If only tricky Dick had wupped Kennedy in 1960 Castro would be a small footnote in Cuban history ......
Castro Thanks Kennedy Family, Bashes Nixon and Bush........................................"Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory," wrote Richard Nixon (about the Bay of pigs and Missile Crisis) "Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard."

"We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along,"snickered Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs, confirming Nixon. "Security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba."

"We locked Castro's communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal," growled Lyndon Johnson's opponent in 1964, Barry Goldwater. "I would help Cuban exiles OPENLY. I'd give them the guns and ammunition to blast Castro out of his island stronghold now defended with Soviet arms."

Then the Butcher of Budapest twisted the knife and snickered yet again: "it would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba--for a country 12,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable." So the threat that so rattled the Knights of Camelot and inspired such cinematic and literary epics of drama and derring-do by their court scribes and cinematographers, were pure hooey.

So the feats of courage, coolness and resolve that inspired Camelot court eunuch Arthur Schlesinger to hyperventilate that: "the whole world saw..American leadership unsurpassed in the responsible management of power ..a combination of toughness, nerve and wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchlessly calibrated that it dazzled the world!" was in fact the craven succumbing by America's Best and Brightest to a schoolyard bully/swindle issued by a shoe-banging Ukranian peasant/punk.

At the time the whole of South America wallowed in extreme poverrty enforced by US assisted dictators.
Cuba has been the beacon of progress against the cruelty of the evil empire.
S.

We will be coming to get you for re education and then we will beat it into you.....Communism does not work ....Repeat ..Communism does not work ....Repeat ..Communism does not work ....Repeat

Repeat Fred's head does not work Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
I am not a communtist but a socialsist.
In the ideal communist society - e.g. an early Israeli strict Kibbutz private property does not exist. Even clothes may be loaned from a common pool and washed communally. In Marxist theory alienation is created by private property and division of labour. So elimination of private property is the objective of a communist society. However in a more extreme form it does not work. Socialists believe that a reasonable amount of private property is advantageous providing it is earned by means other than exploitation. Also that a ratio between the least well off ( who should be above the poverty line and have food ,education, health services etc. ) and the most well off should be reasonable.
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
Fred's head does not work
S.

repeat after me
Fred is ignorant....
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/communism_defined.htm
Cuba has some characteristics of a communist society, some characteristics of a socialist society.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1431766.ece
Pure communism is essentially dead but socialism is alive and kicking!
Repeat after me Fred is Stupid.

S.

Cuban court upholds 2-year sentence for protester
Sep 10 08:33 PM US/Eastern
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA (AP) - A Cuban appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence for "public dangerousness" against a man who became an Internet celebrity after his drunken rant about hunger on the island was captured by a film crew.

The court rejected Juan Carlos Gonzalez Marcos' plea for leniency in central Havana on Thursday, according to Richard Rosollo, who observed the hearing on behalf of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a leading rights group.

Gonzalez Marcos, known by the nickname Panfilo, appeared obviously inebriated when he burst into an interview for a documentary on Cuban music, waving his arms and screaming, "What we need here is a little bit of chow!"

He continued for more than 90 seconds, imploring the camera about how Cubans are going hungry in a country where the communist system is supposed to provide for all citizens' basic needs.

Video of the tirade ended up on YouTube and was viewed more than 450,000 times after being posted in April. It became a rallying cry for exile groups in South Florida, where some hailed Gonzalez Marcos as one of the few Cubans who dare speak frankly about the difficulties of daily life on the island.

In a second video posted on YouTube, Gonzalez Marcos expressed regret that his outburst was used for political ends—but that wasn't enough to sway the appeals court. Rosollo said Gonzalez Marcos was returned to a prison outside Havana after the hearing.

Two Western diplomats who tried to observe the proceedings said they were asked to leave before they began. The diplomats, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be named due to their governments' rules, said court authorities told them the proceeding was open only to the Cuban public.

