Stephen Lendman
Fidel Castro Ruz Passes, An Era Ends
He’s gone. His revolutionary spirit lives. He redoubtably resisted yankee imperialism for half a century, surviving hundreds of US attempts to kill him and the revolution he led.
He withstood the machinations of 11 US administrations, from Dwight Eisenhower to Obama - leading Cuba from January 1959 to his February 2008 retirement for health reasons, passing the baton to brother Raul while remaining intellectually active and influential to the end.
Washington dominated Cuba from the William McKinley era to the Eisenhower administration. Fidel liberated it, transformed it from a mafia-infested brothel to a populist state serving all its people, providing benefits most Americans can’t imagine.
Article 50 of Cuba’s Constitution mandates “the right to health protection and care” for everyone.
By “providing free medical and hospital care by means of the installations of the rural medical service network, polyclinics, hospitals, preventative and specialized treatment centers.”
“(F)ree dental care. Promoting the health publicity campaigns, health education, regular medical examinations, general vaccination and other measures to prevent the outbreak of disease.”
“All the population cooperates in these activities and plans through the social and mass organizations.”
Cuban healthcare is among the world’s best, shaming America’s pay or die system, with double the number of physicians per 1,000 population as its northern neighbor.
Article 51 guarantees free universal education to the highest levels - for children, youths and adults. Cuba’s Constitution states:
“Everybody has a right to education. This right is guaranteed by the extensive and free system of schools, part-time boarding schools, boarding schools and scholarships in all types and at all levels of education, by the free provision of school materials to every child and young person regardless of the economic situation of the family, and by the provision of courses suited to the student’s aptitude, the requirements of society and the needs of economic and social development.”
Castro virtually eliminated illiteracy. Students learn math, reading, the sciences, arts, humanities, social responsibility, civics and participatory citizenship.
They’re taught skills to make them productive citizens - able to contribute to national development.
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. Gone at age 90, an earlier article said his intellect remained keen, his judgment sound and passion for keeping Cuba free from US dominance uncompromising to the end.
Last March, 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” - anathema to America’s ruling class.
On August 13, he began his 10th decade. In an article honoring him on his 90th birthday, I said he represent(ed) redoubtable resistance against imperial repression, exploitation and ruthlessness.
Legendary in his own time, one day he’ll be immortalized more than already. On Friday evening at 10:29 PM Havana time, he drew his last breath. Now he belongs to the ages.
Media Scoundrels on Fidel Castro’s Passing
They spend over half a century denigrating him - now dancing on his grave to their shame.
Neocon Washington Post: “Fidel Castro, Cuban dictator, dies at 90…Under (his leadership), Havana became something of a Marxist Disneyland - a shiny, happy veneer over something much uglier.”
Wall Street Journal: “Castro inspired millions with his promises of justice and progress but presided over an oppressive state.”
Chicago Tribune: “Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who defied US for 50 years, dies at 90” - the Tribune publishing an AP News account of his death, largely denigrating him while calling him “an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa.”
Reuters: “A towering figure of the second half of the 20th century, (Castro) built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States…”
Los Angeles Times: “For Cubans in Miami, Castro’s death prompts revelry and reflection.”
CNN: “Crowds flood streets of Miami’s Little Havana to cheer Castro’s death.”
ABC News: “Cuban-Americans Fill the Streets of Miami’s Little Havana to Celebrate Fidel Castro’s Death.”
NBC News: “Castro antagonized 11 United States presidents and cast a uniquely long shadow over American politics.”
CBS News: “Fidel Castro, Cuba’s fiery former leader, dead at 90…Little Havana…cheer(s), danc(es) and wav(es) Cuban flags.”
Miami Herald: “No other individual has ever tormented Washington more or longer.”
BBC: “As communist regimes collapsed across the world, Castro kept the red flag flying on the doorstep of his greatest enemy, the United States.”
London Guardian: “The comandante overthrew Batista, established a communist state and survived countless American assassination attempts…bringing an end to an era for the country, Latin America and world.”
Al Jazeera: “(T)he Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the US, has died aged 90.”
I was a graduate student when he liberated Cuba from US-supported tyrannical rule. I recall his September 1960 New York visit, heading Cuba’s UN delegation, climaxed by his world body address.
He came as a man of peace, not confrontation, saying Cubans lacked freedom “for quite some time,” adding “(i)t has not been easy for us to come here…to state the problems of Cuba,” and receive hostile treatment in New York, including “notice(s) to all hotels not to rent rooms to us…”
“(A) Negro hotel in Harlem offered to rent us rooms,” despite a State Department official “d(oing) all in his power to prevent our staying” there.
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.
Castro explained deplorable conditions affecting Cubans under the Batista regime - including rampant poverty, mass unemployment, half the population without electricity, living in “huts, shacks and slums, without the slightest sanitary conditions,” illnesses left untreated, 95% of rural children affected by parasites, high infant mortality, “just the opposite of the average life span.”
Constitutionally mandated revolutionary change followed. Yankee imperialism yearns to regain control, a new generation of Cuban leadership hopefully up to the challenge to prevent it.
On November 28 and 29, Cubans nationwide are invited to honor Fidel by signing a “solemn oath of complying with the concept of the revolution.”
A mass gathering is planned in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution where Fidel often addressed huge crowds. On November 30, his ashes will be transported from Havana to Santiago - his revolution beginning with an unsuccessful July 1953 attack on the city’s Moncada army barracks.
His remains will be laid to rest where it all began. Millions worldwide join Cubans in mourning his passing. Rest in peace, Fidel.
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