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