It's All About Me, Man: [CanYoAssDigIt] I've seen the light

I'm starting to understand my countrymen's antipathy to Cuba. There's
something positively un-American about a country that won't allow it's
children to sleep on the street. Talk about abridging freedoms. In
the US, the law, in its majestic equality, allows rich children as
well as poor children to beg in the streets, steal bread, and sleep
under a bridge.

Take that, Fidel and Anatole France!

November 6, 2007
Hugo, the Demon Dictator Strikes Again
Cuba and Original Sin

By WILLIAM BLUM

"Each day in the world 200 million children sleep in the streets.
Not one of them is Cuban."

-- Carlos Lege, Cuban vice president.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists
and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in
publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each
perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of
socialism. It's simply a system that can't work, we are told, given
the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive,
globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to many of these criticisms, defenders of Cuban society
have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions
imposed by the United States since 1960 are largely responsible for
most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn,
say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for
every failure of their socialist system. It would be very difficult
for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to
drop all sanctions and then we'd have to wait long enough for Cuban
society to recover what it's lost and demonstrate what its system can
do when not under constant attack by the most powerful nation in the
world.

The sanctions (which Cuba calls an economic blockade), designed to
create discontent toward the government, have been expanding under the
Bush administration, both in number and in vindictiveness. Washington
has adopted sharper reprisals against those who do business with Cuba
or establish relations with the country based on cultural or tourist
exchanges; e.g., the US Treasury has frozen the accounts in the United
States of the Netherlands Caribbean Bank because it has an office in
Cuba, and banned US firms and individuals from having any dealings
with the Dutch bank.

The US Treasury Department fined the Alliance of Baptists $34,000,
charging that certain of its members and parishioners of other
churches had engaged in tourism during a visit to Cuba for religious
purposes; i.e., they had spent money there. (As George W. once said:
"U.S. law forbids Americans to travel to Cuba for pleasure.")

American courts and government agencies have helped US companies
expropriate the famous Cuban cigar brand name 'Cohiba' and the
well-known rum "Havana Club".

The Bush administration sent a note to American Internet service
providers telling them not to deal with six specified countries,
including Cuba. This is one of several actions by Washington over the
years to restrict Internet availability in Cuba; yet Cuba's critics
claim that problems with the Internet in Cuba are due to government
suppression.

Cubans in the United States are limited to how much money they can
send to their families in Cuba, a limit that Washington imposes only
on Cubans and on no other nationals. Not even during the worst moments
of the Cold War was there a general limit to the amount of money that
people in the US could send to relatives living in the Soviet
satellites in Eastern Europe.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1
billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during
the first forty years of this aggression. The suit held Washington
responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and
disabling of 2,099 others. In the eight years since, these figures
have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large
and small, makes acquiring many kinds of products and services from
around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible;
frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine,
transportation or industry; or they mean that Americans and Cubans
can't attend professional conferences in each other's country.

The above is but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by
the United States upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling
Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear much of that any more.
Perhaps one reason is the annual vote at the United Nations on a
General Assembly resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. This
is how the vote has gone:

Yes-No
1992 59-2 (US, Israel)

1993 88-4 (US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay)

1994 101-2 (US, Israel)

1995 117-3 (US, Israel, Uzbekistan)

1996 138-3 (US, Israel, Uzbekistan)

1997 143-3 (US, Israel, Uzbekistan)

1998 157-2 (US, Israel)

1999 155-2 (US, Israel)

2000 167-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)

2001 167-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)

2002 173-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)

2003 179-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)

2004 179-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)

2005 182-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)

2006 183-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)

2007 184-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)

Cuba's sin, which the United States of America can not forgive, is to
have created a society that can serve as a successful example of an
alternative to the capitalist model, and, moreover, to have done so
under the very nose of the United States. And despite all the
hardships imposed on it by Washington, Cuba has indeed inspired
countless peoples and governments all over the world.

A long-time writer about Cuba, Karen Lee Wald, has observed: "The
United States has more pens, pencils, candy, aspirin, etc. than most
Cubans have. They, on the other hand, have better access to health
services, education, sports, culture, childcare, services for the
elderly, pride and dignity than most of us have within reach."

In a 1996 address to the General Assembly, Cuba's vice president,
Carlos Lage stated: "Each day in the world 200 million children sleep
in the streets. Not one of them is Cuban."

On April 6, 1960, L.D. Mallory, a US State Department senior official,
wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support
Castro ... the only foreseeable means of alienating internal support
is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic
dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be
undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory
proposed "a line of action that makes the greatest inroads in denying
money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to
bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government."
Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the embargo.

Hugo the demon dictator strikes again

The latest evidence that Hugo Chavez is a dictator, we are told, is
that he's pushing for a constitutional amendment to remove term limits
from the presidency. It's the most contentious provision in his new
reform package which has recently been approved by the Venezuelan
congress and awaits a public referendum on December 2. The lawmakers
traveled nationwide to discuss the proposals with community groups at
more than 9,000 public events, rather odd behavior for a dictatorship,
as is another of the reforms -- setting a maximum six-hour workday so
workers would have sufficient time for "personal development."

