Hey, if you want to pay ransom to the captors, that's your business.
Posted by: Henry Louis Gomez Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 04:54 PM
Had the allies paid ransom for the Jews of Hungary a lot of lives would have been saved, that's what this is about, saving Cuban life.
Posted by: Vana Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 06:47 PM
Vana is absolutely right. And what happened to the Jews who were ransomed? They lived. Pope Pius XII redeemed the Jews of Rome with gold. They were not deported or sent to the death camps, the only Jewish community in Europe that survived the Holocaust intact and in situ. The communists have never forgiven Pius for recognizing that it was better to throw gold to the Nazis than Jews into ovens.
Saving human life is the paramount concern of man, always. Money cannot be put to a higher purpose than to ransom the lives of the innocent. The parent whose child is kidnapped does not haggle with the abductors. He pays what they demand and hopes for the best. We should think the parent an even greater monster than the kidnapper if he were to value his money or some arcane "principle" above the life of his child. Enriching the kidnapper is immaterial when the life of the child is at stake. Even punishing him should await the deliverance of the child lest by rescuing the ransom one should lose the child.
Incredibly, Val Prieto has stated in the past that he would not ransom the child, or, leastwise, his wife if she were kidnapped and in danger of losing her life:
"If some creep grabbed your wife and a gun point told you 'Give me money or Ill shoot her' and you gave him money and he told you 'Give me more money or Ill
shoot her' and you gave him more money and he once again tells you 'Give me money or ill shoot her.' Where does it end? What impetus does that creep have to free your wife, given that each and every time he asks you for money you give it to him?"
In this example Val's wife stands for the long-suffering Cuban people and the "creep" for Castro.
As I commented at the time:
"Val would refuse to give the 'creep' holding his wife at gunpoint more money because he (the 'creep') is too greedy. Better a dead spouse than to be 'fleeced' by such a lowlife. It's a matter of principle. His wife's brains splattered on the street are preferable to succumbing to blackmail or emptying out his bank account.I may have underestimated Val, or, at least, underestimated the cupidity of men. For last week Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez seconded his position that the Cuban people are not worth ransoming.
"I pity his wife. I pity the Cuban people if their fate were ever in Val's hands. Thank God it never will be."
POSTSCRIPT:
If you're looking to the Jews as a model for Cuba Masada is more appropriate.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Masada1.html
The heroic story of Masada and its dramatic end attracted many explorers to the Judean desert in attempts to locate the remains of the fortress. The site was identified in 1842, but intensive excavations took place only in 1963-65, with the help of hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers from Israel and from many foreign countries, eager to participate in this exciting archeological venture. To them and to Israelis, Masada symbolizes the determination of the Jewish people to be free in its own land.
Posted (at Uncommon Sense) by: Ziva Sahl, Monday, September 22, 2008 at 10:55 PM
I tried to post this at Uncommon Sense but for some reason my Typepad ID doesn't stick.
Ziva answers Vana's good point by bringing up the story of Masada as "more appropriate". What? Masada, seriously? The only solution for Cubans is to commit mass suicide?
At the beginning of the Special Period Castro used the siege of Masada in a speech as a parable for Cuba's resistance to the embargo. I'm not being facetious (google it) and Ziva probably doesn't know this, so I'm not going to accuse her of using "the same rethoric as the regime" like they do in their lynching of Masferrer. But it does show that their ideal scenario is a Cuba empty of Cubans.
Posted (at RCAB) by: Alex (of Miami & Beyond), 9/23/2008 11:20 AM
15 comments:
The Cuban people do live under a man like Val who has further bloodied his by suggesting that the Cuban People need no money for there is nothing to buy, Val and his fine cadre have shown to be just like Castro, they have sided with the butcher in Havana.
Look to Oscar Shindler he played the Nazi's game, he paid the ransom he saved human life, sometimes one must give unto Caesar.
I too pity his wife.
Val Prieto change of heart
Posted by Ray at September 23, 2008 05:42 AM
They accepted Russian aid, too.
Posted by Lazaro at September 23, 2008 06:47 AM
Let's send money!!!!
