Forwarded by Hep Iangham: ``The juxtaposition of events like those in Washington and Miami should remain a cause for alarm even though it was part of a long tradition in American politics. Groups with a progressive reform agenda, like those commemorating `A16'--the rubric for the April 16-17 protests-by demonstrating in Washington, invite attack from the state, while reactionary forces such as the Miami Cuban community receive official sanction.''
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It's easy to consider this idea accurate, if you're on the left. But I think it is a wrong conclusion. The only reason the Miami scene could be drawn out by the protesters while the Feds, state, and local officials piddled around was because the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami have spend forty years intimidating the local, state, and federal government. So, they were given a wide latitude and indulged for as long as possible.
The lesson for the Left is to organize tight, vocal, intransigent and politically sensitive communities of interests and power. Then when the local, state, and federal government come to call, they will be given wide latitude and indulged endlessly the way the anti-Castro Cuban Americans were.
So, the conclusion I draw is the justice is delivered to those who intimated the government sufficiently to receive it.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to see Leftist use the same kind of fascist and thug tactics the Miami groups have used on their own community to enforce unanimity. Which, if you consider that for a moment, gives you some idea of what Cuba would have been like had these people been in power.
Chuck Grimes