Some
critics praised its epic style and passion, but it was
hard to find praise for its realistic and negative portrayal
of life in the early years of Castro's communist dictatorship.
I did discover one such review,
in the Philadephia Daily News, by Christine Flowers. She
says, "Andy Garcia refused to make the communists look
like the good guys."
Alluding
to the negative reviews, she wrote that "The reaction to
Garcia's film reminds me of how the chattering classes
lobbed grenades at [Mel] Gibson's 'Passion,' calling it
everything from anti-semitic to—surprise!— 'historically
inaccurate.'" Flowers says that "Andy Garcia tells some
uncomfortable truths about his homeland, and Hollywood
won't listen."
With
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez taking center stage as the most
anti-American ruler south of the border, the antics of
aging Cuban dictator Castro get far less attention these
days. His latest absurdity is to have called the U.S. airstrike
that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a "barbarity," saying
he should have been put on trial. Castro accused the U.S.
of acting as "judge and jury" against the al-Qaeda leader
in Iraq, who is blamed for thousands of deaths in Iraq. "They
bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness," Castro
said about the news in the U.S. of Zarqawi's demise. "This
barbarity cannot be done," said Castro. This is from the
same Castro who murders or imprisons his political opponents,
while almost one-tenth of the population of his Cuban island "paradise" has
fled.
Castro
is not only a killer, like Zarqawi, but a rich one. In
May, Forbes magazine reported that Castro is worth an estimated
$900 million. In an article titled "Fortunes
of Kings, Queens and Dictators," Forbes ranked Castro in
seventh place, and nearly twice as rich as Queen Elizabeth
II. He responded by saying that "All this makes me sick…Why
should I defend myself again this rubbish." While Forbes
acknowledges that its calculations for all of the leaders
are "more art than science," there appears to be solid
reasoning to support the finding.
Cuban-born
journalist Humberto Fontova has studied Castro closely
for many years, and believes Forbes to be only partly correct.
In a recent article he
wrote for Human Events, Fontova says Forbes lists only "the
tiny tip of the Castro-wealth iceberg." Castro has systematically
nationalized and seized countless businesses since he seized
power in 1959. Fontova describes how Castro ruthlessly
controls his population, and how he has manipulated many
Western journalists to treat him as the "Cuban Robin Hood," who
supposedly takes from the rich to give to the poor. What
Castro has really done is make all people poor-except for
himself and his close associates.
In an interview with
FrontPageMag, he described the nature and extent of Castro's
gulag, and the sympathetic treatment Castro has received
from many in Hollywood, Congress, and the media.
In terms
of Congress, the news got buried by the liberal press,
but the Center
for Public Integrity did a review of congressional
travel and raised enough questions about a Rep. Charlie
Rangel trip to Cuba to force the congressman to disclose
that the Castro regime helped pay for it. You can
see a copy of Rangel's check to the Cuban government, a
reimbursement for some of the costs, on the center's website. CRO
The America Show
