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Four years after return to Cuba, Elian a normal schoolboy
Kansas City .com ^ | 7/31/04 | MAKI BECKER

Posted on 08/01/2004 2:57:57 PM PDT by Libloather

4 years after return to Cuba, Elian a normal schoolboy
BY MAKI BECKER
New York Daily News
Posted on Sat, Jul. 31, 2004

NEW YORK - (KRT) - Elian Gonzalez, now 10, hits the books in Cardenas, Cuba, where he lives with his father.

Four years after little Elian Gonzalez was plucked from the seas off Florida's coast and sparked an international custody battle, the young boy is leading a sheltered and almost normal life back in Cuba.

Elian lives with his father in their hometown of Cardenas and he still sports the same impish grin that captivated the world back in 2000.

In an interview with NBC's "Dateline" to air Sunday, Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, says he has generally kept Elian out of the limelight, even moving to a secret location in town to avoid the press.

"The media (in Miami) intimidated him, pressured him most of all," Gonzalez said in his first interview in three years. "It totally overwhelmed him."

As Elian's American relatives fought to keep him in the U.S. and his father sought to take him back to Cuba, hundreds of reporters camped out outside their Miami home, recording every movement of the photogenic little boy.

The custody clash even led to a war of words between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the boy's fiercely anti-Castro American relatives.

The stalemate ended dramatically as heavily armed federal officers stormed the house in the middle of the night, snatched the terrified boy and took him into protective custody.

Elian still grieves for his mother who drowned when their boat capsized on its way to Florida, Gonzalez said, but he has adjusted to life well.

"I can truly say that since his return, my son has never had to see a psychologist, or anyone else," Gonzalez told "Dateline NBC."

Elian is learning karate and has two girlfriends, Gonzalez reports.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Cuba; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 4; after; castropropoganda; castrospawn; communistpropoganda; cuba; elian; eliangonzalez; four; normal; return; schoolboy; years
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To: Libloather
Wouldn't it be cool if this kid grew up to be the first freely elected Presidente of Cuba?
281 posted on 08/02/2004 4:04:10 PM PDT by AlbionGirl
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To: Prodigal Daughter
I can't answer #255, I'm still laughing too hard.

255: but I don't honestly think most of them, not even BJ Clinton and the Wookie, would lie in order to send a little helpless child back to a communist hellhole because they prefer Cuba's style of government over the United State's. I think, or at least hope, they hold the rights of the one living parent above all else and then hope for the best.

Like me.

LOL!! I'm still laughing at this one…

I guess the only thing that could have made us all happy is if his father had decided to stay here in America with Elian. But since he didn't, I say he's got the right to raise his son.

Raise his son? Elain's father doesn't raise his son, the state does - and Fidel is head of state.

What do they say about blondes? Be back shortly, this is getting funny.

282 posted on 08/02/2004 4:39:34 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: Prodigal Daughter
Nice rant. But it wasn't needed...

Who's to say it wasn't all about getting Elien here so they could claim him for Welfare payments?

Not saying that's the case, just trying to make a point by using an outragous example.

...But you knew that, didn't you?

283 posted on 08/02/2004 4:54:48 PM PDT by Mister Blond
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To: Victoria Delsoul
It was distressing to see how far the press went-not that you would expect anything different from a media that has heaped adulation on "El Hefe" for the past forty years or so-in libeling the Gonzalez family and the people-from multiple nationalities-who came to defend their right to keep little Elian in a free nation.

It's almost as galling as Algore's revisionist thinking on why he lost (And he did lose!!!) the state of Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

284 posted on 08/02/2004 5:33:00 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid (I don't have a drinking problem. You have a non-drinking problem bub!)
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To: Betis70; RussianConservative; Conspiracy Guy; KangarooJacqui
Thanks!

There are so many great foreign films on this subject.

For example, there is "East-West", which is one of the best dramas/romances made about the former Soviet Union.

Some other great films are "Mendel", " Canary Season", "Xiu Xiu" and "Farewell My Concubine."

"Children of the Revolution" is a very funny parody of a hardcore, unshakable Australian communist, who has the love child of Joe Stalin.

It also stars Geoffrey Rush, F. Murray Abraham and several other distinguished actors, so it's worth taking a look at.

285 posted on 08/02/2004 5:58:26 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid (I don't have a drinking problem. You have a non-drinking problem bub!)
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To: The Scourge of Yazid

There are few on the PRC. "To Live" is another good one, which shows how great 'universal' health care can be.


286 posted on 08/02/2004 6:04:45 PM PDT by Betis70
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To: Betis70
You're right about that.

Unfortunately, they're all censored by that corrupt, brutal, communist gerontocracy before they get a chance to be released within China itself.

