Yes, we all know that spokesmen and women for the far left have been subjected to vicious McCarthyite tactics by the Bush police state and, er, bloggers, because they have dared to dissent bravely from the war on terror. But there are some dissidents the far left is quite happy to see in jail – as long as that jail is in Cuba. Some context: Nat Hentoff has been championing dozens of writers, thinkers and librarians who have been subject to Fidel Castro’s latest bout of chronic communism and now have no freedom at all. Hentoff – about as liberal and as saintly a defender of civil liberties of anyone on the planet – was particularly incensed by the imprisonment of librarians. But the American Library Association won’t protest the incarceration of their Cuban colleagues. Why not? Over to Michael Moore’s fact-checker, Ann Sparanese, who is on the board of the ALA, protesting Hentoff in the Village Voice’s letters page:
Hentoff is mistaken about why the dissidents are in prison. The laws under which they were convicted criminalize collaboration with, or aid to, a foreign power seeking to overthrow the Cuban government. The Law of Protection of the Independence of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba (Law 88) was passed in 1999 in direct reaction to the passage of the Helms-Burton Law by the U.S. Congress in 1996. Helms-Burton tightens the economic embargo against Cuba and appropriates millions of our tax dollars every year for the overthrow of the Cuban government, euphemistically referred to as ‘transition.’
Those arrested were convicted of receiving aid from U.S. agents for the purposes of regime change, not for distributing copies of 1984. Even Amnesty International devotes quite a bit of ink to the role of U.S. policy in creating conditions for the ‘crackdown’ in Cuba.
Off-base: one of Hentoff’s championed dissidents, Victor Arroyo, was jailed on charges of simply having an independent library. But even if Sparanese were right, it’s now legit to jail librarians if they receive aid for their work from a foreign source? Nice to know whom Ms Sparanese would be putting in the slammer come her revolution. And, of course, Castro’s tyranny is actually the fault of … the United States: “Without Helms-Burton, the Cuban laws would lose their rationale and those imprisoned might be freed. Many of us disdain the idea that our cherished professional values should be enlisted in the service of the wrong-headed and provocative foreign policy of our own government.” They learn nothing. Ever.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You write: ‘But while Derb yuks it up about straight people’s abuse of the institution, he still finds inclusion of gay couples an abomination. How does he justify this double-standard?’ Presumably the same way people can yuk it up about TV wrestling but still be concerned at a proposal to recreate the Roman Forum games. Why is it so hard for you to understand that normal people find it neither admirable nor harmless to have a perversion? Lots of people entertain with prostitution, bestiality, sado-masochism, etc. That doesn’t convince many folk to think we ought to honor these amusements or teach them to our children.
Get it straight: homosexual “marriage” makes no more sense than “diets” where you seek nourishment through self-induced vomit. There are plenty of people to think queers are extremely amusing, but who don’t think that amusement is worth marriage. If you want to be queer, privately enjoy your recreation without thinking that the normal people need to be forced to approve.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.
The Dish 