Cuba Reflects Fidel’s Redoubtable Spirit

Cuba Reflects Fidel’s Redoubtable Spirit

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

Hostile to what just societies hold dear, establishment media march in lockstep with flagrantly illegal US/Western policies.

They include wanting nations free from imperial control transformed into vassal states, their resources plundered, their people exploited by a higher foreign power.

For over 60 years, the US and complicit partners — with media press agent support —  failed to overturn Cuba’s liberating revolution.

Years after his passing, Fidel’s redoubtable spirit sustains it.

He accomplished what he set out to do, long ago saying “I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.”

He successfully resisted Washington’s aim for imperial dominance of Cuba for over half a century, passing at age-90 in November 2016.

Hundreds of US attempts to eliminate him and the revolution failed. 

Cuba under his leadership — and successors — stands as a beacon of hope for oppressed people worldwide, including in the US and other Western countries.

Heading a September 1960 Cuban delegation in New York that concluded with his UN address, he said:

He came as a man of peace, not confrontation, saying Cubans lacked freedom “for quite some time,” adding: 

“It has not been easy for us to come here…to state the problems of Cuba,” and receive hostile treatment in New York, including US “notice(s) to all hotels not to rent rooms to us…”

A Harlem hotel accommodated him and his delegation — despite a State Department official “d(oing) all in his power to prevent our staying” there, he said.

Millions of Cubans mourned his passing on November 25, 2016.

Before liberation, he called Cuba “a colony of the United States,” stealing its land, resources and fundamental freedoms.

“There was no independent republic. There was only a colony where orders were given by the ambassador of the United States,” he explained.

“(W)e are proud to say that today no embassy rules our country.” 

“Our country is ruled by its people…tyranny (forced) upon us” ended.

He explained deplorable conditions Cubans endured under the US-supported Batista dictatorship.

It included mass-impoverishment, widespread unemployment, and half the population without electricity.

Cubans lived in “huts, shacks and slums, without the slightest sanitary conditions,” Fidel explained. 

Illnesses went untreated. Around 95% of rural children were affected by parasites.

There was high infant mortality, “just the opposite of the average life span.”

Constitutionally mandated revolutionary changes followed. 

The scourge of Yankee imperialism never quits.

Yearning to regain control, a new generation of Cuban leadership and its people wanting to live free from imperial repression and exploitation want none of it.

At the time of his passing, the Havana Times said Fidel “left his mark on the history of Cuba and the world.”

(H)e stood with the poor (and) deserves respect” from allies and enemies alike.

One Havana resident likely spoke for others, saying “(l)osing Fidel is like losing a father.” 

Others said he’ll never be forgotten. “Of course I’m crying,” a mourner said. “We Cubans are Fidelista.”

His redoubtable spirit and equitable governance he established remain supported by the great majority of Cubans today.

He transformed the country from a mafia-infested brothel to a populist state serving all its people, providing benefits most Americans can’t imagine.

Cuba’s Constitution mandates free healthcare and education to the highest levels for all its people.

In one of his “reflections,” Fidel said “(w)e have a powerful…adversary, our closest neighbor: the United States.”

“There is no greater price than capitulating to an enemy.”

(I)ts relegation to the dustbin of history will not be delayed.”

“Would it not be preferable to struggle to produce food and industrial products; build hospitals and schools for billions of human beings who desperately need them; promote art and culture; struggle against epidemics which lead to the death of half of the sick, health workers and technicians, as can be seen; or finally eliminate illnesses like cancer, Ebola, malaria, dengue, chikungunya, diabetes and others which affect the vital systems of human beings?”

“Just ideas will triumph, or disaster will triumph,” he stressed. 

Months before his death, he said “(w)e don’t need the empire to give us anything.” 

“Our efforts will be legal and peaceful, because our commitment is to peace and fraternity among all human beings who live on this planet.”

In April 2016, he delivered his last public address.

Highlighting his revolutionary ideology and spirit, he said the following:

“We will all be in for our turn, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain, as proof that on this planet, if we work with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we must fight without ceasing to obtain them.”

“Marxism or scientific socialism is the revolutionary movement of the working class,” calling himself “a Marxist-Leninist…until the end of my life.” 

Some of his other memorable quotes, include the following:

“Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”

“We will win this battle for life, and not only for your lives, but also for the lives of all children in the world.”

“Cuba is not opposed to finding a solution to its historical differences with the United States, but no one should expect Cuba to change its position or yield in its principles.” 

“Cuba is and will continue to be socialist.” 

“Cuba is and will continue to be a friend…of all the socialist states.”

“I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy. It is gross. It is alienating…because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.”

“I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.”

“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”

“There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.”

“I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I’d do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith.” 

“It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.”

“North Americans don’t understand…that our country is not just Cuba.”

“Our country is also humanity.”

“Someday, the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal.” 

One day, class societies will disappear.”

“I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country.”

“I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.”

“We will all be in for our turn, but the ideas of the Cuba will remain, as proof that on this planet, if we work with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we must fight without ceasing to obtain them.”

“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”

“There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.”

Visiting Cuba at age 81, the late Gore Vidal said it was “so rare to see a contented people…no sullenness.”

“We’ve seen the bad side of Cuba because we’re fed nothing else by the media.”

Fidel “has been generally benign. The bloodcurdling stories we’ve been told by our government (and media are) not…true at all.”

Addressing a University of Havana audience, Vidal said “(i)t gives me pleasure to be in a place full of hope.” 

In America, “people do not have the basic understanding of what they have lost.” 

“There has been a (duopoly power) coup and the republic has died.”

Fidel cared about the welfare of all Cubans. He deplored wars and other forms of imperial adventurism. 

He once said “(t)hey talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?”

“Where is it successful in North America except for the privileged few?”

Fidel and his legacy represent redoubtable resistance against imperial repression, exploitation and subjugation of ordinary people by its ruling class.

Cuba operates by higher standards, illegal US embargo since 1962 alone harming its economy and people — what one day must and will end.

Hasta La Victoria Siempre (Ever Onward to Victory)!

A Final Comment

Chastened by the Bay of Pigs failure, what Eisenhower’s CIA director Allan Dulles planned, Jack Kennedy refused to launch another US attack on sovereign Cuba.

During his 1960 presidential campaign against Richard Nixon, he criticized US support for Batista’s dictatorship, saying:

“He murdered 20,000 Cubans (and) turned (the country) into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty.” 

“Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled (him) to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror.” 

“Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend at a time when (he) was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.”

Since his state-sponsored assassination in November 1963, no US leader or other key officials approached his stature.

None exist today in either right wing of the one-party state.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

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