The Communist News Network?

(My apologies...long post ahead. But, I've included part of an excellent Reagan speech at the end, so it'll be worth your while.)

Here's the latest outrage from CNN: Courageous American "rebels" show their solidarity with the Castro regime.

Honestly - and I'm not exaggerating here - this is exactly the type of propaganda I remember hearing when I would occasionally tune in to Radio Moscow's shortwave broadcasts back during the Soviet days. It's absolutely disgusting that this sort of thing now passes for "objective" journalism at CNN. (Yes, I was around in the '80's, and yes, I occasionally listened to shortwave radio. Hey, I grew up in the rural South...you had to do something to keep yourself entertained.)

Here's a complete transcript of the story, which is titled "U.S. rebels vacation in Cuba":

Morgan Neill (CNN): "Scraping old paint off the wall is dull, monotonous work, even if you're doing it while surrounded by Cuba's tropical sun and palm trees. So, why would anyone stockpile their vacation days to do this?"

Jo-Jo (Venceremos Brigades): "We're here because we feel it's important for us to challenge unjust laws, and for the U.S. to dictate to us that we can't travel to Cuba...we don't really...we feel is unfair and it's wrong."

Morgan Neill (CNN): "Jo Jo is part of a group known as the Venceremos Brigades, U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba every year in defiance of the U.S. embargo. They work side-by-side with Cubans on various projects. This year, scraping paint off a rural schoolhouse."

Sophia Elijah (VB): "Vacation? Well, I'm working probably as hard or harder than I do back home, but I use vacation time to come, yes."

Morgan Neill (CNN): "It's not just opposition to the travel ban that attracts them. It's also a chance to see the country built by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro."

Elisa Pintor (VB): "We have so much to learn from a very live...a live Revolution down here."

Morgan Neill (CNN): "While the Vinceremos Brigades have a specific focus, Cuba's one-of-a-kind mix of Communism and defiance appeals to a broad range of tourists. Many visit the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, where Fidel Castro and his vastly-outnumbered army waged a guerilla war that would eventually topple the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

"Following in the footsteps of El Comandante [Che Guevara], tourists make their way up to this makeshift hospital, once entirely hidden from enemy planes. It was here that they did what they could to treat the wounded.

"Getting to Cuba's Revolutionary landmarks isn't easy. Visitors must arrange their own transport and often face rugged climbs, but they say it's worth the effort."

Jens (tourist): "It's a good story about Castro arriving from Mexico to this place and making this war down here. It's very exciting."

Morgan Neill (CNN): "Cuba's beaches may be the star attraction here, but for those looking for a bit more adventure, the lure of the Revolution and its heroes is hard to resist."

Morgan Neill (CNN): "Morgan Neill. CNN, Havana."

Well, I want to share something with those who would call Fidel Castro and Che Guevara "heroes". On May 20, 1983 - Cuban Independence Day - President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Miami, Florida, where he joined Cuban Americans in expressing their hopes for a free Cuba. He said:

About 10 million people still live in Cuba, as compared to about 1 million Cuban Americans -- people with the same traditions and cultural heritage, yet the Cubans in the United States, with only one-tenth the number, produce almost two times the wealth of those they left behind. So, don't let anyone fool you: What's happening in Cuba is not a failure of the Cuban people; it's a failure of Fidel Castro and of communism.

The Soviet Union with all its military might, with its massive subsidy of the Cuban economy, can't make the system produce anything but repression and terror.

It reminds me of the story -- I happen to collect stories that the Soviet people are telling each other, the Russian people. It indicates their cynicism with their own system. This is a story of a commissar who visited one of their collective farms, and he stopped the first farmer, workman that he met, and he asked about life on the farm. And the man said, "It's wonderful. I've never heard anyone complain about anything since I've been here.'' And the commissar then said, "Well, what about the crops?'' "Oh,'' he said, "the crops are wonderful.'' "What about the potatoes?'' "Oi, sir,'' he said, "the potatoes,'' he said, "there are so many that if we put them in one pile they would touch the foot of God.'' And the commissar said, "Just a minute. In the Soviet Union there is no God.'' And the farmer said, "Well, there are no potatoes either.''

Cuban Americans understand perhaps better than many of their fellow citizens that freedom is not just the heritage of the people of the United States. It is the birthright of the people of this hemisphere. We in the Americas are descended from hearty souls -- pioneers, men and women with the courage to leave the familiar and start fresh in this, the New World. We are, by and large, people who share the same fundamental values of God, family, work, freedom, democracy, and justice. Perhaps the greatest tie between us can be seen in the incredible number of cathedrals and churches found throughout the hemisphere. Our forefathers took the worship of God seriously.

Our struggles for independence and the fervor for liberty unleashed by these noble endeavors bind the people of the New World together. In the annals of human freedom, names like Bolivar and Marti rank equally with Jefferson and Washington. These were individuals of courage and dignity, and they left for us a legacy, a treasure beyond all imagination.

But today, a new colonialism threatens the Americas. Insurgents, armed and directed by a faraway power, seek to impose a philosophy that is alien to everything which we believe and goes against our birthright. It's a philosophy that holds truth and liberty in contempt and is a self-declared enemy of the worship of God. Wherever put into practice, it has brought repression and human
deprivation. There is no clearer example of this than Cuba.

The people of Cuba have seen their strong independent labor movement -- which existed before 1959 -- destroyed by a regime that shouts slogans about its concern for the workers; the suppression of the church, including the right of the church to broadcast and print God's word. It is a new fascist regime, where freedom of speech and press of every opposition group has been stamped into the ground with ideological zeal. And it doesn't stop there. Young Cubans are pressed into the military and sent to faraway lands, where hundreds have been killed, to do the bidding of a foreign government, defiling their hands with the blood of others, not serving their own interests, but propping up leaders who have no popular support. ...

The declining Castro economy continues to make a grotesque joke out of the ideological claims that Marxism is for the people. Nearly a quarter of a century after the Cuban revolution, the Cuban people continue to face shortages and rationing of basic necessities. Once one of the most prosperous countries in all of Latin America, it is rapidly becoming the most economically backward in the region, thanks to the Communist system.

You know, they say there are only two places where communism works: in heaven, where they don't need it -- and in hell, where they've already got it.
...

On this day, we celebrate Cuban independence, something special for the people of the United States as well as Cuba. Eighty-five years ago, we joined together and fought side by side, shedding our blood to free Cuba from the yoke of colonialism. Sadly, we must acknowledge that Cuba is no longer independent. But let me assure you: We will not let this same fate befall others in the hemisphere. We will not permit the Soviets and their henchmen in Havana to deprive others of their freedom. We will not allow them to do that to others. And some day Cuba, itself, will be free. ...

Teddy Roosevelt, a man who fought alongside your forefathers for Cuban independence, said, ``We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men.''

Today, let us pledge ourselves to meet this sacred responsibility. And let us pledge ourselves to the freedom of the noble, long-suffering Cuban people. Viva Cuba Libre. Cuba, si; Castro, no.