Agustin Blazquez on Why He Is "Unbalanced"

Our favorite Cuban-American filmmaker has sent us this "manifesto":

From Revista GUARACABUYA, January 12, 2007
http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq128.phpuya

WHY I AM ‘UNBALANCED’
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

My forty years of life in the U.S. have given me reasons galore to dissent from establishment conventions. Specially now days when the despicable “political correctness” has been forced down the throats of Americans depriving them of their old-time, sacred, freedom of speech given by the Constitution.

When you have to stop, think very carefully and spin what you are going to say in order to open your mouth, that isn’t freedom. You are auto-censoring yourself, just like the obedient citizens of North Korea, China, Vietnam or that little, forgotten, fiefdom of the decrepit, now sickly, Fidel Castro and his alcoholic brother.

I don’t mean that people should be impolite and give Miss Manners vapors causing her to faint in her boudoir. No!

Let’s be civil but truthful and sincere and not feel oppressed to speak freely. After all, the U.S., supposedly, is a free country. Or, is it? Please let me know, so I can plan my escape on time, because I don’t like tyrannies from the right or left.

Increasingly, as a writer and as a filmmaker, I have been feeling oppressed in my own country. I have been a naturalized American citizen for over 30 years, but I had the misfortune – literally – of being born in Cuba, which was converted into the hellhole-Jurassic park of the Caribbean by Castro’s Communist Fascist Reich.

My biggest crime was to escape that “paradise” like the million and a half Cuban exiles that now live in the U.S. Clearly, we have become the most openly hated minority in this country even though we have been the most productive, prosperous and law-abiding minority in recent history. The Cuban exiles have not organized gangs like some other minorities.

The hatred toward us came from the vindictive Castro – a trait he displayed since his school years. With his supposed charisma, he conquered the intellectuals, artists, reporters and fools from all over the world.

Castro placed himself as a demigod, a hero of all the leftists, progressives, socialists and useful fools everywhere, magically without generating the panic of a bygone era in which communism was feared for the aberration that it actually was and still is.

Note that “progressive” is a key word that used to mean “advancing” that now can be used to identify hidden communists and sympathizers since Castro and his ilk claim that their suppression of freedom, etc., is “progressive.”

The cold war is not really over. Snap out of that stupid, implanted thought! Wake up to take a look at what is going on in Latin America! Has China, Vietnam, North Korea or Castroland changed? No, they are still very dangerous communist countries. And China is not a friend but an adversary of the U.S. Snap out of that stupor if you want to continue singing “God Bless America!”

Continuously, the anti-U.S. left, and the “progressive” elements that are in control of most of our learning institutions, print and television media, are censoring information.

They were the first to adopt “political correctness” – which is a communist technique (read my article at: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/4/121115.shtml) in order to manipulate, change and brainwash the masses.

Their goal is to eventually “socialize” this country according to obsolete Marxist postulates that have been a dismal failure in all communist countries and put themselves in charge.

Before I make the statements that follow, I must clarify that I am not a Democrat or a Republican since I believe that neither party represents me as a Cuban American and as a victim of Castro’s version of tropical communism-fascism.

I am an Independent and a real Liberal in the true sense of the word: which means that I am for real liberty. I don’t have anything in common with the American Liberals, which I believe have degenerated much too close to socialist ideology.

The hypocrisy of the U.S. media is such that it doesn’t inform the American people that many members of the Democratic Party are also members on an International Socialist Organization. Isn’t that revealing?

And now my statement, which in no way, shape or form is an endorsement of the Republican Party, but based on my observations and experiences in Cuba and the U.S., the Democratic Party has been sliding too far to the far-left and anti-U.S. side of the spectrum. I am very concerned about them and what that party will end up in the not so distant future.

Orestes Lorenzo, (the Cuban pilot who rescued his wife and children by landing a small plane on a Cuban road) referring to the ideas of the liberal and academic crowd in the U.S., wrote that they are “not only dishonest but being supported by pure intellectual shit.” I think that is an accurate description of those repulsive, despicable people and I congratulated Orestes for exercising his freedom of speech.

So, why am I “unbalanced?”

Well, that’s what the reigning paranoid left in control of the information media said about my documentary work. They of course reject my work and don’t allow what my documentaries expose to reach the American people.

