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The violent American Revolution was honorable and its fighters stuck to their remarkable new principles of democracy and the rule of law (not men), afterwards.
The violent French Revolution was honorable, at first, but succumbed to violent mob rule.
Russia's violent revolution was honorable, at first--but within a decade descended into new Tsarism with Stalin.
I don't know much about China's (--just that the impoverished peasants had much reason to revolt).
Cuba's violent revolution was honorable, and immediately became a peaceful revolution, despite tremendous on-going threat from the U.S., to this day.
Vietnam's was honorable--a 5,000 year struggle for independence from China, France and finally the U.S. Having pushed the final imperial conquerer out, at tremendous cost, in the 1960s/early 1970s, the revolution became peaceful, but has succumbed to some of the evils of global corporate predation.
Nicaragua's revolution was honorable, and relatively bloodless, until the U.S. got involved, to overturn it; the leader of that revolution has returned to power as the elected president of Nicaragua today.
Many of the armed revolts in Latin America--including Uruguay's and El Salvador's, and others--were honorable efforts to overcome brutal exploitation and heinous repression (often sponsored by the U.S. on behalf of its corporate predators).
Honorable = just cause.
I am a pacifist. I don't believe that any cause justifies killing a human being. But then, I have never experienced my brothers, sisters and friends being 'disappeared,' have never been tortured, have never suffered to the extent that many have suffered, who have chosen violent revolution, and was born at the end of WW II--a beneficiary of those who suffered and died in violent conflict with the Nazis and Japanese imperialists. I understand the nobility of armed conflict in a just cause. I should also say that I am very opposed to the world being an "armed camp," as it is today, with big and small weapons everywhere--so that every conflict (personal, tribal, national) gets militarized--and I hope that we one day see the peaceful world that JFK envisioned in his speech to the UN, in one of his last speeches on earth. My husband, who was a USAF bomber pilot (carrying nukes), pulled off the freeway that day, and broke down in tears, hearing that speech live on the radio. It expressed the deep desire of all just-cause warriors (and others) for a world without war--and a world in which the rightful aspirations of the world's people, to a decent life--food on the table, roof over the head, education, creative work, a bit of pleasure in life, a beautiful and plentiful natural environment, community well-being, a sense of empowerment, and the other things most people want--can be realized through peaceful means.
Until we have such a world, I cannot judge people who violently revolt in a just cause. Many claim a just cause--in fact, virtually all leaders who kill others in great numbers claim to be justified--but I think there is a commonly understood standard, based on facts and reason, by which we can say that Hitler's violence was NOT in a 'just cause'--the one extreme--while that of Fidel Castro or Ho Chi Minh, WAS--the other end (peoples' revolutions, due to brutal oppression).
It also has been made very difficult for U.S. citizens to judge some situations, because of the propaganda of our own government and corpo/fascist media. Cuba is an excellent example. The U.S. was sponsoring torture and mass murder throughout Latin America, and viciously suppressed all democratic efforts to achieve social justice, before, during and after the Cuban revolution. The Castro government, in its earliest years, existed within this context--which did not really begin to improve until recently, with the successful election of leftist governments all over South America (and beginning in Central America). The actions of the Castro government, in protecting the Cuban revolution, in my opinion, are remarkably free of bloodshed, torture, repression and violent purges, such as occurred, for instance, in Stalinist Russia. With the exception of Cuba granting permission to Russia (under Krushchev) to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, Cuba has also not been given to provocation. They have followed their own path, which has been entirely peaceful over most of its history, including the last 30 years or so.
The same is not true of the U.S., which is hardly in a position to judge Cuba, after slaughtering a million people in Iraq to steal their oil, and which is STILL trying to violently overthrow democracy in South America, most recently this September in Bolivia.
Those who accuse Cuba of holding political prisoners, or of torture (when? where?), seem blind to what is going on, on the other end of the island of Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay--a U.S.-created medieval torture dungeon!
How can we trust the accusations of people who are blind to that horror, and never mention it? How can we trust anything they say, or our government says, or our media says, about Cuba, while that horror continues to exist?
The violence of the Cuban revolution was for a just cause--overturning the heinous Bautista regime--and Cuba's government soon after abandoned violence and began to develop medical and literacy programs as their chief method of diplomacy. When Barack Obama was elected, many Latin American governments included, in their congratulatory message to Obama, an appeal to end the embargo on Cuba. It's long past time that we did that, as well as ceasing U.S. efforts to inflict a corpo/fascist agenda throughout the region. There are many honorable warriors in Latin America--Tabare Vasquez is one of them--who, to the people of their countries, are like George Washington or Franklin Roosevelt to us. Some took up arms, at one time. Some used other means. Their cause was justice and fairness. And obviously the people of South America consider them heroes. Chavez in Venezuela. Ortega in Nicaragua. Morales in Bolivia. Castro in Cuba. Vasquez in Uruguay. The FMLN in El Salvador (whose presidential candidate is likely to win early next year). Bishop Lugo in Paraguay. Michele Batchelet in Chile (who was tortured by the fascist regime). And many more. It is virtually impossible (except for the young) to be a leftist and a democrat with a small d in Latin America today and NOT to have been involved in the revolutionary struggle in some way. It's time that THIS revolutionary country--our own--return to its democratic roots, and join forces with those others who seek justice and fairness in our own hemisphere.
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