Nat Hentoff, doyen of free speech columnists, is puzzled by the lack of coverage of Cuba's crackdown on human rights. As he points out, Charles Rangel seems particularly reluctant to aid the pro-democracy campaigners:
Rangel said, "I don't think it helps to be supporting insurgents overthrowing the government." It would be better, Rangel continued, to try "to reach out to the government to see what we can do to help both the government and people of Cuba, not just isolating them by dealing with dissidents."
Gee, what about such insurgents and dissidents as Samuel Adams, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King—and José Martí, the poet and journalist who led the Cuban Revolutionary Party and was killed during his insurgency to liberate Cuba from Spain? Havana's international airport is named for José Martí.
(Hat tip: Neo-Neocon)
Elsewhere, Havana-watcher Babalu Blog supplies a poignant image of the anti-Castro movement. Slate's Jacob Weisberg wonders if America's policy is really on the right path. And Mick Hartley is irked by the clever-dick jesters at the BBC's Have I Got News For You. I gave up on that show after 9/11, around the same time I stopped buying Private Eye. (Remember that "Armageddon outta here.." front page photo of George Bush a few days after the Twin Towers came down?)
Comes the quip from compere Des Lynam (scripted, of course, by the smart young things at the Beeb), "Cuba often has electricity shortages, what with all the electrodes being attached to testicles..." What? Is the Beeb really dropping in a criticism of Cuba here? That's very out of character. "...at Guantanamo Bay". Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Smirks all round, and wild applause from the audience.