HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
Feb. 19, 2008 Supplement
Email jacdon@earthlink.net
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PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
PREPARE TO GANG UP ON CUBA
By Jack A. Smith
After almost a half-century of Washington's gratuitous hostility toward socialist Cuba, after an abortive invasion, after over 600 failed attempts to assassinate President Fidel Castro, after decades of a draconian economic embargo, after severe travel restrictions, after an endless barrage of anti-Havana propaganda, after efforts to sabotage Cuba's agricultural crops, after all this and more, it is clear following Fidel's decision to step down from leadership that neither a new Republican nor Democratic administration is willing to simply let Cuba live.
Both ruling parties, judging by statements from their leading candidates for the presidential nomination, remain committed not only to "regime change" in this small island neighbor country that never did the U.S. harm, but to replacing socialism with capitalism, and Cuba's independence with subordination to the Yankee colossus 90 miles to its north.
The Bush Administration has been preparing for years to crush Cuba's socialist system when Fidel leaves the presidency, as though the Cuban government and people have not worked hard for many years to develop a new generation of patriotic leadership and plans of their own for the future. But George W. Bush's imperial legacy will be carried forward by Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Republican hopefuls, and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runners. This was made clear today.
Said McCain: "Cuba's transition to democracy is inevitable; it is a matter of when not if. With the resignation of Fidel Castro, the Cuban people have an opportunity to move forward and continue pushing for the moment that they will truly be free. America can and should help hasten the sparking of freedom in Cuba. The Cuban people have waited long enough."
Said Huckabee: "Until Fidel Castro is dead, there can be no significant movement towards reform in Cuba. Raul Castro has proven that he's as much a tyrant and dictator as his brother, Fidel. Simply providing more power to another dictator does nothing to promote freedom and democracy to the Cuban people."
Said Clinton: "We need a president who will work with countries around the world… to push Cuba now to join the community of nations and become a democracy, and I will certainly do that as president…. I will engage our partners in Latin America and Europe who have a strong stake in seeing a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, and who want very much for the United States to play a constructive role to that end. The United States must pursue an active policy that does everything possible to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and opportunity in Cuba."
Said Obama: "Fidel Castro's stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba…. Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime."
Such dishonest, misleading Cold War rhetoric about democracy is hardly surprising in an election year when all candidates genuflect in the direction of southern Florida where the right-wing Cuban émigré vote can determine the outcome of that state's crucial 27 electoral votes.
None of the candidates provided the slightest indication that they contemplate any serious relaxation of tensions with the Havana government or any diminution of Washington's one-sided propaganda against this egalitarian society of some 12 million people.
All the candidates are hinting about increased intervention to foster what they call "democracy," but which really amounts to putting client regimes back into Havana just like in the old days from 1901 to 1959, until the Cuban people, led by Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement, seized power and booted dictator Fulgencio Batista and his patron, Uncle Sam, out of their island.
It is extraordinary that Cuba has managed to preserve its independence from the U.S. all these years while striving to develop socialism under exceptionally difficult conditions. The country has made great gains, especially in mass education of a high caliber, in a health care system that is the envy of Latin America, in biotechnology, and in environmental leadership. Given time, and a let up in subversion from Washington, the Cuban people and their government are capable of making positive contributions to our world far out of proportion to their size.
Either Clinton or Obama will probably be the next U.S. president. The left will have little influence in this matter — but we can raise the question of Cuban independence and sovereignty to the masses of people throughout the presidential campaign. We can and should show up at election meetings with literature about Cuba and signs saying something like "Hands Off Cuba!" We owe this to the Cuban people, and to ourselves as residents of what the Cubans call for good reason, "the Empire."
Showing posts with label Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clinton. Show all posts
Monday, March 3, 2008
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
Feb. 6, 2008 Supplement
Email jacdon@earthlink.net
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CLINTON, OBAMA, AND
THE POLITICS OF CHANGE
By Jack A. Smith, editor
Democrats who supported centrist candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama in the Tuesday (Feb. 5) primaries are happy today. Both did well, with 845 and 765 delegates respectively, and the final winner may not be known for months.
Most progressives who supported drop-outs John Edwards, who ran as a center-populist, or Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who represents the party’s marginalized center-left, accommodated themselves to reality and backed the two frontrunners. Some still voted for their preferences, whose names remained on the ballot in New York, as a symbolic remembrance that a tiny trace of liberalism survives in FDR’s old party.
