Summer 2007 Issue: Latin America Rising
Democracy Rising
by Nadia Martinez

Grassroots movements change the face of power.

As the people of Latin America build democracies from the bottom up, the symbols of power are changing. What used to be emblems of poverty and oppression—indigenous clothing and speech, the labels “campesino” and “landless worker”—are increasingly the symbols of new power. As people-powered movements drive the region toward social justice and equality, these symbols speak, not of elite authority limited to a few, but of power broadly shared.

The symbolism was especially rich last year in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when the new minister of justice made her entrance at an international activists’ summit. Casimira Rodríguez, a former domestic worker, wore the thick, black braids and pollera, a long, multilayered skirt, of an Aymara indigenous woman. As she made her way through the throng, Rodríguez further distinguished herself from a typical law-enforcement chief by passing out handfuls of coca leaves.

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I just came back from Argentina meeting with many activists from the worker recovered enterprises there. I also visited some of these workplaces. These workers formed their own co-operatives and function in a fully democratic manner without management. There are now around 200 such co-ops in Argentina. This was the subject of the documentary "The Take".

It was an incredible experience being in some of these workplaces without any form of management. In many cases the first thing removed was the clock as a visible sign that the rules had changed and the workers are now working together for the common good. It was an incredibly empowering experience and shows just what we are capable of doing once workers decide to take matters into their own hands.

As usual the elites will never give in and many new battles for workplace democracy are about to begin again with the election of a new right wing mayor in Buenos Aires (a billionaire who owns the city's main soccer club). The police and courts are already beginning to launch a new wave of repression with the full backing of the world-wide neo-lib establishment. Harper's recent visit to L.A. is further proof that the imperialist "north" will never leave the "south" alone.

This Friday all subway transit workers in Buenos Aires will take job action and protest in solidarity with the workers of these co-ops.

I've never seen such activism and commitment to social justice before! Most importantly, I've never met such a well informed and class aware society before.

I'm on the road right now but promise to share some of these experiences and insights when I get a chance.

In the meantime, in the words of one of the activists : "workers don't need management; they need to organise".

One could also say: Latin America doesn't need us; we need them to show us the way to reclaim our lost democratic space.

[ 26 July 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

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Originally posted by a lonely worker:

I've never seen such activism and commitment to social justice before! Most importantly, I've never met such a well informed and class aware society before.

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While it would be nice to agree with the Cuban Foreign Minister and his friends here on babble,
the social experiments in Argentina are relatively isolated.

Nor are Argentines in general particularly progressive. The society is suffused with racism, and sexism/machismo remains common.

The worst term of abuse in Argentina is "indio" which means "stupid", and refers to native people such as Bolivians. I was struck by the fact that a commune which is part of Buenos Aires is called "The Massacre" to commemorate the slaughter of native people there one hundred years ago.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I've been to Argentina too...many people there like to brag about how unlike all those "half-breeds" in neighbouring countries (ie: Chile or Bolivia) they had the good sense (sic.) to KILL all their Indians and therefore they are almost all purebred Europeans!

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
A large majority of Guatemalans are still of Amerindian descent.

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Maybe I'm being unfair to Guatemala. They did finally have a negotiated end to the civil war there and the guerrillas laid down their arms and agreed to compete in election. Unfortunately they only got about 10% of the vote.

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It's unfortunate that when we have election we can't always get the outcomes we want. i guess it's simpler to take power by the barrel of a gun and say to people "You are going to get socialism whether you like it or not!"

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
So Guatemala and Cuba have something in common. They both have dictatorial government that did not get to power through a free, fair multi-party election. It's very sad.

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Yes, with Guatemala, U.S. imperialists removed another democratically-elected leader to install a brutal right-wing dictatorship.

In Cuba it was the outcome was the exact opposite. The revolutionairies had the support of landless campesinos subsisting under a criminal, U.S.-backed mafia government in Havana. There were CIA attempts to reverse the revolution, but the Cuban people have been vigilant in defending their revolution.

This site describes 36 instances of gun barrel democracy and-or U.S. interventions to prevent democracy from happening, from Adolf Hitler forward to the Duvalier's of Haiti. And there are several more recent bloody right-wing dictators that should be added to the list.

Opinions like yours are a dime a dozen. You can ignore recent history, but that doesn't lend to your crude and unqualified remarks about leftists and electoral democracy.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I condemn fascism. I condemn Communism. i condemn any government that did not gain power as a result of a free, fair, multi-party election. i condemn any government that imprisons and executes its opponents. I condemn any government that does not have new elections at least every four or five years where people are perfectly free to dumpt them and elect someone else.

