From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: Nicaragua Series -- comments and replies (3/4 ;"Silence of the Left"?)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:41:33 GMT


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Followup-To: alt.activism.d
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Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu


Nicaragua Series -- comments and replies (3/4 ; "Silence of the Left"?)

Which brings about further insights about the "condemnation" Scherzer
et al have for the contras, which we can address below in their full
glory after spending a few moments to dispense with the pretense of
concern for insufficient condemnation of terror by the dissidents.

Recall that the breaking of the rules dictated by the ideology of the
Washington (parroted by the large corporations in the business of
selling mass-audiences to client advertiser companies -- i.e., the
`Free Press' -- and by both of the factions of the one party in
Washington) causes such hysteria; for example, posting the full human
rights reports summaries about Cuba, Guatemala, and El Salvador, these
realities smashing the doctrinal Truth about Cuba being the human
rights Bad Guys and hence the foundations of the lies given in support
of Washington's aggression -- that the arenas of rational thought are
exited and such posting consisting entirely of these human rights
reports is clearly "being an apologists for Castro['s human rights
violations]"

Similarly I am "just an apologist for the Sandinistas" in such a
context. Transparently, had I or Chomsky or some other dissident said
*nothing* about Sandinista abuses this would not constitute being an
"apologist," excepting of course a deliberate attempt to *imply* that
there were no abuses, any more than not addressing domestic human
rights abuses by the United States during the discussion constitutes
per se being an apologist.

The record, of course, is that the human rights report summary on
Nicaragua from the same Amnesty book is presented in full right next
to the other reports in LAT-AMER HMNRTS90. Similarly in FSLN MISKITOS,
more extensively, which along with the rest has been available for the
past year and a half with the GET command for those who have either
avoided the documentation provided therein or else have pretended
ignorance. [With America's Watch writing that:

    "Unlike several other Latin American governments [namely, the ones
    Reagan/Bush enthusiastically supported because they were good for
    business --HB] that have come under harsh criticism (though not
    from [the Reagan] administration), the [Nicaraguan government] has
    responded to human rights organizations with efforts to improve
    the situation" -- citation in FSLN MISKITOS]


Similarly, the "conservative" conscience is not troubled by calling
Chomsky's history of U.S. terrorism against Cuba (said policy under
JFK, referred to by Johnson as "a damned Murder, Inc.") is in
apologetic support for "Castro's crimes" which term is Chomsky's in
no such apologetics, nor is there any such in the pages of _Turning
the Tide_ or countless other works.

So there is no question about *whether* these evil dissidents have
suppressed human-rights abuses as the Washington and "conservative"
practice has been widely documented to be; they have not.

A more interesting question is whether this was even necessary at all.
A convenient thought experiment to gauge whether a particular stand is
independent of "political colors" is to imagine a visiting
Extra-Terrestrial (putting aside the tendency to flee in horror upon
discovering the state of things, or even upon discovering that there
exist (i.e., need to exist) such things as the "Peace Movement").

So it makes perfect sense to spend one's finite resources publicizing
the human rights abuses of countries A, B and C which, given that they
are the worst ones, rather than those in D, E, and F. On these ground
alone it makes perfect sense to publicize El Salvador and Guatemala,
and then Honduras and Brazil and Uruguay and Colombia and other Latin
countries, and then Cuba and other Latin countries, and *then*
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas.

Similarly it makes perfect sense to spend one's finite resources
publicizing *under-reported*, lied about, covered up, etc, by
those ruling the country in question (the U.S.) to their population.
On these ground alone Cuba and Nicaragua (and Sweden and Iran and
other countries with widely varied human rights records) would come
dead last, after Costa Rica, on a list prioritizing which abuses need
to be brought to American citizens' attention. The list of the higher
priorities countries would include the United States as the poverty
and misery here too have been under-state, distorted, ignored. The
countries on this list of instances of abuse un/little-known about
could in turn be prioritized on such bases as given in the preceding
paragraph.

That both of these are operative means that even if tomorrow Castro
started having his police murder street kids (after vastly increasing
the number of such to be able to do this) like in Brazil, and started
mass-slaughtering Cubans by means of government-run Death Squads, in
fact, murdering 1% of the entire population in this way, like in El
Salvador, publicizing Cuban abuses would still be ranked far below
publicizing those in these other countries since the New York Times,
CNN, ABC, et al would ensure that tens of millions of Americans would
be made well aware of this (and of the U.S. invasion which took place
long before the full scale of Salvadoran or even Brazilian terror was
reached, we might add.)

There is, however, yet a third and more fundamental operative
principle, and that relates to the fact that the U.S. was not and is
not supporting with out tax dollars Cuban repression by selling Castro
tanks, for example, or granting it Most Favored Nation status (as in
the case of China, worthy of attention), which the dissidents do not
call for any more than they call for an Embargo and Blockade against
Colombia and its police death squads, Brazil, or even Guatemala and El
Salvador, although any so-called "leftist" (LaRouche? U.S. Maoists?)
calling me to sell weapons to Castro the day after I become president
would certainly fall into the same hypocritical category of the
apologists for U.S. terrorism.

And that is the fundamental principle articulated by Chomsky that the
ethical worth of one's words and action is a function of the
consequences we can expect (of alleviating human suffering), so that
it makes little sense for Sakarov and over USSR dissidents to have
complained about *U.S.* atrocities;

    My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by
    my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens
    to be the larger component of international violence. But also for
    a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something
    about it.  So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of
    the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would
    be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that
    is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's
    actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences.
    It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That
    has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took
    place in the 18th century.

    The point is that the useful and significant political actions are
    those that have consequences for human beings. And those are
    overwhelmingly the actions which you have some way of
    influencing and controlling, which mean for me, American actions.

These principles, especially the third, are fundamental to those
engaged in principled struggles for a better world, although are of
little interest to the apologists for U.S. crimes who cannot or will
not understand them, and having properly ignored them, may go one step
beyond with amnesia about the documentation that independent of these
crucial principles, Chomsky and I and others most certainly haven't
suppressed human rights record, and hence have "denounced" in as
meaningful as sense as there can be those instances which are of least
concern by one and all three of these principles, the "ethical value"
of going on the radio to denounce Pol Pot (but not the value of
denouncing U.S. support for), or the human rights abuses in France or
Sweden being almost incomparably less than of the instances publicized
by the principled dissidents.

[The Chomsky quote above was actually in a surprising context; see
page 51 (or nearest page following end of chapter which gives
transcript of Q&A with audience), _On Power and Ideology: The Managua
Lectures_, 1987]


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