Surprised is not the word I have in mind, I know what my reaction was.
Posted on 04/29/2003 9:44:16 AM PDT by William Wallace
As soon as Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, I saw on television the firing squad execution of an array of political prisoners, which he ordered. He then began filling his brutal prisons with Cubans whose sole crime was a desire to breathe freedom after the Batista dictatorship -- only to find themselves in another totalitarian quicksand.
At one point, interviewing the already legendary Che Guevara -- an international Cuban revolutionary icon -- at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, I asked him if he could foresee, anytime in the future, free elections in Cuba. Crisply dressed in his military outfit, Guevara burst out laughing at my callow naivete.
Having interviewed Cubans who survived Castro's gulags, I have never understood or respected the parade of American entertainers, politicians and intellectuals who travel to Cuba to be entranced by this ruthless dictator who, for me, has all the charisma of a preening thug, akin to any killer on "The Sopranos."
These Castro-philes are among those who discredit liberalism because they're unable to recognize and be repelled by unbridled evil. Consider Steven Spielberg, who has developed impressive resources through his Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation to keep alive the horrifying presence of the Holocaust. Yet, as quoted in the April 11 Wall Street Journal, Spielberg described his audience with Castro last November as "the eight most important hours of my life."
Was Spielberg's life that barren until those gloriously transcendent hours with the chief warden of Cuba's prisons?
From time to time, I still think of Elian Gonzalez, so vivid a free spirit here until condemned by Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to a land where schoolteachers must keep a record of any signs of their charges' lessening fealty to the relentless light of their lives. I wish the American press would pay more attention to the ongoing lawsuit alleging that Doris Meissner -- head of Clinton's Immigration and Naturalization Service -- ordered the destruction of evidence that would have contradicted the Clinton administration's forcible removal of Elian to Castro's continuation of Stalinism. Judicial Watch in Washington has the information on that lawsuit.
In any case, the next batch of fawning celebrities and members of Congress who party with Castro, will try to evade the recent show trials of independent journalists, human rights advocates, poets and other dreamers of democracy who have been sentenced by Castro's kangaroo courts to punishments of up to 27 years. Britain's Economist magazine notes that "since many of the dissidents are aged between 50 and 60, in practical terms they are being put away for life."
One prisoner of conscience packed into the gulag is the internationally respected independent journalist Raul Rivero, director of Cuba Press agency, and a board member of the Inter American Press Association. In the Castro courtroom -- from which foreign journalists and diplomats were barred -- Rivero, suffering from phlebitis and other ailments, was sentenced to 20 years for being an independent journalist.
"This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks," his wife, Blanca Reyes, said in an April 8 New York Times article. "What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade."
The Clinton administration -- which has so much to answer to history for -- promoted "people-to-people" trips to Cuba, which have continued. The American tourists and the participants in educational and cultural exchanges will not be able to engage in person-to-person visits with Raul Rivero, and other Cubans whom the Castro "justice system" has turned into non-people. Not even such an eminence as Spielberg will be free to show Rivero videos of Holocaust survivors.
Spielberg, immersed in pre-production of his next film, was not available for comment on Castro's latest eradication of dissenters. But his representative, Andy Spahn of Dreamworks, told The Wall Street Journal that Castro had been "provoked" to order the crackdown, because the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, had been meeting -- can you imagine? -- with Cuban dissenters in their homes last February.
And if an American official had, however discreetly, been meeting with Jews in Berlin who still hoped that the world would come to their rescue -- if it only knew of the design for the Final Solution -- would that diplomat have exceeded his responsibilities to humankind by "provoking" Hitler?
HBO has wisely cancelled the May showing of Oliver Stone's Castro-admiring "Commandante." During production, says the Journal, Fidel was "given the power to stop filming at will."
The show would have been a fitting complement to HBO's "The Sopranos."
I never participated or agreed with the slowing down (NOT blocking) of traffic on highways that some of the Americans of Cuban descent did for the reasons you cited (emergency. etc). However, I would never go so far as to actually verbalize a threat on another human being, regardless of my differences with them. That is an example of maturity and, if you will, a sound mind.
I know what the Cubans in Miami are all about.
Obviously not. You know nothing of me or my family, our contributions to others and our relentless passion for freedom from tyranny.
As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that if you met me without knowing who I was, you'd be a bit surprised. ;)
I know that you "researched" my profile page before making that statement, right?
You know me?
I am from Miami, and I am discussed with the Cuban people of the City. The whole deal with this kid was so drawn out and twisted, it made me i'll. The behavior of these people is pathetic. To stop traffic on 826 highway is inexcusable. I am glad I was not there to see it. I would have plowed right through them. God forbid I had a medical emergency or something serious to do, these cowards of political conviction should fight the fight they want and not smail for the cameras. It is sad what they did to that boy. However for the Record. P'ss on Clinton.
I don't think it was about his life being threatened. The emergency part came AFTER the plowing.
I won't even get into the part where he stated "cowards of political conviction". He, like many people, has his own personal hatred for the Miami Cubans and Elian gave them the perfect opportunity to allow that anger to manifest itself. The media made it "cool" to talk crap about Cubans.
Surprised is not the word I have in mind, I know what my reaction was.
First of all, no shots were fired during the raid, so that calls into question just how much you actually know about what transpired. And second, on FR you need to actually support your opinion with facts to have anyone treat your statements with any credibility - how exactly was the law doing its job here? What do you know about immigration law as it pertains to Elian's situation?
I was teasing the poor man. ;)
An out of wedlock father does not have "the right to have his son back". Juan Miguel never had custody of Elian in the first place, so your argument is bogus.
We do not know how good of a father he was. Ya we can go off rumors from biased family members living in Florida who have no contact with him but until someone can proove to me that the man was an imminent danger to the life of that child then the child belongs back with his father.
Wrong again. That is not the standard for custody. An out of wedlock father must obtain custody in a State family court.
And yes, that applies to immigrants as well as American citizens. That is the policy of the INS, and Reno rode roughshod over it.
The rest of you post I can definately agree with.
The other assertions I made, which you just agreed with, were:
1. That it was disingenuous to argue this as an immigration policy issue, as you were doing.
2. That the only thing your side accomplished was to help the Clintons defeat an enemy and hand Castro a big victory.
I'm glad we agree on that point.
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