Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Giuliani Got What He Deserved In Florida

Rudy Giuliani put all his eggs in one basket, the basket was Florida and the eggs were Cuban-Americans. In his case it would have been wiser if he had filled the basket with Republican admirers of Janet Reno, that is, the anti-Cuban voters, a bloc at least as sizable in Florida as the Cubans. Unlike Cuban-Americans, who were featured in every story about the Florida vote, Cuban-haters were never mentioned although they are as much one-issue voters as Cuban exiles are reputed to be. Rudy's credentials as a persecutor of Cubans far exceeded those of the other candidates, whose xenophobia was generalized and, in some cases, even provided for exemptions for Cuban-Americans. Giuliani was anti-Cuban when Janet Reno was still wiping our collective arse.

As Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan administration, he was put in charge of the "clean-up" after the Mariel exodus and did his job with so much enthusiam that he even had to be called to task by the president for his ruthlessness. First, he ordered a freeze on all Cuban visas: 23,000 Cubans who had already been approved for admission to the U.S., including 1500 political prisoners and their families, were left stranded in Cuba. He refused to recognize the legal status granted to the Mariel refugees under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 and kept them all in legal limbo for several years while he decided which to deport to Communist Cuba. If most had not already been processed by the time Carter left office he would probably have tried to deport them all.

Giuliani set up a special camp for social "undesirables" who were not criminals: these included unwed mothers and their children, the physically handicapped, the mentally defective and homosexuals. The so-called common criminals which Castro infiltrated into the boatlift, which numbered no more than 2000 out of a total of 135,000, Giuliani wanted to deport en masse without reviewing their individual cases. What is considered a "crime" in Cuba is not necessarily a crime here. For example, eating a steak in Cuba is considered theft of state property punishable by 10 years imprisonment, since all cattle in Cuba are owned by the state and Castro does not allocate any beef to the Cuban people. There is very little activity in Cuba that Castro has not criminalized in some form or another; in fact, Castro has so ordained it that all Cubans are "criminals" under Cuban law and can at any moment be transferred from the "big house" to the "little house." This did not matter to Giuliani who shared Castro's penchant for criminalizing as much human activity as possible.

Very few Cuban-Americans at the time objected to Giuliani's draconian treatment of their compatriots because they were emotionally-crippled, indeed, paralyzed, by the national smear-campaign which was unleashed against them by both government and media. We had always been the model "immigrants," the "most successful immigrants in the history of this nation of immigrants," as George Gilder called us. Overnight and everywhere we were portrayed as a social scourge, the new mafia, the flotsam of a corrupt and irredeemable society whose Augean stables Castro was right to have flushed out.

In such a hostile climate, which was fostered as much by Rudolph Giuliani as by Brian de Palma (did these Italian-Americans have a vested interest in portraying Cubans as the new mafiosi in order to whitewash their own image?), there was little Cubans could do but try to ride out the wave of ethnic hate which engulfed the entire nation for the first time since the 1930s. It was then that Newt Gingrich, a college history professor, realized that xenophobia was still as powerful a demon in the American psyche as it had ever been and decided to reintroduce it into the American political culture through the "Contract (On) America," which excluded even legal immigrants from the social contract. Gingrich was the agent but Giuliani the catalyst for the rebirth of xenophobia in this country.

It was Giuliani also who, in 1981, in clear violation of the law — for the Cuban Adjustment Act is the law of the land, then as now — deported for the first time since 1959 a Cuban refugee to Communist Cuba. He was not a Mariel refugee, but, rather, a Cuban who had hidden in a cargo container aboard a freighter. This was 15 years before the implementation by presidential fiat, contrary to existing law and precedent, of the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy by President Clinton. There is even a connection between Clinton and Giuliani and her name is Doris Meissner. She was Giuliani's protegé at the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. Although Meissner was a Democrat, Giuliani sponsored her for acting director of INS, and when she was replaced by a Reagan appointee, secured for her the #3 spot in the department. It was Meissner, appointed director in her own right by Clinton, who oversaw the implementation of the "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" policy and the kidnapping at gunpoint and forcible return of Elián González to Cuba.

