12/7/16

Castro, The New York Times, and Fake News

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The New York Times is claiming the ability to expose “fake news.” It should know something about the topic. So-called “fake news” from The New York Times helped bring Fidel Castro to power. Castro had urged the Soviet Union to launch the nuclear missiles it had installed in Cuba on the United States, with the potential to obliterate tens of millions of Americans.

In its obituary, “Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90,” the Times mentions that Castro had pushed the world “to the brink of nuclear war,” through the Cuban missile crisis, but did not highlight the fact that he had advocated a Soviet nuclear strike on the U.S.

Here’s a reference to this from The New York Times in 1990: “Fidel Castro urged the Soviet Union to attack the United States in 1962 because he feared an American invasion of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, Nikita S. Khrushchev said in portions of his memoirs published today.”

The memoirs of Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev quoted the Cuban leader as saying in 1962 that the Kremlin “should launch a pre-emptive strike against the U.S.” to prevent destruction of the Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The Times obituary about Castro also neglected to mention that Castro sponsored terrorism in America through such groups as the Weather Underground and FALN. The paper did, however, find time to note that Castro put scarce resources into an effort to develop a Cuban supercow.

The Times referred to “suspicions that Mr. Castro and the Cubans were somehow involved” in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Perhaps the “somehow” had something to do with the fact that the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a Marxist member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee who had defected to the Soviet Union.

Oswald’s communist connection was more obvious than the Islamic motivation of the Somali Muslim at Ohio State University who was inspired by ISIS to drive a car into a group of students and take out a knife to injure them.

In the obituary, the Times did note the pro-Castro coverage by its correspondent in Cuba at the time of Castro’s seizure of power, saying that Herbert Matthews had “presented a Castro that Americans could root for,” and “repeated Mr. Castro’s assertions that Cuba’s future was anything but a Communist state.”

“He has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections,” Matthews wrote. When asked about the United States, Castro replied, “You can be sure we have no animosity toward the United States and the American people.”

A review of Matthews’ work by Ron Radosh ran under the title, “A Dictator’s Scribe,” while Cuban-American Humberto Fontova authored a piece about Castro, Matthews and the role of the Times as the “Unrepentant Communist Enabler.”

Professor Paul Kengor notes that “conservatives would later joke, quite uneasily, that Castro had gotten his job through the New York Times.”

“Unfortunately,” he goes on to say, “this kind of service by the New York Times has not ended. A new generation of Times reporters is picking up the torch, educated at universities that teach that the only bad thing about communism was Joe McCarthy.”

In this context, one key fact about Castro, relevant to today’s problems in the U.S. news media and academia, is that he studied to become a communist in college. The late leftist filmmaker, Saul Landau, a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, confirmed that Castro told him that he had become a Marxist from the time that he read the Communist Manifesto in his student days.

Castro was also quoted as saying, in a book published in 2006, “In the university, where I arrived simply with a rebel spirit and elementary ideas of justice, I became a Marxist-Leninist and acquired the sentiments that over the years I have had the privilege never to have felt the slightest temptation to abandon.”

Yet, Herbert Matthews called Castro an anti-communist.

It would be nice if The New York Times would simply apologize for using fake news to help bring Castro to power.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

11/30/16

The Moral Sickness of the Left

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Donald J. Trump is labeled by CNN as a liar on a regular basis, while the dead communist tyrant Fidel Castro is lauded as a revolutionary hero. American reporters are in Havana, Cuba to film people crying on their way to honor a dictator who had recommended that the Soviets launch a nuclear attack on the United States.

Our media never fail to demonstrate that there is no limit to how low they can sink. The sickness in the media is only matched by the pro-Castro sentiments in people like Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate working with Hillary Clinton to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. Stein remarked, “Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!”

Virtually all day long on Monday, CNN was broadcasting the “news” that Trump had “falsely” claimed that millions had voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. CNN had not bothered to provide to its viewers the 45 pages of documentation of Trump’s claim from the Trump transition office. Instead, CNN simply dismissed it out of hand.

CNN correspondent Jeff Zeleny reported, “Donald Trump is showing signs tonight of being a sore winner. The president-elect is suggesting with zero evidence to back up his claim that he won the popular vote,” and that “he’s a victim of widespread election fraud.”

Zero evidence? That’s a matter of opinion. Viewers had no way of knowing that the Trump transition team had provided 45 pages of documentation.

Contrast how quickly our media were able to “debunk” Trump’s claim to how long it took them to determine that the attacker at Ohio State University was an Islamic terrorist. On Tuesday morning, Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times, sent an email to subscribers listing various headlines from the news, including that “A man drove a car into a crowd of students at Ohio State University and then attacked bystanders with a butcher knife, injuring at least 11. Officials are investigating whether terrorism was a motive.”

This kind of formulation is not only an indictment of the media, which knew the facts about the Islamic motivations of the terrorist by that time, but also of the anonymous “officials” supposedly investigating “whether terrorism was a motive.”

Why are the media so quick to denounce Trump and so eager to whitewash radical Islam?

This sickness in the media is matched by the reaction of leading “progressive” organizations to Castro’s death.

Black Lives Matter says, “There is an overwhelming sense of loss, complicated by fear and anxiety. Although no leader is without their flaws, we must push back against the rhetoric of the right and come to the defense of El Comandante.”

Black Lives Matter supports convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur, who is listed by the FBI as a domestic terrorist with a $1 million bounty on her head. She is living in Cuba under the protection of the Raul Castro regime.

