Nothing more but expected decision from the politiclly correct, leftist organisation that the ALA has become. I would bet you that if the issue under discussio had been a motion to condemn John Ashcroft or Pres Bush because of the "civil liberties violations" post Sept 11th, I betcha, the motion to condemn would have passed with no dissent!!! But, Castro and his regime are not a repressive regime, you see, they are just a bunch of hispanic folks in an island, who are oppressed by the evil, racist,imperialist, corporate US Govt. No, Castro can do no wrong. Didnt you already know that, Dean? So, the ALA will not condemn Castro, they probably will send a "peace delegation" who will participate, with great enthusiasm, in a stage managed anti-American demonstration orchestrated by Castro.
Disgusting, I say. I am going to write them to let them know!!!! Not that I expect the die-hard lefties to change their stripes, but, they will know folks are cognizzant of their actions and of the positions they take.

A few questions for you, Dean:

1) What does the American Library Association have to do with Cuba?

2) Why do you link to WorldNetDaily--a right-wing retail outfit and well-known purveyor of lies--instead of the ALA?

(Actually, I think I know why---because the ALA did NOT vote down the resolution, they refered it back for further review. Not a stirring renunciation of Castro, I admit, but it's not the same thing as voting it down. The people at WorldNetDaily probably know that, but thought the lie sounded better and would sell more Ann Coulter dolls. They're a bunch of liars, y'know.)

3) Your final sentence is self-contradictory. Is that a typo, or are you just repeating whatever WorldNetDaily tells you?

Want to check out a more thoughtful discussion of the ALA's position? Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice. He has criticized them in a number of recent columns -- including responding to a letter from one of the members. I don't really consider him a right-wing mouthpiece.

The ALA and its subcommittes make many political statements on international issues, including condeming any efforts to "subvert the institutional order of Cuba" (ie, do anything offensive to Castro.) They're hardly being dragged into this.

The WorldNetDaily article seems pretty accurate to me. The ALA page on the subject says they going to talk about the issue for a while longer, and oh, by the way, we should end those bad ol' embargoes that force Castro to do such naughty things. It's a classic stalling tactic, and given the quotes they document, WND is right to call them on it.

I see the ALA also insists on putting scare quotes around 'independent libraries' whenever the phrase is used. I guess if you're not sufficiently "independent" then you get kicked out of the Librarians With Human Rights club.

Well, this partially explains something that happened to me the other day when I was checking out some books on medieval history. The librarian said, "Don't you feel like we're back in the dark ages now?" , to which I responded, "Actually, I think that overall, we're living in some pretty wonderful times and hey, at least we can all read and write." She didn't appreciate my optimism one bit, and I suspect she had to console herself by reading a dog-eared copy of "Stupid White Men," during her break.

Looks like we have a troll in Don Myers here - trying to explain away the ALA's failure to condemn outright Castro's regime. Heck just about a week or 10 days back, the BBC reported that nowadays, a person in Cuba can access the internet only if thet have a "special permit" issued by Castro's goons in the Communist Party. People found to be "illicitly accessing" the internet can be sent to one of Castro's concentration camp for up to 20 years!!! And this, the lefties want us to believe is a non-repressive Govt? heck, librarians here are protesting up a storm, when access to hard-core porn is cut off at local libraries, yet, the same librarians who make up the ALA, think nothing about the gross violations of civil liberties, and civil rights that Castro and his repressive regime carry out every single day!!!! And to think the ALA folks probably think that Bush and Ashcroft are worse than their beloved Comrade Fidel!!! Sick, I tell youse!!!!

1) What does the American Library Association have to do with Cuba?

I don't know, what does it have to do with South Africa? Why does it have an international committee and a human freedom committee?

Because they do weigh in on these matters all the time, that's why.

Why do you link to WorldNetDaily--a right-wing retail outfit and well-known purveyor of lies--instead of the ALA?

I link sources left, right, and otherwise, because that's what real liberalism is about, Don.

I don't particularly like WorldNet Daily because they are too inflammatory and ridiculously partisan most of the time. Nevertheless, I have not found them to be "liars," just inclined to taking extreme positions.

I am repulsed by the notion that one should automatically dismiss the reporting in a right-wing publication merely because it is right-wing.

Your final sentence is self-contradictory.

No, it isn't. The ALA felt it was its business to condemn Apartheid, and did so. But it will not condemn the Castro regime. Why is that?

Dean, you should see the letter from an ALA member than ivy mentioned. According to Ann Sparanese:

1) The people jailed are not "real" librarians: Deep in our hearts we know these people are not librarians... It is difficult to seriously assert that these people are librarians, either professional *or* amateur. They certainly are dissident politicians, apparently non-violent, who sometimes use the moniker of “librarians” to enhance their stature. This is not about professionalism or degrees ­ it is about authenticity, honesty and vocation. What is it about them that demands a resolution from us, when they are not librarians by any objective criteria?

