Clinton, Castro, and Cubaby Jacob G. Hornberger, October 1994
August 19, 1994, will go down as a black day in the history of the United States. On that day, President William Jefferson Clinton began jailing Cuban refugees in an American concentration center on the American side of Cuba. It was the first time since the Cuban revolution in 1959 that people in Cuba were freer under Fidel Castro than under an American president.
There ought to be 250 million Americans rising up in anger and outrage over the president's conduct. These Cubans are the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free — the people described on the Statue of Liberty. They have suffered for most of their lives under communist tyranny and oppression. They are now threatened with death by starvation.
They only seek to sustain their lives — and the lives of their spouses — and their children — and their parents.
They leave all of their earthly possessions behind. They say good-bye — possibly for the last time — to lifelong friends and relatives. Under cover of darkness, they tie their inner tubes together. They climb into their rickety, leaky rafts. They have little to eat or drink. They see how the scorching sun causes others to hallucinate and jump overboard, into the waiting mouths of sharks. They see arms and legs floating by. They know not what awaits them at the end of their journey.
And still they come.
Where have all the leftists gone?
And what awaits those who make it? Outstretched arms? Joy? Love? Happiness? Freedom?
Not exactly. What awaits them is a penitentiary. A penitentiary in Cuba. A penitentiary organized and run by U.S. government officials on the American side of Cuba.
President Clinton says that it is better that Cubans remain home where they can assist in the overthrow of Fidel Castro.
Now, since when has Bill Clinton become an ardent anticommunist? Twenty years ago, Clinton was asked to give his life to fight communism in Southeast Asia. His response? "Are you crazy? You think my life is going to be sacrificed to stop communism? I'm headed to Oxford."
Today, despite the fact that he was unwilling to give his life in a fight against communism, Clinton says that Cubans should be willing to do so.
And what weapons does Clinton expect the Cubans to use against the machine guns that protect Fidel Castro? Sticks? Sugar canes? Rocks? Unfortunately, Castro and Clinton share the exact same perspective on the issue of gun control: that is, that only the government should own assault rifles, grenades, and other means by which people are able to resist effectively the tyranny of their own government. Hundreds of Cubans would be massacred if they assaulted Castro's machine-gun nests with sticks, sugar canes, and rocks — and it is cruel and irresponsible for Clinton to even suggest the idea.
Clinton says: "The emigration of the Cuban refugees is the result of Castro's failed system." But notice that in speaking about Castro's "failed system," Clinton and others in his administration never go into specifics. What specifically is it about Castro's system that has failed?
Let us scratch beneath the surface and see what we find. As we do so, ask yourself: Does Clinton oppose any part of Castro's failed system? For the last thirty years, Castro's failed system has consisted of:
(1) national health care; (2) public housing; (3) public schooling; (4) public works; (5) public spending; (6) high taxation; (7) welfare; (8) economic regulations; (9) guaranteed employment; (10) trade restrictions; (11) emigration and immigration controls; (12) wage and price controls; (13) antispeculation laws; (14) government monetary system.
In other words, if we examine carefully the specifics of Castor's failed system, we find — voilá! — the economic philosophy of Bill Clinton! In fact, there is not one aspect of Castro's economic philosophy that Bill Clinton does not wholeheartedly embrace.
And it is somewhat amusing to hear Clinton complaining about the nondemocratic aspects of Castro's regime. After all, when Clinton decided that a 30-year American immigration policy should be changed, did he go to Congress, set forth his arguments, and ask that Congress change the policy? Of course not. Just as his nemesis Fidel Castro does in Cuba, Clinton ruled by decree. Exercising his role as the American ruler, he unilaterally decreed a major change in America's 30-year-old immigration policy toward Cuban refugees.
Where have all the lovers of the poor gone?
No, the problem is not that Clinton has ideological differences with Fidel. On the contrary, their philosophies on the role of government in economic affairs are the same. Clinton and Castro are ideological brothers-comrades-in-arms — they both wholeheartedly endorse the welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life that has brought so much misery and poverty all over the world in the 20th century.
