Cross-Blogosphere Dialogue, Sort Of

Dean responds to my post on the right's hatred of actual American values.

I wrote a reply there, but comments are by registration. Not sure when it will show, but I think my response was as thoughtful as his. I hope so, anyway.

Dean also suggests creating a cross-blogosphere alliance opposing human rights abuses around the world. I'm in. Fellow bloggers?

And weirdly, he links to this accurate but truly bizarre rant, which ends with this uninformed prattle:

"Fuck you, Amnesty International. You have just spit upon the many who had hope in you. You have just spit upon those that supported you. You have just spit upon all of those that have died waiting for you.

Waiting for you, Amnesty International, in their very real Cuban fucking gulags."

Here's AI's 2003 report on Cuba, detailing harassment of dissidents, higher imprisonment of political prisoners in 2002 than in the previous year, and other problems.

Here's a 2003 report criticising the detention of 75 newly designated (by Amnesty) prisoners of conscience, and criticising Cuba's use of execution against prisoners of conscience. This is an article from AI's monthly news magazine on the same.

This is a summary Amnesty's call to action about the 75 prisoners of conscience.

Here is a 2005 update on the remaining 71 of the 75 earlier mentioned.

And this is where you can piss off those who oppose political freedoms by joining Amnesty International.

I love it when righties like Val Prieto pretend that they were just about to support a group like Amnesty, that they were just about to open their wallets...if only Amnesty would speak out about Cuba! I mean, more than they already do!

Well, of course Amnesty had the audacity to suggest that the United States isn't in the running for Human Rights Defender 2005.

It's ridiculous, really, and disingenuous. The right always opposes NGOs like Amnesty because they're free to call free nations on their excesses as well. Amnesty has been doing tremendous work around the world for decades, and knuckleheads like our President working to undermine the organization only empowers tyrants like Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, and even the Taliban, who got nailed by Amnesty before Bush was even President. These dictators have to defend themselves against Amnesty's public actions day in and day out, but that should be a little easier now that the official position of the United States is that Amnesty is absurd. And since Amnesty will be around doing that same work long after George heads back to the ranch, those of us who love freedom can only shake our heads in disbelief.