Fiercely pro-war perennial hopeful Sen. John McCain seems prepared to gallop to victory in the Republican race for the nomination, a tribute to the party’s desperation after two terms of Bush-Cheney lunacy. Mitt Romney — an opportunist of the center-right who metamorphosed overnight into a hard-line right winger and then criticized McCain for not being conservative enough — came in a distant second.
The GOP’s large faction of Christian Right social-conservatives went for Mike Huckabee in the South but they probably will come around in November. Of course, this being America, all the leading candidates in both ruling parties describe themselves as devoutly religious Christians with well-thumbed prayer books always at the ready.
Five years after the start of the bipartisan war against Iraq, and years since it became apparent that a majority of the American people wanted peace, there were only two certified antiwar candidates in all the primary balloting — Kucinich for the Democrats and Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican. Paul did fairly well for a minor candidate in several states, but his extreme conservatism puts him far beyond the progressive pale.
The hard-fought campaign between Democrats Clinton and Obama, and its reflection in the passionate commitment of many of their supporters, is most interesting because it does not appear to be based upon political positions — which are, in theory, the principal criteria for evaluating candidates.
In the past few days in New York’s Hudson Valley we’ve heard from a few local progressives — opponents of war, corporate greed and poverty — now heaping praise upon one or the other of these candidates, as though Clinton or Obama were about to champion their causes.
Both candidates are virtually identical in their domestic and foreign policies, differing a bit here, a bit there. And a victory for the female candidate or the African American candidate will constitute an historic social breakthrough benefiting the struggles of both women and blacks. So there is no real contest in terms of politics or gender/racial considerations. What’s left to account for the enthusiasm of their liberal backers?
Change! Change? Obama and Clinton have positioned themselves first and foremost as the harbingers of significant change in America. As Obama said last night in Chicago with swelling emotion, “Our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America.” He frequently appeals to youth to “dare to change the system.” Clinton often inspires her audiences by shouting, “Are you ready for change?” and then suggests she is the true agency for social change in this election.
Obviously, the political pollsters and party strategists have told them that the American people are hugely dissatisfied. They are unhappy about the direction the country is taking; about the war, the economy, the growing gap between the great riches of the few and the declining fortunes of the many, about the paucity of good jobs, about poverty, and so on.
Clinton and Obama rarely specify the changes they seek, and when they do they even more rarely articulate a program to implement such a change.
Both candidates say they will end the war in Iraq, but their real program is a gradual, prolonged and partial withdrawal of U.S. troops that will keep the Pentagon engaged in the country for many more years. They both supported the latest appropriations to continue the war through October this year. They will both support the next Defense Dept. budget. They have talked about mitigating poverty, especially after Edwards departed the campaign, but they have put forward no program to accomplish this objective. They have no program for creating good jobs ($17 an hour with benefits), or for reducing disproportionate poverty among African Americans and Latinos.
That’s just the beginning of what they are not going to change. And the notion that either Clinton or Obama will change the “system” prevailing in America and its fundamental policies — including hegemony and war abroad, and catering to wealth and corporations at home at the expense of the working class, lower middle class and poor — is preposterous.
As we said in our Jan. 24 newsletter article “Lesser Evil or Greater Good,” the two Democratic frontrunners are “better than any of their Republican counterparts.” But this is because rightists McCain, Romney and Huckabee repose at the very bottom of the progressive political barometer, not that centrists Clinton and Obama are anywhere near the top.
———————————————————
CHECK IT OUT:
THE COST OF WAR: We urge you to view, then pass on to others, a brief video on the cost of war, produced by the American Friends Service Committee. It is located at http://www.afsc.org/cost/. The same website offers you an opportunity to sign a petition “to defund the war, and refund human needs today.”
CLINTON VS. OBAMA ON HEALTHCARE: The political positions of the two Democratic frontrunners are quite similar, but sometimes there are differences. Each has a health care plan, neither of which single payer universal. But according to Paul Krugman, the liberal columnist for the New York Times, “there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches.” His Feb. 4 column is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html?em&ex=1202274000&en=15e3ef55ea8cce37&ei=5087%0A.
Feb. 6, 2008 Supplement
Email jacdon@earthlink.net
—————————————————————————
CLINTON, OBAMA, AND
THE POLITICS OF CHANGE
By Jack A. Smith, editor
Democrats who supported centrist candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama in the Tuesday (Feb. 5) primaries are happy today. Both did well, with 845 and 765 delegates respectively, and the final winner may not be known for months.