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I don't care what their infant mortality rates are. unless a government is in power as a result of a free, fair, multi-party election, it has no legitimacy and ought to be deposed as soon as possible.

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I consider myself to be of the DEMOCRATIC left and as such I consider to be my duty to condemn dictatorship and the trampling of human rights wherever it happens - regardless of whether the perpetrator is Augusto Pinochet or Fidel Castro. A dictator is a dictator is a dictator is a dictator.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Pakistan etc... all are utterly evil governments with no legitimacy ...

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The U.S. and friends have influenced outcomes in all of those countries from the 1950's to today, from the CIA coup to depose Mossadeq, to Saddam, a CIA pawn to overthrow Iraq's nationalist leader in 1959 to several quite brutal right-wing dictatorships in South Korea to being deeply involved in 11 of 12 major wars in Africa. The U.S. and friends have shown a propensity toward anti-democratic maneuvering. Their disdain for democracy over the years has created a general market demand for alternatives to [b]U.S. managed elections from Cuba to the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Others, especially Iran,definitely have repulsive featiures in their systems.

But these two, Cuba and Iran, are not pure dictatorships unlike what ure trying to paint them. Not dictatorships in classical sense.

Both have a partially-functioning, non-partisan democracy. They have many flaws certainly. Iran's violations of human rights are well known.

But it Seems to me that you want every country to have your specific definition of democracy(Im not talking abiut human rights)- that is the Western-style, bourgouis liberal-democracy.
That is, large, impersonal political parties with labels next to them and mixed loyalties to bankers, corporate donors, wealthy lobbyists and theyre electorate at the same time.

BTW, Fukuyama(the guy who said that everyone will live a bland "dog's life" and that history has endded,) recently said that he was wrong.

We all agree that the US did and does some naughty things in the world. There is nothing to discuss, we are all on the same page.

The debate here is over whether or not human rights abuses by supposedly "socialist" countries should also be pointed out and condemned.

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But it Seems to me that you want every country to have your specific definition of democracy(Im not talking abiut human rights)- that is the Western-style, bourgouis liberal-democracy.
That is, large, impersonal political parties with labels next to them and mixed loyalties to bankers, corporate donors, wealthy lobbyists and theyre electorate at the same time.

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It seems to give the people of Sweden a nice standard of living and also a free press and freedom to criticize the government. I think Sweden is a much better model for the world than is Cuba or North Korea...and if the Swedish people wanted a Cuban style totalitarian regime, all they have to do is elect a majority Marxist-Leninsist Party government. But they only give the Marxist-Leninist Party 1% of the vote because they don't want a Cuban style dictatorship. They prefer the Swedish system.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
The debate here is over whether or not human rights abuses by supposedly "socialist" countries should also be pointed out and condemned.

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Ya, but your ilk come out of the woodwork to condemn Cuba for issues that are 30 times worse in surrounding countries off Uncle Sam's backdoor steps.

If elections are free and fair in Guatemala and Haiti and Dominican Republic and always-always favour pox Americana, then why are they such miserable, devoid of the most basic human rights shitholes for the people living there ?. I can rhyme off human rights violations in Guatemala and Haiti verse and chapter and how the U.S. has influenced those countries, from 20 some odd military invasions to removal of democratically-elected socialist leaders in both countries over the years, and that doesn't phase you. Because all of you, the U.S. shadow guv and two old farts named Helms and Burton have been obsessed with a tiny Caribbean island nation with better mortality and literacy rates than all of Latin America today.

So let's talk about real examples for U.S. managed elections in and around the Caribbean and Central America, Stockholmer. Surely there is one country in this hemisphere you can prop up as a shining example and inspiration for Cubans to abandon revolutionary socialism ?.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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J B Foster: The revolt against U.S. hegemony in Latin America in the opening years of the twenty-first century constitutes nothing less than a new historical moment. Latin America, to quote Noam Chomsky, is "reasserting its independence" in an attempt to free itself from centuries of imperialist domination. The gravity of this threat to U.S. power is increasingly drawing the attention of Washington.....

The United States, through the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and the 1904 Roosevelt Corolllary ... long ago established its "right to preemptive military interventions in the Americas." .... Since the Second World War, Latin Americans have been subjected again and again to U.S. interventions (replicating a long history of U.S. intrusions in the region): "Guatemala in 1954; Cuba in 1961; Dominican Republic in 1965; Chile from 1970 tp 1989; the Southern Cone dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s; the contras, counterinsurgency, and death squads in Central America; invasions of Grenada and Panama."

