Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

GOALS AND VISIONS
Medicine cites the case of a Swedish water filtration system that Cuba had purchased
[0 produce vaccines, barred because some parts are produced by an
American-owned company, so life-saving vaccines can be denied to bring
"democracy" to the survivors.] 0
The successes in "killing people" and making them suffer are important. In
the real world, Castro's Cuba was a concern not because of a military threat,
human rights abuses, or dictatorship. Rather, for reasons deeply rooted in
American history. In the ] 820s, as the takeover the continent was proceeding
apace, Cuba was regarded by the political and economic leadership as the next
prize to be won. That is "an object of transcendent importance to the commercial
and political interests of our Union," the author of the Monroe
Docnine, John Quincy Adams, advised, agreeing with Jefferson and others
that Spain should keep sovereignty until the British deterrent faded, and Cuba
would fall into US hands by "the laws of political...gravitation," a "ripe fmit"
for harvest, as it did a century ago. By mid-twentieth century, the ripe fruit was
highly valued by US agricultural and gambling interests, among mhers.
Castro's robbery of this US possession was not taken likely. Worse still, there
was a danger of a "domino effect" of development in terms that might be
meaningful [0 suffering people elsewhere-the most successful health services
in Latin America, for example. It was feared that Cuba might be one of those
"rotten apples" that "spoil the barrel," a "virus" that might "infect" others, in
200
the terminology favored by planners, who care nothing about crimes, but a lot
about demonstration effects.
But respectable people do not dwell on such matters or even the elementary
facts about the campaign to restore the ripe fruit to its rightful owner since
1959, including its current phase. Few Americans were exposed to the subversive
material in the October 1994 medical journals, or even the fact that in (he
same month, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an end
to the illegal embargo by a vote of 101 to 2, the US able to rely only on Israel,
now abandoned even by Albania, Romania, and Paraguay, which had briefly
joined Washing[On in its crusade for democracy in earlier years.
The standard s[Ory is that Eastern Europe, liberated at last, can now join
the wealthy societies of the West. Perhaps, bur (hen one wonders why that hadn't
happened during the preceding half millennium, as much of Eastern
Europe steadily declined relative to the West, well into (his century, becoming
its original "Third World." A different prospect that might be imagined is that
the status quo ante will be more or less restored: parts of the Communist
empire that had belonged to the indusnial West- western Poland, the Czech
Republic, some others-will gradually rejoin it, while others reven [0 something
like their earlier status as service areas for the rich indusnial world,
which, of course, did not get that way merely because of its unique vinue. As
Winston Churchill observed in a paper submitted to his Cabinet colleagues in
January 1914,