Hollywood and Castro...

[army cadet_ngcsu]

What is it with Hollywood and Castro's Cuba these days. Not even so much as Hollywood, but some of these dumb ass teenagers and opinionated anti- American idiots that think Communism isn't that bad. More specifically I have read so many articles about all of these Hollywood stars meeting with Castro and having nothing but praise for him. Even Former Pres. Jimmy Carter met with him...a KILLER and brutal leader. Here are some interesting quotes from an article...


Castro seeks out Robert Redford
Mon January 26, 2004 02:12 PM ET

HAVANA (*******) - Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has charmed some of Hollywood's biggest names, has paid a call on actor Robert Redford at his Havana hotel and discussed his latest film, on revolutionary icon Che Guevara.
Redford was in Cuba over the weekend wearing his producer's hat for a private screening of "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the widow and children of the legendary Argentine guerrilla fighter, who was Castro's comrade-in-arms.

"He came to me. ... He seemed in good health, good humour, good spirit," Redford said of the 77-year-old Cuban leader after their brief encounter at the Hotel Nacional on Monday.

Redford last saw Castro in 1988. The actor was said to have gone scuba-diving with the Cuban leader and was questioned by U.S. officials on his return to the United States.

In the 1990 film "Havana" Redford played a high-rolling American gambler during the final days of the Batista dictatorship, when Cuba was a mobster playground.

Castro has fascinated Hollywood stars. Jack Nicholson called him "a genius," Oliver Stone said he was "one of the Earth's wisest people" and Steven Spielberg said he spent "the eight most important hours of his life" with the Cuban leader.

"I came to present the film that I produced on Che Guevara and I am very happy to be in Cuba," Redford said at Sunday's screening of the film made by his company, Southfork Pictures.

The film, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, is based on the diaries Guevara wrote on a nine-month trip through South America on an ancient Norton motorcycle in 1952 when he was an asthmatic 23-year-old medical student.

Guevara's motorbike journey opened his eyes to poverty in Latin America and he later joined Castro in Mexico, where the Cuban leader was organising a landing party to launch a guerrilla movement in Cuba that triumphed in 1959.

Guevara was executed by army troops after his capture in 1967 in the Bolivian jungle, where he had tried to trigger another revolution.

"The film is excellent," Guevara's widow, Aleida, who provided the diaries to the film-makers, said after the screening, also attended by Guevara's son and two daughters.

"The Motorcycle Diaries" was filmed at locations in Argentina, Chile and Peru, with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal playing Che. The film received a standing ovation at its world premier at the Sundance Film Festival a week ago.


http://www.*******.co.uk/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=445963

[SeanAshi]

Liberals and Democrats trying to save the world, I'm suprised Bill Clinton hasn't made a trip there..yet, while Hillary stays home, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg missed a Lakers game?

[Shake n Bake]

Birds of a feather flock together, And so will commie pigs and swine.


I hate those elitists pricks

[hahaha]

If Castro is so bad how come he hasn't been overthrown ?

[DugOut]

Perhaps it's the novelty value. Here's this aging dictator who has outlived so many US Presidents, so many assasination attempts...

Well, Rumsfeld did make a cordial visit to Saddam Hussein once...

[Kilgor]

castro is harmless now, thats why he hasnt overthrown.

He had his 5 minutes of fame in the nuclear crisis.

If you really wannta read some garbage go to www.che-lives.com

the commie wankers talk like cuba is a social paradise ! :roll:

[scoone]

Castro is not harmless, perhaps for the ones living outside Cuba yes, but for those in the Island... :(

[mustamato]

If you really wannta read some garbage go to www.che-lives.com

the commie wankers talk like cuba is a social paradise ! :roll:

Maybe it would be if US didn´t have their illegal sanctions. And I guess it was a reaaaal paradise under Batista :roll:

[Seiyuuki]

If you really wannta read some garbage go to www.che-lives.com

the commie wankers talk like cuba is a social paradise ! :roll:

Maybe it would be if US didn´t have their illegal sanctions. And I guess it was a reaaaal paradise under Batista :roll:

Illegal since when?

[UkrainianAmerican]

I have a cuban friend who joined the US Army.
He tol dme he cant wait till he will be sent to Liberate Cuba, and accelerate Castro's aging process.

[scoone]

Friday, 10 October, 2003
US President George W Bush has announced fresh measures designed to hasten the end of communist rule in Cuba.
They include tightening an American travel embargo to the island, cracking down on illegal cash transfers, and a more robust information campaign aimed at Cuba.

Mr Bush said the punitive measures were being introduced because the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, had acted with "defiance and contempt and a new round of brutal oppression that outraged world conscience".

The speech - before members of the Cuban community at the White House - came as the 2004 election campaign gets under way.

Mr Bush's advisers know that fiercely anti-Castro Cuban exiles living in the key state of Florida might well be hugely important in determining whether the president holds on to power, says the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington.

His speech today will have secured some valuable votes, our correspondent says.

Robust enforcement

Mr Bush was speaking on the day Cuba celebrates the 1868 start of its quest for independence from Spain.

"The struggle for freedom continues," the US president said.

Mr Bush said the current Cuban regime, the only one-party communist government in the Americas, would never change its policies.


US-Cuba timeline
"The Castro regime will not change by its own choice - but Cuba must change," Mr Bush promised.