Global Exchange, a group co-founded by Medea Benjamin, who is also the co-founder of CodePink, noted “with sadness and respect the passing of Comandante Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.” It added, “His life has been in the service of humanity. His leadership in the Cuban Revolution can never be forgotten. The peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States are beneficiaries of Cuban internationalism—a unique internationalism not based simply on theory but on practice, sacrifice, and love.”

Ironically, Global Exchange claims to be “an international human rights organization.” The group makes money from trips to Cuba.

Not to be outdone, the Cuban Communist “news” organization, Prensa Latina, highlightedhow Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) had praised Castro, saying, “President Castro was a recognized world leader who was dedicated to the Cuban people.”

Lee was a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off of the Communist Party USA. She was Barack Obama’s Western Regional co-chair during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

11/29/16

Castro Hated America and Killed Kennedy

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Since The New York Times seems preoccupied with the concept of “fake news,” the death of Communist dictator Fidel Castro provides an ideal opportunity to go back in time and examine how the Times helped bring this tyrant to power through lies and deceit. Castro hated America and Americans, especially President John F. Kennedy. He hosted Soviet nuclear missiles that targeted the U.S. for destruction and sparked the Cuban missile crisis.

Strangely, President Barack Obama has shown callous indifference to the anti-communism that used to dominate the national Democratic Party, and seems oblivious to the evidence that Castro was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, a Democratic Party icon. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,” said Obama’s statement about the death of the dictator.

More “fake news” from the liberal media has consisted of whitewashing or ignoring Castro’s sponsorship of terrorism inside the United States, through such groups as the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and the Puerto Rican FALN, as well as the substantial evidence about his role in the Kennedy assassination. Castro not only had foreknowledge of the plot to kill JFK but was actually behind it, most likely with Soviet backing.

The Cuban-backed FALN claimed responsibility for over 140 bombings in the U.S. FALN terrorist leader William Morales and Black Liberation Army cop-killer Joanne Chesimard are still being protected in Cuba by the Castro regime. Joe Connor, whose father was murdered by the FALN Puerto Rican terrorist group, notes that President Obama’s first Attorney General, Eric Holder, offered executive clemency to 16 FALN terrorists when he served in the Bill Clinton administration as deputy attorney general. President Clinton also pardoned two members of the Cuban-backed communist terrorist Weather Underground: Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans.

A U.S.-based group called the Venceremos Brigade was run by the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI, and included several members of the Weather Underground. Young people on the trips were indoctrinated in the communist philosophy, given terrorist training in Cuba, and advised by Soviet and Cuban intelligence agents.

The Weather Underground was responsible for more than 30 bombings in the 1970s, many of them directed at police and police stations. Terrorist leaders Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, who helped launch Obama’s political career in Chicago, still have not been prosecuted for their alleged roles in the 1970 bombing murder of San Francisco Police Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell. A bomb filled with heavy metal staples exploded at the police station and ripped through his body. He was in the hospital for two days, bleeding from his wounds, before he finally died.

In our column, “Why the Communists Killed Kennedy,” we examined the evidence of the Castro role in the murder of JFK. The Soviet KGB also had a role, through meetings with JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico and his defection to Soviet Russia. They then tried to mask their involvement through a disinformation campaign called “Dragon Operation,” an effort to shift blame for Kennedy’s murder away from the communists.

The Cubans wanted Kennedy dead because he had opposed the Cuban revolution, tried to overthrow Castro, and tried to have Castro assassinated. In his last prepared speech before his death, Kennedy declared that he was determined to stop communism’s advance around the world by making the U.S. into the strongest military power on earth.

Former CIA officer Brian Latell’s book, Castro’s Secrets, discloses intelligence information that Castro knew that Oswald was going to kill President Kennedy. A former Marine turned Marxist, Oswald was a member of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

We’ve noted in the past that Humberto Fontova’s book, Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, explains how Herbert Matthews, the Times correspondent in Cuba at that time, brought Castro to power. “This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word,” Matthews wrote in 1959. “In Cuba there are no Communists in positions of control.” Matthews added, “Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he’s decidedly anti-Communist.” But in a national broadcast on December 2, 1962, Castro declared, “I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be one until the day I die.”

President Kennedy’s widow, Jackie, had singled out The New York Times for criticism for helping bring Castro to power. Her views were documented in the book Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. She cited Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith’s book, The Fourth Floor, on how the U.S. State Department had paved the way for Castro’s takeover. The title is a reference to the officials responsible for Cuba policy who were on the fourth floor of the State Department. Smith argued that Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom, and his associate William Wieland, had to be aware of Fidel Castro’s communist affiliations. Wieland was the State Department’s chief of Caribbean affairs and a friend of Herbert Matthews.

Accuracy in Media (AIM) founder and chairman Reed Irvine noted, “It was Matthews who built up Fidel Castro and is often credited with having made his takeover of Cuba possible. Matthews was never identified as a Soviet agent, but there is no doubt that his work was of great value to the Soviets, whether he was a dupe or an agent.”

At a 1979 AIM conference, Ambassador Smith explained how The New York Times had rescued Castro from obscurity and how Matthews had likened him to Abraham Lincoln.

Demonstrating that he has not abandoned the Marxist ideology he adopted as a young KGB officer, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement saying that Castro was a “remarkable statesman” and that Cuba had “become an influential member of the international community and serves as an inspiring example for many countries and peoples.” Putin added, “Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia. He made a tremendous personal contribution to the establishment and progress of Russian-Cuban relations, close strategic partnership in all areas.”

