The Hollywood Elite Still Don't Get It - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Glad-I-Ate-Her · 05-08-2003, 11:45 AM

The Cuban Sopranos
By Nat Hentoff
The Washington Times | April 29, 2003

My first sight on television of Fidel Castro's "liberation" of Cuba from Batista in 1959, was a firing squad dispatching political prisoners who had been summarily condemned by the new dictator. And through the years, Mr. Castro's gulags were filled by Cubans who dared to wish, however softly, for democracy.

At one point, interviewing the already legendary Che Guevara — an international Cuban revolutionary icon — at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, I asked him if he could foresee, anytime in the future, free elections in Cuba. Crisply dressed in his military outfit, Mr. Guevara burst out laughing at my callow naivete.

Having interviewed Cubans who survived Mr. Castro's gulags, I have never understood or respected the parade of American entertainers, politicians and intellectuals who travel to Cuba to be entranced by this ruthless dictator who, for me, has all the charisma of a preening thug, akin to any killer on "The Sopranos."

These Castro-philes are among those who discredit liberalism because they're unable to recognize and be repelled by unbridled evil. Consider Steven Spielberg, who has developed impressive resources through his Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, to keep alive the horrifying presence of the Holocaust. Yet, as quoted in the April 11 Wall Street Journal, Mr. Spielberg described his audience with Mr. Castro last November, as "the eight most important hours of my life."

Was Spielberg's life that barren until those gloriously transcendent hours with the chief warden of Cuba's prisons?

From time to time, I still think of Elian Gonzalez, so vivid a free spirit here until condemned by Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to a land where schoolteachers must keep a record of any signs of their charges' lessening fealty to the relentless light of their lives.

I wish the American press would pay more attention to the ongoing lawsuit alleging that Doris Meissner — head of Clinton's Immigration and Naturalization Service — ordered the destruction of evidence that would have contradicted the Clinton administration's forcible removal of Elian to Mr. Castro's continuation of Stalinism. Judicial Watch in Washington has the information on that lawsuit.

In any case, the next batch of fawning celebrities and members of Congress who party with Mr. Castro will try to evade the recent show trials of independent journalists, human rights advocates, poets and other dreamers of democracy who have been sentenced by Mr. Castro's kangaroo courts to punishments of up to 27 years. Britain's Economist magazine notes that "since many of the dissidents are aged between 50 and 60, in practical terms they are being put away for life."

One prisoner of conscience packed into the gulag is the internationally respected independent journalist Raul Rivero, director of Cuba Press agency, and a board member of the Inter American Press Association. In the Castro courtroom — from which foreign journalists and diplomats were barred — Mr. Rivero, suffering from phlebitis and other ailments, was sentenced to 20 years for being an independent journalist.

"This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks," his wife, Blanca Reyes, said in an April 8 New York Times article. "What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade."

The Clinton administration — which has so much to answer to history for — promoted "people-to-people" trips to Cuba, which have continued. The American tourists and the participants in educational and cultural exchanges will not be able to engage in person-to-person visits with Raul Rivero, and other Cubans whom the Castro "justice system" has turned into non-people. Not even such an eminence as Spielberg will be free to show Rivero videos of Holocaust survivors.

Mr. Spielberg, immersed in pre-production of his next film, was not available for comment on Mr. Castro's latest eradication of dissenters. But his representative, Andy Spahn of Dreamworks, told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Castro had been "provoked" to order the crackdown, because the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, had been meeting — can you imagine? — with Cuban dissenters in their homes last February.

And if an American official had, however discreetly, been meeting with Jews in Berlin who still hoped that the world would come to their rescue — if it only knew of the design for the Final Solution — would that diplomat have exceeded his responsibilities to humankind by "provoking" Hitler?

HBO has wisely cancelled the May showing of Oliver Stone's Castro-admiring "Commandante." During production, says the Journal, Fidel was "given the power to stop filming at will."

The show would have been a fitting complement to HBO's "The Sopranos."

glad

james t kirk · 05-08-2003, 12:21 PM

Yawn,

Here's something for you to think about.....

