# Elian has been freed!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 28, 2000, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920 "2000-06-28T19:21:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Cynical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@Mr.Cynical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Cynical)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/21 "2000-06-28T20:58:55Z")
neuro-trash grrrl sez: > [@](#): > > \*\* > Now, I don’t practice Santeria (nor do I have a crystal ball),… > \*\* NTG, you slay me. That was the first time today I’ve managed a smile. You are hereby cut in on my will. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/22 "2000-06-28T21:07:00Z")
CNN site says the plane back to Cuba has departed. ---
**Author:** ![FreakFreely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@FreakFreely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FreakFreely)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/23 "2000-06-28T21:22:34Z")
> [@](#): > > If you believe that Elian was rescued by dolphins, I suppose you would also believe that the image of the “virgin mary” popped up on a damn mirror. The kid had been ashore a month or so before his Miami Maniacs cooked that lie. Yeah, it seems a bit fishy to me too (Get it? Eh, get it? Aw, screw it.) If I had to guess, I would guess that Elian’s family in the US cooked that up to get the other Miami Maniacs even more riled up. “Y’see, not only is he a symbol of freedom from Cuba, he’s also the CHOSEN ONE! We must save him from the evil Castro.” Personally, I don’t much like Castro. But I also don’t see much reason to hate him. Dictator, yes. Lord of all that is evil, no. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/24 "2000-06-28T21:29:08Z")
Is Miami burning yet? I am afraid to look outside or to turn on the TV. Hell hath no fury like a Miami Maniac forced to obey the law. ---
**Author:** ![Bluesman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@Bluesman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluesman)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/25 "2000-06-28T21:35:45Z")
And so his mother’s death now becomes nothing more than another meaningless tragedy. Great. Yippee. ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/26 "2000-06-28T21:38:27Z")
Damm. That last was me, not Bluesman. ---
**Author:** ![FreakFreely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@FreakFreely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FreakFreely)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/27 "2000-06-28T21:41:44Z")
> [@](#): > > And so his mother’s death now becomes nothing more than another meaningless tragedy. I think something should be made clear here. Elian’s mother didn’t leave Cuba because she wanted him to have a better life. She left Cuba because she was horny for some Cuban who went to America. Before that she and the boy’s father were sharing him respectfully. Then she nabs him and takes off for America without even telling the boy’s father that she was leaving. She basically **stole** the kid from his father. So don’t make her out to be some kind of martyr. She’s anything but a martyr. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/28 "2000-06-28T21:50:04Z")
Even if she was a martyr, it doesn’t make Elian one. Nor would it make it right to take Elian away from his father, wherever he is. ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/29 "2000-06-28T21:51:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > And so his mother’s death now becomes nothing more than another meaningless tragedy. > > I think something should be made clear here. Elian’s mother didn’t leave Cuba because she wanted him to have a better life. She left Cuba because she was horny for some Cuban who went to America. Before that she and the boy’s father were sharing him respectfully. Then she nabs him and takes off for America without even telling the boy’s father that she was leaving. She basically **stole** the kid from his father. So don’t make her out to be some kind of martyr. She’s anything but a martyr. > \*\* And Elian is anything but free. And you seem to know an awful lot about his mother’s relationship with his father, as well as her motivations in taking a dangerous trip with her only child. Talk to her before she left, did you? Have a direct channel to the afterlife, maybe? Or are you taking the sole surviving parent/person who has the rest of his family under guard in Cuba’s word for it? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/30 "2000-06-28T21:53:41Z")
You see, the key words here are “sole surviving parent”. ---
**Author:** ![little\_bit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@little\_bit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/little_bit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/31 "2000-06-28T21:57:14Z")
I’ve been trying to figure out why people even discuss this issue. If an American woman ran off to another country with her child & died that child would be returned to the father. No questions asked. If relatives over there intervened, American would have a fit. This is not a political issue. It is a family issue. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/32 "2000-06-28T22:01:02Z")
