Conghaileach
11th July 2002, 08:25
Many people ask about conditions in Cuban jails. I do not emphasize
Cuban jails much in my analysis, comparison and evaluation of world
societies.
Part of this stems from my deeply pragmatic nature. We are faced
with amounts of information to evaluate which have squared and cubed
in quantity since the proliferation of new information sources such
as the Web, emails, and satellite TV. I therefore rely more on
heuristics, or rules of thumb, to take a broad view on how well a
particular country is doing to advance the causes of humanity.
For example, as a deeply practical man, I focus on dead bodies when
evaluating a country. Are death squads running rampant slaughtering
women and children as they do in Colombia and Chiapas and Indonesia
and Nigeria? What about dead babies? Are infant mortality rates
bloated as the morgues of a country such as Haiti and Bangladesh and
Botswana and Malawi struggle to bury their young? I think dead
babies suck, and I focus on dead babies and dead women and children
from death squads. This is an approach informed in practicality.
In Cuba, there are no death squads that kill children at night, en
masse, like the vigilantes in Rio de Janiero or Nairobi attacking
children forced into a meaningless life of sniffing glue by
governments handpicked by the IMF and its corporate stooges.
On my scale of evaluations, I view political prisoners as less
troublesome than dead bodies, all other things being equal. Dead
people have no human rights.
Dead people have no human rights. This is the cornerstone of my
pragmatic philosophy.
But what of the prison conditions themselves? Many Cuban jails allow
conjugal visits as a fundamental right. This seems humane and is
quite rare in the United States. Additionally, I regard homosexual
rape as a violation of human rights.
No person denies that homosexual rape is not RAMPANT in the US prison
system. This is not good. So I think the ubiquitous nature of
homosexual rapes, occurring by the scores monthly if not weekly,
undermines our moral credibility in this area enormously.
We are discussing a rise in the amount of "political prisoners"
alleged to be in Cuban jails from 210 to 230. First, the total
number seems small when I know that countries such as Egypt have at
least 20,000 people classified as such. Algeria has at least 25,000
political prisoners, and the numbers are huge in Turkey and Saudi
Arabia as well. And surely there are more than a few Palestinians in
Israeli jails who would be most interested in learning what crime
they are charged with.
And what are the "political" crimes these Cuban are charged with?
Advocating violent overthrow of the Cuban government in a large
number of the cases, based on what I have read.
Advocating armed overthrow of ANY government is sure to increase your
chances of imprisonment. Look at the IRA in England. Look at the
large numbers of Puerto Ricans rotting away in New York jails for
advocating violent approaches to Puerto Rican statehood during the
1970s.
In summary, I focus on the pragmatic. I focus on the body counts.
Dead people have no human rights.
100,000 dead within the last 10 years in Algeria because the IMF
insisted on canceling free elections which Islamists were slated to
win. That's a great big pile of dead bodies, that piled up real
quick. All they wanted was a chance to vote. Look it up on the BBC
web site.
50,000 dead civilians in Chechnya over the last 12 years according to
the United Nations. If you laid these bodies end to end in the
Sahara, they would surely stink. This troubles me.
15,000 Dead Kurdish civilians in Turkey in the last 20 years. And
Turkey wants to join the European Union?
400,000 dead Indonesians in the coup that ousted Sukarno and put in
Suharto, the IMF kingpin during the 1970s.
1 million dead bodies in Cambodia, from the anti-Communist Khmer
Rouge which, in Jeanne Kirkpatrick's words, makes them "morally
ambiguous."
To paraphrase the slogan which brought Bill Clinton the White House:
"It's the bodies, stupid. It's the bodies."
Matthew Dubuque
Note: Have you not forgotten to include the USA 2 million jailed now
with a history of brutal abuse while they are used as cheap workers for
US corporations?
Cuban jails much in my analysis, comparison and evaluation of world
societies.
Part of this stems from my deeply pragmatic nature. We are faced
with amounts of information to evaluate which have squared and cubed
in quantity since the proliferation of new information sources such
as the Web, emails, and satellite TV. I therefore rely more on
heuristics, or rules of thumb, to take a broad view on how well a
particular country is doing to advance the causes of humanity.
For example, as a deeply practical man, I focus on dead bodies when
evaluating a country. Are death squads running rampant slaughtering
women and children as they do in Colombia and Chiapas and Indonesia
and Nigeria? What about dead babies? Are infant mortality rates
bloated as the morgues of a country such as Haiti and Bangladesh and
Botswana and Malawi struggle to bury their young? I think dead
babies suck, and I focus on dead babies and dead women and children
from death squads. This is an approach informed in practicality.
In Cuba, there are no death squads that kill children at night, en
masse, like the vigilantes in Rio de Janiero or Nairobi attacking
children forced into a meaningless life of sniffing glue by
governments handpicked by the IMF and its corporate stooges.
On my scale of evaluations, I view political prisoners as less
troublesome than dead bodies, all other things being equal. Dead
people have no human rights.
Dead people have no human rights. This is the cornerstone of my
pragmatic philosophy.
But what of the prison conditions themselves? Many Cuban jails allow
conjugal visits as a fundamental right. This seems humane and is
quite rare in the United States. Additionally, I regard homosexual
rape as a violation of human rights.
No person denies that homosexual rape is not RAMPANT in the US prison
system. This is not good. So I think the ubiquitous nature of
homosexual rapes, occurring by the scores monthly if not weekly,
undermines our moral credibility in this area enormously.
We are discussing a rise in the amount of "political prisoners"
alleged to be in Cuban jails from 210 to 230. First, the total
number seems small when I know that countries such as Egypt have at
least 20,000 people classified as such. Algeria has at least 25,000
political prisoners, and the numbers are huge in Turkey and Saudi
Arabia as well. And surely there are more than a few Palestinians in
Israeli jails who would be most interested in learning what crime
they are charged with.
And what are the "political" crimes these Cuban are charged with?
Advocating violent overthrow of the Cuban government in a large
number of the cases, based on what I have read.
Advocating armed overthrow of ANY government is sure to increase your
chances of imprisonment. Look at the IRA in England. Look at the
large numbers of Puerto Ricans rotting away in New York jails for
advocating violent approaches to Puerto Rican statehood during the
1970s.
In summary, I focus on the pragmatic. I focus on the body counts.
Dead people have no human rights.
100,000 dead within the last 10 years in Algeria because the IMF
insisted on canceling free elections which Islamists were slated to
win. That's a great big pile of dead bodies, that piled up real
quick. All they wanted was a chance to vote. Look it up on the BBC
web site.
50,000 dead civilians in Chechnya over the last 12 years according to
the United Nations. If you laid these bodies end to end in the
Sahara, they would surely stink. This troubles me.
15,000 Dead Kurdish civilians in Turkey in the last 20 years. And
Turkey wants to join the European Union?
400,000 dead Indonesians in the coup that ousted Sukarno and put in
Suharto, the IMF kingpin during the 1970s.
1 million dead bodies in Cambodia, from the anti-Communist Khmer
Rouge which, in Jeanne Kirkpatrick's words, makes them "morally
ambiguous."
To paraphrase the slogan which brought Bill Clinton the White House:
"It's the bodies, stupid. It's the bodies."
Matthew Dubuque
Note: Have you not forgotten to include the USA 2 million jailed now
with a history of brutal abuse while they are used as cheap workers for
US corporations?