The US embargo on Cuba has helped cement Caastro's hold on power.

He'll die sooner or later.

Oh, and if you think the cubans were better off under Baptista, think again.

Dragonlich · 05-08-2003, 10:30 PM

...and while you're doing the thinking...

The US embargo on Iraq has helped cement Saddam's hold on power. He'll die sooner or later. Oh, and if you think the Iraqis were better off under Quassim (previous dictator), think again.

Similar things can be said about North-Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and any other dictatorship in the world.

Luckily, we can downplay any dictator, and blame the US for his very existance...

Glad-I-Ate-Her · 05-09-2003, 08:50 PM

The embargo has helped Castro stay in power. What would he say to the starving population if the embargo was over. That its still America's fault. I think not.

Cuba was not perfect under Batista but the people still had some sort of freedom and liberties. They lived as they saw fit. Not like Cuba today. If you are cutting sugar canes now. You will be doing it for the rest of your life. What is the incentive to work hard? Why else has Cuba's sugar production in a 50 year low?

Under Batista, you were able to buy you own piece of land and live as you chose. If you are a doctor now in Cuba, they prefer to drive a taxi because they make more money than being a doctor.

By the way, my point was to show how the Hollywood Elite is out of touch. Cuba is a whole matter onto itself.

Glad

ARTelevision · 05-09-2003, 09:15 PM

the hollywood nobodies are nobody and their opinions count for nothing. they are the people who create our "entertainment." isn't that the worst indictment anyone could make?

iccky · 05-10-2003, 10:20 PM

I think thats a bit of an idilic view of Batista's Cuba. Batista was another one of the armed thug dictators we supported during the Cold War, who shot a lot of political prisoners himself. I don't think he was a big fan of free and fair elections either.

What Americans don't want to admit is that Castro did a lot of good things for Cuba. Education and health care for example, Cuba has a higher literacy rate and a lower infant mortality rate.

Quote:

Cuba was not perfect under Batista but the people still had some sort of freedom and liberties. They lived as they saw fit. Not like Cuba today. If you are cutting sugar canes now. You will be doing it for the rest of your life. What is the incentive to work hard? Why else has Cuba's sugar production in a 50 year low?

With all due respect that kind of ridiculos. Peopel couldn't buy their own land in Batista's Cuba becuase it was all owned by Americans. The reason there was a revolution was because people were stuck cutting sugarcane for rich american planters all their lives.

Look at high school enrolments. Pre Castro (1956)they were around 20,000 out of a high school age population of 600,000. Post Castro (1965)they were at 165,000 out of a population of 730,000. How are you supposed to have social mobility if only the rich are getting a high school education.

Of course a lot of the things the Castro government have done have been horrible, I don't want to defend their repressive politics ect. But look at the other countries in the Carribean who didn't go Communist. Is Haiti doing so hot. or the Dominican Republic? Castro isn't a great guy, but he also isn't the antichrist people make him out to be.

Memalvada · 05-11-2003, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by iccky
Castro isn't a great guy, but he also isn't the antichrist people make him out to be.

I agree. Fidel is a crazy and paranoid sob, but there are some aspects in which Cuba is better off than the rest of the world.

Lebell · 05-11-2003, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Memalvada
I agree. Fidel is a crazy and paranoid sob, but there are some aspects in which Cuba is better off than the rest of the world.

And those aspects would be what? Making fine cigars?

charlesesl · 05-11-2003, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dragonlich
...and while you're doing the thinking...

The US embargo on Iraq has helped cement Saddam's hold on power. He'll die sooner or later. Oh, and if you think the Iraqis were better off under Quassim (previous dictator), think again.

Similar things can be said about North-Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and any other dictatorship in the world.

Luckily, we can downplay any dictator, and blame the US for his very existance...

