Check for web archive captures
Mnnnnn.....Wondering, Venting, Facing Frustration
By lindamuralidharan on 2014-12-27 00:03:28
I don't have any profound subject coming to mind to write about this week. Also, after many decades of having the various
media types give us year end lists and year end reviews, I am somewhat resistant to that sort of thing. I kind of avert my
eyes when I see another spate of same coming. I am here offering semi-random thoughts on issues to express some views I
think even the most "liberal" of outlets often underplay or ignore. Cuba? Why is there such a debate about whether opening
up diplomatic relations and perhaps even lifting the embargo will or won't promote more democracy in the internal affairs of
Cuba which is still under apparently stable authoritarian rule as it has been for lo! these many years? Sometimes more open
contact with freer places gradually gives populations the impetus to move authoritarian regimes toward more openness and
even democratic reforms. That will be very nice if it happens in Cuba in the foreseeable future. It is certainly not
guarai teed. co id>"attachment_6519" align="alignright" width="400"]
mer
Cuban music represented in a mural[/caption] [caption
Cuban doctors first on the scene in
Haiti[/caption] It is not the most salient reason for our new approach. The real reason this is good is that it moves the United
States steps closer to being fair minded and honest and realistic. I don't believe in a so-called democracy that is based on
fantasy and/or propaganda. We don't have the right to decide for another people what form of economy they have or even
what form of government they have. I do believe in international pressure via international groups such as the UN to
increase freedoms everywhere...inside any country. Appropriately, for example, some domestic and international groups are
calling the US to task for such behaviors as torture, running Guantanamo Bay prison, and even to some extent the degree to
which we use solitary confinement in our various prisons. Cuba is not and never has been a threat to the US. Matters were
extremely complicated when the Soviet Union and the US played their game of chicken over Soviet missiles in Cuba...with
Cuba, I suppose, more or a less a pawn in the game. In any event, President Kennedy and the Soviet leadership realized
disaster could be prevented by better communication, and the matter was pretty well settled way back then. Of course what
wasn't settled was the conflation of socialism as a form of economic organization vs. democracy. Marxist/Leninist
socialism...what we usually refer to as Communism... exercised in practice a combination socialism and dictatorship
(euphemistically referred to as "dictatorship of the proletariat" by some in their camp). However, socialism, per se, can exist
under many forms of government and can exist in unison with capitalism (sometimes called a "mixed" economy) and does
in such places as India, the US, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, China, and etc. [caption id="attachment_6521"
align="alignright" width="600"]
Cuban musicians[/caption]
Thus trying to punish Cuba for being Communist makes no rational sense. Punishing them for not being democratic does
not make sense either for several reasons, one of which is that it doesn't work as an effective strategy. Also, it is important
to note two more facts. One, there are places in the world where "Communism" basically preaches socialism while using
democratic means to achieve its goals. India has had a lot of peaceful Communist elections...sometimes the Communists
win, sometimes they lose, as is the case with many political parties in many parts of the world. Also recent history shows
Communist parties standing for elections in places like Italy and France. Both socialism and Communism can mean
different things to different people and be espoused or implemented in differing degrees and forms under the same names.
The second point in regard to governmental systems and Cuba is that the somewhat beleaguered working class
there...lacking many of the comforts and luxuries common to the majority of Americans ...are still better off than the many
"plantation" style laborers under the pre Castro dictators so beloved of the US governments over the years. Finally, let us
look at how we treat other governments that oppress their people. China? We have fortunately had diplomatic relations
with them since Nixon. China has changed since then and more people there are prosperous and enjoying certain kinds of
freedoms, but they do not have a democracy as we understand the term and religions and opposition ideas are suppressed
and sometimes severely punished. Egypt. Need I say more? It has been guilty of oppressing one or another segment of its
population for decades and does not function as a democracy (only did so for half a minute there a little while back); the
government is militaristic and capable of killing hundreds of its citizens when threatened. We not only recognize them, we
give them money. Saudi Arabia. Vietnam (not the worst dictatorship in the world but still not a democracy). One could gag
on our level of hypocrisy.....often expressed by left and right leaning politicians alike. The Soviet Union was never an actual
threat to the US. Mostly Churchill and then really Stalin and US Presidents just engaged in wretched mutual paranoia and
military buildups that constituted vicious cycles. Again we can say that to some extent Cuba has been a pawn of that and
our decades old policies a relic of the discredited Cold War. As to violence in America, there is a pattern of discriminatory
practice of harassment and excessive police brutality towards people of color in the US, especially towards black
Americans. A wonderful new movement has arisen that says the whole country needs to confront this, change our local and
national practices and even go further in discussing and beginning to heal wounds and misunderstandings among black
Americans and other US citizens. Demonstrations in public that have been somewhere between 80 and 95% peaceful,
sometimes are described in the media as "Violent" or as "riots".
