Crack in the door: Ex-President Carter aims to thaw relations in historic trip to Cuba*** Isolated in the Caribbean by his policies and by the U.S. embargo, the Cuban leader has been struggling to feed his people and keep his communist outpost going years after the fall of the Soviet Union plunged the island into economic chaos. And Castro has made no secret of the fact he would like to purchase food from U.S. farmers and entice more American tourists to his country's beach and diving resorts.
"Castro believes Cuba deserves to be recognized," said Sandra Levinson, executive director of the New York-based Center for Cuban Studies. The center has arranged Cuban study tours for Americans since the early 1970s. "What he will get out of this visit is the satisfaction of having one U.S. president willing to look at the situation for himself," she said. "After 40 years, you may not like the government, but you acknowledge it." ***
Lovefest in Havana***Help me out here: If, as liberals tell us, Socialism/Communism is so terrific, so splendid, so superb, so superior, why, O why does Castro so desparately need the Great Satan of commercialist/capitalist "evil" itself -- the United States? A bailout for Marxism from 'dirty', capitalist 'pigs' -- what's wrong with this picture? Call it 'ideological projection': Liberals doing with Castro exactly what conservatives were falsely accused by liberals of doing with South Africa: To wit, using excuses to prop-up repression. Liberalism has a crush on Castro, a school-girl-like infatuation that forever endures. To liberals, Castro is a heartthrob; he's an inspiration, a "moral" guiding "light", a "moral" compass, the veritable apple of their eyes.
No human rights in Castro's Cuba? Liberals could care less. Under Castro, citizens are deprived of the most basic conceptions of human liberty -- again, lefties don't give a lick. In Cuba's brutal island prison, one-party, one-man-rule prevails: Except for Castro's Communist "party", all political parties are outlawed. The same goes for unions. The liberal media calls Castro, deferentially, the "President" of Cuba -- an utter perversion of language so grotesque it boggles the mind. By what sick, warped, convolution of "logic" can Castro conceivably be referred to as such? Only a twisted media would dare sully the title by bestowing it to Castro, a ruthless killer, filthy crook, murderous tyrant.***