2) The attention on the ALA is a conspiracy to get them to say bad things about Cuba: They are part of a very smart, well-financed, well-connected and relentless strategy to get the ALA involved in an important U.S. foreign policy offensive. If you think not, then you don’t know history. We have resisted thus far because it has smelled a little fishy all along. In Toronto, Kent finally admitted to the LJ reporter that his “Friends of Cuban Librarians” receives government funds. Why do you suppose that is and what funds might those be?

3) It's actually the United States's fault that they are in jail: the so called “independent librarians” and other dissidents are *not* in prison because of their books, their private libraries, or their “free expression” ­ what got them into trouble was their active collaboration with the United States Helms Burton Law. They were convicted of accepting cash and materials that comes to dissidents through this law. This is illegal in Cuba. The US also criminalizes the manipulation of its own political process by foreign governments, yet it cynically allocates monies for the manipulation and overthrow of Cuba’s government. *This* is the issue we are dealing with, not some no-brainer “human rights” issue, or whether “1984” is in Cuban libraries, as Mr. Kent and Mr. Hentoff would have us believe... Without the Helms-Burton, these dissidents would not be in prison. If the Helms-Burton were repealed tomorrow and the United States were to have a sane, peaceful relationship with Cuba, I believe these people would be pardoned. As Americans, our *first* responsibility is to address the complicity of our government in the current situation in Cuba; without this, we will be guilty of willful ignorance and a *truly* shameful level of national chauvinism and arrogance.

4) Cuba is so much better than the U.S. in human rights: Despite the fact that we as librarians prize them highly, political rights ­ for instance intellectual freedom -- is only one of a constellation of human rights, some of which Cuba respects in greater measure than the United States (e.g. universal health care, universal, free education, certain economic rights. It may not be fashionable to say this, but anyone who follows internal Cuban affairs, UN reports and the like, knows this to be the case. Even Amnesty, while critical of Cuba, credits the role of the United States policy in setting back the expansion of political rights in Cuba. How dare we make a comment on “human rights” in Cuba without commenting on the egregious “human rights” violations going on in Guantanamo where our own government is imprisoning 660 people, including children with no respect for any of their human rights, let alone their freedom of expression. (They aren’t librarians either, but maybe if they said they are they could get our attention. For us to make pronouncements about human rights in Cuba, without mentioning Guantanamo (just for starters) would raise the level of hypocrisy into the stratosphere.

I think despite protestations from the lefties, the letter quoted by Hei says it all. This woman, Ann Sparanese, is a typicla moonbat - it sort of stretches the limits of credulity- human and civil rights are better in Cuba than in the USA? The very fact that folks l ike her can freely criticise their own society, country and government in the most unflattering terms, and still never be arrested ( something that would never happen in her Comrade Fidel's Cuba), goes to show that things are much better in the USA, which is a free country, unlike Cuba.

With all due respect to my fellow commentators, the failures of the U.S. in the fields of social and economic justice, though increasing under George II, does not justify looking the other way when basic human freedoms are denied to the Cuban people by their government. What is the point of the so-called universal health care? You are kept healthy, for what? Slaves receive as much. Universal education? Apparently, only what the government allows you to learn. Can you be truly called free when the only 'rights' you are given are ones designed to make you a better tool of the state? The primary purpose of the state is to protect the inalienable rights of each individual. Any state that uses its citizens as a means to an end cannot be supported. States such as Cuba and our great ally, the Saudis.

Again, despicable. Dean Esmay and Nat Hentoff are the real liberals, and the people now controlling the ALA are...something else. Let's just say Politically Correct.

(Back in more Politically Incorrect days, we called them Communists or Communist fellow travellers, but today that accurate labelling would be called "McCarthyism".)

The moral inversions never cease. Ashcroft is worse than Castro. McCarthy was worse than Stalin. Israel defending herself is worse than her Muslim enemies. And on and on.

If these people were in charge of the AMA, we'd be hearing that the common cold is worse than cancer, or that a perfectly healthy body is worse than a diseased body. It's unfair that some are healthier than others!, we've got to make everyone equal, make everyone sick, spread the plague to everybody.

And, no, I don't like Buchananite WorldNaziDaily, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I agree with the Libertarian 100%. It goes back to this false concept of "rights" that I discussed in one of my comments on Karl Marx. Health care, education, a car in every garage, etc., are good things to have, but they are not _rights_ in the sense envisioned by John Locke and our Founding Fathers. Rights involve things the government must _not_ do _to_ you (taking your property, invading your privacy, suppressing your speech or religion, etc..), not things government should do or provide _for_ you. Basically, it must leave you alone so you can do or obtain things for yourself (respecting the equal right of others to do the same).

