Ok, Ok, I've been a little off on Hugo Chavez.

[happydreams]

HE SHOULD HAVE KICKED THE BASTARDS OUT A LONG TIME AGO!!

I've always thought the guy was going to easy on the sleazeballs trying to overthrow his presidency. Sometimes being a nice guy can get you in trouble.

Castro's approach is more to my liking. He gave the bastards the boot and when the US tried to shitcan him he, justifiably, formed an alliance with the Soviet Union. I would have done the same thing if, that is, I had the presence of mind to.

It was the rabid Right CIA that caused all of he trouble with Cuba. Operation Zapata/Bay of Pigs invasion was an absolute disaster that the CIA never was held accountable for. Zapata is the name of Poppy Bush's oil company. Two of he ships used in the operation were the Houston and the Barbara--barhorse. IMO Dulles and Poppy were behind the Kennedy's assasination after he threatened to "break the CIA into 1000 pieces" and fired Allen Dulles.

Dulles sordid past goes all the way back to WWI where he and his Uncle Robert Lansing, Sect. of State, decided to start their own push for war by getting Panama and Nicaragua to take a hostile stance toward Germany years before the US was in the war. A classic case of "Wag the Dog".

He and his brother JF, who later became Sect. of State, where pro-fascist to a fault.

... ......


Chavez should have kicked Ambassador Brownfield out long ago.

...The only thing I found strange and extremely disturbing was a news report on Venevision which talked about a meeting between Ricardo Cisneros (from the Cisneros Group, the largest media group in Latin America and owners of Venevision) and William Brownfield, US ambassador to Venezuela. This meeting happened at Venevision headquarters in Caracas on December 15, 2004 in the company of the president of Venevision.

Brownfield stated that he is very happy with the way Venevision operates and their professionalism … and that the US government fully supports Venevision....


http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=23984



See discussion here.
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard...

Cisneros linked to Aryan Brotherhood:

References to Cisneros crime family nearly cleaned from Internet search engines. I did find this reference. Check out the link to Aryan Brotherhood

Prison and gangs - The New Mexican Mafia (Eme), the Aryan Brotherhood and other groups have become notorious for drug dealing and cold-blooded killings, behind bars and on the outside.

New Eme, especially, is blamed by Phoenix police for more than 25 murders in the past five years. The organization has a "blood-in, blood-out" code, meaning that one must commit serious violence to join and suffer mayhem or death to resign.

Two years ago, authorities arrested several New Eme members in a conspiracy to kill state prisons chief Terry Stewart. Those charges did not stick, but top gang leaders were arrested last year with members of the related Cisneros crime family in a monster drug case.

The problem: Prison gangs were born behind bars and flourish there, so incarceration is hardly an antidote. In fact, although much of New Eme's leadership is in custody, police say the organization remains effective at killing witnesses, compromising lawyers and dealing drugs.

The Aryan Brotherhood, meanwhile, is considered a major factor in Arizona's flourishing methamphetamine market. This year, prison officials released records alleging that Brotherhood leaders also were conspiring to kill Stewart.


http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special01/articles/cr ...



See Cisneros with Poppy:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard...


edit: spelling.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2703926&mesg_id=2705080

[Bucky]

1. The Dulles brothers were "pro-fascist to a fault"

To a fault? Is there such a thing as moderately pro-fascist?

[Syrinx]

2. you look up to Castro?

:shrug:

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Well, he certainly did right by his people. Lowest infant mortality rates in

Latin America, highest longevity, lowest illitericy rates, highest per capata education completed, and many more social indicators show that Castro has been very good for the Cuban people. They like him, even if the mafia and the multinationals don't.

So yeah. I look up to Castro. he's been a lot better for his people than the dictators we installed in many other Latin American countries.

[Mika]

7. Castro didn't do those things. The Cuban people did.

I am constantly amazed at how so many Americans blame Castro for all of Cuba's ills and/or all of the good things that came about post '59 revolution.



No one can say with any credibility that universal education and universal health care needs to be forced on any population. Castro didn't give it to them either. Together, nearly all Cubans worked hard to create the infrastructure and systems that they felt were essential for any progressive system.

