Ouch! That's Gotta Leave a Mark
I generally wait until the weekend to peruse and then post on some of the foreign press reports, but I couldn't wait on this opinion piece written by Angel Guerra Cabrera for Mexico's La Jornado. You remember Mexico, don't you? That's the country to the south of us in which hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets to protest a stolen election recently, and filed an eight-hundred-plus page complaint with their election commission. This article isn't about that, however, it's about the US.
The media has been saturated with the second report issued by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, created by the government of Bush II for the purpose of imposing a barbarous colonial and neoliberal regime on the island. In addition to a mysterious secret addendum for "reasons of national security and effective implementation," there is an increase in the slice for their mercenaries in Cuba, but the report says little that is new.
The draconian measures Bush has adopted in his undeclared war against Cuba are such that the only thing he's left out of his plans to overthrow the Revolution is the unaffordable but never quite discarded idea of direct military attack. And it is for the use of force alone that the sinister recommendations of this Commission are made.
...Reading the dense and repetitive text of the report calls attention Washington's animalistic hatred Washington holds for the Venezuelan-Cuban alliance. How it irritates the hierarchs in Washington to see this unprecedented first scent of Latin American unity, inspired by Caracas and Havana!
But there is one constant throughout the document about which it is worth taking note, and it is the brazenness with which the government of the United States presents itself as the paragon of human rights and democracy in the world. Because it is of fundamental importance to crush this myth, in which many people around the world continue to believe. The great majority of humanity is outraged at the tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, at the secret CIA flights conducted with the complicity of European governments, and at the demolition of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, some still hold that these outrages are anomalies of the United States system, doubting that they reveal the very essence of it.
How can a system call itself the champion of liberty when it didn't hesitate to incinerate Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Or when it murdered millions of Vietnamese? How can a regime consider itself respectful of democracy and human rights when, after Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, it was shown that the poor and predominantly African-American population of that city continues to live in conditions not much better than those suffered by the slaves on Southern plantations? Would the ruthless occupation of Palestine by Israel be possible if the Israelis were not counting on the White House's unconditional support? Aren't the U.S. policies of plunder and pillage in Latin America, Africa and Asia tantamount to new and daily consummations of silent Hiroshimas and Nagasakis? Is democracy compatible with the policies of the "free market economy" so relentlessly prescribed to Cuba by the Bush Commission?
The most powerful evidence that these policies are incompatible with democracy is the uprising of entire peoples, like the Argentines, the Bolivians, the Venezuelans and the Ecuadorians, against the criminal social effects of neoliberal policies. The Bush Government, which arose as the result of two scandalous election frauds, lacks the moral authority to even mention the word "democracy." We must proclaim to the four winds: today, democracy - government for the people, such as exists in Cuba - and the triumph of human rights, can only be based on the struggle of the majority against imperialist domination. [Emphasis added]
Sing it, brother!
The media has been saturated with the second report issued by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, created by the government of Bush II for the purpose of imposing a barbarous colonial and neoliberal regime on the island. In addition to a mysterious secret addendum for "reasons of national security and effective implementation," there is an increase in the slice for their mercenaries in Cuba, but the report says little that is new.
The draconian measures Bush has adopted in his undeclared war against Cuba are such that the only thing he's left out of his plans to overthrow the Revolution is the unaffordable but never quite discarded idea of direct military attack. And it is for the use of force alone that the sinister recommendations of this Commission are made.
...Reading the dense and repetitive text of the report calls attention Washington's animalistic hatred Washington holds for the Venezuelan-Cuban alliance. How it irritates the hierarchs in Washington to see this unprecedented first scent of Latin American unity, inspired by Caracas and Havana!
But there is one constant throughout the document about which it is worth taking note, and it is the brazenness with which the government of the United States presents itself as the paragon of human rights and democracy in the world. Because it is of fundamental importance to crush this myth, in which many people around the world continue to believe. The great majority of humanity is outraged at the tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, at the secret CIA flights conducted with the complicity of European governments, and at the demolition of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, some still hold that these outrages are anomalies of the United States system, doubting that they reveal the very essence of it.
How can a system call itself the champion of liberty when it didn't hesitate to incinerate Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Or when it murdered millions of Vietnamese? How can a regime consider itself respectful of democracy and human rights when, after Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, it was shown that the poor and predominantly African-American population of that city continues to live in conditions not much better than those suffered by the slaves on Southern plantations? Would the ruthless occupation of Palestine by Israel be possible if the Israelis were not counting on the White House's unconditional support? Aren't the U.S. policies of plunder and pillage in Latin America, Africa and Asia tantamount to new and daily consummations of silent Hiroshimas and Nagasakis? Is democracy compatible with the policies of the "free market economy" so relentlessly prescribed to Cuba by the Bush Commission?
The most powerful evidence that these policies are incompatible with democracy is the uprising of entire peoples, like the Argentines, the Bolivians, the Venezuelans and the Ecuadorians, against the criminal social effects of neoliberal policies. The Bush Government, which arose as the result of two scandalous election frauds, lacks the moral authority to even mention the word "democracy." We must proclaim to the four winds: today, democracy - government for the people, such as exists in Cuba - and the triumph of human rights, can only be based on the struggle of the majority against imperialist domination. [Emphasis added]
Sing it, brother!
posted by Diane at 4:36 PM
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