Bush Thinks Just Like Pat Robertson, Says Fidel Castro

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B1E7BFBCF-477C-4F7D-91BB-414E803DC7E9%7D)&language=EN

Havana, Aug 27 (Prensa Latina) Fidel Castro said that US President George W. Bush has the same line of thought of ultra-conservative Reverend Pat Robertson, who recently incited to assassinate Venezuela´s statesman Hugo Chavez. snip

Those are old ideas from when they assassinated Congolese Prime Minister Patricio Lumumba in the early 60s and tried many times to kill me, Fidel Castro stressed. snip

Under that light, he recalled that the US government can be held responsible as an accomplice in the assassinations of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and General Carlos Prats and in the mid-air bombing of a Cuban commercial plane offshore Barbados in 1976 that killed 73 people. snip

He described Robertson as a wealthy man who amasses a 200 million dollar fortune, defended the Apartheid regime in South Africa, supported the dirty war against Nicaragua and spreads the ultraconservative thought of the religious right in the US. snip

[blm]

1. Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican. So is John Roberts.

So is John McCain.

[JohnLocke]

2. ¡Chavez, estoy contigo!

[bahrbearian]

3. Rove is Robertsons Brain?

[liberal N proud]

4. Here is how it works Fidel: KKKarl Rove thinks for George W. bu$h through

Pat Robertson.
It is the axis of EVIL or the evil trinity

[VegasWolf]

5. I wouldn't call what either one does as "thinking" per se. nt

[Joey Liberal]

6. Fidel is right

It's pretty bad when Fidel is right about an American pResident.

[mitchum]

7. Actually, it's pretty consistent when Fidel is right about...

an American president. He's been aware of, and right about, their games for a long time.

[brentspeak]

8. As bad as Bush is, he's got a ways to go until he catches up to Fidel

Doesn't Castro have some more dissenters to put up against the wall? To jail a few decades for thought crimes?

[VegasWolf]

9. Nah, I'm pretty sure that with 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead that Bush

pretty much passed Castro LONG ago.

[manic expression]

11. Are you serious?

There is political freedom in Cuba. There are many different political parties (no party is allowed to practically hold office - only individuals). However, Cuba does not tolerate US-funded "dissenters" who try to destabilize Cuba for the benefit of America's imperialist aims.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Would it be possible for you to provide a source for your claims?

I've not read or heard about any dissenters who've been executed, and I've been watching Cuba news ever since the Miami drunken great uncle of Elián Gonzalez, as well as the lunatic mob in Little Havana held him prisoner, and wouldn't let him go home to his family.

[brentspeak]

16. You wouldn't be "playing dumb" on the topic of Castro, could you?

You've "not read or heard about any dissenters who've been executed"?

Here's some links, as you requested:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/27/world/main560646.shtml

"But Castro began losing some of his former friends this spring when his government launched a crackdown on the opposition, jailing 75 dissidents and sentencing them to prison terms of up to 28 years.

It was the firing-squad executions of three convicted ferry hijackers during that same period that especially troubled some of Castro's foreign supporters.

Even some formerly sympathetic intellectuals on the left expressed disappointment, among them Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who once praised Castro as a "symbol of national dignity."

"Must they learn the bad habits of the enemy they are fighting?" Galeano wrote, criticizing the executions.

Cuba later justified its use of the death penalty to halt a brewing emigration crisis."

http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/cub-summary-eng

"Prisoners of conscience

Eighty-four prisoners of conscience remained held, seven of whom were awaiting trial at the end of the year.

Crack-down in March
A government crack-down in March led to the imprisonment of most of the leadership of the dissident movement including teachers, librarians, journalists, medical personnel, and political and human rights activists. Only a few very well-known figures critical of the regime were not affected...AI last visited Cuba in 1988. The government did not respond to AI’s repeated requests to be allowed into the country."

[Judi Lynn]

17. Maybe you didn't recognize the armed hijackers who took hostages

were mentioned seperately from the dissenters.

Dissenters were NOT executed.

The ferry hijacking in question was a particularly ugly incident in which the hijackers took over a regular coastal commuter ferry by holding a knife to the throat of a female passenger and threatening to kill her, then taking the boat out onto the open sea where ocean swells could have swamped it and killed everyone on board had it not run out of fuel. The passengers finally had to jump overboard and swim to safety to escape the violent hijackers, who were then arrested. This whole incident was recorded in graphic detail by TV news cameras. There were about ten hijackers, and only the ringleaders were sentenced to death and executed.
(snip/...)

http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d0505es.htm

[brentspeak]

18. How about a link that isn't a Castro apologist? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

20. Apologist? Let's see your evidence. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

21. Here's a more detailed account of the armed hijacking

from CBS:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/15/world/main563410.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

19. Here's another article on your "dissidents"

The Miami Herald
Apr. 03, 2003
Boat hijackers refuse to surrender, hold hostages

By RENATO PEREZ

The case of the hijacked Cuban ferryboat took a turn Thursday when, according to authorities at the port of Mariel, the hijackers refused to surrender and threatened to harm their hostages if they were not given fuel for another try at traveling to Florida.