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It is important to point out, as Foster does, that the neoliberal atrocities (that Conservative and Liberal butchers alike are imposing on Canadians) had their incubation in the circumstances of the brutal US sponsored capitalist military dictatorships of the past. What they're trying to do to us now they did to Latin America already.

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Foster: The most important guarantee for the future of Latin America under these circumstances is the growing solidarity of its peoples - and the growing solidarity of all the world's peoples with Latin America - in order to prevent further U.S. interventions.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If the US is so omnipotent in being able to "manage" elections, then I guess someone forgot to tell the voters of Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Chile etc...all of whom have elected progressive governments.

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You forgot to mention one attempted and one successful CIA-led coups to removed democratically-elected leaders in Haiti and Venezuela and in this very decade, Stockholmer. And it will take Brazil, Venezuela, HAITI/D.R. and Guatemala at least two or three generations to achieive the level of nutrition, health and literacy, fundamental basic human rigts that exist in Cuba today. Nice try, but this is the point where the wheels fall off your argument as per usual.

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Perhaps the next step would be to make it another american state that they can call the lzand of the rich and free!

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[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

The only thing I am unswerving about is my support for civil liberties and free, fair multi-party elections.

Civil liberties and "free multi-party elections" are costume jewelry for the well off and spoiled brats within the walls of the empire. They are not for the exploited, oppressed, and occupied, beyond the walls of the empire from where resources are extracted.

You are so naive and ignorant as to be exhausting. It is not left/right politics or marxism vs. capitalism. That is for school children and idiots. It is the politics of exploitation and expansion and the Cubans, unfortunately for them, are in the backyard, beyond the protective walls of the empire.

Get a real education.

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Civil liberties and "free multi-party elections" are costume jewelry for the well off and spoiled brats within the walls of the empire.

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Go to Cuba. Compare Cuba with every other country in Latin America and tell us what's different when you come back.

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I've been to many places in Latin America. Here is what I observed:

Cuba: the infrastructure hasn't been improved since about 1955, everything is drab and colourless. The food is the pits (and you risk jail if you try to open a restaurant) and you get propositioned by child prostitutes about once every 10 minutes. People beg you for even one US dollar so they can the most basic household items in "dollar stores" that only accept US currency. There are two classes in Cuba. If you have friends or relatives in the US or Canada who regularly send you money, then you are a comparative aristocrat and you can shop in "dollar stores" alongside the tourists and Communist Party members. If you have no foreign benefactors you live in squalor. It's been estimated that a bout third of Cuba's entire GDP is remittances from ex-pat Cubans in the US. I was also told that on every city block there are informers who will run to the authorities to snitch on anyone who is even seen in the presence of a foreigner.

Chile: I was quite impressed. They have a Socialist Party woman as President and a very lively free press and multi-party system. There are speedy super-highways connecting all the major cities, shops and markets filled with goods, construction everywhere. There are clearly are some poor areas, but things are getting better and it looks to have a standard of living that is comparable to a place like Greece or Portugal or maybe some of the poorer parts of Spain. Divorce has been legalized and new social programs are being created and the country is well on its way to being a European-style social democracy. Pinochet's thugs are being tried and convicted for their crimes in the 70s and 80s and most people are happy about that.

I will grant that the beaches are better in Cuba since the water is warmer, but Chile has more spectacular scenery.

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

What's your position on whether Canada should have civil liberties and free multi-party elections??? Are these things just worthless "costume jewellery" to Canadians? Would you prefer it if Canada had a one party Communist dictatorship and a suspension of human rights?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Do you support or oppose multiparty elections and human rights for Canada?

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For or against? This is a practical question since, as everyone knows, attempts have already been made to overthrow both the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez (2002) and the socialist government of Cuba (far too many times to count).

You're either pro-imperialist or you're not. People under attack by the monster to the south of us want to know who they can count on. And the bottom line is that to help the people of Latin America shake off the yolk of imperialist domination and determine their own future, the US and its minions must be made to keep their evil hands off Latin America.

It's pretty simple really. Which side are you on?

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Canada and the U.S. should of course have real elections and you know we all support that, Stocks.

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So why are we in Canada and the US privileged enough to be allowed to vote in free elections, but some people seem to think that Cuban people should be given the same right? Are Cubans inferior to Canadians and can't be entrusted with multi-party democracy?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

So why are we in Canada and the US privileged enough to be allowed to vote in free elections, but some people seem to think that Cuban people should be given the same right? Are Cubans inferior to Canadians and can't be entrusted with multi-party democracy?

