Correspondence: Cuba, Kevin Doyle
C O R R ESPONDENCE To the Editors Mischievous modifiers I enjoyed Paul Elie's remembrance of Ted Hughes ["A Poet's Unmistakable Voice," July 16], muted though it was, except for this statement:...
...4) there is no evidence that trade with Cuba helps anyone outside the ruling class...
...brian brown Commonweal 36 September 10,1999...
...GEORGE MURRAY Ossining, N.Y...
...changes in structures of work and leisure...
...THOMAS DEFREITAS VI East Boston, Mass...
...he should know better—and so should the guy who edited his copy...
...paul g. crowley Tucson, Ariz...
...From the editors: Mr...
...The contents of that issue (Vol...
...the very 'invention' of futurist planning itself and the type of rationality it implies...
...That'll do it every time...
...Attila speaks I'm genetically disposed to right-wing intolerance...
...And "who I am" is vicious, mean-spirited, intolerant, insensitive...
...Further to the right than the hands of a clock at 3:15...
...I do not defend Cuba's human-rights record, but if individual freedom is the issue I question why our government has no trade restrictions against a repressive regime like China's...
...One of the only...
...If so, looks will be deceiving...
...As we allow tourists to patronize Cuban hotels where Cubans themselves are not allowed to enter, let us not pretend that this is being done out of friendship for the people...
...5) the embargo was originally presented and is still seen as a more humane alternative than war and preferable to doing nothing about human-rights abuses...
...the development of subtle techniques of social control and pressures to apply them to previously private realms of human life...
...Elie is an editor...
...From the editors: There's a problem here...
...Yes, the embargo has failed, and should never have been applied to medicines...
...We content ourselves, if not Mr...
...I also hoped that I would be alive to see what things would be like in the year 2000...
...I hope you will provide an opportunity for your readers to revisit this gem, which the editors at the time labeled as an exercise in "futurology...whose methods and possibilities are still highly tentative...
...Much more attention must be given to the quite specific and concrete political and social events which seem likely in the next thirty years: the growth of the gap between rich and poor...
...I've tried being progressive, but I just can't live a lie...
...The last course of action is defended in the name of respecting sovereignty, but this is little comfort to those who are persecuted...
...Perhaps this corrupt locution comes from too much reading of the New York Times...
...Having said that, I must confess that I enjoy Commonweal for its occasional happy insight into that strange and curious thing, the Liberal Catholic Mind...
...At least two of those last three words belong within quotation marks, but I shall resist the temptation to commit such crass veracity...
...The church of the year 2000 may look like that of 1969...
...Not "one of the few" or "one of only three" or (alas) "one of the last...
...PEDRO J. SAAVEDRA Kensington, Md...
...The editorial, so insightful then, still strikes a chord today...
...Crowley, with this concluding passage from the editorial: "Finally, what are targets for future discussions of this sort...
...Continued on page 4) Commonweal 1 September 10,1999 CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) that want to do business in Cuba, or to take advantage of cheap labor there...
...From the editors: (1) How do you know it was a guy...
...My motive for keeping it was to see whether any of the authors' observations, made so daringly thirty years ago, would hit the mark in 1999...
...Defreitas's "tolerance" for Commonweal is yet another proof that genes aren't everything...
...5) are too bulky to be quoted, too multifarious to be summarized...
...C O R R ESPONDENCE To the Editors Mischievous modifiers I enjoyed Paul Elie's remembrance of Ted Hughes ["A Poet's Unmistakable Voice," July 16], muted though it was, except for this statement: "When he died last October, Ted Hughes was eulogized as one of the only truly great English writers of his time...
...XCI, No...
...2) Only editors are human...
...I have to accept who I am...
...Also the price: "75 cents...
...The author replies: The embargo is not a "humane alternative" to a person deprived of life-saving medicines, and I believe food should never be used as a weapon, particularly by the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth...
...But let us not seek its termination without an alternative means of restoring human rights in Cuba...
...The future has arrived From my "re-read this sometime" file, I have retrieved a copy of Commonweal dated October 31,1969, bearing on its cover the title "The Church in the Year 2000...
...I have not been disappointed on either account...
Vol. 126 • September 1999 • No. 15