Giuliani was not through with us when he left the Justice Department to become U.S. Attorney in New York. He made a name for himself in his future fiefdom by prosecuting Omega-7, the anti-Castro resistance group. It is interesting that in a city where the IRA and its "civilian leaders" were inviolate, feted at Gracie Mansion and not just on St. Patrick's Day, Giuliani should have aimed his guns at the Cuban group, which, unlike the IRA, had never been responsible for the death of even one innocent bystander. Of course, criminal prosecution comes with the territory if you are going to wage a war of liberation from American soil against American interests.

What Giuliani did, however, went much beyond the limits of his authority or the law. He essentially set up a star chambre along the lines of the House Un-American Activities Committee 30 years earlier except that he was fishing for anti-communists rather than Communists. Many Cubans with no connection to Omega-7were sent to jail because they refused to "name names" before grand juries. Using Omega-7 as a pretext Giuliani inflicted greater damage to anti-Castro organizations in the U.S. than Castro's agents and infiltrators, who worked in close collaboration with Giuliani, ever managed to do by themselves. Again it was Giuliani's cultivation of Castro's moles in the prosecution of Omega-7 which provided the precedent for the FBI to use Castro double-agent Juan Pablo Roque to infiltate the "Brothers to the Rescue" organization nearly 20 years later, which resulted in the murder of four Cuban-American pilots in international waters at Castro's orders with the coordinates provided by FBI informant Roque.

Later, as mayor of New York, Giuliani would undergo a Pauline conversion and become a vocal critic of Castro and friend (?) of Cuban exiles. He even renamed the street in front of the U.N. Cuban Mission in honor of the "Brothers to the Rescue." A guilty conscience, perhaps. Political opportunism, more likely.

He came to Miami last year to reap the rewards of his trajectory of 30 years. And he did, yesterday.

Of course, this is not the end for Giuliani. He's already on the McCain bandwagon and will go as far as it does. Personally, I would favor his appointment as War Czar in Iraq. Granted, Giuliani was studying for the priesthood, or something, during the Vietnam War, before he married his cousin and forgot his vocation. But some men, even without military experience, are born to lay waste to lands and annihilate populations. I believe that Rudolph Giuliani is such a man. Really, I would support Giuliani for any position but Attorney General, because Cuba is about to implode and the last man to deal with that situation is our "friend" Giuliani.


POSTSCRIPT:

John Edwards dropped out of the Democratic race today. We never noticed him and now we are glad we didn't. Will the last WASP male to leave the Democratic Party please turn off the lights.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

He's sashaying his "crossdressiness" into the sunset. Even when his vaudeville act was humorous, he has proven to be a political cross dresser.
Looking in retrospective, we once supported him. When we knew of his conduct, we withdraw our support for this man, and we did all we could to expose him.
Let's pay particular attention to his concentration camps for unwed mothers with children (maybe the husbands were left behind in Cuba by ouvre et grace of Mr. Castro) the homosexual, the infirm and the incapacitated. Doesn't it sound like a Nazi concentration camp policy? I mean, the first extermination camps were tried with people of those very same groups. Castro did the same at some point, the homosexual and the "socially unacceptable" were sent to "reform camps", and the sign over the door "El trabajo los hara hombres" was a clear and eery reminiscent of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that "graced" the gates of the extermination camps.
The saddest part of that story is how this man accepted the tags that Castro put on every person who made it to the United States as a truthful description of those human beings. Even in Cuba they were forced to recognize that only between 2500 and 3000 men and women were criminals or criminally insane. Instead, the tag was applied to everyone, and accepted by Giuliani as good as it were legal tender.
The regime of Castro indeed defined all Marielitos as criminals, and there were many Cubans in exile who accepted that too, we need to be honest about it, unwillingly contributing by "virtue" of their own prejudices to the biggest antiCuban smear campaign engineered in Havana for American consumption, without realizing that they would be eventually painted with the same brush.
This is not to mention that many Cubans pretended to be criminals or homosexuals (yes, to be a homosexual was and still is a crime in Cuba, no matter what Mariela Castro says, it has not been removed of penal code yet) to be sent to the United States, specially Cubans with no relatives on board of boats in the Mariel port.
As you correctly point out, castro has criminalized the sole fact of having Cuban citizenship. All you do in Cuba in order to survive is considered illegal. It's just a matter of time or convenience that the government comes and bag you for some "common crime" which also eliminates your chances for being accepted as a refugee or to be given asylum in another country, the "criminal" tag scares people off, specially those who live in legal and civil societies.

