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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; dictator</title>
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		<title>Our Oppressed Oppressors</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/our-oppressed-oppressors/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=our-oppressed-oppressors</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 May 2014 04:40:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dictator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minority]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oppressed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oprah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[victim]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225534</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some countries have dictators. America has victims.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/obamainfrastructure295.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-225535 alignleft" alt="obamainfrastructure295" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/obamainfrastructure295.jpg" width="295" height="200" /></a>Some countries have dictators, tyrants and kings. America has victims in high office. Victims with vast powers and great wealth who despite all that are oppressed by the peop</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">le they rule.</span></p>
<p>They are the oppressed oppressors.</p>
<p>Never has a ruling class been as oppressed as ours by an ignorant rabble that rudely abuses the army of benevolent public servants who see to their welfare in exchange for nothing except a feeling of moral satisfaction and a six-figure salary. Not to mention unlimited power.</p>
<p>&#8220;They talk about me like a dog,&#8221; Obama complained. &#8220;Is it a lack of respect for me?&#8221; he whined to the Secretary of Defense.</p>
<p>When Obama isn&#8217;t complaining, the media outlets of the ruling class do it for him.</p>
<p>The media has worked its iPads off alerting us to the perpetual victimization of the Obamas. From <i>NBC</i> to <i>NPR</i>, from <i>CNN</i> to <i>CBS</i>, from the <i>New York Times</i> to the <i>Washington Post</i>, the billion dollar corporations have spoken in one voice and they have said that criticizing the most powerful man in the world is racist. And they have told us that our ingratitude depresses him.</p>
<p>&#8220;The world seems to disappoint him,&#8221; David Remnick said. Remnick deftly balances the responsibilities of promoting Obama as editor of the <i>New Yorker</i> (Advance Publications &#8211; $6.56 billion) and promoting Obama as author of &#8220;<i>The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama</i>” (Bertelsmann &#8211; $22 billion).</p>
<p>Michelle Obama described the White House as a &#8220;nice prison&#8221; and compared her plight to that of a military wife. And who can blame her? One day the Obamas are just barely making do with a 1,701 person staff and then the sequester, that Obama proposed, kicks in and their staff is cut to a miserly 436.</p>
<p>The 16 assistants who help Michelle Obama perform her important duties of giving speeches and booking NBC sitcom appearances were cut so drastically that she was unable to even Tweet. Of the 90 people who clean up the family quarters of the power couple, only 15 remained.</p>
<p>And that went on for days.</p>
<p>Oprah Winfrey ($2.9 billion) said that Obama was the victim of racism. As proof she pointed to Congressman Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar&#8230; while Obama was lying. The interview was part of her promotional tour for The Butler ($176 million) which was also based on a series of lies.</p>
<p>It would take a racist to point out that the most powerful man in the world and one of the wealthiest women in the country were lying. Our oppressed ruling class deserves better than to have its political lies questioned and we should check our privilege for even considering it.</p>
<p>Oprah Winfrey went on to suggest that the only solution to racism was for &#8220;generations of people, older people&#8221; to just &#8220;die.&#8221; Sterling, who has a billion less than her, lost his team for much less than proposing age-based racial genocide. But Oprah, who says worse things in public interviews than Sterling said in private, has proposed buying his team.</p>
<p>Wealth redistribution isn’t for the poor. It&#8217;s for the poor billionaire member of the ruling class who coincidentally experiences a racist incident involving a European luxury goods store whenever she has a new movie to promote.</p>
<p>Our ruling class is being oppressed by those lower down on the ladder. Their pain emerges as heartfelt pleas for genocide and outrage over being held accountable for abusing their power.</p>
<p>Attorney General Eric Holder, who had gotten away with shipping guns to drug lords in Mexico, propping up racist voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party, getting involved in presidential pardons for cash, targeting reporters and making up his own laws, demanded of the audience at Al Sharpton&#8217;s political conference, &#8220;What Attorney General has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? What President has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?&#8221;</p>
<p>Who can fail to sympathize with the most powerful men in the country demanding to know when anyone had ever been as oppressed as them by an occasional request for accountability?</p>
<p>The oppression of our ruling class knows no limits. After berating Holder for, again, refusing to provide documents linking Muslim groups close to his boss to Islamic terrorists, Congress (salary $174,000) dragged in Lois Lerner (salary $185,000), the IRS official in charge of suppressing populist threats to the victimized ruling class, and held her in contempt.</p>
<p>Fortunately the ruling class had made it all but impossible to fire or prosecute Lerner.</p>
<p>The oppression marches on with the investigation of Benghazi. Before the Obamas were oppressed by the privilege of being the most powerful people in the world, the Clintons were stuck in that same plight.</p>
<p>Twice.</p>
<p>Now Hillary Clinton is being persecuted for nothing more than championing a disastrous war in Libya that led to the rise of Al Qaeda and the murder of an ambassador due to a lack of basic security while her underlings were spending millions on art and mansion renovations.</p>
<p>After lying, blaming a video, and locking up the filmmaker, she courageously demanded to know, &#8220;What difference at this point does it make?&#8221;</p>
<p>Our oppressed ruling class must still deal with whining from the families of those they kill or lock up for inappropriate speech. If America were more like China, a wish that Obama expressed a few years ago, he wouldn&#8217;t have to put up with it.</p>