The new measures announced include:


Strictly enforcing an existing US law forbidding Americans from travelling to Cuba for pleasure.

Cracking down on illegal money transfers

Imposing controls of shipments to the island.

Aggressive campaign to inform Cubans of safer routes to reach the United States

Increasing the number of Cuban immigrants in the US.

More US radio, television, satellite and internet broadcasts to break the "information embargo" Mr Castro had imposed on his people.

Beyond the more immediate measures, the US president announced he was setting up a "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba" to plan for the day communism would collapse.
Headed by the US secretary of state and the head of the department of housing, the new body would look ahead to the end of the regime.

International pressure

Secretary of State Colin Powell has been trying to enlist other nations in efforts to bring democracy to Cuba - and Mr Bush said more were joining.

In June, Mr Powell urged foreign ministers from the Organisation of American States meeting in Chile to join the United States in promoting a peaceful transition in Cuba.

Mr Castro ridiculed the idea, saying his country had a transition in 1959.


Cubans would be informed of safer routes to the US
On Thursday, the head of Cuba's diplomatic mission in Washington said Mr Bush should "stop acting like a lawless cowboy" and "start listening to the voices of the nations of the world".

Analysts say the votes from the 400,000 Cuban-American community in Florida - a key state - could be crucial in the 2004 presidential election.

Mr Bush's relations with his supporters in Miami are said to have reached a low in July, when Washington returned 15 migrants to Cuba after receiving assurances they would not be executed for hijacking a boat.

The president's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, criticised the decision.

Earlier this year, the jailing of 75 dissidents by the Cuban authorities drew international condemnation.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3181048.stm

[Ichhabe]

I have a cuban friend who joined the US Army.
He tol dme he cant wait till he will be sent to Liberate Cuba, and accelerate Castro's aging process.

Don't ask him to hold his breath... rofl rofl rofl

[2Sheds_Jackson]

I lived in Miami for a number of years & had quite a few Cuban friends. They absolutely hate the man. Bear in mind that many people choose to simply flee the country rather than mount an armed resistance to Castro. Although you never see it in the national news, literally every day people float into Florida from Cuba. The law says that if they can make it to land (i.e. not be intercepted at sea) they can legally stay in the US.

50's era American cars are still all over Cuba, and are kept running by any way possible. Since the common man could never afford a new car, families do anything they can to keep what cars are available runing. One group took a 50's era Chevy pickup, roped a bunch of empty 50gal drums to it so it would float, welded a propeller to the drive shaft...and drove to FL. What a hoot.

There are massive number of Cubans in FL - many from the exodus when Castro took over, but also huge numbers of recent defectors. And the sad thing is that they'd all like to go home. But Castro has turned Cuba into a tragic experiment, straight out of Stalinist Russia. Neighbors inform on other neighbors, no speech against Castro is tolerated & the government owns everything. Giving Cuba anything (aid, food etc) won't benefit the people - it all goes to Castro.

Hollywood anti-establishment types love him. In their minds, they see a cartoonish grandfather character, who's only concern is "the people". They don't grasp the horrible reality of living as a common Cuban citizen (or should I say "comrade"). You notice that the Jimmy Carters & Robert Redfords of the world are staying in Havana at the finest hotel available? I'd suggest they go live and work at a farm collective, cutting sugarcane 12 hours a day in 100 degree heat. And it's not like those people can quit & become software programmers. That's their JOB - it's what they will do until told to do otherwise.

The Hollywood left consists of people who live in an artificially constructed world, shielded from life's realities. They can't be expected to behave rationally, as they live in an irrational world of wealth and privilege.

[Loco]

I´m not a leftist nor I´d like living under a dictatorship at Castro or Franco or anyother right/left dictatorship regime style , but I think stereotypes aren´t usefull for understanding something, only useful for cheap propaganda. Castro is a Dictator, but it´s not a Killer or a Stalinist or you don´t know what you´re talking about. Castro is the fruit of a country betrayed and mutilated in its territorial integrity in the moment of its birth, with a national pride under 0. Now Cuba is a dictatorship, but it´s a true sovereing country. I hope sooner than later Castro dies, peacefully, and Cubans can enjoy a pacific transition to a democracy and a fair free market economy, not simply a free market economy. It´s only the right and duty of cubans of doing their transition to democracy, other thing is talking nonsenses. I´ve been in Cuba once, in a beach resort, like thousands of spanish before, and I haven´t any remorse of visiting a communist hell, I could talk with tipical cubans you find in the street and they define themselves first over other thing as "cubans nationalists", not "revolutionaries" or "comunists". They are open, joking, kind but proud people, I don´t need to explain how they are to spanish because here we have many of them, pro-Castro and anti-Castro, and I´ve clear something: the typical cuban living in Cuba and being subtilely critic about Castro´s regime would beat any foreing being insulting towards cuban regime. They don´t need liberators, specially if liberators are foreing people.
About Castro legacy, I think he´ll be remembered like a revolutionary become a dictator who spent the chance of retiring 20 years ago leaving a country better than he found, now things have changed. And all in all, he´ll be remembered like a man who fought succesfully against colonialism, like G.Washington btw, in Africa and who made possible democracy, irony, in S.Africa defeating apartheid troops in the battlefield. Nelson Mandela recognized this thing.