Castro draws a crowd in Paraguay as he blasts the United States

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP)

Cuban leader Fidel Castro drew 10,000 people to a Paraguayan stadium Saturday for a speech blasting the United States.

'Fidel! Fidel!'' a young and raucous crowd chanted, including admirers and others who simply wanted to see the hemisphere's lone communist leader. -

Turning to the crowd, Castro likened the United States to the ''Rome of antiquity'' and outlined arguments defending his communist state.

At one point, many in the crowd sang ''Happy Birthday'' to the Cuban leader — and he appeared touched, shedding a few tears.

But, today, Fidel Castro is a saint in comparison to George W. Bush.

Fulgencio Batista.


Yep, it's true, that's "Ike" Eisenhower with Batista.

Any mass-murdering right-wing dictator is jes' fine by our own right-wing looney-tunes.

any dictatorships. HOWEVER, Castro is better than previous dictators and most any dictator in any other nation. America embargos the country because Cuba will not bow to US interests and because they fear a fully functioning socialist state. Cuba has wonderful education and healthcare mandates if only they could trade with America and fund them. I am afraid that when Castro dies the Cuban people will be even worse off because the special interest vultures in America will be ready to invade.

Just what I fear, too.

Over Cuba hangs the sword not of Damocles but of McDonalds. The right wing salivates over the corporate resorts it will build, the malls it will erect, the happy brown servants it will hire, the glories of Florida-style democracy it will bring.

What makes you think that you can just march right into a country and take it over?

Don’t you know that Cuba has immigration and foreign investment laws just like every other country on the planet? What makes you think that Americans are exempt from such laws?

Do you think that the USA is the only country in the world that’s entitled to have homeland security?

Just because the USA is chock full of brainwashed morons doesn’t mean that Cuba is too!

The right wing can salivate over Cuba all they want but they're not going to get it without one hell of a fight from the people of Cuba.

"Why do so many Americans think like this?
What makes you think that you can just march right into a country and take it over? "

History.

Take a look at the USA's record of marching right into Caribbean and Latin American countries and taking them over. Its a brutal and blood soaked record that is regarded as unremarkable to most US citizens. Over time the American psyche has been molded and formed to produce a dysmorphic self image of 'natural, god given superiority'.

In order to maintain this image of superiority Americans are content to be the only people on the planet banned by their own government from traveling to the #1 tourist destination in the Caribbean but feel they have the moral authority to criticize freedom and democracy and rights in Cuba and elsewhere.

Ha, who in the world do Americans think they’re fooling? Obviously not the people in Paraguay for one!

How many more deaths financed by US taxpayers will it take before Americans stop living the lie and take off the blinders and act responsibly especially in their own hemisphere?

History shows that the people of Cuba fought for many years for their independence, they will continue to defend their sovereignty with or without Castro. The only way Americans could take over the island as so many brainwashed and bushwhacked morons dream of would be to nuke the place.

There are a lot of lessons Americans should, could and ought to have learned from Cuba by now but so long as Americans still prefer to live in splendid embargoed isolation they have no credibility or moral authority. Anyone spouting the US government or Florida “exile” line in this day and age is a bigoted hypocrite to the core whether they realize it or not.

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"Let’s talk about democracy. If Cuba had free elections tomorrow, do you think the CIA would not be financing the opposition like they did in Nicaragua? What are you talking about?" But it’s an argument that (Oliver) Stone believes most of his countrymen have failed to grasp. "Americans ask the wrong questions," he argues. "Castro, when are you going to hold elections? Well what does an election mean to a kid in Honduras? He does have elections, actually. The elections mean about as much as the elections in f***ing Honduras. It’s so disgusting, so rhetorical. I have been to a hell of a lot of South American and Central American countries. God forbid, I’d rather be a Cuban any day than a Honduran. That s***hole in Honduras: growing up, you’re going to die from bad water before you’re two. It’s awful up there, and in Mexico too. There’s no comparison with Cuba."

So was there nothing in Cuban life that Stone protested to Castro about during their three days? "Frankly, I told him I could never stand to be on a block where everybody was telling me what I’m doing. I believe in free enterprise. I believe in capitalism within a certain ceiling. I believe in the ability to make a living freely, perhaps because I’m accustomed to it as an American. But Fidel’s arguments are not necessarily in opposition to mine. He believed in a socialist model, I don’t think he necessarily believed in a Communist model. I believe he became indebted to the Soviet Union mostly because of American intransigence to him, most specifically via Richard Nixon, who was the biggest liar of American history. So why we believe Richard Nixon and not Fidel Castro I don’t know."