<p>Neither would Hillary.</p>
<p>Our victimized ruling class and their living Constitution, which is slowly evolving to outlaw free speech and mandate universal diets, isn&#8217;t ready to reform this broken system which allows the rabble to upload YouTube videos that offend Muslims and demand investigations of public officials. It&#8217;ll take another decade of outraged social media mobs, of the ruling class and funded by the ruling class, blowing up random politically incorrect comments into a national crisis to set the stage for liberating our ruling class from being oppressed by free speech.</p>
<p>Meanwhile mustachioed strategist David Axelrod accused Republicans of using Benghazi to bully Hillary Clinton out of being crowned as the most powerful person in the world.</p>
<p>How does one bully the wife of the formerly most powerful man in the world ($55 million) who has, despite the lack of a single tangible accomplishment, already been declared the inevitable nominee and winner of the next presidential election by <i>Time</i> and the<i> New York Times</i>?</p>
<p><i>Time</i>&#8216;s cover, which showed a tiny candidate clinging to the heel of a gigantic Hillary, and the<i> New York Times </i>cover, which depicted Hillary as an entire planet, might be considered bullying other candidates out of the race. But if Hillary bullies, it&#8217;s because she&#8217;s a victim. If the rabble criticizes her, then she&#8217;s twice the victim that she was before and entitled to bully twice as much.</p>
<p>The same goes for Obama and the rest of our victimized ruling class.</p>
<p>Some might call it the cynical abuse of power by a corrupt ruling class, but it&#8217;s just a case of the victims resisting the democratic oppression of the majority with its tendency to vote against the aggressive taxation and sexual peccadilloes that the ruling class feels that it is entitled to.</p>
<p>One day our oppressed ruling class will tire of our oppression and casting off its shackles will rise up against us. It will liberate itself of the last of our laws and enslave us so that our eternally oppressed oppressors may finally be free to do to us whatever they will.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Mariah Carey Gives Her All to Angolan Dictator</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/mariah-carey-gives-her-all-to-angolan-dictator/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mariah-carey-gives-her-all-to-angolan-dictator</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/mariah-carey-gives-her-all-to-angolan-dictator/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Dec 2013 05:20:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Angola]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dictator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mariah Carey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[performs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213999</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All the songstress wanted for Christmas was a million dollars from yet another tyrant. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mh.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214024" alt="mh" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mh-450x280.jpg" width="315" height="196" /></a>Millions love her music, look up to her, indeed worship her not only as a musical artist but as an exemplary human being. But on December 15, in return for a hefty payout, Mariah Carey held two performances in Angola that were – as the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) <a href="http://humanrightsfoundation.org/news/mariah-carey-celebrates-angolas-dictator-his-family-and-their-ill-gotten-wealth-00333">revealed</a> four days later in a press release – sponsored by a “father-daughter kleptocracy that has amassed billions in ill-gotten wealth while the majority of Angola lives on less than $2 a day.”</p>
<p>One of the two performances was at a gala that was billed as a Red Cross fundraiser; the other, at a stadium concert sponsored by Unitel, a mobile phone company. In fact, as it happens, both the Angolan Red Cross and Unitel are run by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angolan dictator José Eduardo dos Santos, “one of Africa’s chief human rights violators and most corrupt tyrants,” according to HRF director Thor Halvorssen. Dos Santos has executed political opponents, journalists, and activists; his daughter – thanks largely, critics say, to his government&#8217;s sky-high level of corruption – is their country&#8217;s only billionaire and Africa&#8217;s richest woman. “In their brutal three-decade rule,” charges HRF, “the dos Santos family has exploited oil and diamond wealth to build total control over all branches of the government, the military, and the courts.”</p>
<p>As I say, the Red Cross event was supposedly a fundraiser. It raised $65,000. The reported price tag for Carey&#8217;s performance: $1 million. Some fundraiser! During her visit, Carey posed for pictures with both the dictator and his daughter. “I am happy to be here in this room,” she said, “and I am honoured to share this show with the President of Angola.”</p>
<p>This wasn&#8217;t Carey&#8217;s first such disgrace. In 2008, she accepted a million bucks for entertaining the family of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. When that gig was exposed three years later, she begged for the public&#8217;s forgiveness, maintaining that she&#8217;d been unaware who her hosts were and assuring her fans that she&#8217;d learned a lesson: “We need to be more aware and take more responsibility&#8230;.Ultimately, we as artists are to be held accountable.”</p>
<p>This time, however, there was no apology – far from it. In a phone conversation with Halvorssen, Carey’s manager, Jermaine Dupri (who&#8217;s also a singer-songwriter) was defiant, arrogantly dismissing HRF&#8217;s concerns. Carey has “no interest” in human rights, Dupri asserted. “She’s not involved in human rights matters&#8230;.She is not sorry.” Later, <a href="http://pagesix.com/2013/12/20/mariah-carey-manager-were-not-sorry-for-angola-show/">confronted</a> with these remarks by a <i>New York Post </i>reporter, Dupri denied having made them and accused Halvorssen of “trying to twist my words and make it seem like I don’t give a fuck about nothing.” But when the <i>Post </i>inquired whether Carey was “remorseful for performing for another dictator” after the Qaddafi embarrassment, Dupri “spat back &#8216;Why should she be?&#8217;” And when asked why Carey had accepted the Angolan paycheck after promising not to entertain another dictator, Dupri said: “I wasn’t around when that happened, and I can’t speak on that situation.”</p>