Cuba tolerates no official opposition to its single-party system, and the island's dissidents and political activists have little organized following, though infighting and disputes among their minuscule ranks are common.

The government did not respond to requests for comment on Gonzalez Marcos' case.

Activists rally behind Cuba's YouTube rebel


Juan Carlos González Marcos, better known as Pánfilo, was probably the noisiest of the regulars who gathered at the Villalón Park in the Vedado neighborhood to drink a few.

Now he is, without a doubt, the most famous among them.

He was arrested and charged with ``pre-criminal social endangerment'' after jumping into the frame of a video being filmed on the streets of Havana and shouting on camera that there was hunger in Cuba. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

``What we need here is a little bit of jama [Cuban Spanish slang for food]!'' González shouted on camera after pushing the person being interviewed about reggaeton out of the video frame. ``We're under fire here! Go ahead and tape me! Jama!''

The person being interviewed regained the attention of the cameraman for a few seconds, only to be pushed away once more by González, 48, who went for another close-up. ``We need food! We're hungry here! Listen to what Pánfilo tells you from Cuba: food!''

The video made it to YouTube and received 400,000 views in no time.

It became popular on Hispanic television in Miami, made the cover of various magazines, ran as the lead story on websites, was reported by the island's independent media and the press abroad, and inspired video clips, songs and jokes about the deteriorating situation in Cuba.

Days later, a totally sober González appeared on a new video taking back all he had said and done before. He mentioned that the police had visited him and that he was ``under fire.''

A third video was played later on Miami's Channel 41-AmericaTeVé, showing him drunk again, dancing a rap on the street, and saying the police were going to put him ``away.''

And they put him away. González was finally arrested on Aug. 4.

Seven days later, in a closed-door trial, a municipal court sentenced him to two years in prison. The charge of precriminal social endangerment, which dates to 20th century's fascist and communist regimes, has been in use in Cuba since the 1960s and has even been applied to political opponents and human rights activists.

``This incident was unexpected and came as a surprise because the protagonist was not a political dissident nor a person trying to defend a position or gain popularity,'' said publicist Jorge Salcedo, a Boston resident promoting the international campaign Jama y Libertad (Jama and Freedom), which advocates González's freedom.

The government's retaliation got the attention of human rights organizations and gave life to the campaign, according to its website www.jamaylibertad.com. Through Monday, it had collected 728 signatures, among them those of Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater, Cuban musician Paquito D'Rivera, author Zoe Valdés and dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, who lives in Havana.

``I thought it was important to give my full support to a humble man who has become a symbol of freedom,'' D'Rivera said from New Jersey. ``Pánfilo did not talk about changing the government nor about democracy, but about a simple and fundamental concern of the people of Cuba: their hunger, which is also a hunger for freedom.''

González lives in a hut with his mother, a sister and two brothers, the only ones permitted to attend his rushed trial. Sources in his neighborhood say he has two minor children, who are not under his custody. It has been impossible to confirm whether he was once a machinist with the Merchant Navy or that at some point he was a member of the Special Troops of the Interior Ministry.

Salvadoran filmmaker Jorge Dalton, who added his name to the petition for González's freedom, said González ``has always been a harmless person.''

Dalton, son of poet and Salvadoran revolutionary Roque Dalton, came to Havana with his parents in the end of 1967 and moved to the same block where González lives.

Dalton said many of the things González talked about were exaggerations. For example, González said he used to ride in a nonexistent limousine with Dalton's father, Roque, who was murdered in El Salvador by his guerrilla comrades in 1975, days before turning 40.

``But it was all part of that unique affection of Cubans, who go as far as telling lies just to prove they love you above all things,'' Dalton said.

The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation is following the case closely and has offered the family their legal aid to appeal the sentence, which could lead to a new trial in a matter of weeks.

``This is a case of clear political intention and it only shows how scared the government is of anything that could cause street unrest,'' said the commission president Elizardo Sánchez. ``The family is very frightened because they are feeling a lot of pressure.''

Well , at least he wont have to worry about his hunger anymore!!

