By Humberto Fontova

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. Macy’s, for instance, usually serves a minimum of 50,000 shoppers on that one day. But as this week’s revelations of a terrorism plot targeting New York City’s subway system remind us, the holiday bustle is also an opportunity for those seeking to inflict mass casualties. That thought may well have been on the mind of Fidel Castro, when he planned a colossal terrorist attack on Manhattan on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1962.

On November 17, 1962, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI cracked a terrorist plot (though the term "terrorist" was not used at the time) by Cuban agents who were using their cover as members of the Cuban mission to the United Nations to target Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomindales and Manhattan’s Grand Central Station with a dozen bombs and 1,102 pounds of trinitrotoluene (TNT). This massive conflagration was set to go off the following week, the day after Thanksgiving.

To put the plot in perspective, consider that for the March 2004 Madrid subway blasts, in which almost 2,000 people were killed and maimed, the terrorists used a grand total of 220 pounds of TNT. Fidel Castro’s agents planned to set off five times that explosive power in the world’s three biggest department stores, all packed to suffocation and pulsing with holiday cheer on the year’s biggest shopping day. Thousands of New Yorkers, including women and children, were to be incinerated on Castro’s orders.

This was not Castro’s first attempt to annihilate the city. He had planned the attack on Manhattan just weeks after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had foiled his plans for an even bigger one during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But for Khrushchev’s prudence, Castro might have pulled it off. “If the missiles had remained,” Fidel’s sidekick Che Guevara confided to the London Daily Worker in November 1962, regarding the Cuban missile crisis, “we would have used them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York.” Khrushchev himself admitted that Fidel and Che’s genocidal scheming was a bigger factor in his decision to withdraw the missiles from Cuba than President John F. Kennedy’s bluster and his threatened “blockade.”

The Manhattan plot would likely have resulted in the deaths of countless thousands, but it had a certain maniacal logic. Given the temper of the times, Castro knew that an attack would force the United States to retaliate and that the Soviets would be dragged into the conflict. Castro would then achieve precisely what he’d dreamed about and tried to provoke a few weeks earlier: an intercontinental nuclear exchange.

Of course, Castro himself would be nowhere near harm’s way. Alexander Alexeyev, the Soviet ambassador to Cuba during the missile crisis, has revealed a fascinating – if unsurprising – fact about those days. While Castro was begging, threatening, and even trying to trick Khrushchev into launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., he was also making reservations with Alexeyev for a first-class seat in the Soviet Embassy’s bomb shelter.

The Manhattan plot never came to pass, but it cannot be said that Castro has paid the price for his planned destruction. In November 1995, Castro found himself on a triumphant visit to Manhattan. He was the guest of honor and the main attraction at the United Nation’s 50th anniversary bash. "The Hottest Ticket in Manhattan!" read a Newsweek story that week, referring to the social swirl that engulfed him. After his whooping, hollering, foot-stomping ovation in the General Assembly, Castro was feted by the New York’s best and brightest, and hobnobbed with dozens of Manhattan’s glitterati, pundits and power brokers.

First, there was dinner at the Council of Foreign Relations. After holding court there for a rapt David Rockefeller along with Robert McNamara, Dwayne Andreas and Random House’s Harold Evans, Castro flashed over to Mort Zuckerman 5th Avenue pad, where a throng of Beltway glitterati, including a breathless Mike Wallace, Peter Jennings, Tina Brown, Bernard Shaw and Barbara Walters all jostled for his attention. All clamored for autographs and photo-ops. Diane Sawyer was so overcome in the mass-killer’s presence that she rushed up, wrapped her arms around Castro, and smooched him warmly on the cheek.

This godfather of terrorism still lives 90 miles from our shores in tropical splendor for all to see. Yearly he makes Forbes‘ list of the world’s wealthiest people. He is feted by visiting dignitaries ranging from Kofi Annan to Steven Spielberg, from Jimmy Carter to Charles Rangel, from Arlen Specter to Gregory Craig, from Barbara Walters to Jesse Jackson, and from Andrea Mitchell to, most recently, Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The media still adores him. Castro occasionally grants interviews to star-struck luminaries like Dan Rather and Barbara Walters. Ted Turner refers to his friend Fidel Castro, as "one helluva guy!" Andrea Mitchell, commenting on the unexpected honor of interviewing Castro, referred to him as "an absolutely fascinating figure!"

Hollywood is even more taken with the aging dictator. You won’t see him cast as a villain in a film – that role is reserved for such Hollywood hate figures as Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover. Indeed, Castro reigns as a veritable icon for many of Hollywood’s best and brightest. Oliver Stone refers to Castro as "a very moral, very humane man." Jack Nicholson gushes about his frequent Cuban host as "a genius!" and his island gulag as "a paradise!” Francis Ford Coppola penned a love letter to him. "Fidel I love you," it starts, "we both have the same initials and both use our power for good."

