Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcos who wrote (1500)	4/21/2000 9:07:00 PM
From: marcos	Respond to of 9127

Free Speech Notion in Elian Case MIAMI (AP) - A radio show host with a shirt saying Elian Gonzalez should go back to Cuba is shoved around by an angry crowd. A week later, a man with a similar message is branded a ``pro-Castro instigator' by the crowd, and police hustle him away for his own safety. In Little Havana, where whispered suspicions race through the crowd daily outside Elian's home, the First Amendment right to free speech is limited to those who insist the 6-year-old boy should not go back to Cuba. Those who express contrary opinions do so at their own risk. Bienvenido Comas, 27, a demonstrator, says rival protesters have a right to voice their opinions - just not here. ``It's illegal for somebody to come in here and incite a riot, and you're trying to incite a riot doing that,' he says. There have been only sporadic incidents of violence since Elian arrived here nearly five months ago, and police credit the protesters themselves with preventing fights. But Miami has a long history of violence linked to its large and powerful Cuban community. In the mid-'70s, radio station news director Emilio Milian lost his legs below the knees in a car bombing after speaking against violent extremists. The Miami Herald later was labeled pro-Castro, its vending machines were vandalized and its editors received death threats. In 1998, a pipe bomb exploded at a Miami Beach nightclub, canceling a concert by Cuban salsa star Manolin. No one was hurt. When it comes to Elian, experts say a mob mentality is growing in Miami as the protests drag on. They say the exhilaration that comes from defying the U.S. and Cuban governments leads to irrational behavior. ``You're getting everything you're going to get in a sports stadium. It's driven to extremes, and it's carried by hatred,' says Kenneth Richardson, a psychologist at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., who specializes in group dynamics. ``Once you get that, it destroys reason.' Hundreds of protesters gather daily near the Little Havana home, and dozens spend the night in small circles of lawn chairs, sipping strong, sugary Cuban coffee. Many of the anti-Castro Cubans see spies and provocateurs all around them. That stern man talking on a cellular telephone? In hushed voices, demonstrators conclude he must be a spy sent by Castro. One night last week, 57-year-old housewife Josefina Rosenthal noticed a man who hadn't joined in with the others in chanting ``Elian Isn't Going Away' in Spanish. His stony demeanor convinced her he was a troublemaker. Smoking a cigar near the Gonzalez home, 67-year-old Humberto Perez says Cuban Americans know spies are at work because that's what happens in Cuba. ``They're watching everything,' Perez says. ``If you come home at 2 a.m., they know it. If you have a package, they know it.' ``This is a frenzy,' says Guillermo Grenier, a sociologist with Florida International University who also does polling on Cuban American issues. ``This can be seen in history as something equivalent to the witch trials in Salem.' He added: ``The Cuban community is in tune ideologically with the best of the Constitution. But when an issue deals with Cuba, the behavior shows, `We are exiles and anyone who preaches what we left we are against.' dailynews.yahoo.com