The Not-So-Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Harry, Hugo and Raul. [Updated]
(see Update at bottom of post)
I’ve had a pretty busy couple of days so I thought I’d catch up here on a trio of subjects that I’ve been mulling during long drives up and down I-5: The not-so-good health care bill; the the bad news from Cuba where bloggers continue to be beaten up; and the ugly news from Caracas where Hugo Chavez declares his admiration for Carlos the Jackal, Robert Mugabe. Idi Amin and Iranian Islamic Fascists.
**** We start with the not-so-good health care bill. I had the great pleasure this past glorious Saturday afternoon to attend the San Diego area wedding of a former student (who, yes, got a real job in journalism). I got back to my hotel just in ti
me to watch the Senate roll call vote on the health care debate. I wasn’t jumping for joy or whopping it up but, of course, I was pleased to see the shameful Republican attempt to squelch as much as the debate in what is supposed to be the most austere deliberative body in the world — a menagerie that more frequently resembles a very big monkey cage. My enthusiasm was tempered by having heard, on the radio on the drive down to San Diego, the floor speeches of several Blue Dogs who vowed that they WOULD eventually filibuster any version of the bill with as much as trace of a public option in it.
I’m sort of at a loss about all this. I have argued, and will continue to assert, that Something is always better than Nothing and that, given the dysfunction of our political system, those seem to be the only two options we are being offered. Pretty depressing. The Republicans, of course, are outrageous on this subject. Their “plans” offer coverage to maybe an additional million people at most. And having dominated the congress six of the previous eight years and having done nothing whatsoever about heath care you’d have to hit yourself in the head a hundred times with the hardcover edition of Going Rogue to take them seriously on this subject.
The problem, as we know, are the collection of right-wing Democrats (mistakenly labeled as “moderates” by the MSM) who put their own electoral needs ahead of the interests of the people of the United States. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, hardly a radical, is even more depressed than I am, declaring the health care bill to be 90% empty. I’m rating it at something closer to 65% BS. But, who knows? by the time this sausage is cooked it might, indeed, be unfit for human consumption. Reich isn’t giving up yet and neither am I. But we’re going to be disappointed. Just how completely, I don’t know yet. But I am sick and tired of hearing about the needs of Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman.
**** We move to the bad news from Cuba where totally peaceful bloggers are being beaten up for mere thought crimes. Here comes my usual disclaimer. Why does Marc Cooper spend so much apparent time obsessing over Cuba and Venezuela? 
Answer: Because I have spent my entire adult life on the political left and I care about its moral authority. Lately, I’ve pretty much given up on such a notion as Lefties seem as prone to situational ethics as do Righties. Let’s, then, look at the latest antics of the Cuban regime. You’ll remember that a few weeks ago, the wonderfully lyrical writer and blogger Yoani Sanchez was snatched off the streets by Cuban state security agents and roughed up. Her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, got pretty steamed up and issued a public challenge to debate the plainclothes state security goons that shadow him and announced he would show up to do so at a specific time on the popular Havana corner of 23rd and G. When he got there, he was met by a “spontaneous” crowd of ruffians who proceeded to push and punch him around while chanting “The streets belong to Fidel!” This was a so-called “act of repudiation,” a tried and true astro-turf tactic of the regime whereby the state organizes “average citizens” ( i.e. party members) to launch mob actions against dissidents. Strange how the ever-present security agents did nothing as the crowd threatened Escobar and intervened to save him from being lynched only at at the last moment. Coincidentally, or not, this took place at the same time that Barack Obama emailed back his answers to a series of questions posed and then posted by Yoani Sanchez. Let me translate that for you into simple English: The Cuban regime which claims it wants an open dialogue with the United States cracks down on the harmless blogger and her family who makes contact with the first American president who is actually likely to revise U.S. policy toward Cuba.
I have to give The Hufington Post big-time credit for prominently posting the AP story and some pretty nasty video from the Escobar mob scene. ( I will take some indirect credit for this. When one of my former students became the World News editor for HuffPost last year, I turned her on to Sanchez’ blog and then she took the initiative to regularly link to the site which is, of course, blacked out in Cuba). The HuffPost coverage is a far more honorable position than other liberal and left media that avoid the Cuba issue like a plague. Can’t tell you either that I’ve read very much about this at all within the sometimes very insular blogosphere “net roots.”
OK, here we go again, but I don’t care who is tired of hearing it. American leftists degrade and discredit themselves by not firmly standing against massive human rights abuses in Cuba. Telling us about the U.S. embargo. the right-wing politics of much of the Cuban exile community and the notion that life is better in Cuban than in Haiti and that all Cuban dissidents are CIA tools is morally repugnant. I’ve been saying this for years but the zero hour is approaching: when Cuban tanks are inevitably called out to shoot down Cuban workers protesting in the streets, on which side will the American Left be?
If you can stand it, comb through the 500 comments on the HuffPost piece. Yes, there are some virulent right-wingers there predictably spewing a blind hatred for Castro. But also note how little outrage or even mild protest there is from liberal readers about the Cuban government beating up bloggers. Instead, there’s a lot of bullshit about them being CIA tools.
My best friend in Cuba, the late writer Justo Vasco, way back in the late 80′s and early 90′s often used a term that made me quite uncomfortable. Mind you, Justo’s father was a founder of the Cuban Communist Party. Justo, himself, had been educated in Moscow and his eldest son (birthed by his former Russian wife) was an officer serving in the Soviet Red Army (until it was dissolved). And he was the leading translator of Cuban published works from Russian into Spanish. Anyway, I remember back in 1990 during an eruption of Cuban social crisis, there were dozens of these so-called “acts of repudiation” staged by the regime. Justo would refer to them in the original Italian as “fasci di combattimento” — the fascist street militias formed by Mussolini. At first, I thought his description somewhat over the top. I was wrong. Make sure you play the video embedded in the HuffPost piece and tell me where your sympathies reside.
Here’s some lower resolution video than the NBC footage on HuffPost. But it’s equally chilling. The mob, by the way, is NOT chanting ‘Freedom! Freedom!’ It’s screaming ‘Fidel! Fidel!” Where are the cops by the way? This street corner of 23 and G in Havana is the equivalent to 42nd and Broadway in NYC.
**** Which brings me to the really ugly news from Caracas where President Hugo Chavez this weekend endorsed Carlos The Jackal, dictator Robert Mugabe and the religious fascists who staged a fraudulent election-coup in Iran. Oh yeah, did I 
forget his warm words for that great humanitarian and revolutionary Idi Amin? What’s 300,000 murdered Ugandans, more or less, compared to a “great patriot and nationalist?” Chavez made his disgusting remarks at an international gathering of “revolutionaries” in Caracas who — if they had any self-respect– would have walked out en masse. The Iranian regime has single-mindedly dedicated itself to the extermination of socialists, liberals, secularists and homosexuals. Chavez’ ass-kissing of the Mullahs is beyond the pale. Praising Carlos the Jackal (who aligned himself with the pathological Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany) and the megalomaniacal Mugabe whi has driven Zimbabwe into ruin and repressed his democratic opposition with truncheons and bullets is merely the icing on the cake. I assure you that as ugly as Chavez has gotten, he is only going to get uglier. Apart from everything else, he’s clearly out of his gourd. I can’t remember any other world leader trying to even remotely redeem Idi Amin. By the way, the report I link to here is not from a right-wing rag, but rather from the left-0f-center U.K. Guardian. Compare The Guardian report with this lickspittle “interview” conducted recently with Chavez by a lefty U.S. professor and published on The Nation magazine’s web site. Do you get the whiff of a moral crisis?
What will Chavez have to say before American lefties catch on to what this guy is really about? That Hitler might have been a national socialist but at least he was a socialist? Ugh. I’m going to bed.
UPDATE: I’ve been reading through the international Twitter feed on the case of Yoani Sanchez and it’s pretty fantastic, boldly confirming the Right has no monopoly on stupidity and duplicity. The feed brims with posts in Spanish, Italian and Portugese about how Sanchez is a “pawn” of the CIA and is just making all this up. The best part are the hundreds of Tweets and Re-Tweets alleging there is no “proof” that Obama’s answers to her on her blog are authentic and, therefore, are likely forged. Of course, one quick glance at the official U.S. State Dept web site disproves this off-the-wall conspiracy theory as Hillary’s staff reproduces the cyber-interview with Sanchez on the site. These revolutionary defenders of Cuban authoritarianism now firmly stand in the ranks of Sarah Palin’s birthers. Gag.
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November 23rd, 2009 at 7:20 am
I also wish we had a better bill. But I would not blame Harry Reid for putting forth what he knew would pass. He got all of the “Democrats” to go along. Unfortunately, that’s what was required, and fortunately for us, he’s there to do it.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:13 am
Marc, Marc, Marc… Here you go again!!! Look, if YOU had the constant pressure of U.S. Imperialism, you might start blogging about celebrities. Chavez, Cuba, all good people who do awful things because they are under stress.
