Posted on 07/31/2006 7:29:53 PM PDT by doug from upland
Edited on 08/01/2006 3:49:21 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
If someone can get me the address, this will be sent from my card service, SendOutCards.com.
The only thing on this thread is a question about whether it should be put there. As our official policewoman, you can now go to bed happy.
Cubans in Miami wait anxiously to hear Castro's condition (partying in the streets of Little Havana)
WSVN ^ | 7-31-06
Posted on 07/31/2006 9:01:11 PM PDT by STARWISE
Cubans exiles took to the streets in anticipation Monday night after news spread that Cuban President Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother Raul and underwent surgery for intestinal illness.
People waved Cuban flags on Little Havana's Calle Ocho, shouting "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba," hoping that the end is near for the man most of them consider to be a ruthless dictator. There were hugs, cheers and dancing as drivers honked their horns. Many of them fled the communist island or have parents and grandparents who did.
"We long for the day when power transfers in Cuba are the results of a free, democratic process and reflect the wishes of the Cuban people, not the preordained wishes of a dictator" said Joanna Gonzalez, spokeswoman for Raices de Esperanza or Roots of Hope. "Although this transfer of power is being characterized as temporary, the oppression under which the Cuban people live is enduring and continues."
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami , said, "This is a clear reminder that the end of the Castro regime is approaching, and that the only solution is free elections and the rule of law."
Castro said in a statement read on Cuban television that he had suffered intestinal bleeding, apparently due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba.
Castro said that extreme stress "had provoked in me a sharp intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that obligated me to undergo a complicated surgical procedure."
Castro also requested the celebration of his 80th birthday on Aug. 13 be postponed until Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Raul Castro, who turned 75 in June, has been taking on a more public profile in recent weeks.
Coast Guard officials said they were on standby, awaiting further orders. The agency has a plan in case Cubans begin a massive exodus for Florida on boats and rafts.
"No ships have moved, no cutters have moved, everything is on standby," Coast Guard spokesman Dana Warr said. "We have units underway, but no plans from the Coast Guard have been put into action yet."
U.S. officials have long had plans in place to head off any possible mass exodus from Cuba by sea in case that the government suddenly opened the island's borders as occurred during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and again during the rafter crisis in 1995.
"Certainly we have our officers in the areas where the celebrations are taking place," Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss said.
"Over the years there have been rumors that Castro has passed on, but there is no belief that it will be a bad time, that there will be mass riots," he said. "Just the opposite, lots of celebration, lots of joy and happiness."
A spokesman for federal Department of Homeland Security said there had been no changes in national security measures.
Some Cuban exile leaders said they were surprised that the announcement of his illness was done in such a public manner.
Arturo Cobo, a Cuban exile activist who once ran the home for Cuban rafters in Key West, said it seemed strange to him that the Cuban government was disclosing Castro's operation because of its secretive nature.
"Either he is dead or this is an elaborate practice for the Cuban government to test the reaction of its military, its ministry, its people and the American government," Cobo said.
While watching the news from his Miami home, Cobo speculated that the "practice" could be a way for Castro to test who his enemies are and who his friends are within the island.
Cobo said that the exile community had been waiting for this "forever."
"There is exultation and joy in the exile community tonight," Cobo said.
Fidel Castro Ruz
President of the State Councils and Ministres
Palace of the Revolution
Havana-CUBA
Fidel, one of the biggest murderers alive.
Dear Fidel:
We hope you're dead
You stinking Red
Got shot in the head
Or just crapped out in your bed
We don't care
But we hope it's very warm for you down there!
ADIOS!
There already is! Saw it on TV about five minutes ago. They're lining the streets and cheering.
No zip code? :)
Do they think he is dead already?
You could send it by email:
cubaminrex@minrex.gov.cu
Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite TyrantThe truth about the world's favorite murderer
By Steven Martinovich
web posted May 23, 2005
In a rational world a world leader guilty of mass murder and torture, a man who managed to outdo the Nazi prewar murder and incarceration rate during his first three months in power would not be feted. Fidel Castro is proof that this isn't an entirely rational world. Despite the fact that Castro is responsible for one of the bloodiest and most repressive régimes on the planet, he is hailed as a kind and sensitive man.
Though it is not likely to persuade any of Castro's admirers, Humberto Fontova's impassioned effort Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant aims at correcting the record. Dismayed by the long record of misguided affection for the communist tyrant, Fidel is Fontova's response to comments such as "Cuba's Elvis" (Dan Rather) and "Very selfless and moral. One of the world's wisest men." (Oliver Stone).
According to Fontova, the reality is far different. From the very beginning Castro was a thug who began his homicidal ways more than six decades ago with suspected murders of university rivals and a 1948 uprising in Bogotá that was responsible for the deaths of thousands. Today, Castro presides over a vicious totalitarian state that has the blood of untold numbers of dissidents jailed and murdered during his rule.
Fontova documents that bloody history, recounting mass executions, show trials and torture. Although Cuba is billed as a paradise, Fontova illustrates that the reality is far different. Just like its now departed Cold War ally the Soviet Union, the worker's paradise boasts concentration camps where inmates are beaten, starved and often executed. In the old days Castro himself was a witness to the firing squads that worked day and night to murder off dissidents or anyone else viewed as a threat to the communist régime.
Along with his thoughts on Castro, Fontova also explores Cuba both before and after the communist revolution, Castro's aid to international drug trafficking groups, Che Guevara (whom he paints as a militarily inept coward incapable of winning even easy battles), and the media's history of favorable coverage of the Hitler admiring dictator. He blasts those who want to expand business ties with Cuba or believe that playing nice with Castro will pay the dividend of increased political moderation. A number of myths -- including the allegedly improved lives of Cubans during the Castro years -- are also demolished by Fontova.
Although the book is subtitled "Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant", Fontova saves much of his ire for a media, particularly the New York Times, he accuses of willingly distorting the reality of a tyrannical Cuba in favour of presenting a progressive state. Since the 1950s, he shows, the world media -- whom he dubs as "suckers for Castro" -- has with few exceptions failed to tell the real story. Even while bodies were being dumped in a moat around one of Cuba's prisons in the weeks after the revolution, the media praised Castro as honest, an anti-Communist and a restorer of legitimate government.
If Fidel has a weakness it's that Fontova's tone sometimes becomes overly heated, though given that he was a refugee of Castro's dictatorship it's an understandable weakness. Totalitarianism demands to be attacked with every weapon and it's arguable, to paraphrase a thought from Barry Goldwater, that there is no such thing as extremism in the defense of human liberty. Fontova has penned a potent attack on Castro and the Cuba that he has created, one that has destroyed the lives of millions.
Fidel argues persuasively that the admiration that Castro basks in, whether via open admiration from Hollywood or biased reporting from the press, is a crime both against the truth and the Cuban people. Although Fontova will be dismissed as yet another conservative Cuban refugee motivated simply by ideological hatred of Castro, Fidel shows him to instead be a promoter of liberty for those who remain in the dictator's island-sized prison camp. Hopefully one day Castro's useful idiots in the western world will follow Fontova's lead.
=======================================================================
Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1675504/posts
No, they're just all hyped up hearing that he may be close.
Thanks. This is a real greeting card to be delivered.
This will be a big time party in the streets of Miami. Then, they need to figure out how to get rid of Raul.
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Yes, indeed. It could be a Wellstone moment. I wonder who will attend the funeral.
If only Ricky Ricardo could be alive to see it.
Oh, geez, Doug! LOL!!
I hope he receives it before he departs. Even Fidel has to have a sense of humor.
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