The New York Times Takes Fake News to Disgusting New Level

Humberto Fontova   Townhall 1-6-18

https://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2018/01/06/the-new-york-times-takes-fake-news-to-disgusting-new-level-n2430535?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Imagine a “prestigious” international paper writing a feature on the town of Oswiecim in Poland without mentioning the associated Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps.

Bad enough, right?

Well, now imagine that same prestigious paper finally coming around to mentioning the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, but while claiming that Hitler and Himmler were not its creators--but its victims!

“NO WAY!”-- right?

Well, now imagine that same prestigious paper hailing Hitler and Himmler for subsequently closing those camps and freeing the prisoners!

“WHAT?!”

In fact, the above outrage is perfectly imaginable –had Hitler won the war and admitted “journalists” and “scholars” to his fiefdom to “report”—but only after careful vetting by his secret police to assure they’d play by the totalitarian regime’s rules (i.e. “you transcribe and parrot our propaganda-- or you’re outta here!”)

Change Hitler to Castro and I’ve just described the actual process by which you get “news” from Cuba as “reported” by the mainstream media in general, and by The New York Times most notoriously.

This week’s story from Cuba by The New York Times cranked up their historic transcription and parroting of Castroite lies to an entirely new and –for those actually conversant with Cuban history—disgusting level. Change Poland to Cuba and I pretty much described the nature of their story this week. Here’s part of it (emphasis mine):

“A Cuban island that has played both paradise and prison; The Isle of youth which has been both a Utopian Communist getaway and home to a brutal prison that housed Castro for a while—is a world apart …Within an hour of landing on La Isla de la Juventud, the Isle of Youth, (Cuba’s isle of Pines) I was clamoring through an underground tunnel in the Presidio Modelo, or Model Prison, Cuba’s most dreaded pre-revolutionary prison….The Presidio was closed a few years after Castro’s victory in 1959, and is now maintained as a shrine to the revolution’s early struggle, with photos of each prisoner over his bed. It’s a tribute to the resilience of the young rebels who — whatever their later faults once they took power — took on the brutal Batista dictatorship at great personal risk.”

In fact, amigos: On that very Isle of Pines the Castro regime created the biggest prison/torture and forced labor complex for political prisoners in the history of the Western Hemisphere!

“(under the Castro regime) Terror reigned on the Isle of Pines…horror stories were told about what went on there…political prisoners were being concentrated in unimaginable numbers at the Model prison on the Isle of Pines.” This is not some passage from an obscure self-published book by some crackpot. It’s from the internationally-acclaimed and harrowing prison memoirs titled Against All Hope by a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission Armando Valladares.

“Mr. Valladares and other prisoners who refused ''political rehabilitation'' were forced to live in the greatest heat and the dampest cold without clothes. They were regularly beaten, shot at and sometimes killed; they were thrown into punishment cells, including the dreaded ''drawer cells,'' specially constructed units that make South Vietnam's infamous tiger cages seem like homey quarters. Mr. Valladares speculates that when the truth about Cuba's political prisoners (many who suffered at Isle of Pines) is made known, ''mankind will feel the revulsion it felt when the crimes of Stalin were brought to light.'' (This is from an old review of Against All Hope by Ron Radosh in-- none other than-- The New York Times! Somebody up at the Grey Lady goofed big-time!)

Yes, this week The New York Times went well beyond their traditional practice of fabricating fake news —by totally upending historical truth. It’s not like they’re mere deniers of the Cuban holocaust. No, they imply that the Castros and Che Guevara gallantly and put an end to political repression in Cuba!

To add a human-interest quotient to their story, it would not have been difficult for  The New York Times reporter to contact Ambassador Valladares, who lives in the U.S. today. But, needless to add, had he performed as reporter (rather than as proud heir to Walter Duranty) it would mark the last time that sniveling New York Times “reporter” set foot in Cuba!

The New York Times also “overlooked” an item that might have added an immensely dramatic quotient to their Cuba story this week. To wit:

In spring of 1961, when the huge Castroite prison’s main building was crammed with upwards of 10,000 ill-fed and horribly mistreated political prisoners, Castro ordered tons of explosives placed under the main building. The plan was to blow it up and murder the 10,000 prisoners if (what came to be known as) the Bay of Pigs invasion showed any sign of succeeding.

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN Armando Valladares thoroughly documents this attempted atrocity in his prison memoirs. You’d think this positively Hitlerite (and fully-documented) datum would add some drama to the Washington Post’s story, right?

Hah! Nary a mention appears in the story.

Would any New York Times readers even get even a hint of the evil milestone the Castro regime and the Isle of Pines prison-complex played in the history of the Western Hemisphere and communism? HAH! Instead the only evil mentioned by this latest Castroite shill employed by  The New York Times was of pre-communist Cuba—when Cuba boasted net immigration from the First World, a higher living standard and more (uncensored) newspapers and TV stations than much of Europe, and when Cubans were totally free to emigrate at their whim (and very few did.)

Now regarding those “dreaded” conditions in the “brutal” pre-Castroite prison of New York Times lore, why not consult its most famous inmate? Well, here’s Fidel Castro himself in a letter he wrote to a friend while serving the light and tiny sentence Cuba’s totally independent judiciary of the time (Batista’s term) gave him for murder and terrorism:

“I feel like I’m on vacation! (wrote the convicted terrorist from the Modelo prison)... “I’m preparing to dine on spaghetti and squid, Italian candy for dessert, a cup of hot coffee and then an H. Upmann No. 4. When I sit outside in my shorts in the morning sun and the sea breeze, I think I’m on a beach and later in a restaurant. I feel I’m on vacation!” (Fidel Castro, Prison letters, April 10, 1955.)

Again, it would not have been difficult for The New York Times “reporter” to find these fully-documented passages. Alas, they make a pathetic joke of practically every word in his story, including “and” and “the.”