You also forgot to mention that the economy in Venezuela has collapsed. Our buddy Chavez has blown out bridges between Columbia and Venezuela to prevent folks from heading to Columbia. It was in the LA Times on Saturday.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
I doubt that blocking a public option will save these Blue Dogs – it only makes them look more like grandstanding pols. I can – almost – comprehend why we’ve got such a crappy Dem as Ben Nelson from Nebraska. He is – in some sort of twisted way – a product of his state (although I’m sure Harry Truman was right that if voters really want a GOPer, they’ll choose one rather than a sound-alike who calls himself a Democrat.) I’m also sure if Ben Nelson were taking care of his state on signficant local issues and staying in touch with his electorate on the larger ones, he could sell his vote for a stronger health care reform as a REASON to keep him in office. But crappy Blue Dogs who are running scared and showing it to the folks whose respect and confidence they’re dependent upon aside, Joe Lieberman is taking a stand directly AGAINST his voter base in Connecticut and against his promises to support significant health care reform when he was re-elected. The man is an amazing piece of work. I’ve got lots of retorts about the 2000 election when Nader comes up, but when Marc says that – at least – he voted against Lieberman, my impulse is to just keep my mouth shut. They should put Liebeman’s picture next to “weasel” in Merriam Webster.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 am
I also have to say that if Landrieu was using her leverage to get some hundreds of millions of pork for Louisiana – assuming it will help pull them back out of the Katrina mess, which may be assuming to omuch – and votes for the final bill with at least some form of public option, more power to her. It’s shameful, of course, that it had to be that way but I can’t think of a more deserving area for federal largesse.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 am
Marc – I don’t follow him obsessively so I’m wondering if Sullivan has blogged about the Cubans. He’s usually pretty good about issues of censored bloggers around the world – and I’d also recommend “just in case”, although they’ve probably thought of this – that if your students who are on this send links and draw attention to Steve Benen at Washington Monthly, TPM and TAPPED, they’re likely to get some action. It strikes me that there’s a sort of tunnel vision in the blogosphere where they follow and expand the stories that are already getting attention. And if one breaks through that cycle, the story gets picked up…
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
What struck me about the Senate debate was that the Repubs went on and on about everything that is wrong with the current health care delivery system, and how much it needs to be changed, then displayed outrage that the Democrats were trying to reform it. They had six years of control of both houses of Congress and the White House, yet did absolutely nothing except for passing the unpaid-for, profits-for-pharma version of the Medicare prescription plan.
Frankly, I wanted to hear from Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins or Dick Lugar say why they would not even vote for cloture to allow debate and an up-or-down vote. Actually, I know a little about Lugar’s reasoning. He and his machine are joined-at-the-hip-pocket with Eli Lilly. There might as well be an underground shuttle between his local office and Lilly’s HQ…his people have been shuttling back and forth from one payroll to the other for years. This is not to absolve Evan Bayh from what most would say is a profound conflict of interest in his votes on health care, given his wife’s presence as a well-compensated director of several health care/pharma corporations. But at least he voted to move the issue forward. I think the “moderate” Repubs have some explaining to do.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
What is so mind-numbingly stupid about Chávez’s puñeta of Carlos is that the reason why Carlos is in jail in France is because of bombings he conducted on civilian targets such as trains in order to pressure France to release his then wife from prison for possession of explosives. WTF is “revolutionary” about that? He was killing civilians for personal reasons.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Btw, has anyone read/heard why Voinovich didn’t vote? Is he (a lame duck of occasional moderate sentiments) a possible “yea” vote for the reform package?
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, hardly a radical, is even more depressed than I am, declaring the health care bill to be 90% empt”
Geeze. I rest my case.
INteresting reading Obama’s or whoever’s repsonse to Joani’s questions. I love the nifty “American interests” Obama kept referring to. She needed to ask him to expand on that.
Yes, Chavez clearly has poo poo in his head making those remarks. And you are right to call out American ‘liberals’ for their rationalizing crack pot dictators actions but then you must smack down same for rationalizing something is better than nothing even tho the nothing is reckoned to be 90% nothing. So, Marc, how to you figure?
Chavez crazy, but supporting a bill that is worthless is “good”
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
# Michael Crosby Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Btw, has anyone read/heard why Voinovich didn’t vote? Is he (a lame duck of occasional moderate sentiments) a possible “yea” vote for the reform package?
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http://clevelandleader.com/node/12060
Ohio’s Senator George Voinovich was the only U. S. Senator to not cast a vote yesterday on moving the historic health care bill. It didn’t make a difference since his would have been the 40th Republican vote against moving the bill to a floor vote.
Democrats had 60 votes to overcome a filibuster by Republicans. The vote was 60-39.
Voinovich didn’t want to waste time voting, as the Plain Dealer explains here: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2009/11/sen_george_voinovich_why_waste.html
According to a Huffington report Voinovich was celebrating at a party marking his 30 year victory over Dennis Kucinich in 1979: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/21/sealed-with-a-kiss-dems-u_n_366626.html
Here’s a man who, with his family, has enjoyed public health by virtue of his service in various government positions at least half his life. I figure more than 40 years since he was a state representative.
Yet, he would have voted to delay health coverage to some 40 million other Americans, if he had been at the job yesterday.
But he had more important things to do.
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Sorry, V’s explanation sounds a bit suspect. He bears watching as the next round evolves.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:24 pm
More of a quick question than a comment but Im wondering what you make, Marc, of some of the commentary coming from your old friend Saul about this?
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau11192009.html
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I think Saul’s analysis of Cuba is misguided and flirts with blaming the victims. His description of competition among dissidents is too snarky for me. His downplaying of the violence or at least the threat and potential of it is not becoming. Would you like to have been Escobar facing that government-organized howling crowd?
We know that this or that dissident has the support or even funding from the outside. That’s a product of a totalitarian society that permits no organic, legal opposition. If you want a cleaner opposition, that’s easy. Legalize it.
Between bloggers being roughed up on the street and those roughing them up I have no hesitation in knowing where my sympathies reside.
He and I have always disagreed over Cuba and there is nothing new here.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I think the point Saul makes about he incident in Riyadh quite pointed.
This has nothing to do with the oppression taking place in Cuba.
I also think the distracting people’s attention with Palin and even Cuba rather than focusing on either who or what is being constructive or who or what needs to be dismantled because it is so life threatening is the sleight of hand that I for one get sick of seeing so many fall for.
Dealing with hypocrisy, as Saul points out, IS the issue. He was not saying that what is going in Cuba is acceptable…he is saying none of it is acceptable and the bullshit of picking and choosing what to get everyone’s knickers in a twist about is what sends anything constructive off the rails.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Example: The US government doesn’ routinely get upset over the most horrific abuses to women that take place every minute of every day in places like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yeman etc etc etc etc etc etc nor does it give a shit when people cry out for help over oppression and slaughter unless a region has economic or political usefulness.
Saul is saying its all bullshit. I don’t think he was analyzing Cuba in particular though I don’t know his history. He was making a valid point or maybe I am extrapolating to make it for him. Either way Joanni is about as interesting as Palin in comparison to the real ongoing horrors.
And if the US had cut some of its crap or not have begun it in the first place it would have undercut Castro’s megalomania and excuses for supposedly Cuba from the gringos.
Just saying the regime there is oppressive and ignoring the lunacy of the US reaction to Cuba and crazed policies that in fact have caused at least as much misery as the oppression– is refusing to deal with the reality of the situation. Castro is an asshole and so is the US. Its not one is better or less evil. Both are.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:40 pm
oops…supposedly saving Cuba from the gringos…is what I meant to say.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
This is a tedious argument on an important subject like human rights. Sadly, I know it all too well.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
The predicament of Cuba — the beating and jailing folks like Yoani Sanchez — made me think about Irena Grudzinska-Gross, particularly in “The Art of Solidarity” where she mediated on the attempt to “overstep the limits of the political horizon while remaining inside the same geographical borders.”
Just saying.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
The Berlin Wall and the totalitarianism it upheld came crashing down 20 years ago.
We all know to pay homage to the likes of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, and the Pope, amongst many. But let’s not forget the contribution of democratic socialists toward this end. Adam Michnik was the socialist intellectual helping to drive the Workers’ Defense Committee – the KOR. It’s guiding principal was simple and radical: “Start doing things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in freedom of speech? Then speak freely. Do you believe in the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.” (See Jonathan Schell’s intro to “Letters From Prison” by Adam Michnik. Additionally, there’s Michnik’s essay “A New Evolutionism”)
It’s too late for the Castro brothers to understand any of this. But they’re not the future of Cuba. The future belongs to the ones the Castro’s jailed.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:28 pm
For Cubans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeWSpB_7w4
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Anna.
What skipload of crap. It’s not a “distratction” to write about Cuba or any other damn thing anybody wants to. And my old pal Landau’s piece was NOT just bout hypocrisy.
I am really amazed that you are bored with Yoani Sanchez. I will pass that message along to her. While you are furiously pounding away at the keyboard with no risk, she risks her freedom and future for doing the same damn thing as you. I find that fucking interesting.
I think it was Czeslaw Milosz who said, during the days of Soviet apogee, closely paraphrasing: The difference between East and West is that in the east you can’t do anything and yet everything you do matters deeply. In the West you can do anything you want but it matters not at all. Think about that the next time you sit down to type out how inconsequential YOU find bloggers to be. What do you think Sanchez’ view of you would be?
November 24th, 2009 at 8:11 am
“put their own electoral needs ahead of the interests of the people of the United States”
They put the needs of their johns Mrs. Lieberman, Walmart) ahead of the interests of the people they supposedly represent.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Marc, you are taking my “boredom” with Joanni out of its context and what is annoying is you repudiate all I have written which clearly demonstrates my personal sense of fury at the horror and stupidity that plagues EVERYWHERE especially aided and abetted by the selective attention of bullshit liberals, the US and human folly in general.
To assume by my statement that I think its ok for people to have the crap beat out of them just makes you nasty and obtuse.
You failed to address the actual point I made that if the US would stop being an asshole Castro would have no traction with all the bullshit of keeping Cuba safe from ‘American Imperialism’…and thus Joanni would not have to blog and get the crap beat out of her.
I hate the whole victim/martyr culture around these people when the real focus should be on WHY their predicament exists at all. Its so much easier to whine and point fingers and moo about how awful it is that nice young, educated, observant, brave women get the crap beat out of them daring to challenge their mean government rather than dealing with WHY.
It happens HERE, Marc. Look at the history of unions not to mention Kent state.
I get furious that people like Nader and Kucinich and yes even a Kaptur who take on the actual cause of a problem get sidelined by the so called liberal press.
Joanni baloney…she is a Riverbend wannbe. ;Where were you when Reynaldo Arenas was trying to alert the Left in Europe and the US about what was happening in Cuba.
Before Night Falls is far more an indictment of Castro than any little blog of this clearly privileged, middle class girl. I saw some of the pictures of her in her rather swell looking digs that don’t look anything like what most Cubans live in.