Anonymous said...

Basically, breathing in Cuba makes you a criminal. Cuba is one big jail.

Anonymous said...

I hope all the Babalooers take time to read AND digest your summary MAT. Henry appears to be quite distraught because la Giuliani got what she deserved.

bookster said...

Here's my take on what's happening. We are being dooped into accepting a form SOFT FASCISM. Individually we have been fear mongered into giving up of our civil liberties, so we can feel safe.

We look to the government to protect us from the islamo-terrorists, the immigrants, the gays etc, to save our marriages.

Corporations are running the show, our government is in bed with big business.

Our leading industries are the military-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, the financial industry, the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars in turn they get protection or call it CORPORATE WELFARE.

We think we have democracy but what we reallly have is CORPORATISM AND CRONIISM.

Hillary,Obama,MCCain,Romney will anything change or more of the same?

nonee moose said...

Good Lord, Corgi, you sound like Eugene Debs.

bookster said...

Noon, WTF eugene debbs? is that socialist union leader from 1900s. Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion,i'm not a sociliast, please elaborate, i must be missing something.

You don't think corporations and big media are running the show and influencing elections? You don't think there's a drumbeat for war? You don't think illegals are being scapegoated? You don't think religion is being used to rally right wing white-christian-base? google SOFT-FASCISM and you'll see the similarities.

Hey: "La Verdad nunca ha sido guapa "

Those how fascists regimes work

nonee moose said...

Sorry Corgi, all that railing against corporate greed threw me off.

In any case, somebody has to influence elections, and make up the minds of the great unwashed, lest they fall for little scrawny loudmouths with tiny mustaches. At the very least the corporate collective, to which everyone belongs in some way, would never let that happen in this country. At least not to any truly dangerous degree. The rest is just stressing on the margins, and all against the backdrop of a fairly sound organic document.

You can still think and say what you want in this country. If you're the thinking type, that is. And if you're not, how would you tell if you couldn't?

bookster said...

Noone, Just a thought, Artists use lies to tell the truth while politicians use them to cover the truth up.

Vana said...

Manuel:

He most certainly got what he deserved, sooner or later the things you do, come back and bite you in the arse.

I like Charlie supported him specially for the way he took charge of New York during 9/11 made me think of him as a strong leader, capable of doing good things, but you have taught us he was not what he seemed, and for that I thank you.

Anonymous said...

Corgiguy,

You're exactly right. If only more Americans can see the obvious, maybe we'll get some real change in this country.

But until then, it will continue until it's too late.

Nonee,

Do you actually believe the corporations are the new Fourth Estate where they are the only ones to protect us from complete dictatorship?

People in this country are stupid, but that's only because our education systems breeds them that way and the media keeps them that way.

The corporations don't care about anything except profit, so if a dictator comes along, ensuring them a piece of the pie of the dictatorship, don't think they won't jump on it.

Do you really believe Haliburton is what stands between democracy and fascism?

bookster said...