The American media and the opposition in Venezuela make it sound as if
Chavez is going to be guaranteed office for as long as he wants. What
they fail to emphasize, if they mention it at all, is that there's
nothing at all automatic about the process -- Chavez will have to be
elected each time. Neither are we enlightened that it's not unusual
for a nation to not have a term limit for its highest office. France,
Germany, and the United Kingdom, if not all of Europe and much of the
rest of the world, do not have such a limit. The United States did not
have a term limit on the office of the president during the nation's
first 175 years, until the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951.
Were all American presidents prior to that time dictators?

Is it of any significance, I wonder, that the two countries of the
Western Hemisphere whose governments the United States would most like
to overthrow -- Venezuela and Cuba -- have the greatest national
obsession with baseball outside of the United States?

In a sound-bite society, reality no longer matters. Last month,
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told assembled world leaders at
the United Nations that the time had come to take action against Iran.
"None disagrees," she said, "that Iran denies the Holocaust and speaks
openly of its desire to wipe a member state - mine - off the map. And
none disagrees that, in violation of Security Council resolutions, it
is actively pursuing the means to achieve this end. Too many see the
danger but walk idly by - hoping that someone else will take care of
it. ... It is time for the United Nations, and the states of the
world, to live up to their promise of never again. To say enough is
enough, to act now and to defend their basic values."

Yet, later the same month, we are informed by Haaretz, (frequently
described as "the New York Times of Israel"), that the same Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni had said a few months earlier, in a series of
closed discussions, that in her opinion "Iranian nuclear weapons do
not pose an existential threat to Israel." Haaretz reported that
"Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb,
claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by
playing on its most basic fears."

What are we to make of such a self-contradiction, such perfect hypocrisy?

And here is Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, writing
in his own publication: "The one time we seriously negotiated with
Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to
create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to
the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that 'the Iranians were very
professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also
critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance [Afghan
foes of the Taliban] to make the final concessions that we asked for.'
Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with
the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no
reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to
cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals
meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, 'looked down and
rustled his papers.' No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why
bother? They're mad."

Dobbins has further written, in the Washington Post: "The original
version of the Bonn agreement ... neglected to mention either
democracy or the war on terrorism. It was the Iranian representative
who spotted these omissions and successfully urged that the newly
emerging Afghan government be required to commit to both. Only weeks
after Hamid Karzai was sworn in as interim leader in Afghanistan,
President Bush listed Iran among the 'axis of evil' -- surprising
payback for Tehran's help in Bonn. A year later, shortly after the
invasion of Iraq, all bilateral contacts with Tehran were suspended.
Since then, confrontation over Iran's nuclear program has
intensified."

Shortly after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran made another
approach to Washington, via the Swiss ambassador who sent a fax to the
State Department. The Washington Post described it as "a proposal from
Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax
suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on
nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian
support for Palestinian militant groups." The Bush administration
"belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the
Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax." Richard Haass, head of policy
planning at the State Department at the time and now president of the
Council on Foreign Relations, said in the Post the Iranian approach
was swiftly rejected because in the administration "the bias was
toward a policy of regime change."

So there we have it. The Israelis know it, the Americans know it. Iran
is not any kind of military threat. Before the invasion of Iraq I
posed the question in this report: What possible reason would Saddam
Hussein have for attacking the United States or Israel other than an
irresistible desire for mass national suicide? He had no reason, and
neither do the Iranians. Of the many lies surrounding the invasion of
Iraq, the biggest one of all is that if, in fact, Saddam Hussein had
those weapons of mass destruction the invasion would have been
justified.

The United States and Israel have long striven to dominate the Middle
East, viewing Iraq and Iran as the most powerful barriers to that
ambition. Iraq is now a basket case. Iran awaits basketization. And,
eventually perhaps, the omnipresent American military bases will close
the base-gap between Iraq and Afghanistan in Washington's encirclement
of China, the better to monitor the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf
and Caspian Sea areas.

There was a time when I presumed that the sole purpose of United
States hostile policy toward Iran was to keep the Iranians from
acquiring nuclear weapons, which would deprive the US and Israel of
their mideast monopoly and ultimate tool of intimidation. But now it
appears that destroying Iran's military capability, nuclear and
otherwise, smashing it to the point of being useless defensively or
offensively, is the Bush administration's objective, perhaps along
with the hope of some form of regime change. The Empire leaves as
little to chance as possible.

Reason Number 3,467 for having doubts about our God-given free-enterprise system

I recently bought my first cellphone and took it with me to
Burlington, Vermont, only to discover that it didn't work there. It
seems that AT&T/Cingular doesn't have cellphone towers in that area.
But other phone companies do have towers there and their subscribers'
phones work. Is that not a really clever system? To have a single
national telephone system with all towers available for use by
everyone would presumably upset libertarians and others who worship at
the shrine of competition.. So instead we're given another charming
"market solution", and the beauty of competition is preserved. Why
stop there? Just imagine the advantages in being able to call around
to find out which fire station will give you the best rate should your
house suddenly go up in flames.