Fidel Castro: 1926 - 2016
About fifteen years ago, I read an anecdote about Fidel Castro's early life. I have no idea whether the story is true or not; nothing turned up on any of the web searches I did. Anyway, the story went like this:
One day during elementary school, Fidel Castro got into an argument with the school bully. The bully challenged him to a fight after school. Fidel took him up on the challenge. The bully trounced Castro; beat the living shit out of him. The next day, Castro walked up to the bully and challenged him to a rematch. The bully again pounded the fuck out of Fidel Castro.
This exact same scenario happened again and again, day after day, month after month. Castro never won any of these fights; got his ass kicked every time. But by the end of the school year, the bully was scared shitless of him.
Labels: Fidel Castro
posted by Tom Harper @ 11:20 PM
13 Comments:
Hmmmmm...grain of salt on that one, I think. has a "fearless leader" ring to it.
Thank you, Fidel, for all you did to show people they CAN stand up for what they believe in.
jadedj: Definitely a grain of salt, probably a lot of grains.
Anonymous: He showed them that, for sure.
Do we remember this, recently?:
"Sep 22, 2015 - US move nuclear weapons to Germany to use against Russia. The U.S. are going to transport 20 new nuclear bombs, each one four times more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima, to Germany."
Has such a familiar ring to it..
It's all too familiar.
I always wondered what is it that Castro did that earned him so much hatred and sanctions over all these decades, the Soviets and other communist did a lot worse and yet we welcome them with open arms. With someone so close to our shores, it seems to me that's whom you would want to make friends with.
Open trade, start giving them the things they needed and wean them from the Russians and we might have had those casino's back in no time.
Not to mention most of our Allies freely traded with them (for example you can get Cuban cigars in Canada), as well as their neighbors, an d don't forget the Cuban-Americans who send millions to Cuba not only openly but illegally without any penalty(and they oppose open relationships with Cuba).
Erik
Yes, the US can encircle Russia with nukes, and they are just suppose to smile and say thank you.
Back to pipeline protests and the "Protectors".
"Bolivia has declared a state of emergency as climate impacts shrink glaciers and leave cities without water."
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/bolivian-water-crisis-glaciers-vanish/
Gee, that has a familiar ring to it, too.
Erik: What did Castro do? Surely you jest. Cuba's purpose in life was to be a playground for American celebrities. It was paradise. Not for the lowly riffraff who lived and worked there, but, you know... Castro ruined everything when he took over in the late '50s.
Anonymous: Or as a joke went recently, "of course Russia wants war with the U.S. Why else would their country be so close to all our military bases?"
Just what Bolivia needs, another water crisis. You probably remember when Bechtel bought up most of Bolivia's water supply (sometime in the 1990s) so they could sell it back to the people for a huge markup. The Bolivian government canceled the contract because of so much public outrage, and Bechtel threatened to sue Bolivia for breach of contract.
Wasn't it just a year or so ago that Port Angeles got a slight taste of things to come, when the "snow pack drought" sent local water providers into panic mode? Of course, they didn't acknowledge anything dire publicly, but if it had not been for the unusually heavy and early rainfall at the end of summer, things were set to get dicey.
Like in Bolivia, the public here is told there is no climate change impacts to worry about... until there is no water.
Yup, Port Angeles was saved by the early and heavy rainfall, fall of 2015, after the summer heat had melted all the snow pack. We'll have to hope the public gets more informed and less gullible about climate change being "a hoax," here and in Bolivia; everywhere for that matter.
I think two things contributed to our decades long embargo of Cuba.
One was that Fidel out played us in the 1950s and we came out looking so very foolish.
Add in the extremely strong bloc of Batista Cubans who fled when he took over. They certainly kept the pressure on in DC to keep Cuba out of our sand box.
In the long run however, I wonder if Fidel really did his homeland any favors. Cuba certainly suffered as a result of our cold shoulder.
MRM: Hell hath no fury like a military superpower who's been outsmarted by a smaller and more "backward" rival. And yes, the Batista supporters who fled to Florida -- and their children and grandchildren -- have had a stranglehold on America's foreign policy toward Cuba.
"In the long run however, I wonder if Fidel really did his homeland any favors. Cuba certainly suffered as a result of our cold shoulder."
Is this to suggest that Cuba should have given in to the attempts of a foreign government to install a political system of it's own liking? Because the Capitalists wanted to continue to be able to exploit the resources of the country, "Or else", the Cubans should have just succumbed to the economic warfare wrought by the US?
Where does that end? All countries should then just hand over their resources, governments, and political systems to the one most powerful country in the world? No rights of self determination or concepts like sovereignty?
And "Cold shoulder"?? The US attempts to invade Cuba. The US attempts to assassinate Cuba's leader multiple times. The US sets up a strict economic embargo of Cuba for decades.
Just for the sake of discussion, what if China or Russia did the exact same things to the US? Attempted military invasions? Attempted multiple assassinations of our President?
Right.
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