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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (21904)	8/1/2006 8:12:26 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Castro's Demise Jonah Goldberg The Corner I really, really, really hope this administration has a good plan to take advantage of Castro's — tragic! That's right tragic! — demise. Undoubtedly, there are 20 kajillion old pans sitting on a shelf somewhere. But a little democracy-spreading on Castro's grave would be a welcome change of pace considering the news these days. No, I don't want any invasions or whatnot, but maybe some walking-around money and some threats would work nicely. It's not my job to work out the details. It's my job to hope that someone else has — very late on a Monday night. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21904)	8/1/2006 8:14:03 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Castro Kathryn Jean Lopez The Corner I'm amazed how at-face-value some MSM types are taking the "news" from the Cuban government. Because tyrannies always tell the truth, I'm sure we can be confident everything they are telling us right now is the absolute truth... corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21904)	8/4/2006 7:25:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Castro: I Believe In HIPAA Posted by Captain Ed Fidel Castro released a new statement to his island of adoring subjects [cough, cough] this evening. In deep appreciation for their concerns, he told Cubans to mind their own business about the state of his health: <<< In a statement attributed to Fidel Castro that has only fuelled the rumours surrounding his health, the Cuban leader said that his medical condition was a "state secret" and that it would require the "passage of time" to assess his recovery. He added that he was feeling "fairly well", according to the words read on his behalf by a state television presenter. "I cannot invent good news, because that wouldn't be ethical. And if the news were bad, the only one to benefit is the enemy," he said in his statement. >>> He couldn't invent his brother Raul, either, who didn't bother to make this statement on his big brother's behalf. No one knows where Dear Placeholder has hidden himself, but the lack of clear command has some Cubans worried, according to the London Telegraph. For a populace used to Fidel speeches that give new meaning to the word "interminable", the fact that the Commandante passed this short statement onto the nearby TV anchor shows just how serious the situation is. It's not just rank-and-file citizens, either. Cubans reported new troop movements around the island, especially in Guantanamo, where dissidents say the government has them trapped. The Cuban diaspora, perhaps sensing a momentous change coming, have started making preparations for a massive boatlift if control dissipates in Cuba. No one appears to know what's happening in Cuba, and that's a bad recipe for this military dictatorship. captainsquartersblog.com telegraph.co.uk

To: Sully- who wrote (21904)	8/6/2006 10:55:22 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Why do they love Fidel? Betsy's Page It's always been somewhat of a mystery why so many on the left just loooooove their man in Havana. He's done everything that the left would seem to despise: jailing opponents, clamping down on freedom of the press, imprisoning librarians, stealing money from government, isolating and even jailing AIDS victims. Yet they still flock to praise and romanticize him. They wear Che Guevara T Shirts despite Che's record of rounding up and murdering opponents. As the Wall Street Journal writes today, <<< Fidel has cultivated his status as a left-wing icon since taking power in 1959. Remarkably, the fact that he has extracted from his impoverished and oppressed people a personal fortune--Forbes magazine estimated it last year at over half a billion dollars for its World's Richest People list--has done little to dent his image as a man of the people. The standard apologetics for the sorry state of the Cuban economy begin from the premise that America, not socialism, is responsible for Cuba's travails. But Castro's personal financial success suggests that in fact substantial revenue is sluicing through the island. Even with the U.S. embargo in place, there's plenty of money to be made in Cuba. It's just that nearly all of it the income from exports of seafood, tobacco, sugar and nickel, not to mention Fidel's real-estate and pharmaceutical operations, goes to the ruling clique or to the military, bypassing the population. There are good reasons to question the embargo, but the notion that it is the source of all of Cuba's ills isn't one of them. >>> All that Fidel has going for him really is his opposition to the United States. Deep down that seems to be what the left likes about him - that they can use their praise of him as a stick to beat up on this country and on capitalism. You would have thought that the battle between communism and capitalism was over and the victor was clear, but it seems that there are still some pockets here in the US where it rages on. Reporters love to juxtapose his 47 years of rule in Cuba with how many presidents have come and gone since he first took power. Well, that is because he is a dictator who refuses to give up power while we are a democracy that has laws for when a leader leaves office. I wonder if the same people who are shouting about ending the Bush regime would have the same pleasure with living under a ruler who refused to leave power after 47 years and then planned to hand power over to his septuagenarian brother? Can they explain why people in the past 47 years have risked their very lives to flee the island but no one seems to be flocking to that Cuban paradise. Even they who praise Fidel and his wondrous health care system don't seem to fly there to settle down to live or to take advantage of those marvelous hospitals for themselves. As the WSJ says, <<< Of course it may be no coincidence that most of the admiration all these years has been from afar. The idea of "Fidel" allows his leftish admirers from the comforts of free, mostly capitalist societies to imagine that someone out there is struggling to build a better, more egalitarian way of life--without any of them having to live amid the daily Cuban reality of grinding poverty and political intimidation. >>> betsyspage.blogspot.com opinionjournal.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21904)	8/9/2006 11:14:59 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Is this why the left fawns over Castro? Perception is Reality.... posted by Sully Seriously, what leftist wouldn't want to do time in one of Castro's detention camps to advance the cause of Communism? (Hat tip to Robert Cox) <<< I was a full professor at the University of Havana. By 1968, I had enough of Castro’s system and decided to leave Cuba.... ... At a compulsory meeting of faculty and students, I was denounced as a traitor and expelled. I was kept in limbo — unable to leave, unable to work — for two years. Then, in 1971, security forces came to my house. I was charged with ‘vagrancy’ and taken at gunpoint to a forced labor camp 50 miles outside of Havana. For six weeks, my wife and children had no idea what had become of me. I was made to work in the fields from dawn to dusk. We had little food and what we had was disgusting. I stole potatoes and corn from the fields and ate them raw. I ate grass and plant leaves for fiber and vitamins.... ... Fifty men shared one open water pipe for drinking water and bathing. One open hole was the toilet. We were so desperate to get the filth off us that we bathed in irrigation ditches. One of the jobs at the camp was to put parathion on crops. I knew parathion, an insecticide, entered the bloodstream through the skin, mouth and nose causing poisoning, blackouts, and death. We were made to spread the parathion with our bare hands, breathing in the powder as we worked. Every day the guards pointed guns in my face, hit me and shouted “traitor,” “vermin” and “parasite.”... ... I went from 180 pounds to 142 by the time I left Cuba. I later learned that a woman from the government wanted to live in my house. Maybe that was the reason. When I left, she moved into my house.”... >>> perception-reality-facts.blogspot.com examiner.com