Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Today's
Stories
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
Recent
Stories
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Hot Stories
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
August
16, 2003
The
Legacy of Moncada
The Cuban Revolution
50 Years Later
By SAUL LANDAU
The Cuban Revolution has failed, Cuba is a basket
case. Perpetual leader Fidel Castro is sick and suffers from
a power complex. He and his regime will soon collapse. Democracy
and the free market will return to make Cubans happy again.
That was the mainstream media's message
for the 50th anniversary of the attack led by 26 year old Fidel
Castro on Fort Moncada, the army barracks in Santiago de Cuba
on July 26, 1953.
The Economist (August 2, 2003) characterized
Fidel as "bearing an increasing resemblance to a Caribbean
King Lear. Having outlived many of his enemies, he is busy finding
more... Maybe that was because he has little left to celebrate,
except survival."
"Many poorer Cubans got some benefit
from the radical egalitarianism of Mr. Castro's revolution,"
The Economist continues, substituting a snide writing style for
knowledge, "especially from its achievements in health and
education. The infant mortality rate is the lowest in Latin America,
and similar  to that in the United States. Yet such
gains came at a heavy cost, in lost human freedom and in Soviet
subsidies."
Did The Economist forget that Castro's
predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, ran a thoroughly repressive regime?
Indeed, most of Cuban history took place under Spanish authoritarian
rule. Then, after 1898, the United States intervened three times
in Cuba. Periods of freedom were few and characterized by dramatic
political corruption.
Castro should take the blame for selling
out to the dollar "to preserve his regime at the price of
its principles," states The Economist. Indeed, the article
concludes, "the only things that now stand between Mr. Castro's
revolution and mass poverty are remittances from the 1.2m Cubans
who live in the United States, and investors and tourists from
the EU, whose governments he now abhors."
Billions of dollars in remittances also
go monthly into the treasuries of India, Pakistan, Mexico, the
Philippines and countless other nations whose economies face
the devastating after effects of centuries of colonial pillage
and looting. In much of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the IMF-backed,
free-market model that The Economist favors has led to disaster.
In the recently bankrupt Argentina some 70% of the people live
in poverty.
The writers could have praised Castro
for using judo politics to turn the wealth of Cubans who migrated
into cash for Cuba's national bank. Indeed, some of the most
rabid anti-Castroites regularly contribute to his foreign exchange
flow by sending money to their families on the island.
Castro's political version of martial
arts has also meant the exporting of his political enemies -
why didn't Machiavelli think of that? - so that they now cause
trouble in the United States rather than on the island.
Instead of looking at the hard facts
of Cuban-US relations, critics repeat trite mantras about "health
and education gains at the cost of freedom." Worse, The
Economist falls into the predictable rut of comparing Cuba's
economy to that of the United States - the country that had sucked
out Cuban wealth for more than half a century and whose economy
bears little resemblance to that of any third world country.
The Economist's unstated message: "Get
modern, Fidel. Let Cuban workers enjoy a 30 cent an hour wage
working for a foreign multinational company in maquilas, let
the transnational giants eat up your resources and give to the
IMF and World Bank control of your budget! Or you will collapse!"
Such "Havanalogical journalism"
persists. The July drama of Cubans floating in an old Chevy to
get to Florida prompted the Miami Herald to repeat its chant
about desperate Cubans "risking their lives for freedom."
They did not refer to the daily journeys of Mexicans, Haitians,
Dominicans, Chinese and Central Americans who also risk their
lives to enter the United States. Like Cubans, they come here
because they want the better material life they are reminded
of incessantly by global advertising.
Reporters rarely compare Cuba to neighboring
or other third world countries where large percentages of the
population would migrate to the United States - if possible.
With Cuba, reporters often mistake frustration or desire for
migration with imminent regime collapse. In 1992, Pulitzer Prize
winning writer Andres Oppenheimer won himself a place in the
forecasters' hall of fame with his book, Castro's Final Hour.
He continues to pontificate in his Miami Herald columns about
the best way to bring down the Cuban Revolution.
I say the Cuban Revolution was a success.
Note the past tense. From 1959 through the late 1980s, it accomplished
its major goals: sovereignty and independence, equalizing income
and fostering social justice. Thanks to the revolution, Cuba
was transformed from an informal United States colony through
1958, into a proud nation. In the 1970s and 80s, Cuban troops
fought battles in Angola that changed the history of southern
Africa.
