SCREEN SHOTS OF HATTER'S ROOM APRIL 17 2020

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Andy Garcia's Thought Crime

[thanks to the Leatherneck.com website that preserved this article]

Andy Garcia's Thought Crime

Andy Garcia's Thought Crime
By Humberto Fontova
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 1, 2006

Andy Garcia blew it big-time with his movie The Lost City. He blew it with the mainstream critics that is. Almost unanimously, they're tearing apart a movie 16 years in the making, which Garcia both directed and stars in. In this engaging drama of a middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free Havana's last days, Garcia insisted on depicting some historical truth about Cuba -- a grotesque and unforgivable blunder in his industry. He's now paying the price.

Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen it. Now many Latin American countries refuse to show it. The film's offenses are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood.

"Where did Garcia get this preposterous notion of pre-Castro Cuba as a relatively prosperous but politically troubled place?" ask the critics. All the Cubans he portrays seem to come from the middle class. "Where in his movie is the tsunami of stooped and starving peasants that carried Fidel and Che into Havana on its crest?" they ask. "Where's all those diseased and illiterate laborers and peasants my professors, Dan Rather, CNN and Oliver Stone told me about?" ask the critics.

Garcia has seriously jolted the Mainstream Media's fantasies and hallucinations of pre-Castro Cuba, Che, Fidel, and Cubans in general. In consequence, the critics are unnerved and disoriented and their annoyance and scorn are spewing forth in review after review.

"In a movie about the Cuban revolution, we almost never see any of the working poor for whom the revolution was supposedly fought," sniffs Peter Reiner in The Christian Science Monitor. "The Lost City' misses historical complexity."

Actually what's missing is Mr. Reiner's historical knowledge. Andy Garcia and screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante knew full well that "the working poor" had no role in the stage of the Cuban Revolution shown in the movie. The Anti-Batista rebellion was led and staffed overwhelmingly by Cuba's middle -- and especially, upper -- class. In August of 1957 Castro's rebel movement called for a "National Strike" against the Batista dictatorship -- and threatened to shoot workers who reported to work. The "National Strike" was completely ignored. Another was called for April 9, 1958. And again Cuban workers ignored their "liberators," reporting to work en masse.

"Garcia's tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few," harrumphs Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice. "Poor people are absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason—or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about."

What's "absolutely absent" is Mr Atkinson's knowledge about the Cuba Garcia depicts in his movie. His crack about that "moneyed 1 per cent," and especially his "peasant revolution" epitomize the clichéd falsehoods still parroted about Cuba.

"The impoverished masses of Cubans who embraced Castro as a liberator appear only in grainy, black-and-white news clips," snorts Stephen Holden in The New York Times. "Political dialogue in the film is strictly of the junior high school variety."

"It fails to focus on the poverty-stricken workers whose plight lit the fires of revolution," complains Rex Reed in the New York Observer.

Here's a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba circa 1957 that dispels the fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba still cherished by America's most prestigious academics and its most learned film critics: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," it starts. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans are covered by Social legislation, a higher percentage then in the U.S."

In 1958 Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the 8th highest wages in the world. In the 1950's Cuban stevedores earned more per hour than their counterparts in New Orleans and San Francisco. Cuba had established an 8 hour work-day in 1933 -- five years before FDR's New Dealers got around to it. Add to this: one months paid vacation. The much-lauded (by liberals) Social-Democracies of Western Europe didn't manage this until 30 years later.

Cuba, a country 71% white in 1957, was completely desegregated 30 years before Rosa Parks was dragged off that Birmingham bus and handcuffed. In 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates per capita than the U.S.

The Anti-Batista rebellion (not revolution) was staffed and led overwhelmingly by college students and professionals. Here's the makeup of the "peasant revolution's" first cabinet, drawn from the leaders in the Anti-Batista fight: 7 lawyers, 2 University professors, 3 University students, 1 doctor, 1 engineer, 1 architect, 1 former city mayor and Colonel who defected from the Batista Army. A notoriously "bourgeois" bunch as Che himself might have put it.

By 1961, however, workers and campesinos (country folk) made up the overwhelming bulk of the anti-Castroite rebels, especially the guerrillas in the Escambray mountains. And boy, would THAT rebellion make for an action-packed and gut-wrenching movie. If by some miracle it ever got made you can bet these learned critics would pan it too. Whoever heard of poor country-folk fighting against their "benefactors" Fidel and Che?