The Cuban people 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.

The people of Cuba 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.



Been there. Seen it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

9. But without Castro, they wouldn't have those things.

Think the Batista cabal and the US-backed dictators that would have followed would have let the Cuban people have universal education and health care? HA!

[Mika]

11. I seriously think that they would.

The revolution against US imperialism & Batista was inevitable. Castro was just the focal point at that time. Had it not been Castro, it would have been someone else of the large revolutionary cadres in Cuba.

The Cuban revolution was not about, by, nor for Castro. It was the vast majority of Cubans who rose up against imperialism, not just a small group of Fidelistas.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. I think you're very mistaken, Mika, if you have the remotest doubt that

post-revolutionary Cuba could have happened without Fidel at the helm. Although I'm sure you're right about an egregious confluence of propitious factors.

Minimising Castro's role on that account seems to me like minimising Hitler's evil on the same basis.

[Mika]

24. Maximizing Castro's role is mistaken also.

Cuba did have a system of government before and after the revolution.

Mr Castro did not control Cuba. Cubans would not have accepted that.

Mr Castro went back to school to earn his law degree. He really came to the fore after he was called back to duty to lead the defense against the US backed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion.

For example..

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.

Demonizing one person is much easier, for anti socialist/ anti Castro propaganda reasons, than recognizing that it was the Cuban people who overthrew US gov & corporate imperialism. Conversely, for propaganda reasons, it is much easier to laud one man as the doer of most all of the good things that have happened in Cuba than to recognize that the vast majority of Cubans support socialism and it is they who have built a socialist system for themselves.

(I mean.. god forbid that an entire nation of people reject the Uncle Sam model of governance/ health care/ education/ etc.. it simply MUST be one man dictating that Cubans have good health care and education. :sarcasm: )

[John Q. Citizen]

28. i see your point, however I also know that the people of Guatemala, El Salvador,

Honduras, Chile, and many other places want quality universal health care, quality univeral education etc, yet they are continually thwarted in those efforts.

So let me rephrase my original post. I look up to Castro for not impeding the will of his own people,

Better now?

[Mika]

30. When they kick the US & other corporate imperialists out..

.. that will be a good start to real change for all of them. Mr Castro & Mr Chavez are good guides as to how to motivate people to express their beliefs and towards activism that can produce results - as has Cuba and, recently, Venezuela. If a truly activist people need and want healthcare/education/sovereignty, then they will form a government that will work with them to make it happen (or else said government will be ditched).

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. I still have to differ with you markedly in this matter, because I don't

believe that non-academically educated people have ever, in the history of mankind acted as one, politically, without the leadership of individuals with a worldly intelligence, i.e. politicians of all hues, left and right.

It is noteworthy in the UK that the right wing, the Tories and now New Labour, i.e. the the monied people they represent, never need to be told to get out and vote, for example; while, on the contrary, most working people who struggle economically, tend to be easy prey to the right-wing propagandists who peddle the line that "Oh, what's the point in voting! They're all the same!" They tend to be putty in their hands. The top of the working class pecking order tend to be among the smartest of all, one way and another, but they tend not to involve themselves in the mire of politics.

The problem is that almost invariably the people's trade-union and political leaders tend to change very quickly from populist fire-brands to country gentlemen, once they reach a certain level. Indeed, in the UK, they usually accept a title and join the House of Lords. Actually, not such a bad thing at all, in principle, except that their loyalties dissipate smartly, if they haven't already.

I used to scoff at the Tory taunt that Socialism is the politics of envy, thinking only of the perfect right all human beings have to envy and resent not having even the bare modicum to survive, at least without hellish stress, while their more worldy compatriots, with total cynicism, fleece them at every turn.

However, I soon came to realise the kernel of truth the Tories were trying to highlight, concerning the motivation of most populist leaders, who, if they began with a justifiable envy, soon become envious of the high life of their old enemies. They want to be LIKE them! Have the money, power, privilege, status, etc., themselves.