<p>What makes all this especially unsavory is that both Carey and Dupri have lustrous reputations as human-rights heroes. In 2008, the ACLU presented Dupri with its Bill of Rights Award. (The co-winner that year was Magic Johnson; other laureates have included Harry Belafonte and Oliver Stone.) What had Dupri done to deserve this honor? In addition to serving on the board of something called the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, he&#8217;d “worked to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws, benefit the Hurricane Relief Fund and been a significant voice on the &#8216;Rap the Vote&#8217; campaign.”</p>
<p>As for Carey, the <i>Post </i>noted that she “has promoted herself as a human rights advocate and has appeared at events for organizations like the UNICEF.” She&#8217;s also taken part in benefits for various charities, and donated the proceeds of a couple of recordings to worthy causes. Indeed, as I write this, Carey&#8217;s Wikipedia bio identifies her as “an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and philanthropist.”</p>
<p>But given Carey&#8217;s big Angolan payday, and Dupri&#8217;s brisk dismissal of queries about it, it&#8217;s hard to see either of these artists&#8217; supposedly philanthropic activities as anything but image-making – part of a calculated effort to polish their brands and enhance their bottom lines. This, alas, is precisely what some of our most vaunted celebrity “philanthropists” and “human-rights heroes” really are nowadays – people who do good deeds to get good press, and then do bad things to get big checks. HRF has done a fine job of monitoring and exposing these hypocrites, among them Kanye West ($3 million last summer from the president of Kazakhstan), Jennifer Lopez ($1.4 million in June from the president of Turkmenistan), and Hilary Swank ($1.5 million in 2011 from the president of Chechenya).</p>
<p>Why, one might ask, are Third World despots so eager to write such big checks to these stars? Is dos Santos really that desperate to meet Mariah Carey? I doubt it. What he&#8217;s buying is her name – and, more to the point, her reputation. What makes a celeb like Carey so valuable to a tyrant like dos Santos is that she has untold millions of fans who not only admire her work but worship her as a human being and follow her every move on social-networking sites like Twitter. This is what these autocrats are buying: the chance to bask in the glow of stars who are products of first-rate PR, in the hope that some measure of those celebrities&#8217; benign images will rub off on them. And Carey has got to know this. She&#8217;s got to know that when she auctions herself off to a man like dos Santos, she&#8217;s taking money he&#8217;s bled from his subjects in exchange for a cut of the good will she&#8217;s won from her fans. In doing so, she&#8217;s betraying those fans – and spitting on every poor soul that dos Santos has ever exploited, tortured, or murdered.</p>
<p>It won&#8217;t wash to argue that someone like Carey is an innocent victim of her own celebrity. Plenty of other famous folk take the time to notice the world around them and use their fame to help others, making ample, and real, gifts of their time and of themselves. (<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/one-war-heros-humiliation-at-the-hands-of-delta-airlines/">Gary Sinise</a> comes to mind.) No, the showbiz VIPs who end up in moral bubbles do so because they&#8217;ve chosen to. Offered the option of leaving the shore of reality far behind, they grasp it, setting sail on an ocean of PR, their images buoyed by waves of flattering promotional copy. Give a benefit concert now and then, and Wikipedia will call you a philanthropist.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t around when that happened, and I can’t speak on that situation”: Dupri&#8217;s answer to the <i>Post</i>&#8216;s question about Qaddafi only points up that in these matters, Carey is now, and was then, merely her handlers&#8217; instrument. Whoever was running her career at the time of the Qaddafi debacle decided that a groveling apology was the way to go; Dupri has a different management philosophy. Which is to say that Carey&#8217;s heartfelt-sounding Qaddafi <i>mea culpa </i>was pure PR, dictated by some publicist. And now?</p>
<p>One has the impression that she&#8217;s sailed so far out on that ocean of PR that she no longer stands for anything – that she has no concept of individual moral responsibility, and doesn&#8217;t even feel any compulsion to try to provide an ethical rationale for her actions. At this point, her entire relationship with the outside world is carefully engineered by her “people” – who, presumably, accepted the Angola offer after cynically calculating that the criticism, if any, would evaporate quickly.</p>
<p>And they seem to have calculated correctly. HRF press-released Carey&#8217;s Angola jobs on December 19, and you&#8217;d think it was months ago: in the last few days Carey has been all over the international news media, and virtually none of the coverage has even mentioned Angola. No, the stories have been about such earthshaking topics as her <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/12/24/mariah-carey-christmas-music-playlist/">favorite</a> Christmas songs, her <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/12/24/mariah-carey-christmas-music-playlist/">fashion</a> sense, the <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/technology/businessinsider/article/The-True-Story-Behind-Mariah-Carey-s-All-I-Want-5092879.php">making</a> of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” how Carey got her <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/mariah-carey-gets-her-christmas-wish-fulfilled-got-our-wish-for-snow">wish</a> this year for a white Christmas in Aspen, and how she <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/mariah-carey-wears-tiny-red-bikini-walk-dog-aspen-article-1.1555759">walked</a> her dog in Aspen the other day while wearing a bikini. And, last but not least, her “biggest career regret.” No, not the concerts for Qaddafi and dos Santos. “[U]nsurprisingly,” <a href="http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/mariah-carey/398034-mariah-carey-reveals-biggest-career-regret">reported</a> MTV News, Carey&#8217;s “biggest career regret” is “her widely-panned 2001 movie <i>Glitter.</i>”</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		</item>