Carlos, right on! I tell my eyes open to this couple months ago i saw Naomi Wolf on Colbert, she wrote a book on Fascism on America that documents historically the traits of fascist goverment. She has several youtubes out where she talks about it, i highly recommend it, just google NAOMI WOLF FASCISM you get all the links. If you are into movies check out V for Vendetta a fiction story based on a fascist england year 2015 after the fall on the american empire.

Unknown said...

I'm with corgiguy and Carlos. The problem is that in a little blog entry that position sounds like socialism, but it is not. I'm a Capitalist all the way. The problem is not Capitalism, the problem is Government. When the two become one and the same the results are either Authoritarian Socialism/Communism or Fascism.
When our Government allows our tech companies to facilitate the persecution and jailing of Chinese dissidents, when Agribusiness can alter Cuban policy, when Halliburton can own the Vice-Presidency (which is the most powerful in U.S. history in the form of Dick Chaney), when the drug companies can insert a non negotiation clause into their Medicare contract or ban the importation of the drugs they manufacture in Canada, when big oil can sabotage the efforts to become energy independent, when all these corporations do all that through the buying of the people who are supposed to represent all the people, that is when Democracy and the country itself is in danger.
It is not up to the Corporations to do the right thing for the country and when they do, it is only a PR stunt. It is up to the Government, which is us.

bookster said...

Rene, well said, that's exactly what i was tyring to say. Socialism is when you expect the goverment to take care of you, welfare hand outs etc, i'm not for that.

The Free Market, Capitalism is there to create job and wealth goverment does not create wealth this is what the republicans use to stand for.

The goverment role is to be the invisible hand to protect us from greedy business practices, to avoid things like the mortgage crisis that's going on, where was the oversight?

Anonymous said...

Rene nailed it. For years, we've had the technology to use other sources of energy to run our cars, but the gas companies will not allow it on the market.

Bush is an oil man. He plays a big role in this. He goes to Saudi Arabia and walks around holding hands with their king, ignoring the fact that most of the 911 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

And speaking of human rights, forget about it. Saudi Arabia is known for public beheadings without even giving the suspect a fair trial.

But they have oil, so we turn a blind eye because they allow our corporations to profit immensely.

Then there is the issue of pharmaceuticals and how they try to ban the importation of drugs from Canada. And Bush has the gall go come out and say he is doing it for our protection.

First of all, Canada is not a third-world country. Second of all, these are drugs made by the same companies.

So much for the free market.

And don't even get me started on the corporate media because I was on the inside for many years, so I can tell you plenty of stories.

And before anyone accuses me of being a communist, I'll point out that I am a small business owner. I believe in capitalism.

I'm just an American pursuing the American Dream. An American who pays attention.

nonee moose said...

Do you really believe Haliburton is what stands between democracy and fascism?

No. Do you really believe in the rhetorical fallacy of taking the worst examples of a group and letting it stand as an indictment of the whole?

The Fourth Estate is clearly the media, and always has been. So long as they don't forget to call bullshit on everyone.

But let's analyze the calumnies of the no-nonsense approach:

People in this country are stupid, but that's only because our education systems breeds them that way and the media keeps them that way.

Let's see how many folks we insulted. First the educational system. Their complicity in this whole charade, is it knowing or unknowing? Do the teachers intentionally breed them dumb? Is it because they're underpaid and take their vengeance? Or are they just part of the greater "dumbing down" effort?

Then the media. They must be complicit, perhaps unwillingly, hands bound by the golden handcuffs of ad revenue. Or do they unabashedly step from behind their canon of objectivity to proclaim, "That's why I am a liberal!"? Which is no better than proclaiming the opposite, mind you.

The corporations don't care about anything except profit, so if a dictator comes along, ensuring them a piece of the pie of the dictatorship, don't think they won't jump on it.

I think the power of corporations and how they operate is being misunderstood. If your theory is that "corporations are running the show," as Corgi so simply suggests, then you must also understand that no man is a dictator until big business tells him he is. What's all this bullshit about dictators knocking on doors and making offers? If you understand how big business runs the show, you know it's the other way around. Kindly give credit where credit is due.

