And yes, Cuba happens to belong among the fortunate states where American intervention has always been (largely) by proxy. (Thanx to Fidel’s fearlessness and Nikita Khrushchev’s blinking.)

What I now think must have been unconscious about my “changing the subject” is a strong sense that the Dalai Lama affair is a greater distraction than Cuba could ever be, from the issues in American in 2008. I mean, can Olympics even be held in Cuba?

On the other hand, my initial comment didn’t even pertain to Cuba. You see, I think of myself as a poet. Doggeral should be short.

It seems they’re very much in line. They (with the exception of perhaps Sean Penn) follow the path of interventionism that has been USA foreign policy…well for at least 100 years or more.

Tibet has been a focus of the mainstream media. Richard Gere is simply one more reason to feature it, but before he ever entered into the fray such was the case.

Clooney with Darfur is pretty much the same. These are mainstream liberals not progressives going against the mainstream grain.

I remember when Jane Fonda jumped into Vietnam. The protesters in this country had reached such a pitch as to make her involvement more like a personal temper tantrum or late adolesent revolt against an over-bearing father than an authentic protester against what had long been shouted as a massive case of American atrocities.

Since none of these celebritiese (with maybe the exception of Sean Penn) read sites like DV you can rest assured that they are far from being “beat up”. In fact, they’re doing quite well, thank you.

As far as the people in Tibet needing our help - that was the case for our invasion and occupation of Iraq (and countless others). That’s the language of empire. The Brits used it to justify a massive imperial empire.

If you think America is the “good” guy that can get rid of the “bad” guy for the sake of the “victim” than you’ve gotten and fully incorporated the empire message. Conflicts need to be understood. Their patterns are fairly universal and the solutions are too. Interventionism is not a solution nor is pooring money and sympathy.

In the end Rich, who in the hell are WE to be telling ANYBODY what they should or should not do when WE are the reason why over a million Iraqis are dead, over 3 million Vietnamese were killed? And that’s not counting Korea, Philipines, Mexico, Puerto Rico, most of Latin America, large parts of Africa, South East Asia, the Balkans….

Rich, I don’t think Gary is implying an either/or. Like so many “Save” projects that the interventionists set us up for Tibet and the history of what’s going on there smells like much of the same… USA/CIA track record is pretty consistent and so if you read some of the posts on this topic you’ll note a disturbing history.

Max

But that concerned the dialog then (and now) being carried on by lefties in America. As if the world didn’t exist prior to 9/11. (The mirror image of what the Bushies claim; no wonder Cheney does stand-up comedy; the joke’s the left.) It was not about presently verboten topics among lefties.

And what more vereboten topic than that little island 90 miles from Florida? I rephrase the questions that got me maligned and ignored six months ago, right here at Dissident Voice: do “dissidents” in America actually believe American commies are all dead, or were all Stalinists? Do they actually think there’s a more representative example of brainwashing than the fifty years of hooey “justifying” the embargo of a country with even less intent or capacity to attack the United States than…than…I’m at a loss for a comparison. Hasn’t the question repeatedly asked by Bill(?) Blum about Iraq sunk in at all as applying to Cuba? Why would they WANT to attack the United States and commit suicide?

Really, folks. It’s hard to conclude anything but that it’s their cowardice and fear that keeps so many lefties in this country silent on Cuba. Fear of Floridian ex-Cubans. Fear of resurgant anti-communism. And that it’s almost a relief among these lefties that the Chipmunk and his minions have provided such a enormous load of evil and idoicy for them to be concerned with, instead of speaking out about Cuba.

Well, bah f—— humbug!

Anyone out there heard of “Fidel Speaks” by Ignacio Ramonet? There’s a review of it in progress, not copyrighted exactly because subject to change, at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AEHALOZC9JRS6/ref=cm_cr_auth/103-3283066-5558260?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Post a comment after it, if you like. I’ll reply.

I can’t recall it exactly and didn’t save it of course. But in it, I suggested you read Corseri’s great praise for Kim Petersen’s review of Leonard Peltier’s Prison Writings here at DV on April 21. And I even suggested that Kim the DV editor and Gary the article author may share a certain….common….anti-Castro-Communist bias. Not conspiratorially but in convergence, as it were. Which bias against self-admitted commies, hp old hand, you may recall I brought up here at DV about six months ago.

Upshot, hp. You are fully justified in being perplexed by my dragging Petersen into the matter. But there is not one word of my first post above cocerning Corseri’s “poem.” To wit, Shit. And my second post. To wit:

“How about “our imperial” relationship — which doesn’t even require “adventurism,” but will if you lights-of -our-times keep ignoring it — with Cuba, Gary?

Or is that skating too close to “Communism” for you?

Or have you simply gone brain-dead on the issue? And on the longest and most inhumane arms-length “treatment” of one country by another in modern history — the embargo?”

GL Rowsey

Or is that skating too close to “Communism” for you?

Or have you simply gone brain-dead on the issue? And on the longest and most inhumane arms-length “treatment” of one country by another in modern history — the embargo?

Actually, I like much of Whitman, and the lines I quoted are among my favorite of his. (I rather dislike his prose piece, “Democratic Vistas,” with its strange hoopla-praise for American expansionism. And I wish he’d taken Emerson’s advice and trimmed a bit of “Leaves of Grass” here and there.) I’ll have to re-read “Passage to India,” as you suggest to see what I might have missed.

I’m using Whitman’s lines here to offset the unthinking, unstinting devotion many followers of the Dalai Lama (and, of course, other religious and political leaders) lavish upon him. I’ve nothing personal against the Dalai Lama–I’ve never met him; I don’t know him personally. On the other hand, deifying him–or any mortal–I find profoundly disturbing. The fact that “celebrities” attach themselves to select causes–freeing Tibet, Darfur, etc.–while ignoring more politically-charged issues like our imperial adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ghettoization of Palestine, our 50,000,000 Americans without healthcare is, for me, the most troubling aspect of the Dalai Lama’s popularity in the U.S. Why must we reduce complex, geopolitical issues to bumper-sticker slogans?

So, when Uncle Walt writes, “Not one bows to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,” I think he’s advising us to take stock of the world as it is now, to develop our own awareness to the point where we recognize the complexities of life, but are able to act upon our best, honed, moral judgments.

The other key line in Whitman above: “not one of them makes me sick discussing their duty to God.” It seems to me that much of “religion” consists of priests, preachers, rabbis, imams and what have you telling us about our “duty to God,” while too few focus our attention on our duty to each other, our Earth, other species, or developing our own intellects to the point where we can confidently question and challenge received doctrines or the edicts of an immoral or amoral military-industrial-academic-media-government complex.

If I’ve hinted at some of this in my little satire, then I’ve succeeded. If not, mea culpa.