UNICEF Praises Cuba and Commie Group Who Indoctrinates the Youth

And, the commies in Washington can’t figure out why so many parents are swarming to home-school their children:

Cuba-style indoctrination in store for U.S.?
Michael Farris – 10-16-2009 – WND

If Americans want a glimpse of all of the good that can be done for children if our Senate decides to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), we need look no further than 90 miles off the coast of Florida. For a shining example of the success of internationalism, Cuba is the United Nation’s latest poster child.

In articles released this week by official Cuban news agencies, UNICEF representative José Juan Ortiz praised Cuba for being “able to apply the U.N. Convention on Children’s Rights in a way which is truly a model.”

Cuba? A model in the area of children’s rights? The Communist nation was extolled particularly for advancing the right of children to “self-expression.” UNICEF’s Ortiz commended the Cuban youth group “the José Marti Pioneer Children Organization” for granting children “the possibility of expressing themselves.” This organization even “met in Congress,” Ortiz noted.

The José Marti Pioneer Children Organization is the Cuban version of a long-standing Communist youth organization created to promote communist ideology. While UNICEF believes the group promotes self-expression, an award-winning Cuban blogger – posting on the ultra-liberal website Huffington Post – described her own experience in the group in far different terms.

Blogger Yoani Sanchez described the Pioneer Children’s annual ritual held this year on Oct. 8, 2009. “In all the schools in the country, today is the ceremony for the first-grade students to enroll in the Pioneer organization. The morning assembly lasts longer than usual; the parents accompany their children while they put on the neckerchiefs and shout, for the first time, the slogan, ‘Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che.'”

[Uhm, sorry to break in here and ruin this lovely, romantic image of Che, but I wonder what they mean when they say, “we will be like Che.”  Perhaps they mean the following in which Colonel Rojas was murdered on the orders of Che Guevara without the benefit of a trial:

Or, do they mean that they want to murder all the homosexuals?  Just curious…]

Observing the ceremony at her son’s school this year, Sanchez recalled her childhood experience as a Cuban first-grader: “I felt touched by the hand of the Fatherland even though in reality I was only being added to the ranks of an ideology.”

The practice of ideological indoctrination continues to this date. Describing the scene in her son’s classroom
in 2009, Sanchez writes, “The teacher walked up and down the ranks and asked the children to repeat the slogan about Che Guevara.”

Sanchez’s son Teo declined to repeat the slogan. When caught by the teacher for non-participation, Teo was asked why he didn’t want to recite the slogan. “Che is dead,” he said, “and I don’t want to be dead.”

“Ah, Teo,” the teacher replied, “repeat the slogan now, why make problems for yourself.”

So much for self-expression – parrot the government slogan or find yourself in trouble.

Given the recent troubling episode of “Obama veneration” in the public schools, one can only imagine what this might foreshadow for America in the future. Case in point: The political organization committed to securing the ratification of the U.N. children’s treaty in the United States, for instance, has prepared a curriculum that fully intends to use children to promote its political goal of adopting the treaty. Child indoctrination appears to be a core value of the internationalist’s creed.

To see what lies in store for the United States, turn to Cuba: less real free expression; nifty government slogans taught to your children.

When that day comes, Americans may mourn the loss of our American traditions of freedom. But look on the bright side – a UNICEF representative will undoubtedly praise us as a model of how to raise children.

Fugitives flee South Florida with Medicare millions

You have to love the irony of American criminals becoming illegal aliens in Cuba

Suspects continue to flee to Cuba and elsewhere with millions of taxpayer dollars, trying to evade prosecution for Medicare fraud.
BY JAY WEAVER, 2 January 2009, Miami Herald.
Alcides Garcia, former president of a Hialeah medical equipment company, escaped to Cuba in September just before he was to face trial in a $10.7 million Medicare fraud case, according to the FBI.
-Good job of surveillance FBI.

Jorge Ramirez, the one-time owner of a Miami clinic that treated blood disorders, was arrested in December and charged with defrauding Medicare of $42.2 million. Ramirez and two codefendants — Eugenio and Maricel Hernandez, accused of $73 million in Medicare fraud — had been indicted a year ago. The FBI said they all fled to Cuba.