That relationship, according to the evidence in such books as Communism, the Cold War, and the FBI Connection, by former FBI agent Herman Bly, included the assassination of a U.S. president. But the possibility of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, coming so soon after the Cuban missile crisis, is why the communist connection to Russia and Cuba would be played down. Bly wrote, “…I believe the heads of the FBI, CIA, and President Johnson wanted the Oswald case brought to a conclusion as fast as possible as they did not want another crisis with the Soviet Union so soon after the Cuban missile crisis.”

It’s one of those inconvenient facts that our liberal media want desperately to ignore. Plus, they are still attracted to the notion that Castro, rather than being a cold-blooded killer, was a romantic “revolutionary” who brought health care and educational opportunities to his captive people.

We can understand why Putin doesn’t want to highlight the communist role in Kennedy’s murder. He’s trying to play nice with the U.S. Government to get financial advantages. But why would President Obama, so many progressives, and the liberal media want to pay homage to the killer of a much-beloved American president?

“Today,” Obama said on Saturday, “we offer condolences to Fidel Castro’s family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people. In the days ahead, they will recall the past and also look to the future. As they do, the Cuban people must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America.”

A “friend and partner” with a regime that sanctioned the murder of an American president?

Mr. Obama, have you no shame?

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

08/18/15

New Agers Back Socialist Sanders as Messiah

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The huge crowds greeting socialist Bernie Sanders in his run for the Democratic presidential nomination cannot just be attributed to large numbers of left-wingers. There is a hard-core left-wing element to the Sanders candidacy, of course. But Sanders has tapped into what used to be one of Hillary Clinton’s key constituencies, the New Age Movement. A top Sanders adviser is the influential “spiritual teacher” Marianne Williamson, whose self-help books have been heavily promoted by Oprah Winfrey and sold millions.

The New Age Movement is a growing group of people in America who have broken with the Judeo-Christian tradition to instead endorse the notion of God as a mystical force inhabiting humans, the earth, or spiritual “masters.” Oprah’s website describes it somewhat differently: “For 20 years, Marianne Williamson has been a pioneer on the front lines of a worldwide spiritual movement aimed at creating a global shift in collective consciousness.”

Taking this perspective into the political realm, Williamson has advocated a Department of Peacebuilding and has created a group called the Peace Alliance to bring this about.

Constance Cumbey has written two books on the New Age Movement and says its “toolbox is mysticism,” or “altered states of consciousness,” which are said to draw people into a relationship with spiritual forces in the world that are part of a “New World Order” and global religion to be headed by an anticipated “messianic figure” of some kind.

Whatever this mean for the world as a whole, it appears that Williamson sees Sanders as the savior of the American political system.

Williamson, who writes on the Sanders-for-president website about the need for “revolutionary power,” has used her vast influence to mobilize her followers on behalf of the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party. She says the Marxist presidency of Barack Obama hasn’t been radical enough. “Having invested so much hope in 2008 in a candidate who turned out in many ways to disappoint, it’s not easy to summon our internal forces for another big wave of revolutionary fervor,” she says. But Sanders, the “independent” socialist senator from Vermont, is a true revolutionary, she says. “If we all show up and exercise our power as citizens, Senator Sanders can win the presidency in 2016,” she adds.

Analyst Trevor Loudon has documented that Sanders, the only Senate member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is actually a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that backed Obama’s political career and works with openly communist groups. “DSA works very closely with three of America’s leading communist groups—the Maoist leaning Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the ‘old guard’ Communist Party USA, and the CPUSA spin-off Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism,” notes Loudon. “The four groups have even seriously considered merging in recent years.”

We have noted Sanders’ history of involvement with Communist Party-controlled groups such as the U.S. Peace Council. In the 1980s, he was part of the Soviets’ “nuclear freeze” campaign to undercut President Ronald Reagan’s military build-up.

A former nightclub singer, Williamson herself ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 on a platform that included abortion rights, gay rights, socialized medicine, and the need to combat what she perceives as man-made global warming, nowadays called climate change. “While a lifelong Democrat herself, Marianne ran the congressional race as an Independent, making the statement that she was not beholden to either party,” noted writer Tabby Biddle.

“While America has some serious enemies—and it’s certainly our responsibility to protect our country and our children—I believe our country’s way of dealing with security issues is increasingly obsolete,” Williamson declared. “We cannot simply rely on brute force to rid ourselves of enemies. In so doing, we overburden our military by asking them to compensate for the work that we ourselves are not doing. The only way to make peace with your neighbors is to make peace with your neighbors.”

She added that, if she won, she would co-sponsor the bill to establish a U.S. Department of Peacebuilding that would examine “non-violent problem-solving options” to global conflict. The department was to be paid for out of the defense budget.

Labeled by The Hollywood Reporter as “Hollywood’s favorite New Age Guru” because of her influence with movie producers, directors, and actors, Williamson hosted Sanders at her own feminist-oriented “Sister Giant” conference earlier this year. Described personally as a “radical feminist mother,” Williamson has a daughter whose father is not known and whom she refuses to name.

While some of the New Age rhetoric and books can be dismissed as expensive but harmless fun, it’s when these “spiritual teachers” exert political influence and address global issues that we can see a tendency that seems even more radical than the usual Marxist drivel emanating from Democratic Party politicians such as Obama.

However, there is overlap. Williamson’s proposed Department of Peacebuilding, which was to be headed by a Secretary of Peacebuilding, was introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), one of Fidel Castro’s closest friends in the U.S. Congress.

Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who also works with Williamson, had introduced a similar bill. “The intention is to develop an organized approach, tapping the intellectual and spiritual power of America to develop programs that would include teaching children the principles of peace: teaching them peace giving, peace sharing, mutuality, seeing the other person as an aspect of oneself, of teaching the inner equality of all people,” Kucinich said in a post on Williamson’s Peace Alliance website.

Like Sanders, Williamson is considered by some to be pro-Israel. But in her book,The Healing of America, she discussed how Egypt’s highest Muslim cleric had once approached her “to make sure you understand that Islam is a religion of peace.” She didn’t say whether the Muslim leader condemned and rejected the passages in the Koran that call for killing the “Infidels” who resist Islam.

She also wrote, “The creative challenge of spiritual life is to know enough about God to be hopeful. From Jesus to Buddha to Moses to Mohammed, wayshowers have risen out of the timeline of history to draw maps and pave roads to a more perfect world.” The comparison of Jesus—who led a perfect life and preached love—to the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, is offensive on its face. Islam began in violence and Mohammad himself was a violent warrior.

The term “wayshowers” is common in New Age circles and refers to spiritual beings supposedly leading us into a new world of community and harmony.

When Keith Ellison became the first Congressman to take the oath of office with his hand on the Koran, Williamson commented, “Fantastic story.” Ellison, a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, endorsed Williamson in her run for Congress.

For a time, Williamson and her associate Jean Houston of the Foundation for Mind Research were considered to be in Hillary Clinton’s political camp. Houston had tried to help Mrs. Clinton, when she was First Lady, “communicate” with Eleanor Roosevelt during a mystical “channeling” session. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward wrote about these sessions in a book on the 1996 presidential election.

At some point, however, Cumbey says Houston and Williamson abandoned Hillary. Williamson said in 2008 that she was supporting Barack Obama and not Hillary because “I am not going to vote with my vagina.”

This was a dramatic turnaround, since Mrs. Clinton in her memoir Living Historyhad discussed hosting Williamson and Houston and other New Agers at Camp David. “You were wonderful to me back in 1994 when you invited me to the White House. It’s a memory I will treasure always, and you gave it to me,” Williamsonwrote back to Hillary in a Huffington Post article.

But the 2014 Williamson article, “An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton,” was actually prompted by Williamson’s revelation that the former First Lady was getting too close to powerful interests in society. Williamson pleaded with Clinton to, “Stop cozying up to the banks, to the chemical companies, to the military-industrial complex, to the party machine, and to all the various financiers who make up the plutocracy now ruining this country.”

The pleas apparently went unheeded, since Williamson eventually broke completely with Hillary and now promotes Sanders for president and writes for his website. Through Sanders and other such candidates, she insists, America can experience a revolution “of light, of consciousness, and love” and “break out of this ridiculous corporate straightjacket that imperils us the way it does now.”

Whatever this means, it has occurred to some on the far-left that while Sanders is taking on “corporate power and oligarchy” and calling for vast federal spending increases for social welfare programs, the “issues” section of his presidential website says absolutely nothing about foreign policy. The group called RootsAction complains that his stump speech hardly mentions the “huge military budget” and says he must challenge “militarism and ongoing war.”

Perhaps Williamson’s proposed Department of Peacebuilding will be the focus of one of Sanders’ next speeches, a development that will make the socialist senator not only look like a pawn of Williamson and the New Age Movement, but the true leader of the Loony Left.

08/11/15

America Naively Swoons While Communist Cuba Cracks Down

By: Ben Weingarten

What is it about dictatorships that make Americans swoon?

Juxtaposing two recent articles published within 24 hours of each other on Cuba is instructive.

First, a Wall Street Journal article titled “Amid Thaw, First Authorized U.S. Yacht Sails to Cuba on Hopes of Travel Surge” reads:

The 78-foot Still Water docked in the marina late Wednesday after a four-hour jaunt. Aboard the sleek yacht were three crew and 12 passengers eager to see Cuba before the sharp economic and social change that many Americans expect to sweep the country as a long-frozen U.S.-Cuba relationship thaws. Some also hoped to sniff out business opportunities that such a transformation might spawn.

“Being born in the 50s and being indoctrinated the way we were, it’s interesting to be able to see this,” said 57-year-old passenger Jack McClurg, who manages his personal investments from Colorado and sails the Caribbean in his own 115-foot Italian-made yacht. “I’m just wanting to see this change happening.”

… Though Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro agreed in December to restore diplomatic relations between their countries, the trade embargo remains largely in effect. But officials and entrepreneurs in both countries are chipping at its edges, hoping to marry U.S. investors with Cuba’s hope to revive its economy.

“The genie of free enterprise is out of the bottle and it is a powerful genie,” Jose Viera, a retired senior Cuban diplomat, assured the yacht’s group in a private briefing. [Emphasis mine]

Contrast this sunny view with what is actually happening on the island to non-apparitchiks:

With tense bilateral ties recently renewed after five decades, and top US diplomat John Kerry due in Havana in days, Cuba arrested some 90 activists on Sunday.

Cuban security forces rounded up marchers — about 50 with the Ladies in White dissident group and around 40 other activists, some wearing masks with the image of US President Barack Obama, according to an AFP reporter.

One protester slammed Obama, and said the December announcement to normalize relations between the former Cold war foes had bolstered Havana’s crackdown on dissidents.

“It’s his fault, what is happening,” said former political prisoner Angel Moya, speaking about Obama.

“The Cuban government has grown even bolder,” he added before being detained. [Emphasis mine]

This is just the latest in a series of crackdowns on dissent in Communist Cuba, where in July the Cuba Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) documented 674 political arrests, the highest number since June 2014.

