The Elian Cult –
An Indictment on the Right

by Bill Barnwell

As expected, a federal appeals court has ruled that a six-year old kid doesn't have the ability to apply for political asylum in the United States. The Miami family of Elian Gonzalez now has fourteen days to appeal the ruling and have already approached Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in a request to see that Elian stays in the United States until the entire Supreme Court can consider an appeal. And of course, a new phase of Elian Outrage has begun. Conservative circles are already lighting up with chest beating patriots solemnly proclaiming that the court’s decision is a "scar on America and humanity." And it is all very sickening.

Within the first month of the Elian story, I wrote that this case should not be politicized and that the child belonged with his father, even if that meant Cuba. The response was overwhelmingly negative and full of denunciations and personal insults, and claims that I was pro-Castro and "soft on Communism." Many people wrote in to tell me that I was disgusting and a disgrace to the conservative cause. I received several emails titled "Keep Elian here. Send Bill Barnwell to Cuba," or something along those lines. A dozen or so individuals wrote to inform me that because of my heresy, they never wanted to hear from me again.

The phrase, "you make me sick to my stomach," was common and a few people even called me "evil." Such blabbering emotionalism is usually most common on the left, but these conservative Elian fanatics weren’t much better. Apparently the goal was to hurt my feelings, but instead it firmed my resolve that these people were shameless political hacks who were more than willing to use a six-year old kid as a political football for political gain.

Most people claim they want to keep Elian in the United States because they want him to live in freedom and away from Communist indoctrination. But that is hardly the motive of these frauds. What is in Elian’s best interest is not and has never been their concern, it is all about scoring political points for this year’s election, winning a propaganda war with Castro, and sticking it to Bill Clinton and Janet Reno. Behind all their tearful rhetoric, these liars have never had any other concern other than picking up the Cuban vote for Bush and making Castro and Clinton look bad.

In every Elian debate I’ve ever had with an individual who wants to keep the boy here, they always begin with the same tear jerking stories about the mother dying for Elian’s freedom and the right of the boy to live under a democracy. But, by the end of the every single debate, it always boiled down to this: "We can’t let Castro win!" Suddenly all the talk of Elain’s dead mother and freedom ended. This they said, was another chapter in the continuing struggle of Capitalism vs. Communism. Well, long live the Cold War! Boy do they miss it.

Sorry folks, but as much as you’d like to fantasize otherwise, Castro and Cuba are no threat to the United States. The only threat to the United States is this continuing hawkish Cold Warrior mentality that will sink to any low to forge an international crisis. War-happy Republicans long for the good old days of the Cuban Missile Crisis and only the nasty, heretical "isolationists" dare to take on the Cold War statists. The Elian Gonzalez drama is being primarily driven by Cold Warriors on the right whose lives are utterly pointless without some big military drama. Cuba bashing and Castro hysteria has always been a long time favorite of this crowd. Perhaps that is why these Elian hypocrites constantly point out the Cuban suffering endured under Castro but will do anything in their power to see that the U.S. does not open up its markets or lift its embargo on Cuba to provide medial supplies and food to alleviate that suffering.

If it were up to these phonies, Cuba would always be communist and would always be an enemy of the United States. They are not true advocates of a free market as their love for embargoes and trade sanctions show and they love militaristic statism. The "conservatives" who have made Elian the cause of the new millenium have not done so out of love for Elian, but out of love for conflict and war. They speak out of both sides of their mouths, on one hand whining over Cuban suffering, and on the other, praising our pointless and cruel embargo.

Elianism has now become a litmus test for conservatism. No "true conservative" would ever advocate keeping Elian with is father. Rather, true conservatives support the Hillary Clinton idea that children are autonomous from their parents and can seek refuge in the courts. National Review has even compared it to the Clinton Impeachment drama and countless outraged conservatives have dubbed it the "New Waco," after the INS raid, which removed Elian from the home of his Miami relatives.

To compare Waco or Ruby Ridge to "The Elian Raid" is absolutely sickening. To compare an INS raid where no one was injured and a child returned to his father to the federal government's Waco atrocity that killed dozens of innocent people in a blazing inferno is beyond reprehensible. The only good comparison between the two cases was Janet Reno’s bumbling and poor leadership in both.

Republicans have shot themselves in the foot. They cannot understand why a vast majority of the American public does not approve of a child being torn away from its father and only showed that they can pander better than the Democrats can to a certain ethnic lobby. Instead of winning Cuban-Americans over with a conservative agenda of fiscal responsibility, good family values and safety home and abroad, they had to resort shameless photo-ops by Bob Smith and partisan pandering.

Throughout the GOP Elian Crusade, real issues have been pushed on the backburner. One only wishes the Republicans showed the same energy defending the unborn or cutting government, but then again, we are dealing with a majority party that can’t even sell a tax cut to the American people and can’t even shut down that miserable little National Endowment for the Arts. Instead of working towards conservative goals, the GOP and a fanatical minority of Cold Warriors have decided to chase Communist bogeymen. Don’t buy the lies from these hacks for one moment. Elianism is nothing more than a vestigial paranoia left over from the Cold War days and a shameless ploy by conservative frauds to get back at Clinton and Reno for their own failure to remove them from office.

June 2, 2000

Bill Barnwell is a freelance journalist and co-editor in chief of www.thepotatoe.com

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