As for the absence of noisy attacks on the Cuban regime from the left, isn’t it this simple: political debate in America is only likely to have an effect on American policy. Therefore, people who want to actually effect change are going to address those things that are within American control. That means sanctions. Right wingers keep up a constant drumbeat of criticism not because it is virtuous or even educational, but because it advances their domestic political interest in maintaining sanctions. Those who think that the sanctions are wrong or counterproductive have no such motivation.

What Marc managed to leave out was that they broadcast a recorded greeting from none other than our dear Generalissimo GW Bush. It was played on the head of the US Special Interest Section Cason’s personal laptop.

Do I lie?

Fair question. Of course one can just criticize.

“I want to know who is proactively fighting for the rights of the Cuban people in the U.S.”

Well, in my view, the embargo and the aggressive posturing of the American right have actively assisted Castro to maintain his grip on power. It follows that I believe trying to convince Americans of the counter-productive nature of these actions is the best way to advance the prospects of freedom and democracy in Cuba.

In other words, I don’t accept that noisy denunciations of Castro and his regime are the most effective way to ameliorate the situation in Cuba. Nor do should you have to recite your disgust of Castro every time you wish to say something on the topic of the effectiveness of American policy.

But, Marc, what I want to know is, what’s your theory behind supposing that the reaction will be ever further rightward for every added year Fidel is in power? I think if you look at transitions away from long-lived tyrants around the world, they’ve been all across the board, from dynastic succession in North Korea to the fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany. It’s hard for me to believe that Cuba will go back to being a mere Batistastan when both Castros are in their graves. Give me a theory, or at least a highly parallel precedent.

1. American leftists, along with European govts (and communist nutjobs) that have directly or indirectly supported/apologized for Castro announce that Fidel is a nothing more than a pathetic despot worthy of imprisonment or worse.

2. The American right announces that after 3(4) decades, the embargo on Cuba hasn’t worked and Castro is going to die in office. It is no longer worth it to appease former Batisita supporters and rightwing nutjobs in Miami.

3. The US State Dept. announces that it will be willing to negotiate an end to the embargo if Castro will allow dissidents to form opposition parties and meet, without police harrassment, whenever and whereever they want.

Frydek-Mistek

You can go to Stefania’s site and see more pics, if you’d like. Just keep scrolling down.

http://freethoughts.splinder.com/

Warning: many of the pics show dissidents who are openly pro-American.

Well, the answer should be obvious to anybody who is not drunk on anti-Communist ideology. Nat Hentoff has absolutely no leftist credentials. He uses his Village Voice column to slander the Mideast Languages and Culture Department at Columbia University as anti-Semitic. He argues vociferously against a woman’s right to an abortion. He has even come to the aid of George W. Bush’s dreadful federal court nominees lately. In other words, Hentoff belongs exactly to the reactionary swamp epitomized by Reverend Moon’s Washington Times. It is sad that Marc Cooper cannot discern this, further proof of his steady march to Hitchensville.

I think you’re overstating here…to the point of distortion. Maybe Alexander Cockburn would fit your profile of “the left” refusing to criticize Castro, and you could find a few politically marginal morons with cultural credentials like Alice Walker who profess great admiration for Fidel, but I don’t know of anyone who’s taken seriously in left-liberal circles who doesn’t look forward to Castro’s demise and hope it opens up new political space, much as we prayed for the death of Arafat.

How do we draw these lines in using the term “left” in the U.S., where Hillary Clinton is attacked as a “leftist” in some fairly prominent salons of the right ??? I guess the issue of definition and perception is part of my problem with your post…Pop quiz for conservative posters here – who is Stanley Aronowitz ? Mike Davis ? Michael Albert ? Name a book published by Verso Press. Which Trotskyist organization was Christopher Hitchens a member of? Anybody who can’t answer at least a couple of those questions probably thinks of Ted Kennedy is a Leftist, so most of the terms of your discussion are shifted immediately into the realm of the irrelevant and arcane and the charges of “leftist” support for Castro become bizarre and essentially counter-factual.

As for Bush’s tape recording, that’s a stupid stunt that obviously hands propaganda points to Castro – who is still apparently fairly credible in Cuba because of his great abilities as a demagogue and the Cubans’ having, despite a disastrous inability to construct a modern economy, created a floor for the poor – an achievement which looks pretty good when you simply compare it to the millions tossed into gutters elsewhere in what used to be termed the Third World. It appears, based on your report, that the U.S. has actually managed to create a fracture within the democratic movement in Cuba. The dissidents should have sent a tape-recording back to Bush asking him to lift the futile, counter-productive embargo. Now the response to that would have been interesting. This embargo is one of those cul-de-sacs created throughout the history of American diplomacy by the mindless rhetoric and political opportunism of the right, by which only a Nixon could go to China without being redbaited. Politically, Bush could end the embargo…but then he’s not got the intellectual sophistication, the grasp of diplomacy nor the strength of character that Nixon had, so we’re not likely to see it.

(Marc…I’m afraid that the growing evidence of Nixon nostalgia among liberals proves just how far removed we are from the days when Fidelismo was percieved as a viable strain among American “leftists”.)

It isn’t. Read NEW POLITICS or AGAINST THE CURRENT or NEWS & LETTERS or any anarchist publication and you’ll find no shortage of criticism of Castro.

YES, I’m joking. Jeez. You’ll know I’m serious when I start gibbering about decapitating Jim Rockford.