To travel to Castro-run Cuba is to give a regime still dedicated to the violent overthrow of the capitalist order your sanction. We should not be sanctioning a great evil.

07/29/15

America’s Enemies Are Laughing at Us

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Time magazine is out with a colorful and glossy “Inside the New Cuba” special edition, featuring smiling Cuban kids wearing Communist garb on the cover. Page 64 has a photo showing “Cuban fans” holding up “their national flag” at a baseball game. It turns out that the really happy Cubans are those who have been defecting from the island “paradise,” as Time magazine calls the prison camp country.

Credit goes to Christine Rousselle of Townhall.com for covering these defections. They seem to be developing into a regular feature, with Rousselle providing regular updates about additional defections.

So far, eight players from the Cuban men’s field hockey team, four rowers from the Cuban national team, and two members of the Cuban soccer team have defected.

The defections completely undercut the chapter of the special Time magazine issue on Cuba that is titled, “The Big League Next Door,” which speculates that normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba could “stop Cuba’s top talent from fleeing…” This chapter is written by Robert Siegel, senior host of National Public Radio, and Eyder Peralta, an NPR reporter.

Washington Nationals infielder Yunel Escobar defected from Cuba when he was 21. The Washington Post covered his story in a May 7 article, noting:

Escobar’s love of baseball was fueled by television broadcasts and video games, both forbidden in Cuba. He paid to watch MLB games and favorite players such as Alex Rodriguez, Roberto Alomar, Omar Vizquel and fellow Cuban Livan Hernandez on a TV with a hush-hush antenna at a friend’s house. He also grew to love Ken Griffey Jr. because of a video game he played often in secret. A friend had smuggled in a console and charged the equivalent of 50 cents per hour to play.

The entire story is worth reading and there are many touching moments, such as the story of when Escobar spent two days at an immigration detention center in Miami “and kissed the ground when he was released.”

These are the immigrants we should welcome, since they have developed an appreciation of the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. They want to enjoy and celebrate American freedom, not distort and transform the country into a Third World welfare state of cheap labor for corporations and paid-for votes for the Democratic Party.

In the Time magazine version of Cuba, we are told in the section, “Scenes from the Revolution,” that Fidel Castro “promised to clean up the government, restore democracy and civil liberties, and promote social justice.” Nothing is said about whether he fulfilled those promises.

By contrast, we are told that his predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, was a “ruthless dictator” who ran a system characterized by “economic and social inequality and a corrupt government.” The implication is that Castro changed all of that for the better.

A caption on a page of pictures of Cuban cowboys on the communist island informs us that “Before Castro nationalized all farms, almost three quarters of Cuba’s arable lands was owned by fewer than 3,000 individuals and corporations, many of them American, while most farmworkers were renters.” One of the Cuban cowboys proclaims, “It is no longer of Communism or no Communism. It belongs to us.”

You mean communism works after all? That seems to be the message of this special Time magazine Cuba edition.

It’s completely absurd but this is what passes for serious journalism. It reminds me of the old Ronald Reagan joke, reportedly told to Mikhail Gorbachev, about two men walking down a street in Moscow, when one asks, “Is this pure communism? Have we passed through the stage of socialism and reached pure communism? The other replies, “Hell, no. It’s gonna get a lot worse.”

Ben Lewis wrote an article, “Hammer & tickle,” noting that “Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy.”

These days, Oleg Atbashian makes fun of the Marxists and their apologists on a regular basis, on his “People’s Cube” website. One of his latest offerings is the new poster featuring the “Rebel without a gender.” The People’s Cube proclaims, “Che is dead, long live Conchita: a new rebel icon.”

His tribute to the Museum of Communism in Prague is a lot of laughs, as he displays some of the posters from the old communist days, such as the one announcing that communist women would have burnt their bras like their sisters in the West, “if there were any in the shops.”

Another communist poster said: “Sometimes there was no toilet paper in the shops. Luckily there was not much food, either.”

Meanwhile, believe it or not, the comedian Jack Black is being featured in a video campaign from the group Global Zero to sell the Iranian nuclear deal. He previously starred in such films as “Shallow Hal,” “School of Rock,” “Nacho Libre,” and the Kung Fu Panda films.

A comedian as the face of the Iranian nuclear deal? This is where the laughing begins to die down.

The Iranians and their Russian sponsors are the ones laughing at us now.

So are the Cuban Communists.

They may lose some people through defections, but they get an embassy on American soil where they can base their spies and recruit agents inside the U.S. government.

04/12/15

Obama Strangles the Monroe Doctrine and Embraces Latin Dictatorships, Communists and Fascists

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

I wrote some time ago on how John Kerry went to Latin America and declared the Monroe Doctrine dead. Obama just finalized it in Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine has been in place since 1823 and has long warned America’s enemies to not even THINK about using South America as a back door to bring Communism and aggression to our doorstep. Well, Obama has thrown that proverbial door wide open to South America and has invited in every enemy we have. Hell, he’s thrown our door at the borders open inviting them into the US as well. He wants America at war and brought to her knees and he’s really going for it now.

As Doug Ross pointed out, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought us to the very brink of nuclear war. The Monroe Doctrine stopped that apocalyptic nightmare from becoming a reality. Kennedy “cited the Monroe Doctrine as a basis for America’s ‘eyeball-to-eyeball’ confrontation with the Soviet Union that had embarked on a campaign to install ballistic missiles on Cuban soil.” That was before the Democrats went full blown Marxist and decided to destroy America from within her own shores. Obama has now stated for the world that the US will no longer act to resist overseas influence in the Western Hemisphere.

