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The enemy of freedom: Al Neuharth, founder of Freedom Forum, Salutes Elian
Media Research Center's in depth study using the media's own words: Back to the "Peaceable" Paradise: Media Soldiers for the Seizure of Elian
Al Neuharth: Most U.S. citizens are denied their constitutional right to travel to Cuba.
A special ''license'' from the U.S. Treasury Department is possible, but very difficult to get.
Why doesn't Castro let Cubans freely travel? Maybe Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today daily newspaper and the Freedom Forum should come down on Castro's communist oppression. Maybe all the news personalities that sit on the board of Al Neuharth's Freedom Forum need to come clean on why they pushed Elian back into Castro's arms.
Vicki Huddleston Q&A: Veteran leader speaks about dissidents, Castro and the U.S. role--[Excerpt]
Q: Should travel restrictions to Cuba be lifted?
A: The problem with the lifting of travel restrictions is that the Cubans control it because they issue the visas. They can put quotas. They can decide to allow only the tourists going to Varadero and Cayo Coco and ensure they have very little contact with the Cuban people. And all that will do, initially, is fill the government coffers and build up the regime. It's ironic because what you need is for the government to respond to the current economic crisis by opening up, by letting Cubans own and operate their own businesses, by letting them invest, letting them stay at hotels. [In Cuba,] the economy is shrinking. It is too dependent on tourism and remittances. Their way of fixing the problem is to fill up the hotels. A far preferable way . . . would be to grow the economy by letting the people invest in their community by starting small businesses -- not just restaurants and taxis and services, but also . . . creating products. You have natural capitalists in Cuba, and the proof of that is in the cars they have and how they take care of them. If allowed to work independently, they would create wealth through their own labor . . . [End Excerpt]
Furthermore, given the fact that China has 14 million in slave labor camps and executes thousands of citizens every year, what is more evil about China than Cuba? China has nuclear weapons aimed at US cities. Cuba does not.
The embargo has not worked in Cuba. Please give us a rational reason for continuing the policy.
Because there isn't enough slave labor in Cuba to keep Nike's, et al's, profits high?
This guy had no problem making the switch over to capitalism -- he was smart and had a great work ethic. According to him, about 70% of Cubans hate their government. The school teachers are all communists and the people know it and secretly think they're nuts. The pro-government rallies are all staged events with forced participation.
At least this is so according to this fellow, and he seemed abundantly trustworthy to me. He was completely untouched by any government communist indoctrination. He was an independant thinker, skeptical of the government, moral and hardworking -- the perfect conservative capitalist, really. If he's an indication of what Cubans are like, then I think Cuba must be just waiting to pop, in need only of a nudge in the right direction.
I'm not sure what to think about the embargo. I wish I had asked David what he thought about it. My feeling is that we should lift it, but I can also see that doing so might just enrich the government. I don't know. What keeps the Cuban people complacent, and how could it be undermined?
Darn those exiles for fleeing here! Darn them again for voting! If it wasn't for them we could have a workers' paradise on our doorstep!
BUSH. ...I want to say something about Cuba in our hemisphere. There are some folks in our country who believe we ought to trade with Cuba. I don't. I think that would be wrong-headed. I think it's be a mistake. Capital that goes into Cuba will be used by the Fidel Castro government to prop itself up. There is a commission-type system in Cuba. Dollars invested will be dollars that will end up supporting this totalitarian regime. It's in our best interests for us to promote freedom in the island right off the coast of Florida. It's in our best interest to keep the pressure on Fidel Castro until he allows free elections, free press and free the prisoners in that island. And for those Americans that believe that trade with Cuba will cause Castro to become less totalitarian, in my judgment are naïve and wrong.
BAUER. Governor, you just made the case for withdrawing most favored nation status from China.
BUSH. I did not.
BAUER. Everything that you just said about Cuba applies to China.
BUSH. Let me answer that. Let me answer that.
RUSSERT. The difference between China and Cuba.
BUSH. May I answer that please?
RUSSERT. Please.
BUSH. There is a huge difference, a huge difference between trading with an entrepreneurial class like that which is growing in China and allowing a Fidel Castro government to skim capital moneys off the top of capital investment. There's a huge difference, a huge difference.
BAUER. Governor, one-third of the trade with China is with companies controlled by the People's Liberation Army.
BUSH. Gary.
BAUER. You know that and I know that. Tell the people rotting in the prisons of China that there's any difference between Castro's Cuba and Communist China. There is none.
BUSH. Let me say this. If we turn our back on the entrepreneurial class that is taking wing in China, we're making a huge mistake. If we turn our back on those that have gotten a whiff of freedom as a result of the marketplace taking hold, we're making a big mistake.
BAUER. Listen, I --
BUSH. We're making a big mistake. We're making a big mistake.
BAUER. The People's Liberation is O.K.?
BUSH. No it's not. I'm talking about the entrepreneurial class that is growing in the country of China.
BAUER. Sir, they are using that money for a massive arms buildup that our sons will have to deal with down the road.
BUSH. Only if you're the president.
BAUER. You can't be tough on China and not on --
BUSH. If I'm the president --
(BOTH TALKING AT ONCE)
RUSSERT. Mr. Bauer. Mr. Bauer, Mr. Bush. Let me move to another area...
The embargo should be lifted on Cuba or we should treat China in a similar fashion, but we won't because China has bought and paid for our foreign policy and Cuba cannot.
Maybe that jerk could move to Canada, where the people just love traveling to Cuba, and write glowing reviews in Canadian travel mags.
His connected organizations include the First Amendment Institute at Vanderbilt University. All boards are well-stocked with present and former employees of "good ol' Al," so when he says "frog," they jump.
Among the sychophants in the press who are part of Al's jihad against freedon are Judy Woodrull, Tim Russert, and Jim Lehrer. Neuharth, arogant b*stard that he is, is an enemy of freedom both in the US and outside its borders.
And in answer to the question he poses in his article, China has 1.3 billion people, a large army, and neuclear weapons. Cuba does not. We suck up to China (wrongfully) because of that. We don't suck up to Cuba because it is just as totalitarian as China, just as vicious, but is a gnat on the international stage.
I wrote a column on Al and his idea of freedom a while back. It was about his hangers-on who infest the boards of his various charities. It was entitled, "Wh*res to the Left of Ua, Wh*res to the Further Left of Us." You get the idea.
Al's the uber-boss, so Useless Today prints whatever drivel comes oout of his typewriter. Did I miss anything?
Congressman Billybob
is a wicked man ruling over a helpless people—Proverbs 28:15