Dawn of a Glorious New Age

The retired dictator of Cuba is encouraged that Obama is committed to destroying the economy of the United States. As a responsible democratic republic we can be pressured into a feverishly heavy burden of anti-carbon legislation. This is despite the fact that our environmental laws are draconian compared to countries such as India and China.

Fidel Castro gushes like a childish American journalist, “The President of the United States has conceded that the developed nations have caused most of the damage and should take responsibility for it. It was certainly a brave gesture.”

Thanks to Obama the definition of brave these days means to denigrate the United States.

This nonsense of wealthy nations versus poor nations unites Socialists in an orgy of envy and hatred.

Meanwhile the world’s number one polluter, China, reels from anti-pollution protests. In the Shaanxi province Chinese authorities ignored hundreds of protesters who complained that their children were being poisoned by industrial waste. The situation turned into running battles between police and protesters. Reporters had to sneak past roadblocks that were set up by the authorities to prevent news coverage of the riots. Local doctors have been ordered to restrict testing children for lead poisoning and now such tests can only be done when an official brings in a child.

Here is a brief list from Times Online of some recent environmental protests and scandals in China:

- Ten thousand demonstrators took hostages and fought police at a $5 billion petrochemical project in Fujian on the east coast. The battles forced the local government to promise strict anti-pollution measures at the plant.

- Authorities closed a chemical plant in central China after two locals died of cadmium poisoning. Chinese newspapers exposed a long-running scandal of political collusion that had allowed the plant to flout environmental standards.

- Mass protests broke out over “cancer villages” near polluted waterways in eastern China. A series of campaigns followed to win compensation for villagers who became ill living next to filthy canals and rivers full of factory discharge and effluent.

In recent decades the United States has made dramatic improvements in its air quality thanks to the Clean Air Act, however scientists are concerned about the effects of pollution from Asia that travels across the pacific in the upper atmosphere.

Estimates state that “Asia contributes 27% of the mercury deposition in Colorado” and the primary source of that mercury comes from the burning of coal, a heavy carbon emitter.

So Hey Obama… Perhaps developing nations should take responsibility for the environmental damage that they are creating right now. Please stop living in the past and digging for ways to bash your own country.

Sympathy for El Diablo

So the ailing Cuban Dictator, Fidel Castro, states; “My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, or even less to obstruct the path of younger people, but to share experiences and ideas whose modest worth comes from the exceptional era in which I lived.”

The truth is that this tyrant has clung to power for almost 50 years. Since 1959 he has ruled Cuba as his personal gulag while executing or jailing his political opposition. Suddenly Castro expects the world to believe him when he declares that he wouldn’t selfishly cling to power. Even a casual observer would have to note that this statement is only the result of his deteriorating health and his desire for the continued oppression of his country after his death. However, Castro is not a political figure that is viewed critically in our media or among our political elites.

Latin America’s most hated dictator was Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. He is well known for the repression of civil liberties, murder and torture that was committed by his junta in the seventies. His regime is believed to have murdered about 3,000 people and no sane person could praise the dictator’s morality. On the other hand, Fidel Castro has murdered about 14,000. So Castro’s regime has been much more repressive than Pinochet’s and the Cuban dictator has not given up power to make room for democratic reform like Pinochet did.

Yet many prominent Americans openly admire this Communist dictator. Take these quotes for example…

“Cuba’s Elvis!” (Dan Rather.) “Castro is the most honest and courageous politician I’ve ever met! Viva Fidel!” (Jesse Jackson.) “If you believe in freedom, justice and equality, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!” (Harry Belafonte.) “Castro is a genius and Cuba is a Paradise!” (Jack Nicholson) “The greatest hero of the century!” (Norman Mailer) “One helluva guy!” (Ted Turner.)

