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A Short History Lesson On Cuba By The New Thinker
The death of Fidel Castro brought public comments of some of the most rightwing nutters living in the U.S. and of some of its best people. Whoever wants to discuss Cuba, its past, present and future, should know some history. Here is a copy of a valuable lesson @The New Thinker aka Ejike gave on Twitter:
Viva Fidel. Your revolutionary courage & your commitment to fighting for the self-determination of the Cuban people will never be forgotten
To truly understand Cuba and in fact the rest of Latin America you need to study the Monroe doctrine in 1823
It's important to note that the US in the early 19th century wasn't strong enough to stop Europe from colonizing Latin America… not yet
That ended in the late 1800s. Look up the Cuban War of Independence where the Cuban people had been whooping the Spanish colonial government
As Cuba was on the verge of liberating itself from Spanish control America intervened in what is shamefully dubbed the Spanish-American war
In 1898 the US intervened in order to "liberate" Cuba frm its humanitarian crisis which was a cover to prevent Cuba frm becoming independent
From 1898 Cuba practically served as an agricultural-colonial plantation for the United States up until Fidel Castro in 1959
In other words, the "Spanish-American war" was really a fight for who got to control Cuba & its resources. America consolidating its empire
I'm not sorry for giving a quick history lesson bc you cannot understand Fidel Castro if you don't understand America as an empire
Fidel Castro with his brilliant use of guerrilla tactics beat the Cuban army over and over again with only a few hundred soldiers
After Fidel Castro overthrew the undemocratic Batista government in 1959, the US in fearing is declining control went berserk!!!
People who talk about Cuba's problems conveniently leave out 58 years of economic blockade, invasion, assassination by the US
Never mind the 630 some assassination attempts made on Fidel Castro the sanctions & absolute terrorism on the Cuban people is reprehensible
The US embargo is literally anything to destroy Cuba's economy. And guess who started this war on Cuba… Your Democratic president JFK
For 9 administrations in a row the US has done everything in its power to destroy Cuba & every time they have failed thanks to Fidel Castro
I don't think there is a country that has been invaded and exposed to more terror by the US in the Western Hemisphere
The literacy rate of Cuba is at 99.8% which is higher than both the US and the UK thanks to Fidel Castro
The infant mortality rate is lower in Cuba than it is in the United States thanks to Fidel Castro
Cuba after being a country in 3rd world conditions now enjoys one of the highest life expectancy's in the world thanks to Fidel Castro
When Nelson Mandela was released one of the first places he went was Havana bc Cuba played one of the biggest roles in ending apartheid
Thanks to Fidel Castro Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors to patients anywhere else in the world in fact Cuba's biggest export is doctors
Thanks to Fidel Castro education in Cuba from kindergarten all the way up to the PhD level is FREE no exceptions
Thanks to Fidel Castro healthcare in Cuba is not a privilege determined by economic status but a human right given to ALL free of charge
Thanks to Fidel Castro, even with the vicious sanctions by the US, Cuba has managed to almost totally eliminate homelessness
To people who want to be critical of Fidel Castro I ask you what would've become of Cuba if the US did not issue its devastating sanctions
The economic strangulation that the US has been engaged in towards Cuba are so SEVERE that they can be considered an act of aggression
The angry Cubans in Florida that you here chastise Fidel Castro are all mysteriously neoliberal capitalists. That should raise red flags
Yes that little socialist island of Cuba has made mistakes but I would've made mistakes too if the US tried to assassinate me over 600 times
Y'all should RT all of these tweets to let everybody know that the US propaganda machine is wrong about Cuba and wrong about Fidel Castro
That Cubans can even provide basic services to its ppl despite being terrorized by the biggest bully in the world 90 miles away…
I love how everybody who is critiquing Fidel Castro sounds just like FOXNews right now. That's great
Trump and Fox News is celebrating the death of Fidel Castro and that still doesn't make people take pause
Every leader who defies US power is deemed a mass murderer and a threat to humanity
Every deficiency in Cuba can seriously be traced back to the economic warfare, subversion, assassination and invasion attempts by the US
Assata Shakur, a courageous revolutionary black woman, was granted political asylum from the US by which country… Cuba
I find it fascinating that the US wants Cuba to know the US is a friend when it still hasn't lifted the embargo
The US embargo has cost Cuba $753.69 billion. Don't forget to mention that when you're talking about the lack of pristine services in Cuba
#FidelCastro overthrew a dictatorship and then was besieged by the strongest military power in the history of the world. Start there
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While millions around the world grieve, it’s a sad testament to see some of the disparaging remarks being made by lefty liberal armchair warriors, the gate keepers for American imperialism, about Castro’s unfortunate death.
As George Galloway has just said on RT “The dogs can dance away on Castro the Lion’s grave all they want, but they can never be a lion.”
For all those with any heart and a brain, Castro will be remembered as a revolutionary Hero and one of the 20 first centuries greatest fighters against American imperialism to the very end of his long life (despite some 689 attempts by the CIA to assassinate him) as a great world leader that tirelessly fought for social justice and universal peace for all mankind.