The New York Times' Stephen Holden also sneers at Garcia's implication that "life sure was peachy before Fidel Castro came to town and ruined everything."

In fact, Mr Holden, before Castro "came to town," Cuba took in more immigrants (primarily from Europe) as a percentage of population than the U.S. And more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S. Furthermore, inner tubes were used in truck tires, oil drums for oil, and styrofoam for insulation. None were cherished black market items for use as flotation devices to flee the glorious liberation while fighting off Hammerheads and Tiger Sharks.

The learned Mr Holden is also annoyed by "buffoonish parodies of sour Communist apparatchiks barking orders." Apparently, Communist apparatchiks should be properly depicted as somewhat misguided social workers, or as slightly overzealous Howard Dean campaign staffers.

It's no "parody," Mr Holden, that the "apparatchiks" Garcia depicts in his movie incarcerated and executed a higher percentage of their countrymen in their first three months in power than Hitler and his apparatchiks jailed and executed in their first three years.

Andy Garcia shows it precisely right. In 1958 Cuba was undergoing a rebellion not a revolution. Cubans expected political change not a socio-economic cataclysm and catastrophe. But I fully realize such distinctions are too "complex" for a film critic to grasp. They prefer clichés and fantasies of revolution. Garcia might have followed the laudable examples of "historical complexity" and "accuracy" shown in previous movies on Cuba. Take two that these critics compare (favorably) to The Lost City, Havana and Godfather II.

In Havana, the brilliant director Sydney Pollack casts Fulgencio Batista with blond hair and blue eyes. In fact, Batista was black. In Godfather II, Francis Ford Coppola, to show Havana streets on New Years Eve 1958, casts more people than marched in Los Angeles last week and depicts them in a battle scene right out of Braveheart. In fact, Havana streets were deathly quiet that night.

I don't presume to the exalted position of a film critic. So I don't comment on the dramatic and cinematic criticisms made by these august critics. I'm not saying, or even implying, that The Lost City is a better movie than the Godfather II. I'm simply criticizing the critics on their criticism of The Lost City's historical accuracy. In these reviews we see -- in all their splendor -- the Mainstream Media's thundering and apparently incurable ignorance on all matters Cuban.

Dr. Harvey Risch on Mark Levine -- 24 October 2021

 

Dr. Harvey Risch on Mark Levine -- 24 October 2021

ML: ____________ Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director for the CDC announced “in accordance with the Biden Administration” they’re going to ramp up ____________ to vaccinate 5-11 year olds as soon as the FDA gives them an EUA.  Does the science support this kind of activity?

HR:  This is a risk-benefit analysis, and from what I understand, the adverse events occurring from Covid itself in 5-11 year olds are so infrequent that the hazards from the vaccines are likely to be greater than the hazards from the illness, so the benefit is against vaccination for almost all of that age group, except for children with chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, asthma, respiratory diseases.

ML: I see these numbers from the Daily Wire: since January 2020, fewer than 450 children between the ages of 5 and 18 have passed away from the virus, according to provisional data from the CDC, and that amounts to between 0 and 0.03% of infected children.  I would think more children probably die in a given year from the flu.

HR:  That has been true in the past. Don’t forget that those 450, half of them were children who died with Covid not from Covid, according to studies that have looked at that distinction. So the numbers are as small or comparable or less than flu. Of course we don’t want them to die and we want to treat them if at all possible, but those numbers are not what we deal with by vaccinating the entire population.

ML: So why do you think there is this move and almost obsession with vaccinating little kids?

HR:  I really don’t understand the mindset of government officials who think that “noble lying” to the population is a valid approach to governance at public health.

ML: And the media don’t seem to press them, the Biden Administration is pushing this.  There’s going to be parents who are going to push back and create more conflict, that is the Biden Administration.  We now have mandates in this country where people are told,  if  you don’t get a vaccine you’re going to lose your job, and even if you had the virus and you have natural immunity, you have the antibodies, they tell people they’re fired – cops, doctors, nurses, firefighters, employees all over the country. Does the science support that?

HR:  No. There’s more than 90 studies showing that natural immunity post-infection is stronger and better and longer-lasting than vaccine immunity. There’s no question that people who’ve already had Covid have no need to be vaccinated for the public health. Could they benefit from vaccination? Perhaps a little, but the hazards of those people getting the vaccine are higher than an average person of the population getting the vaccine – there are 6 studies showing that increased risk. So there’s no reason ____________ and certainly no reason for a mandate to have them vaccinated. And the fact that we are facing such a calamitous ‘big lie’ over ____________ be vaccinated because of their previous immunity and that immunity doesn’t work, it’s just a big lie and you have to wonder where that big lie is coming from.

