Thank You Maria

When I find myself in times of trouble, and shmucks like the useful hollywood idiots come about licking the bottoms of fifo and hugo, along comes someone like Maria Conchita Alonso who comes around carrying the truth about dictators like fifo and hugo. However, if not for the web, you would never hear her spectacular speech re: 1) How Labor Day (5/1) has been stolen by the commies; 2) how fifo and hugo are thugs/despots who should not be lionized, esp. by hollyweird ... in fact, as some commentators are saying, the GOP needs to have her speak at the convention in 2008. Hillaryspot is reporting the following:

Maria Conchita Alonso is probably best known as an actress and a singer, but the Cuban-born entertainer grew up in Venezuela, and is a vociferous opponent of that country’s strongman ruler, Hugo Chavez.

She began by pointing out she deliberately wore red, and that the color and May Day were meant to be a celebration for workers, not for the Communist party. “We
cannot let terrorists dictate our lives, so why acknowledge their claims and allow them to own a color red for a day? I wear red not in solidarity, but in protest of them!”

Then Alonso ripped into Castro and Chavez with a rare combination of ferocity and wit. She told of leaving Cuba as a child with her family to start a new life in Venzuela, with her mother hiding money, jewelry, and even the family dog on the way out of the country. As Latino Coalition President Robert de Posada noted, “She lost her
first home country to communism, and she refuses to let it happen again.”

I saw her on the way in, mentioning to one of the event organizers that she was nervous. We’ve all seen celebrities get involved with political causes and suspected
that it was a p.r. exercise; with Alonso, her passion – and anger – over these dictators was deep, genuine and obvious.

Maybe she had a terrific speechwriter, but she managed to cover a lot of ground in
describing Chavez’s crimes – his closure and strong-arming of independent media and news agencies, his purchase and use of Russian spy equipment against his own people. The portrait of the dictator was that of a man both brazen — his regime took pictures of an anti-Chavez march, changed the slogans on banners (using Photoshop or some similar technique) and used it as a propaganda illustration of popular support – and brutal, as Alonso noted that Chavez’ “blonde ex-wife was constantly black and blue.”

“Even as a teenager, I wondered why John Lennon wore Mao jacket,” she said, lamenting that Che is a popular t-shirt icon today. She suggested it was a triumph of appearance over substance: “If this man looked like Al Bundy [from the old Fox sitcom Married With Children], would teenage girls still be wearing his t-shirt?”

“When celebrities visit Castro and do not speak out, he gains a great propaganda advantage,” she said. “I wonder if anyone told Robert Reford, “your films are all heavily edited on Cuban television.’ And we know all directors like to have the last cut.”

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Keep up the good work Maria. Kudos to you! And read the rest of the article HERE.