities, and there are many, inflicted in our name, in the USA. Fair enough. I was jibbing you with the Galvin/Castro thing, although judging by the following Guardian article, while Fidel is going about his retirement totally honorably, Glavin, on the other hand, is banning commentators who take him to task on his blog while posting comment after comment during Gaza offering “solidarity” for Israel’s brave war on a Ghetto, all the while trying desperately to shine Karzai’s shoes. Just saying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/09/fidel-castro-cuba
November 11th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Using Pat Caddell to attack the Democrats as suppressing dissent is as credible as using Roman Polanski to argue for a lwoerring of the age of consent.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Ahmed –
Although this is a reflection on how Poland has evolved into a liberal democracy, I think this interview contains some interesting insights that are useful to this discussion of Yoani Sanchez.
Responding to a question about nationalism, Adam Michnik says one must, “stay vigilant about democracy. Democracy is a daily plebiscite. Every day we decide whether we want to live in democracy or we don’t want to. Whether we will defend it or we won’t defend it.” To which I’ll bet we both agree Ms. Sanchez is excellent example of this ethos.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704795604574519463075074956.html
(Okay, I know this is plucked from the icky WSJ, but still…)
November 11th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Tell Terry that I said hi
November 15th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
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