Some, such as Castro and Guevara, however, could have made their way very well in the world, without using Socialism as a front. And all credit to them for that. I don't know Hugo's background, but he may not have enjoyed the monied background I believe Fidel and Che had, but he's certainy continuing to do heroic work on behalf of the poor and oppressed in his country, and elsewhere, I believe, at appreciable personal risk, in view of the US. Though assassination of populist, South American Presidents could be dangerous now, with the growth of terrorism and assymetric wars, retaliating in ways and at times that couldn't be anticipated.

Only people with a worldly, essentially right-wing type intelligence "coalesce" and think as one in political matters. No social evolution, never mind revolution, has ever occurred without strong leaders at the helm.

[happydreams]

34. I beg to differ as well. Castro, against formidable odds,

took down Batista and his love for his people has gone undiminished. I mean why would a guy go through all of the shit he's going through for nothing?

[Mika]

35. Batista fled because of overwhelming odd. The people were rising up.

The revolution wasn't just a group of long haired bandits coming down from the mountains to fight. It was almost the entire population that was rising up. Admitedly, the Castro brothers, Che, Pais, Crespides, etc, were all focusing personalities for the revolutionary spirit for most all Cubans.

Batista saw it coming (it being the revolution, not just Castro) and he packed his shit and the state treasury, and fled to Florida.

[happydreams]

47. My friend, you need to take a break.

nuff said.

[Mika]

59. Huh? Why so?

:shrug:

[StrictlyRockers]

38. Cuban socialism is a model that can work imho.

The fact that we have been trying to stamp out this affront to global hegemonic capitalism for nigh on fifty years is maybe the only thing that has kept it from flourishing.

SR

[Rufus T. Firefly]

51. People in the US want universal health care & education

And we sure as hell don't have them because we don't have anyone with the power to get it done; maybe with a Dem president and Congress we can get it done.

I do agree that if Castro hadn't been around someone else would have wound up as head of the Cuban government. However I do know that if somehow Batista et al had been able to stop the revoltion (with CIA help, maybe) none of the reforms that have occured would have been possible.

Where would the Cuban people have gotten the money for universal education and health care without Castro being in favor? It's government-run, after all. Dictators are pretty good about only allowing what they themselves want.

[happydreams]

6. You don't?

:shrug:

Why not?

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. Had to laugh at your entry, "Politics" under "Hobby" in your "Profile", happydreams!

Who'd have guessed!!! Are you by any chance a judge at the International Court of Human Rights? Or a big shot with Amnesty International?

[happydreams]

32. Hee, hee.

No, I lost my fledgling career a long time ago when I found out some dirty stuff on a politician and decided to save my own ass; I bailed. The next guy that came onto to the information spent years in jail on trumped up drug charges.

Politics is a nasty SOB if you find the dirt on somebody. The Repugs will deep six you if they think they can get away with it.

Now its all a "hobby", hee, hee.

[Joe Chi Minh]

37. Amazing story, happydreams. But not so amazing in the surreal world

of American politics, perhaps. Well done! There's more than one way to swing a cat.

[stranger]

10. i didnt like the executions in cuba in the early days, but

you got to remember that cuba is a very small country, and as such,
its much easier to destabilize and overthrow than a huge country like the usa.

Consider the usa governemnt made at least a dozen cowarldy attempts on his life.

Just Think what kind of civil liberties americans would have if there had been even one or two attempts on bush's worthless life?


Castro has his personal and political flaws, but Hell yes, I respect Castro more than the inperialist chicken hawks who have ruled america
over much of the last 100 years. Keep things in perspective

At least Castro was man enough put his own life on the line fighting in the mountains against bastista-an american sponsored latin american fascist.

Thats more than you can say for our current president-and VP

Viva Castro! Viva Chavez! I hold nothing but scorn and contempt for the draft dodger bush and dickless cheney

PPS Thanks to Mika for the info on Cuba!

[Fovea]

18. Compare and contrast with Battista.

I try hard not to make binary judgment on political systems and administrations I did not elect or select, but that is easy because Cuba is a state that is neither utopia or tartarus.

