This is a very good article that goes inot what the problem is with
progressives publicly condemning Cuba.


"Progressives" Should Think Twice About Piling Onto Cuba
by Emile Schepers, in Chicago

The jailing of 75 hangers-on of the US diplomatic mission in Cuba,
and the
only tangentially related execution of three violent criminals who
hijacked
a ferryboat, have produced howls of glee from the right, and of
anguish from
some who either really are, or at any rate consider themselves to be,
people
of the left.

The right wing response is predictable as it is nauseating. It
partakes of
the Goebbels tactic of the "big lie". For example, this past week
president Batlle of Uruguay accused Cuba of executing people merely
for
wanting to leave the
island. Not only is this wildly untrue and slanderous, but also
reveals
attitudes of people of his ilk.

You can leave Cuba if you so desire, but if, as is usually the case,
your
destination is Miami, you first have to get a US visa. This is
something
that the United States demanded, and Cuba acceded to. By mutual
agreement
between the two countries, 20,000 US visas are supposed to be given
out in
Cuba each year. However, in the past year, the US State Department
has only
given out 700 or so, a fact that Cuba has strongly protested. Cuba
wants
most people who wish to emigrate to be able to do so, but the United
States
is thwarting this. So who is not letting people emigrate from Cuba
to the
United States is not Cuba, but the United States.

There are exceptions: If you are a medical doctor and got your
training
free from the Cuban university system, you are required to put in
some years
of community service before you are allowed to emigrate. This is
the same
everywhere. Try to permanently leave the United States if you owe
taxes or
college loan money; you will be stopped at the airport. I know people
to
whom precisely this has befallen. When there was a military draft,
tens of
thousands of young US men were criminalized because they left the
country
rather than go to Vietnam. Had any of them tried to come back, they
would
have been jailed.

Some people in Cuba, no doubt, are discouraged by the fact that the
US
Interests Section in Havana won't give them a visa, and give up their
plans
to leave. Others hook up with immigrant smugglers. Not too many
patch
together improvised rafts any more, because the Cuban authorities
prevent
this, patrolling the beaches and inlets. A tiny few go to the
extreme of
hijacking boats or airplanes. The ferry hijacking in question was a
particularly ugly incident in which the hijackers took over a
regular
coastal commuter ferry by holding a knife to the throat of a female
passenger and threatening to kill her, then taking the boat out onto
the
open sea where ocean swells could have swamped it and killed everyone
on
board had it not run out of fuel. The passengers finally had to jump
overboard and swim to safety to escape the violent hijackers, who
were then
arrested. This whole incident was recorded in graphic detail by TV
news
cameras. There were about ten hijackers, and only the ringleaders
were
sentenced to death and executed.

So what Batlle is complaining about is that Cuba punishes people, not
for
leaving Cuba, but for hijacking boats and airplanes. This is
true. Would
he have it otherwise? After our own experience of 9-11, we should be
more
ready to
understand Cuba's attitude about this. In the last few months,
there have
been seven such hijackings, including one in which a passenger
airplane was
hijacked and flown to the US, creating the danger that US air
defenses
could have shot
it down fearing a terrorist attack, killing everyone on board. The
sharp
punishment given to the ferry hijackers is evidently a reaction, not
to an
isolated incident, but to a pattern that is so marked that it raises
suspicions of coordination by the CIA or other US agencies of
destabilization. It would not be the first time that such things
happened
in Cuba.

Hijacking is not nice. It is akin to terrorism, which I thought
everyone
was against. People who hijack airplanes and ships full of innocent
people
should be severely punished.

As to the dissidents who got stiff prison terms: The propaganda spin
this
side of the Florida Straits is that these people are punished for
having and
expressing anti-Castro positions, or simply for being "dissidents".
In
fact, some of the most prominent dissidents in Cuba were not arrested
and
most likely will not be. To name just two, Osvaldo Paya and
Elizardo
Sanchez Santa Cruz are mouthing off as usual, from Cuba, to the
foreign
press. The Cuban government said in the indictments and in the
prosecution's evidence presented in the trial that the people
arrested had
been conspiring with the US government to destabilize Cuba, and that
some of
them had received material contributions from the US government to
enable
them to do so.

There are two reactions to this from people who are complaining: Some
imply
that the Cuban government's case was a lie, but why should they
assume this?
The Cuban government is noted among governments of the world for flat-
out
stating
its views on such matters, with apologies to nobody. Further, we know
from
open, public records in the United States that the United States
government
has been spending tens of millions of dollars of our taxpayer money
to
subsidize dissident activity in Cuba. The US administration has
openly and
repeatedly stated that this money is designed to support those in
Cuba who
are working for "democratization" of the island. That money must
eventually
end up in somebody's hands in Cuba, so why so much difficulty in
believing
that the dissidents who are accused of receiving it, actually
received it?