Don’t assume I don’t know what the fuck is going on there…
Arenas died with barely any health care in New York. He finally committed suicide. But of course you know all about that.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Marc Cooper Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Anna.
What skipload of crap. It’s not a “distratction” to write about Cuba or any other damn thing anybody wants to. And my old pal Landau’s piece was NOT just bout hypocrisy.
I am really amazed that you are bored with Yoani Sanchez. I will pass that message along to her. While you are furiously pounding away at the keyboard with no risk, she risks her freedom and future for doing the same damn thing as you. I find that fucking interesting.
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Is there some emotionalism going on here?
The cuban regime is not without its warts; warts that some wish to expose because of the socialist nature of the government.
No doubt that Ms Sanchez is a courageous woman.
Now the liberal obsession with focusing on Cuba is astounding in light of some of the bedfellows America willing engages with in the ‘national interest’. This obsession seems to have lasted some 150 years already.
The US policy towards Cuba has recently been rejected by the UN (some 186-3 !).
The embargo is such theatre where everybody is invited to play a role. Almost the whole of latin america’s leadership (even moderates like Bachelet) make the pilgrimage to the shrine of Fidel. This is by and large symbollic: done as a sign of national soveriegnity, (see, we are not controlled by Washington) because close relations with Habana are not relevant to the issues confronting latin america.
For the one or two latin countries which prefer not to kiss the ring of the revolution, prefer also to antagonize their latin neighbors. They do so by allowing US military bases or by overthowing a democratic centerist to placate the american textile businesses.
In the backround to Cooper’s piece are the new realists of the Obama adminitration who wish to restore Zayala and to normalize relations with Cuba. These new realists are involved in a internecine struggle with the Clinton wing over how to engage latin america in general and Cuba in particular.
This accounts for the two-faced policy towards events in Honduras… and it appears the Clinton wing holds the upper hand.
As all good drama has its denouement, any liberalization of the US policy towards Cuba will bring howls of execration from the Miami cubans… orchestrated by the monied interests within the Democratic party which have a vested interest in not seeing latin populism emerge in the americas: populism which thusfar is largely confined to symbols.
So I will append this messege to the Cooper messege of the Anna Churchill messege being sent to Ms Sanchez as part of this “fucking “farce.
If the US is really obsessed with cleaning up Cuba let it start with Guantanamo Bay.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Kiss the ring of the revolution? What the fook is this? I thought Che & Fidel brought Cuba “the new man of socialism.” Ring smooching smacks an awful lot like monarchy…and wouldn’t anythingy monarchy be, um, counter-revoluti….
If you’re Sean Penn, or an avid reader in the Hugo Chavez book club, how many times can you kiss the ring? French kissing? How would that work?
November 24th, 2009 at 10:21 am
I’ve always admired you for being picky about your leftists, and condemning at least some of the bad guys.
However, when equivalences are being made, it should be noted that lefties KILL a whole lot more people that righties – certainly on a world wide basis (say 100,000,000 to at most a few million).
Pre-emptive response: no, Hitler was not a rightist; he wasn’t a leftist; his ideology was a synthesis of both sides, and his racism was a bizarre and horrible personal characteristic.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
But of course, let’s start with Guantanamo Bay.
The embargo.
Sure.
But Fidel beats and jails bloggers because of U.S. policy.
O.J. Simpson is innocent because the LAPD was racist.
Same shit.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:44 am
“However, when equivalences are being made, it should be noted that lefties KILL a whole lot more people that righties”
Wow, since I’m on the left, I’d better start increasing my killing quotient.
I wish I could extend the same admiration to you that you (and the rest of us) do to Marc for being intellectually honest and refreshingly non-partisan. It’s clear from your comment (and your history of comments–trust me, I’ve been around here awhile) that this is not the case.
It’s too bad, because you seem like a nice guy. But your predictable hyper-partisan blather is exactly why commenters like you and Woody aren’t taken seriously here.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:57 am
“I was pleased to see the shameful Republican attempt to squelch as much as the debate in what is supposed to be the most austere deliberative body in the world ”
No doubt everyone would recall the shameful Democrat attempts to do the same thing at different times on different issues.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
its not who is squelching who but what are issues
November 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Thank you, Pablo. I am sure another pile of calumny and manure will be heaped upon your perspective…piles full of generalizations rather than the precise points you made.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Rob G you really shame yourself with that cheap analogy between Gitmo and OJ. Thats exactly the kind of moral stretching that phony liberals love to engage in. Its also a very American trait.
Learn to separate out the examples being given and what they allude to. You might actually learn something.
And if nuance and historical fact were a part of your arsenal you would know that the revolution was doomed when Che began executing people in cold blood in order to preserve the quality of the revolution. Starting with the poor peasant farmers who got caught between Batista’s men and the revolutionary army while they were battling it out in the Sierra Maestre. It was Che exercising his archetypal Puer psychological kinks that were fueled by the bitterness he felt when he saw how the revolution in (Guatemala, was it?) was screwed by those overturned living to once again reclaim the country in the name of imperial interests. All his more laudable personality traits were sadly overrun by his ideological rationales.
That moment when he began the executions beginning with the peasants in the mountains to the organized executions after they had won the battle—that Castro was shocked by, by the way—was the tipping point and should be instructive about the nature of revolution and human nature and change…period.
Be facetious, Bob, about what you think a revolution is or what those that create it are “bringing” just makes you the typical pussy American who sneers at other people’s spilled blood.
Remember, the CIA actually approached Castro early on. Even the Americans wanted to get rid of Batista because he had become bad for business.
And then Richard Goodwin, who had the most extraordinarary opportunity to make history because he was sought out by Che for an opportunistic meeting and was advising Kennedy, but did not understand Che or Castro and could only advise based on his puny Harvard, American point of view.
If ever there was a lost opportunity it was Goodwin’s parochial point of view that lost it. The motherfucker had history in his hands.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:51 am
America’s policy toward Cuba has been brutal and counter-productive for decades. But Fidel’s oppression of dissent has been equally counter-productive. Yoani Sanchez is not the problem. Trying to intimidate her and her friends from expressing their observations is not the solution. Middle and academic class North Americans and Europeans who attack her snarkily for being sort of middle class (by Cuban standards) serve to delay the day that some version of normality evolves in Cuba-US relations.
There is no question that the knee-jerk anti-Fidel sentiment in this country is dying out. Last night I heard some guy on the Speed channel referring to Cuba as a living auto museum, and suggested a convention of US “car guys” and Cuban “car guys” in Cuba. If the gearheads aren’t behind US regressive policy, then who really is?
Whether Yoani Sanchez and her freedom vel non to express her sentiments is the central policy issue is not the question. But there will be no serious progress toward normal relations between Cuba and the US so long as she is being punished for doing so.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:51 am
No doubt everyone would recall the shameful Democrat attempts to do the same thing at different times on different issues.
Yes, those vile Democrats who filibustered the Iraq War Resolution, the Bush tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, Medicare Plan B, the PATRIOT Act.
Talk about false equivalencies.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:52 am
And who is that idiot who says Hitler wasnt left or right?
Hitler IS the poster boy for the right and fascism. Jesus. get a clue
November 24th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
JM,
How many left-wing dictators did Hitler ally himself with before WWII? None that I can think of, but both he and Mussolini lended aid and material support to Franco.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
“And who is that idiot who says Hitler wasnt left or right?”
Some Jackass who once blogged that NYTimes’ journalists should be hung as traitors…
Hope that puts his comments in perspective.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Samuel Says:
Interesting how so many responses here to us guys on the right consist of ad homina.
Marc is hardly non-partisan. Neither am I.
One intellectual honesty – I say what I think and believe, so if that’s not honesty to you, I don’t know what is.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one minor left-wing dictator: Josef Stalin. But he was just a minor one – his death toll only in a couple score million folks – nothing compared to that evil Franco.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
reg Says:
Reg, put up or shut the f*ck up about that, you lying asshole. It gets a bit old.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Anna
I doubt I’m alone in finding your rebuttal meandering. Yet when it comes to being lewd, you really find a way to be precise. Remarkable.
I’ll clarify and remind you that I entered this thread suggesting Irena Grudzinska-Gross’ “The Art of Solidarity” Which explores facing an intractable and dominate foe while being so tightly confined physically. Substitute Poland surrounded by a nuclear armed USSR with Cuban citizens on an island being imprisoned by an authoritarian state.
I think readers might understand the comparison.
Your creative writing ally, Pablo, can fancy any clever turn of phrase he wishes to justify or evade that truth of the Cuban Communist Party’s brutality. It’s a blog, so let’em rip, eh?
Still adds up to making excuses for dictators.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Rob are you being deliberately obtuse?
Find one word I wrote that is defending totalitarianism, Castro or any such bullshit.
I got lengths to try to edify your snide, smug, Valley boy self to let you know when I thought the precise moment the Cuban revolution got into trouble and you continue to ignore a very profound few sentences that utterly condemns the whole enterprise but you continue to spout your bullshit, whining, senseless accusatory nonsense.
And neither has Pablo justified or evaded anything. You are the only one evading the reality of what is being put on the screen.
Good god, man, wake the fuck up.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
What part of :
And if nuance and historical fact were a part of your arsenal you would know that the revolution was doomed when Che began executing people in cold blood in order to preserve the quality of the revolution. Starting with the poor peasant farmers who got caught between Batista’s men and the revolutionary army while they were battling it out in the Sierra Maestre. It was Che exercising his archetypal Puer psychological kinks that were fueled by the bitterness he felt when he saw how the revolution in (Guatemala, was it?) was screwed by those overturned living to once again reclaim the country in the name of imperial interests. All his more laudable personality traits were sadly overrun by his ideological rationales.
That moment when he began the executions beginning with the peasants in the mountains to the organized executions after they had won the battle—that Castro was shocked by, by the way—was the tipping point and should be instructive about the nature of revolution and human nature and change…period.