How many other island peoples without
major strategic resources have played in the limelight as have
Cuba's? For forty plus years Cuban artists of all genres, athletes,
doctors and scientists became world-renowned. The revolution
took a relatively unhealthy population and made it healthy, a
relatively illiterate people and gave it literacy.
Yes, Cubans paid a price: divided families;
injustices committed in the name of the revolution; abridgement
of civil liberties - albeit this was certainly not new. It did
not allow a free press nor foster competitive politics Those
with material aspirations suffered the frustration of egalitarianism.
The revolution destroyed the old society,
which merited obliteration. The reactionary Catholic Church hierarchy
and the hypocritical upper class left the island, along with
the mafiosos who ran the hotels and casinos, in collaboration
with the Batista government. The revolution replaced the old
society with the state, which would be the instrument to bring
Cuba out of underdevelopment and then, according to Marxist theory,
disappear. But the bureaucracy endured, to the dismay of most
Cubans.
Most of those who left in 1959-60 assumed
that the US Marines would eliminate Castro so they could return
and retake their property, power and privileges. The United States
had, after all, established this pattern with other disobedient
governments in the hemisphere and elsewhere. Just five years
before, the CIA had dispatched the democratically elected government
of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and installed a gang of military
thugs to preserve security, fight communism, whatever. A year
earlier, the Agency had done a similar job in Iran.
In light of the US determination to punish
disobedience, the survival of Cuba's revolution appears miraculous.
In April 1961, the CIA sent 1500 Cuban exiles to invade Cuba
at the Bay of Pigs. It failed. Between 1961-3 alone, the CIA
backed thousands of violent sabotage operations, including dozens
of assassination attempts.
CIA labs devoted countless "creative"
hours to devising murder weapons to dispatch Fidel Castro. In
1968, while I was making a documentary film with him for public
television, Fidel recounted the story - which he also told Frank
Mankiewicz in 1974 -- of a "pernicious poison they had developed,
which would metabolize and show no signs after I died of a mysterious
disease."
Reacting to the US-based counterrevolution,
Cuba built a state security aparatus. Once operational, these
kinds of repressive bureaucracies reproduce. Indeed, we have
seen how an agency like NATO, created in the United States to
combat Soviet aggression during the Cold War, has expanded since
the Soviet demise.
The Cuban revolution does repress those
who disagree. I think this is a serious issue. But this should
not obscure the fact that it has real enemies who have attacked
it violently for forty-four plus years. But to understand it,
one must place it inside its historical context.
By 1959, colonial nations had begun to
revolt against their masters for independence and development,
to right the wrongs of centuries in decades. But unlike most
of the experiments gone sour - Zimbabwe, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan
as some examples - the Cuban revolution has maintained threads
of historical coherence.
In the 1860s and then again in the 1890s,
Cubans tried to gain independence from Spain. Castro picked up
on this historical thread when he led his 26th of July force
against Fort Moncada. Like Jose Marti's charge on horseback into
the Spanish machine guns in 1895, the Moncada assault smacked
of desperation - and conviction.
Those who carried out these acts believed
that a display of dramatic heroism would light fire to the popular
will. Five and a half years after the Moncada assault, Castro's
guerrillas marched triumphantly into Havana.
Fidel will turn 77 this month. The Economist
concedes that "the revolution's past social achievements
still give Mr. Castro a certain aura among people such as members
of the European Parliament, Hollywood film directors and Latin
American students. But like the 1950s American cars and decaying
Spanish-colonial tenements, Mr. Castro has become part of the
island's time warp."
Many diverse audiences get into that
"time warp" when they applaud Castro. He received standing
ovations at the 2002 Monterrey UN Summit on Financing for Development
and at Nestor Kirchner's presidential inauguration this year
in IMF-ravaged Argentina, just as he did in past years in Europe
and New York.
Latin Americans never disobeyed the United
States before the Cuban revolution. And even Castro's ideological
foes acknowledge their debt to him for standing up to Uncle Sam.
The revolution ended in the late 1980s
when the Soviet Union collapsed. Cuba no longer had the resources
to change itself or the world. Tourism and dollarization have
introduced dubious values. A black market thrives. Where is Cuba
going? Where is Peru or Mexico going? Most third world country
without major strategic resources don't possess economic road
maps. Cubans at least have the advantages of institutional equality
and services sorely lacking in most of the third world- thanks
to their Revolution.
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. For more of Landau's writing visit:
www.rprogreso.com.
His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, will be published
in September by Pluto Books. Landau can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for August 9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|