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Actually, it's probably connected with the fact that Canada is not a tiny country subjected to an economic blockade by a superpower neighbour for the last 45 years, and maybe because no superpower neighbour has tried to militarily invade and overthrow our government in living memory, and maybe because no superpower neighbour has spent billions cultivating and nurturing an ultra-right-wing population drooling at the prospect of retrieving their lost riches in their lost playground.

Either that, or you're right, and progressive people consider Cubans as some sort of inferior race.

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So, Stockholm, you're in favour of the 650 assassination attempts by the US and its minions (give or take a dozen) against Castro? You support the attempted invasion in the Bay of Pigs in 1961? Are you also in favour of the use of nuclear weapons against Cuban civilians in order to "liberate" that country? Yes or No? How bloodthirsty are you?

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Pardon me, but since when does expressing support for free, fair multi-party elections and freedom of the press and the liberation of all political prisoners imply support for any of the above???

Are you nuts?

I can only deduce that I have so totally won this argument that you are reduced to pathetically grasping at straws. Why don't you just say "Uncle"

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

What kind of democratic country hires the mob to assassinate another country's leader on more than 600 occasions ?. You see, Stockholmer, democracy has been a difficult game to play in this hemisphere because of what's known as CIA tainting of and subverting, even circumventing democracy in dozens of cases. Edward S Herman talks about those issues in several online essays, and there are other people on the left who will tell you the same things. That special rogue wing of the CIA doesn't want to smuggle illicit drugs into the states by way of Sweden or Norway or Denmark, countries where lots of white people live in a neutral country in another hemisphere. But they would like for Havana to revert back to being an offshore sanctuary for the mafia who would use Cuba and Haiti as conduits for drug running and as a general playground for the rich like it was before 1959. And then there's the cheap labour thing for big sugar and fruit companies. The Cuban people don't want that rigormarole all over again. It's why Cubans voted their fat asses off the island by way of violent revolution in the first place. 1959 was an example of participatory democracy in Cuba.

There have been several illegit governments in and around Uncle Sam's backyard over the years and which tookover power by very undemocratic means and most often with Uncle Sam's help. The CIA was fingered in the 1960's and 70's for trying to influence democracy in several countries. So what they did was try to legitimize the front agencies as NGO's, "news" agencies, economic hitmen and pro-democracy groups armed with "the truth" and operating in countries targeted for democracy. But that's not how democracy is supposed to work. Isn't that right, Stockholmer ?.

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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But they are a popular government in Havana

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Bravo to the Cubans for dispensing with democratic frauds, like here in Canada or the US, where a "variety" of parties say the same thing and elections are like choosing a brand of toothpaste. Bravo to the Cubans for ensuring that the restoration of capitalism ain't gonna happen. Bravo to the Cubans for ignoring the loud-mouthed pretend friends in El Norte and focussing on developing and strengthening their own democracy.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:

Bravo to the Cubans for dispensing with democratic frauds, like here in Canada or the US, where a "variety" of parties say the same thing and elections are like choosing a brand of toothpaste. Bravo to the Cubans for ensuring that the restoration of capitalism ain't gonna happen. Bravo to the Cubans for ignoring the loud-mouthed pretend friends in El Norte and focussing on developing and strengthening their own democracy.

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I'd like to echo that.

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And anyone who wants to know how Cuban democracy works, don't bother to read most of babble. Do your own homework and yes, read the propaganda of the US State Department as well. Then you will be able to see how the views of far too many people here are indistinguishable from the views of a country that has made it its business to overthrow Cuban socialism and democracy for almost 50 years and failed. Yawn.

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Most Babblers are capitalist shills?

Or Did you mean here as in here in Canada?

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Isn't it possible to support the Cuban cause and respect what the Cubans have accomplished( excelent health care and education systems, environmentally friendly agricultural practices etc.) without angelizing the Cuban state or it's leader? Isn't there some middle ground that can be staked out on this issue?

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Here is the "middle ground" which is more acceptable to me:

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I don't really support public health care or totally public education. I don't know what Cuba's environmental policies are. I think personally that socialism is a crock. Whenever I see Castro talk I think, "what a demagogue". I would never vote for a party in Canada that proposed Cuban policies for this country. In fact, I'm a CPC supporter on many issues.