…don’t you get?
November 24th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
And what part of:
“;Where were you when Reynaldo Arenas was trying to alert the Left in Europe and the US about what was happening in Cuba.
Before Night Falls is far more an indictment of Castro than any little blog…”
…don’t you get? Rob. Wake up and smell reality Rob.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Aren’t you the one who claims to be a therapist? ( or is that the other Rob or Bob with a G or Grolsh something)
If you are…pity the poor client because if you don’t listen to them the way you don’t read what is written and insist twist what people are expressing to you…one wonders the damage you have done unless your clients just tell you to fuck off.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Sorry, Rob Grocholski, think I got you mixed up with Bob G. You seem to be the music business guy.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
“Marc is hardly non-partisan. Neither am I.”
You’re playing semantic games, in addition to your ad hominem game. Marc has an opinion, and demostrates equal-opportunity criticism of liberals and conservatives. You, on the other hand, make hyperpartisan generalizations of folks on one half of the entire political spectrum. That’s not serious, not correct, and not intellectually honest.
Incidentally, here’s how the game goes that you and Woody play, like clockwork:
hyperpartisan commenter: “the LIBS are ALL from MARS!”
response: “your comment was intellectually dishonest and hyperpartisan”
hyperpartisan commenter: “why do LIBS ALWAYS INSULT?!”
“One intellectual honesty – I say what I think and believe, so if that’s not honesty to you, I don’t know what is.”
If what you think and believe and express are intellectually dishonest, that you are being intellectually dishonest. You can try to make it more complicated than that, and you would be obfuscating.
Any more false generalizations? I’ll call you on it every time.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“And my old pal Landau’s piece was NOT just bout hypocrisy”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/09/fidel-castro-cuba
“But now in retirement the 83-year-old has opened his home to outsiders and granted them permission to talk about it, affording a rare peek into the enigma.
“Among them were Oliver Stone, the US director, who interviewed Castro for a soon to be released documentary, US film-maker Saul Landau, Argentine sociologist Atilio Boron and a photographer from Paris Match. An anonymous aide supplied extra details to the Spanish newspaper El País.”
November 24th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Nice try, Samuel, but incorrect.
First, mark hardly demonstrates equal-opportunity criticisms of liberals and conservatives. This is a hard left blog – just not an orthodox one. As for “hyperpartisan generalizations” – do you mean the one about the left killing a whole lot more than the right? That one is historically correct.
As for the game… it is true that I occasionally comment on the unusually high level of ad hominem attacks against conservatives on this blog. That isn’t a game, it’s a fact.
Now, back to the false generalizations: please be specific.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
…no you’re the one…
I’m done with all that.
The point is really this simple: It’s all about the upcoming events…The Castro brothers are the last remaining relics from the Cold War. They are eventually going to pass away. They’ll probably avoid the same ending as Nicolae Ceausescu, but they’re not the focus, Cuba is. Will post-Castro become more just, freer, with opportunities to become more democratic? Or will it remain penned in by the CCP? When will the CCP call for elections? Or does Napoleon always do away with Snowball and that’s it? It’ll be interesting to read how so-called lefties will describe these coming events.
I’m mildly optimistic about how the U.S. will behave. At least for now. In that the U.S. has a good and decent President — who finds the time to communicate with one of Cuba’s shinning dissidents (just one small example, yes) — perhaps there is reason to believe that the U.S. will handle the situation with appropriateness. I continue to wonder if a “General Jaruzelski” type character will emerge (could it be Raul?) on the scene to kind of apply the hand-brakes of reforms.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
intended to be
Will post-Castro Cuba become more…
November 24th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one minor left-wing dictator
A non-agression pact – which Hitler abrogated when he invaded the USSR is not an alliance.
Nor did he lend aid and support to Stalin. I don’t recall Hitler agreeing to say, giving Finland to Stalin in return for entering the war on his side. In fact, Finland ended up being included amongst the Axis countries because of the ongoing disputes with the USSR.
He did offer to get Gibraltar back for Franco if Franco joined the Axis. Eventually the negotiations broke down and they ended not being able to stand each other, but Spain didn’t join with the Allies either.
I don’t believe that Hitler supplied Stalin with Stuka attacks to dive bomb Lodz or Krakow or Prague or Bratislava or anywhere for that matter. Hitler did supply Franco with Stukas to dive bomb Franco’s own countrymen in the Basque Country.
See John, this is what we grownups call a false equivalence. There’s a world of difference between a nonaggression pact and actual material support to wage war.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Moore – it was on your blog and I linked it here long ago. You’re the lying asshole – and a fascist weasel.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
WTF, Rob???? you just meander off down the Rabbit Hole and blithely ignore that you accused me of soft soaping Castro and totalitarianism in general. You have the Woody disease. You just gibber and in relation to nothing but the voices in your head.
Your musings about what Cuba may become are so naive and ridiculous.
Corporations have already been wooed because of the need for bucks and the tourist traps will go up just like before. The difference will be a population that has been for the most part educated, but that hardly trumps food and basic material necessities and the chance to throw off some shackles. This usually results in what America has become…
There is no place on earth are “just and democratic”. God. Grow up.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Since you’ve also recently attacked Walter Cronkite for “betraying” the American people with “lies about Vietnam”, your penchant for crypto-fascist foolishness is apparent.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Ahmed, must say the idea of people feting the old bastard is quite nauseating. His daughter hates him, his sister hates him, he’s a prolix old murderous narcissistic satyr. Blecchh.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Arenas captured the pure evil of Castro in his evocation of what he forbid: at one point for Cubans to go into the sea…
November 24th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
A non-agression pact – which Hitler abrogated when he invaded the USSR is not an alliance.
Those pesky facts get in the way again.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
C’mon, John. It’s pretty clear here:
Marc: “Lately, I’ve pretty much given up on such a notion as Lefties seem as prone to situational ethics as do Righties.”
-UPSHOT: idiots on the left and right
John: “when equivalences are being made, it should be noted that lefties KILL a whole lot more people that righties – certainly on a world wide basis (say 100,000,000 to at most a few million)”
-UPSHOT: lefties kill more than righties
Do you need this spelled out for you any more? Let me know when you are going to respond seriously, because otherwise it’s a fruitless game.
“Now, back to the false generalizations: please be specific.”
See above. What other point could your comment have been attempting to make other than that the left is worse than the right…as KILLERZ!!
Here’s a hint: you won’t win any arguments with silly generalizations like that. I’m liberal, and have lived and breathed through personal experience all ends of the political “spectrum”. Non-anecdotally, both conservative and liberal philosophies have clearly contributed to the development of science, technology, systems of democratic principles, and quite a bit of what is great about human civilizations. They’ve also contributed to what is not so great. If you want to believe that LIBERALS=KILLERS, CONSERVATIVES=GOOD GUYS then that’s your right (and limitation). But as I said before, I’m also going to point out that it’s an intellectually dishonest statement.
Or, fine, maybe I’m giving you too much credit in claiming it was intellectually dishonest, which assumes you knew better because you’re a reasonable and intelligent person. If you prefer, I’ll just say it’s a falsehood, and you really didn’t know.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Anna has it all figured out. The questions have all been answered.
There is no place on earth are “just and democratic”. God. Grow up.
Yoani Sanchez, unplug your computer. Just get in line for your rations like everyone else. The clocks are about to strike thirteen.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Oh, I dont know Anna. Fidel seems to be taking his retirement gracefully, spending time wioth thinkers, friends and writers, including Marc’s friend Saul, reading and following events around him. We should all be so lucky in old age
November 24th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Rob Grocholski Says:
“..Your creative writing ally, Pablo, can fancy any clever turn of phrase he wishes to justify or evade that truth of the Cuban Communist Party’s brutality. It’s a blog, so let’em rip, eh?
Still adds up to making excuses for dictators”
—————————-
I will redact my earlier post for clarification in the interest of substance. I said:
“Is there some emotionalism going on here?
The cuban regime is not without its warts; warts that some wish to expose because of the socialist nature of the government.
No doubt that Ms Sanchez is a courageous woman.
Now the liberal obsession with focusing on Cuba is astounding in light of some of the bedfellows America willing engages with in the ‘national interest’. This obsession seems to have lasted some 150 years already.
The US policy towards Cuba has recently been rejected by the UN (some 186-3 !).”
November 24th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
We should all be so lucky in old age
Indeed, Fidel should consider himself doubly lucky that a lifetime of autocratic rule hasn’t landed him in the clink. Where he belongs I suspect.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Pablo:
Isn’t possible to both oppose the Castro dictatorship and the noxious US policy towards Cuba? You seem subtly suggest that the two notions cannot co-exist.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
RE: The Chavez comments in Cooper’s article…
tasteless rhetoric; but rhetoric. A symbol like torching two foot bridges in the jungle on the frontier with Colombia is a symbol.
The substance of Chavez remarks is the statement of Venezuela’s support of Palestine and a repudiation of the conduct by the State of Israel. We choose not to debate the substaance of his speech to focus on the rhetoric employed to gin up the crowd.
Chavez is nothing if not flamboyant. As he is not on the yankee dole his rhetoric is amplified for the latin american izquierda.
Contrast the rhetoric with the overt attempt by Bush to have Chavez ousted because he is on the left and he has oil
The gathering support in the americas for ALBA spearheaded in part by Chavez is a symbol of the loss of american prestiege and a rejection of neo-liberalism. As more latin regimes tilt leftward, Washington watches with alarm.
A campaign of demonization has been well underway against Hugo Chavez. The attacks on his rhetoric reveal a weakness in the inability of attacking Venezuelan policy on substance… and his remaks would be buried on page 23 of the NYT if he played ball with the corporate wing of the Democratic party.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
reg Says:
Moore – it was on your blog and I linked it here long ago. You’re the lying asshole – and a fascist weasel.
