Rest in Revolution Fidel Castro

By
Martyn Bradbury
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74
10

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2016 has been a shit year, and it continues to find ways to keep killing off all my heroes, this time 2016 has managed to wrestle life from the Godfather of the Revolution, Fidel Castro –

The CIA tried to assassinate him 638 times, here was one of their first attempts…

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…Nelson Mandela loved him…

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…and the World lost an idea that common people could join together and fight the forces of Capitalism with weapons if need be.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

A revolutionary hero just turned up at the pearly gates demanding a meeting with the workers – Rest in Revolution Fidel.

 

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74 COMMENTS

      • Yes he was Frank, but he didn’t shoot, torture and imprison his own citizens. He didn’t lock up homosexuals and ban trades unions either.

        • The only time the political right care about dictators killing and torturing their own people is when it is done by dictators of the political left. When it is done by those of the political right it doesn’t even merit a mention, let alone criticism.
          Why is that Andrew?

              • Cuba.
                Belarus
                North Korea
                Venezuela
                Nicaragua
                Sudan
                Angola
                If any of these happen to be right wing it doesn’t really matter as far right is the same as far left.

                • Patrick – But you only focus on Fidel Castro – perhaps one of the few really popular communist governments aside from Imre Nagy and Alexander Dubcek, and socialists like the late Salvador Allende?

                • For once you are right Andrew.
                  And that is the point I have made on this blog before on a few occasions.
                  Far right and far left dictatorships are not really all that much different.
                  They use the same tactics to control their people – dodgy show elections (if they have any elections at all), torture, imprisonment and disregard for human social and political rights.
                  The lists mean nothing, except to the US.
                  Their chains of command might vary a bit between left and right but there is not much difference in the outcome.
                  So when you come down hard on your supposed “left wing” dictatorships (Belarus is left-wing??) why don’t you, as a paragon of the supposedly fair-minded rightwing come down on all of them that treat humans badly?

                  • You got my name wrong, but I’ll probably get over it.
                    I do come down on all who treat their people badly.
                    But the title of this blog is not Burma, Laos, China, Cambodia or those nasty little African outfits, it is about Castro and Cuba.
                    I do recall that you felt so “alive” when you were in Cambodia. Unfortunately many Kymers were not. A very bad regime.
                    If you look down towards the bottom of this thread you will see I have already given my thoughts.
                    I’m not a aragon of anything. It just happens I’m centre right with a social concience and look upon the far R and Far L as same same.

                    • Patrick, you are a classic cut alt-right Troll who is nice to have on the site to remind us of how neoliberal mythology warps history and the cultural landscape with the zealotry of a religious fanatic, but there are times when I even need to step in and shake my head in disbelief at your ignorance.

                      Who enabled the Khmere Rouge Patrick? America’s secret bombing war in Cambodia destroyed the Government and gave rise to the Khmere Rouge. You ignore the West’s need to step in and prop up despots to avoid the uncomfortable truths of American Corporate wars and the paramilitary death squads they have funded. The way some have resisted that Western Imperialism is far more nuanced and complex than your pathetic attempt to paint anyone praising Fidel as a co-accused war criminals is more akin to the narrow minded book burners of fascism.

                      I get you are trying to be provocative, but basic history isn’t something you can simply reclassify to justify your pretty narrow view of the world.

  2. A true hero and a true survivor… and a true inspiration to the rest of the world

    ‘Sympathy & celebration: Twitterati react to death of former Cuban president Fidel Castro’

    https://www.rt.com/news/368273-fidel-castro-death-cuba/

    ‘ ‘I have a heart of steel’: Fidel Castro’s most memorable quotes’

    https://www.rt.com/news/368251-fidel-castro-best-quotes/

    Cuban health care a model for the world:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salim-lamrani/cubas-health-care-system-_b_5649968.html

    http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/5/08-030508/en/

    • So can you reconcile Trump and Castro, as Trump has lambasted Fidel Castro as having been a cruel dictator?

      • He was.
        Trump, will have to wait and see what sort of disaster he will turn out to be but he can’t stall an economy for 50 years as Fidel did.
        He’s not as longwinded either.

  3. A leader who showed they could stand up to the US and go their own way.

    He achieved huge literacy and health outcomes for Cubans.