However, the Cuban people have blazed their own trail of independent development, and they have every right to choose their path whether I like it or not, so long as they don't impose anything beyond their borders. I think anyone who tries to interfere with their sovereign rights, whether by preaching to them, or supporting their "dissidents", or economically blockading them, or preparing the ground for invasion, is condescending at best, and dangerous at worst.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Let them prove it by calling a free, fair, multi-party election and winning it.

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Let our weak and ineffective colonial administrators in Ottawa encourage Uncle Sam to stop sending aid to Latin America's militaries first.

And let Uncle Sam demonstrate that the USA is serious about democracy in Latin America by closing down, once and for all, the notorious Skool of the Americas, the world's foremost training skool for terrorism and torture.

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Let our weak and ineffective colonial administrators in Ottawa encourage Uncle Sam to stop sending aid to Latin America's militaries first.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Isn't it possible to call for an end to authoritarianism in Cuba while at the same time calling for the closure of the skool

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Did you know that hundreds of protesters of the SOA have collectively spent over 900 years in American gulags to date?.

Did you know that Canada's largest trading partner is also the largest jailer in the world incarcerating more of its citizens, and more black people than any other country in the world?.

Did you know that Canada's largest trading partner imprisons black people at six times the rate of the most openly racist nation of the last century, South Africa ?.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Let our weak and ineffective colonial administrators in Ottawa encourage Uncle Sam to stop sending aid to Latin America's militaries first.

And let Uncle Sam demonstrate that the USA is serious about democracy in Latin America by closing down, once and for all, the notorious Skool of the Americas, the world's foremost training skool for terrorism and torture.

Because in case you haven't figured it out, Stockholmer, democracy and torture are incompatible.

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Yes, the United States is a terrible country, yes Cuba is a victim state, yes we should oppose U.S. emargo on Cuban goods(it has placed Cuba under seige and in such desperate times authoritarianism flourishes.) all I'm saying is that we shoudn't angelize Cuba or it's leadership, and that we can fight for socalistic ideas on many fronts at once.

P.S. most of the time, online petitions don't work.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

All I'm saying is that Cuba is one of the last countries in the world I would choose to protest against or oppose. If we're going to oppose authoratarianism and it's dozens of friendly right-wing dictatorships, then abatement at the source is what's needed.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
P.S. most of the time, online petitions don't work.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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What do you suggest for protesting the USA's export of terrorism and torture ?.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Isn't it possible to call for an end to authoritarianism in Cuba while at the same time calling for the closure of the skool

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Read what I wrote. The "school" is blatant U.S. interference in the affairs of other countries. What you choose to call "authoritarianism" in Cuba is none of your affair or mine - it affects purely the Cuban people, and it has not been imposed or maintained by foreign powers.

This is an elementary distinction - one on which the United Nations and international law are founded.

You can call for an end to authoritarianism in Cuba, but whom are you calling upon? The Cuban people? Good luck. Uncle Sam? Then you're a war criminal. Either way, it's either preaching or interference.

If Fidel Castro visited Canada as a diplomatic guest and gave a speech condemning Canada for maintaining a capitalist system and "calling" on Canada to abolish private enterprise, I'd say he was a fool or a rude guest. Same if he did it from Havana. And that's irrespective of whether I agreed with him or not. It is none of his frigging business.

But if he (or you or I) calls on the U.S. people to rise up and overthrow anyone who commits aggression abroad - that's fine. We are within our rights.

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What do you suggest for protesting the USA's export of terrorism and torture ?.

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[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
If you sign twice, would that make this particular petion invalid?

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:

That's a really clever question. And we'll let it be your job to find that out for us.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

I did. I believe I did it twice. That's why I'm asking.

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[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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and it has not been imposed or maintained by foreign powers.

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Are you positive about that? Couldn't it be argued that the embargo has stengthened Fidel, and allowed him to cast himself as the protector of th Cuban people(a role he fulfils very well) and that Castro, while he may be a despot, is seen by the average Cuban as being better then then the American fuckwits who force him or her to live in 1959?(albeit a version of 1959 that has really good healthcare and top notch farming practices)

I believe that the Americans have inadvertantly been proping up El Comondante and that if the embargo hadn't been put in place, and the U.S. had actually dealt fairly with the revolutionary government, Fidel would've been overthrown long before now.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
I believe that the Americans have inadvertantly been proping up El Comondante and that if the embargo hadn't been put in place, and the U.S. had actually dealt fairly with the revolutionary government, Fidel would've been overthrown long before now.