Reg, if it was, then it still is, since I do not delete my blog postings (and rarely, any comments by others). In other words, you are the liar, and a vicious one at that
Yep, I did attack Cronkite for that. I stand by that attack. So what?
November 24th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Randy, you had better study your history a little better.
That’s really funny in light of the following, about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (for you Randy, that’s the agreement between Hitler and Stalin):
That’s right… Hitler invaded Poland from the West, while Stalin invaded it from the east. . But naw, they didn’t cooperate on anything important, at least not in your world. The poles would disagree.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Oh, and Randy, you do know that during the time of the pact (until Hitler violated it), the US Communists were fervently in favor of Naziism and Hitler.
You have read that much history, right?
November 24th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Samuel says:
That is a historical fact. I’m glad you figured that out.
Now, if we want to be a little more precise, it’s communist lefty leaders who do it, not every limousine liberal. But then you knew that, even though you pretend that I’m making a global generalization. Or maybe you didn’t know that, and you actually believe your mind reading… that I’m a simpleton who can’t make the slightest distinction between a liberal and Joseph Stalin. Eh?
November 24th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Dan O:
Thanks for your question. My glib answer is to point toward franco-american relations during the run-up to the illegal US invasion of Iraq.
There the neoconservative panjandrum was advocating that fellow wingnuts pour french wine in the gutter and switch breakfast to freedom waffles.
The upshot of these theatrics had no effect on the substance of french relations.
I can think of several leaders whose conduct has been more repugnant than Fidel’s and who the US maintains normal ties. The reason for the distance in relations with Cuba are purely ideological.
Otherwise if one begins to engage in the numbers, quantative measurement of repression, extra-judcial killing, political freedom, one must be careful lest some of the same criticism fall on one’s own doorstep; meaning for every Yoani Sanchez there is an Enrique Posada, for any undo political repression is also the blood of hundreds of thousands innocents slaughtered in asia and the middle east in the name of american ideology.
So one may oppose Castro, yes, and the US policy towards Cuba. A thaw in relations might bring about change. God knows we could all use some.
November 24th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Pablo:
None of your points are wrong in substance. I would just add that it’s equally possible to oppose Castro, the US policy toward Cuba, and all of the petty (and not so petty) tyrants that the US has supported in the past (and present). Nothing contradictory there in the least.
Of course I feel the need to add the following wrinkle. It’s not always clear what the right thing to do is in these foreign policy morasses. For example, who are the right people to support in Pakistan? The one time in my life I made the argument in favor of a dictator was when we supported Musharraf. The alternative potential, a nuclear armed buch of religious fundies was more than a little worrisome. Of course democratic elections are best, but what if your best assessment suggests that those very same fundies would be elected? And of course meddling in Pakistan might make the whole thing ten times worse a decade down the road. There is no easy answer there, and many other places.
November 24th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
“his racism was a bizarre and horrible personal characteristic.”
You mean like herpes? Seriously, if you would educate yourself, you’d find that systematic racism, particularly against jews, was prevalent all over Europe at that time. “Bizarre” it certainly wasn’t, as theories about genetics dominated bestseller lists all over the world. Racism was so acceptable in the first half of the 20th century that there was little effort to even disguise it. David Lloyd George, the highly respected British statesman once demanded, on record, that Britain “must insist on reserving the right to bomb niggers” in the middle east in order to keep an iron hand clad around her colonial empire.
“Hitler was not a rightist; he wasn’t a leftist; his ideology was a synthesis of both sides”
Again, go educate yourself. The leading business trade publications of the 1930′s loved Hitler. So did Henry Ford, and the people who ran IBM. How can they not love a guy who machine gunned union organizers, strung up commies from the end of piano wire, and who allowed American business interests to profit off of all of that dead meat in the death camps? Actually, profiting off of the weak and dying is the trademark of today’s Republican Party.
You offer no evidence that connects Hitler and Nazism to the “left”. So, you are full of shit. Discussion over; any questions?
November 24th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Hitler gave Stalin cover (through the pact) for Soviet imperialist aggression. That was worth more than Stukas
Tell that to the people of Guernica. I assume you’ve heard of Guernica, the first instance in history of aerial bombing of civilian targets.
As for Poland, it has had the singular geographical misfortune of being between Russia and Germany. Russia occupied and annexed part of the country in the 19th century as did Austria. Please note that this is an explanation and most assuredly not a justification for what has happened to Poland in both centuries.
Obviously Hitler suckered Stalin as he broke the agreement. Think of it as a marriage of convenience with a bloody divorce.
As for Hitler allying himself with a right-wing dictator, consider the following testimony from Hermann Goering at Nuremberg:
Let me dumb this down for you: Goering is saying that the German assistance to Franco was essentially a test drive for the armaments and a training ground for the Luftwaffe staff in waging war.
So in Moore World a non-aggression pact quickly broken to divide Poland, occupy the Baltic States and parts of Romania is “worth more” than supplying the most ferocious bombers at the time along with skilled pilots for all intents and purposes to completely crush the resistance in Spain while simultaneously being a test drive for, among other acts of vicious aggression, the Blitz?
To paraphrase Churchill, “Never in the field of human conflict has one person let partisan blindness keep him from thoughtful analysis of the historical record in creating a false equivalency.”
As for the Third Reich’s view towards Russia, let’s look to Goering again:
One could make an argument that Molotov-Ribbentrop was an effort by Hitler to buy time. After all, between the signing of the pact and when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis were already occupying France, the Benelux countries, Czechoslovakia, Poland, with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in the Axis.
In any event, in the short term it didn’t work out for Stalin and in the long term, thank God, it didn’t work out for Hitler.
It certainly worked well for Franco as he was able to keep Spain under his thumb for nearly forty years. Indeed, he allowed an entire division of volunteers from his army to fight alongside the Nazis on the eastern front. They were known as the Blue Division. I’m sure Hitler was grateful for the 18,000+ troops.
I don’t believe Franco sent a division to fight the Nazis, nor do I believe Stalin sent troops to fight alongside the Nazis. The comparison doesn’t hold up. It’s a false equivalence.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Dan O Says:
November 24th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Pablo:
None of your points are wrong in substance. I would just add that it’s equally possible to oppose Castro, the US policy toward Cuba, and all of the petty (and not so petty) tyrants that the US has supported in the past (and present). Nothing contradictory there in the least.
Of course I feel the need to add the following wrinkle. It’s not always clear what the right thing to do is in these foreign policy morasses…
—————————————
Sometimes it is very clear.
From AP on October 9th:
”
AP) The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly condemned the 47-year U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, an annual ritual that serves to highlight near unanimous global opposition to America’s hard-line policy toward the communist island, but which has done little to change Washington’s stance, even with a new administration.
This year’s vote was 187-3 in opposition to the embargo, with only Israel and the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau supporting the United States — just as they did last year. It was the 19th year in a row that the General Assembly has taken up the symbolic measure, with Washington steadily losing what little support it once had. ….”
November 24th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Oh, and Randy, you do know that during the time of the pact (until Hitler violated it), the US Communists were fervently in favor of Naziism and Hitler.
Not all of them:
I would imagine that a substantial portion of those who left were Jewish given the composition of the CPUSA at the time.
In any event, I certainly don’t defend them. If the Stalin imposed famine and the purge trials didn’t persuade them to leave before Molotov-Ribbentrop, then they were idiots.
As for Franco, the dictator who let his conflict became a training ground for WWII inflicted on his fellow Spaniards and sent a division in support of the Nazis, he was a darling of the National Review and the right-wing, arguably to this day. Jonah Goldberg barely mentions Franco and only in passing in “Liberal Fascism.”
I’m hardly the one who needs the lecture from you on history.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Pablo:
Sometimes it is clear. I was making a point about the times it’s not.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
The evidence in this thread would indicate otherwise, although you made a valiant attempt at recovery.
As to Spain, well, it is amazing how much modern leftists still hark back to the Spanish Civil War as that most important of historical events. In reality, it was only important for leftists, and the poor Spanish. For the rest of the world, it was a small, sad side-show.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Dan O:
The US has some 500+ bases on foriegn soil and still can’t seem to quench the xenophobia of the militarists who outspend the world combined on “security”.
This xenophobia produces Minutemen, Tom Tancredo, and TV talking heads wringing their collective hands over suitcase nukes heading over the border.
There is a case to be made that security paranoia increases in proportion to the increase in spending on “defense”.
The result manifests itself in an ideology which claims the mantle of hegemony so as to dither in places like Pakistan. Perhaps a virulent strain of manifest destiny, empire, or just the white man’s burden.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
John Moore you need more than a lecture on history you need your butt kicked across the room.
I am sure then that Guernica was about as much as a side show as September 11th you stupid fuck.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Randy:
In post-war europe and latin america the CP did/does exert influence.
The CP in post-war Italy is an interesting story.
In the US the two ruling institutions have effectivly shut out the emergence of sui -generis political parties (as Reg so rudely pointed out in an earlier thread).
What I find so facinating about Americans is how willingly they embrace the confines of the two competing ruling institutions. If for no other reason than a safety valve, acceptance of a wider bredth of ideological views would give more people a positive stake in their own governance,, and cut down on graffitti.
I have read the apparatchicks on this blog defend their party on healthcare when they know the people want national health
November 24th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Rob, what is your problem? You are worse than Woody. You have a real problem with facts and reality. You just shoot your mouth off and are completely nonsensical.
Are you dyslexic? Comprehension challenged? What?
November 24th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Anna Churchill Says:
November 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
John Moore you need more than a lecture on history you need your butt kicked across the room.
I am sure then that Guernica was about as much as a side show as September 11th you stupid fuck
—————————-
I am sure Anna recalls how Bush had the UN shroud Picasso’s Guenica during the presentation of Powell’s speech at the UN, making the phoney case for war.
I can assure the Hitler & Co took events in Spain seriously and am amazed at the insularity of some in the USA, who anesthesize themselves with wilful amnesia in order to gain a nights sleep. Americans are not taught history; they are lectured on protestant beneficence.