The idea of "rights" to health care, etc., is merely a fallacy of many kind-hearted liberals, but it is a conscious tool of deceit in the hands of Communists, who tell us that Cuban are freer than Americans because they have more of these "rights".

Dean

I have blogged on this issue a few times as has Scott of Burton Terrace.

I think the key to this is the ALA's refusal to acknowledge the independent libraries as authentic libraries. Cuba is a country where everything is controlled by the government, especially information. The independent libraries, whether or not they recieved monetary aid from US sources, mostly provide books and materials that the Castro regime has banned.

I find it interesting that a group such as the ALA is the first to cry foul when any sort of book is banned, or any controversy stems from such an event, but refuses to take a stand against the situation in Cuba.

It's unfortunate that no one seems to really care about the problems in Cuba. Castro's charisma has the left all googly eyed. The criticism of the embargo and the US's policy toward Cuba is all that seems to be important to them. Forget that there are hundreds of prisoners of conscience rotting away on the island, forget that the average Cuban has no access to the world outside, forget that the average cuban, now 100% literate thanx to Fidel, can't pick up a book by Whitman or Faulkner to read. Cant drop by the corner store and buy a New York Times or a Post. None of that matters. What matters is that Americans want to travel to Cuba and that's it. It their right to travel wherever they please regardless of the inhumane conditions present in the country they want to travel to. "It ain't my problem, I'm an American. Now get me another MaiTai please."

The omnipotent tourist syndrome.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism in Europe, we've been hearing more adulation of Castro from the nihilist-collectivist Left than ever before. When he dies, don't expect them to turn anti-Communist. They will instead be even more pro-Islam than they are now. Any stick is good enough to bash the United States and the West, even if that stick turns out to be a boomerang. Forget suppression of dissent, degradation of women, and persecution of homosexuals -- if the regime is anti-West, they like it.
As for those who travel to Castro's Cuba and like what they see, let them stay there.

Ronin:

How dare you, sir? How DARE you imply that I support totalitarian regimes in Cuba or anywhere else simply because I think Dean's vitriol against librarians might be a tad over the top?

You hide behind your cowardly pseudonym while launching red-baiting brickbats at me. That is the worst kind of contemptable, FoxNews demagoguery. No matter what names you call me or how many exclaimation points you use, your screed is vile and pernious and I DEMAND satisfaction, sir!

Dean:

You're right---the ALA opened up this particular can of worms themselves. Thanks for pointing that out.

I must admit that I have something of a bug up my ass about WorldNetDaily. The problem is NOT that it's very extreme-right-wing. The problem is that it is a catalog that disguises itself as a news source.

This afternoon I logged onto this site, and they had 12 "headlines" displayed. 5 of them linked directly to book or video offers. The others took you to informercial-type screeds that then lead to commercial offers.

The "editorial content" of WorldNetDaily exists solely to sell you stuff.

I don't have a problem with sellin' stuff to the rubes---hell, I do it myself, all the time---but when people start to belive that a catalog is a legitimate news sourse, I have to speak up. Because it bugs the shit outta me.

Don, getover it. The point I made is this - that Dean was totally right to point out the absurdity of the ALA's position on Cuba. Cuba ia a totally repressive, Communist Party run society, and Castro is a vile creature. Hence by condemning Dean for daring to criticise the ALA, you, SIR, by extension, are standing up for the ALA, and hence this can be construed as you being a supporter of the Communist Cuban regime. And if you dont like that implication drawn, go back and check your words. Maybe the next time you ought to make yourself clearer, or use more precise language.

Steven,

This is where I have to part ways with you. I think that health care and education are "rights" as opposed to a privilege for American citizens. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Life, imho, includes at a minimum, a certain level of quality health care, and I think our country has done an unexceptional job at bringing that about. There is no logical reason why we don't have universal health care. (note: I didn't say socialized medicene.) I mean, if the health care that we provide for our military isn't good enough then we need to upgrade it, and if it is good enough (which I feel it is) then we must bring that to the rest of society.

Free public education is another basic right we have as Americans. Don't get me started on the joke that includes vouchers for private school education. I don't care which political party you espouse, if you support vouchers, you have missed the boat...of course, unless you're wealthy.

Back to Ashcroft. As much as I dislike the man and most of his views, I have to give him credit for a civil campaign after Mel Carnahan died. I've always respected that.

Don,
Since what concerns you is the crass commercial types that proliferate in the good ole USA, then why don't you take your enlightened altruism to one of these utopian gulags that you and your ilk seem to prefer.
If you can't tell me why, then let me surmise: I'll tell you why; because if you did, you know that your narrow behind would get narrower as it got worked off in a sugarcane field somewhere. I am sure the taskmaster would relent, however, when he heard your version of how a real utopia should work. Yes, I can see it now, as the progressive waxes on about how he should only have to work a 40-hour week and how his ration shouldn't be reduced and he shouldn't have to go through some re-education camp for just expressing his opinions.
All of you god wanna-be's are the same. The planned society is great until you discover that you ain't gonna be on the planning commitee.

Quite honestly, Pat, I read and re-read your above comment several times, and was only baffled by it.

The more I read it, the more baffled I became.

I am honestly either too stupid and dense to understand what you're saying, or, you have a bumch of assumptions about me that have no bearing on reality.

But, for the record? I think utopianists are not merely insane, but dangrous. Just for the record.

Tim the Soldier,
Where do you get this blather? Oh, don't tell me, I know-through your FREE public education.
I want you to please tell me how one is given an education. I guess I must just be ill-informed but I was under the impression that one GETS an education.
I do know, however, what one usually is given at one of these babysitting barns-pablum. Speaking as a certified public school teacher who has some experience with "PUBLIC" education, you are not entitled to and are not given an education.
Unfortunately what most of our citizenry believes is that if they drop off their little darlings at the "PUBLIC" school, they will come home educated. They don't know that education is something you get; it's something that results from effort applied to a learning process. They, apparently, haven't been TAUGHT that education is not appropriated by invoking one's civil rights. They haven't been taught that education is something you EARN. IT IS NOT A RIGHT!
So, Tim the Soldier, keep on deluding yourself that the state is going to give you and your children an education. It will be much easier that way for you to live with the increasing cost of this FREE education.
What really upsets me about your opinion is that it was cultured in our PUBLIC schools. Most folks believe as you do, because they have been acculturated by demogogues posing as educators. Notice that I did not use the term "educated."
Understand that our form of government was established to protect your right, your opportunity, to get an education. Those who were initially excluded from this protection have had it extended to them after many tears, much suffering, and bloodshed.
For you to oppose one's right to get an education unless they get it at the central store is tantamount to fascism. Why? Because when you force the PUBLIC to exercise their rights only at a certain time and only in a certain place, then I must conclude that your primary objective is not freedom. I must conclude your overarching concern is CONTROL.
Let's face it, Tim the Soldier, what you are really worried about is the loss of CONTROL. We can't have people getting an education because they might get the wrong one. Isn't that right, Tim the Soldier? So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna give'em an education-the STATE'S EDUCATION. Sound familiar?

Pat,

Now you're just arguing semantics and twisting words. Of course one must "get their own education" I merely pointed out that it is the government's role to provide the funding for the building, the books, pay the teachers, etc. They do this through taxes.

Now, this has been going on in our country (since it sounds like you are not an American) for quite some time, and it seems to be working fine. And although some people point out that out education system is not the highest ranked in the world, we do have the finest universities and colleges in the world. There isn't even a close second. Since most of the students that comprise these fine universities come from American public schools, I wonder if our tax dollars are well spent.

Of course, if a person is a fucked-up libertarian that opposes taxes as "government control" over the population, I suggest taking the "blue pill."

Tim the Soldier,
Yes, its been going on a long time; but in recent history, certain ideologues have decided that the teaching profession and the teaching schools belong to them. To wit, the agenda of the NEA and AFT is always to the left of center and away from the mainstream. Believe me when I tell you that most of my teaching associates are more interested in the politics of acculturation than in the art of education.
Don't be too confident about who is populating our distinguished higher education academies. A number of academics at the nearby university have confided to me that they are dismayed by the low level of proficiency which American high school graduates exhibit.
They tell me that they are having to lower their criterion referenced testing and sometimes replace it with norm referenced testing. They also tell me that in the undergraduate courses the foreign students often complain about being unchallenged and thereby being unprepared for graduate level work. It has to be explained to them that their peers coming out of the public schools in America are not ready for the reading and writing loads.
Now I realize what I just told you is only anecdotal evidence; but keep it in mind and do not get too boastful about the prowess of our high school graduates.

Don,
My apologies. I am redfaced. I scrolled from excerpts out of a letter written by an ALA member, Ann Sparanese, down to your letter and confused the two. It was part of Hei Lun Chan's letter to Dean. My hand-eye coordination gets me in trouble again. It's sort of like what started World War I.
Someone like me will probably scan this letter and see what appears to them to be an admission of my being a "red."
In the words of Roseanne Rosannadanna, "Never Mind."