During the seventh Summit of the Americas, our enemies took turns swinging at American foreign policy. From 19th century territorial raids on Mexico to US support for the overthrow of Chile’s socialist government in 1973 and the 1989 invasion of Panama that removed Gen. Manuel Noriega, Washington’s interventions in Latin America were targets of rebuke during long speeches by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his allies. Obama quipped, “I always enjoy the history lessons that I receive when I’m here.” I’ll bet he does. He’s also meeting with Maduro and cuddling with him while he’s there. Dictators of a feather. Next, it will be Obama’s ongoing bromance with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who is a hardline Leftist and a long time ally of South American socialists Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales. Last week Correa tweeted “¡Heil Hitler!” in response to a Twitter user posting an article reporting that ex-Ecuadorian President Osvaldo Hurtado had called him a “fascist” for his repeated crackdowns on journalists. I’m sure Obama can relate. Remember, no matter the propagandic rhetoric from Correa on Obama being an “afro American,” Obama held hands with the Ecuadorian president to bring in as many illegal immigrants as he could and the two were aligned on common agendas. Things are never what they appear.

From the White House Dossier:

Obama, who spoke Friday during a “civil society” forum in Panama City, Panama, disparaged past efforts by the United States to forestall the spread of Communism in Latin America and suggested similar missions would no longer be undertaken.

“The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past,” Obama said.

Civil Society forum? How very George Soros… how very Progressive/Marxist. This condones Communism in our hemisphere – here on our turf, for our neighbors with our blessing. Virtually every country in South and Central America is now controlled by Communists and dictators because we decided to stay out of it. Regardless of the threat to America. Now, you’ve got Russians, Chinese and Iranians down there and I very much doubt they are on a goodwill tour. We are blatantly inviting an attack on America and Obama is welcoming it. He is not naive or clueless to the evil down there – he revels in it. He just apologized for the US’ intervention over the last 200 years – that intervention kept us safe and free, but no more.

James Monroe was a wise man who has now been undone by the enemy within here in America:

The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety . . .

With the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

The US now finds itself the one restricted in the Americas – but our enemies are free to roam, plot and attack. This is a recipe for suicidal disaster of historic proportions and Obama knows it.

Obama is about to remove Cuba from the list of states sponsoring terrorism:

Sometime during this weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Panama, President Obama is expected to grant one of Cuban President Raul Castro’s top demands and remove his country from the Unites States’ list of governments that sponsor terrorism.

That, as Sen. Robert Menendez warns, not only flies in the face of all evidence, but removes critical leverage in Washington’s efforts to bring scores of fugitive American terrorists to justice.

The latest State Department report on state sponsors of terrorism — a list that has included Cuba since 1982 — notes that Cuba’s longstanding ties to the Basque terrorist group ETA “have become more distant,” though it still provides “safe haven” to its members.

Havana also harbors terrorists who struck in the United States, such as cop-killers Joanne Chesimard and Charles Hill (who also hijacked a plane), FALN bomber Guillermo Morales and scores of others who’ve avoided accountability for their crimes. (Many of those crimes, incidentally, were committed in the tri-state area.)

Weasel Zippers calls it his “reach out to terrorists” initiative. That’s right on the money.

Obama never lets a political platform go to waste and this Summit of the Americas in Panama City was no exception. President Obama expressed his anger and frustration over Iran with those “trying to short-circuit the actual negotiations,” insisting that “it needs to stop” and pointing the finger squarely at the GOP. I’m sure his aggressive sentiments were roundly approved of by all the dictators in attendance.

Raul Castro generously absolved Barack Obama of America’s past imperialism. That’s what Communist families are for right? Better have a barf bag ready – the crap speweth:

Castro, whose country was invited to the gathering for the first time this year, received an ovation when he began his speech by saying the “time had come for him to speak here” on Communist-ruled Cuba’s behalf.

He referred to the United States’ “wars, conquests and interventions” in the region, saying through an interpreter that the country has been a “hegemonic force that plundered territories throughout the Americas.”

Castro recalled that the U.S. Congress authorized military intervention in Cuba in the late 19th century and that led to the establishment of a military base in Guantanamo that still “occupies our territory.”

In the 20th century, the United States carried out a series of “interventions to overthrow democratic governments” in Latin America, where “dictators were installed in 20 countries, 12 of them simultaneously.”

“In South America alone, hundreds of thousands of people were killed,” Castro said, adding that the most “brutal” episode was the 1973 U.S.-backed coup that toppled Chilean President Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government.

But after finishing his review of Latin American history, Castro issued an apology to his U.S. counterpart.

“The passion comes out of my pores when the revolution is involved, but I want to apologize to President Obama because he doesn’t have anything to do with all of that,” Castro said, eliciting another round of applause.

“All (of the previous U.S. presidents) are indebted to us, but not President Obama,” who is an “honest man … with a manner about him that speaks to his humble origins,” the Cuban leader said.

So, Obama strangles the Monroe Doctrine and embraces Latin dictatorships, Communists and fascists, while decreeing long live Communism in the Western Hemisphere. Is there anyone out there that still laughably thinks Obama is not an enemy from within? Once again, I join with Doug Ross in longing for a true conservative president. The question is, will we make it to the next election before the Communist crap hits the fan? How can our military leaders not see the impending attack on America that is all but certain when you throw our borders wide open and actually bring in massive amounts of illegal aliens, kill off the Monroe Doctrine, then cozy up to every Communist dictator and fascist in Latin America and as a finale, invite in the Axis of Evil: Russia, China and Iran into your midst… just what do you think is going to happen? Is America truly that suicidally oblivious to our enemies?