History is Canto General, not a cable show on the Torch landings.
And these call themselves liberals? It must be the shopping for clothes and jewelry. Indulge the indulgent.
Thank’s Anna for the reminder.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Forget it, Pablo, you are too nuanced for this crowd. Its a coven of appeasers.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
As to Spain, well, it is amazing how much modern leftists still hark back to the Spanish Civil War as that most important of historical events. In reality, it was only important for leftists, and the poor Spanish.
And for the Nazis according to Hermann Goering as you apparently in typically petulant fashion choose not to acknowledge. You’re not a serious man.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Actually, Pablo, I don’t remember that yet one more revolting Bush moment that should be entered into the catalogue of American infamies. I must have intuited it to raise the spectre of Guernica alongside September 11th. Bit of synchronicity…
What I do always remember and like to rub a few noses in from time to time is Christopher Hitchens’ vile, vile piece for the Daily Mirror UK after first heady days of the invasion of Iraq and the staged fall of Saddams statue….the piece titled: Ha Ha Ha We Were Right!. Someday I would like bump into him and kick him in the balls for that.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
…just for all the kids whose limbs have been separated from their bodies and those sitting benumbed besides the bombed rubble of their homes and body parts of those who were once their family members.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Yeah – it was next door and contemporaneous. It’s now ancient history. They also took Stalin very seriously.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Pablo Says:
I love you too, Pablo. Thanks for once again showing the ad hominem nature of leftist commenters.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Jesus wept:
‘Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to “finish the job” of an unpopular and costly eight-year war in Afghanistan, and officials said he could announce an increase of around 30,000 troops next week. Skip related content
Obama said he would soon end weeks of intense speculation about his plans for the way forward in Afghanistan, after a three-month strategic review that has drawn fire from Republican critics who accuse him of dithering.
“After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job,”‘
GOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood morning VIiiiiiiiiiii ettttttttt NAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
November 24th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
God its gets better and better…that 90% bad:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/insurance-industry-antitr_n_369293.html
November 24th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
.GET IT RIGHT JOHN MOORE
———————
.
Anna Churchill Says:
November 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
John Moore you need more than a lecture on history you need your butt kicked across the room.
—————————–
Pablo did NOt say that John Moore. Will you retract?
November 24th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I ask Anna and Pablo to please take their electronic mutual love society out of the comments and into private email if for no other reason that you are boring me to death,
To those who are engaging Pablo, you are wasting your breath. He is a TYPE 1 A Dogmatist with a childish Manichean view of the world, a very common type in left sectarian prayer societies,
I have to say there is something VERY chilling when one so calmly and “rationally” rationalizes the oppression that others suffer. It’s an attitude that was quite consistent with the operatives of the East German Stasi and the Chilean DINA. Pablo has all the stuff of a great state security agent — but, of course, only in the employ of an ANTI-imperialist state. Disgusting.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
John Moore Says:
November 24th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Pablo Says:
John Moore you need more than a lecture on history you need your butt kicked across the room.
I love you too, Pablo. Thanks for once again showing the ad hominem nature of leftist commenters.
————————-
What a cheap shot, John Moore.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
About to shut down the comments on this thread. They embarrass me.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
By the way Anna, I indeed know all about Reynaldo Arenas. I knew him. And most of his friends. And now what? So WTF are u going on about? Your disparaging of Yoani Sanchez belittles and discredits you. It’s YOU who comes off as an all suffering, do nothing blow hard whiner compared to her. She risks her security by blogging. You risk raising your electric bill by a half dollar. Your constant thumping of “where were you?” is very tiresome. If I took up your challenge I could write three books about where I was (but I already did that). I believe the Lady Doth Protest Too Much. Make a donation to Yoani’s blog and take a breather from your posturing and puffing. Jeezus. Or find a hobby and enjoy it for 5 minutes before the Great Capitalist Sky falls directly on your head.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Marc:
Was it ‘for every Yoani Sanchez there is an Enrique Posada’ remark? Which rationalizations for oppression am I engaging in? Or was it the boredom?
November 24th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Pablo… you’re finished now. Do it voluntarilyy or I will put you in cyber-Boniato. I’m kicking you out of my living room, compa.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
“before the Great Capitalist Sky falls directly on your head.”
Marc, you are beginning to sound like Rob G.
you want to know WTF I am on about?
I have told you several times, but you keep insisting you know what other people are thinking and so make it up for them.
If you knew Arenas (about which I was tapping my foot until that was going to be revealed) why are YOU going on about Yoanni?
I find it now more repugnant that you go on about her rather than remind people of what Arenas went through and how he tried to raise the alarm but all the salon liberals were too busy being chuffed about themselves to pay attention. I think his story is one of the most illuminating documents about the whole tragedy of Cuba and the most damning. There is more in his elegy for the sea and how Castro denied Cubans the right to it than all of little phoney Joanni’s pseudo Riverbend blogs. I don’t like her because she writes badly. She is boring.
And by the way…just how is it she was able to directly address Obama and have him respond. What a load of bullshit. Puh leeze. Talk about being a tool…
Your cheap typically American smug dismissive crude remark once again completely making up your version about my politics that says more about yours than mine— truly noxious.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
““before the Great Capitalist Sky falls directly on your head.”
How is it, Marc, that given all you claim to have experienced in Latin America that you are sooooooooooooooooooooo timid in condeming outright American foreign policy and jump down the throat of anyone that does accusing them of being fascist Left wing ideologues???? And then go to great lengths to twist what they say to include their criticism as also meaning they must be deluded commies and Marxists.
I would venture to say you are the one who is afraid the Great Capitalist sky is going to fall on your head in the way of loosing your nice academic position, pay check and health care benefits.
I remember at LACC in the 60′s the Poli Sci instructor having a very veiled discussion with me about how he risked his job by talking about Communism despite the word having to be mentioned in reference to the syllabus!
One feels like you feel you have to make these almost state ordered attacks on people in order to cover your ass.
Its really infuriating to have had you twist and get totally wrong what my politics are.
I dont care what you think of me or what names you call me or what insults you hurl…but as a journalist you should know better than to twist someone elses words. I consider that the lowest of lows.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Futher proof of my point is your waving the Christopher Hitchens flag from time to time just to make sure everyone knows what side of the fence you are really on.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Excuse me, Ma’am but you are talking to somebody who was forced into hiding in Chile during the 1973 coup, whose apartment was dynamited open by fascist troops, whose friends and co-workers were water boarded, ectro-shocked and disappeared and who was able to escape only under armed guard as a UN protected refugee because my own American Embassy turned me away. This isn’t some movie nor an abstract parlor discussion for me. Indeed, I was a witness for the prosecution in the Chilean courts against Pinochet and Kissinger in the case of Charles Horman, who Costa-Gavras made the movie “Missing” about. And you have the unspeakable temerity and gall to say I have trouble understanding US foreign policy in Latin America or denouncing it? Anyone less polite than me would tell you to watch your flapping mouth and go get bent.
Those of us who did find our lives at risk didn’t do so to later be represented by a senile dictator like Castro or a blowhard militarist asswipe like Chavez. Some of us can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. You can condemn US foreign policy when it was wrong and you can condemn an ossified or a budding dictatorship even if it is one under pressure from the U.S. I have NO problem doing so.
This discussion is now closed, thank you. Any further commenters on this thread will be banned. It will give me great pleasure to sit in my comfortable leather chair and for a few minutes pretend I am Fidel or Raul Castro and with the flick of a switch silence those who irritate me. Maybe I can even get Danny Glover and Oliver Stone to come visit and chat with me.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
“Maybe I can even get Danny Glover and Oliver Stone to come visit and chat with me.”
As long as you invite your dear friend and Pacifica ally Saul, too
November 24th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Ahmed, you and Anna have to get your ad hominem guilt by association straight. You’re confusing me. Am I an ally of right winger Christopher Hitchens? Or one of pro-Castro leftist Landau? You’re making my head spin with such powerful arguments.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:00 am
So let me see, I demonstrate that Hitler’s biggest fear was the Russians, that the Spanish Civil War was his proving ground for aerial bombardment and Moore’s response is that it’s “ancient history.”
Wow. A lot of intellectual rigor in that response.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
hose of us who did find our lives at risk didn’t do so to later be represented by a senile dictator like Castro or a blowhard militarist asswipe like Chavez. Some of us can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. You can condemn US foreign policy when it was wrong and you can condemn an ossified or a budding dictatorship even if it is one under pressure from the U.S. I have NO problem doing so.
ONe more time, Marc, you still are accusing me of somehow being some starry eyed ignorant lefty who wants to bounce on Fidel’s knee while hurling grenades at those who make US foreign policy.
I think you are the one who has gone senile or more likely likes to twist a story to your own satisfaction– I have been the victim of that once with Johann Hari and see just how journalists like to excise a key passage of what someone writes in order to get their licks in.
IF you bother to scroll just in this thread I go back to what I felt was the defining moment of doom for the Cuban revolution– and that was when Che decided it was necessary to start executing people in cold blood starting with the poor peasants in the Sierra Maestre.
I have also, repeatedly, a mi go, said I find the focus on Joanni phoney rather than dealing with the actual cause and problems that keep the repression lingering, stupid, and pointless. I also happened to mention that the US’s position has aided the lingering, stupid, pointless and useless agenda and the lack of a humane policy towards a bunch of people on a dinky island only fueled the excuses Castro has been using to prop his tired ass up.
But somehow, Mr Cooper, you still use the most shameless, tired, Fox News tactics to keep tarring me with some brush out of your own pot of goo.
Your problem, Marc, is you don’t bother to actually pay attention to what someone is saying. And like you said yourself one’s (only this really refers to you) political views is an ego identity issue. Don’t project that onto ME, amigo. One would think with all that you claim to have spent on therapy that you would have at least come a way with THAT nugget of wisdom.