And while we're at it, I think I read somewhere that U.S. corporations intentionally use their immense power to ensure the dumbing of their future managers and employees. It's in the U.S. corporate business plan. The goal is to have their corporate lunch eaten by the Chinese. They would like to have them eat our breakfast too, but the Chinese don't like hashbrowns, for some reason.

Rene, the Carnegie-Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, The Pew Trust, Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others, are a heaping load of PR machine BS. And yet, amidst all that chest-pounding, they manage to do some good things. You all are right. This is the "soft" part of Soft Fascism.

Hey you're all still out there, aren't you? I mean, nobody's had you arrested for saying any of this, have they?

Unknown said...

Moose man:

Do I believe Haliburton is all that stands between Democracy and Fascism?

No, Haliburton is the poster boy that stands for the whole military-industrial complex that Ike, a Republican, warned us about more than 50 years ago. And even then, this complex is by no means the only threat to democracy, but yes, it is a big chunk of the threat.

The fourth estate is supposed to be the media and yes, it still is. Let's be clear, I don't mind that Fox News is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bush, Inc. as long as we still have CNN, PBS, etc. Also, the internet with all the online magazines, blogs, political sites, human rights sites, etc. are also a great improvement. On the other hand, we have an attempt at huge media consolidation and this is dangerous, because most people still get their news from traditional sources, i.e., T.V. and newspapers. So yes, Clear Channel, News Corp, et al are a danger to Democracy.

Education: I personally don't feel that there is really that much wrong with our education system. All those countries that outscore us in tests still can't match us in innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and productivity. I would say access to education is more of a problem than quality, although I'm sure some improvement can be obtained in the later as well.

Do corporations run the show? Obviously not. Do they have way too much influence on economic policy to the detriment of the country as a whole? Obviously yes. Are they constantly working to expand that influence? Obviously yes. Are they the ultimate king makers? Not yet, because other forces are still in play. Populism and demagogery as a reaction can check it, but that is not a check that I would welcome.

Do corporations only care about the bottom line. Geez Moose man, that is their very definition. I hope to hell that any corporation I invest in is doing all it can to improve the bottom line. Here is a news flash:

Capitalism thrives best and benefits society most, when competition and free markets are most intense, but individual companies, hate competition and will rightly do anything they can to eliminate it. The only reason Microsoft doesn't send a team of ninja assassins to snuff out the CEOs and other key personnel of Google, Red Hat, IBM and their other competitors is that we as a society (the entity that is supposed to benefit from Capitalism, not the other way around) have decided we'd rather not have murder included in the social contract.

In a free society, the people make the rules and their Government enforces them. Our corporations should have to play by the rules we the people impose on them. If that puts them at a disadvantage vs. other, less scrupulous countries, there are ways to address that through trade policy.

Am I still out here? Yes. Is anyone coming to get me and throw me in jail for my opinions? Not yet and I want to keep it that way.

Democracy is a hard thing. She's a very high maintenance girlfriend. She requires that you and I constantly get informed about what she's doing and then argue about it like we are doing here.

Lastly, about the dummying down of the population the fact is that roughly 85% are now, have always been and will always be, dumb. Not actually dumb, but emotionally unable to to applying their smarts to securing the "truth". I had an uncle who had a sketch of Socrates hanging on his wall with the quote, "Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth". For years I just didn't get it, why would anyone be angry about some one telling them the truth? Then I lived a while and found out that the vast majority of humanity hates the truth. The truth will make you an outcast in your peer group. The truth will make your life a mess. The truth keeps shifting and requires constant attention and reevaluation, the truth is just a big pain in the ass.

nonee moose said...