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A despot is a cruel and evil tyrant. If the U.S. had evidence that the Cuban government was ruling by, say, right-wing death squads as per Colombia and 36, count'em, 36 repressive right-wing dictatorships propped up by Uncle Sam over the years, then they would have made a parking lot out of Havana years ago.

If Cuba was anything close to the repressive right-wing dictatorships propped up by the U.S. over the years, Cubans would have overthrown Fidel themselves. And it's more than just socialized medicine that endears Fidel to the Cuban people. Much more.

If you want to see the poorest people in this hemisphere living in grinding, abject poverty, then get yourselves to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and observe the miserable Dominicans and Haitian immigrants subsisting on the Ozama River in corrugated tin shacks and living in filth while superrich people like the De Laurentis family and members of organized crime live in grand opulence. Or, you're completely free to pick up a travel brochure for Guatemala and see what the newspapers rarely tell you about that third world capitalist shithole off Uncle Sam's back doorsteps. Bring kaopectate and lots of spare change for the child beggars whose empty gazes will haunt you for years afterward. Go soon and educate yourself on what grinding poverty in this hemisphere is all about. Because in those countries like El Salvador and Guatemala and Haiti, hope is gone for too many people. The only thing left for them is despair and endurance.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If Castro truly wanted the US embargo to be lifted,

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Yes, and Jimmy Carter's CIA began aiding and abetting drug lords and war lords to wage war against the Marxist PDPA government in 1979, a full six months before the Soviets "invaded" Afghanistan.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I oppose US interference in Iraq and I also oppose Cuban interference in Angola.

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Read what former CIA station chief in Angola,John Stockwell had to say about the dirty war in Angola, Africa, SE Asia and around the world. Stockwell was a professional anti-communist at one time. You, otoh, are only a part-time wannabe anti-communist, Stockholmer. Read what he had to say. The world viewed Cuba's intervention in Angola as nothing less than heroism at the time.

And it was the South Africans who were having trouble with overthrowing the communist government in Angola. The CIA, Brits and Israli's were long-time allies with the racist apartheid government in their covert military incursions into sovereign countries.

It was the CIA and Belgian imperialists who murdered the first and last popular and democratically-elected prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. What right did the sonsobitches have to stick their big noses into that country's affairs ?.

What gave former Canadian and CIA stooge Gerald Bull the right to intervene in UNITA's war in Angola?. Of 12 major wars in Africa, the CIA has been involved in 11 of them.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

A)I don't care how bad Jonas Savimbi was. That is Angola's problem - not Cuba's. It was no business of Cuba's to be interfering in the internal affairs of Angola.

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B)I don't care how bad Franco was. That is Spain's problem-not the MacKenzie/Papineau Brigade's. It was no business of Canadian antifascists to be interfering in the internal affairs of Spain.

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originally posted by Stockholm:

A)If the people of Angola wanted to defeat Savimbi that was up to them

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B)If the people of Spain wanted to defeat Franco that was up to them

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Please explain any logical differences between the assertions in statements "A" and those in statements "B".

(I was going to say, "It's not Cuba's business to intervene in the internal affairs of Angola, but it IS Stockholm's business to intervene in the internal affairs of Cuba"?, but that woulda been too easy.)

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

Either you support countries intervening militarily in other countries domestic affairs - or you don't. You can't pick and choose and say it's OK for Cuba to send ground troops to foreign countries but the condemn other countries for doing the same thing.

But in some peoples warped view, no rules apply to Cuba. We demand free elections and human rights all around the world - except in Cuba where we are supposed to turn a blind eye to dictatorship and human rights abuses. We insist on peace and non-intervention all over the world and condemn every single solitary case where countries intervene militarily in other country...oh EXCEPT when it's Cuba sending troops to Angola - then it's OK.

I set just as high a standard of behaviour for Cuba as other countries. unlike some people here who believe that any criminal act can be excused as long as its done by the great sacred cow of Cuba - the country that can do no wrong.

It's all so revolting, I'm actually starting to look forward to the day Castro dies, just so i can watch these silly Castro-cult radical chic types in Toronto crying their eyes out as they drive their Prius to some silly Canada-Cuba Friendship Society vigil.

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Either you support countries intervening militarily in other countries domestic affairs - or you don't.

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Either you support countries intervening militarily in other countries domestic affairs - or you don't. You can't pick and choose and say it's OK for Cuba to send ground troops to foreign countries but the condemn other countries for doing the same thing.

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Bullshit. International solidarity against fascism always justifies support of the antifascist side.

