Fair Play for Cuba
My previous post describes the surprising (in my opinion) adoption of Permaculture in Cuba. It’s exciting good news for everyone, no question. BBC reports Four Dissidents Freed by Havana today. [BBC Update: Castro Steps Down…]. [Another BBC Update: Dissident Condemns Cuban Prisons (Big surprise)]. A while back, they quoted one of 75 dissidents jailed for long sentences (a poet who still has not been released, looking at today’s list) saying, “Fear Is Everywhere“. Michael Moore couldn’t help including Cuba as a model for national health care in his movie Sicko, even though he might have served his cause better by stopping with Great Britain, France and Canada.
Here’s a more critical look at Cuba from Bob Wallace at the libertarian site Strike The Root, reviewing Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant.
With all that said, I was thinking of another libertarian talking point. Incarceration rates. Because of the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and the War on Blacks (oops, that’s not supposed to be public) the U.S. jails 750 out of 100,000 population, giving it the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. More than Cuba, Russia, South Africa, Red China or any other country. Yeah! U. S. A. Number 1 !!! Oh wait, that sucks. Okay, you can all go kiss Castro some more. [Another Update: But wait, it’s worse now. USA leaves the old 750 in the dust and breaks 1,000!]
The cool image of Bush the vampire attacking the Statue of Liberty is by Alex Ross, published as a Village Voice cover a few years back. Check out this special Uncle Sam art at this link.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:48 am
[…] of NRA’s fascist crime bill suggestions when they sound like more Patriot Act rubbish (see this post about U.S.A. being #1 on incarcerations per 100,000 population), I can only be so disturbed by the […]
March 19th, 2008 at 2:21 am
[…] seems to be further encouragement of family subsistence by the central government through permaculture and organic gardening instead of huge inefficient state […]