ML: It seems to be coming from Federal bureaucrats in very high positions in the medical and science community being pressured by, if not supporting, an Administration that is obsessed with this. Let me ask you this question: They talk about the unvaccinated – and I notice when Biden talks about it and Fauci and the others, they never distinguish between those who have had the virus and perhaps those who have not. They never distinguish between those for whom the virus could damage them if they take the vaccine. Why do you think that is?

HR:  Well you know the real bottom line in everything that comes out, in every decision that’s made, in every pronouncement that’s made by Fauci and the government, is to sell vaccines. There’s nothing I’ve heard that I have heard that ever takes a step back and says “maybe vaccines are not indicated for such and such a person” – everything in every direction has always been to sell vaccines; and that includes suppression of early treatment.

ML: And early treatment would include drugs like what?

HR:  Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Colchicine, Favipiravir, Fluvoxavine, Budesonide, antibiotics, aspirin, a whole set of recipes.

ML: Which is really preposterous because where they’ve had other illnesses, other diseases in the past, scientists have looked for off the shelf products that have been tested for periods of half a century in many cases or longer – that might help and might do the trick. Here, all of a sudden they’re turned into poison! Have you ever seen anything like that?

HR:  Well, no, but I think we’re just seeing the effects of a corrupted economic pharma playing field, that when you have infinite resources and can alter the playing field in favor of your products, it’s easy to do that, you just spend the money ____________

ML: But when you can save people’s lives – the #1 job of the Federal government is to protect the American people, and when you have the medical and scientific Federal bureaucracy getting behind certain drugs and trying to destroy the efficacy of other drugs is really remarkable. I’ve been taking hydroxyl for a year and a half; I have heart disease, I have asthma, I feel perfectly fine, ____________ it hasn’t done anything to me, it hasn’t done anything to the billions of people and the multi-billions of pills that people have taken over the course of time so far. I’ve gotten the virus, I’ve gotten the vaccine too, but still I sit here, I’m pedestrian when it comes to these things, ____________ Is most of what we’re being told political? Or is most of what we’re being told medical?  Or both?  Is that why the American people are so cynical about what’s going on?

ML: ____________ world-renowned ____________ a lot of input into the Federal government; have they every contacted you and asked you for your opinions or your analysis of any data of any sort?

HR:  Not this Administration, not at all.

ML: ____________ Science and Medicine involve a lot of collaboration, involve a lot of discussion back and forth, especially when you’re dealing with something like a pandemic and relatively new virus or a new form of a virus ____________ You’re not the first outside expert I’ve asked this ____________ It appears to me that other than a very close circle of scientists and doctors, NIH, the FDA, the CDC, Dr. Fauci and so forth, have done very little reaching out to our top universities and ____________ and top experts. Have you found that to be the case?

HR:  They actually do, but they reach out to people who largely have conflicts of interest consulting with pharma companies. There seems to be a perception that academic medical centers are the highest centers of knowledge, and in some respects that’s true, but in fact when you’re talking about first line treatment of people for respiratory illness, it’s the frontline doctors – the doctors who’ve seen the patients who walk into their offices or call them on telemedicine: those are the people with the experience in treating Covid patients, for example. Now, what we know is, across the country, I’ve surveyed telemedicine groups and large group practices, and most recently it totals more than 150,000 people who’ve been treated early as outpatients with HCQ, Ivermectin and other medications – extremely successful, less than two dozen deaths out of that large number of people who’ve been treated early. So they are the ones who have the knowledge of how to treat patients; however, the government doesn’t want any of that to be known publicly, so it’s an open secret. I talk about it and others talk about it, but the government denies that it exists and pretends that these are harmful medications.

ML: ____________ treating them like they're asking for a vial of heroin or something like that, it's amazing...

HR: ___________ if the number of deaths that’s been recorded, about 700,000 Americans is an accurate account, we could have saved 80-85% at least of those by early aggressive treatment.

ML: ___________ I noticed that many of the former commissioners of the FDA have served on the board of these pharmaceutical companies. Are you aware of that?

HR:  Yes, it’s the revolving door of government, it’s commonly practiced.