Marc…might I add that you rather remarkably skip over the main issue of agency in determining Cuba’s future when Fidel passes – the Cuban people. The American Left – whatever that might mean to you – has hardly been the key to continuation of Castro’s regime and they will hardly be the determinant factor in what comes after. Liberals have been pretty firmly opposed to the economic boycott and travel restrictions for many years (despite typical Clintonian caving to the Republicans). I just don’t see how Chomsky’s legions are going to make much difference one way or the other. The biggest danger to Cuba’s future is that after Castro’s demise the right-wing will push not for reform, democratization and shifting gears toward a modern entrepeneurial economy, but for maximalist market domination of all aspects of Cuba’s economy and society and the imposition of a pliant government heavily influenced by exiles . That is an extreme scenario and would probably mean something approximating a civil war, cueing direct U.S. intervention, but it’s pretty obviously the fantasy harbored by many in Miami and their allies in the Beltway Ideology Factories. Whatever happens, it won’t be according to a blueprint put forward by The Left.

Democratically-minded folks around the world should be speaking out on human rights in Cuba as elsewhere, but it’s not up to us to come up with a post-Castro strategy for Cuban reform. That’s precisely the kind of hubris that makes the neo-cons so dangerous, delusional and, ironically, the inept heirs of the time-worn Leftist “solidarity” bullshit – a scenario in which Americans of extreme ideological bent and little more than academic, ivory tower credentials assume that they have the formula for global liberation and – rather than simply and responsibly asserting the limitations of our military power, the potential benefits of trade and economic interdependence and, thus, proposing a humane, rational, even-handed U.S. foreign policy combined with judicious use of foriegn aid and economic incentives – they begin designating their allies-in-exile, forming internationalist cabals for overthrowing governments and sending material aid to various and sundry militant factions they’ve deemed their comrades. All in an effort to exert their own will as righteous agents of the wretched of the Earth and the unjustly oppressed in a global “revolution”. Generally a prelude to some combination of disaster and disappointment…and at best a diversion from making sure that our own house is in order when we’re dealing with tough issues abroad. Many eggs are broken – according to the Leninist maxim – but the omelettes never seem to turn out to be as palatable as promised (Bahgdad being the current case in point).

All decent, sensible Americans support human rights and greater democracy in Cuba, but the rightwing agenda is currently the primary external impediment to Cuban liberalization, insofar as the U.S. has any direct influence on the process. If the Cold War taught us anything, it is that isolating populations culturally and economically makes absolutely no sense except to the most insecure Stalinists and crackpot Rightists. Handing Castro an opportunity to appear to be a proponent of greater openness toward the U.S. in this particular pissing contest is disgraceful and a measure of just how patently absurd the Boltonesque approach to Cuba of this administration and their hard-right ideologues has become.

An inside, anti-Castro view on Bush’s policies…

Marc, if you have any concrete suggestions for U.S. citizens who would like to support democratic dissidents with positive actions (i.e., not more ritual denunciations of Fidel), please make them. You were there, you talked with them; what would be useful?

Marc…might I add that you rather remarkably skip over the main issue of agency in determining Cuba’s future when Fidel passes – the Cuban people. The American Left – whatever that might mean to you – has hardly been the key to continuation of Castro’s regime and they will hardly be the determinant factor in what comes after. Liberals have been pretty firmly opposed to the economic boycott and travel restrictions for many years (despite typical Clintonian caving to the Republicans). I just don’t see how Chomsky’s legions are going to make much difference one way or the other. The biggest danger to Cuba’s future is that after Castro’s demise the right-wing will push not for reform, democratization and shifting gears toward a modern entrepeneurial economy, but for maximalist market domination of all aspects of Cuba’s economy and society and the imposition of a pliant government heavily influenced by exiles . That is an extreme scenario and would probably mean something approximating a civil war, cueing direct U.S. intervention, but it’s pretty obviously the fantasy harbored by many in Miami and their allies in the Beltway Ideology Factories. Whatever happens, it won’t be according to a blueprint put forward by The Left.

Democratically-minded folks around the world should be speaking out on human rights in Cuba as elsewhere, but it’s not up to us to come up with a post-Castro strategy for Cuban reform. That’s precisely the kind of hubris that makes the neo-cons so dangerous, delusional and, ironically, the inept heirs of the time-worn Leftist “solidarity” bullshit – a scenario in which Americans of extreme ideological bent and little more than academic, ivory tower credentials assume that they have the formula for global liberation and – rather than simply and responsibly asserting the limitations of our military power, the potential benefits of trade and economic interdependence and, thus, proposing a humane, rational, even-handed U.S. foreign policy combined with judicious use of foriegn aid and economic incentives – they begin designating their allies-in-exile, forming internationalist cabals for overthrowing governments and sending material aid to various and sundry militant factions they’ve deemed their comrades. All in an effort to exert their own will as righteous agents of the wretched of the Earth and the unjustly oppressed in a global “revolution”. Generally a prelude to some combination of disaster and disappointment…and at best a diversion from making sure that our own house is in order when we’re dealing with tough issues abroad. Many eggs are broken – according to the Leninist maxim – but the omelettes never seem to turn out to be as palatable as promised (Bahgdad being the current case in point).

All decent, sensible Americans support human rights and greater democracy in Cuba, but the rightwing agenda is currently the primary external impediment to Cuban liberalization, insofar as the U.S. has any direct influence on the process. If the Cold War taught us anything, it is that isolating populations culturally and economically makes absolutely no sense except to the most insecure Stalinists and crackpot Rightists. Handing Castro an opportunity to appear to be a proponent of greater openness toward the U.S. in this particular pissing contest is disgraceful and a measure of just how patently absurd the Boltonesque approach to Cuba of this administration and their hard-right ideologues has become.