[QUOTE=EnricoRizzo]
Activists rally behind Cuba's YouTube rebel


Juan Carlos González Marcos, better known as Pánfilo, was probably the noisiest of the regulars who gathered at the Villalón Park in the Vedado neighborhood to drink a few.

Now he is, without a doubt, the most famous among them.

He was arrested and charged with ``pre-criminal social endangerment'' after jumping into the frame of a video being filmed on the streets of Havana and shouting on camera that there was hunger in Cuba. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

``What we need here is a little bit of jama [Cuban Spanish slang for food]!'' González shouted on camera after pushing the person being interviewed about reggaeton out of the video frame. ``We're under fire here! Go ahead and tape me! Jama!''

The person being interviewed regained the attention of the cameraman for a few seconds, only to be pushed away once more by González, 48, who went for another close-up. ``We need food! We're hungry here! Listen to what Pánfilo tells you from Cuba: food!''

The video made it to YouTube and received 400,000 views in no time.

It became popular on Hispanic television in Miami, made the cover of various magazines, ran as the lead story on websites, was reported by the island's independent media and the press abroad, and inspired video clips, songs and jokes about the deteriorating situation in Cuba.

Days later, a totally sober González appeared on a new video taking back all he had said and done before. He mentioned that the police had visited him and that he was ``under fire.''

A third video was played later on Miami's Channel 41-AmericaTeVé, showing him drunk again, dancing a rap on the street, and saying the police were going to put him ``away.''

And they put him away. González was finally arrested on Aug. 4.

Seven days later, in a closed-door trial, a municipal court sentenced him to two years in prison. The charge of precriminal social endangerment, which dates to 20th century's fascist and communist regimes, has been in use in Cuba since the 1960s and has even been applied to political opponents and human rights activists.

``This incident was unexpected and came as a surprise because the protagonist was not a political dissident nor a person trying to defend a position or gain popularity,'' said publicist Jorge Salcedo, a Boston resident promoting the international campaign Jama y Libertad (Jama and Freedom), which advocates González's freedom.

The government's retaliation got the attention of human rights organizations and gave life to the campaign, according to its website www.jamaylibertad.com. Through Monday, it had collected 728 signatures, among them those of Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater, Cuban musician Paquito D'Rivera, author Zoe Valdés and dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, who lives in Havana.

``I thought it was important to give my full support to a humble man who has become a symbol of freedom,'' D'Rivera said from New Jersey. ``Pánfilo did not talk about changing the government nor about democracy, but about a simple and fundamental concern of the people of Cuba: their hunger, which is also a hunger for freedom.''

González lives in a hut with his mother, a sister and two brothers, the only ones permitted to attend his rushed trial. Sources in his neighborhood say he has two minor children, who are not under his custody. It has been impossible to confirm whether he was once a machinist with the Merchant Navy or that at some point he was a member of the Special Troops of the Interior Ministry.

Salvadoran filmmaker Jorge Dalton, who added his name to the petition for González's freedom, said González ``has always been a harmless person.''

Dalton, son of poet and Salvadoran revolutionary Roque Dalton, came to Havana with his parents in the end of 1967 and moved to the same block where González lives.

Dalton said many of the things González talked about were exaggerations. For example, González said he used to ride in a nonexistent limousine with Dalton's father, Roque, who was murdered in El Salvador by his guerrilla comrades in 1975, days before turning 40.

``But it was all part of that unique affection of Cubans, who go as far as telling lies just to prove they love you above all things,'' Dalton said.

The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation is following the case closely and has offered the family their legal aid to appeal the sentence, which could lead to a new trial in a matter of weeks.

``This is a case of clear political intention and it only shows how scared the government is of anything that could cause street unrest,'' said the commission president Elizardo Sánchez. ``The family is very frightened because they are feeling a lot of pressure.''
[/QUOTE]
Plenty of eople been locked up in the USA for expressing feelings.....
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/29/us/year-prison-sentence-for-protester-at-flag-burning.html
S.