The second reaction is to say that even if these things were going
on, even
if the right-wing dissidents were receiving this money, there is
nothing
wrong with this and it should not be punished by the Cuban
government. The
fact is that this flies in the face of reality; no government
operates that
way. Cuba has been the target of a 43 year campaign of often
violent
subversion and destabilization by the United States, and the Cuban
government has both the right and the responsibility to defend its
people
against this campaign, which has cost thousands of innocent Cuban
lives over
the years. The US campaign against Cuba needs patsies and traitors
within
the island to succeed, so the Cuban government is more than justified
in
cracking down on these accomplices.

And another dimension of the lack of realism is the idea that only
Cuba does
these things. In fact, the Cuban law is designed to prevent Cuban
citizens
from aiding the vicious 43 year US economic blockade of the island.
It is
specifically illegal for Cubans to connive in that blockade, because
such
activity is seen as harming the national economy and thus, the well-
being of
the Cuban people. Every country has laws that severely punish you
for
activities that harm the economy. We have them in the United States
too:
Laws against price-fixing, against insider trading on the stock
market, and
against certain kinds of international currency transactions. People
have
been jailed for these things, though if you are Ken Lay you get away
with a
slap on the wrist--something that 99% of the American people consider
inadequate. The right wing thinks that the United States should be
allowed
to have such laws and jail people for violating them, but Cuba should
not be
able to prohibit and punish functionally equivalent behavior. This
is
typical of the double standard applied to Cuba.

Now, to the progressives. Some of them take the attitude that the
Cuban
government should allow absolute freedom of speech and association,
and that
(by implication) this should also include the right to engage in
joint
planning with reactionary US diplomats, and the receipt of money and
other
resources from the US as well. They recognize, in some cases, that
the US
has no good intentions toward Cuba, that the dissidents are muddled
at best
and reactionary at worst, that if they ever got in control of the
Cuban
government things would go badly for the Cuban people, but they still
think
that nobody should ever be stopped from doing what they like, here ,
in
Cuba, or anywhere. Their idea of a socialist society, or a humane
society
of the future, requires not only a perfectly harmonious community,
but
absolute individual freedom as well.

This is unrealistic. It posits a platonic ideal of what a human
society
should be like (or, in some cases, what socialism should be like),
then
measures Cuba at the current extremely difficult historical moment
(with
George Bush on the rampage all over the place) against this
artificial
standard, and finds that Cuba comes up wanting. This is a reflection
of
idealistic thinking which characterizes some of the other thought of
some of
these individuals (Chomsky, for example). In several cases, it
reflects
anarcho-libertarian thinking that is not rooted in political reality
(Chomsky again, and Howard Zinn). It fails to understand that the
development of any human society is aspecific, material phenomenon,
and that
all human societies are, and will always be, "works in progress".

What if this had been the attitude of the US government during World
War II?
Would it have been correct to permit US citizens and residents the
absolute
freedom to meet with German and Japanese agents to plot the
undermining of
the US economy--in the name of freedom of speech and association?

In that war, the Roosevelt administration erred when it arrested
Japanese-
Americans merely for being Japanese-Americans. It should, also,
have
submitted accused Axis spies to a normal trial instead of a special
military
tribunal, to avoid punishing the innocent. But when it restricted
the
activities of provable Axis sympathizers, it was not only within its
rights
but was exercising its responsibility to the American people. Japan
had
attacked the United States, and then Germany and Italy had declared
war, so
to allow total freedom to Axis sympathizers in the United States to
meet
with German and Japanese agents would have been utter folly.

And the actions of the United States government toward Cuba are as
close to
a war situation as you can get, without a war actually having broken
out.
The statements of some of the dissidents also make clear that in at
least
those cases, they were working to damage Cuba's trade with the
outside
world, and were being encouraged to do that by the United States.
This is
illegal in Cuba and, in my opinion, should be.

The issue of the death penalty comes up in this context. I am
actively
involved in the anti-death penalty movement in the United States. If
I were
to wake up tomorrow and hear on the morning news that the Cuban
National
People's Power Assembly has decided to abolish the death penalty, it
would
make me very happy. This is not because of pacifist sentiments, for
I am
not a pacifist. Rather, Cuba's abolishing the death penalty would
make it
easier for me and others to fight against the death penalty here and
worldwide. But this is a Cuban decision, that will be made in the
context
of what is happening in Cuba.