Castro himself needs to be placed on a curve that includes Gandhi and Pol Pot as endpoints.
An awful lot of interesting things have been tried in Cuba to improve the life of Cubans. Has that taken place in the same political environments with repressive acts? Yes. OTOH, how many times do you have an assassination attempt made against you before you get paranoid?

I only know that if I had to listen to bombastic dinner conversation from either Fidel or Pik Botha, it wouldn't even require thought.

In 1967, Cuba was a socialist state with the full compliment of socialist platform parts on justice and equality, and the US was a representative democracy that was not guarding the voting rights of its minorites. In fact it was a US that was actively killing african americans in order to deny them their civil rights and bombing the bejabbers out of the Vietnamese to resolve their insurgency/civil war. At that point in the game, the US was still quite happy to do the Cubans an ill turn when convenient.

Mind you, just because the Soviets were communist doesn't mean they weren't happy to treat Cuba like we treated the rest of the region. Sugar, Rum, Tobacco, 'Tourism'... Cuba provided it all.

Our intel was run by certified loons who were, judging by their world view, hitting the LSD before it was cool, and who squelched efforts from China, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union to defuse the cold war and help restore national soverignity to nations that were trying to shake off European imperial exploitation. Gulf of Tonkin. Operation Northwoods. Operation Mockingbird.

Our domestic intel chief bugged ML King. I believe he stood back and LIHOP'd JFK. He planted agents provocateur in anti war organisations.

Oh well, plus change, la plus meme chose.

So I will say that Fidel Castro's Cuba is still, 40 years later, a socialist state with the same socialist agenda no matter that their socialism may not be an attractive model to me. They did manage education and far better than average developing nation health care despite the tumult of the era. Modern Cuba is the grown up child of those times. I try to keep in mind that Cuba's peers as developing nations have had included Honduras, Chile, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Developing nations rarely have an easy ride of it, and that is by design.

The key is, my ideal brand of socialism assumes the resources of the US, and an economic/political playing field where we are not the front line in a 30 year cold war. My brand of socialism can afford a lot more free market activity and labor organization with no formal party affiliations than a place like Cuba. May version is pretty much enhanced EU social democracy.

Before Castro took it over it was the mafia's cuba of Trader Vic's as well as the CIA's... Havana, before Castro, was to the CIA what the Bahamas were to Great Britain. Before that it was a US Navy Coaling station/sugar-tobacco plantation, and a Spanish imperial pearl, roughly as important to Spanish empire as Turkey was to us in the cold war.

[cool user name]

40. That is an absolutely brilliant post ....

... and about sums up my feelings as well.

I really couldn't have said it any better.

[Fovea]

41. Thank you Cool.

I like to believe that the world of political systems is a dialog box with 32 bit colors, check boxes, radio buttons, and lots of sliders.

Our pretzeldent only uses the 8 color box of wax pencils exclusively on Big Chief paper, and eschews the eraser.

[happydreams]

46. Thanks, Now what could Castro have done without

the US's hostility? That's what I wonder.

[Mika]

3. Actually, Castro didn't boot the bastards out. Most left on their own accord.

The corporations (CEOs/ownership), like United Fruit Co, didn't want to pay the tax put on foreign companies after the 1959 revolution.

US big oil left because the US government banned them from processing USSR crude.

Same thing with the Catholic church.. the Cuban government passed legislation that banned schooling-for-fees. The Catholic church schools could have stayed and taught for free, but they chose not to (not good for the bottom line).

Then, the US government declared that Cuba was an enemy. US companies couldn't trade with Cuba w/o violating the Trading With The Enemy Act.

Then came the US's extra territorial embargo (Helms-Burton) that forbids companies that do business in Cuba from doing business in the US (of course, most corps chose the larger consumer market)

[happydreams]

5. I was refering to the gambling casinos, drug dealers, etc.

According to Al McCoy that really threw a wrench into the international drug trade.

[stranger]

12. Mika, you go girl!

Tell it like it is!

[Mika]

13. Um.. Mika is a guy.

But, I'll still 'tell it like it is'.

:hi:



I've been to Cuba many times, including during the entire '97-98 election season there.