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		<title>Preserve Your Dictator! (An Infomercial)</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Oleg Atbashian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coffin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dictator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hugo Chavez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182138</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The loss of a tyrant leaves a tremendous hole in our lives -- DictatorSaver is here to help. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dictator_saver_fist/" rel="attachment wp-att-182141"><img class=" wp-image-182141 alignleft" title="Dictator_Saver_Fist" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dictator_Saver_Fist.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="279" /></a>Dictators &#8211; be they of the left, center-left, or centrist variety &#8211; are <a href="http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/atlas-obscura-s-guide-to-communist-mummies" target="_blank">a very important part of everyone&#8217;s lives</a>. They unconditionally share with us other people&#8217;s wealth even when we don&#8217;t ask for it &#8211; and all they want in return is our approval and total compliance. Whether we are at home, at work, or relaxing with friends, our beloved dictator is always kindly watching our every step, protecting us from our own bad choices and unhealthy urges.</p>
<p>But there inevitably comes a time to say &#8220;good-bye.&#8221; The loss of a tyrant leaves a tremendous hole in our lives and the grief can be overwhelming. After the shock wears off, we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with the remains. Many heart-broken subjects can&#8217;t stand the thought of having dear leader cremated or buried like a mere human.</p>
<p>Thankfully, today&#8217;s technology gives us several comforting alternatives, ranging from vacuum sealing to freeze-dry preservation. Although they are no longer living, despots can perpetually remain in our presence, and can even be displayed to groups of awestruck school children or added to the bus tour circuit for hard-currency foreign visitors.</p>
<p>If your favorite dictator has passed on to the &#8220;Rainbow Bridge to Utopia,&#8221; or you are preparing for his untimely death in advance, you may want to consider these options.</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dictator2/" rel="attachment wp-att-182143"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182143" title="dictator2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dictator2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>Vacuum sealing is relatively inexpensive and can be performed in any presidential palace setting. Modern wonders, such as the DictatorSaver 2000 Vacuum Sealer, which can preserve up to twelve dear leaders in rapid succession in case of multiple consecutive coups d&#8217;etat, has the speed, affordability, and ease of operation that makes it a favorite for many developing countries.</p>
<p>However, if your leader had been trying to save your struggling economy for over a decade and is worth over a billion dollars as a result, you may want to go with a more expensive freeze-drying option. The most reliable freeze-drying dictator-preserving provider is Perpetual Dictator Inc., a socially conscious company with branches in many humanitarian disaster areas designated for Western aid by the United Nations.</p>
<p>&#8220;At Perpetual Dictator, we know that the loss of a dearly loved national leader can be a difficult experience,&#8221; says CEO Vladlen Marlenov. &#8220;Through the use of new techniques in freeze-dry technology, we can offer a &#8216;Loving and Lasting&#8217; alternative to vacuum sealing or traditional taxidermy and mummification. It allows us to preserve any deceased leader, regardless of the cause of death, without any alteration in appearance and in any position &#8211; from a peaceful repose to giving a passionate speech to waving a saber on top of a freeze-dried stallion.&#8221;</p>
<p>Experienced professionals at Perpetual Dictator can create a durable memorial that preserves your favorite authoritarian in a natural state for generations to come, allowing the forlorn subjects to see, touch, and cuddle their tyrants &#8211; and, in a sense, &#8220;never have to let go.&#8221; Best of all, your dictator gets to keep his or her actual, physical body. This is in sharp contrast to the conventional method of taxidermy, in which only the outer hide of the dictator typically remains, attached to a plastic form or other type of artificial mounting.</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/preserve-your-dictator-an-infomercial/dict3-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-182145"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182145" title="dict3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dict3.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="351" /></a></p>
<p>Growing up in a totalitarian dictatorship in one of the former provinces of the Soviet Union, Vladlen Marlenov learned early on not to get too attached to the country&#8217;s elderly leaders, who were prone to dying with predictable regularity.</p>
<p>His devoted customers are a different story. Autocracy lovers the world over count on Perpetual Dictator to faithfully preserve Kim, Hugo, and other beloved leaders for posterity, even if it means taking millions of dollars out of their depleted budgets.</p>
<p>This is where generous humanitarian aid comes in, provided by Western democracies out of sentimental nostalgia for a caring philosopher-king who can legislate the common good by executive order and redistribute national wealth to the masses despite the opposition from the obstructionist, filibustering reactionaries.</p>
<p>&#8220;Money is not an issue when so many poor people are devastated by the death of their dictator,&#8221; says Marlenov. &#8220;For most of them, tyranny is a way of life. This may seem a little eccentric, but preserving a dictator&#8217;s body helps them to feel better about living in squalor and misery.&#8221;</p>
<p>Marlenov&#8217;s studio is a testament to the devotion of the struggling masses to their leaders. Lifelike dictators of all sizes and colors are scattered throughout his showroom: a brooding South American general with a stuffed parrot nailed to his shoulder; a spirited African prince with a big frozen smile, a snarling Asian nationalist, and a smattering of heads of state from the former Soviet republics. Departed dictators of all persuasions spend up to one year in freeze-dry metal drums before they are painstakingly preserved and returned to their doting subjects.</p>
