Little-Acorn
02-27-2008, 07:34 PM
Looks like some things never change.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8EC853DA-5E57-4AA3-A6B9-2DFF5C901E9C
Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant
by Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Humberto Fontova has dedicated his life to exposing the full extent of oppression, brutality, and kleptomania visited upon Cuba by Fidel Castro's regime, a task often performed at significant risk to his personal safety and always over the droning din of the leftist media. Castro's seizure of power could never have come about without the hagiographic coverage of the New York Times in the 1950s. Although the realities of post-Castro life have become well-known, the hemisphere's only full-blown Marxist dictatorship remains a beacon for many in the entertainment industry, the media, leftist religious associations, and far-Left pressure groups. Below, Fontova reveals why his successor should not receive the same benefit of the doubt given to his brother 50 years ago.-- FPM Editors.
With Raul Castro's ascent to power in Havana, the news media have dutifully presented him as a potential Gorbachev. The Chicago Tribune headline blares, "Cubans Hope Raul Castro Brings Reform." True, the Associated Press reporter acknowledges, Raul has been a hardliner by his brother Fidel's side for five decades; however, he also introduced small farmers markets into the Cuban hinterlands! The AP gushes Raul "encouraged Cubans to open a fearless and critical debate, as long as they remember that the final decisions will be made by the island's Communist leaders." However, the story also mentions in passing that the younger generation set to replace Raul is so fervently Communist that they call themselves, "Young Talibans."
One would think after the media's sorry track record with the Castros, they would not resort to lionizing Fidel's murderous brother.
In 1956, when Fidel Castro's motley band of 82 guerrillas were training in Mexico for their "invasion" and "liberation" of Cuba from Batista, a trainee named Calixto Morales, suffering from a recent injury, was forced to briefly hobble away from one particularly strenuous training session. He was trussed up, dragged in front of what a guerrilla leader called a "court martial," and quickly sentenced to death by firing squad.
Fortunately the "maximum" guerrilla commander showed up in time and ordered his brother to rescind his hasty death sentence. Morales, after all, had the proper "revolutionary" attitude and had merely suffered an unfortunate accident.
Raul Castro had done the hasty sentencing. His big brother Fidel had ordered the pardon.
Two years later, the anti-Batista "guerrilla war" (occasional shoot-outs and skirmishes that the Cripps and Bloods would shrug off as a slow week) was chiefly centered in Cuba's eastern province of Oriente and consisted of two "fronts." One was commanded by Fidel in the Sierra Maestra mountains; the other was commanded by Raul in the Sierra Cristal mountains slightly north of Fidel's group.
One day, a teenage rebel soldier named Dariel Alarcon overheard Fidel sputtering complaints to his assistant Celia Sanchez about the northern front. Raul's zeal for firing squad executions of "informers," "spies," counter-revolutionaries" etc., where he often applied the coup'd grace himself, was hampering progress on what Fidel had always treated as the "war's" primary front.
This primary front, of course, was the media front: the almost effortless bamboozling of the swarms of gaping reporters who queued up to interview him. Thanks to these "gallant crusaders for the truth" (as Columbia School of Journalism hails its students) the stirring tale of Cuba's Thomas Jefferson/Robin Hood/Richard the Lion Hearted/Saint Thomas Aquinas--all in one heroic package, sporting a beard and combat fatigues--was thrilling audiences from New York to Paris.
The New York Times ignited the process in February 1957 with Fidel Castro on its front page. Soon a conflagration raged, in both print and video. CBS soon ran "The Story of Cuba's Jungle Fighters," a breathtaking news-drama that ran on prime time. Look Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Boys Life (honest, even they braved the horrendous battlefield perils for a Castro interview) all added to the blizzard of B.S.
Every hair on every one of these reportorial heads, by the way, enjoyed a curious immunity to the slightest ruffling by the beastly police and army of the unspeakable Batista regime whose barbarities (especially against the exercise of free speech) these same reporters repeatedly described in their blood- curdling stories and broadcasts. Two years later, when these reporters' hero held office, the treatment of reporters who reported on Cuban regime brutalities would differ drastically.
The stories leaking out regarding the "Revolutionary justice" practiced in Raul's front, though completely ignored by the foreign media throng, were causing a bit of grumbling in the Cuban press. Fidel requested that Raul please cut down on the firing squad bloodbaths, as it could hurt the image Fidel was so expertly crafting of their "humanistic rebellion," with the eager help of media dupes and acolytes.
Raul's response is what caused Fidel's sputtering to his assistant. "Got your message and will take immediate corrective measures," Raul responded to his brother. "No more bloodbath. From now on we'll start hanging the counter-revolutionaries."
