Defenders of the Cuban Five in Maine mounted a display for these political prisoners at the Common Ground Fair held in Unity, Maine September 20-22. Revolutionary Abby was on hand at the table and she talked about the Five with fairgoers. A friend heard about that and had a question for her. Maine people recognize Revolutionary Abby as novelist Carolyn Chute, who writes about poor people in rural Maine.

Dear Revolutionary Abby,

We’ve been reading your columns for ages and notice how you cheer for whistleblowers, such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden and the Cuban 5.

My neighbor, a highly successful big bank fellow, remarked that no American should cheer for commies like the Cuban 5. Communists are bad, he said, unless it’s China which is really fascist because it has combined huge biz and centralized government (for keeping workers in line) so it makes lots of opportunities for USA and USA – friendly investors. He said capital needs to flow.

He wasn’t a bit impressed when I told him how the Cuban 5 were these real Cubans sitting in on private terrorist groups in Florida, private groups of sulking Cuban Americans, some of whom have plotted and killed innocent people, including a planeful of seventy three people, one a soon-to-be-born baby!!! Meanwhile, the all holy USA government looks the other way!!! The Cuban 5 were whistleblowing on these terrorist creeps.

But then, as you know, this WEIRD thing happens!! The U.S. government which says “terrorism is EVIL,” repeating it a thousand times a day over and over and over until we are all dizzy, arrested the Cuban 5 as spies – and let the terrorists go!!!

Three of the Cuban 5 got LIFE sentences. If they’d been from Israel and a few other places, they would have gotten a few moments in jail.

Abby, what gives with our government!!?

Yours, Skeptical in Skowhegan

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Dear S. S.,

Well, you said the answer yourselvezums. Let’s back up to when your powerhouse neighbor said that about making lots of opportunities for hot shot investors, that capital needs to flow. Did your neighbor really use the word “fascist?” He probably used a more honeyed term than that but meaning the same. But between you and me who see through the honey, the thing behind all of today’s political mysteries is “Full Spectrum Dominance.” The lords and ladies of capital and the spooks and Pentagonians and loud fibby, smiley, mainstream media critters work together to someday, at last, balance the entire globe in the palm of their hand, like a tender tomato.

And remember this; the Cuban 5 are human beings. But Full Spectrum Dominance is a conscienceless hi-tech humming system which has taken on a vivid lifelikeness of its own. The lords and ladies and spooks and such benefit, but really nobody is in charge. When us little people with conscience throw even the teensy weeniest monkey wrench in the works, a great maw opens, and the bravest and decentest of souls stand on the precipice.

Yeah, I’m rooting for the Cuban 5!! Oh, S. S., that you and I should be that brave!

Yours forever in truth, Revolutionary Abby

October 18, 2013