A PROGRESSIVE VIEW OF CASTRO'S RECENT STALINIZATION

First, let's set the mood.

Critics on the left do not question Cuba's right to protect itself from the US monster. Most of the leftist signatories to the protest letters would agree that the United States has all but shredded international law and the UN in its latest criminal capers in Iraq.

But the Cuban government didn't adequately explain its rationale; indeed, it practically shouted at its critical friends and enemies alike with shrillness, as if everyone should understand what no one explained.

In so behaving, it handed its enemies the public relations chance of a decade: Cuba imprisons its dissenters and summarily executes people. As Galeano wrote "freedom and justice march together or they don't march."

Leftist supporters of Cuba's socialist revolution are disturbed and worried about Castro's swift execution of two hijackers and his crackdown on dissidents. Many American leftists hold up Cuba as a successful example of both an economically just society and a defier of US imperialism. I must say that I'm not really sure where I stand. I really want to see it the way the pro-Castro leftists do. It's a very compelling image: the daring young revolutionaries fighting a just war against the evil forces of capitalism, and then growing old while shepherding the continuance of the revolution. I think that Americans like revolutions. We like underdogs, too. If you can get away from the Cold War mindset of communism=bad and capitalism=good, Castro's freedom fighters, as legend, have a very seductive allure. But this Saul Landau essay for Counterpunch comes off, at times, sounding like some of the more moderate mainstream newspaper pundits wringing their hands about Israel's misdeeds against the Palestinians.

I guess both the left and the right have their crosses to carry.

I am sure of two things. First, the ideological construction in the American psychology that is called "Cuba" surely bears little resemblance to the real life nation. I know that decades of Cold War propaganda and right-wing Cuban exile rantings about Castro are the intellectual foundation upon which the tiny island nation is understood by most Americans today. I know that Castro is a human rights abusing dictator, but is he really as bad as Saddam? Because of the right-wing propaganda, because of some of the left's near idolization of Fidel, I'm very skeptical of almost anything I read or hear about Cuba from both the mainstream news media and other sources. It seems that everyone that I hear saying something about Cuba has an agenda. Ultimately, I just don't really know about Castro and his regime.

Second, I am sure that the US has waged a war of terrorism on Cuba since Castro came to power. Noam Chomsky gives some plain talk on America's state-sponsored terrorism and several other issues regarding Cuba here.

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