Nowhere is this more apparent than the reporting on Senor Fidel's speechifying. For all of President Bush's verbal gaffes and mistaken pronunciations, he is a model of clarity next to the twisted logic of the Man with the Goofy Beard. And so I present this discussion with Senor Fidel (and the National Assembly, as a bonus) - a dialogue of one, if you will.

“WE have the tranquility of being prepared on every terrain to confront any aggression. Enormous trenches of stone can be united with enormous trenches of idea at the precise and exact moment at which imperialism is condemned to an insoluble crisis,” affirmed President Fidel Castro yesterday, speaking during the Cuban National Assembly debate, which approved a declaration against the new measures designed to provoke the rapid end of the Revolution implemented by the U.S. government.

"Enormous trenches of idea"?!? When has imperialism been the goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba? IIRC, the U.S. has not laid a hand on Cuba since the Bay of Pigs - over 40 years ago. Were "imperialism" our goal, we would have invaded Cuba long ago. If Castro really believes that his "enormous trenches of ideas" would stop the "enormous divisions of U.S. infantry and air power," he needs to place a call to a recent victim of U.S. action - Senor Hussein.

And we must question the use of the term "debate," when the National Assembly ratified this declaration. Was there really any opposition in evidence? Hmmm. Let's keep looking later in the article, shall we?

As a grammatical aside, I think it somewhat funny that the writer mentions that the new measures are designed to "provoke the rapid end of the Revolution implemented by the U.S." I'm pretty sure that isn't what the writer meant to say.

“They forget,” he noted, “that our people defeated the criminals who governed here with more than 100,000 men under arms. Today Cuba has millions of weapons and millions of people who know how to use them, well-prepared officers and chiefs, hundreds of thousands of university graduates, close to one million intellectuals and a people with the highest political culture in the world.

Well, again, I think I'm safe in saying this is Machismo at its zenith. Does Fidel actually think that "close to one million intellectuals" is a threat to the U.S.? Is that "intellectual saber rattling." "Captain, watch out! He's got an English version of Das Capital, and he knows how to use it!" Please. And the suggestion that the Cuban people have "the highest political culture in the world" is ludicrous. Their political culture is COMMUNISM, a system that bankrupted the U.S.S.R., turned North Korea into the domain of a raving lunatic with nuclear designs and is retreating even in China. It is a system that destroys individual initiative, silences criticism and fosters megalomania in the few who have been able to come out on the upside of its ideological house of cards.

“We know that we have an enemy powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in ideas. I am in no doubt that this empire is not going to have the duration of the Roman one; the rate and the velocity at which events are occurring in these times and the point that the planet has reached give me total certainty of that,” stated the president of the Councils of State and Ministers.

A total orphan in ideas. Hmm. Let's see about some of our "relatives" in the idea family, shall we:

1. Freedom of speech


2. Freedom of assembly


3. Freedom of the press


4. Freedom of religion


5. Equal rights before the law


6. The right to vote


7. Representative democracy


8. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

And that's not even mentioning baseball, football, rock and roll, or chicken fried steak.

And let's put this to rest now, shall we: This "empire" is NOT AN EMPIRE! The U.S. does not hold territory in Iraq. We don't even hold Cuba. If we were an "empire" in the model of Rome, don't you think we'd have taken care to straighten out Haiti, at least?!?!

As for Castro's forecast - let's just say I wouldn't take his odds to Vegas. He's been predicting the demise of capitalism and the U.S. for longer than I've been alive. So has Karl Marx - and he hasn't been right yet, either.

The declaration, unanimously approved, was presented by Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly.

Imagine that. It was unanimously approved. So much for the "debate" we discussed earlier.

During the session, with the presence of First Vice President of the Council of State and General of the Army Raúl Castro, deputies also advocated the circulation and discussion of the imperialist plans by all means possible.

What imperialist plans? You mean the plans to withhold U.S. dollars from Castro's grubby, dictatorial hands? By "discussion," do you mean actual "discussion," or is that Cuban code for "re-education" or "propaganda"?

Many expressed their condemnation of the infamous measures approved and put into practice by the Bush administration.

But more importantly for our discussion, did ANY express support for the measures, or condemnation of the kangaroo court of a legislature that Castro puts on?

Dr. Agustín Lage qualified this new Yankee brainchild as a perverse plan, that likewise militates against scientific labors being developed in Cuba, commenting that dozens of U.S. researchers wishing to attend important international medical events here have recently been denied travel permits to do so.

Has Dr. Lage ever heard of e-mail? The Internet? Videoconferencing? Medical journals? If there is something really important to come out of an international conference in Cuba, U.S. researchers will learn about it soon enough. No need to contribute U.S. funds to Castro's perverse brainchild of a government while "researching" Cuba's caribbean beach resorts.

Further, these travel restrictions apparently didn't stop the U.S. from allowing an unprecedented flow of research from Cuba in the field of Cancer research, as told in another Granma article:

ON July 15, and for the first time in 40 years, a cooperation agreement was signed by Cuban and U.S. companies for the transfer of biotechnological technology directed at developing vaccines against cancer. The agreement was signed between the CancerVax Corporation and the Center for Molecular Immunology at the International Conference Center in Havana.

And just so we're clear: All Cuba has to do to allow U.S. researchers to attend such conferences is allow free and open elections and open up its political process. That's not a lot to ask - unless you're a cowardly dictator of a small island paradise.