- When Castro got stoned, Scotland on Sunday, Sun 17 Aug 2003
- http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/thereview.cfm?id=901922003

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The Cuban revolution does repress those who disagree. I think this is a serious issue. But this should not obscure the fact that it has real enemies who have attacked it violently for forty-four plus years. But to understand it, one must place it inside its historical context…

… … Latin Americans never disobeyed the United States before the Cuban revolution. And even Castro's ideological foes acknowledge their debt to him for standing up to Uncle Sam.

The revolution ended in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union collapsed. Cuba no longer had the resources to change itself or the world. Tourism and dollarization have introduced dubious values. A black market thrives. Where is Cuba going? Where is Peru or Mexico going? Most third world country without major strategic resources don't possess economic road maps. Cubans at least have the advantages of institutional equality and services sorely lacking in most of the third world- thanks to their Revolution

- The Cuban Revolution 50 Years Later, Saul Landau, August 16, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau08162003.html

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Who are the Cuban 'dissidents'?

… Being a Cuban revolutionary all of my life, having fought in Angola against the South African invasion and being, at the present time, incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison for protecting the Cuban people from the terrorist actions supported, encouraged and silenced by the United States government, I hope that--if being progressive is still to fight for a better world--I might be entitled to the benefit of being considered a progressive person.

So, when I opened a magazine called precisely The Progressive and read an ad by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy requesting signatures in order to condemn Cuba for its alleged "repression of dissidents," I was, at best, in disbelief.

I can't imagine that somebody can consider himself a progressive person and then take at its word the endemic slandering and lies of the U.S. media in regards to Cuba. It would only take a little bit of intellectual honesty and some research to discover that the money to pay the "dissidents" is appropriated, overtly and openly, by the U.S. authorities to be distributed through entities like NED and USAID among whomever, on the island, decides to make a living as a dissident.

Who gives any moral authority to the American government to create a paid opposition in Cuba? What international principle of law applies to this behavior? Since when is it a role of a U.S. diplomat to tour the island organizing the "opposition" and giving out money?... …

http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/renelet0821.php

Seems like everyone's "blasting" each other in the headlines, today. It's a powerful and descriptive word, but it shouldn't be used so damned much.

before we actually get a chance to read the article.

Getting out there with a violent, negative headline is their way of saying they don't want you to read the news without a little of their own coloration, first.

If anyone has had the right to "blast" someone, it would be the victem of dozens of assassination attempts, the latest one being only 2 or 3 years ago by Cuban Americans living in Florida.

(The would-be assassins' defense funds were augmented by "exile" hate radio hosts and their audiences in Miami.)

Paraguayans salute Cuba's President Fidel Castro
during a meeting a gathering of social organizations
at the National Sports Council stadium in Asuncion,
Paraguay on Saturday Aug. 16, 2003.

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Cuba's President Fidel Castro delivers a speech
during a meeting of Paraguayan social organizations
in Asuncion, Paraguay on Saturday Aug. 16, 2003

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites), second right, Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte, center, Brazilian (news - web sites) President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, second left, and Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, left, talk before having lunch in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 15, 2003, after attending the inauguration ceremony for Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte.(AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)

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New Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte, left, and Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) wave to the press at the Government House in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 15, 2003. Duarte took office Friday as Paraguay's 47th president, pledging to tackle the worst economic crisis in the history of the poor South American nation. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
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Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites), right, jokes with people during lunch in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 15, 2003. Castro traveled to Paraguay to attend the inauguration of Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte. Also seen at center bottom is Spain's Prince Felipe.(AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)
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I felt moved to look up the human rights record of the previous President, considering the present wealthy class of Venezuela is, a là the Bush/California Republicans, demanding a recall referendum on Chavas Frias.

I have never known his name, actually, so it took me a while to locate it. What was happening in Venezuela was certainly O.K. with the right-wing here,evidently, as they never tried to overthrow the previous President, Rafael Caldera.

Here's a bit about what was happening during his Presidency, taken from a mysterious "human rights" report:

(snip) The public sector, including the petroleum industry which accounts for some 24 percent of gross domestic product, dominates the economy. In response to a financial crisis in 1994, the Government instituted price and exchange controls, which exacerbated the economic recession and the Government's fiscal and monetary difficulties. To stabilize and revive the economy, the Government implemented a reform program and virtually eliminated controls in April. High inflation negatively affected the poor and a shrinking middle class. The Government estimates unemployment at 12 percent, but does not include the informal sector, which represents about 50 percent of the labor force.