ML: We’re not thinking of conspiracy theories or anything else ___________ when I go to the doctors ___________ I want the most objective analysis possible. That certainly raises questions. There’s a reason the American people are cynical. They’re cynical because they get conflicting advice, they’re cynical because they have common sense – it makes no sense for instance you’re going to vaccinate 5-11 year olds and nothing we see supports that, then the CDC Director comes out, not only that, they’re still going to have to wear masks. You hear Dr. Fauci, people have played the endless contradictions coming out of his mouth, the endless ___________ this has to be one of the worst years, year-and-a-half, 2-year periods of information provided the American people by the so-called scientific and medical community that I can ever remember.

HR:  As far as I can tell, it’s a top-down structure, and most doctors do not get their information by going back and reading the original studies; they get fed the information from former reps or what they’re told from society, and the conflicts are legion, so it’s no surprise that most doctors don’t pay attention and do what they’re told.

ML: If you’re a parent and you have a 7 or 8 year old, the Federal government is coming to insist those kids get vaccinated. If you live in a state like California where Gov. Newsom is going to do that ___________ what would you do? Would you get your kid vaccinated? Would you talk to your local doctor?

HR:  If the child has chronic conditions that make their risk appreciable, then there’s a reason they should be considered for a vaccination. Other than that, if it were my child, I would home school them, ___________ organize with other parents to take them out of the school and create home-schooling environments. There’s no choice, your child’s life is on the line, it’s not a high risk -- vaccination is not a high risk that’s going to kill every child by doing so; however, it’s enough of a risk that on the average the benefit is higher for home schooling than for vaccination and being in school. That’s the bottom line. We were seeing employees and companies facing mandates quit or being fired, and now the public perceives that and ___________ having a hard time replacing those employees in a climate of a bad employment circumstance and missing workers it’s getting even harder, so those policies are being rethought ___________

 

Room Rules for "Chat about the Covid Narrative" room

Room Mission:

To provide a space for people fed up with Covid Batshit to vent, rant and educate the strange sheep among us.  Non-Covid topics are fine once in a while.

[Rules revised October 5]

 The main punishment for breaking rules will be by dot.  Bounces and Bans will be for extraordinary reasons.

Admins will dot for the following:

1. Talking too long on the mic, and ignoring 3 time warnings typed in ALL CAPS by an admin.

2. Jumping the mic.

3. Spending too much time pestering people with insults and/or badgering.

4.  Spamming.

5.  Going off on strange monologues on mic while other hands are up that are off-topic and/or which interrupt the flow of an existing mic conversation.

6.  Excessive sexual language or violent hatred directed at another chatter (expressed on mic or in text).

7.  The Jessica 123 Rule:  If we admins see a suspicious chatter who behaves suspiciously and has a name we don't know (or don't know well) and we suspect that chatter of being someone else, we can ask that chatter 3 times to come up on mic and speak without a voice changer for at least 15 seconds.  If the chatter fails to comply the 3rd time, he will be dotted.

NOTE: 

Admins should be slow to dot.  Rules #3 and #7 for example provide for 'admin discretion' in judging what "too much time" means and what "excessive" means.  Admins should try to err on the side of caution in dotting.

Dots may last anywhere from 1 minute to several hours, depending on admin discretion.

Bounces / Bans should be done by admins with extreme care, and only if any one or more of the above 7 infractions occur excessively.

Room Rules as of June 2026

 

This new room -- Cut the Covid Claptrap -- was formerly Cut the Covid Crap, and before that was Cowboys and Indians (and before that, many other names).

Room Mission:

This room is a place for interesting and intelligent conversation about lots of different stuff. We're also not averse to kicking back and having fun now and again. The convo doesn't always have to be "intellectual".  

While I'd like this room to be a place where we, as concerned citizens of the world, discuss the problematic Covid Narrative, I'm fine with chatters talking about other things as much as they like.

It's up to the chatters who make up my room. Since I respect freedom (that's why I oppose the Covid Narrative), I will not coerce chatters to talk about Covid. But I do hold out hope my room will, over time, become a stimulating haven for venting & brainstorming about Covid among Covid Skeptics/Dissidents (and what I call "rational conspiracy theorists").

Room Rules:

The rules for this new room are simple:

Admins will dot anyone who is disrupting the room, and may bounce if need be (and possibly ban).  What "disrupting" means is under the discretion of the admins.  