China is making rapid changes towards democracy and free economey.
Please look at the world though your own eyes instead of through CNN's

[cough] dump americans [/cough]

Glad-I-Ate-Her · 05-12-2003, 08:35 PM

iccky,
I grew up in an area where there were a quite a few Cuban refugees. So I got the perspective of the people who suffered under the regime. They all said Batista was not a saint but they all prefered him instead of Castro. Why else do the Cubans sacrifice themselves by jumping into the ocean with rickety rafts to escape the goverment. That never happened under Batista.

The general population does have a higher literacy rate but at what cost? So they can read all of Castro's propaganda in Granma (Cuba's official newspaper) and starve. All the writers, musicians and journalist are censored by the goverment. The health is a lot better than before Castro but there are great shortages of medicine.

Repressive goverment? Of course it is. Castro destroyed all the family and religion ties of the people. He did it because those are the only two things people really believe in. He turned brother against brother. Sons against fathers. You would get rewards and accomendtations for doing it. All in the name of the revolution.

Most of the refugees I knew owned there own land. They used to raise what was marketable. Rice, coffee, produce etc.

I recently was introduced to a friend of a friend who is Cuban-Amgerican. He just got back two weeks ago from Cuba. He went to visit his family. He told me that he is so depressed after coming back from there. The majority of the houses are falling down. The roads haven't been paved in years. There are massive blackouts. He went to central Cuba where the farms are. The farmers can only survive by what they grow and sell what is leftover in the blackmarket. All the livestock is technically owned by the goverment. I'll give you an example he gave me. If you own a cow and you kill it to eat it. Then you get taxed for killing it. But in the same instance, if someone were to steal it. The farmer still has to pay the tax as if he killed it himself. The goverment's position is that its your fault for letting the cow get stolen and that they were not going to lose out like the farmer did.

I'm going to try to talk to him again on how the food is rationed and in what quantities by the goverment. I could not believe on what they have to exsist on. I don't know how they do it. You will all be shocked. Its hard to fathom what the Cuban population is going through.

So the other countries in the Caribean would be better under communism? I think not.

Glad

iccky · 05-13-2003, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Most of the refugees I knew owned there own land. They used to raise what was marketable. Rice, coffee, produce etc.

Well of course. It wasn't the poor people who fled the revolution, it was the upper and middle class.

Thats a good point about people coming over in boats, though I imagine during Batista's regime there was legal immigration and more traditional illegal immigration to the US (overstaying a tourist vias, ect.). People escaping the regime didn't have to do it in such a dangerous and TV worthy manner.

Also to some degree Cuba's economic troubl i due to the US embargo, not just communism. Cuba has an export based economy (sugar) so if the nearest and largest buyer of that export isn't buying (and is trying to keep the rest of the western world from buying as well) it will do a lot of damage to the economy.

Of course communism has also hurt their economy. Che Guevera, who was in charge of the ministry of industries for the first couple years, publiclly admited on several occasions that he screwed it up. But, then again, you don't see the kind of hideous poverty in Cuba that you see in a lot of Latin America, and everyone health care, something not even the US can claim.

I'm not trying to defend cuban communism of make castro out to be some kind of saint. All I'm saying is that Communist Cuba isn't the pit of hell people make it out to be. Given that the sanctions probablly do more harm then good by giving him a boogeyman and further harming the cuban economy and that we treat other regimes with human rights records that are as bad or worse, but don't have a politically active refugee community concentrated in a state that is cruciial in presidential elections, better perhaps we should rethink the sanctions. I think after 42 years we can agree tat the idea that sanctions will bring down Castro is kind of ludicrious.

Glad-I-Ate-Her · 05-13-2003, 06:30 PM

I agree the sanctions should go. Like I wrote in my first response, the embargo is helping keep Castro in power. I believe if the embargo is lifted, I don't think he will last 6 months.

So I say, lift the embargo and we could be drinking Daiquri's on a beach in Cuba and smoking cigars by Christmas!!