Your logic would oblige you to have called for international antifascists to let Franco win without a fight.

I hate to think of the implications of your logic on World War II and the victims of Hitler.

And it's not even about any worship of Fidel. I've been as critical of him as anybody. It's mainly about your relentless, shrill and pointless bleating about that magical "multi-party election" and your complete refusal to acknowledge that it isn't always just "the people's fault" when the bad guys win the vote.
There's no reason to think an election would make ANYTHING better in Cuba. And you know perfectly well the U.S. wouldn't allow the Revolution to replaced by Swedish-style social democracy(admirable as that model can be on a good day). The U.S. would call the tune.

Just give it a rest, Stocks. Cuba is not the worst place on the planet by a damn sight, and it isn't worth the endlessness of your demands on the Cuban people.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

Do you have ANY idea how outrageous and offensive that comment is?

It would be no less offensive than if it were applied(which I won't, since I'm trying my best to avoid Godwinning) to various nationalities and communities in World War II.

Franco didn't win because the Spanish people WANTED fascism. He won because the "democratic" nations refused to support democracy(and also because Stalin sabotauged the antifascist fight by fighting the POUM and the anarchists when he should have had the brigades fight only against the Falange).

You insulted the Spanish people and everyone else who was ever subjugated to a tyrant with that statement.

I insist you retract it. You should be ashamed for even thinking things like that.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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You just made the morally numb statement that if the people of a country lose to a murderous fascist leading a bandit army(as they would have lost in Angola had Savimbi prevailed)then it's "the people's fault".

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If Taliban represents the will of the Afghan people then Franco must have represented the will of the Spanish people.

What I'm trying to understand is what standard you are using to support foreign intervention in other countries internal affairs in some cases (ie: Spain and Angola), but to totally oppose it in other cases (ie: Haiti, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq).

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Do you think Taliban is any less evil than Franco?

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If Taliban represents the will of the Afghan people then Franco must have represented the will of the Spanish people.

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That is an sickening and insane statement. It's saying that the conquered WANTED to be conquered.

That's saying that the will of the kidnapper is the will of the hostage.

It's all the way back to "might makes right".

How can you even SLEEP thinking things like that?

And I have never said that the Taliban represents the will of the Afghan people. What I have said is that neither the U.S. Army nor the Canadian Forces represent the will of the Afghan people either.

You have finally and truly lost your humanity, Stockholm.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Isn't it simpler to oppose countries intervening militarily in other countries ALL the time - as opposed to having to go through these bizarra contortions to explain why it was OK for Cuba to send troops to Angola in 1977, but it was not OK for the US to send troops into Cambodia in 1971?

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Give us a break! Only a complete hypocrite like yourself would compare the doctor and the madman's illegal bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam, and maybe even 21 countries since Nagasaki and Hiroshima with Cuba's heroic support against bloodthirsty UNITA rebels and other factions fighting and slaughtering Angolams and with CIA and racist apartheid regime support on the side of the bad guys.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I would never say that Franco represented the will of the Spanish people (though he had to have some significant popular backing to have raised an army and Spain always had a powerful Right)

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He was LOSING the war up until Hitler, Mussolini and U.S. corporations began aiding the fascist cause. The Russians sent military equipment and advisors, even though they knew Hitler was arming for western aggression against the revolution part two. Nobody believed Russia could afford to spare anything for the war against fascism in Spain. Not after the destruction and loss of life they suffered in the previous decade and WWI.

Meanwhile, political conservatives in England made it illegal for anti-fascist Brits to travel to Spain during the work week. The first black Americans to make their mark as military leaders was during the Spanish war against fascism.

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and they are now a free-market oriented government that has close relations with Portugal, the EU and the US oil companies. i guess that was really worth shedding Cuban blood for!

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Yes it was! The Cubans are still viewed around the world as heroes for intervening on the side of Angolan people. Jonas Savimbi is not remembered for being anything more than a butcher. Gerald Bull and his racist friends in S. Africa who murdered tens of thousands of people - do you think that was worth it, Stockholmer ?

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

In Angola, Cuba was helping the people avoid becoming a colony of South Africa, which is what Savimbi would have turned the place into. And Cuba refused to take its troops out because the west and South Africa refused to stop supporting Savimbi. Why do you let the apartheid regime totally off the hook about what happened in Angola?

You're REALLY grasping at straws here.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Have you conducted a global survey? I wonder if it;s the same people who think the Russians were heroes for invading Czechoslovakia in 1968?

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That was decades ago. It's old news. The cold war is supposed to be over.