Osvaldo Martínez, president of the Parliamentary Economics Commission, referred to the chapters of the report that conceive of our country as a subsidiary of Florida and a Puerto Rico on its knees, with a previously appointed colonial administrator to undertake the so-called transition. He explained that the intention is to privatize everything as rapidly as possible. This aggression, he stated, is an insult to the intelligence and culture attained by the Cubans.

Searching through Granma, I was not able to uncover the actual document Martinez speaks about. I find it highly improbable that the government would conceive of Cuba as a "subsidiary of Florida, etc." But I can see how the U.S. government would favor private industry over state-run industries. That's part of a free market economy. I don't find this particularly insulting to the intelligence of Cubans. Indeed, it would seem to point to the fact that our government believes individuals would be better able to run businesses than the government. I think bureaucracies around the world would tell who would win that
argument.

With its obsessions, the Washington plan gives prime place to the return of properties to their former owners, above and beyond any humane considerations. Moreover, it acknowledges that the process of such a transition would be slow, painful and politically sensitive, affirmed the likewise director of the Center for Research into the World Economy.

Imagine that. Private property ownership! What a concept. I'm sure a return of private property would be painful, especially for people who are living in lands that were previously owned by other people. But it's not for certain that the people of Cuba wouldn't welcome the chance to engage in private ownership of property. Has Fidel ever asked them? Or the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who fled Cuba when the
bearded one took over?

The measures recently passed in the United States are part of promises by Bush to the pro-Batista and annexationist mafia who brought him to power, stated journalist and youth leader Randy Alonso.

Evidence, please? I was not aware of an "annexationist mafia." Is that the one in New York, Jersey, or Las Vegas?

Deputy Nieves Alemañy, representative of the Cuban Women’s Federation, expressed that nobody can bring their stories or lies about a “free Cuba” to that sector of the population. “Today we are playing leading roles in a revolutionary project, in which Cuban women represent 66.1% of the country’s technical and professional work force, and we enjoy rights that we are not disposed to losing to satisfy the cravings of this ultra-right clique,” she confirmed.

Hmmm. Do those rights include the right to speak out against Fidel Castro? Do they include the right to choose what you wish to do with your life and vocation? Do they include the rights outlined in the Varela Project? Have the women of Cuba voted on this? Or are you speaking as a "kept woman"?

Reverend Raúl Suárez pointed to the wide gulf between the peace and justice-based pastoral vocation and the petition for “help” the document presents to the church in order to manipulate awareness, separate families, destroy the economy and drive the masses to desperation. “We do not have the vocation of Judas; the evangelical churches have cast in our lot with the Cuban people,” he emphasized.

The hardest part of this for me is seeing a man of faith become a pawn of an evil dictator. Seeing a man whose savior said "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" cast his lot with the one who binds the people of Cuba in chains - the chains of ideological repression. And this I say as a firm believer in the divine conception of a separation of church and state ("Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's"). I have to ask: Is the allegiance with the Cuban people, or with the Cuban dictator?

Another deputy and pastor, Sergio Arce, appealed to the condition of devout and Christian believer that Bush claims to espouse, for a proper understanding of the concept of the family. He said that the head of the White House dreams in a delirious way of being the substitute for God, but that satanic undertaking is an impossible one to fulfill.

Huh? This makes no sense. Perhaps it was lost in translation. I make no claim that Bush's Cuban policy is somehow inspired by God, but cannot but think Castro's repression of human freedom and dignity are definitely not inspired by God. Who is more like a caesar - Bush, who is up for re-election, or Castro, who has served as "president" for over 40 years?

Armando Hart, director of the José Martí Program Office, warned of the dangers of this diabolical annexationist plan not only for Cuba, but for the entire world. “Be careful, Mr. Bush,” the deputy affirmed, adding: “Cuba is not alone; don’t go looking for another Viet Nam in the Caribbean in the 21st century.”

WE ARE NOT INVADING CUBA! Okay! Why does everything come back to Vietnam? Leaving that aside, does Hart really believe that an isolated island such as Cuba that is a mere 90 miles from U.S. soil would really have "friends" who would be able to adequately supply it through a naval blockade? Vietnam bordered China, Thailand and Cambodia, for pete's sake. Cuba borders ocean.

City Historian Eusebio Leal emphasized the importance of a closer rapprochement with the U.S. intelligentsia and people, where there are important human values. These measures by the current U.S. administration, he affirmed, “are the most defiant of all the aggressions throughout history against our people from an arrogant state.

More defiant than the Bay of Pigs? More defiant than an actual ATTEMPTED INVASION?!?!? More defiant than the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?!?! This level of hyperbole can only mean one thing: the new U.S. policy is really hurting the Castronians where it counts - in the pocketbook. To which I can only say - Good.

The important human values señor Leal speaks about are not just embodied in the U.S. people - and certainly not necessarily in its intelligentsia (he must have been thinking of Chomsky here) - but in the foundational documents upon which our country was built. The constitution, bill of rights and declaration of independence are touchstones of our "human values." They are the paper that puts flesh on the ideals of individual liberty and a nation "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

And thus ends my dialogue with the Cuban National Assembly. Notice any dissenting voices in that report?

Neither did I. Think about that the next time you hear people complain about "crushing dissent" in the U.S. And remember how much Michael Moore is making off his latest fake-umentary.

I truly wish the best for the people of Cuba. They have been held too long as hostages by a repressive dictator whose zeal for a bankrupt ideology blinds him to the virtues of freedom and open political debate. Those who left the island have been able only to watch as this true war crime unfolded. Would that Cuba's people, and all people, were able to experience true freedom to speak as they think.

Soon, Cuba. Soon.