Posted by Val Prieto at September 23, 2008 07:10 AM
No "change of heart." Val is being sarcastic. Imagine, he can he sarcastic about the suffering of the Cuban people! His contempt for them knows no bounds.
I tried to post this at Uncommon Sense but for some reason my Typepad ID doesn't stick.
Ziva answers Vana's good point by bringing up the story of Masada as "more appropriate". What? Masada, seriously? The only solution for Cubans is to commit mass suicide?
At the beginning of the Special Period Castro used the siege of Masada in a speech as a parable for Cuba's resistance to the embargo. I'm not being facetious (google it) and Ziva probably doesn't know this, so I'm not going to accuse her of using "the same rethoric as the regime" like they do in their lynching of Masferrer. But it does show that their ideal scenario is a Cuba empty of Cubans.
Alex I too am having trouble posting at Uncommon Sense like you I'm being rejected.
I will answer Ziva here, I know she'll read it.
Masada Ziva, Masada?? is this your wish for the people of Cuba mass suicide? siege from without? what good did Masada do the Jews of Israel except to die! their country continued to be occupied by the enemy for centuries.
I guess you think Oscar Shindler was wrong, though he played the Nazi's game he ransomed the Jews of Plazow, he saved lives Ziva and untold generations, that's what it will take to save our brethen in the island, that we the exiles turn into a Shindler, not suicide, not a bloodbath!!
well it took sheer determination in my part, but think I got through at Marc's blog.
alex & vana:
At the time of the Holocaust, Gandhi advised Jews to commit mass suicide as a moral lesson to the world.
Nothing is new under the sun.
Alex, I clearly remember that speech. The mass suicide of Cubans is "The Old Obsession" of kastro. He's all about the "Final Holocaust" for Cubans, remember, that he wants Cuba to be turned into blood drenched ashes before "surrendering".
I also remember that in an interview, shortly thereafter, kastro talked about the design of the fortress of Masada, and he got it wrong. He said that the tunnels had turns to the right everywhere to force assailants to fight either with the left arm or to have the right arm in disadvantage. The truth is that Jewish soldiers were trained to fight equally with both arms (centuries thereafter, they developed the Krav Maga martial system with the same concept)
What both Ziva and kasstro miss is that not all the Jews committed mass suicide. Just the defenders of a fortress, not their whole nation. Actually, the Jews were taken as slaves to Egypt, the place they left by sea towards the Holy Land, not unlikely the balseros. I would venture saying that nobody labeled them as "recent arrival" or "newcomers" and rejected them for that reason.
Ah, Manuel, that peaceful and moralistic Gandhi.
Yes, he advised the Jews to jump from "a cliff" to teach a lesson of morals and dignity to the world -while his secret wish was to get rid of them and ingratiate himself with Hitler.
Fortunately, the Jewish leaders and elders had walked a long way from the days of Masada and knew that collective suicide was of no use for them and would just have complied with the desires of Hitler. They resisted, they fled, they relocated. The only Jews who were to stunned to react were the ones in the concentration camps. Actually when people scream about the newcomers and the "mass migration" hysteria it remind me that some boats full of Jews were sent back to Europe, where they were interned and murdered in the camps.
Now, it's interesting how the balseros are rejected. They should show me one balsero that has been convicted for being a spy and a traitor. Talk about galls.
At least Gandhi wanted liberation for his own, unlike Val, The fine cadre of writers and Castro, who wish mass suicide and bloodbath's on their own people, of course I'm not in any way trying to excuse Gandhi's counsel for the Jews of the Holocaust, he was wrong.
sr. cohiba:
I did not say that all Italian Jews escaped the Holocaust. I said that the Jews of Rome were ransomed for 100 lbs of gold and spared. When the collection fell short by 30 lbs., Pope Pius contributed the deficit.
I knew I remembered that speech. And "Cuba será un eterno Baraguá".
Heroic parables are just hot air and it's easy to invoke them from afar, when neither you nor yours will be in the line of fire.
Charlie: some of those Babalosers do not want to learn that humanitarian lesson when it comes to Cuba. As usual they confuse our nation with its regime.
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