Shortly before noon Thursday, President Fidel Castro himself arrived at Mariel, about 30 miles west of Havana, presumably to oversee the situation.

An official statement read on television and radio at 1 p.m. stated the government's hard-line reaction to the hijackers' demands.

''Force will be used if the hostage situation becomes critical,'' said the statement, which was reproduced in the Internet sites of the official newspaper Granma and the state-run news agency AIN.

The hijackers have agreed to release three of their approximately 50 hostages, the authorities said.

The ferry, a flat-bottomed boat that normally carries commuters across Havana Bay, between Old Havana and the eastern suburbs of Regla and Casablanca, was hijacked early Wednesday by eight or 10 armed men who ordered the captain to take them ``to Miami.''

The boat ran out of fuel about 30 miles off the coast of Havana and eventually the hijackers allowed Cuban Frontier Guard vessels to tow it back to Cuba.

However, the Cuban statement said, the hijackers ''held knives to the necks of women hostages when they arrived at 10:12 p.m. {Wednesday} to a dock at the port'' of Mariel.
(snip/...)

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/boat-hijakers.htm

[NNN0LHI]

22. I am more concerned with human rights violations in my own country

Like this case which occurred about 40 miles away from where I live. This representative of our government is currently collecting his tax payer paid retirement check in Florida where he is retired. Many of his co-conspirators are still on the job "protecting" you and I right here in America.

Don

http://www.truthinjustice.org/jon-burge.htm

Torture allegations dog ex-police officer

When Jon Burge was fired and left Chicago for Florida 10 years ago, he left turmoil in his wake.

<snip>Amnesty International asked for an independent investigation, calling the treatment "a clear violation of international law."

An investigator for the police department's professional standards office reviewed 50 complaints of abuse against Burge and his officers - electric shock, beatings, jabs with a cattle prod, pistols jammed in mouths in a mock execution, suffocations - and declared that the abuse was "systematic."

As many as 108 men have accused Burge and his detectives of torturing confessions from them.

With fundraisers and benefits, thousands of officers supported Burge and his men.

In 1993, Burge and his officers, who had been suspended without pay for more than a year, met different fates. The officers were reinstated. Burge was fired.

He took his pension and moved south to Florida. He left behind people angry not only with him but with the system that took his job but otherwise let him walk away unpunished.

[splat@14]

10. Bush, Castro, Robertson...they're all wack jobs.

[Divernan]

12. Castro has exponentially improved the standard of living

for those Cubanos who stayed on the island after Batista shipped every available dollar to Swiss bank accounts and then left the country. These people worked to repair and rebuild a society with a tiny, corrupted elite at the top, a very small middle class of shop owners and casino operators, and a very large and impoverished working class with no education, no health care, and minimal nutrition. The country was a playground for and in the control of U.S. organized crime. If you are able to do a scintilla (that means very small) of reading on the history of that country before and after Castro came into power, you would not call Castro a wack job.

[splat@14]

14. You are possibly correct as I made the comment based on what I have

learned (and heard) on Castro over the last half century that I have lived. I'll withdraw my remarks as they may not be correct on that intelligence such as it is. However, good things happened for some under Hitler and, only those favored by power get to tell their story. Righting a "wrong" with a "less wrong" may be a good basis for revolution, but it may not be good as a policy once in power. I recognize that Cuba has had a disadvantage as a result of some US policies but the disadvantage is not caused by the US alone. Some ownership by Castro and his government is due, I just don't know how much and that may make my comment unfair. The "people" were never the target of my comments, however misguided.

Thanks Diver! I'll read on it.
Splat!

[underthedome]

25. Hey Fidel is cool, as long as you don't oppose him

As opposition movements are illegal. Yea Fidel is fucking wacked.

[Judi Lynn]

26. It's true Batista cleaned out the National Treasury. He was scum.

Exiles who fled the feared retribution of the Cuban people right after the revolution never found it important to dwell on Batista's death squads, and torture centers. They were part of that foul criminals' paradise, themselves.

You only have as far as Miami to see how they operate. Turned Miami into multiple "winner" of the U.S. Census Bureau's designated "poorest city in a population over 500,000," while also being named, by the FBI, "Terror Capital of the United States."

Not to mention the long extravaganza of bombings and murders among themselves after getting here.

It's so hard to understand why they were hated in Cuba. (Not.)

[Mika]

27. Cuba before and after the revolution

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

No one can say with any credibility that universal education and universal health care is forced on Cubans. Castro didn't give it to them! Cubans, together, worked hard to create the infrastructure and systems that they felt were essential for any progressive system.

Cubans wanted universal health care for all Cubans, and they have it. They pushed for government that represented their ideals, and organized and formed infrastructure that enabled Cubans to create a fair and complete h-c system. Cubans wanted universal education for all Cubans, and they have it. They pushed for government that represented their ideals, organized and formed infrastructure that enabled Cubans to create a complete and world class ed system, and they have it. Cubans want to assist the world's poor with doctors and educators, instead of gun ship diplomacy.. and that is what they have done WITH their government, not at odds with their government.