<p>The company also builds supersized mausoleums to customer specifications. The adjacent showroom contains a display of hand-painted papier-mâché models, from the historic Lenin Mausoleum and Chairman Mao Memorial Hall to more affordable Third-World resting places.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Lenin Mausoleum is a classic prototype and an all-time favorite,&#8221; admits Marlenov. &#8220;If you&#8217;ve got enough Western aid and want to go crazy, we can even build Red Square around it, complete with the State GUM and cobblestone pavement. And if you also order the Kremlin wall with the towers, we&#8217;ll throw in free decorative snowdrifts made of durable Styrofoam for those in tropical climates.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;If you think freeze-dry preservation of your dictator is for you, please give us a call. You&#8217;ll be treated with respect and dignity you deserve.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Without PR Firms, Could Mideast Dictators Remain in Power?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/without-pr-firms-could-mideast-dictators-remain-in-power/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=without-pr-firms-could-mideast-dictators-remain-in-power</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2012 04:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bahrain]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[kill]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=143528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Millions spent to cover up mass brutality. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Getty_020812_Syria.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-143573" title="Getty_020812_Syria" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Getty_020812_Syria.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a>Certain Arab rulers of despotic nations are masters of propaganda – spending time on style over substance as working with media and PR agencies allows them the strength (and cover) to remain in power. These brutal dictators kill, oppress and ignore civil rights – but they spend millions charming (and spinning) the media while utilizing many of the world’s leading PR firms to assist them in their despotic ways. The media and public relations communities should examine their roles as accomplices to this wanton violence.</p>
<p>This fall, there are two specific nations who are utilizing significant public relations operations to benefit their dictatorships. At <a href="http://www.bahrainwatch.org/">www.bahrainwatch.org</a> one learns that the government of Bahrain has spent $32 million on US and UK PR agencies since the start of protests in Bahrain in February 2011. During that time period, at least 60 people have been killed by government security forces, and the government is regularly described as one of the world’s most brutal regimes.</p>
<p>Owning <a href="http://ronntorossian.com/tag/5wpr">5WPR</a>, a leading PR firm, I know first-hand that firms like Bell Pottinger, Hill &amp; Knowlton &amp; Qorvis, who are working for Bahrain, have significant impact upon media coverage and are effective. A good <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/practice/crisisprfirm.cfm">crisis PR agency</a> can shape what media reports, and how.  There’s a reason they get the big bucks. This week, CNN is under criticism for refusing to air a documentary, &#8220;iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring,&#8221; which it had commissioned and produced that featured footage of government forces shooting unarmed protesters.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, largely unreported, police brutality continues, as police fired tear gas and stun grenades at dozens of anti-government protesters who defied a ban on unauthorized demonstrations. $32 million spent in the last 18 months on public relations is a huge amount, sure to influence media coverage, and hence world opinion.</p>
<p>Syria is another nation which has spent heavily while killing its citizens – and the story isn’t headline news as it should be daily. As has been previously reported, NY <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/">PR firm</a> Brown Lloyd James has worked with Syria extensively to help Assad get away with murder (as they did with Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi.)</p>
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		<title>A &#8216;Dictator&#8217; Mocks America’s Enemies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-tapson/a-dictator-mocks-america%e2%80%99s-enemies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-dictator-mocks-america%25e2%2580%2599s-enemies</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:16:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=124142</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sacha Baron Cohen: A Hollywood star.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sacha.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-124147" title="sacha" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sacha.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>Overlooked among the nominees at the 84<sup>th</sup> annual Oscars last weekend was a rather riveting drama called <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270262/"><em>The Devil’s Double</em></a>, starring Dominic Cooper in a brutal tale based on the true story of a man forced to serve as the body double for <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1344">Saddam Hussein</a>’s monstrous son Uday. It stood out among the normally politically correct entertainment industry fare as unique in its condemnation of the sadistic Arab dictator and his even more perverse son. But Dominic Cooper isn’t exactly a household name and the film didn’t exactly set the box office on fire.</p>
<p>Along comes Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, however, who is much more well-known thanks to his publicity antics and his 2006 prankster hit <em>Borat</em>, which raked in upwards of $260 million worldwide. Cohen has co-written and starred in the upcoming comedy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645170/"><em>The Dictator</em></a>, Paramount’s “heroic story of a Middle Eastern dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy never comes to the country he so lovingly oppressed.”</p>
<p>Cohen has clearly modeled The Dictator on a satirical amalgam of such evil icons as Saddam and recently deposed Libyan lunatic <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2092">Muammar Qadhafi</a>, right down to the latter’s female bodyguards. Not since the outrageous comedy <em>Team America: World Police</em> by the fearless <em>South Park</em> satirists has a film promised to boldly go where no one else in Hollywood dares – the usually taboo criticism of America’s totalitarian enemies.</p>
<p>Not a subject for laughter, you say? Fair enough, but comedy can have an impact that drama cannot. Writers through the ages have successfully employed satire and farce to empower their audiences to confront ugly realities of power, politics, and war. With drama, the entertainment industry has had mixed success at best coming to grips with the threat of, for example, Islamic terrorism; Hollywood tends to infuse such movies with predictable anti-Americanism, heavy-handed leftist preaching, and moral equivalence that drive away audiences in droves. But comedy, handled correctly, can open up an accessible perspective – and a broader audience – on normally grim contemporary topics.</p>
