From: ez007856@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: HISTORY LESSON: Chomsky on Cuba
Date: 27 Jul 92 19:25:35 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

In <9207270640.AA07702@poly.math.cornell.edu> quotes Father Chomsky on Cuba:

>>means of production and the society in general. In short, it means
>>democracy, in the real sense not yet attained fully by any country but
>>which has been attained in part in some European counties whose social
>>conditions make the U.S. look third world (see Andrew Shapiro's
>>just-out _We're Number One_, e.g.). Under both Capitalism and
>>so-called "socialist" or "communist" east-bloc totalitarian regimes, a
>>very small elite part of the population make the decitions about
>>production, own or control the mass-media, etc. End of digression --
>>for now]

>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And interprets the holy scriptures as follows:

>Left/Progressives point out what Chomsky is pointing out not because
>they think Cuba under Castro is so wonderful, but to expose the real
>U.S. aims, which, unchecked will transform Cuba into something the
>likes of which make present-day Cuba look like a Sunday Picnik, a
>human rights Paradise, and a cornucopia of plenty.

>Don't believe it?

>Cuba's human rights record is better than many other Latin American
>countries, see next file on human rights; similarly it's a paradise,
>in comparison, not justin human rights, but in that in large parts of
>Latin America huge parts of the population are starving (in Brazil,
>one of the richest, about 2/3 do not get enough to eat). I can post
>plentiful files documenting this (please email me as I don't regularly
>read this newsgroup as I spend much time on misc.activism.progressive
>from which people should forward relevant materials, and from the
>ACTIV-L archiver).

So, the essentials of this argument seem to be:

A1  Cuba is a "totalitarian" country where "a very small elite part of the 
population make the decitions about production, own or control the 
mass-media, etc.

A2    Cuba is has one of the best human rights records (relative to other 
latin American dictatorsips).

A3       As mentioned in previous postings the U.S. is happy wit explointing all 
Latin American countries and transforming them into the worst 
dictatorships in the planet.
--------- 

Ergo,     The U.S. elite will in turn transform present day Cuba into something 
much worse than the present day picknick it actually is.

Ergo,       It's our moral impertative to support the Cuban government.

Heh, heh, heh... So its better to suffer from tuberculosis than die of AIDS?  
Is  this the  resoning of "progressives" in the U.S.?  Are we to support the 
Cuban "elite" simply because they haven't killed as many as Pinochet, tortured 
as many as the Guatelman, starved as many as te Haitians?

As to the historical "reasoning" supporting the assumptions our chomskian 
dogmatic concludes:

>History reveals that if Cuba spent its resources not on its own
>people, but in ways that helped foreign investors make nice profits,
>like most of the rest of latin america -- where huge profits are
>repeated and debt-service made by govenrments whose resources are
>exploited and whose labor works for peanuts, while doing next to
>nothing about mass-starvation about it's people -- Cuba would very
>quickly "come into favor" with Washington -- as are in favor regimes
>which wage mass-terror campaigns of mass-murder against their
>populations, like El Salvador and Guatemala, or starve large segments
>of their populations like Honduras, while Corporate Agribusiness reaps
>profits and an elite class enjoys the "good life."

But isn't this what the Cuban government precisely wants to do: pawn their 
beaches into Canadian country clubs and open their markets to foreign capital?  
Just a few days ago someone posted a note on the benefits that U.S. investors 
would achieve if they forgot of the embargo and compete with other capital 
already present in Cuba (under a partnership with the current regime), and now 
they warn us of the consequences of opening the island to foreign investors.  
What hyppocrisy!!

Fortunately I'm not precisely one of those moral relativists who go about 
comparing dictatorships around L.A. and then ask my reader to pardon the less 
brutal ones for matter could be worse.  In fact, what all the Cuban 
Ggovernment's fan club out there has to do is simply state whether they 
endorse the fowllowing practice when they "solidarize" themselves with the 
Cuban government:


>At least 60 government critics, many of them prisoners of conscience,
>were arrested and at least 33 of them remained in prison at the end of
>the year. The majority were sentenced to prison terms after trials
>which fell short of international standards of fairness. Some
>detainees were held for prolonged periods without access to defense
>lawyers before they were charged and brought to trial. Several
>political prisoners, including at least two prisoners of conscience
>who had been detained in earlier years, were released. Four senior
>military officials convicted of drug-trafficking and corruption were
>executed in July. It was not  known whether any other executions took
>place.

If you are happy with these practices, please send your greetings to Fidel.  
If not you may:

A)  Relativize the moral principles behing these pracitices with sophistry 
from "historical" ethics.  (Stalinist are very good at this: simply recall 
Hitler's pact with Stalin: it was OK 'cause Stalin wanted to "gain the 
necessary time" for the Soviet people).

B)    Solidarize yourself with the victims of these atrocities in the same 
way you would for any other dictatorial actions throught L.A..

Edelmiro
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.motss,talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism