Hey, Amnesty International

Val Prieto wants to let you (and everyone else) know how a real gulag is run.

Some [in Cuba] have their arms wrapped in refrigerator coils which are powered 24/7, rendering such pain that the use of their limbs is forever atrophied. Others have cables clamped to their testicles and the other ends connected to car batteries, destroying not only their bodies, but their manhood, or, if they be lucky enough to ever be released from their hell, their ability to create a family.

Others, yet still, in the darkness of their cells, lying there naked, are doused in powdery chemicals that irritate their skin, so much so that their entire bodies are bloody from their desperate attempts at scratching the incessant itching.

And Rusty Shackleford documents the perversion of Honor, Courage, and Heroism as defined by the inventors of the gulag concept, the Soviet Union.

These massive prisons were used to weed out those that were even remotely suspected of having all but the most enthusiastic of feelings toward the Soviet system. Solzhenitsyn, for instance, found himself in a Siberian gulag for making the mistake of making a joke about Stalin in a letter.

To understand the sheer enormity of a single gulag one would have to envision medium sized cities made up entirely of the victims of forced relocation campaigns surrounded by a series of smaller cities made up entirely of slave laborers. Some of the gulags were so massive in geographic scale that they are hard to imagine. For instance, the deadly Kolyma gulag was really a series of forced labor camps in and around the massive gold mine and not a single prison. Think the size of US states, and not just Rhode Island and Deleware--think Kansas.

So when your spokeswoman calls that other Cuba a gulag, excuse us if we sneer at her lack of perspective—historical and otherwise—and excuse us if we suspect that your agenda is something more sinister than is out in the open.

We know what you and your cohorts in the traditional media are doing: dripping water on the rock, attempting to wear truth and reality down.

UPDATE: AI USA Executive Director William Schulz (stop sniggering at that last name): "'Gulag' not the best analogy." Sheesh, Bill, ya think?

On to the next disinformation battle.

Comments

[StinKerr]

How could you possibly suspect AI of a political agenda? Perhaps it was this?

Here's a blogger who has more details.

(Give him a Baldilanche) ;-)

[william]

haven't you heard? cuba is a worker's paradise where all the children are happy and every one is a phd.

[Lisa gilliam]

this is my second time visiting your blog and I just had to comment on this.It seems that the nitwits at I am nasty international don't know how the real world works.They have become a joke.Call things names win they really don't know what the hell they are talking about!That is the problem when you are selective in your criticism.If they want to be taken seriously again,they better get out of those high rise buildings they live in and actually do what they were founded to do.

[Improbulus Maximus]

Don't foget the kite flying Stinkerr, that's Michael Moore's favorite thing about Cuba.

[wayne]

Juliette, How come nobody is commenting on the part of that same Amnesia InterNAZInal paper that asks for world governments to kidnap US government officials and try them for crimes against humanity (most especially our President)?

[wayne]

I forgot...

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050613/13john.htm

[wayne]

I forgot...

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/
opinion/articles/050613/13john.htm

[Carridine]

Baldi and Friends, I served voluntarily on a free island on the North Korean DMZ, monitoring radio transmissions in the People's Democratic Paradise of Stalinist Xenophobic Kim-Worship...

The muffled pain, the stifled longings, the muted agony of crippling famine-fueled hunger, and the government's necessary policy of lying to the people... These stand in stark contrast to the well-fed, just, thriving and creative societies on OUR side of the border, absent any Gulags, for the Gulags are a symptom of and a necessary part of the sustained repression of human spirit that is "socialism".

[pmprescott]

I have taught World, U.S. History, Social Psychology, Government and Law for over twenty years. Until 911 I could tell my students what separated our country from Communist and Dictator countries was Habeus Corpus. That we had Due Process of Law. That if you were arrested they could not lock you up and throw away the key, like they do in those other countries. I can no longer make that distinction. American citizens are being arrested, detained, tortured, and held without charge for years. Fuss at Amensty International all you want. You should be venting your rage at those in the government who have shamed destroyed what this country has always stood for.

[baldilocks]

pmprescott: names and links please. And if you're refering to Jose Padilla and the man who was born here but raised in an Islamic country, spare me.

Your credentials do not stop you from being wrong, deceitful, deluded, any two or all three.