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
-----------------------------------------
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8EC853DA-5E57-4AA3-A6B9-2DFF5C901E9C
Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant
by Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Humberto Fontova has dedicated his life to exposing the full extent of oppression, brutality, and kleptomania visited upon Cuba by Fidel Castro's regime, a task often performed at significant risk to his personal safety and always over the droning din of the leftist media. Castro's seizure of power could never have come about without the hagiographic coverage of the New York Times in the 1950s. Although the realities of post-Castro life have become well-known, the hemisphere's only full-blown Marxist dictatorship remains a beacon for many in the entertainment industry, the media, leftist religious associations, and far-Left pressure groups. Below, Fontova reveals why his successor should not receive the same benefit of the doubt given to his brother 50 years ago.-- FPM Editors.
With Raul Castro's ascent to power in Havana, the news media have dutifully presented him as a potential Gorbachev. The Chicago Tribune headline blares, "Cubans Hope Raul Castro Brings Reform." True, the Associated Press reporter acknowledges, Raul has been a hardliner by his brother Fidel's side for five decades; however, he also introduced small farmers markets into the Cuban hinterlands! The AP gushes Raul "encouraged Cubans to open a fearless and critical debate, as long as they remember that the final decisions will be made by the island's Communist leaders." However, the story also mentions in passing that the younger generation set to replace Raul is so fervently Communist that they call themselves, "Young Talibans."
One would think after the media's sorry track record with the Castros, they would not resort to lionizing Fidel's murderous brother.
In 1956, when Fidel Castro's motley band of 82 guerrillas were training in Mexico for their "invasion" and "liberation" of Cuba from Batista, a trainee named Calixto Morales, suffering from a recent injury, was forced to briefly hobble away from one particularly strenuous training session. He was trussed up, dragged in front of what a guerrilla leader called a "court martial," and quickly sentenced to death by firing squad.
Fortunately the "maximum" guerrilla commander showed up in time and ordered his brother to rescind his hasty death sentence. Morales, after all, had the proper "revolutionary" attitude and had merely suffered an unfortunate accident.
Raul Castro had done the hasty sentencing. His big brother Fidel had ordered the pardon.
Two years later, the anti-Batista "guerrilla war" (occasional shoot-outs and skirmishes that the Cripps and Bloods would shrug off as a slow week) was chiefly centered in Cuba's eastern province of Oriente and consisted of two "fronts." One was commanded by Fidel in the Sierra Maestra mountains; the other was commanded by Raul in the Sierra Cristal mountains slightly north of Fidel's group.
One day, a teenage rebel soldier named Dariel Alarcon overheard Fidel sputtering complaints to his assistant Celia Sanchez about the northern front. Raul's zeal for firing squad executions of "informers," "spies," counter-revolutionaries" etc., where he often applied the coup'd grace himself, was hampering progress on what Fidel had always treated as the "war's" primary front.
This primary front, of course, was the media front: the almost effortless bamboozling of the swarms of gaping reporters who queued up to interview him. Thanks to these "gallant crusaders for the truth" (as Columbia School of Journalism hails its students) the stirring tale of Cuba's Thomas Jefferson/Robin Hood/Richard the Lion Hearted/Saint Thomas Aquinas--all in one heroic package, sporting a beard and combat fatigues--was thrilling audiences from New York to Paris.
The New York Times ignited the process in February 1957 with Fidel Castro on its front page. Soon a conflagration raged, in both print and video. CBS soon ran "The Story of Cuba's Jungle Fighters," a breathtaking news-drama that ran on prime time. Look Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Boys Life (honest, even they braved the horrendous battlefield perils for a Castro interview) all added to the blizzard of B.S.
Every hair on every one of these reportorial heads, by the way, enjoyed a curious immunity to the slightest ruffling by the beastly police and army of the unspeakable Batista regime whose barbarities (especially against the exercise of free speech) these same reporters repeatedly described in their blood- curdling stories and broadcasts. Two years later, when these reporters' hero held office, the treatment of reporters who reported on Cuban regime brutalities would differ drastically.
The stories leaking out regarding the "Revolutionary justice" practiced in Raul's front, though completely ignored by the foreign media throng, were causing a bit of grumbling in the Cuban press. Fidel requested that Raul please cut down on the firing squad bloodbaths, as it could hurt the image Fidel was so expertly crafting of their "humanistic rebellion," with the eager help of media dupes and acolytes.
Raul's response is what caused Fidel's sputtering to his assistant. "Got your message and will take immediate corrective measures," Raul responded to his brother. "No more bloodbath. From now on we'll start hanging the counter-revolutionaries."
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)