Barbara Walters is one of many American journalists who have expressed admiration for both Castro and his protégé, Hugo Chavez, the most authoritarian rulers in this hemisphere. Over the last century the Americas were rife with dictatorships. Today all of the rightwing dictatorships are gone and have been replaced by republics with a much more democratic representation of the people. Castro’s leftwing junta is the only dictatorship left and Venezuela teeters at the brink thanks to their despotic leader, Hugo Chavez.

Despite this, Walters is infamous for stating, “For Castro, freedom begins with education”.

Why do prominent journalists act as such willing dupes for totalitarians?




In this picture Barbara Walters meets with Chavez cronies in their Caracas stronghold, giving them a treasure trove of publicity. Jose Gregorio Cedeno, in the red cap, is president of a Chavez-controlled community council. The woman in blue, Doris Seren, is a teacher and member of the council. Such teachers are important to the “Revolution”, which emphasizes a complete revision of history to reflect the Socialist viewpoint that almost all conflict throughout history was the result of class struggle. It reminds me of the Castro statement… Walters would have been closer to the truth if she changed just one word…

“For Castro, freedom begins with RE-education”.

In any case, the picture was taken as a part of a staged political propaganda tour that was orchestrated by Chavez in exchange for an interview that was to occur shortly thereafter. The tour and the interview were eagerly promoted in the Chavez controlled media. One advertisement stated, “We invite all Venezuelans to watch the interview of the year. The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, ‘Comandante’ Hugo Chavez Frias, leader of the XXI Century Socialism, in an exclusive interview with the journalist Barbara Walters, star anchorwoman of the main US network ABC news”.

While Walters felt obligated to address a few of the many negative characteristics that define Chavez, she clearly has a great deal of affection for the Venezuelan strongman. In her interview she never challenges him over the abuses of power that have made Chavez an object of concern for the Venezuelan people. The closest she comes is by asking this pampered question, “Venezuela elected you to a second term. They would have to amend the constitution for you to run for a third term. You want them to do that?”

These are not the words of an educated woman who would at least be vaguely aware of how Chavez has already changed his country’s Constitution for personal gain, packed the courts with his cronies and labored so hard to get these “reforms” passed that he declared the following warning to those who would vote against the Constitutional changes that he proposed… “He who says he supports Chavez but votes ‘no’ is a traitor, a true traitor.” Why is it that Conservatives are almost always exclusively labeled as divisive and suffering from an “Us Against Them” mentality when their leftwing opponents are so unapologetic in such sentiments?

Mostly Walters glowingly refers to Presidente Chavez as “dignified”, “warm” and suffering from “misconceptions” in the U.S. She took the approach of tough love and was sure to stroke the strongman’s ego by complimenting his character and asking biased questions like, “You are not married now. Are you -- Do you want to marry, or are you married to the revolution?” The interview with an eligible bachelor like Chavez obviously sparked Walters’ romantic notions about the “Revolution”.

After wrapping up the interview on 20/20 she expressed her true feelings in a statement that could have been written by a Commissar working at the PRAVDA news desk…

“…when you meet him, when you see him in the navy blue suit and not the red shirt that he’s in, um, he’s passionate about his dislike for George Bush. He does like this country and he’s passionate about his feelings about America. And he feels that with a new President, that we can be friends. He cares very much about poverty. He’s a Socialist. What he’s trying to do for all of Latin America, you know, they’ve been trying to do it for years, is to eliminate poverty. But this is not the crazy man that we have heard.”

Since Walters is so open in her admiration for Chavez it’s no surprise that she reacted sympathetically when the Venezuelan despot lost his recent bid to be president-for-life. As a comparison I find it just a wee bit ironic that she said the following about President Bush;

“He is the president, he is not a king.”

So while Walters glosses over major infractions against the freedoms of Venezuelans by Hugo Chavez (who has also consolidated a massive amount of political power into his presidency and political party) she accuses President Bush of being an autocrat simply because she was annoyed at the security in the capital of the United States, Washington D.C. Right across the water from the Pentagon which was attacked on 9/11.

We need a truly objective media, not this.