Obama, his lieutenants and minions have spent months — even years — crafting a narrative of harm done to Cuba by our embargo of trade with them. What’s missing from this narrative is this almost-never-mentioned fact: “Despite the Spanish term bloqueo (blockade), there has been no physical, naval blockade of the country by the United States after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The United States does not block Cuba’s trade with third parties: other countries are not under the jurisdiction of U.S. domestic laws, such as the Cuban Democracy Act […]. Cuba can, and does, conduct international trade with many third-party countries; Cuba has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 1995.” (Quote from above link.) So, ponder that for a moment. Cuba is today and has been for decades a cesspool of human rights denial, a commercial and industrial failure, and a place from which natives fled to have any chance of a decent life. This despite the fact that Cuba has been free to trade with the entire rest of the world. It is clear from this that Cuba’s problems do not, even in the smallest degree, originate with America’s refusal to support or endorse the tyranny enforced by the brothers Castro. They did this entirely to themselves.

Obama said of his critics of a potential Iran deal: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of narrow minds.”(*see footnote) So, chaos would be the justice warrior of an open society? Obama is pumping his fist in the air and a la Che Guevara is shouting “Viva la revolucion!” while proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine is dead, long live the dictator.

Unsavory Agents

*(Obama’s familiar sounding “quote” is actually a misquote of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous statement:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Emerson’s actual quote illuminates the small-mindedness of the man who, in an effort to project sophistication, instead utters the bland, repetitious and fallacious consistencies so thoroughly woven through the fabric of his life and administration: that socialism will cure all of Man’s ills. Obama’s attempt to appear the scholar reflects instead Emerson’s “little statesman,” as he dissembles once again.)

03/26/15

American Communists Travel to Cuba to Increase Support for Castro Dictatorship

By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

From left, Alberto Prieto, (Communist Party of Cuba International Relations Department), Zenobia Thompson, Camila Valenzuela, Fernando Gonzalez, Kenia Puig (ICAP president), Josh Leclair, John Bachtell

A delegation from the Communist Party USA, led by new National Secretary John Bachtell, recently visited Cuba. On Feb. 27th, the delegation stopped by the the Cuban Intelligence connected Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples to “discuss building friendship, cooperation and people to people exchanges in light of the Dec. 17 announcement to reestablish diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba.”

Among those who warmly greeted the delegates were Fernando Gonzalez, one of the infamous “Cuban 5” who was jailed in the U.S. in 1998 as part of a “mission to monitor right-wing Cuban terrorist activities in Miami being directed against Cuba.” Several people died as a result of Gonzalez’s espionage.

According to Bachtell:

We found Gonzalez warm, gracious and eager to speak about exploring ways to build friendship with the U.S. people. He also shared stories about his time in U.S. prisons, the people he met and the extraordinary solidarity he and the Cuban 5 received over the years.”

The most important thing to say, to express on my behalf, my family and relatives, is my deep gratitude to the CPUSA because of the years of participation in the struggle, the solidarity you accorded us during the time we were in prison and for our liberation.

You were side by side with us. Even when things look dark, there’s always a bright side. No one wants that experience (of imprisonment). It gave us the chance to experience the best of the U.S. people and those we worked with for many years, side by side in that fight.

Gonzalez made it clear that the Castro regime made no concessions in return for Communist Party connected President Barack Obama‘s diplomatic recognition of the dictatorship.

During the second round of negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba we haven’t made any concessions. And with the return of all the Cuban Five it was a great victory for the Cuban people and all friends in the U.S. who have participated in struggle and for friendship between our countries.

Diplomatic recognition of Cuba is a “win win” for Marxists, both in Washington DC and Havana.

Soon Obama “crony capitalists” will be able to export more American jobs to Cuban sweatshops, while Cuban communists can more easily export spies, revolutionaries and drugs to the United States.

03/19/15

Anti-Marxist Counter-Revolution in Latin America

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

On Saturday, March 21, at 1:00 p.m., the Washington Conclave for Democracy will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to discuss freedom, democracy and free elections in Latin America. “The conference is aimed to expose fraud and deception in electoral processes in Latin America,” says organizer Dalmo Accorsini. The event is open to the press and the public and will feature several speakers with knowledge of the communist advance in the Western hemisphere, including in the U.S. The event will congregate conservative leaders and political activists from the USA and Latin America to denounce the Foro de São Paulo and the recent election results in Brazil.

The National Press Club is located at 529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor, Washington DC, DC 20045 United States. Contact: Dalmo Accorsini, 561-803-5724, [email protected]

Background: With the end of the Cold War in 1989, it was believed by many that communism was on the wane. However, with Fidel Castro isolated in Cuba, he reached out to Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva of the Worker’s Party of Brazil, who would later become President of Brazil. An event was hosted in São Paulo, Brazil in 1990, the seat of Lula’s power, bringing together what came to be known as the São Paulo Forum.

03/18/15

Anti-Marxist Counter-Revolution in Brazil

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

With the Middle East in turmoil and Russia’s Vladimir Putin threatening nuclear war, most of our media have missed a big story south of the border. President Barack Obama’s fellow Marxist, Dilma Rousseff, is coming under tremendous pressure to resign her presidency in Brazil. As many as three million Brazilians took to the streets on Sunday to demand the impeachment of Rousseff, a former Marxist terrorist, and the end of the rule of the Brazilian Workers’ Party.

