“Well, if everyone could travel any time they wanted, you can’t imagine the traffic-jam there would be in the skies.” -Cuba National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón at a January 19, 2008 forum responding to a student questioning Cuba's limitations on freedom of travel.
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I despise Fidel Castro and everything about his "revolution."
Castro has enslaved and deprived an entire nation of hope, democracy and freedom for half a century.
I despise all that he is, just as I despise all dictators.
Imagine living in a country where every basic freedom is denied and the state decides at every turn what's good for you and what's not good. (See quote above)
On a very basic level you could say that I am on the same wave-length as the guys over at the Babalu blog who write daily about the evils of the Castro regime. We both despise the dictator.
But that's where the similarity ends.
While the people who run Babalu blog say they hate Castro and all that he stands for, one needs only need to spend 20 minutes or so on their blog before it becomes clear that have morphed into the very thing they despise about Castro.
Dissent and opposing views are not tolerated on their blog. Just like it's not tolerated in Cuba.
Try posting a differing point of view to their rabid screeds and you'll be shouted down with epithets and if you persist and you'll be banned.
If you write about them on your blog and link to them to show their hypocrisy and bigotry, your links will be blocked....just as they they do in Cuba and Communist China.
One South Florida blogger learned that last week.
Some in the media bestow legitimacy on these bigots by writing puff pieces. Or calling them every time they need a quote.
The Babalu folks oblige and in turn they've have deluded themselves into believing that anyone cares what they think. They actually believe their own press clippings.
The reality is that Babalu is really nothing more than a fringe group of bomb-throwing, anthrax-mailing, loud-mouth fanatics gone high tech.
Loud mouth fanatics are nothing new in Miami.
Babalu posted dozens of hate filled missives against Barack Obama during the campaign in an effort to link him to Muslim fanatics and and a failed 70's "terrorist."
But what the folks at Babalu forgot to mention is that they court and embrace the fanatic fringe that has been has been a source of terror for decades right here in Miami.
So while the Babalu people had plenty to say about Obama and his ties to a "terrorist" just try finding any criticism on their blog of the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Good luck!
The Babalu blog and the people who post there are another version of the viejitos who line up daily in front of the Versailles restaurant...frustrated old men who bury Castro every day only to wake up the next and find that he's still alive.
When inevitable finally happens - perhaps as soon as April 10 - when Fidel Castro finally leaves this planet, one truth will stand out above all else.
And that is that not one word that has been spoken or written here in Miami over the past 50 years - of all the hundreds of millions of words - will be what caused him or his regime to lose power.
And the stark reality is that nothing that's been written on the Babalu blog has moved Castro one centimeter closer to the grave.
They claim to abhor Castro. But they've become so blinded by their hatred for Castro that they can't see that there isn't much difference between them and the thing they claim to hate.