As evidenced by what he and his people did to make Cuba the beacon of hope for freedom for all the people of central and south America as well as Africa and the rest of the world.
By bringing the educational level of all Cubans up from 2% to some 92% in less than a decade. Providing universal free health care to everyone and training more nurses and doctors to be dispersed around the world than any other nation. Sending soldiers to Angola and helping Nelson Mandela defeat apartheid in South Africa. Just to mention a few of all of his many accomplishments while under the most severe sanctions and embargo’s for over the last 50 years.
I believe that the only reason, (after the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco), that the US has never used their own troops to try and invade, occupy and crush the small Caribbean island again, is because they knew full well that the armed Cuban people would defend their revolution and country and fight house to house to the last man. Fighting for freedom and survival just as the Syrians have been doing to resist the imperial empires proxy ISIS mercenary terrorists for the last half decade in the middle east.
I once had the privileged occasion to visit Cuba myself and witness first hand the state of it’s people. If the heart and soul of a nation can be measured by how well it takes care of it’s young children, then Cuba gets a Five Star Gold Medal Award. As all the children I met in the streets were smiling and happy, healthy and robust. Cuba by the way has a far lower infant mortality rate than that of the (“medically high tec”) US of A and sends nurse’s there to train for free, the countless disadvantaged and poor student nurses of Harlem New York and in many other depressed and impoverished areas of the crumbling American empire.
The old Cuban cities like Havana (declared a UNESCO world heritage site) and it’s quaint countryside is a treat to the eye, bereft of all signs of crass commercialism with no advertising billboards or bright flashing neon lit signs anywhere.
Touring the countryside. I encountered a very old Cuban homestead farmer high up in the mountains, happily attending his one single cow, a little vegetable garden patch and a few half wild coffee bean bushes scattered randomly around the trail (who would not give their first born to escape the western capitalist rat race for that) while hiking to a natural pristine water falls in the tropical island jungle.
A site to behold was my visit to a little (once slave) village town called Trinidad, with it’s red clay tiled roofs, white stucco brick buildings and fancy black wrought iron worked doors and windows, along narrow winding stone paved streets leading up to the towns markets and it’s cathedral, it was like an 18th century movie set and the epiphany of the virgin Mary (at least as yet) not corrupted by crude capitalist mercantile commercialism.
I met some brave American tourists there as well, having illegally entered Cuba by sleuth and by way of Canada or Mexico they were both a bit apprehensive and thrilled as well that they had managed to defy their own governments arbitrary dictates and restrictions for Americans to travel and vacation in it’s enemies territory of the strictly sanctioned and embargoed dictator Castro’s oppressive communist regime state of dreaded Cuba.
While naturally Cuba’s own infrastructure is in wont of repair and needs upgrade, all of it’s streets were clean as a whistle and residential houses kept up to at least a minimal level of repair. No decaying ghettos with graffiti and stinking trash piling up high, gaunt half starved ragged beggars wondering around looking for handouts and homeless people sleeping on the streets as you can see in all major US cities and their starving neo liberal economic colonies in Central and South America.
And what an ingenious bunch, keeping old 1956 Chevrolet’s and Pontiac’s going for over 50 years now with home made garage machined replacement parts and in some cases even refitting them with diesel tractor engines. While fleets of old patched up and together round brown nosed city buses donated by Montreal transit from Quebec Canada, ply the streets as if from another distant past era.
I had a black Cuban guy all over me after he learned I was a Canadian, singing in praise of Canada and our past Prime Minister for giving the middle finger to the US and continuing to do businesses with them nevertheless and cursing the US. It was hard for me to try and tell him that that was in the past as now we have only US Quisling Prime Ministers left.
While not rich in consumer goods as is we in the west, and while many would like to enjoy more of all the luxuries that we here just take for granted, Cubans appear to be a dignified and a proud people of their own country and turn their attention on to family, community and building their own country up as best they can under meager circumstances, a herculean task if ever, given the war of US sanctions and propaganda waged against them for over the last half century.
While the Miami Cuban exile crowds are now dancing in the streets over Castro’s death, (dreaming about getting their pre 50 D’s plantations, brothels and casinos back) and the MSM is making a demon out of “the cruel dictator” Castro again, all Cuban’s and countless around the world sadly mourn the passing of one of the worlds greatest leaders of the last century for the cause of universal freedom, dignity, justice and peace.
I can only pity and pray for all those morally and spiritually empty poor souls who lack any real comprehension of what serves their own and all of humanities best interests.
My sincere condolences to Castro’s family, his personal friends and comrades and all of the Cuban people as well as the rest of humanity.
Long live the Cuban revolution and may we now pick up the mantle of Castro’s life’s work and dreams and continue the fight to realize a just and peaceful world.
And may he now rest in peace, assured he has inspired the following generations to act just as courageously, decisively and wisely.
Raymond
Posted by: RayB | Nov 28 2016 18:36 utc | 59
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