Generally speaking, "disrupting" means the usual -- it can range from very mild (taking too long on the mic), to severe (spamming incessantly, threatening chatters with death or doxxing, verbally abusing other chatters too much, playing music on the mic without permission, etc.).

If I, the room Owner (Five Four Time / C Major), feel any admin has gone too far in his or her adminning behavior, I may take his or her hat away.  

(The room rules for the old room I tried to make simple, but they ended up with 10 rules which became too complicated.)

That's it.  Enjoy your day.  Take off your mask.

Room Rules

This new room -- Cowboys and Indians -- was formerly Amusing Grace and before that Wrong Wire Report (and before that The meaning of the meaning of meaning, and before that, The Sane Asylum).

This room is a place for interesting and intelligent conversation about lots of different stuff.

The room rules for the old room I tried to make simple, ended up with 10 rules which became too complicated.

The rules for this new room are simple:

ROOM RULES

Admins will dot anyone who is disrupting the room, and may bounce if need be.  What "disrupting" means is under the discretion of the admins.  

Generally speaking, "disrupting" means the usual -- it can range from very mild (taking too long on the mic), to severe (spamming incessantly, threatening chatters with death or doxxing, playing music on the mic without permission, etc.).

If I, the room Owner (Five Four Time / C Major), feel any admin has gone too far in his or her adminning behavior, I may take his or her hat away.  

That's it.  Enjoy your day.

Recipe for a National Rape Cover-Up

 

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has marshaled an impressive array of facts and analysis about the outrageous hypocrisy of the Democrats during this campaign (of 2012).

Unfortunately, there are so many intertwining facts to present, with so much explanatory weaving together required, that I worry it tends to lose its punch.

Lord knows Jeffrey Lord does his best, and it’s not really his fault, but just the nature of the complexity of the issue.

I’ll attempt another way of presenting it, in list form, as though of ingredients in a recipe:

1. The Democratic Party’s philosophy includes at its core a commitment to Feminism.

2. Feminism includes at its core a commitment to exposing the problem of rape, and the problem of those who try to deny or whitewash that problem.

As Exhibit A for this, Lord quotes Feminist Susan Brownmiller in her 1975 bestseller Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape: “…the threat, use and cultural acceptance of sexual force is a pervasive process of intimidation that affects all women.”

3. In the Senate race for Missouri, Republican Todd Akin is running against incumbent Senator Democrat Claire McCaskill. Akin not long ago committed the politically INcorrect faux pas of mentioning the phrase “legitimate rape”. Democrats have leapt on that phrase, implying that it connotes a distinction between two types of rape, the second being one that can be countenanced.

4. Obama officially joined the Democrat leapers, with his public statement:

“Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me.”

5. Obama’s Presidential Campaign is officially using Bill Clinton as a leading spokesman, front and center (and, of course, his wife continues to be in the Obama Cabinet as Secretary of State).

6. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill — who as we mentioned is running against Akin, against whom Obama and the Democrats have heaped their scorn with calls for him to resign from the race against her — was quoted in 2006 on Meet The Press, while she was running for Senator and receiving donations and support from Bill Clinton, that while she welcomes Bill Clinton’s support, “…I think he’s been a great leader, but I don’t want my daughter near him”.

7. Claire McCaskill is now supporting the Obama Campaign (naturally), while Obama rails against her opponent in the Senate race for his supposedly equivocating statements about rape.

8. There exists copious and persuasive evidence, marshalled in Jeffrey Lord’s article (particularly beginning on page 2), that among all the other women Bill Clinton has sexually molested in one way or another, Juanita Broaddrick was forcibly raped by Bill Clinton in 1978 when he was running for Governor of Arkansas.

9. You’d think those eight ingredients would be enough to turn the stomach and ruin the oven, but there’s one more thing, the typical turn of the screw Leftists indulge in to cross the line into brazen and almost pathological hypocrisy:

As Lord writes:

Over at the Democratic National Committee they have a banner on the front page of their website featuring black-and-white photos of Romney, Ryan and — Todd Akin.

The caption? “The GOP is Dangerously Wrong for Women.”

Not only that, but ultra-Feminist Nancy Keenan, President of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), reaffirmed this sociopathic chutzpah by warning in the Huffington Post that Romney and Ryan “…have every intention of a continued War on Women.”

Okay, now we can throw out the dinner and throw up.

 [The above posting is a re-print reprise of a posting I put up in 2012 on 1389 Blog-Counterjihad.]