Still, I recognize importance of the issue of the death penalty, and
the
right of those who have a principled position on this to express
their
disagreement with its employment in Cuba. But let's have context
here
also.

Cuba may have as many as a few dozen people on death row, in a
population of
11 million (Cuba has many fewer people in jail than the United States
does,
by the way, taking population into consideration). The death
penalty is
only sparingly used. Before these latest executions, it had not been
employed in several years, according to reliable sources. However,
in his
last full calendar year as governor of Texas (2000) , George Bush
signed off
on 40 executions (Texas has about twice as many people as Cuba does).

In the United States, the death penalty is far more frequently used
than in
Cuba, proportional, as always, to the population, and its use is
plagued by
such scandal that last year the Republican governor of Illinois let
more
than 150 people off death row because, as he rightly said, the system
was so
corrupt and biased (against poor and minority people) that there was
no way
of ensuring that the innocent have not already been executed. The
new
(Democratic) attorney general of Illinois has tried to reverse
Governor
Ryan's decision for some of the cases, and put people back on death
row.

And when President Bush is asked about the death penalty, he shakes
his
shoulders and chuckles, just as he does when he is talking about
bombing
Iraq.

Besides philosophical idealism leading to perfectionistic
expectations of
Cuba, some of the "progressives" who have joined in this campaign
reveal a
shocking degree of ignornance both of history and the world around
them.


Even though they have opposed things like the Iraq war, on the
question of
imperialism and its tactics in general, they are like babes in the
woods.
They evidently do not know that the Bush administration has appointed
ultra-rightists to all the Latin America positions in the State
Department,
and that the head man there for Latin America is a far-right Cuban
exile who
has all but sworn to bring about regime change in Havana, by fair
means or
foul.

They do not know that about this time last year, President Bush broke
bread
in a South Florida political visit with people known to have
committed
terrorist acts against Cuba--people who are among the closest
political
associates of the President's brother Jeb. They are not aware that
the US
government has spent tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money
every
year to finance the dissidents in Cuba, even though this is open,
public
information, right in the US budget. They don't know about the
bombings
carried out in Cuba by agents controlled by the Miami exile
organizations.

They haven't heard about the airliner bombing in 1976 which killed 72
innocent Cubans and others, and that the people who did it were all
trained
by the CIA and that the main leader of the attack was pardoned by
George
Bush senior, and ate soup in the same meeting with Bush Junior as
recently
as last year.

Nor do they seem to be aware that agents of this network went to
Panama a
year and a half ago with the purpose of blowing up the University of
Panama
with a bomb while Castro was speaking there, no doubt killing
hundreds of
students in the process had they succeeded. (How is that different
from
9-11, by the way?)

So when they hear that the Cuban government has pounced on a group
of
dissidents for plotting with the US to destabilize Cuba and harm the
Cuban
people, they think it is all a myth.

If they even remember that last year, US Assistant Secretary of
Defense
Bolton started a campaign to claim that Cuba had "weapons of mass
destruction", they are not alarmed by the lie. The fact that the
invasion
of Iraq was justified precisely by lies about such weapons does not
connect
in their minds with Bolton's accusations. If they are aware of all
the
hijacking incidents of the last couple of months, they must think it
is just
a big coincidence, nothing to be alarmed about. Though taking
progressive
positions on other issues, they are all too ready to believe right
wing
propaganda on the Cuba situation.

And why Cuba? There are 192 sovereign, independent states in the
world,
including the Vatican and SMOM. A great many of these have highly
repressive regimes, as well as being characterized by vicious class
and race
inequality. Why would progressive people go through the whole list
of 192,
and pick on Cuba as a focus of their indignation? Here, I think,
you see
the subtle working of the right wing propaganda and brainwashing
machinery,
even on the minds of progressives and some leftists. We are told over
and
over again how bad Cuba is, and some of us internalize that
information in
spite of its lying, reactionary provenience.We should know better,
but not
all of us do. We heard something somewhere about how dissent is
not
tolerated in Cuba, or how there are no elections, or how people are
not
allowed to leave, and we believe it without realizing that it is just
part
of the long term propaganda campaign of lies against the Cuban
Revolution,
and against the Cuban people. As I say, we should know better, but
we're not
perfect either.

No, I am not claiming that the Cuban government never makes a
mistake. All
I know is that Cuba is in the cross-hairs of imperialism right now,
and
anybody who considers themselves progressive should understand that
the
priority should be to defend Cuba against this mounting attack. The
way
certain really or ostensibly progressive people have piled onto Cuba
in the
past week serves the purposes of imperialism, whether they realize it
or
not.