<p>Last week the iconoclastic Cohen ran afoul of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts &amp; Sciences, which pulled his tickets to the Academy Awards show because he intended to walk the red carpet as the title character Shabazz Aladeen from <em>The Dictator</em>. Purists felt, oddly, that the Oscars is no place for blatant self-promotion which might demean Hollywood’s most pompous – er, <em>prestigious</em> event:  “The red carpet is not about stunting,” an Academy spokesperson maintained.</p>
<p>In response to the ban, Cohen released <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/sacha-baron-cohens-dictator-oscars_n_1298895.html">this hilarious video response</a>, delivered in character as the Dictator. In it, His Excellency Admiral General Aladeen greets “the Great Satan of America” and expresses his outrage at having been banned from the Oscars by “the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Zionists.” Although he “applauds the Academy for taking away my free speech,” he threatens “unimaginable consequences” if he doesn’t get his invitation back. He is also upset that films from his country of are not represented among the nominees:</p>
<blockquote><p>Where are the nominations for such classic films as <em>When Harry Kidnapped Sally</em>, <em>You’ve Got Mail-Bomb</em>, and <em>Planet of the Rapes</em>?</p></blockquote>
<p>After complaining that his Sunday calendar “is now as empty as a North Korean grocery store,” His Excellency closes the video response by wishing, “Death to the West! Death to America! And good luck [Oscars host] Billy Crystals [sic] – you’re fantastic!”</p>
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		<title>Pol Pot: The Communist Monster Who Turned Cambodia into a Gulag</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/pol-pot-the-communist-monster-who-turned-cambodia-into-a-gulag/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pol-pot-the-communist-monster-who-turned-cambodia-into-a-gulag</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/pol-pot-the-communist-monster-who-turned-cambodia-into-a-gulag/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:27:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[DTN Profiles]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47735</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party that ruled Cambodia from 1976-1979. &#8220;Khmer Rouge&#8221; (or Khmer Reds) was the French rendering of the organization&#8217;s official name: the &#8220;Communist Party of Cambodia.&#8221; Inspired by what he had witnessed during a trip to Mao Zedong&#8217;s China, Pol Pot envisioned an agrarian Communist utopia [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-47738" title="Pol Pot" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pol-Pot-1024x699.jpg" alt="Pol Pot" width="403" height="275" /></p>
<p>Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party that ruled Cambodia from 1976-1979. &#8220;Khmer Rouge&#8221; (or Khmer Reds) was the French rendering of the organization&#8217;s official name: the &#8220;Communist Party of Cambodia.&#8221; Inspired by what he had witnessed during a trip to Mao Zedong&#8217;s China, Pol Pot envisioned an agrarian Communist utopia where the very lifeblood of his nation could be poured entirely into agricultural projects of the grandest scale; this vision would prove to be the inspiration for the notorious &#8220;killing fields,&#8221; where many hundreds of thousands of slave laborers perished under the most oppressive conditions imaginable. <strong><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1998">To learn the full story of this brutal dictator, click here.</a></strong></p>
<p>pp</p>
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		<title>Hillary Goes Weak-Kneed on Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/hillary-goes-weak-kneed-on-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hillary-goes-weak-kneed-on-iran</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/hillary-goes-weak-kneed-on-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:12:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46625</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The impotence of sanctions not going for the jugular is obvious.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46630" title="hillary-clinton-46_1201962c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hillary-clinton-46_1201962c.gif" alt="hillary-clinton-46_1201962c" width="450" height="282" /></p>
<p>A squishy, misguided, weak-kneed liberalism has emerged in Hillary Clinton&#8217;s comments about the kind of sanctions that would work best in halting Iran&#8217;s nuclear program. Rather than take the one step that would really be effective — cutting off the flow of refined gasoline to Iran — she instead insists that we need to target the Iranian leadership with sanctions.</p>
<p>Her husband wisely rejected the same kind of advice in deciding on the sanctions to impose on Serbia during the Bosnia war, opting for broad-based economic sanctions to deter aggression. The sanctions were incredibly effective, and the mere threat of their re-imposition in 1996 was enough to bring Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to his knees.</p>
<p>But now Hillary says sanctions must target Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard &#8220;without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary (Iranians), who deserve better than what they currently are receiving.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the impotence of sanctions that do not go for the jugular is obvious, and the abysmal record of targeted sanctions aimed at Iranian leaders is enough to discredit the entire process. However, sanctions can be effective — immediately — if they strike at a nation&#8217;s most vulnerable point.</p>
<p>The House of Representatives approved a resolution at the end of December that imposed sanctions against Iran, banning any company from doing business in the United States if it supplied oil products to Iran. Co-sponsored and pushed by Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk (who deserves support in his bid for a Senate seat), the measure has real teeth and is now pending before the Senate.</p>
<p>Hillary&#8217;s comment about avoiding sanctions that &#8220;contribute to the suffering&#8221; of the people of Iran can only be interpreted as a push-back against the sanctions that have passed the House.</p>
