Mr. Kipper
W. Geography (3)
4 April 2000

This article focused on more of the dilemma faced by the Cuban and American governments in the case of Elian Gonzalez. Just in case you're only recently out from under your typical habitat because of some annoying beachcombers and/or exterminators, Elian Gonzalez is a young boy from Cuba who was rescued from the site of the sunken boat on which he and his mother were travelling to America. His mother drowned, and Elian has been living with relatives in Florida since his rescue in November. The question is whether or not to allow Elian to remain in the United States, or to send him back to his father in Cuba. Naturally, America's always been out to get the dirty commies, and sending a poor innocent child back into the depths of Red Inferno of Nastiness is simply more than our gentle consciences can bear. Ha ha! Funny joke! Nobody cares about Elian at this point, as long as we're talking in gross generalisations. He's just become a symbol to both Cuba and America; whether he's returned or not, he's liable to reach some kind of bizarre apotheosis back in his native land, and in America he'll either be America's Great Achievement in Keeping Our Country Safe From the Ravages of Karl Marx's Hell-Spawned Governmental and Social System, or he'll end up being our Great Failure Which Means We Now Have to Take Action Once and For All Against Those Who Would Spell America With a "K", After All it Worked Really Well in Vietnam. I don't see why everyone suddenly has a huge problem with sending an illegal immigrant back to his home country; it's not like our nation as a whole has ever displayed any compunctions about shipping back every other poor washed-up kid. Don't misinterpret me; I don't like Castro and don't like communism, but I don't see how anyone can possibly think keeping Elian here is justifiable by any means we could possibly find or create in the law. As for this article in particular, the bill to make Elian's father and his family "permanent US citizens" without their knowledge OR consent has to fall under the category of things that "seemed like good ideas at the time," e.g. things that "sounded good while we were all in a drunken stupor." Not, of course, that I have ever in my life formed an opinion OR employed that ambiguous thing known as "cynicism," let alone actually discovered what that word means. The end.