Most progressives who supported drop-outs John Edwards, who ran as a center-populist, or Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who represents the party’s marginalized center-left, accommodated themselves to reality and backed the two frontrunners. Some still voted for their preferences, whose names remained on the ballot in New York, as a symbolic remembrance that a tiny trace of liberalism survives in FDR’s old party.
Fiercely pro-war perennial hopeful Sen. John McCain seems prepared to gallop to victory in the Republican race for the nomination, a tribute to the party’s desperation after two terms of Bush-Cheney lunacy. Mitt Romney — an opportunist of the center-right who metamorphosed overnight into a hard-line right winger and then criticized McCain for not being conservative enough — came in a distant second.
The GOP’s large faction of Christian Right social-conservatives went for Mike Huckabee in the South but they probably will come around in November. Of course, this being America, all the leading candidates in both ruling parties describe themselves as devoutly religious Christians with well-thumbed prayer books always at the ready.
Five years after the start of the bipartisan war against Iraq, and years since it became apparent that a majority of the American people wanted peace, there were only two certified antiwar candidates in all the primary balloting — Kucinich for the Democrats and Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican. Paul did fairly well for a minor candidate in several states, but his extreme conservatism puts him far beyond the progressive pale.
The hard-fought campaign between Democrats Clinton and Obama, and its reflection in the passionate commitment of many of their supporters, is most interesting because it does not appear to be based upon political positions — which are, in theory, the principal criteria for evaluating candidates.
In the past few days in New York’s Hudson Valley we’ve heard from a few local progressives — opponents of war, corporate greed and poverty — now heaping praise upon one or the other of these candidates, as though Clinton or Obama were about to champion their causes.
Both candidates are virtually identical in their domestic and foreign policies, differing a bit here, a bit there. And a victory for the female candidate or the African American candidate will constitute an historic social breakthrough benefiting the struggles of both women and blacks. So there is no real contest in terms of politics or gender/racial considerations. What’s left to account for the enthusiasm of their liberal backers?
Change! Change? Obama and Clinton have positioned themselves first and foremost as the harbingers of significant change in America. As Obama said last night in Chicago with swelling emotion, “Our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America.” He frequently appeals to youth to “dare to change the system.” Clinton often inspires her audiences by shouting, “Are you ready for change?” and then suggests she is the true agency for social change in this election.
Obviously, the political pollsters and party strategists have told them that the American people are hugely dissatisfied. They are unhappy about the direction the country is taking; about the war, the economy, the growing gap between the great riches of the few and the declining fortunes of the many, about the paucity of good jobs, about poverty, and so on.
Clinton and Obama rarely specify the changes they seek, and when they do they even more rarely articulate a program to implement such a change.
Both candidates say they will end the war in Iraq, but their real program is a gradual, prolonged and partial withdrawal of U.S. troops that will keep the Pentagon engaged in the country for many more years. They both supported the latest appropriations to continue the war through October this year. They will both support the next Defense Dept. budget. They have talked about mitigating poverty, especially after Edwards departed the campaign, but they have put forward no program to accomplish this objective. They have no program for creating good jobs ($17 an hour with benefits), or for reducing disproportionate poverty among African Americans and Latinos.
That’s just the beginning of what they are not going to change. And the notion that either Clinton or Obama will change the “system” prevailing in America and its fundamental policies — including hegemony and war abroad, and catering to wealth and corporations at home at the expense of the working class, lower middle class and poor — is preposterous.
As we said in our Jan. 24 newsletter article “Lesser Evil or Greater Good,” the two Democratic frontrunners are “better than any of their Republican counterparts.” But this is because rightists McCain, Romney and Huckabee repose at the very bottom of the progressive political barometer, not that centrists Clinton and Obama are anywhere near the top.
———————————————————
CHECK IT OUT:
THE COST OF WAR: We urge you to view, then pass on to others, a brief video on the cost of war, produced by the American Friends Service Committee. It is located at http://www.afsc.org/cost/. The same website offers you an opportunity to sign a petition “to defund the war, and refund human needs today.”
CLINTON VS. OBAMA ON HEALTHCARE: The political positions of the two Democratic frontrunners are quite similar, but sometimes there are differences. Each has a health care plan, neither of which single payer universal. But according to Paul Krugman, the liberal columnist for the New York Times, “there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches.” His Feb. 4 column is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html?em&ex=1202274000&en=15e3ef55ea8cce37&ei=5087%0A.
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