Fidel Castro dies at 90

Defining democracy is a funny and difficult thing. For instance, in the last US election, which party had a platform that included the end of using drones as killing machines around the world. It didn't even show up on the radar (pun intended), so if you were opposed to the practice of assassination by drone, you had no one to vote for. Remember the 'bi-partisan'  congress? What does that mean, exactly? It means both parties that make up the government agree on certain points, and the voter is denied a choice in the matter.

In Canada, if you wish to extend human rigfts to Palestinians, who do you vote for?

In most liberal democracies politics is a bit like USA television. 578 channels, but all you get is 'Friends' reruns.

I just read Gerry Caplan's damning analysis of Castro in the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/fidel-castro-was-no-friend-of-socialism/article33073767/

He is more ferocious than most rightwing commentators I've read since Fidel's passing. Maybe Garry is contemplating a run for the Conservative leadership.

On the other hand, maybe he's trying to make the point the NDP was trying to make in last year's election: "Look, we're not radical. We're even more centrist than the Liberals."

Hi column seems very odd, given that he was one of the signatories to the article, written during the election campaign, criticizing the NDP. I think they call that sucking and blowing at the same time.

jjuares wrote:

As for your point that makes the problem worse in my opinion. That maeans every MP is dependent upon staying in the good graces of their leader. This makes Canadian democracy a top down affair in many ways.

Agreed. And I won't reiterate the list of excellent activist candidates that have been unceremonially banned by the Liberal and NDP bureaucracies. It's shameful, and most importantly, it's undemocratic.

There seems to be two responses in global media. Either honouring a legendary revolutionary, or denouncing a "dictator". There's not much else.

Since I am such a fan of Eduardo Galeano, I'd like to repeat his remark about Fidel as someone whose enemies do not say that Cuba is one of the few countries that does not participate in the world cup of the doormat. For such a little, island country to be so, and to play such an enormous role in the world, as an example, despite the monstrous, and continuing, blockade, much is owed to this caballero, this Don Quixote, who, as Galeano also noted, always stood up for the losers.

Here is a more nuanced examination of Castro's response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia:

Fidel Castro’s Position on the Invasion and Occupation of Czechoslovakia

Quote:

What has happened to Fidel Castro’s speech of August 23 in which he supported the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries?

Is it being hailed by Moscow? Has the Soviet command tried to put a copy in the hands of every citizen of Czechoslovakia, the better to explain why foreign troops have been stationed in their country? Have the Czechoslovak communications media opened a public discussion of the questions it raises?

If the speech is not being widely circulated, has it at least been placed on the agenda for discussion at a governmental level, or among the leaders of the Communist parties of the “socialist camp”?

The truth is that even the Communist Party, U. S. A., one of the few pro-Moscow parties in the West to support the invasion wholeheartedly, has displayed an ambiguous attitude toward Castro’s speech. While utilizing the fact that Castro approved the action of the Warsaw Pact countries, the top CPUSA leaders have refrained from disseminating or discussing Castro’s speech as a whole.

...The intervention, in his opinion, “unquestionably entailed a violation of legal principles and international norms.” It “cannot be denied,” he contends, “that the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak State was violated.” To say otherwise would be “a fiction, an untruth. And the violation was, in fact, of a flagrant nature.”

“From a legal point of view, this cannot be justified. . . . Not the slightest trace of legality exists. Frankly, none whatever.”

...What Castro is saying here, with complete consistency, is that if you adopt the position that Czechoslovakia was about to fall like a ripe plum to capitalism, then you must draw certain conclusions about the attractive power of communism. How is it to be explained that capitalism has such an ideological grip on the people of Czechoslovakia? And not only after twenty years of living under a workers state in Czechoslovakia, but fifty-one years after the Russian October and ten years after the Cuban victory.

That’s capitalism in its death agony, too. A capitalism that has given the world two global conflicts, a major depression and any number of minor ones. It is a capitalism that has given the world fascism, and, in the case of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi occupation. A capitalism, moreover, that has already wiped out two cities with nuclear bombs and that threatens to destroy all mankind in a nuclear holocaust. A capitalism that has won universal hatred and contempt because of such aggressions as the current one in Vietnam. A capitalism that has aroused a mood of deep rebellion among the youth living under it. A capitalism which in the United States has touched off repeated explosions in the ghettos.

In the face of all this, the Kremlin is compelled to say—in deeds if not in words— that capitalism is more attractive to the people of Czechoslovakia than communism!

It is hard for Fidel Castro to accept that. It is hard for any revolutionist to accept it. Yet the conclusion is unavoidable if you admit the premise that the counterrevolutionary danger in Czechoslovakia was so great that foreign troops had to be sent in to crush it.

A completely opposite conclusion follows if the truth of the matter was that a political revolution was maturing in Czechoslovakia. For this signifies that instead of wanting to go back to capitalism, what the people of Czechoslovakia wanted was to go forward to socialist democracy. If that is the case, capitalism cannot possibly be restored in Czechoslovakia. The battle is with bureaucratism—the pattern of Stalinist bureaucratism imposed on the country from the outside.

Overall an excellent analysis of the Czechoslovakian invasion, and a pretty good exposition on the thinking of Fidel Castro.

Statement by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers:

[url=http://www.cupw.ca/en/fidel-has-left-us-our-friendship-cuban-people-unwa... Has Left Us, Our Friendship With the Cuban People is Unwavering[/url]

¡Hasta la victoria, Siempre!

If anyone is interested, Radio Havana Cuba's international radio service streams at the following link.    English is carried in the evening from 0100 to 0700 UTC  (8 PM to 2 AM Eastern Time)...other languages are used throughout the day.