Glad

05-08-2003, 11:45 AM	#1 (permalink)
Glad-I-Ate-Her Junkie Location: 1 mile from Ground Zero	The Hollywood Elite Still Don't Get It The Cuban Sopranos By Nat Hentoff The Washington Times \| April 29, 2003 My first sight on television of Fidel Castro's "liberation" of Cuba from Batista in 1959, was a firing squad dispatching political prisoners who had been summarily condemned by the new dictator. And through the years, Mr. Castro's gulags were filled by Cubans who dared to wish, however softly, for democracy. At one point, interviewing the already legendary Che Guevara — an international Cuban revolutionary icon — at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, I asked him if he could foresee, anytime in the future, free elections in Cuba. Crisply dressed in his military outfit, Mr. Guevara burst out laughing at my callow naivete. Having interviewed Cubans who survived Mr. Castro's gulags, I have never understood or respected the parade of American entertainers, politicians and intellectuals who travel to Cuba to be entranced by this ruthless dictator who, for me, has all the charisma of a preening thug, akin to any killer on "The Sopranos." These Castro-philes are among those who discredit liberalism because they're unable to recognize and be repelled by unbridled evil. Consider Steven Spielberg, who has developed impressive resources through his Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, to keep alive the horrifying presence of the Holocaust. Yet, as quoted in the April 11 Wall Street Journal, Mr. Spielberg described his audience with Mr. Castro last November, as "the eight most important hours of my life." Was Spielberg's life that barren until those gloriously transcendent hours with the chief warden of Cuba's prisons? From time to time, I still think of Elian Gonzalez, so vivid a free spirit here until condemned by Janet Reno and Bill Clinton to a land where schoolteachers must keep a record of any signs of their charges' lessening fealty to the relentless light of their lives. I wish the American press would pay more attention to the ongoing lawsuit alleging that Doris Meissner — head of Clinton's Immigration and Naturalization Service — ordered the destruction of evidence that would have contradicted the Clinton administration's forcible removal of Elian to Mr. Castro's continuation of Stalinism. Judicial Watch in Washington has the information on that lawsuit. In any case, the next batch of fawning celebrities and members of Congress who party with Mr. Castro will try to evade the recent show trials of independent journalists, human rights advocates, poets and other dreamers of democracy who have been sentenced by Mr. Castro's kangaroo courts to punishments of up to 27 years. Britain's Economist magazine notes that "since many of the dissidents are aged between 50 and 60, in practical terms they are being put away for life." One prisoner of conscience packed into the gulag is the internationally respected independent journalist Raul Rivero, director of Cuba Press agency, and a board member of the Inter American Press Association. In the Castro courtroom — from which foreign journalists and diplomats were barred — Mr. Rivero, suffering from phlebitis and other ailments, was sentenced to 20 years for being an independent journalist. "This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks," his wife, Blanca Reyes, said in an April 8 New York Times article. "What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade." The Clinton administration — which has so much to answer to history for — promoted "people-to-people" trips to Cuba, which have continued. The American tourists and the participants in educational and cultural exchanges will not be able to engage in person-to-person visits with Raul Rivero, and other Cubans whom the Castro "justice system" has turned into non-people. Not even such an eminence as Spielberg will be free to show Rivero videos of Holocaust survivors. Mr. Spielberg, immersed in pre-production of his next film, was not available for comment on Mr. Castro's latest eradication of dissenters. But his representative, Andy Spahn of Dreamworks, told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Castro had been "provoked" to order the crackdown, because the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, had been meeting — can you imagine? — with Cuban dissenters in their homes last February. And if an American official had, however discreetly, been meeting with Jews in Berlin who still hoped that the world would come to their rescue — if it only knew of the design for the Final Solution — would that diplomat have exceeded his responsibilities to humankind by "provoking" Hitler? HBO has wisely cancelled the May showing of Oliver Stone's Castro-admiring "Commandante." During production, says the Journal, Fidel was "given the power to stop filming at will." The show would have been a fitting complement to HBO's "The Sopranos." glad __________________ I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