The problem, instead, is a practical one — these ideological brothers had a falling out many years ago. In 1980, Fidel permitted thousands of immigrants to flee to the United States. Many of them were housed in Arkansas, where Clinton was governor. Rioting took place in the Arkansas concentration centers in which the Cubans had been placed. Clinton lost his bid for reelection. And he has never forgiven Fidel Castro for helping to cause his political defeat.
Unfortunately, it is the Cuban people who must pay the price for this dispute between the American ruler and the Cuban ruler.
Of course, this is not the first time that U.S. immigration policy has been used to ensure that people remain under totalitarian tyranny. Recall what happened under the regime of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is presented to every child in every public school in America as one of history's greatest humanitarians and lovers of the poor. Unfortunately, those attributes did not manifest themselves in 1938. For this was the year that FDR was asked if U.S. immigration policies could be relaxed in order to permit Jews to emigrate from Hitler's Germany and enter the United States. The great humanitarian's response? "This is not in contemplation. We have the quota system."
One of these days, if Roosevelt and Clinton ever have their faces carved into some mountain in the Rockies, the following words can appear beneath them: "They ensured that people lived and died under Nazism and communism so that America could remain stable and pure."
And what have we heard from American mayors and city-council members about the plight of the Cuban refugees? After all, whenever a local resident opposes a public-housing project in the community, local politicians are the first to exclaim: "You hate the poor. You hate the homeless. You are a racist." One would naturally assume that, with their love for the poor and homeless, these politicians would openly embrace the Cuban refugees. Unfortunately, however, their silence has been deafening. Why? Because they cringe in fear that Clinton will do to them what Gorbachev did to Castro — cut off the millions of dollars in government largess that flows to local politicians and bureaucrats from the nation's capitol.
Where have all the advocates for the homeless gone?
What is Clinton's method of combating Castro's socialism? Clinton (like all of his predecessors) believes that the way you fight socialism is with socialism.
What, in essence, has Castro done to the Cuban people since 1959? He has used the government to control their lives and fortunes — this is the core of the socialist philosophy — that people should not be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and decide for themselves what to do with that wealth.
And so what does the U.S. government decree? It prohibits the American people from traveling to Cuba and trading with the Cuban people! In other words, to fight Castro's control over the lives and fortunes of the Cuban people, the U.S. government takes control of the lives and fortunes of the American people!
There is only one effective way to fight socialism overseas — with freedom! Americans have the moral right to do whatever they want with their own money — and to travel anywhere in the world without permission of their public officials. It is abhorrent — and a violation of every principle of freedom and every principle in the Declaration of Independence — that an American who travels to Cuba or does business with the Cuban people is jailed by American authorities for this conduct.
If Americans were free to travel and trade without political interference, would this mean that Castro would immediately end his socialist system? No. But every time Castro opened the door a little bit — whether by legalizing the use of dollars — or permitting a private hotel to be built in Havana — or selling fine cigars to Americans — American producers and consumers would rush through the opening, without having to concern themselves with interference from American politicians. As private Cubans became prosperous and wealthy, more and more doors would begin to creak open. And the increased levels of private wealth in Cuba would serve as an ever-growing counterweight to Castro's political power. As private citizens flourished, Castro would become increasingly irrelevant.
Thus, it is the United States government's embargo against Cuba that is ensuring the continuation of Castro's omnipotent control over the Cuban people. Even worse, the embargo is causing starvation and death — not for Castro, but for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. The situation is the same as it is in Haiti — Clinton wishes to punish the foreign rulers, and so he imposes an embargo that instead starves and kills those at the bottom.
And it is not simply U.S. government trade embargoes that are causing so much misery, death, and destitution in different parts of the world. America's protectionist policies are doing the exact same thing. When the U.S. government imposes a quota on imported sugar in order to protect American businessmen (welfare for the rich), consider what this does to sugar farmers in the Caribbean, not to mention what it does to American consumers.
