On 11/5/06, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Nov 5, 2006, at 10:34 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> AI is not an imperialist front, but it is not socialist or even
> anti-imperialist either. AI's view of governments and movements
> defended by a number of leftists is quite different from theirs:
> <http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/cuba/reports.do>.
Fine; I'm not an apologist for any regime. I wish Cuba didn't
imprison dissidents; I also wish it didn't have the US 90 miles
offshore breathing down its neck.
Amnesty reports that Cuba has 72 "prisoners of conscience."
And Cuba probably has the best record on civil liberties among
formerly and still actually existing socialist societies. Socialism
has not had a good record on civil liberties (to put it very mildly!),
and those who long for civil liberties today are unlikely to dream of
living under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Civil liberties are very difficult to defend, generally speaking. In
almost any society, including the USA, it's near or at the bottom of
people's concerns (usually topped by economy), if civil liberties get
on people's consciousness at all.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