[stranger]

22. sorry mika!

ooops...I knew a Japanese woman named Mika,
and immediately made all kind of unwarranted assumptions.

[billbuckhead]

21. Not much talk about people fleeing Haiti and Dominican Republic

or the failure of Mexican capitalism.

[Mika]

25. A Haitian friend of mine told me..

.. that Haitians in Haiti have a saying about Cuba & Castro.. "Cubans repressed by Castro? We wish for 100 Castros!"


Of course, when they get to Miami they learn quickly that one donesn't dare say such a thing in public in Miami for fear of being fired, firebombed, or beaten.

[Joe Chi Minh]

36. Waste of breath, Mika. These Battista apologists are beyond

help. None so blind...

[Hippo_Tron]

55. I don't doubt that Cuba is better off than Haiti

But why does everyone attack me when I suggest that Castro and Chavez aren't perfect. What's wrong with Latin America having mixed market systems that are largely free from US and other major power influences. What is wrong with them developing their own markets and their own businesses? Why does there have to be a choice between US control and virtually complete government control over industry?

[Joe Chi Minh]

33. Precisely, You have to grow up with an education and hope, to

be able to seriously think of leaving a country.

[Mika]

44. And people fleeing Haiti the DR and Mexico have no US 'Adjustment Act' like Cubans do.

Cubans are granted special immigration perks that are offered to no other immigrant group seeking entry into the US.

Immigrants come to the US from all over the world - from democratic countries. They come here for opportunities to earn more money than they could back at home. They come to work so that they can send a little of their earnings back to their relatives. It has little to do with "despotic' regimes, it has more to do with earning power.

Cuba is a special case though, in that it is the US's Helms-Burton law (and a myriad of other sanctions) that are intended to cripple the Cuban economy. This is the stated goal of the US government, as evidenced by the Bush* admin's latest 'crackdown' on family remittances to Cuba and increased sanctions on the island and US & foreign corporations that seek to do business with Cuba.

The USA currently offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush has announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. The US interests section in Cuba does the required criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits all Cubans, including Cuban criminals and felons, who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US even those having failed to qualify (or even apply) for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks)

For Cuban migrants ONLY - including the aforementioned illegal immigrants who are smuggled in as well as those who have failed a US background check for a legal visa who make it here by whatever means - the US's Cuban Adjustment Act instantly allows any and all Cuban migrants who touch US shore (no matter how) instant entry, instant work visa, instant green card status, instant social security, instant access to welfare, instant access to section 8 assisted housing (with a $41,000 income exemption for Cuban expats only), instant food stamps, plus more. IOW, extra special enhanced social programs designed to entice Cuban expatriation to Miami/USA.

Despite these programs designed to offer a 'carrot on a stick' to Cubans only, the Cubaphobe rhetoric loop repeats the question "then why do Cubans ("flee" Cuba and) come to the US?".

First the US forces economic deprivation on Cubans, then open our doors to any and all Cubans illegal or not, and then offer them a plethora of immigration perks and housing perks not even available to native born Americans.

But yet, more immigrants come from Mexico and the Latin Americas than do Cubans, and they have no such "Adjustment Act" like Cubans do. But they still pour in.

Plus, Cuban immigrants can hop on a plane from Miami to Havana and travel right back to the Cuba that they "escaped" from for family trips and vacations - by the hundred of thousands annually (until Bush's recent one visit every 3 yrs restrictions on Cuban expats living in the US).

Recognizing the immorality of forced starvation and forced economic deprivation is a good reason to drop the US embargo on Cuba, the US Cuban Adjustment Act, and the US travel sanctions placed on US citizens and residents. Then the Cuban tourism economy (its #1 sector) would be able to expand even faster, thereby increasing the average wage and quality of life in Cuba. It would make products, goods, and services even more accessible to both Cubans and Americans. It would reduce the economic based immigration flow from Cuba. And it would restore our own constitutional right to travel unfettered to see Cuba for ourselves.

[Joe Chi Minh]

65. There's nobody as cheap as these Republicans is there? Can you

believe that? In effect begging Cubans to leave!!! You'd have to laugh, if it weren't so sad.