Capitalism thrives best and benefits society most, when competition and free markets are most intense, but individual companies, hate competition and will rightly do anything they can to eliminate it. The only reason Microsoft doesn't send a team of ninja assassins to snuff out the CEOs and other key personnel of Google, Red Hat, IBM and their other competitors is that we as a society (the entity that is supposed to benefit from Capitalism, not the other way around) have decided we'd rather not have murder included in the social contract.

Amen. It is as it should be. If it seems that I defend the actions of corporations a bit much, it is only because those rational economic entities, are in the end, made of flesh and blood. And I know from personal experience that there are consciences with limits to that presumed rationality, which generally work to counteract the inherent evils of capitalism, from within.

It is physical law that for each action there is an equal opposite reaction. What I never hear is an equal outrage for the superficial and cynical attacks form the presumptively righteous. Is there such a word as wrongteous? If not, I call dibs.

bookster said...

Moose: just like to offer that the original criticism was not against capitalism but corporatism. The idea that coporations are in conhoots with politicians to protect their interest not the interest of people and that is slippery slope into fascism.

Unknown said...

Moose man, you have more faith in humanity than I do. I believe that people rationalize their greedy self interest actions so that they can feel good about themselves. Every day I see preposterous self justifications in testimonies to the congress, to the media, to stockholders, etc. I can never forget the outrageous testimony of the heads of cigarette company CEOs to the congress a while back.

One reason (among many) that I admire the founding fathers so much is that they fully recognized this flaw in human nature. They basically concluded that people were ruthless in their self interest and devised a system with as many checks and balances as they could think of and pitted as many people as possible against each other.

I for one believe that if the citizens (it only takes a small minority to accomplish this, thank God) don't mistrust Government and keep an eye on it, we will loose everything. Furthermore, when "your guys" win, I would suggest that's the time to watch specially closely to make sure you haven't been duped. Are they really "your guys" or are they laughing at you while taking you to the cleaners?

Anonymous said...

The Fourth Estate is clearly the media, and always has been. So long as they don't forget to call bullshit on everyone.

But that's the problem. They're not calling bullshit on everybody like they used to because they don't have to anymore.

When the media buys up all the newspapers and TV and radio stations in a market, it buys up what had been their competition. Without competition, there is no drive to get an important or controversial story out because it's not like you're going to get scooped.

When I worked for the San Bernardino Sun in Southern California, we had intense competition from the Riverside Press Enterprise.

If one of our reporters got beat on a story, they would have to answer to it. And if it happened twice, then that reporter better have a good reason because they might be pulled off their beats.

I loved it. There is nothing more exciting in journalism than scooping your cross-town rival. I did in New Mexico too. I thrived in that environment.

When I got a job at the Arizona Republic, this being a much larger newspaper, with very little competition, there was no urgency to find that compelling story or that controversial story. There was no drive.

That paper was like a fat cat that occasionally grab a mouse if it happened to scamper by him.

I covered the police beat and so many stories that I wanted to do went unreported because the cops would call my boss, and say it's going to make them look bad, so we didn't write it. And it's not like we had to worry about our competing newspaper to get the scoop because there was no competition.

And as they continue to relax the FCC standards that allow media companies to do further cross ownership, then the media ceases to become the Fourth Estate because suddenly, they control all the news, where before, the news was controlled by all the newspapers and networks and magazines.

The one thing they haven't been able to control is the blogosphere. But don't think they are not trying and planning and figuring out ways that would allow them to do that.

In December, the FCC actually lowered FCC standards to allow companies more cross ownership.

But did you hear or read this detail on the news?



Hey you're all still out there, aren't you? I mean, nobody's had you arrested for saying any of this, have they?


Well, I was arrested for reminding cops that I had a First Amendment right to photograph them.


And if you look at the video on the following link, you can see we're not too far off from being a police state. You tell me how is this different than Castro's jails.

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/02/02/shocking-disgusting-and-infuriating-video-shows-ohio-sheriffs-deputies-ripping-clothes-off-woman/