Now, imagine the results if the American people required their government to end all quotas, import restrictions, and all other protectionist measures. Economies overseas would begin to flourish as a result of the increase in international trade, especially trade with American consumers! And that increase in prosperity would mean that people would no longer have to leave friends and family to escape starvation and destitution. Emigration and immigration would become a more natural process — one in which people were moving simply in order to find increased opportunities.
Where have all the 60s'protestors gone?
There is one positive aspect of the incarceration of Cuban refugees. At least now the charade behind the welfare state's "We love the poor, the needy, and disadvantaged" is exposed for the lie that it is and always has been. The U.S. government — the government that professes to love those at the bottom of the economic ladder, with its public housing, food stamps, minimum-wage laws, welfare — once again takes off its velvet glove and exposes the ugliness of its iron fist. It slams the door on the Cuban poor and homeless. And then it herds them into American concentration centers far from American shores — on Clinton's side of Cuba, where the hope is that they will ultimately seek asylum in some other country . . . perhaps even in Castro's side of Cuba.
Gone to graveyards every one.
A few years ago, the German people tore down one of the most despicable walls in history. Is it not time that the American people do the same?
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/915415.stm
EXCERPT:
Friday, 8 September, 2000, 09:03 GMT 10:03 UK
Clinton shook Castro's hand
Historic handshake: Castro made the approach
The United States has confirmed that President Bill Clinton and the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, shook hands and exchanged a few words after a lunch during the UN's Millennium Summit in New York. The White House originally denied that a handshake had taken place, but later admitted it had occurred.
The encounter on Wednesday is understood to be the first time a US president has ever shaken hands with the Cuban leader. There is no picture of the moment.
The US maintains a trade embargo against Cuba, and relations between the two countries have been under increased strain this year because of the custody dispute over the shipwrecked Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez.
Close encounter
The handshake occurred as the two leaders were making their way from a lunch towards a conference room, where they were due to pose for a group photograph.
The White House says Fidel Castro approached Bill Clinton.
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters: "As I understand it, it was a chance encounter that Mr Castro initiated.
"They talked for a couple of minutes and there was no substance. It was just a cordial conversation."
The encounter on Wednesday is understood to be the first time a US president has ever shaken hands with the Cuban leader. There is no picture of the moment.
The US maintains a trade embargo against Cuba, and relations between the two countries have been under increased strain this year because of the custody dispute over the shipwrecked Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez.
Close encounter
The handshake occurred as the two leaders were making their way from a lunch towards a conference room, where they were due to pose for a group photograph.
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters: "As I understand it, it was a chance encounter that Mr Castro initiated.
"They talked for a couple of minutes and there was no substance. It was just a cordial conversation."
August 19, 1994, will go down as a black day in the history of the United States. On that day, President William Jefferson Clinton began jailing Cuban refugees in an American concentration center on the American side of Cuba. It was the first time since the Cuban revolution in 1959 that people in Cuba were freer under Fidel Castro than under an American president.
There ought to be 250 million Americans rising up in anger and outrage over the president's conduct. These Cubans are the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free — the people described on the Statue of Liberty. They have suffered for most of their lives under communist tyranny and oppression. They are now threatened with death by starvation.
They only seek to sustain their lives — and the lives of their spouses — and their children — and their parents.
They leave all of their earthly possessions behind. They say good-bye — possibly for the last time — to lifelong friends and relatives. Under cover of darkness, they tie their inner tubes together. They climb into their rickety, leaky rafts. They have little to eat or drink. They see how the scorching sun causes others to hallucinate and jump overboard, into the waiting mouths of sharks. They see arms and legs floating by. They know not what awaits them at the end of their journey.
And still they come.
Where have all the leftists gone?
And what awaits those who make it? Outstretched arms? Joy? Love? Happiness? Freedom?