[rman]

43. And who put those taxes in place?

Sure all this would not have happened without the Cuban people, but it also would not have happened without some charismatic leader, be it Castro or someone else. After all, the Cuban people did (and do) support Castro.

[Vidar]

8. Recommended with admiration, happydreams.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. Same here!

[Pastiche423]

15. K & R!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

16. As Always, Fuck Chavez, Fuck Castro.

[tkmorris]

20. A closed mind is criminal

Just sayin'.

[stranger]

23. I prefer chicks, but

go ahead dude, if that what turns your crank.

[Balbus]

26. Pedophilic Bestiality?

Is there such a thing? Wow :wow: I don't know if I'd admit that...

[Mika]

27. As usual, thanks for the informed post.

Great insight. Great sources.

Thanks for the links.


:sarcasm:

[John Q. Citizen]

29. Yes, we know you have a hard on for both of them...

[U4ikLefty]

48. Yes that attack WAS as bit homo-erotic, was it not?!?

LOL..sorry I needed to add a chuckle.

You & the above responses said it all.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

52. Ah, it's all clear now.

How could I have been so blind?

:eyes:

[happydreams]

57. You have a dart board your parents gave you when a nipper...?

with a picture of Fidel on it with his nose as the bullseye?

You have stayed in your basement bedroom since chilhood throwing darts at it and eating Cheetos.

How did you get them to buy you a computer?

:bounce:

[Say_What]

39. K & R

[katsy]

42. Great analysis.

I've bookmarked it and will use it in the future for reference.

Thanks happydreams!

[JackRiddler]

recommended

x

[JackRiddler]

45. recommended

x

[happydreams]

49. The link to Cisneros and Aryan Brotherhood

...• Prison and gangs - The New Mexican Mafia (Eme), the Aryan Brotherhood and other groups have become notorious for drug dealing and cold-blooded killings, behind bars and on the outside.

New Eme, especially, is blamed by Phoenix police for more than 25 murders in the past five years. The organization has a "blood-in, blood-out" code, meaning that one must commit serious violence to join and suffer mayhem or death to resign.

Two years ago, authorities arrested several New Eme members in a conspiracy to kill state prisons chief Terry Stewart. Those charges did not stick, but top gang leaders were arrested last year with members of the related Cisneros crime family in a monster drug case.

The problem: Prison gangs were born behind bars and flourish there, so incarceration is hardly an antidote. In fact, although much of New Eme's leadership is in custody, police say the organization remains effective at killing witnesses, compromising lawyers and dealing drugs....

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special01/articles/crime.html

[Hippo_Tron]

50. I don't doubt that their standard of living is better than under the Battista regime, but...

If it is that great then why are Cubans fleeing to Miami on rafts?

The US propped up a lot of bad regimes during the Cold War, but it doesn't mean that the Communist regimes were exactly perfect, either.

[Judi Lynn]

53. Why are Latin Americans from all over South and Central America, and Mexico

facing the fact that HUNDREDS die annually trying to come across the border from Mexico? Why do so many Haitians crowd into boats which will have to get them more than 700 MILES to the United States, and ALL OF THEM KNOWING THAT IF THEY ARE DISCOVERED, ONCE HERE, THEY WILL BE DEPORTED.

Are you ignorant of the Cuban Adjustment Act, and the fact that ALL CUBANS WHO ARRIVE ON DRY SOIL are offered freely instant legal status, work visa, social security, food stamps, SECTION 8 U.S.-TAXPAYER FINANCED housing, financial assistance for education, and medical treatment? What do you think the numbers would be we are seeing in desperate immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean if we offered these incentives to them, as well, instead of the assurance they would be deported?

Don't try to fool D.U.'ers. It's disrespectful.

[Hippo_Tron]

54. I'm not quite sure that I understand what you're saying

I think what you're doing is trying to accuse me of making a faulty comparison between Cuba and the rest of Latin America. I'm not comparing Cuba to the rest of Latin America or suggesting that conditions in Haiti or Mexico are good. I also don't condone the US using military force to prop up right wing regimes in Haiti.