05-09-2003, 08:50 PM	#4 (permalink)
Glad-I-Ate-Her Junkie Location: 1 mile from Ground Zero	The embargo has helped Castro stay in power. What would he say to the starving population if the embargo was over. That its still America's fault. I think not. Cuba was not perfect under Batista but the people still had some sort of freedom and liberties. They lived as they saw fit. Not like Cuba today. If you are cutting sugar canes now. You will be doing it for the rest of your life. What is the incentive to work hard? Why else has Cuba's sugar production in a 50 year low? Under Batista, you were able to buy you own piece of land and live as you chose. If you are a doctor now in Cuba, they prefer to drive a taxi because they make more money than being a doctor. By the way, my point was to show how the Hollywood Elite is out of touch. Cuba is a whole matter onto itself. Glad __________________ I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

05-09-2003, 09:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	the hollywood nobodies are nobody and their opinions count for nothing. they are the people who create our "entertainment." isn't that the worst indictment anyone could make? __________________ create evolution

05-12-2003, 08:35 PM	#10 (permalink)
Glad-I-Ate-Her Junkie Location: 1 mile from Ground Zero	iccky, I grew up in an area where there were a quite a few Cuban refugees. So I got the perspective of the people who suffered under the regime. They all said Batista was not a saint but they all prefered him instead of Castro. Why else do the Cubans sacrifice themselves by jumping into the ocean with rickety rafts to escape the goverment. That never happened under Batista. The general population does have a higher literacy rate but at what cost? So they can read all of Castro's propaganda in Granma (Cuba's official newspaper) and starve. All the writers, musicians and journalist are censored by the goverment. The health is a lot better than before Castro but there are great shortages of medicine. Repressive goverment? Of course it is. Castro destroyed all the family and religion ties of the people. He did it because those are the only two things people really believe in. He turned brother against brother. Sons against fathers. You would get rewards and accomendtations for doing it. All in the name of the revolution. Most of the refugees I knew owned there own land. They used to raise what was marketable. Rice, coffee, produce etc. I recently was introduced to a friend of a friend who is Cuban-Amgerican. He just got back two weeks ago from Cuba. He went to visit his family. He told me that he is so depressed after coming back from there. The majority of the houses are falling down. The roads haven't been paved in years. There are massive blackouts. He went to central Cuba where the farms are. The farmers can only survive by what they grow and sell what is leftover in the blackmarket. All the livestock is technically owned by the goverment. I'll give you an example he gave me. If you own a cow and you kill it to eat it. Then you get taxed for killing it. But in the same instance, if someone were to steal it. The farmer still has to pay the tax as if he killed it himself. The goverment's position is that its your fault for letting the cow get stolen and that they were not going to lose out like the farmer did. I'm going to try to talk to him again on how the food is rationed and in what quantities by the goverment. I could not believe on what they have to exsist on. I don't know how they do it. You will all be shocked. Its hard to fathom what the Cuban population is going through. So the other countries in the Caribean would be better under communism? I think not. Glad __________________ I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!! Last edited by Glad-I-Ate-Her; 05-12-2003 at 08:44 PM..

05-13-2003, 06:30 PM	#12 (permalink)
Glad-I-Ate-Her Junkie Location: 1 mile from Ground Zero	I agree the sanctions should go. Like I wrote in my first response, the embargo is helping keep Castro in power. I believe if the embargo is lifted, I don't think he will last 6 months. So I say, lift the embargo and we could be drinking Daiquri's on a beach in Cuba and smoking cigars by Christmas!! Glad __________________ I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

05-08-2003, 12:21 PM	#2 (permalink)
james t kirk Junkie Location: Toronto	Yawn, Here's something for you to think about..... The US embargo on Cuba has helped cement Caastro's hold on power. He'll die sooner or later. Oh, and if you think the cubans were better off under Baptista, think again.

05-08-2003, 10:30 PM	#3 (permalink)
Dragonlich 42, baby! Location: The Netherlands	...and while you're doing the thinking... The US embargo on Iraq has helped cement Saddam's hold on power. He'll die sooner or later. Oh, and if you think the Iraqis were better off under Quassim (previous dictator), think again. Similar things can be said about North-Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and any other dictatorship in the world. Luckily, we can downplay any dictator, and blame the US for his very existance...