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It seems like so long ago now, but I remember when I first became really interested in politics. It was the Elian Gonzalez affair, about twenty or so years ago now, that caught my attention.
This was the amazing story of a young mother, Elizabet Broton, who had fled Cuba with her young son, Elian. Elizabeth drowned on the way to the US, but Elian survived to make it to the US shore, where his uncle's family took him in. Later, Elian's dad (who was living in Cuba) wanted custody, and a battle ensued, culminating in the boy being forcibly removed from his Uncle's home in Miami (at gunpoint), and taken off to Cuba. The picture at right illustrates the horror of this act.
That picture was circulated all over the world, and caused an uproar that unfortunately didn't prevent Elian from being sent back to Castro. The incident caused a lot of very heated debate. I closely followed the debate over whether the boy should be returned to his father, just because he was his father. Many argued that he should be with his father, and never mind that he lived in Cuba. I thought it strange that people would actually advocate sending the boy there, as Cuba is a well documented hell hole where the people are basically Castro's slaves. Plus, his mother had died escaping the place! So have many, many others! I felt for the family, for the way they were steam-rolled by the government, their beloved adopted child taken from them for political purposes, which had nothing to do with the child's welfare. The Feds just came in with weapons and took the child by force. It was as if the hell down in Cuba was irrelevant, since the biological father wanted the boy. It seemed like a lunatic nightmare to me, where A is B, and 2+2=5. This is when I started despising Bill Clinton, and the Left in this country, who were the loudest in clamoring for the child's return.
So that's what got me interested in politics for the first time. After that, I started listening to the people who were defending Elian's right to stay in America, people like Rush Limbaugh. I was amazed at the forthright honesty of Rush, and of the others like him. I thought the truth of it all was self-evidant, and wondered how anyone could think otherwise. From Rush, I discovered a whole new world, the so called "alternative media", and realized that there was a sort of war going on out there. The attraction of all this to me was the simple fact that Rush and his like were telling the truth, seemingly unafraid of the consequences. It was not just a matter of differing opinions, it was a matter of right versus wrong-and yes, good versus evil.
Here is where Elian is now, and what he is doing.
