and more. It ain't just Cuba. Why do you think the Cuban revolution occurred? It was the heinous Batista regime, fully supported by the U.S., that inspired armed revolution there. And now, although other South American countries have taken a different path--political democracy--toward social justice, Cuba remains an inspiration with regard to ECONOMIC democracy, has exported its best programs--medical care and literacy programs--to many South American countries, has the lowest infant morality rate and one of the highest literacy rates in the world, and has become a tourist destination of choice for many foreign tourists, because that beautiful island has remained unspoiled by the horrors of development and corporate profiteering that we see in Miami and Hawaii.
"Dangerous naivete," my ass. What is dangerous to our interests, as a people, is our government's failure to recognize and support the aspirations of the vast poor population of Latin America to fair, democratic governance and social justice, and our support for global corporate predators in horrible exploitation of Latin America and the installation of horrible fascist governments, which continues to this day in Bushite plotting AGAINST democratic, leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, and their arm-twisting, kneecapping, "divide and conquer" tactics against all the new leftist governments, including Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua (and their probable interference in the Mexican election in 2006, which resulted in the leftist losing by a hairsbreadth margin).
You want to know what the Bushites are up to, still. Read Donald Rumsfeld...
"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.htmlHe is planning Oil War II: South America--economic warfare against Venezuela and other countries, with the U.S. acting "swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America (fascist thugs planning coups).
The consequence of these policies has been good for South America, actually, and bad for us. The South Americans are in total rebellion against U.S./fascist/corporate domination. And they are creating alliances and new regional institutions, such as the Bank of the South, and the ALBA and Mercosur trade groups, that are driving our global corporate predators, including the World Bank (and Exxon Mobil, Bechtel, et al) out of the region. They are even talking about creating an OAS without the U.S. as a member, and a South American "common market" and common currency (to get off the U.S. dollar). They are in rebellion, also, against the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs." The new president of Ecuador has promised to throw the U.S. military base out of his country this year, when its lease comes up for renewal. It is used for the "war on drugs" and other nefarious purposes. (He said that he will permit U.S. boots on the ground in Ecuador when the U.S. permits Ecuador to have a military base in Miami!). (Rafael Correa--a funny guy, but steely-spined like Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and the Kirchners in Argentina.)
The issue in South America is SOCIAL JUSTICE--the foundation of prosperity! Education for the poor majority; medical care; infrastructure development; jobs, small business loans; manufacturing capability; land reform; use of local resources to benefit local people. And we are going to be cut out of the new prosperity that these leftist democracies are creating in South America--cut out as cooperators, cut out as partners, cut out as traders and business people, and cut out morally, politically and in every other way--by our government's insane hostility to Cuba, and continued support of FASCIST PLOTTERS and corporate thugs like Exxon Mobile throughout the region.
The people of South America have chosen a peaceful path to the revolution--democracy. Real democracy--not this pathetic tatter of democracy brought to us, here, by corporate news monopolies and corporate-controlled voting machines.
One fact sums it all up: In Venezuela, they use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are counted--and they handcount a whopping FIFTY-FIVE percent of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. Here, we have electronic voting run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually NO audit/recount controls. Many states have NO handcount as a check on machine fraud, and even the best states do only a 1% audit. A 55% audit vs. a ZERO to 1% audit. You tell me who has the better democracy. And Donald Rumsfeld dares to call the man who has been repeatedly elected in highly transparent, and also highly monitored, elections in Venezuela, a "tyrant." A man who has a 70% approval rating, after ten years in office--compared to our president, who has a 19% approval rating, after eight years of war, torture, death and massive theft of our treasury.
Our government's--and our political establishment's--failure to recognize what is really going on in South America--is going to do us in, more than their godawful crimes in the Middle East, more than their infamous support of the Saudi dictators, and the Pakistani dictator, more than their alienation of our European allies, more than anything else they have done. They have DIVIDED the Western Hemisphere, and pitted the vast poor population of DEMOCRATS with a small d, in the southern portion, from their natural allies, we, the people of North America--the majority, the poor, the working class and the middle classes--who ALSO seek democracy with a small d. Fairness, upward mobility, majority rule, and lawful, fair and just government, which champions us against the corporate predators who would rob and enslave us. The South Americans have "gotten" it. They know what's what. They are decades ahead of us in achieving critically needed reform of predatory capitalism. And we are going to be left in the dust, as their reforms and new alliances begin to produce results.
Cuba's economic democracy without political democracy is not a system that most of us would choose. It is not a system that the rest of South America has chosen. But we do need to understand why it is admired throughout South America--admired for what it is, a successful experiment in social justice. Cuba weathered the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had subsidizing Cuba. Cubans faced it bravely, tightened their belts, and doubled their efforts to create a non-subsidized economy. They succeeded--which has to be one of the economic miracles of the last hundred years. Cubans are not rich, but neither have they been devastated, with vast populations of displaced peasants crammed into shantytowns in urban areas, like other Latin American countries, stripped of their sovereignty, their resources and prosperity by "neo-liberalism" (Clinton/Bush "free trade" and World Bank/IMF policy). So, to South Americans, Cuba is an ikon of social justice. And Castro, as the grandfather of that success, is revered. They don't want to imitate Cuba. They just admire it as an effort in the right direction--and one that occurred in spite of every effort of the U.S. government to undermine and topple it.
We need to understand this. We are a divided hemisphere, in which the bulk of the people, living in the south, admire Cuba, and in which our delusional government and media promote the nutso, anti-communist ideology of the 1950s, that regards the Cuban revolution as evil. And, guess what? The fascist meat-heads are building A WALL on our border, to concretize this divide!
Well, let's hope that we still have enough of a democracy to elect a SANE MAN to the White House, who can begin deconstructing that wall, literally and metaphorically. And TALKING TO our NON-enemies in Cuba...and Venezuela, and Bolivia, and Ecuador, and Argentina, and Brazil, and Chile, and Uruguay, and Nicaragua--all the new leftist majority governments--and to the leaders of the still-repressed leftist majorities in central America, would be a good place to start. For one thing, THEY have the oil!
Do we want a war over it? Or, do we want to be fair and just--and act creatively to help us ALL convert to a "green" economy?
The Cuban people are NOT our "enemy." But Donald Rumsfeld IS. He would have us kill for oil. Is that who we are? Is that what we want?