    • Go there own way?
      Did they? I imagine that the USSR buying 80% of Cuban sugar and paying up to 11 times the world price would have gone some way towards Cuba going it’s own way.

      • Patrick: “Did they? I imagine that the USSR buying 80% of Cuban sugar and paying up to 11 times the world price would have gone some way towards Cuba going it’s own way.”

        Maybe that’s because the West wouldn’t sell sugar to the Soviet Union during the Cold War so the Russians were forced to buy at a higher price?

        On top of which, Paddy, maybe 11 times the world price was actually a FAIR PRICE, and the West was buying the product cheaply from pro-US puppet regimes?

        In which case Castro liberated Cuba from the sugar transnationals and actually managed to get the price that the product was worth??

        I call that shrewd business acumen, Paddy me old son.

        Wasamatter, doncha like it when the socialists stick it to the corporates??

        That’s why the Yanks got rid of Allende. Oh, by the way, that was a democratically elected socialist government. Didn’t last long though. Washington made certain of that.

        No wonder Castro locked up or shot his opponants. He KNEW what the Americans were capable of!!

        • World price is world price, the same price Australian producers and everyone else received.
          Chris Trotter stated on Radio on Monday that the USSR already had sufficient supply of sugar but thought it a cheap price to get a base 90 miles away from her enemy USA.
          Cold war remember and you can’t accuse Chris of being right wing.

          • No, Patrick, the “world price”is not the “world price” if it’s controlled by transnationals which have a grip on producers. All you are doing is voicing your tacit support for corporate control over nation’s resources.

            THAT IS PRECISELY WHY CASTRO LIBERATED CUBA!!! TO GET RID OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU!!!

            Righto, that’s my spleen vented. At least you’re showing your true colors, Patrick. You and your fellow right-wing travellers.

  5. My entire life has been dominated by the desire of capitalists to exploit people and resources at the expense of environment, and capitalism’s relentless of transfer wealth upwards to those who already have too much. There are very few places where capitalists have not succeeded in exploiting people and resources and bringing about ruination.

    The process of ruination of the Earth is reaching it’s ultimate conclusion. And all the good work that has been done in Cuba since the 1950s will be wiped out in the final orgy of exploitation, greed and stupidity that characterizes the capitalist system.

    • Don’t rain on Marty’s parade.
      You must understand that he believes the end justifies the means. Don’t you remember that dear old chap and fellow visionary, Joe Stalin, explaining that you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
      He had to kill around 20 million Russians and still didn’t get the perfect omelet!
      Perhaps some of the 150,000 Angolans who died in their civil war even forgot to thank the 25,000 Cuban Mercenaries who backed the Soviet sponsored “liberation” group.

      • You’re referring to one of the many “brush wars” during the 20th Century Cold War. The West was also involved, Patrick – which you seem to over-look.

        During the Indochina conflict, 1,450,000 to 3,595,000 million were killed. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Civilian_deaths_in_the_Vietnam_War)

        During the Iraq-Iran War – where the West supported Saddam Hussein against Iran – an estimate 1 milion to 1.5 million were killed (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/23/iran-iraq-war-anniversary).

        During Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia (where the West supported the former), thousands more were killed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War)

        And of course, we now have Western military adventurism in Iraq. Death toll thus far; appriximately 1 million civilians dead (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq) since the US-led invasion in 2003.

        When it comes to “breaking eggs”, the West is no better than Joe Stalin. We just have better “PR”, to clothe it in nice terms like “regime change”, “democracy”, and “human rights”.

        As for your reference to Angola. It’s amazing how conveniently you forgot to mention the colonisation of Angola by Portugal and the de-stabilisation that caused. In your mind, Patrick, history seems to start only when it suits you – notably when local populations rise up against colonial oppressors.

  9. The common people, yeah right. I have been to Cuba, they can keep their communism. If capitalism is for the 1%, then communism is for the 0.1%. They can all read, so what, knowledge ain’t power with someone else’s boot on your neck. You may wonder why nearly half of voters vote national, they are mostly concerned about this lot getting anywhere near the wheel. Have a great day

    • They can all read, so what, knowledge ain’t power with someone else’s boot on your neck.