I'm merely suggesting that Castro is not a good leader as evidenced by the fact that some of his people are so desperate for a better standard of living that they risk their lives to come to the United States.

And yes I'm fully aware of the Cuban Adjustment Act. But what I don't understand is that if conditions are good in Cuba where there is already much government assistance under Castro's regime, then what is the incentive to risk your life to come to the United States.

Again, I'm not saying Castro is worse than the right wingers that came before him. But I think that Cuba's standard of living would go up if they would get rid of some of their socialist elements an adopt a more mixed market system. The problem is that people always assume that when I propose this that I mean their economy should be controlled by the United States. That is not what I am proposing. I want the rest of the world to be able to have mixed market economies that aren't controlled by their debt to the major powers and by unregulated multinational corporations.

[happydreams]

56. "Desperate" or deluded by the consumeristic shit

CIA Psy-ops and other forms of perception management the US engages in to destroy anybody's reputation who fights against this monstrous war machine?

Fidel is a hero of the highest order.

[Hippo_Tron]

60. You, along with everyone else on this thread are completely missing my point

I don't support US imperial action in Latin America and I don't think that the Batista regime was better than Castro.

I'm simply saying that Cuba would be better off with a mixed market system provided that didn't entail economic slavery to the United States and multinational corporations. Such a system can exist despite the fact that people here are convinced that a pure communist system is the only way to resist US imperialism.

[happydreams]

64. Ideals, ideals, ideals. Yes if Cuba wasn't under seige you could

have all of these thing. THAT is my point.

[ProudDad]

66. They HAVE a "mixed market" system

They have a vibrant little-c capitalist economy that is supported by a socialist infrastructure that meets everyone's basic economic needs -- housing, food, education and health care.

They don't have the lovely corporate capitalist robber barons we have in the good ole' U.S. of A. but then I doubt that they would want those bastards...:shrug:

[happydreams]

58. Fidel's birthday. August 26!!

I'm gonna throw a party here at DU!

I've researched and read hundreds of books, I've weighed all I need to know about this.

Fidel is the most unfairly maligned leader in the modern world. He and JFK were coming to some kind of aggreement and their common enemy was the Cuban Mafia of which the Bush fascists have had a long and cozy relationship. Robert F. Kennedy deported Carlos Marcello, a Miami thug who was recruited by the CIA to kill Castro.

.........

Bissell decided to arrange the assassination of Castro. In September 1960, Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. Later, other crime bosses such as Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky became involved in this plot against Castro.



http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDcastroF.htm

Marcello becomes a prime suspect in the murder of JFK....

....In 1960, Carlos Marcello had handed over $500,000 in cash to Jimmy Hoffa, the corrupt head of the Teamsters Union. He was to arrange transfer of this into the campaign funds of Richard Nixon who was fighting election against John F. Kennedy. Hoffa and the Mob desperately wanted Nixon to win the election

...In 1972, Richard Nixon arranged an unprecedented presidential pardon for New Jersey mobster, Angelo DeCarlo, a feared killer and capo in the Genovese crime family. It seemed that Nixon was paying back favours for more financial contributions to his re-election campaign. If Nixon was linked to the Mob, there can be little doubt that one of his connections to it was Marcello.

By 1972, Carlos was sixty-two years old, richer and more powerful, possibly the most powerful Mafia boss in the nation. His only contender to this title may have been Carlo Gambino, the ageing don who ran what was perhaps the biggest family in the country, based in Brooklyn. The House Select Committee on Crime declared in 1972, "We believe Carlos Marcello has become a formidable menace to the institution of government and the people of the United States."

Called before the committee in June, Carlos was his old self. Formed to investigate the Mob’s infiltration of professional sports, members grilled Carlos on his criminal ties. As usual, they got zilch. Repeating a well-worn story, he told his congressional inquisitors: "…. I’m not in no …. not in no racket, and not in organized crime."