And no one has ever, denied or belittled your personal experiences. However your constant hooting of this horn is not something one usually runs across by those who have been tortured or beaten or abused or oppressed. Its not something people usually like to brag about because usually it happens to people who arent nice middle class boys who run off to third world countries to have adventures in they can regale the boys at the bar with– after having returned home to safety.
It usually happens to people who may never be safe and can hardly brag about it for fear of reprisal or starting a chain reaction of horrific memories.
I think it is shameless of you to brag about your having deliberately put yourself in harms way to make your chops as an activist and journalist and then compare it to those who have suffered because they were trapped and did not have the luxury of escape.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:55 am
I think one can appreciate the work of a writer, thinker, journalist, actor, etc… without endorsing ALL of his work. Thus if Cooper appreciates some of Landaus or Hitchens works, it does not mean he endorses all of his work or all of his opinions.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Anna. You Bombast is boring.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:09 am
“Thus if Cooper appreciates some of Landaus or Hitchens works, it does not mean he endorses all of his work or all of his opinions.”
Precisely, GM. Unfortunately those subtleties are lost on Cooper who insists on accusing me, Pablo etc of meaning what we don’t mean at all. Of making broad generalizations and of using Fox News tactics to dismiss someone’s views or actions out of hand.
I would like to remind Cooper and all who think I, IIII am being bombastic:
IN the Honduran debacle thread (was it Honduras– can’t even remember) my first assessment was that US was clearly backhandedly supporting the bad guys in order to protect US business interests. A legitimate and historically well founded…uh guess. I then found the credible, mainstream journalistic reports to validate that view. Marc went off on a tirade equal to a Fox News raver making nut case allusions about my point of view on American policy– just went OFF without ever owning up to the fact that MY assessment was CORRECT and there were facts to prove it.
Since all of Marc’s blog are about pulling people up by the short hairs for their political points of view and actions I think it only fitting he get the same treatment. And photo shopping a tin foil hat onto Dennis Kucinich for giving a sane reasoned factual account of his no vote on a bill that now even the venerable Marc deems ’90% empty” — one can’t wait til it becomes 98% worthless and that statistic will be worked into a blog full of self righteous wrath over the stupidity of blue dogs and treachery of this Dem or that–begs further scrutiny.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Anna. Cooper is not making broad generalization; rather he is being very specific. He has provided lots of evidence of despicable authoritarian behavior by the regime in Cuba and Chavez and the unwillingness of many leftists to condemn that behavior due to some archaic ideological loyalty or misguided relativism. He has pointed to the fact that many leftists LACK the capacity for a nuanced view of these regimes. Instead they find convenient ways to excuse behavior they would just as easy condemn if it was a regime the U.S. supported.
If anyone is making broad generalization it is your team. Anyone that dare criticize Cuba or Chavez is in line with Fox News, working for the CIA, going rightward, etc… They are a heretic, a turncoat, a phony, a spy, etc… How many times must leftists be disappointed by history before they gain skepticism about demagogic figures that fly their flag?
Cooper is right. It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is possible to have comrades you disagree with on numerous issues yet still appear much of their work. It is also possible to agree with someone on a single issue. It is also possible that forces, to which you find abhorrent, like Fox News, also happen to share your critical views. Life is complicated you know.
Not sure what argument Ahmed is making… because one of Coopers friends has a divergent view, is that supposed to sway us or discredit Cooper? Or is he just trying to instigate an argument amongst friends. It is an argument with NO relevance and comes off as kind of childish, cheerleader lock room chitchat.
The sins of Cuba and Chavez should be taken for what they minus the relativism or pointing out the long ugly history of U.S. imperialism.
Anna, PLEASE don’t type out a long bombastic response. Again, your verbose pomposity is really boring and only hurting your case.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
“Ahmed, you and Anna have to get your ad hominem guilt by association straight. You’re confusing me. Am I an ally of right winger Christopher Hitchens? Or one of pro-Castro leftist Landau? You’re making my head spin with such powerful arguments.”
I actually really like Saul’s work and I’m not trying to forge some kind of guilt by association argument. I guess my point was that people like Saul, who you know to have profoundly sincere and passionate commitment to internationalism, social justice and honesty can arrive at vastly different conclusions than yourself on the issue of Cuba. On some levels you must be aware of this because you chose to put the good Danny Glover and the flaky Stone is your crosshairs whilce consciously leaving out Saul. I guess what Im saying is that the idea that nuace and sincere differences of opinions exist, amoung people who may broadly share your values seems, seems to be forgotten at times when you engage in no holds barred style polemics. Its worth thinking about, habbibi
November 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Ahmed. I simply don’t know what point you are making. So it is all or nothing? If he is critical of one member of the squad, he is critical of the entire team? Chatchat, nothing more.
I think the nuance is lost on you.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Anyone who claims that the House or Senate bills are 90% bad is just willfully ignorant. I read the post re: raising insurers’ antitrust exemption as part of the negotiations over the final form of the reform bill. I am not sure why Anna posted it, but it is, I think, an important aspect of the whole struggle, and virtually unreported.
I asked a couple of weeks ago on this blog if anyone knew what the effect would be of revoking this antitrust exemption, and got no response. It might be a far more effective premium control device than the “public option.” It is certainly a powerful threat that could, in the end, send the insurers and their loyal subjects in the Senate into a neutral corner, and permit passage of a game-changing, life-changing health care reform bill.
It is becoming clearer and clearer to the boomer generation that this is the domestic legislative struggle of our adult lives.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hoakster it’s unfortunate that you’ve gone from providing a valuable service to this blog, mercifully mocking the absurd and now abset GM Roper, to now playing the role of our host sometimes PR rep and occasional chai walla
November 25th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
GM you are the one being bombastic and putrid in your assigning me a “team” . I am not on anyone’s team and subscribe to know ideological point of view and have always been specific and have repeatedly exercised my disgust at so called liberals. Your “team” doesn’t even deserve consideration as it consistently refutes reality, history, logic and humanity.
November 25th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Gosh, Michael, careful… accusing me of posting something relevant will get you into trouble.
To GM..just realized you have gone off and committed a worse sin of spin than Marc:
“If anyone is making broad generalization it is your team. Anyone that dare criticize Cuba or Chavez is in line with Fox News, working for the CIA, going rightward, etc… They are a heretic, a turncoat, a phony, a spy, etc… How many times must leftists be disappointed by history before they gain skepticism about demagogic figures that fly their flag”
WTF , WTF, WTF?????!!!!!!!
Are you totally stupid, obtuse, blind, morally and ethically challenged. God help anyone who has to deal with your sleight of facts.
Have you read one fucking thing I have written? You just blithely assign a point of view to me that is 180 degrees from what it is. Has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I have ever written. This THIS, THIS is exactly why this country is in a quagmire because of this type of spin that is never ending. Get your fucking facts straight, boyo.
Find where I have defended Chavez or Castro. Find it asshole. Maybe if you scroll up you will even find where I mention that the Cuban revolution was doomed before it was over when Che started executing peasants in cold blood. What part of that don’t you get? Maybe you will find my reference to Arenas and his heart breaking account of the revolution and its utter failures and how it takes a poet to render the true malevolence of Castro…
You just make shit up. You are a fucking broken record of cliche’s . Go watch Fox where you will be at home. Blog to Glenn Beck. Thats where your comments belong…where no one knows the difference between right and wrong, fact or fiction and don’t care.
This is despicable. Apologize at once!!!
November 25th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Ahmed. Sorry but Anna is no better than Woody, just a different “side.”
November 25th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Look GM. own up to your blatant screwing with the facts. You are the one doing exactly what Woody does refusing to respond to specific challenges about what you write.
You are disingenuous. A rat.
November 25th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Anna C seems to be having what is known in other discussion groups as a meltdown. Symptoms include the obsessive posting of long argumentative tracts followed predictably by insults and ad hominem attacks. It may be (or might not be) that he/she is saying something of merit somewhere in that torrent of words, but I’m probably never going to know because I’m not going to devote the time to being an Anna C acolyte, which would mean reading all those dozens of long postings.
I’m guessing that Marc is probably somewhere down the same path, considering that he has a real job, writes books, and does radio on the side. Why should he devote hours of time to parsing the rantings of someone who is, after all, basically just an angry groupy.
November 26th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Oh how clever of you Bob G. Thats right a bit of patronizing bullshit to excuse people who can’t get their facts straight. You have just admitted you don’t actually read anyone’s posts rather you just like the look of your empty words on the screen.
Nice to know you base what passes for your political viewpoints on such attention to detail.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:19 am
“Jesus wept:
‘Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to “finish the job” of an unpopular and costly eight-year war in Afghanistan, and officials said he could announce an increase of around 30,000 troops next week. Skip related content”
I wonder if the Nobel Peace Prize Commission will want it’s medal back?
November 26th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Like I said, a slow motion meltdown and a predictable response. No, I didn’t just admit that I don’t read anyone’s posts, I just pointed out that I refuse to give up hours of my life to reading Anna’s torrents of angry words, as they are badly organized, poorly written, and becoming more and more abusive. I do give up hours of my life to reading other peoples’ words.
Attentive readers may take note that Anna C is resorting more and more to the cheap personal attack and the vituperative slur. It’s Marc’s right to accept this level of discourse on his blog, and it’s my right to discount writing of this type.
I should point out that I know nothing of Anna C at a personal level, and simply remark on the comment postings. For all I know, Anna C is a thirtyish male screenwriter living in a studio apartment in Glendale who has created this persona as a writing exercise in hopes of developing a tv pilot. That, at least, would make sense. He/she may be a nice person in real life, albeit one with a strange sense of humor. I wonder if his/her screen name Churchill was chosen for some not-entirely clear reason. It could even be a real name for all I know.
November 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
AC believes that Guernica was the equivalent of 9/11. How is that AC? 9/11 was two buildings, 2990+ killed thousands more injured and Guernica was, and I quote the BBC here:
Of course, we all know how right wing the fools at the BBC are don’t we Comrade AC? Besides, how dare they trash the standard cant of your brand of radical leftism.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Bob G you are just farting in the wind. Rather than your torrent of irrelevant gibber why not either deal with the subject of the blog or find something interesting to post.