Not the least of the ironies in the enduring love fest for Fidel is that he came so close to murdering those who now sing his praises. After his much-acclaimed visit to Manhattan in November 1995, Time magazine lauded the man who twice tried to incinerate New York as "The Toast of Manhattan!" On Thanksgiving week in 1962 Fidel Castro and Che Guevara certainly planned on “toasting” Manhattan.

BEIJING—China has executed a businessman convicted of bilking thousands of investors out of $416 million in a bogus ant-breeding scheme, state media reported Thursday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Wang Zhendong, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to death in February last year, was executed in north China’s Liaoning province on Wednesday.

The death penalty is used broadly in China. Though usually reserved for violent crimes, it is also applied for nonviolent offenses that involve large sums of money or if they are seen to threaten social order.

Wang, chairman of Yingkou Donghua Trading Group Co., had promised returns of up to 60 percent for investors who purchased ant-breeding kits from two companies he ran. Ants are used in some traditional Chinese medicinal remedies, which can fetch a high price. Wang sold the kits, which cost $25, for $1,300, local media reported earlier.

Wang attracted more than 10,000 investors between 2002 and June 2005, when investigators shut down his companies. The closure of his business set off a panic among small-time players who saw their life savings disappear overnight.

Xinhua reported earlier that one investor committed suicide after realizing he had been duped. Investigators put the size of the fraud at $416 million. Only $1.28 million was recovered.

Fake investments and pyramid investment schemes have become common during China’s transition from a planned economy to a free market.

Chinese leaders have tried to eradicate the scams, fearing widespread losses could add to already percolating social unrest.
Source

By JB Williams  

For 232 years, free market America has been the undisputed leader of the free world, the shining beacon of individual liberty known for the most productive, prosperous, powerful, yet the most caring and generous people on earth.

In 2008, 52% of American voters decided that America’s global dominance in all areas must end in the name of “fairness” and “equality.”

What Just Happened?

First, it didn’t “just happen.” It has been slowly happening for almost one hundred years now. Barack Hussein Obama is not the main problem. He is only a glaring symptom of a much greater problem in 21st century America.

From the moment we started defining Americans in socio-economic classes, voting blocs instead of individuals, we were already on the path to self-destruction.

How many times have you heard politicians talk about the plight of the “middle class” or “the rich” or the “underprivileged?” These terms never belonged in America to begin with, yet they have been used to divide the nation through class warfare, pigeon-holing all Americans into one of these three socio-economic classes for purposes of political gain.

America was formed as a nation of individuals free to self-determine and self-govern. The same freedom that allows some to become “rich” beyond their wildest dreams, allows others to live homeless. The outcomes are quite different, but the freedom to achieve either outcome is very much the same.

Equal Freedom Delivers Unequal Outcomes

People from all corners of the earth have left everything behind to accept America’s promise of “equal freedom” for all. But equal freedom always delivers unequal individual outcomes.

That’s the point of freedom really. That through real individual freedom, each individual has the power to define and achieve happiness under their own steam, free from tyrannical government interference or penalty.

For more than 232 years, people all over the globe have sought American freedom and liberty. Yet today, 52% of Americans think they have a better idea…

Government Guaranteed Equal Outcomes

It sounds nice, doesn’t it; - a government that will guarantee all citizens “equal” economic conditions, no matter their unequal individual achievements? As Barack Obama states it, a federal level “redistribution of wealth” that will make all Americans more “equal,” at least economically, even if only temporarily…

Who wouldn’t like to live like Oprah without having to do all of the things Oprah did to individually acquire all of that evil personal prosperity? Oprah must be one of the happiest people on the planet and all Americans have an unalienable right to be equal to Oprah, don’t they?

Like most “rich folks” in America, Oprah is quite generous with her hard-earned wealth. Not only does she pay the highest rate of income taxes in America, - she donates thousands if not millions to charity as well. Most “rich” Americans are quite happy to “share their wealth” voluntarily with others across the country and around the world in need…

But according to Obama and his political allies around the world, folks like Oprah are not generous enough on their own and they need a little help from the federal government.

Equal Stuff

For voters, it’s all about equal access to stuff. They want the same health care, house, car, TV, X-Box and computer that “rich” folks like Oprah have. They want to live like the rich and famous, without having to work or take risks like the rich and famous.

But for politicians, it’s all about the power inherent with controlling individual “equality.”

The political power to provide free “equal stuff” to some requires the power to confiscate “earned stuff” from others. Our nation’s founders were very careful not to afford any man such far reaching powers as to who does or does not have “a right” to stuff.

That’s because as Thomas Jefferson warned, any government powerful enough to do everything for you, is also powerful enough to do anything to you. It has to be… In order to give to some that which they did not earn, they must have the power to take from others their hard-earned property.