      As opposed to having corporations with their boots on the necks of Third World nations? How’s your moral compass, ‘Off White’, when it comes to sweat shops producing goods for fashion-label businesses? Or polluting environments to strip-mine the land; clear-fell forests; pollute rivers and the air?

      You ok with corporate boots (with Adidas labels, of course) on the necks of Third World nations and their workers?

      • No Frank. As opposed to nothing. I am making no comparison. Corporations are not my heroes. Yet Castro is Marty’s hero. The left is flawed, as is the right. My moral compass makes me look at all points of view, hence why I’m here, not stuck in some echo chamber. Now go out and buy NZ made, I know I will.

    • Half of NZers vote Nats, because they have their heads up their bums and love fossil fuel and methane up their noses.

      They cling to lifestyles and economic models that will ruin the planet and the future of their off-spring. They have been brainwashed to death, and think they know best.

      I can just see it again, Paul Henry ignoring and ridiculing climate change and the human input in that looming disaster. Making jokes about it.

      Sadly with the kind of dumbing down media, and ignorant that also drop in here at times, with their right wing nonsense and conspiracy stuff, NZers are in too small numbers educated enough, so the blind lead the blind majority, towards a deep cliff.

      Cuba may be backward in some ways, but the people there, at least enjoying good healthcare and education, they may still know how to survive with little fossil fuel technology, even during a nuclear winter that may be the end result of Trumpism that is about to hit us.

      Those US American fast food addicts and consumer idiots, same as their counterparts here, they will freeze to death, not knowing what to do without a switch to turn things on, that will not function after nukes have hit.

    • “You may wonder why nearly half of voters vote national, they are mostly concerned about this lot getting anywhere near the wheel”

      funny that, i dont remember Fidel ever running for parliament here in NZ ?

  10. All the right wing, ding dong, bludgers of the work force are out in numbers here today. You can smell the stink of their big flat oafish feet soaking in the trough.
    The first to greedily benefit from Worker effort i.e. worker-taxes-paid-for sell offs of state owned assets and resources. The kind of thing Castro fought to keep for his own people.
    And they’re the first to criticise those whom they’ve parasitised into the gutter for them to walk over and look down upon for being there.
    You fuckers should think yourselves fucking lucky NZ doesn’t have a Castro proper.

    • I think you are right. Count our lucky stars that a dictator who prosecutes rivals and forbid dissents is not in charge in NZ.
      By the sounds of it, many want a left wing dictatorship here.
      Sad 🙁

    • Speaking for myself, I’m in the workforce. I disagree with selling SOEs to foreign interests, I put my money where my mouth was and stumped up with cold hard cash. But you make some great assumptions countryboy. Thanks for the kind words at the end. I think I’d be ok though, as I’m not gay or a journalist. Feel free to vote in 2017. 😉

  11. Let’s not forget that during Batista’s regime, Cuba was controlled by organised US crime families.

    Castro got rid of those parasites. Instead, Cuban people were finally free to determine their own destiny.

    • That was the good bit but were they free to determine their own destiny?
      I was under the impression that Fidel called the shots and can’t recall him running elections.
      Frank, if I had written that you would have pulled me up for forgetting to mention the destabilising influence of the Spanish colonists.

      • Yes, they were free to choose their own destiny.

        If the people didn’t support the Castro government, it would have been over-thrown. Cuba was nowhere near the Soviet Union, so unlike up-risings in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Cuban government could not rely on Red Army ‘muscle’ for local communist parties to maintain power.

        So Castro had to be a peoples’ government.

        Remember that the Kennedy government banked on a popular uprising by Cubans during the Bay of Pigs invasion. That up-rising never happened. No one wanted a return to a US-puppet regime, and certainly no one wanted see see Batista come back.

        • Come on Frank. Do you really believe a government is good if it isn’t overthrown by force?
          What’s wrong with elections?
          I believe your real politics are showing.

            • Frank – stop twisting.
              Fidel may have been a hero to Martyn and it seems like you too – bit he was a dictator.
              I suspect he was even worse than John Key.
              Do you think we will get to vote next year?

              • “Twisting”? Not at all, Patrick.

                But it is noteworthy that neither you nor other right-wingers to criticise Castro for his human rights violations have mentioned the role that Batista played in Cuban affairs.