You are a boor and a bore. The fact you don’t have a fucking idea in your head nor the ability to to comment in any other fashion other than attacking someone and making up interpretations to suit the limited little set of cliches you spout IS cheap and you make it personal.
MLV: Do you have wet dreams about Sarah Palin, too?
November 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
MLV: by the way why don’t you volunteer to go to Afghanistan as a human shield or stand in for real humans. THen lets talk about numbers.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
THis is hysterical:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/26/palin-tricked-by-comedian_n_371698.html
November 27th, 2009 at 6:49 am
MLV,
The key point I made about Guernica was that it was the first time in history that aerial bombardment had been inflicted on a civilian population in order to destroy a community. It also provided Hitler with a training ground – according to no less an authority than Hermann Goering – for other such activities such as The Blitz in which some 43,000 were killed.
So while the numbers are not the same, historically Guernica is at least as significant as 9/11.
November 27th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Anna’s meltdown continues. One of the main symptoms is the obsessive need to keep posting. Another is the continued use of personal attacks, and a third is the junior-high level need to toss in expletives. I expect that we will see more of each. It’s all so predictable.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
BOb G you are repeating yourself and obsessively posting nothing of any value.
You can’t even comment on the issue of Guernica being dismissed by the typical American knack for “false equivalences”. People like you who just pass gas rather than being able to capture the significance of an issue.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Do note Bob that two people have extrapolated points I made to add more. Kyle and Randy Paul. And yet you continue to just rattle your chains.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
The Gary McKinnon case…fascinating stuff. And more on deals made between Blair and Rumsfield. This from an email by my friend in Oz plus link to full interview by Jon Ronson.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2
“…McKinnon, in case you’ve missed it over the past seven years, is a vegetarian pacifist UFO theorist from north London who hacked into the Pentagon’s computer systems, looking for signs of a conspiracy, from 1995 to 2002. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism characterised by high intelligence, singlemindedness, and – er – skill with things like computers. The self-described “bumbling computer nerd” became obsessed with this idea that the Pentagon was hiding evidence of UFOs, and technological things to do with free energy. “It wasn’t just an interest in little green men and flying saucers,” McKinnon said. “I believe that there are spacecraft, or there have been craft, flying around that the public doesn’t know about.”
He would sit in his girlfriend Tamsin’s auntie’s living room in Crouch End, laptop on his lap, and access the US government systems via network administrators who had no login passwords.
Yes, that’s right. Administrators who had no login passwords. He was using a perfectly legal remote access and administration software called RemotelyAnywhere, which is used by schools, etc. As he put it in an interview, basically it was like logging in.
To the Pentagon. Because administrators had not set up passwords.
2005 is the critical year, because, although Gary was caught and questioned in 2002, they never applied for extradition until 2005. They questioned him and then let him go. They even left him with his computer. Why is that? Because 2005 is when Britain, alone in the world, signed a post-9/11 anti-terrorist treaty allowing the US to extradite any UK citizen, even without evidence. The treaty, eagerly signed by Tony Blair and his lapdogs, because Donald Rumsfeld wanted them to, apparently gives the UK no say in who gets extradited to the US under this legislation. Yes, the UK has apparently signed away its right to protect its citizens. And it was done without any consultation (of course) with UK voters. The Home Secretary of the UK has denied McKinnon his further right of appeal against his extradition to the US.
I say apparently. But all the senior judges have ruled that the Home Secretary certainly does have the right to intervene. So he is choosing not to, and using this spurious piece of legislation as an excuse.
But get this, also from Jon Ronson’s Guardian interview:
“Once you’re on the network, you can do a command called NetStat – Network Status – and it lists all the connections to that machine. There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand …”
“All on at once?” I ask. “You could see hackers from all over the world, snooping around, without the spaceniks or the military realising?”
“Every night,” he says, “for the entire five to seven years I was doing this.”
“Do you think they’re still there? Are they still at it? Or have they been arrested, too?”
Gary says he doesn’t know.
McKinnon’s search for UFO material on US computers turned into an obsession. As he investigated high-level computer systems in the US, his life in Britain fell apart. He lost his job and his girlfriend left him. Friends told him to stop hacking, but to no avail.He sat up all night in his dressing gown (he’d stopped getting dressed, stopped washing), hacking away. His behaviour showed all the characteristics associated with Asperger’s syndrome – an obsession with certain activities and interests and a level of “social naivety” in evaluating the consequences of one’s actions. Prof Simon Baron-Cohen, who diagnosed McKinnon with the condition, has said: “We should be thinking about this as the activity of somebody with a disability rather than a criminal activity.”
Then there’s this, from Ronson’s Guardian interview…
“I found a list of officers’ names,” he claims, “under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’.”
“Non-Terrestrial Officers?” I say.
“Yeah, I looked it up,” says Gary, “and it’s nowhere. It doesn’t mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers’, and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”
“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.
“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”
“Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?”
“I guess so,” says Gary.
“What were the ship names?”
“I can’t remember,” says Gary. “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”
Clearly a high-level threat to the US! He was not trying to cripple American defences in preparation for an assault from outer space. He was simply following up a weird intuition that UFOs exist, with all the compulsiveness that he has exhibited since he was a child.In so doing, he has generously helped America to prepare against attack from a more sinister foe. If it was so ludicrously easy to penetrate these encryptions, then what could al-Qaeda have done? Just imagine if America’s defence establishment had commissioned IT consultants to probe their systems as exhaustively as Gary McKinnon. The contract would have been worth far more than £500,000.
McKinnon did it without charge, sitting up all the night, hardly eating, smoking heavily and spending so long tap-tapping in his dressing gown that his girlfriend gave up on him. The Americans shouldn’t be threatening him with jail. They should be offering him consultancy.
But being on the wrong side of gung-ho American anti-terrorism enthusiasts is no joke. And it also comes to something when a Labour government is to the right of the Mail.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1hfvOJu2TA&feature=player_embedded
November 27th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Be sure to watch the video at the end:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/20/sarah-palin-wwe-star/
November 27th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Anna
You (or your friend) writes: “He was using a perfectly legal remote access … “
So? Even if there were computers with bad security, it’s still a crime to access those computers. And to do it continually for 7 years, and to delete files from the OS. Apalling security doesn’t make any of this legal.
Why is that? Because 2005 is when Britain, alone in the world, signed a post-9/11 anti-terrorist treaty allowing the US to extradite any UK citizen, even without evidence.
Please provide a source for this. The best I can find after a quick search is this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Act_2003
It says that the standards for prima facie evidence in non-European extraditions is waived for certina countries.
NOTE: A little extra digging reveals that these states all have permission to request extradition without prima facie evidence: “Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Macedonia FYR, Moldova, , New Zealand, Norway, Russian Federation, Serbia and Montenegro, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States of America, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (for the purposes of section 71(4) and 73(5) of the Act).14″
I’m not suggesting that this lowering of standards is good, but I am suggesting, Anna, that you might want to be a little more skeptical of the claims you hear, especially ones arriving by email.
The treaty was not, evidently, the result of Rumsfeld’s pressure, but instead had the seeds of it planted in the 1997 treaty of Amsterdam which created a common European legal space.
There must also be an extradition hearing, the requirements for which are laid out here: “The judge must satisfy himself that the request meets the requirements of the 2003 Act, including dual criminality and where appropriate, prima facie evidence of guilt; and that none of the bars to extradition apply (the rule against double jeopardy; extraneous considerations; passage of time or hostage-taking considerations). Finally, he is required to decide whether the person’s extradition would be compatible with the Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
November 27th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
So, I hit submit, but I meant to conclude that a cursory examination of the claims in that email reveal those claims to be inaccurate at best, and probably closer to flat-out wrong.
I think a little less credulity is in order.
November 28th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Not sure what your beef with me is, Dan. I just thought it was a fascinating case…did you watch the video of Gary and his mother…and read Jon Ronson’s interview.
The friend who sent the email– which was just a fun in response to something entirely different we were shooting the breeze on– you might note she has a Phd; has done writing and research for the Australian PM…and her sister is a Labour Senator.
Interesting you get lost on extradition laws rather than the fact the guy has uncovered references to “non terrestrial officers”…and if you read the Ronson interview you will find the guy hates conspiracies and all the nonsense around them. Also interestingly with all the hacking he did he found nothing that suggest a conspiracy around 9=ll. And no one is denying his hacking wasn’t top notch.
The point is not is he a “criminal” or not its more that these supposedly high security systems were not in the least bit secure!
Which seems to follow in the rut of the truth of banal stupidity being the norm .
And that has to square with some interesting evidence that perhaps the US and no doubt UK have been involved in some kind of inter galactic politics. What I want to know is if there is intelligent life off the map what the hell are they doing making deals with the US! It all sounds quite nefarious and very much in line with the US making deals with evil dictators who will in turn give them resources in exchange for the worse guys than them getting what they want.
Fun to speculate.
As the the extradition issue…I guess the Guardian gets it all wrong eh? There is no credulity on my part. I was just passing along a rather extraordinary news item. Your take on the extradition battle flies in the face of the experience of those that are involved.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Want to reiterate since many here are very literal and have trouble thinking laterally…that the email from my friend was just for fun passing along a news item. Her the email was simply extrapolation of current news items on the subject– not subjective.
If you want to do battle over the extradition issue you better take it up with the newspaper reports in the UK and the family that is involved in the legal battle along with those that are working up a network of support BECAUSE of the wonky extradition arrangement that occurred between Blain and Rumsfeld– allegedly.
Tant pis.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:09 am
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7008
That from a Google. Don’t think it was the report I read ages ago, but outlines some of the elements.
In a nut securing the region is also about future end games and just because Bush is out doesnt really change what has been set in motion.
As Mr Chalmers Johnson said doesn’t really matter who gets elected because the entrenched interests will still rule.