Not exactly. What awaits them is a penitentiary. A penitentiary in Cuba. A penitentiary organized and run by U.S. government officials on the American side of Cuba.
President Clinton says that it is better that Cubans remain home where they can assist in the overthrow of Fidel Castro.
Now, since when has Bill Clinton become an ardent anticommunist? Twenty years ago, Clinton was asked to give his life to fight communism in Southeast Asia. His response? "Are you crazy? You think my life is going to be sacrificed to stop communism? I'm headed to Oxford."
Today, despite the fact that he was unwilling to give his life in a fight against communism, Clinton says that Cubans should be willing to do so.
And what weapons does Clinton expect the Cubans to use against the machine guns that protect Fidel Castro? Sticks? Sugar canes? Rocks? Unfortunately, Castro and Clinton share the exact same perspective on the issue of gun control: that is, that only the government should own assault rifles, grenades, and other means by which people are able to resist effectively the tyranny of their own government. Hundreds of Cubans would be massacred if they assaulted Castro's machine-gun nests with sticks, sugar canes, and rocks — and it is cruel and irresponsible for Clinton to even suggest the idea.
Clinton says: "The emigration of the Cuban refugees is the result of Castro's failed system." But notice that in speaking about Castro's "failed system," Clinton and others in his administration never go into specifics. What specifically is it about Castro's system that has failed?
Let us scratch beneath the surface and see what we find. As we do so, ask yourself: Does Clinton oppose any part of Castro's failed system? For the last thirty years, Castro's failed system has consisted of:
(1) national health care; (2) public housing; (3) public schooling; (4) public works; (5) public spending; (6) high taxation; (7) welfare; (8) economic regulations; (9) guaranteed employment; (10) trade restrictions; (11) emigration and immigration controls; (12) wage and price controls; (13) antispeculation laws; (14) government monetary system.
In other words, if we examine carefully the specifics of Castor's failed system, we find — voilá! — the economic philosophy of Bill Clinton! In fact, there is not one aspect of Castro's economic philosophy that Bill Clinton does not wholeheartedly embrace.
And it is somewhat amusing to hear Clinton complaining about the nondemocratic aspects of Castro's regime. After all, when Clinton decided that a 30-year American immigration policy should be changed, did he go to Congress, set forth his arguments, and ask that Congress change the policy? Of course not. Just as his nemesis Fidel Castro does in Cuba, Clinton ruled by decree. Exercising his role as the American ruler, he unilaterally decreed a major change in America's 30-year-old immigration policy toward Cuban refugees.
Where have all the lovers of the poor gone?
No, the problem is not that Clinton has ideological differences with Fidel. On the contrary, their philosophies on the role of government in economic affairs are the same. Clinton and Castro are ideological brothers-comrades-in-arms — they both wholeheartedly endorse the welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life that has brought so much misery and poverty all over the world in the 20th century.
The problem, instead, is a practical one — these ideological brothers had a falling out many years ago. In 1980, Fidel permitted thousands of immigrants to flee to the United States. Many of them were housed in Arkansas, where Clinton was governor. Rioting took place in the Arkansas concentration centers in which the Cubans had been placed. Clinton lost his bid for reelection. And he has never forgiven Fidel Castro for helping to cause his political defeat.
Unfortunately, it is the Cuban people who must pay the price for this dispute between the American ruler and the Cuban ruler.
Of course, this is not the first time that U.S. immigration policy has been used to ensure that people remain under totalitarian tyranny. Recall what happened under the regime of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is presented to every child in every public school in America as one of history's greatest humanitarians and lovers of the poor. Unfortunately, those attributes did not manifest themselves in 1938. For this was the year that FDR was asked if U.S. immigration policies could be relaxed in order to permit Jews to emigrate from Hitler's Germany and enter the United States. The great humanitarian's response? "This is not in contemplation. We have the quota system."
One of these days, if Roosevelt and Clinton ever have their faces carved into some mountain in the Rockies, the following words can appear beneath them: "They ensured that people lived and died under Nazism and communism so that America could remain stable and pure."
