US, Inc.

[MASCARO at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU]

I appreciate the very intelligent Cuba debates going down.  I have learned some 
interesting stuff--as this list can do when it works.  The idea of *polling* prompts me to 
cast my lot firmly w/ the Weavercreature/KHoughton camp.  How come nobody 
mentioned that this evil threatening empire just happens to house a US marine base (we 
signed a lease, we got our rights)?  Or pointed out the dismaying parallel between US 
treatment of Cuba and its attitude toward Nicaragua under the Sandinistas (another 
bloodyhanded commie rat regime, so depraved they appointed a gentle poet--Ernesto 
Cardenal--to be Minister of Culture).  Don't we get it yet, even we who purport to read 
TRP?  What the US simply can't abide in these countries is not Communism (the US 
LOVES Communism), it's the existence of any anti-market based weltanschauung that 
Uncle Sam can't handle.  It's as clear as an elephant in the living room, but then, that's 
the one we usually never see.
Don't ya'll remember--this is gospel--the day after the Berlin Wall came down?  There 
were representatives of the *West* standing right at the checkpoint, handing out 50-Mark 
notes to every *East* German streaming in for freedom.  That's what the *West* 
means--little dead presidents as Meaning of Life (dunno who's on a 50 mark note)--but 
remember that they only got ONE 50 mark note--

First one's always free, kid.

That people might want to live under systems--no, worse, that people CAN successfully 
live under systems (systems--d-uh--w/ both good and bad points of their own) and thumb 
their noses at such symbolic and real orders of meaning--that's what gives Uncle Sam, Inc. 
the fantods.

john m