Unfortunately, they stream in very "counter revolutionary" Windows Media format.   Using a Microsoft Media Server URL.

But, you can copy and paste the following URL into VLC Media Player and it will work fine.

mmsh://media.enet.cu/radiohabanacubaidiomas?MSWMExt=.asf

Or, if you have a radio kicking around with shortwave coverage, it's pretty loud across the continent on 6.000 KHz. (6.0 MHz.) in the evenings.

They've been mostly reading obits from various leaders around the world along with excerpts from various speeches from Fidel.

ikosmos wrote:

All smug, caviar leftists take note.

Why not call us limousine liberals while you're at it?

Justin Trudeau Loses His Nerve, Skips Fidel Castro's Funeral: Walkom

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/11/30/justin-trudeau-los...

"Trudeau has allowed himself to be browbeaten by the usual suspects - anti-Communists posing as human rights warriors who can find no good in modern Cuba."

Does tzatziki count as poor-person's caviar?

Fidel Castro: dictator or revolutionary? A necessary differentiation by someone who knew him

Quote:

Dictators are in power for themselves, while revolutionaries, most of whom are born into the upper class, take power for the Other. Their authoritarianism stems from the refusal of the 1% from which they emerge to share — as stunningly illustrated by those who are dancing in the streets of Miami, hoping to turn the clock back in the land they abandoned.

ikosmos wrote:

Fidel Castro: dictator or revolutionary? A necessary differentiation by someone who knew him

 

Like the US spectrum? Terrorist - Moderate rebel.

Funny, I meant taramasalata. Tzatziki has nothing to do with caviar, though I've often been served both as mezze. Odd how the brain can screw up, eh?

Swallow, it gets worse. Caviar can also be Iranian.

lagatta wrote:

Swallow, it gets worse. Caviar can also be Iranian.

I would have said Iran if asked what is a caviar exporting country.  Crossword puzzles all think so.  

I prefer smoked salmon to caviar. I thought it was gross when I tried it at some banquet. But then there is no accounting for taste.  My wife and sister are busy making appies for a winter mixer at the Museum and the salmon pate is excellent. Is that too decadent for real progressives?

I don't like caviar either, at least not what little of it I've eaten. I prefer the cheap taramasalata. Once I was bumped up to first class on a flight to Paris (I was travelling to Italy to study there, on a scolarship) and chose the smoked trout over the caviar. While the food and wine were very good, unlike the usual airline swill, the best feature was the seating that became almost beds, and being able to sleep for a few hours.

As for Castro, I still haven't heard from my friends currently in Cuba, but that isn't surprising, as e-mail is not very dependable at the best of times. One is supposed to have arrived in Cuba for an event - a book fair, a cultural event or something similar, but I imagine that everything is topsy-turvy now. She will be staying with another friend who is a catlady - she rescues and fosters stray cats and kittens, and there are many. There is no cat food as such in Cuba - one has to make it from scraps of meat and other things. On the other hand, the vets do house calls! I haven't asked whether Cuba also sends vets on humanitarian missions - those are important, especially in terms of livestock and other farm animals.

I don't usually either. The plane upgrade was a fluke. Sometimes I've worked at posh stuff and had some of their crumbs.

You could buy a little jar of fairly "ordinary" caviar for not a lot of money, say at Eastern European shops. But better to spend the money on a good cheese, or if you eat meat or fish, some smoked trout or other fish. Caviar is among those foods and bevvies that are more about prestige than pleasure.

I've heard the term "Chardonnay socialist" as well. Probably from the US, because of the aversion to things with French names? Rather silly, as at the LCBO there is a magnum of quite decent cheap chardonnay from Chile for $13.95, that is, $7 a bottle: http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo/produit/chardonnay-frontera-concha-y-toro/46584...

Of course it is a bit more expensive at the SAQ, though our monopoly has recently lowered prices a bit as it seems a lot of people were buying in Ontario...

Still no news from friends in Cuba. Will write again - a very short message, so as not to overload their system.

You can leave messages at the [url=http://fidelcondolences.ca/]Online Condolence Book of the Cuban Embassy in Canada[/url].

How Castro helped end Colombian conflict:

http://www.cbc.ca/1.3878489

Venceremos!

And for the record, I got a hit in every at bat against Fidel. His team razzed him at my later at bats. Beaten by that skinny kid.

KenS wrote:

...I was living in Cuba at the time. Even then I thought the position was a rationalizing crock. (I guess that qualifies as "nuanced".) And I knew Party members that got shifty eyed and soft voiced when they would "expound" that position- albeit in simpler language than Fidel.

If you had read my post you would see the 'nuanced' did not refer to Castro's position, it referred to the analysis of his position. May have to brush up on your comprehension skills...

Quote:

And for the record, I got a hit in every at bat against Fidel.

Are you saying that you stood at home plate, bat in hand, while Fidel Castro pitched?

Not quarrelling here, just clarifying.  Because that would be pretty cool, indeed.

Quote:

Is that too decadent for real progressives?

Not if it's vegan.  Otherwise, whose side are you on??

It was reported (where, I forget?) that the central "Revolution Square" would be named after Commandante Fidel but, it was also reported (CBC) that Fidel objected to naming all sorts of objects after him, rejecting anything that smacked of the cult of personality, "right until the last hours of his life" (Raoul), and apparently his wish will be respected.

Of course, they could change the name of the country to "Fidel". hah.

Kudos to Fidel for refusing to have Revolution Square and other things named for himself.

No surprise that Margaret Wente wrote a particularly horrible piece on him... probably plagiarized as well.