And what have we heard from American mayors and city-council members about the plight of the Cuban refugees? After all, whenever a local resident opposes a public-housing project in the community, local politicians are the first to exclaim: "You hate the poor. You hate the homeless. You are a racist." One would naturally assume that, with their love for the poor and homeless, these politicians would openly embrace the Cuban refugees. Unfortunately, however, their silence has been deafening. Why? Because they cringe in fear that Clinton will do to them what Gorbachev did to Castro — cut off the millions of dollars in government largess that flows to local politicians and bureaucrats from the nation's capitol.
Where have all the advocates for the homeless gone?
What is Clinton's method of combating Castro's socialism? Clinton (like all of his predecessors) believes that the way you fight socialism is with socialism.
What, in essence, has Castro done to the Cuban people since 1959? He has used the government to control their lives and fortunes — this is the core of the socialist philosophy — that people should not be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and decide for themselves what to do with that wealth.
And so what does the U.S. government decree? It prohibits the American people from traveling to Cuba and trading with the Cuban people! In other words, to fight Castro's control over the lives and fortunes of the Cuban people, the U.S. government takes control of the lives and fortunes of the American people!
There is only one effective way to fight socialism overseas — with freedom! Americans have the moral right to do whatever they want with their own money — and to travel anywhere in the world without permission of their public officials. It is abhorrent — and a violation of every principle of freedom and every principle in the Declaration of Independence — that an American who travels to Cuba or does business with the Cuban people is jailed by American authorities for this conduct.
If Americans were free to travel and trade without political interference, would this mean that Castro would immediately end his socialist system? No. But every time Castro opened the door a little bit — whether by legalizing the use of dollars — or permitting a private hotel to be built in Havana — or selling fine cigars to Americans — American producers and consumers would rush through the opening, without having to concern themselves with interference from American politicians. As private Cubans became prosperous and wealthy, more and more doors would begin to creak open. And the increased levels of private wealth in Cuba would serve as an ever-growing counterweight to Castro's political power. As private citizens flourished, Castro would become increasingly irrelevant.
Thus, it is the United States government's embargo against Cuba that is ensuring the continuation of Castro's omnipotent control over the Cuban people. Even worse, the embargo is causing starvation and death — not for Castro, but for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. The situation is the same as it is in Haiti — Clinton wishes to punish the foreign rulers, and so he imposes an embargo that instead starves and kills those at the bottom.
And it is not simply U.S. government trade embargoes that are causing so much misery, death, and destitution in different parts of the world. America's protectionist policies are doing the exact same thing. When the U.S. government imposes a quota on imported sugar in order to protect American businessmen (welfare for the rich), consider what this does to sugar farmers in the Caribbean, not to mention what it does to American consumers.
Now, imagine the results if the American people required their government to end all quotas, import restrictions, and all other protectionist measures. Economies overseas would begin to flourish as a result of the increase in international trade, especially trade with American consumers! And that increase in prosperity would mean that people would no longer have to leave friends and family to escape starvation and destitution. Emigration and immigration would become a more natural process — one in which people were moving simply in order to find increased opportunities.
Where have all the 60s'protestors gone?
There is one positive aspect of the incarceration of Cuban refugees. At least now the charade behind the welfare state's "We love the poor, the needy, and disadvantaged" is exposed for the lie that it is and always has been. The U.S. government — the government that professes to love those at the bottom of the economic ladder, with its public housing, food stamps, minimum-wage laws, welfare — once again takes off its velvet glove and exposes the ugliness of its iron fist. It slams the door on the Cuban poor and homeless. And then it herds them into American concentration centers far from American shores — on Clinton's side of Cuba, where the hope is that they will ultimately seek asylum in some other country . . . perhaps even in Castro's side of Cuba.
Gone to graveyards every one.
A few years ago, the German people tore down one of the most despicable walls in history. Is it not time that the American people do the same?