287 posted on 08/02/2004 6:15:12 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid (I don't have a drinking problem. You have a non-drinking problem bub!)
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To: Mister Blond
...But you knew that, didn't you?

Nope.

288 posted on 08/02/2004 6:30:20 PM PDT by Prodigal Daughter
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To: Mister Blond; Victoria Delsoul
Victoria is right!

Mister Blond wrote: ...but I don't honestly think most of them, not even BJ Clinton and the Wookie, would lie in order to send a little helpless child back to a communist hellhole because they prefer Cuba's style of government over the United State's. I think, or at least hope, they hold the rights of the one living parent above all else and then hope for the best.

Well her first choice for Education Secretary wasn't nominated after it was discovered she was active in several Marxist organizations, including pro-Castro Venceremos Brigade. And if you didn't notice that the Clintons took illegal campaign money from the Chinese communists, you could have heard David Horowitz reiterate that on Washington Journal just this morning. Wake up and smell the cortadito!

289 posted on 08/02/2004 6:55:10 PM PDT by Prodigal Daughter
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To: The Scourge of Yazid
It was distressing to see how far the press went-not that you would expect anything different from a media that has heaped adulation on "El Hefe" for the past forty years or so-in libeling the Gonzalez family and the people-from multiple nationalities-who came to defend their right to keep little Elian in a free nation.

It was distressing but not surprising, since the mainstream media political leanings are leftist, thus agreeing with every socialist or communist tyrant around the world, in particular their hero Fidel whom the Hollywood elite describes as a warm, bright, and moral man who is very concerned about his country and his people. Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the Liberals aren't concerned about 40 plus years of Castro's bloody repression and oppression.

I guess we can't fault them completely since Universities have become a cesspool of leftist thinking where the majority of students are indoctrinated by the festering leftist propaganda being propagated on every campus.

290 posted on 08/02/2004 7:18:50 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: Prodigal Daughter
Wake up and smell the cortadito!

I told you this thread was getting funny.

291 posted on 08/02/2004 7:19:55 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: Victoria Delsoul
Definitely true.

I was sickened by Barbara Wa-Wa's fawning interview of that savagely brutal dictator on 20/20.

I wonder if she asked him (On background, of course.) how many children he's sired over the years, and whether their mothers consented to his advances before their conception.

The only thing you need to know about Castro is the fact that his sister (A blood relative, no less.) despises him to the very core of her being.

292 posted on 08/02/2004 7:31:00 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid (I don't have a drinking problem. You have a non-drinking problem bub!)
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To: The Scourge of Yazid
Barbara wouldn't ask those kinds of questions to dear Comandante.

Not only his sister despises him but his children as well.

293 posted on 08/02/2004 7:35:06 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: laredo44

Thank you. That means alot. :)


294 posted on 08/02/2004 7:37:39 PM PDT by texasflower (in the event of the Rapture, the Bush White House will be unmanned.)
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To: Victoria Delsoul
Oh, I'm sure of that!

It's like Nikita Khruschev's grandson, who not only became a conservative, vehemently anticommunist college professor, but was also granted U.S. citizenship.

295 posted on 08/02/2004 7:38:55 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid (I don't have a drinking problem. You have a non-drinking problem bub!)
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To: The Scourge of Yazid

Yes right, Nikita Khrushchev's grandson's became a citizen just a few years ago. I think it was in 1999, but I don't remember his name.


296 posted on 08/02/2004 7:45:26 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: The Scourge of Yazid

Oops, I just noticed what I wrote… it should read, "grandson"


297 posted on 08/02/2004 8:00:45 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The beauty of flip-flopping consists entirely in saying one thing and doing something else)
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To: FairOpinion

Castro, rubbing our faces in it, that they've got him back.


298 posted on 08/02/2004 8:23:26 PM PDT by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
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To: my_pointy_head_is_sharp

"Castro, rubbing our faces in it, that they've got him back."


And our fine liberal media is helping Castro do it.

I should have taped that Dateline. Anyone who saw it will agree with me, that the bias, lies and mispresenatations were enourmous. Anyone who hadn't seen it, can't imagine that a supposedly factual program could really be this bad.


299 posted on 08/02/2004 8:29:27 PM PDT by FairOpinion (FIGHT TERRORISM! VOTE BUSH/CHENEY 2004.)
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To: Victoria Delsoul
I was rifling through some old copies of "National Review" that I had saved, looking for this story. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to locate it, but I did find a website (Y-Press: A Children's News Network) that had an article about Khruschev's actual grandson, Nikita.

It turns out, I was thinking of Khruschev's son, who is named Sergei, lives in Rhode Island and is a lecturer at Providence.

He actually became an American citizen-according to this article-in the Summer of 2003.

300 posted on 08/02/2004 11:03:07 PM PDT by The Scourge of Yazid
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