Garcia, Ramirez and the Hernandezes are among dozens of Cuban immigrants who evade prosecution by fleeing to their native country. Prosecutors say they bilked the health insurance program out of millions through complex Medicare fraud schemes that have been operating with lax oversight in South Florida for more than a decade.
-So this problem was discovered over a decade ago and not fixed. Remember voters-vote out the incumbents.

”There are a number of healthcare fraud defendants from Cuba, and after they commit their crimes many of them return home,” FBI spokesman Judy Orihuela said. “Once they’re in Cuba, it’s very difficult for us to get them back — unless they return.”
-Gee thanks for clearing that up Judy. It is obvious to me the FBI needs some Latin sensitivity training (sarcasm)

Alcides Garcia is the latest fraud suspect to flee the country. Indicted in June, he’s charged with submitting $10.7 million in false claims for powered air mattresses, feeding pumps and other medical equipment that were never provided to patients. His business, A&Y Medicare Supply Inc., collected $2.2 million in Medicare payments from 2002 to 2004.
-Taking so long to make a case is allowing enough time for these criminals to escape.

In court papers, prosecutor Daniel Bernstein said Garcia submitted his false Medicare claims through All-Med Billing Corp., headed by a Miami Lakes couple convicted last year after filing $420 million in phony claims on behalf of 85 medical equipment companies in South Florida.
-Catch that? 85 medical equipment companies in South Florida sounds like organized crime to me. Nice to see immigrants contribute to American society (sarcasm)

Garcia, who had a $200,000 bond, fled the country to Cuba on Sept. 17 — 12 days before his federal trial was to start in Miami, according to the FBI.

His attorney, George Vila, declined to comment.

The exploding problem of Medicare fraud defendants fleeing the country registered on the chief federal judge’s radar screen last March.
-And yet they did nothing.

A Miami Herald investigation first spotlighted the phenomenon of Cuban immigrants dominating Miami-Dade’s Medicare fraud industry in August. Court records showed that in many instances, fraud suspects were able to easily escape to Cuba before they were charged and prosecuted.
-Ok, FBI are you really that stupid? Do you really think just anyone knows how to arrange a trip to Cuba? Someone is running a one-direction travel agency, find um and stop um. Nah, forget it, they will be in Cuba before you get your sunglasses on.

Goodbye Castro, Hello Castro

Fidel Castro has stepped down and let Raul Castro take a crack at the bat.  It’s kind of like that saying folks have around the office, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  And, just to push the point forward, the U.S. position on all of this is,  “business as usual.”  Hardly surprising as zombie Fidel will still be the one behind the curtains, pulling on the political strings of his communist government.  He…  just …won’t… DIE… 

US Won’t Lift Cuba Embargo

By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer – MyFoxOrlando

WASHINGTON  —  Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Tuesday the United States will not soon lift its embargo on Cuba despite Fidel Castro’s resignation.

Asked by reporters at the State Department if Washington planned to change its Cuba policy now that Castro has stepped down, Negroponte replied: “I can’t imagine that happening anytime soon.” He declined further comment.

The centerpiece of American policy toward Cuba has been the economic embargo, first instituted in limited form in 1960 and strengthened in 1962. Castro persistently called the trade embargo “criminal,” and claimed that its economic impact on the island ran well into the tens of billions of dollars.

In Rwanda, President Bush expressed hope that the end of Fidel Castro’s presidency will launch a transition to democracy in Cuba after nearly 50 years of ironclad, communist rule.

Long a target of U.S. criticism and sanctions, the ailing Castro, 81, announced he would not accept a new term.

“What does this mean for the people in Cuba?” Bush said at a news conference during his trip to Africa. “They’re the ones who suffered under Fidel Castro. They’re the ones who were put in prison because of their beliefs. They’re the ones who have been denied their right to live in a free society. So I view this as a period of transition and it should be the beginning of the democratic transition in Cuba.”

Tom Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, expressed hope for change in Cuba, but said the U.S. remains skeptical.

“We would hope that the departure from the scene of Cuba’s long-ruling dictator Fidel Castro would allow for a democratic transition. … We would hope that his departure would begin this transition,” Casey told reporters.

But he added that the United States is troubled by signs that Cuba’s leadership envisions this as a “transfer of authority and power from dictator to dictator light — from Fidel to Raul.”