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=95
EXCERPTS:
1) Clinton was also hurt politically by the presence of Cuban refugees at Fort Chaffee, sent there by Clinton’s friend, President Jimmy Carter. Cuba had temporarily lifted its exit restrictions and permitted 120,000 Cubans to go to the United States by boat. Carter sent 18,000 of them to Fort Chaffee. About 300 of the Cubans broke out of the compound in May and rampaged down nearby roads. During the day’s melee, sixty-two people were injured, none seriously, and three buildings at Fort Chaffee were destroyed. A video of the marauding Cubans turned up in an effective campaign ad for Clinton’s opponent in the election. In August, Carter broke a promise to Clinton and the state when he sent all the refugees from northern military posts to Fort Chaffee because the northern posts were not well equipped for winter. Frank D. White, a former banker and state industrial-development official, switched parties to run for governor in 1980. He blamed Clinton for the threat to public safety that the Cubans represented and for higher vehicle license fees. He defeated Clinton in the election with almost fifty-two percent of the vote.
2)
http://www.ex-way.com/
EXCERPT:
I just finished reading Karl's book this past weekend, and I feel it really helped me to sort some things out.I was a 'believer' in the ministry from 1980 to 1984.I was first witnessed to by a woman I worked with.We talked for a while, I really liked what she had to say, so I started attending fellowship.I REALLY loved it, so I decided to go WOW.My WOW year was 1982-1983 in Des Moines, Iowa.It was during that year that I first started to suspect that something was terribly wrong with the leadership in the ministry. Not only did I find discrepancies in the teachings, but I started to hear things like 'if you leave the ministry the devil will surely kill you' & 'don't question the leadership--just do what you're told',& 'we're the only REAL believers in the world', & many of the things that made me hate the catholic church I grew up with.More than anything, I noticed a lack of compassion in our leaders.Where had the so-called 'love of God' gone to? After my WOW year, little by little, I withdrew from the ministry, until I finally stopped attending twig fellowship altogether in 1984.While I have maintained a daily fellowship with God, I always had these nagging questions in the back of my mind:"Was the way REALLY God's ministry?Because if it was, I REALLY screwed up by leaving it!" Or "Was I just so brainwashed that they made me THINK it was God's ministry?"Even after all these years, I've pondered many questions like these.Well, thanks to Karl's book, I no longer ponder these questions.From what I'd heard(& now read in the book!)it sounds like I left just in the nick of time.I thank God I left the way international when I did.I am one of the lucky ones.I escaped with my sanity. I've read some of the reviews to Karl's book and some of you people sure sound angry.Well, the truth can somethimes rattle feathers, and I think maybe that's what this book has done for some of you.IT IS THE TRUTH about what REALLY went on 'behind the scenes'.And I NEVER got the sense that it was written with ANY malice.It really seemed like just a statement of facts.No blame.Just the opposite.Karl's now thinking for himself again & so am I.Thanks to the love of good people in my life, God, and now the information in this book, I am enjoying a new freedom & peace of mind!Thanks again Karl!THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR ANYONE AFFILIATED WITH THE MINISTRY OR KNOWS SOMEONE AFFILIATED WITH THE WAY INTERNATIONAL!!Peg Medlock.
Margaret(Peg)Medlock aka eileens daughter <pegmedlock@netscape.net>
Laurel, Md USA - Monday, July 31, 2000 at 08:52:42 (EDT)
Margaret(Peg)Medlock aka eileens daughter <pegmedlock@netscape.net>
Laurel, Md USA - Monday, July 31, 2000 at 08:52:42 (EDT)
Allegations of brutality or torture by U.S. soldiers and guards were occasionally published; although five Fort Chaffee guards were indicted over charges of beating refugees, no one was ever convicted because of these allegations. At the end of July, twelve government workers were removed from their responsibilities at Fort Chaffee after evidence was shown that they were using their contact with the refugees to draw them into The Way, an organization widely regarded as a religious cult.
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