Such a development would be a major blow to the anti-American left in Latin America, which has been operating since 1990 under the rubric of the São Paulo Forum, a pro-communist movement started by Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, and Fidel Castro.

In a growing scandal, the treasurer of the ruling Workers’ Party has been charged with corruption and money laundering linked to the state-run oil company, Petrobras, a firm which has benefited from U.S. taxpayer loans provided through the Export-Import Bank under Obama.

While Obama has attempted to stifle oil development and production in the United States, his administration officially launched an “energy partnership” with Brazil in August of 2011. “We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers,” Obama told a group of Brazilian business leaders.

Some stories appearing in the Western press did note that as many as one million Brazilians turned out on Sunday to protest massive corruption linked to the Rousseff administration. One photo from the march showed a Brazilian waving a sign that said, “We won’t be another Venezuela,” a reference to another Marxist basket case of economic failure and corruption.

But sources contacted by Accuracy in Media say the turnout was far larger, with as many as three million Brazilians in the streets.

Alessandro Cota, a Brazilian who is currently a philosophy and political science researcher at the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought, told AIM, “This March 15 is certainly a new beginning for Brazil and probably the end of the dreams of all those who wanted to turn the largest country of Latin America into a socialist republic. After 12 years under the rule of the Brazilian Workers’ Party—8 years under President Lula (2003-2011), and 4 years under President Rousseff (who was re-elected last October for another four-year turn)—the Brazilian people, tired of waiting for opposition politicians to take action against the government, took the lead and decided to make history by themselves.”

Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho, President of the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought, said, “Never and nowhere has a government been so completely rejected by its own population. But it is more than that. It is not only the rejection of a government, or a President. It is the rejection of the whole system of power that has been created by the Workers’ Party, which includes intellectuals and opinion-makers in the big media. People are no longer afraid of going against the Workers’ Party. Brazilians realized that all the power that President Lula, President Rousseff, and their minions had was based on a bluff, and now they are calling it.”

In Brazil, Cota said, the actual turnout was three million people who made it clear that “they want President Rousseff and the Workers’ Party out.” The figure of one million people who took to the streets was from the city of Sao Paulo alone.

He added, “It was the largest nationwide anti-government demonstration in the history of Brazil, and it happened just two days after the Workers Party’s allies organized their own ‘popular’ demonstration in support of President Rousseff.” He said the March 15 wave of protests was genuinely popular, a massive embodiment of the seven percent approval rating that Rousseff received only a few days ago. He said the March 15 demonstrations took place in 26 of the 27 Brazilian states and at least 160 cities, not to mention the anti-government protests that happened abroad.

By contrast, Cota said a pro-government demonstration was attended by a mix of card-carrying union members and people who got paid the equivalent of $10.

It appears that the Brazilian mainstream media have decided to deliberately play down the anti-regime sentiment. Cota said, “According to Datafolha, a local polling company linked to the leftist newspaper Folha de São Paulo, there were only 210 thousand people gathered on Avenida Paulista, the main thoroughfare of the city of São Paulo, a number that not only contradicted the official estimate of the State Police of São Paulo, but also the eyes of those who use them to see.”

The protests in Brazil are giving hope to those who see an opportunity to defeat Marxism in the Western hemisphere.

The pro-communist association called the São Paulo Forum was created in 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet Union led many to believe communism itself was on the wane. However, that was when Fidel Castro reached out to Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva of the Workers’ Party of Brazil, who would later become President of Brazil. An event was hosted in São Paulo, Brazil, bringing together what came to be known as the São Paulo Forum. The international movement included many different leftist groups, such as the communist narco-terrorists known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and communist and leftist parties in the region.

Incredibly, a report appeared which seemed to demonstrate a possible link between the Obama presidency and this leftist group.

On March 1, 2008, before U.S. presidential elections, Operation Phoenix was launched by Colombian special security forces just inside the Ecuadorian border. Raúl Reyes, second in command of the FARC, was killed. Documents found in Reyes’ computer after his death disclosed that “gringos” representing Obama wanted to meet with the FARC and that they were opposed to U.S. military aid for the Colombian government. Obama had been publicly critical of the Colombia government’s human rights record.

The Bush administration, using the services of the NSA, helped the Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe in its war with the Cuban-backed FARC by locating and killing terrorist leaders and decimating the organization. But Uribe’s successor, President Juan Manuel Santos, the former defense minister, suddenly opened up negotiations with the FARC in Havana and has recently suspended the bombing of FARC camps and bases. As a result, the Santos-led negotiations could enable the FARC to escape criminal charges and emerge in the political process in Colombia as a respectable opposition movement.

Supporters of Uribe accuse Santos of allowing “Castro-Chavism” in the country, a reference to the long-time Cuban dictator and former Marxist ruler of Venezuela. Although the members of the São Paulo Forum do not believe in democracy, the FARC seems to have learned the lesson that they have to disguise themselves as democratic forces in order to further their goals, as their armed struggle has not been successful.

Like Obama in the U.S., these Marxists work through the system and slowly dismantle democratic institutions and checks on their power.

On Saturday, March 21, at 1:00 p.m., the Washington Conclave for Democracy will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to discuss freedom, democracy and free elections in Latin America. “The conference is aimed to expose fraud and deception in electoral processes in Latin America,” says organizer Dalmo Accorsini. The event is open to the press and the public and will feature several speakers with knowledge of the communist advance in the Western hemisphere, including in the U.S.