In June 1971, the FBI reorganized its New Orleans office and appointed a young, tenacious agent called Harold Hughes as head of a strike force to target Marcello. By 1972, with the death of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI was finally able to exert real pressure on the Louisiana Mafia. By the mid 1970’s, pressure was also building up on him from another direction.

In 1973, the first book was published on the assassination of President Kennedy, pointing a finger at Marcello; although in 1969, famous crime writer Ed Reid in his book The Grim Reapers had hinted at a possible connection. In 1976, an Italian documentary film called The Two Kennedys specifically nailed the Mafia as the force behind the murders of the brothers, again naming Marcello as the principal suspect.

And so, in September 1976, after much political and media activity, the 94th Congress established the House Select Committee on Assassinations to investigate the murders of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. With a support staff of 170 lawyers, investigators and researchers, and a huge (for the time) budget of $6.5 million, this one had all the indications of a major inquiry. However, because of political in-fighting and procedural disputes, the Committee did not get off the ground until April 1977, with a reduced budget of $2.5 million, and a chairman called Professor G. Robert Blakey, a law professor at Cornell University and an acknowledged expert on organized crime. He was also the author of the famous RICO statute that five years down the track would come to haunt Marcello.

One of the Committee’s first objectives was laid down by Staff Counsel, Robert Tannenbaum -- to investigate possible connections between Carlos Marcello and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was the first time in the fourteen years since the event that Marcello’s name was publicly raised as a potential suspect.

On January 11, 1978, Carlos appeared as a witness before the House Committee. He had not been called as a suspect and his sworn testimony was given under a grant of immunity. He was, however, not the first boss to be interviewed. Santo Trafficante Jr. had been interrogated on March 16, the previous year. Speaking without immunity, Santo took the 5th on every question.

When he took the stand, the first question Carlos was asked was if he had any involvement in organized crime. Speaking in his quaint, ungrammatical Italian-New Orleans drawl he said, "No I don’t know nuttin’ about dat." He denied the existence of the meeting at Churchill Farms, and lied and bluffed his way through the session. He only lost his cool once, when the questioning turned to his illegal deportation.

"Everybody in de United States knowed I was kidnapped…I told the whole world it was unfair," he yelled, his corpulent face growing red with rage.

The New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune headlined his appearance: "THE MARCELLO-JFK CONNECTION," and elaborated on the thesis that Carlos had been behind the assassination. Now it was public domain and he and his family would have to live with the disclosure for the rest of their lives.

Although the Committee had a huge catalogue of conspiratorial allegations to investigate, including the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro and or the Cuban government, the anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, it was in the area of organized crime that they developed the deepest suspicion. The Committee concluded that probably three men were involved in a plot to murder President Kennedy: Jimmy Hoffa, Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello.

Jimmy Hoffa had disclosed his plans to murder both Kennedy brothers to Edward Grady Partin, a Louisiana teamster official, early in 1962. Jose Aleman documented Trafficante's involvement in front of the Committee, the wealthy Cuban exile who recounted the conversation he had with the Tampa mob boss in 1962, in which Santo had said that President Kennedy would "get hit." But it was Marcello, above all, who was targeted by the investigation.





http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/marcello/15.html



Oh, yea they did it and the Bush thugs were tied to em' like a clove of garlic. Castro and the Kennedy's have much more in common with each other than either does with their mutual enemies!

[Mika]

61. Fidel Castro's date of birth was Aug. 13, 1926.

And his birthday has always been Aug 13.

[TZ]

62. why don't you celebrate some of the other great leaders..

like Stalin while you are at it. The only reason Castro hasn't killed as many as Stalin is that he has a much smaller population to deal with. I can't say the US doesn't behave very badly alot, but I find this hero worship of a dictator (no freedom of speech, press, religion which in my book is BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS) who does what he does to strengthen his own power. Anybody here think Castro every misses a meal while his "beloved" people starve? Or think he lives in a shack like a lot of his people do?:eyes:

[happydreams]

63. You know nothing. Comparing Stalin to Castro.

Now put some facts up to back up your crapola like "starving people".

[happydreams]

67. Well, turdle, time to come out of your shell.

Where is the reference to the starving Cubans?