<p>This kind of weakness, on which criminal regimes like Iran&#8217;s thrive, is just the kind of impotence that liberal governments display.</p>
<p>From Munich to today, leaders have found it difficult to wage war against those who threaten world peace or even to impose serious sanctions against them. The argument is always the same: It will hurt ordinary people.</p>
<p>Well, so will atomic bombs.</p>
<p>Unless we inflict enough damage on Iran to force it to stop its weapons program, we are leaving Israel exposed and vulnerable to almost certain destruction.</p>
<p>Iran, despite having the second-largest deposits of oil in the world, lacks refining capacity and must import 40 percent of its gasoline. The threat of a cutoff is the ultimate weapon, short of force, to be used in compelling Iran to abide by the resolutions of the international community and refrain from producing nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Hillary&#8217;s comment can only have brought a sigh of relief to the lips of the Iranian mullahs. It sends the clear signal that the Obama administration lacks the toughness to impose real sanctions and its disapproval can be safely disregarded in Tehran.</p>
<p>If gasoline imports were curtailed, the &#8220;ordinary&#8221; Iranians would blame their own government. They know that Iran has been isolated from the world by its own government, and surveys show this cutoff rankles the population mightily. They are very worried about getting the cold shoulder from the rest of the world and worry about the consequences for their already blighted and fragile economy.</p>
<p>A gasoline shortage can only stoke the fires of rebellion so brilliantly flaring forth on Iranian streets and can only bolster the courage of those who brave gunfire and police clubs to express their demands for liberty.</p>
<p>Hillary: Don&#8217;t go squishy on us now!</p>
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		<title>Same Old Cuba – by Humberto Fontova</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/humberto-fontova/same-old-cuba-%e2%80%93-by-humberto-fontova/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=same-old-cuba-%25e2%2580%2593-by-humberto-fontova</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:08:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Raul Castro’s rule may be even more repressive than Fidel’s.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45223" title="raul-speech2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/raul-speech2.jpg" alt="raul-speech2" width="450" height="320" /></p>
<p>When Fidel Castro’s brother Raul assumed the reigns of power from Cuba’s ailing dictator nearly two years ago, hopes ran high that the transition would usher in a new era of political reform inside the communist country. But <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/1405416.html">recent reports</a> suggest that so far from improving the lot of the Cuban people, Raul’s government has introduced new forms of repression and corruption. As the new year begins, Cuba is facing its <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/1405416.html">worst economic crisis in 20 years</a>, even as political repression persists and the promised “structural” reforms have never materialized. For most Cubans, another difficult year looms.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best guide to understanding what has happened in Cuba since Raul’s takeover, and what lies ahead, comes from a November report from Human Rights Watch. Titled “<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86554">New Castro, Same Cuba</a>,” the 123-page report examines the conditions inside Cuba since Raúl Castro took power.</p>
<p>The report was difficult to produce. The Cuban regime, though it sat for years on the U.N.&#8217;s “Human Rights Commission,” prohibits any human rights agency, including HRW and even the International Red Cross, from visiting any of Cuba&#8217;s 200 plus prisons (under the Batista government deposed by Fidel Castro, Cuba had 12 prisons). So the HRW&#8217;s Nik Steinberg visited Cuba and conducted his study secretly, interviewing Cubans in 7 of the island&#8217;s 14 provinces. &#8220;We wanted to put on the table where Cuba stands on human rights,&#8221; he said in a recent <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1341025.html">interview</a> with the <em>Miami Herald</em>.</p>
<p>“In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed control of the Cuban government over to his brother Raúl Castro” summarizes the HRW report:</p>
<blockquote><p>“As the new head of state, Raúl Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions, as well as responsibility for hundreds of political prisoners arrested during his brother’s rule. Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms. Scores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons. Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active. ”</p></blockquote>
<p>Particularly alarming to Human Rights Watch is the “judicial process” employed by Raul&#8217;s regime for the continued repression. HRW reports:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Raúl Castro’s government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime. This &#8216;dangerousness&#8217; provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Cuban dissidents have corroborated accounts of this new repression. &#8220;The wave of repression we witnessed on Dec. 10th is the worst we&#8217;ve seen in this country in decades.&#8221; reported Elizardo Sanchez, President of the (dissident) Cuban Commission on Human Rights, this December. In a smuggled report, Cuban dissident González Leiva adds that during an attempted march commemorating “Universal Human Rights Day,” on December 19, hundreds of Cubans were arrested and beaten by regime goons.</p>
<p>The HRW report fully backs the findings of two polls conducted secretly in Cuba recently by dissident groups. One poll was by El Centro de Información sobre Democracia and the other by Alianza Nueva Nación. The groups interviewed 1000 Cubans in 9 of the nation&#8217;s 14 provinces and found that 70 percent not only report that their (precious few) freedoms have diminished under Raul, but that life in general has become harsher: there is less food available; more regime corruption; and more economic hardships in general.</p>
<p>It’s not just political freedom that has worsened under Raul rule. The economy has also suffered. In 2009&#8242;s Index of Economic Freedom, the Heritage Foundation had already found Cuba as more economically repressive under Raul than under Fidel. Under Raul&#8217;s rule, Cuba slipped down 1.1 notches to number 155, where it runs almost neck-and-neck with North Korea. For many Cuba watchers, the HRW report and the dissident appeals are no surprise.</p>