**Lucretia,** did you talk to the mom before she left? Did she tell you she wanted so badly for Elian to be free that she was willing to risk his life by putting him on an overcrowed craft that most of us wouldn’t use as a swim platform and setting off on a crossing that experienced sailors do not regard as particularly safe? Would you do the same with your own child? I cannot give cites but the story about the mom wanting to join her lover has appeared in the media quite a few times. As has the story that she basically kidnapped the child to begin with. And no one, to my knowlege, has yet to make any verifiable claim that the mom and/or Elian was living in any sort of abject poverty. Instead, they appear to have lived relatively well. It is too bad that the mother died, true. But she isn’t a martyr (sp?)by any means. ---
**Author:** ![FreakFreely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@FreakFreely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FreakFreely)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/33 "2000-06-28T22:35:22Z")
Well, I was going to add something but it seems that LouisB has covered it quite nicely. My hat is tipped to you. Thankee. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/34 "2000-06-28T22:47:21Z")
Good F\*cking Riddance to another damn illegal immigrant. I have never been so happy to see one kid leave! Maybe NOW the media and everyone else will shut the hell up about this one little kid and go back to doing something slightly more important, like banning bellybutton lint. Miami relatives: Sorry. You lost. Losers! Don’t like it? Go back to your ORIGINAL country and kick Castro out. Don’t whine around me anymore, I’m sick of this shit. Now I just have to avoid the media until they quit reporting about him. Should be in about 30 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/35 "2000-06-28T23:16:08Z")
> [@](#): > > “Elian knows we love him, the community loves him,” he said. Then someone in the crowd yelled out that Elian had come to liberate Cuba. > > “That’s right,” Delfin Gonzalez said. “He came to complete a mission here and now he is going to complete it over there.” The above are quotes from an AP newstory concerning the reaction of the Cuban-American population in Miami to the news that Elian’s flight to Cuba had departed. Delfin Gonzalez is, of course, one of the great-uncles in Miami. Well, I saw a TV story the other night about two twelve year old brothers who lead an army of rebels-where? I have forgotten. Anyway, maybe Elian will lead an uprising against Fidel. If Fidel dies tomorrow, Elian will have taken his first big step towards GodHood. Bah, humbug. ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/36 "2000-06-28T23:40:17Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > elian was rescued by dolphins > > I still get chills when I see that infamous photograph of the dolphin holding little Elian in that closet with that gun pointed at them. That’s funny, I remember the [dolphin saving the boy](http://www.bartcop.com/e3.jpg) from the crazy relatives. ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/37 "2000-06-28T23:56:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > **Lucretia,** did you talk to the mom before she left? \*\* No, I didn’t, and neither did any of the press or the American public that is now so eager to ascribe such shallow and selfish motives to her. The post that I answered began, “Let me make one thing clear…” NOTHING was made clear by that post, because what was asserted was unknowable by him, or by you. Except this: she took a risk with her child to escape a totalitarian police state that doesn’t allow you to leave any other way. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Did she tell you she wanted so badly for Elian to be free that she was willing to risk his life by putting him on an overcrowed craft that most of us wouldn’t use as a swim platform and setting off on a crossing that experienced sailors do not regard as particularly safe? Would you do the same with your own child? > \*\* You know, I just might have. I DO know that she is not the first mother to take such a risk with her own and her child’s life to escape from a “socialist paradise”. And the mothers that HAVE survived to talk about it, from the first over the Berlin Wall to now, have all counted it as a gamble worth taking. > [@](#): > > \*\* > I cannot give cites but the story about the mom wanting to join her lover has appeared in the media quite a few times. As has the story that she basically kidnapped the child to begin with. > \*\* Well, HELL, it just HAS to be true, doesn’t it? Where do you think those “facts” originated? From the father, that’s who. And he’s not exactly neutral, is he? Nor do we know that he can say what he’d like. Like I