[van-discuss] free the Cuban 5

[Eric R.]

Hi Marjorie,

On  Sunday, June 1, 2003 at 6:36 PM (PDT), you wrote:

> My reference to "methodology" has nothing to do with your post - but with
> a post that came after holding up your links as some sort of scientific
> proof of homelessness in Cuba.

If you are referring here to my post ("Re: free the cuban 5") of May 16th,
where I wrote (in reply to Barb Waldern): "And your claim that '... there is
no homelessness...' in Cuba is surely preposterous, as Geordie has aptly
pointed out (and factually substantiated)"; then you are wrong if you think
I was holding up the links Geordie provided in his post as  "some sort of
scientific proof of homelessness in Cuba". Factual substantiation is clearly
NOT the same thing as scientific proof. I don't need any "scientific proof"
of homelessness in Cuba to know it exists. As Geordie said, use of one's
eyes and one's common sense is adequate in this regard. If you see a
homeless person who tells you they are homeless, that is, for me, adequate
substantiation of the existence of homelessness in that country. After
all -- using common sense here -- if you come across one such person (and
you have no reason to think that they are lying about the matter), then you
can be pretty darn sure that there are atleast a few other such homeless
people (and probably QUITE a few more) in the country in question.

Another thing ... are we supposed to discount all sources of factual
information which don't adhere to "our" political line or ideology? If so,
then I guess I can't trust just about every such source at all. On the
contrary, I take the source's political agenda or ideological line into
account when I decide to what extent I'm going to trust it. Otherwise, one
ends up being a parrot of the Party line of one's chosen political
authority, and a deny-er of everything claimed by all those sources which
don't tow that Party line ... that is, a mindless robot, like all the
Maoists and Stalinists that dominated the "New Left" in the '60s and '70s.

Fraternally,

Eric