Can Americans make this claim about their own country? I'm afraid not.

Here are some of the major parties in Cuba. The union parties hold the majority of seats in the Assembly.

http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/cu.html

* Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) {Communist Party of Cuba}
* Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba (PDC) {Christian Democratic Party of Cuba} - Oswaldo Paya's Catholic party
* Partido Solidaridad Democrática (PSD) {Democratic Solidarity Party}
* Partido Social Revolucionario Democrático Cubano {Cuban Social Revolutionary Democratic Party}
* Coordinadora Social Demócrata de Cuba (CSDC) {Social Democratic Coordination of Cuba}
* Unión Liberal Cubana {Cuban Liberal Union}

Plenty of info on this long thread,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6300&forum=DCForumID70


http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

--

Representative Fidel Castro was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of District #7 Santiago de Cuba.
He is one of the elected 607 representatives in the Cuban National Assembly. It is from that body that the Head of State is nominated and then elected. President Castro has been elected to that position since 1976.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/do/Dorticos.html

Dorticós Torrado, Osvaldo

1919–83, president of Cuba (1959–76). A prosperous lawyer, he participated in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement and was imprisoned (1958). He escaped and fled to Mexico, returning to Cuba after Castro’s triumph (1959). As minister of laws (1959) he helped to formulate Cuban policies. He was appointed president in 1959. Intelligent and competent, he wielded considerable influence. In 1976 the Cuban government was reorganized, and Castro assumed the title of president; Dorticós was named a member of the council of state.

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books





Cubans want normalization between the US and Cuba, and they have thrown their doors open to us, but, it is our US government that prevents what the majority of Americans want their government to do - normalize relations. Worse yet, the US government forbids and has criminalized travel to Cuba by Americans - something that Cuba hasn't done.



Viva Cuba!

[beetbox]

13. Robertson just let slip

what many of the elites desire as well as many others in the nation of oiloholics. It's pretty disgusting.

If it meant lower gas prices alot of folks would say 'go for it, get rid of the damn commie.'

[Peace Patriot]

23. I agree. I don't think Robertson would have said this--that the U.S.

should assassinate Hugo Chavez--if it were not Bush Cartel policy.

As for Castro vs. Bush on bloodshed, Bush is veritable river of blood by comparison. His murder mill as governor of Texas is infamous, but even that got outdone by his slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis by U.S. bombs alone, in the initial invasion of Iraq (100,000, according to the British doctors' report), with torture and death for many more since that time. Executions are rare in Cuba, and the execution of violent hijackers would hardly raise an eyebrow of disapproval if it had been done in the U.S.

Just think a bit about the colossal disinformation we have been subjected to, in just the last two years, on Iraq alone, and you will begin to understand how incredibly misinformed we are about Cuba and Castro. And, also, think how popular Castro must be--among most remaining Cubans, over many decades--to have persisted with a communist government right off the shores of the U.S. of A. No amount of skulduggery, assassination attempts, boycotting, badmouthing, and billions of dollars spent on political and military pressure, has resulted in ANY desire of the Cuban people to be "liberated" by us.

The Cubans in Cuba are not robots. They are not "pod people." They are not stupid. And they are not without courage. They PREFER their government. They REVERE Castro. The island may have its problems (greatly exacerbated by the hatred of the U.S. government, and Florida's rich Cuban exiles, and by the demise of Soviet aid and markets). And communism is as troubled as capitalism is, as a viable economic model (for different reasons, of course). (Capitalism sucks the blood of the poor and destroys the environment, if it is not strongly regulated by government; while communism tends to be stultifyingly bureaucratic, tries to regulate human behavior too much, and tends to be quite stupid as to trade and marketing.*) But the poor have never had it so good, in Cuba, since the revolution occurred. In fact, Cuba is DONATING doctors and nurses to Venezuela! (--for the new medical clinics in poor Venezuelan neighborhoods). Reports are that Cuba is a lively, friendly, colorful place--with a high literacy rate, many educated people, good medical care for all, and with a very low crime rate, since everybody is taken care of!

-----

*(It's interesting to study the difference between how communism has worked out in a LATIN society, as compared to Russia, Central Europe and China. I haven't been to Cuba, but I'd bet money on a more laid back Latin style of governance, quite different from the dour Russian and Middle European model, and never as fanatical as communist China got to be, at certain points. And that may be the reason that communism still exists in Cuba--Latin culture is more humanistic and down-to-earth, and has naturally tempered communist ideology and rigidness. The reports I hear are of good music and good food, not a lot of prosperity, but enough for everyone to get by--and life is far more than possessions, after all. It is community and joy and love! If you have those, who cares if you have two cars or a big house? Hm-m?)

(I did visit Soviet Russia, in the early 1970s--and what struck me about it was how dour it was. How little color, how little joy. Drab, depressed, oppressed. That was my impression of it. And that's not what I hear of Cuba!)

[VegasWolf]

24. Question is: What exactly was Robertson trying to accomplish with his

statement?