pointed out, his family’s still in Cuba. “Government thug: Would you like to read the Propaganda Ministry’s statement on ABC News tonight, as your own words, or can we just go ahead and tear up your ration card right now?” > [@](#): > > \*\* > > And no one, to my knowlege, has yet to make any verifiable claim that the mom and/or Elian was living in any sort of abject poverty. Instead, they appear to have lived relatively well. It is too bad that the mother died, true. But she isn’t a martyr (sp?)by any means. > \*\* Poverty, while certainly a factor for many, is NOT the overriding reason most people take incredible risks to leave places like that. The Cuban pilot that defected in his MiG-23 enjoyed a priveleged life while in Cuba. HE had already made it to “Fat City”. Then, he took the biggest gamble of all, and went back in a private plane for his family. ALL of them could have been killed by this most cold-blooded regime that does not hesitate to shoot down unarmed aircraft with the least excuse. Do you remember the incident? Do you remember what the wife said about the disparaging remarks she made about her husband and the US while she was waiting for his return? She HAD to; forced by Castro! Please understand, I understand the other side here. I am a firm supporter of the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit, and I can understand the rationale behind giving Elian back to his father. However, in this case the parents clearly had different ideas about what kind of life their son should have, and I think the mother’s desire to have her son grow up in the U.S. was in his best interests, and should have been taken into consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a5b964/32.png) [@Red\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_2)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/38 "2000-06-29T00:11:35Z")
Lucretia: yes it’s too bad that his mom died, but the fact is that she did, so THE BOY BELONGS WITH HIS FATHER! It doesn’t matter what motivation she had to bring him. Even if Elian’s mom did try to bring him here for a better life, he is an illegal immigrant, plain and simple. I don’t doubt that life in Cuba isn’t as good as it is here and maybe Castro does run the horrible regime that everyone says. So if Elian deserves to stay here why don’t we just go to Cuba and get all the “poor little 6 year olds”! Come on! ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/39 "2000-06-29T00:22:06Z")
Okay, all the widely published stories about the mother leaving Cuba to follow her boyfriend are lies. As are all the widely published stories about her having kidnapped the boy. All lies. I am convinced now. I have been lied to the entire time and I feel really victimized by the media. But I know the truth now and am thus set free. The mother is dead, the kid is gone, Miami is in turmoil, probably a big deal will be made on July 4th–something like people in America are not really free because the local rabidly anti-Castro faction for once did not get its way. One wonders how much better off the citizens of Cuba would be if the US lifted the embargo–the very embargo that the anti-Castroites want continued. Sooner or later that embargo is going to get Castro overthrown–after all, we have spent better than forty years imposing it. It is bound to work eventually. Here is a prediction: Elian will be deified and his mother will become the next retroactive virgin to have given birth. It will be her spirit that activated the dolphins (porpoises) to keep Elian afloat and drive off the sharks and, who knows, light the pillar of fire that guided the Holy Fisherman to Elians Rescue, allowing Mom’s exalted soul to ascend to glory. I see it all so clearly now. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920/40 "2000-06-29T00:56:58Z")
Just one technicality here. Elián has not been “sent” back to Cuba by the US government. He has been returned to the custody of his father by the US government and his father is taking him home to Cuba. OK? I am pretty tired of the whole thing myself and I cannot believe the news here in DC were on it permanently. Not even the President of the US or any foreign head of state would get this attention. They spent a long time just showing the plane on the tarmac waiting to take off. Gimme a break! Yes! I want some commercials! Now lets forget about the whole thing. For those who believe Castro is de devil himself, please drop Elian’s case and pick up the case of two Cuban doctors imprissoned in Zimbabwe. they tried to get political assylum in an embassy but Zimbabwe tried to send them back to Cuba. Mid way there, Air France refused to transport them when they found out they were being kidnapped but now they are back in Zimbabwe, in jail. I feel their cause is much more genuine than Elian’s and yet nobody says a word about them. [Here](http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/A8391-2000Jun27.html) is the story [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elian-has-been-freed/23920.md?page=3)