                As I pointed out, your notion of “history” seems to start at a certain point, ignoring what went before.

                It certainly seems obvious that you are heavily critical on Castro, but oblivious to a right-wing, pro-US dictator with an equally atrocious record. Then again, I’m guessing you and your friends lamented the over-throw of Batista because he was pro-American?

                • Now you are being silly. I was only a kid then.
                  Frank, I’m not talking about revious regimes.
                  The topic is Castro.
                  Most of my posts don’t make it but I will ask you again.
                  Where are your shoes made?
                  What percentage of your clothes are made in NZ?

                  • Patrick: “Frank, I’m not talking about revious regimes.”

                    Of course not. Then you’d have to put Castro’s rule into context. And that would upset your patently anti-socialist bias, eh Paddy?

                    • Into context of what?
                      The previous dictatorship of 60 years ago? Why do you and Frank harp on about that;
                      Sorry the guy was in a timewarp
                      He didn’t have to stay a dictator just because the previous guy was.
                      He had the opportunity to soften , tone down the secret police, stop the jailing and torture and killings of those who spoke out, in even a minor way, agin the regime.
                      He had plenty of wriggle room as he had a strong army if his reforms led to violence.
                      But why would it have? Don’t you think Cubans would have embraced more freedoms?
                      I don’t have any problem with Socialism ( except I don’t believe it works, as it didn’t in Cuba or USSR) what I have a problem with is socialists who think left wing dictatorships where the people have no rights are Ok.
                      They are not and I can’t understand why you would think they are.
                      Please explain why Fidel could not move on from a nasty right wing dictatorship which ended 60 years ago.
                      Incidentally I hate right and left wing dictatorships in equal measure. I lived in a right wing military dictatorship for many years and it sucked.

                    • He had the opportunity to soften…

                      “Soften”?!?!

                      Jeezus, Patrick, are you totally bereft of history? Are you so one-eyed in your bias against the Left that you have “forgotten” everything Castro faced?

                      FFS, Castro faced 600 assassination attempts by the CIA and their Mafia cronies!

                      Cuba faced decades of economic blockade by the US!

                      And the US tried an invasion in April 1961, using Cuban mercenaries!

                      And you’re harping on about wanting Castro to “soften”?! Fuck me, if you faced what Cuba and Castro faced, I don’t think you’d be in any hurry to “soften” in the face of such hostile intransigence and overt violence.

                      How many governments has the US overtly and covertly over-thrown? Dozens? Hundreds? Salvador Allende probably played by your rules, and paid the ultimate price.

                      Screw your hypocrisy. Castro defended Cuba in the face of the most powerful nation on Earth. Only sycophants to the implacable American Empire wanted him to roll over and die.

    • Right on the mark there Frank. Under Batista’s vile reign, Cuba was the whorehouse of the Caribbean. Castro soon put paid to that.

      Fidel Castro’s legacy will be his health and education policies, where in Cuba now, second to none free medical care is available to all, while education has been recognized as the best in the world, with a 97% literacy rate.

      RIP Fidel.

      • Mussolini made the trains run on time. Stalin industrialised the country. Mao defeated the warlords and united the country. Hitler solved unemployment.

        Never mind the whole lack of human rights thing.

          • So reading between the lines of your sarcasm, you seem to believe that US waterboarding (which BTW I abhor) is equal to the thousands of summary executions performed by Fidel and his fellow totalitarians. I suggest you look up “false equivalence” in a dictionary.

  12. Castro was no saint, but he was one that endured and overthrew others that were much worse, and who were corrupt, selling the island nation cheaply to the US mafiosis and so. Batista was a US puppet, same as many in that sphere of political imperialist interference.

    Those that are overly critical of the revolution, of Castro, Che and the ones that brought change, they are blind in one eye, and politically in bed with the ones that committed much worse atrocities than some may lament.

    RIP Fidel, I say, “revolution” may though imply, he will have enough reasons to turn in his grave, looking at the future US president and what may loom for Cuba.

  13. It’s the American regimes that are guilty of the mass murders many of you accuse Castro of. The American pig war whores who are supported by Israel, Britain, Australia and good old New Zealand. Wakey wakey

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