FF to current events. What we're seeing is over 700 U.S. military bases still maintained around the world. The U.S. is now the only country with nuclear missiles stationed in other countries. They are positioned all over the world and now with plans to deposit them in Poland... and Czech Republic - allegedly to protect the west from a cold war threat that doesn't exist anymore!.

And since the U.S.-led medieval siege of Iraq, over 1.5 million Iraqis have died prematurely - over 700, 000 of them children in a desert nation. The chickenhawk military beckoned women and children to banquets of death and destruction in the middle of the night. All that supposedly to get to one man, a one-time CIA stooge himself in Baghdad.

That wasn't 1968. But it did happen during Bush Sr's time in the sun with Iraqgate onward through to today with Prescott Bush's grandson after losing the popular vote count in 2000. And it will still be in the news tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, Stockholmer.
Largest anti-war protests in history in 2003 millions of people in 800 cities around the world. They aren't obssessing over a small island with the best mortality and literacy rates in Latin America either.

[ 29 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

2 years - thats how long it took Russia to withdraw their troops and empty their bases in Eastern Europe.
By 1993, Cold War was supposedly dead and buried.

Whats the deal with US and NATO troops throughout Europe and Asia??

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That was decades ago. It's old news. The cold war is supposed to be over.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
There was legitimate reason NOT to withdraw those troops from Angola. They were protecting the Angolan people from that murderous bastard Jonas Savimbi, the man who turned Angola into "the amputee capital of Africa" and who wouldn't stop fighting even after "communism" collapsed and he lost a free and fair election.

Angola would have been as soaked with blood as Rwanda if those troops had left.

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Afghanistan would remain as soaked with blood as it has for the past thirty years if these troops left.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Franco didn't win because the Spanish people WANTED fascism. He won because the "democratic" nations refused to support democracy(and also because Stalin sabotauged the antifascist fight by fighting the POUM and the anarchists when he should have had the brigades fight only against the Falange).

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What's your position on whether Canada should have civil liberties and free multi-party elections??? Are these things just worthless "costume jewellery" to Canadians? Would you prefer it if Canada had a one party Communist dictatorship and a suspension of human rights?

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You are a child incapable of seeing beyond your own nose or even reading with any degree of skill. We have this cheap costume jewellery because, as I have stated before, we are inside the walls of the empire. We are kept happy and distracted with the illusion of having a say.

As the old anarchist saying goes, if elections actually changed anything they would be illegal. And the proof of that is in the Palestinian and Haitian pudding to name but two recent examples.

Canada has a one party dictatorship. It is Corporate Capitalism. Can you vote for anything else? And our freedoms, our much vaunted freedoms, the freedom to shop at will, are subject to the terms of the leash.

Funny, when the empire is mildly threatened and those freedoms we so herald, even the most basic, are stripped away in the name of national security, the children and idiots will trumpet freedoms they don't even have. Ah, but it is the "others" who are targeted. What me worry?

False socialists and pretend activists are the grease on the bread of Imperial corporate capitalism. They are prepared to sell out the world's oppressed, dispossessed and hungry for nothing more than a job, a Volvo, and the luxury of pretense.

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Canada has a one party dictatorship. It is Corporate Capitalism. Can you vote for anything else?

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Yes, you can!! Check out http://www.communist-party.ca/

If people want a more radical change all they have to do is elect a Communist Party of Canada majority government.

(If the CPC or any other such party ever even got close to be being elected we would soon see the value of our freedoms)

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Is that why you're still going on about what the US did in Iran in 1951?

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Yes, and what we're trying to acknowledge here is that there has been a definite pattern of very undemocratic maneuvering by Warshington over the years. Washington, with full support of Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams, two cold warrior autocrats with histories of supporting CIA orchestrated dirty wars throughout Latin America in the 1980's, supported a CIA-fomented military coup against democratic socialist leader Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. And now, about 70 percent of the Haitian electorate cannot vote for the popular leader deposed by the CIA with Ottawa's help in this decade. All this cold war anti-socialist baloney took place less than sixty miles from Cuban shores.

And then there was yet another CIA orchestrated coup attempt against a democratically-elected socialist leader in Venezuela two years earlier in 2002. That one did not succeed. Who do you think the keepers of the ring of democracy really are, Stockholmer?. Veritas ?

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If people want a more radical change all they have to do is elect a Communist Party of Canada majority government.

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And then there was yet another CIA orchestrated coup attempt against a democratically-elected socialist leader in Venezuela two years earlier in 2002.

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