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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBBC: Cuba harassing dissidents and human rights activists. This looks familiar...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17475434Cuba has intensified its harassment of dissidents and human rights activists, according to Amnesty International.
The campaign group's report says the number of people intimidated and taken into custody has risen sharply over the past two years.
It says there were 2,784 cases of human rights abuses between January and September 2011, which is 710 more than in the whole of the previous year.
Amnesty has also put four Cubans on its list of "prisoners of conscience", defined as people who have been jailed because of their "political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs".
The four include Antonio Michel Lima Cruz and his brother Marcos Maiquel Lima Cruz, who founded online newspaper Cardogna.
Their paper was closed down in 2009 and they were convicted of "insulting symbols of their homeland".
Let me get this straight: The BBC and Amnesty wag their fingers at Cuba for arresting less than 3,000 people, and they're right to call out Cuba as a repressive regime.
Yet here in the U.S., over 6,000 people in the Occupy movement have been harassed, intimidated, arrested, beaten, jailed, denied medical care, slapped with frivolous felony charges, etc. fucking etc.
That's right, folks. We've become worse than fucking Cuba.
FUCK YEAH! MURICA LAND OF FREEDUMB!
RZM
(8,556 posts)Cuba's population is about 3.5 percent of the US population.
So 3,000 political arrests in Cuba would equal about 86,000 Occupy arrests.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)RZM
(8,556 posts)I don't much participate in Occupy threads. I neither support nor oppose it. I certainly understand where the sentiments are coming from, with the hostility to Wall St. and wealth distribution, etc. People know that something is very wrong and Occupy is an expression of that. I do think it's something of a frustrated and ambiguous expression though, hence the criticism that it lacks direction and purpose. I don't think that camping out in parks is really going to change anything, though it does serve to at least put these issues on the map. I think that will be Occupy's legacy . . . they won't be seen as effecting real change, but as people who brought certain structural issues into focus.
As for the arrests. I don't really know. On the one hand, I do respect the rule of law and I believe the authorities have the right to enforce the law. If Occupiers are breaking the law, I'm not going to automatically say they should get to do so just because they are Occupy. But from what I've seen, in some cases law enforcement has used excessive force against the protesters. Part of that is the police behaving badly and part of it is a small but loud group of assholes who use the Occupy crowds as cover for acting out their violent and destructive fantasies, which invite a rougher response. I don't believe that such people are indicative of most Occupiers, but they are there nonetheless.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)and destructive fantasies have been, in my estimation, the very same law enforcement agents, manufacturing excuses to crack down on the movement.
I see Occupy as a response to the inequality inherent in any capitalist system.
I see those inequities exasperated in the USA by the economic royals removal of virtually all restraints on their immoral activities.
If occupy does not effect any real change I see us continuing down the authoritarian path of Germany last century.
I am working as hard as I possibly can to avert that. I hope you will join me in the effort before we meet in the death camps.
RZM
(8,556 posts)I don't discount the possibility that there are law enforcement personnel inflaming the crowds. I'm sure there have been some infiltrators here and there. Maybe even some of them aren't even law enforcement, just private citizens opposed to the movement.
But it also can't be denied that there are some unsavory, violent characters out there. I suspect they make up the bulk of the assholes in question, with a dash of the undercovers/infiltrators. Violent anarchist wannabes are part of the 99 percent and want to change the status quo. That's unfortunately a fit with Occupy, which is open to anybody who falls into those categories.
I understand that most Occupiers don't support them and don't want them there, but that's a chance you take with such a broad and open movement.
I don't believe we are in store for anything like Nazi Germany. Here's a post where I explain why I think this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=420794
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)"We have only two parties, both of which are completely invested in the current system. "
is of particular relevance.
The entire GOP is invested in government of by and for the rich, and their possessions the Corporations.
Much of the Democratic party have bought into serving the self same interests by our campaign finance laws.
Have you seen any effort to outlaw the theft of elections by Black Boxes?
Have you seen any real effort to go to public financing our federal elections?
Your post presupposes the same conditions are necessary for the US to go a authoritarian corporate dominated system as those that lead Germany to.
What about Italy?
I recall it had a fascist government.
Did they have to go through the same steps in response to the same pressures as German?
There is pressure on the US to abandon public education, abandon labor unions and abandon the middle class.
These pressures are coming from the same place as the attempted coup after WWII.
I believe you are whistling past the graveyard and while I hope your estimation of the situation is correct, I fear it is not.
Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)the grain.
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)Do you agree with their assessment on Venezuela.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,AMNESTY,,VEN,4dce152fc,0.html
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)greytdemocrat
(3,299 posts)Cause living here and in Cuba are exactly the same!!!!!
OPOS
(73 posts)There is a difference between being arrested and 6 hours later released and never being tried as charges get dropped and being arrested, imprisoned and getting serious jail time like in Cuba for speaking out against Fido and the regime.