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June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
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Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
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Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
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Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
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Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
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"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
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Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
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Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
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Long Live People's Park!
Michael
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Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
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After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
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Watch
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June
3, 2003
The Big Business Behind
Regime Change
The Politics
of Cuba Policy
By TOM CRUMPACKER
In his May 20 message to Cubans this year our
president made no specific reference to any further steps being
considered to bring about a "transition to democracy"
(code word for unregulated capitalism), the legally required
US policy towards Cuba. There have been bills pending in Congress
for at least ten years to end the US blockade of Cuba or various
segments of it, and there have been a substantial majorities
in both House and Senate favoring these bills for at least five
years. Each year the Administration must ask for enforcement
funding. In the past three years both bodies have refused to
fund the unconstitutional travel restrictions (hence there are
no judges to enforce them) and some other aspects of the blockade.
The only time a vote was allowed on the merits, public pressure
in the fall of the election year 2000 had forced party leaders
to permit voting on a bill allowing the sale of medicine and
nutritional food to Cuba. This passed by substantial margins
in both chambers, only to be worse than emasculated by the party
leaders in conference (they appointed as conferees members who
opposed it). Financing was prohibited for the food and medicine,
and as a kicker the unconstitutional travel restrictions, heretofore
administrative regs only, were codified -- although they were
never part of the bills which had been passed. Rep. Mark Sanford,
R., SC said his leadership had "behaved shamefully,"
and Sen. Max Baucus, D., MT called the maneuver "a travesty
of our democracy."
Our Constitution provides that the responsibility
for foreign affairs resides in the Executive rather Legislative
Department. The reasons are obvious -- relationships with other
nations are not legislative matters, and Congress is not set
up to deal with them. Foreign policy must be flexible, subject
to change for good reason within reasonable time periods, based
on expertise of officials who have contact with and knowledge
of what is happening in the other nation. Even a century ago
when it was still somewhat functional, our Congress would never
have considered involving itself in the details of a relationship
with another country. This is the purpose and business of our
State Department.
In trying to change the regime in Cuba,
our Executive bureaucracies such as NED, CIA, State Department
(including its AID) and others are simply enforcing detailed
Cuba laws passed by Congress in the 1990s, such as the Toricelli
and Helms-Burton Acts. The primary political event that has effected
US Cuba policy in the last 20 years has been the transfer of
the responsibility for Cuba affairs by default (at the apparent
desire of our last four presidents) from our State Department
to our Congress. This is the only time in US history this has
happened. Normally our Executive bureaucracies can be counted
on to protect and save their turf.
The primary factors which motivate our
Congresspersons are personal -- retaining their offices, which
bring them wealth and power. They therefore respond primarily
to the businesses and other powerful lobbies which fund their
campaigns. Our Congress functions slowly if at all -- it takes
years to resolve most issues, and many are never resolved. What
and when issues are voted on are determined by a few powerful
men called "party leaders." Seats become secure when
public positions on controversial issues are avoided. Most are
elected in uncontested or not seriously contested elections,
with about 35-40% of the eligible electorate voting. Pursuing
primarily private rather than public interests, our Congress
has become oligarchic rather than democratic. It has become apparent
to everyone, including the Cuban government, that the Cuba blockade
will never fairly be voted on in Congress, therefore change within
the present US political system is impossible.
The key to our present Cuba policy can
be deduced from our president's answer a couple of years ago
to a question why his Cuba policy differs so radically from his
China policy. He said it was because there exists in China a
strong "entrepreneurial" class. In other words before
we change anything, there needs to be a class society in Cuba
based on big business, wealth and power, led by elite's who run
things through the media and politicians, as in the US. This
is why former Secretary of State William Rogers is saying we
must rely on the Miami "exiles" to return Cuba to teach
Cubans how to become good capitalists. This is why seminars are
being held in South Florida for Cuban businessmen -- to help
them run things in Cuba without making the mistakes that were
made in Eastern Europe. This is why AID, CIA, NED and other government
agencies have been funneling money and property to Cuban American
"free Cuba" groups, and thence to Cuban "dissenters"
(code word for counterrevolutionary mercenaries) directly and
through our Interest Section in Havana. This is why not only
hard-line Cuban emigres, but also members of our Administration
and our Florida governor, are now openly talking about regime
change.
The Miami hard-liners can be counted
on to do everything they can to destabilize and overthrow the
Cuban people's government, but they lack national power. The
real power behind present policy rests with people on Wall Street
and in Washington. What we are now seeing is the Cuban American
community being used as the "fall guy" for an unpopular
policy. For example, when Republican House majority leader Dick
Armey retired last year was asked for his biggest regret in office,
he said it was promoting the Cuba blockade which he had really
wanted to end but didn't permit votes on because of his friendship
with the two Miami Cuban American Congresspersons. According
to recent polls, the majority of Cuban Americans want the blockade
ended.
The Cuban government seems to be the
only one in the world that is standing up publicly against the
US drive for world commercial empire based on its neo-liberal
ideology. Although many Third World governments apparently agree,
they are presently unwilling to risk capital disinvestment in
their countries. Cuba is not particularly rich in natural resources,
but it has twelve million potential consumers of our products
and the survival of its revolution presents a major danger, ideologically,
to world commercial oligarchy based on US hegemony. Those of
us who desire real democracy should not be encouraged by the
lack of specifics in our president's May 20 comments. Indeed,
the future of the Cuban revolution looks more ominous than ever
now in view of the intensity of the present US propaganda campaign,
which seems eerily similar to what started last August regarding
Iraq. So long as the Cuban revolution survives there will remain
hope for democracy here and around the world. In this sense,
Jose Marti's saying over a century ago seems prescient: "Cuba,
al salvarse, salva."
Tom Crumpacker
is with the Miami Coalition to End the US Embargo of Cuba. He
can be reached at: Crump8@aol.com
Today's
Features
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
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