Now, since the latest gun
killing horrors (following on Pennsylvania state police being shot and a family of six in Pennsylvania being shot, and so
forth) with two men in police uniforms being shot dead in New York, too many media outlets are talking about "anti-police"
protestors. The vast majority and the movement itself that has arisen since Ferguson are not anti-police. They are "anti
police brutality". It is clearly understood that in any given police force in the country there may be almost no excessive use
of force, that in some places it will only be about 5% of officers who do anything wrong (only takes one car to kill your
child, only takes one officer with a gun to kill an unarmed man or woman), and in some places the pervasive culture of
machismo combined with racial bias will turn even some potentially decent police officers into time bombs waiting to go
off. There is no one size fits all in terms of diagnosis or in terms of treatment of the disease, and the vast majority of
demonstrators...white and black..know that and are being helped by some very wise leadership to operate on those
principles. Also, many people in both left and right wing media keep quoting from Ismaaiyl Brinsley's pre-murder/suicide
Internet postings. It is said that said he made both anti-government and anti-police postings but the emphasis comes out on
the anti-police side. There are many right wing types who preach various versions of anti-government rhetoric. Yet so
many politicians and people with some kind of public platform are saying that the demonstrators for black justice and the
mayor of New York (who has supported them) are to blame for Brinsley's acts. No mention of the angry, sometimes
violence threatening talk on the right being to blame. No mention of the dreadful threats and insults directed towards
peaceful protestors and against women (such as the ones who advocate against sexism in the world of video gaming) but we
hear about the threats to the life of Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. We now know that the man who shot the Brooklyn
police officers was known to be dangerous in general, was frequently in trouble with the law and was incarcerated when he
needed mental health treatment more than he needed punishment. Of course, this reminds us how Often people actually are
put in jail or prison for lack of adequate mental health treatment or diagnosis. Our jails are our default mental health
institutions. [caption id="attachment_6523" align="alignleft" width="570"]
ua ores Multi-ethnic peaceful protests for
justice[/caption] Are so many of my fellow citizens not capable of complexity and only see things in black and white (a
terrible metaphor for which I cannot think of a substitute) or are certain leaders and media folks wanting to mislead and
misstate for reasons of their own? Frequently disturbed people target a public figure such as the President of the United
States or a famous entertainer when their deranged, delusional thinking needs to have a focus for their angers and paranoias
which they do not know how otherwise to manage. Were the fans of John Lennon to blame for his shooting death because
they all were responsible for his being famous and thus on the radar of Mark David Chapman? Finally, on a another subject,
I admit to being hoodwinked for a while myself. It was easy for me to just figure the movie about assassinating a sitting
head of state was in poor taste. And none of my business to question what other people want to see. And then a scholar of
North Korea reminded her audience...including me...that we have been largely to blame for North Korea going into
overdrive as a vicious, isolationist state. Again, we could not bear to let the people of Korea figure out whether or not they
wanted to live with Communism. Therefore we fought an unnecessary war and sided with a murderous dictator in South
Korea who ruled for a long time before any Koreans could get a taste of democracy. She reminded me that there are people
out there who really do want to influence national policy in the direction of "taking out" North Korean leaders, and that at
least one of these folks helped advise Sony in the production of the controversial film. It was also pointed out that powerful
forces in our government want the profits and the power of having the US keep building up its Asian area military presence,
and having Korea as a scapegoat helps sell this policy. I also suddenly remembered when the previous North Korean leader
(Kim Jong-IIl) wanted a form of detente with the West and his only requirement was that some of the negotiations include a
face to face between himself and the president. G.W. Bush refused. [caption id="attachment_6524" align="alignright"
width="190"] Kim Jong-IL[/caption] There are very thorny questions involved in all the above
issues. It is wise to address such issues with as much clarity...and honesty....as possible even when a good approximation of
the truth makes us terribly uncomfortable.
