Well said, Tresy. Dan

Tresy Kilbourne wrote:

> Just to throw a Chomskyan slant on this stupid story, it is amusing to note
> that, while the media does seem to be willing to grant the validity of the
> father's and the Cuban government's legal position in this (probably
> reflecting belated second thoughts on the part of the ruling class about our
> intransigent, and self-defeating embargo), the metaframe of the story is
> invariably "parental rights" vs. "life under freedom." The underlying
> assumption is that while his father may have custodial rights, and the
> biological bond, there is the undeniable countervailing "fact" that Elian
> would get a better upbringing here from a material standpoint.
>
> That assumption is shaky to say the least. A little Internet searching
> reveals that life expectancy at birth for Cuban children is slightly higher
> than it is in the US (73 yrs/72.6 yrs; source: CIA Factbook). I tried to
> find out the LEB for Floridian children, but so far have been stymied;
> however, a recent Florida news article--on skyrocketing youth crime in that
> state, no less--notes in passing that Florida has ranked near the bottom in
> measures of child welfare for quite some time: it's currently #44 (the
> nation's capitol is the Haiti of this category, at #51). That makes it
> likely that Elian's prospects in Florida are worse than in Cuba.
>
> So it would seem that, in an objective account of the preposterous struggle,
> the media would not preen over the presumptive superiority of the US "way of
> life" for Elian. That it doesn't, of course, is predictable from the Chomsky
> model.
>
> --
> Tresy Kilbourne
> Seattle WA