The American Film Institute (AFI) in Silver Spring, Maryland, said that my documentary about 5-year old Elian Gonzalez – the child that miraculously reached the south Florida shores while his mother gave her life for him to have freedom in America – was “too controversial.” However, they immediately choose to show Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911” over and over. I guess an anti-U.S., anti-war and anti-President movie was not controversial in their twisted minds full of “pure intellectual shit.”

The AFI’s bozo, made the mistake to make that statement to my face thinking that I would take it lightly, which was not the case. I gave him hell in his very own little office and told him how Cuban American filmmakers feel about it. Later, he lied and denied what he said. I am “unbalanced” but not crazy.

Film festivals and other venues systematically reject my documentaries about Cuban issues. And I am not alone. I am just one more Cuban American reject. This is part of our history in this “land of freedom.”

That’s why I don’t even bother to send submissions to film festivals, because they take my money up front and then they reject me. To hell with them! I only show my films in festivals and other venues where I am invited because of the merits of my work. If anyone wants to take up that battle for my documentaries, let me know.

Cuban Americans can do and say whatever we want, but the censors of the left don’t let us play and don’t let us offer a different viewpoint to the American people to insignificantly try to “balance” the barrage of pro-Castro propaganda present in the U.S. media and academia.

On PBS, of course, we cannot even try. They are a lost cause and a bastion of the left.

Ed Koch, three-time elected Mayor of New York City who, like me, isn’t “politically correct”, said in his published New Year’s Resolutions, “I will no longer lend financial support to New York’s Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias to try to correct it.”

Cuban Americans are constantly subject to that and no one of any importance complains about it.

On November 28, 2006, I received a very decent letter (I say so because the person was really very nice and I appreciate the answer) of rejection of my documentary “The Rats Below” from a well-known television channel.

Among other things, the letter said, "The subject is intriguing, however, and includes some great sound bites from seemingly very knowledgeable sources. What might be problematic for most broadcast and cable networks is that the film includes no one representing the side of the company, or Elian's family. Without that, there may be some issues of fairness.”

About "Elian's family" I have Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle in the U.S.

About "includes no one representing the side of the company" and the issue of "fairness," I've yet to see a documentary or film about the Holocaust, the Nazis, Hitler or about apartheid in South Africa or about Chile's Augusto Pinochet (and the list goes on) that shows the other side.

But even if I make in my lifetime 1,000 documentaries of our point of view it will not even begin to balance the eschewed coverage of the U.S. media in relation to the Cuban tragedy. My goal is to try to balance the unbalanced coverage about Cuba, the country of my birth, which I happen to know about and they obviously don’t.

And that is my final answer as to why I am “unbalanced.”

I make my documentaries without any grant or financial help from any U.S. institution (they don’t give grants to projects that expose the nature of Castro’s regime) or Cuban American organization. I made my productions with my own money, effort and heart. I dedicate uncounted hours working alone on my projects.

Always with the frustration that there are not enough hours in a day to complete my goal. Knowing that so far, after 12 years of dedicated labor, I am not reaching my intended audience, Americans, not Cubans – we all know and understand the Cuban tragedy very well.

The Americans are the ones left in the boonies by the disservice of the media and the learning centers in the U.S. who are not telling the truth about what has been going on there for decades.

I get to put in my documentaries whatever I want. I am certainly not going to capitulate and interview the same types of American “Cuban experts”, who are not, and who have been lying and distorting information constantly in newspapers, television and pro-Castro documentaries 99.99% of the time.

I, the “unbalanced” one, continue to try to bring some balance to the story where there isn’t any.

Did I answer the question?


Agustin Blazquez, producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, premiered at the American Film Institute in 1995, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation, premiered in 2001 at the U.S. Capitol in and at the 2001 Miami International Book Fair COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival, the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below, premiered at the Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2006 Barcelona International Film Festival for Human Rights and Peace, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view , RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS and COVERING CUBA 5: Act Of Repudiation premiered at the Tower Theater in Miami, January 2007.


ALL AVAILABLE AT: www.CubaCollectibles.com
For previews visit: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Agustin+Blazquez
Author of more that 300 published articles and author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

2007 ABIP

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