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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian

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To: Machaon who wrote (2470)4/25/2000 11:38:00 AM
From: Lane31 Recommendation  Read Replies (2) of 9127
 
<<What if the shoe fits?>>

What I'm suggesting is that the shoe doesn't fit all the people on this board to whom it has been applied.

I understand that the Cuban exiles suffered incredibly at the hands of Castro. For two generations, they've been in Miami stewing in their justifiable hatred of Castro to the point that their monolithic perspective views everything and everyone through the prism of their hatred of him. I don't begrudge them that hatred. If they want to make spitting in Castro's eye their life's work, they're entitled. If they want to transfer that hatred of Castro to his cronies, then the shoe most surely does fit.

However.

I've read most of the posts on this board. I don't think there's anyone here who thinks Castro is a great guy or that Cuba is a swell place to live. I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't think that Elian, all things being equal, wouldn't be better off in the U.S. Where they don't all agree with the exiles is in the view that Castro hatred trumps every other emotion, every other principle, every value, every law in the known universe. Or that there's only one way of achieving justice for the exiles--the party line prescribed by the exile leadership. Daring to suggest that the party line has flaws or that it's implementers aren't perfect does not "condemn the victims."

When you live in a tight community, a monolithic view is perpetually reinforced until it seems like anyone who doesn't hold it is the enemy. I'm suggesting that it's both unfair and self-defeating to say that the shoe fits everyone who isn't a hard-liner. Only despots, like Castro, don't tolerate constructive dissent.

Karen
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