The High Price of Free Stuff

Just as the borrower is enslaved to the lender, the welfare recipient is enslaved by his caretaker.

Many Americans ask how they can be truly free without the right to free stuff. Yet it is the free stuff that will enslave them in the end. It is a growing dependence upon a caretaker that strips all of society of their unalienable right to pursue happiness, by whatever individual definition they choose.

The caretaker will define and mete out equal happiness. Those whom the central power deems to have too much happiness will be stripped of that happiness, so that the political loyalties of those deemed to have too little, can be purchased.

In both cases, the people have been stripped of their individual freedom, their power, and the government becomes the final arbiter of “stuff,” equality and fairness.

Those Who Have Been There Know

The BBC writes, “US global dominance ‘set to wane‘” – “US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends. - The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence. It also says the dollar may no longer be the world’s major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.”

Experts all over the world are predicting an American economic collapse, the likes of which have never been seen before. They are predicting bread lines and tent cities across America that will make the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed seem like a day at Disney.

Free market investors are pulling out of the American financial system as fast as they can, taking what profits they can as they leave and heading for safe havens around the world where capitalism in on the rise. Private investors seek profits in free markets.

But for 52% of American voters, all is well now that Barack Obama has been elected to bring them “equality.”

Dancing on the Titanic

America’s stock market has already lost 50% of its value in the last year, which means many Americans have lost 50% of their retirement savings too. Smart investors are still taking profits as they retreat from the market. 401k investors will be left holding the empty bag…

The dollar is already worth about .35 cents and will soon be worth less than a dime, as the federal government continues to print money to bail out industry after industry, allegedly to “save the economy” from certain collapse. But we are watching as bailout after bailout only drives more and more private investors from the markets.

That’s because investors know better then to invest in Marxism, even if 21st century Democrats don’t.

The three big American automakers are set to fold within the next few months and hundreds of retail chains are set to close thousands of locations across the country with them. Home foreclosures are skyrocketing and banks still aren’t lending even after more than a trillion dollars in taxpayer funded bailouts, which have clearly failed to stop the bleeding.

Foreign communist states like China and anti-American Arabs are buying up America at .10 cents on the dollar as the markets slide into the abyss.

But 52% of American voters think all is well because Barack Obama’s new Clinton Administration will soon be in charge, with an unbridled leftist controlled congress and a court that has spent more time usurping the US Constitution than upholding it for the last forty years.

Who’s to Blame?

In the end, nobody will care who’s to blame. There’s more than enough blame to go around anyway.

China is now the longest standing communist state in the world and its people have a median per capita income of $5400 per year, not counting those living in dire poverty in the rural areas that make up most of China.

The communist state itself is now fast becoming the new world economic super-power. But only as a result of embracing capitalism at the state level, under Clinton’s most favored nation trade status.

Canada is the closest socialist government in America’s western hemisphere. They report a per capita income of $38,600 and they have socialized medicine that so many Americans desire today. However, their national budget is almost 50% of GDP, which requires some of the highest tax rates anywhere in the free world, reducing that per capita income figure from $38,600 to about $19,000 per year after taxes.

Canada also has one of the highest national debts in the world, at approximately 64.2% of GDP, which almost makes America look solvent.

Progressive Marxism on the Way

Even after known liberal Charlie Gibson embarrassed Barack Obama in a primary debate, by forcing him to concede that federal tax revenues go up every time capital gains taxes are lowered, and go down every time they are increased, Obama continued to state that he would raise capital gains taxes anyway. Why?

Because according to Marxists like Obama, “it’s only fair” that investors be penalized for their success. Even though penalizing investors will drive them from the markets, reduce productivity, increase unemployment and free market retail sales, and thereby reduce federal tax revenues, it is only “fair” that successful people, “the rich,” be penalized for their “greed.”

52% of American voters agreed!

So, America is firmly on the path to economic collapse and Obama will have the historic privilege of ushering in a new era of “American equality.” Americans are becoming more and more “equal” as the stock market (401k retirement savings) dropped from a $14,000 high to its $7500 low over the last year or so. Equally destitute that is…

The average American will soon have an existence equal to that of average citizens around the globe. It won’t take years; it will take only weeks or months.

But, the American people have spoken. Those who have used their freedom unwisely now outnumber those who still revere freedom over free-stuff. Freedom is out and free-stuff is on the way.

Americans will re-learn the hard way that “free-stuff” always comes at the highest price known to mankind. The cost of free-stuff is FREEDOM. Just ask any American immigrant who left “progressive” Marxist ideas behind in search of American freedom at any cost. They can tell you just how expensive all of that free-stuff will be in the end…

How sad that history must repeat in order for 21st century Americans to understand that neither freedom nor free-stuff is ever free… 46% of Americans know it and tried to stop it. Now the nation must learn the hard way!