<p>If the HRW report has a weakness, it is that it fails to recognize that many of the repressive features now seen under Raul have existed in some form since it fell under communist control For instance, the Stalinist detention provision HRW sees employed in today&#8217;s Cuba in fact dates back almost half a century to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054">Che Guevara</a>&#8216;s stint as the “brains of the Cuban Revolution” (as Time magazine crowned him in a 1960 cover story). As Cuba&#8217;s chief prosecutor and executioner, Guevara had instructed his judicial subalterns that “judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. We execute from revolutionary conviction.” And indeed they did. &#8220;We send to Guanahacabibes people who have committed crimes against revolutionary norms,” explained Guevara. Guanahacabibes was a forced-labor camp in extreme western Cuba. “It is hard labor” said Guevara, “the working conditions are harsh.&#8221;</p>
<p>Likewise, the HRW report notes that “fear is a central part of the Cuban government&#8217;s strategy.” True enough, but again, this dates back not just to recent pre-Raul rule, but to the initial days of Castroism, half a century ago. “Terror is an essential political instrument,” instructed Che Guevara to his “revolutionary tribunals.” “Only hypocrites refuse to acknowledge this. We must establish the pedagogy of the<em> paredon</em> (firing squad)” Televised firing-squad executions were one element of this “pedagogy.” Even earlier, during the guerrilla skirmishing in Cuba&#8217;s Sierra Maestra, Che had written in his diaries, &#8220;Now comes a period when terror will be exercised against the peasants.”</p>
<p>A more serious error in the HRW report is its condemnation of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. This embargo has long been a talking point of the regime, distracting attention from its role in brutalizing the Cuban people and destroying the country’s economy. But when it comes to the “U.S. bloqueo,” the vast majority of Cubans part ways with Human Rights Watch. They know full well who runs Cuba, and how, and that that is the real reason for their persistent penury.</p>
<p>Cuba is a military dictatorship in the most genuine sense of the term. Raul Castro and his military cronies have been running Cuba for over a decade and doing quite well in the process. Of the nineteen members of Cuba&#8217;s politburo, nine are military men. This is more than the typical Soviet-bloc state had, or the Soviet Union itself. One Raul Castro crony, General Julio Casas Regueiro, does much of this running, controlling 300 different &#8220;companies&#8221; (state agencies often in partnership with foreign investors) in Cuba under a holding company named GAESA.</p>
<p>Another typical company is the Corporacion Gaviota, headed by Raul Military crony General Luis Perez Rospide. Gaviota started operating in 1990. The Cuban military&#8217;s Gaviota tourism group, is a corporate umbrella encompassing, Aerogaviota SA, (airlines) Almest SA Hoteles Gaviota,(hotels) Gaviota Tour, (bus touring company), Marinas Gaviota, (marinas), Tiendas Gaviota, (tourist souvenir stores, restaurants) Parques Naturales Gaviota, (national parks, museums). Thanks to this monopoly, the government and its allies prosper, while the Cuban people are no better off.</p>
<p>In a presentation on November 18 at a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee debating travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Simmons, a recently retired Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba specialist, explained the issue in detail. He showed how Raul Castro&#8217;s military owns virtually every corporation involved in Cuba&#8217;s tourism industry, the regime&#8217;s top money-maker.</p>
<p>The presentation also revealed something that goes a long way towards explaining the Raul Castro regime&#8217;s confident entrenchment. Last year Cuba enjoyed record tourism revenues: 2.35 million tourists leaving $2.7 billion in military-regime coffers, and precious little else due to the regime&#8217;s tourist apartheid, where Cubans (especially darker-skinned ones) are strictly segregated at billy-club and gun-point from tourist areas, except as waiters, maids, bellhops, shoe-shine boys, foot masseuses, etc.</p>
<p>With this tourist revenue windfall, ongoing for over a decade, Cuba&#8217;s ruling military robber barons are making a killing. Why would they voluntarily upset their own apple carts by democratizing the system and opening it to competitors? Given that they&#8217;re the only ones in Cuba with guns, who&#8217;s going to challenge them? On this question, neither the HRW, which misguidedly recommends an end to the U.S. travel ban, nor the legion of foreign experts on Cuba, can provide a clue. The more things change in Raul Castro’s Cuba, the more they remain the same.</p>
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		<title>Police, Protesters Clash at Iran&#8217;s Universities &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/police-protesters-clash-at-irans-universities-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=police-protesters-clash-at-irans-universities-wsj-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/police-protesters-clash-at-irans-universities-wsj-com/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:16:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40920</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Violence erupted at and around university campuses across Iran on Monday as demonstrators took to the streets during the regime-sanctioned Student Day, but used the occasion to press their months-long protest against the government. Students chanted &#8220;Death to the Dictator&#8221; and set fire to pictures of Iran&#8217;s Islamic leaders and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chanting anti-regime [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Violence erupted at and around university campuses across Iran on Monday as demonstrators took to the streets during the regime-sanctioned Student Day, but used the occasion to press their months-long protest against the government.</p>
<p>Students chanted &#8220;Death to the Dictator&#8221; and set fire to pictures of Iran&#8217;s Islamic leaders and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chanting anti-regime slogans, according to eyewitness accounts and videos posted on the Internet. Iranian officials temporarily revoked journalists&#8217; press cards, prohibiting them from covering the protests.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126017363181079769.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories">Police, Protesters Clash at Iran&#8217;s Universities &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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