If Oliver Stone’s rewrite is an affront to Venezuela’s opposition during “a crucial moment” like this…um….who cares? But as long as you’re writing about this, who from the opposition has time to read Oliver Stone’s rewrite? Who from the opposition is affronted by this rewrite? And how did they take this grave affront? Just curious.

//VenezuelaToday.net

Penn’s version of journalism is actually a brave, breath of fresh air. The piece reads like a movie and was actually newsworthy. He is critical of Cuba and Chavez on many points but has a right to be madder at pols (like Biden and Lieberman) who routinely call Chavez a good for nothing dictator and distort the way Americans look at Latin America.

Cooper does not have to find inspiration in Cuban socialism (as
so many in the world do). He, like many good liberals, can continue to say the US system is broken but ridicule people who are trying to build a new world elsewhere. I’m sure he fancies himself an anti-imperialist but uses his pen more against Cuba and Venezuela than of all the recent US misdeeds in the region. That’s fine. All we proud socialists ask is why he goes out of his way to cow journalism with a different point of view?

And by the way, some facts were wrong. Cubans indeed have the right to an appeal (up to the Supreme Court). They also have a moratorium on the death penalty and publicly state they hope to never use it. There are no banned books in Cuba and no one has been arrested for having the wrong books in their house. That’s absurd. The “independent librarians” (in prison) Cooper is probably referencing were the handful who chose to work and take money from the US Government – just like most of the few dozen “prisoners of conscience” that Amnesty recognizes. Does Cooper know that the US Government wastes even more money trying to coerce groups and hacks around the world to print that Cuba is arresting people for their books? If he does not see the USG engineered circle that he is falling for, I don’t know what to say.

As far as what the Cuban people really want, it’s possible Cooper knows roughly as much as Sean Penn. Anyone still writing in terms of admiration for a crackpot war monger like Chris Hitchens is hardly to be trusted on such matters.

The failed Obama Presidency…

This is worse than the Bush era – we’ve got twice as many failed Presidents. As Olberman would put it, you, Sirs, need to resign !

Happy American Thanksgiving.

Cooper, are you aware that Obama has come under scrutiny for basically recreating Guantanamo inside the US, keeping some prisoners captive for the rest of their lives without ever going to trial? Compared to not being able to walk a picket line in Havana, this amounts to a much greater abuse of human rights although an Obamaniac like you is incapable of perceiving that.

And Obama should fix a firm datefor the meeting: exactly 24 hours after Raul Castro announces a date for open and internationally supervised elections and lifts all prohibitions on publishing, freedom of assembly and the right to organize INDEPENDENT unions and voluntary political opposition parties. What a great day it would be for ALL of us. Try walking a picket line in Havana and let’s see how the cops respond

Why waste time on this you ask? I hope that will be the lead of your letter to the editors of The Nation. To tell you the truth Jordi, I dont give a flying fug what Sean Penn thinks about Cuba or anything else for that matter. And I hardly stayed up last nite fretting about it.

I would think, however, that you MIGHT care that this tripe is the sort of stuff that makes the cover of America’s leading progressive publication especially in the sort of perilous times you outline. Raul Castro stages a publicity stunt saying that he “might” meet Obama at Guantanamo (something that has NO chance of happening and that would pretty much sink Obama immediately) and a dolt like Penn acts as transmission belt and The Nation sees fit to put it on the cover… but, wait, this is all redbaiting!!!!!

That Penn’s dopey drivel is a waste of time was precisely my point. But, wait, I don’t have time to write any longer of an answer to you because, alas, there are terror attacks in Mumbai and US Imperialism is gearing up for war against Democratic Pakistan! There’s also genocide in Darfur. Famine in North Korea. Anarchy in Zimbabwe. (And of course there’s that picket line of a bunch of well-fed Canadians that we ought to be worrying about as well)

Sorry… Aint got time for that, buddy.