The Government's human rights record continued to be poor in certain areas, and includes extrajudicial killings by the police and military, torture and abuse of detainees, failure to punish police and security officers accused of abuse, arbitrary arrests and excessively lengthy detentions, illegal searches, corruption and severe inefficiency in the judicial and law enforcement systems, and extremely harsh prison conditions. Violence against women, abuse of children, and discrimination against the disabled continue to be problems. The Government does not rigorously defend the rights of indigenous people. In an effort to address these problems and better coordinate human rights policy, the Government created an intergovernmental Human Rights Commission in December.


RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS


Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:


a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing


There were no reports of targeted political killings, but extrajudicial killings, primarily of criminal suspects, by the security forces continued. The Venezuelan Program of Action and Education in Human Rights (PROVEA), a highly respected nongovernmental human rights organization, documented 146 extrajudicial killings from October 1995 through September 1996. The killings involved summary executions, indiscriminate or excessive use of force, death resulting from torture and mistreatment while in custody, and death resulting from abuse during military or public service. According to PROVEA, the State Police carried out 47 of the killings; the Metropolitan Police of the Federal District, 26; the Municipal Police, 18; the PTJ, 15; the National Guard, 12; the armed forces, 12; the DISIP, 11; and other branches of the security apparatus or a combination of branches, 5.


The perpetrators of extrajudicial killings act with near impunity, as the Government rarely prosecutes such cases. The police often fail to investigate crimes allegedly committed by their colleagues and characterize incidents of extrajudicial killings as "confrontations," even though eyewitness testimony and evidence strongly indicate otherwise. In addition, the civilian judicial system remains highly inefficient and sometimes corrupt, and military courts are often strongly biased in favor of members of the armed forces accused of abuse. A special pretrial summary phase called "nudo hecho," which is used in cases involving public officials and is conducted in secret, often shields members of the security forces from prosecution, since cases can languish in that phase for several years. In the small number of prosecutions in which the courts convict perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and other abuses, the sentences issued are frequently light or the convictions are overturned on appeal. Unlike common criminals, members of the security forces charged with crimes rarely spend much time in prison. (snip/...)

http://www.usis.usemb.se/human/1996/west/venezuela.html

Isn't this wry? It was released by

United States Embassy Stockholm

Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices for 1996

Released by the Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor
U.S. Department of State

wouldn't put it pass them

Twice in the past week I have seen men on TV wearing red Che t-shirts. One was on Jay Leno (can't remember who it was, and the other was Mo Rocco on Fox News Rita Cosby Show!!

Seems like those Che shirts are very popular right now. Thinking I might buy one myself!

to special interests planning to take Cuba back, I'd like to mention that the Cuban Congresspeople in South Florida and New Jersey have already rammed through demands and secured large grants to Florida universities to offer courses in planning Cuba's new government. They have a real industry going just in plotting how to run Cuba when they get the chance.

If their social element in Cuba hadn't run rough-shod over the huge poor population of Cuba, they wouldn't be in Florida, plotting the way to get back, and regain their death-grip on Cuba, the people, the social structure, and the economy.

Creepy, isn't it?

Here's a photo of 3 of the 4 Cuban "exile" Representatives, along with an "exile" enforcer, Dan Burton, who has tirelessly worked to advance their interests. They sit at the top of the photo, by the desk. From the left: Republicans Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, from Florida, and Robert Menendez, a Democrat (!) from New Jersey.
They look as if they're plotting the next "Bay of Pigs."



Concerning Dan Burton, here's a small bit of insight into how he works for them:

(snip) Burton's Florida support dates mostly from his role in the 1995 Helms-Burton Act, which he co-authored with Jesse Helms to stiffen the 35-year embargo against Cuba. Helms-Burton penalizes foreign companies doing business with Cuban interests that involve land or businesses expropriated from refugees by the Castro regime. The act also forbids government agencies from granting Visas to executives from companies that flout the rules and permit Cuban-Americans to sue them in American courts (though implementation of this provision has been thwarted several times by President Clinton).

Helms-Burton spawned a number of trade controversies with Canada and Europe, and ultimately has done little to speed Castro's fall. But Helms-Burton is a politically important symbol for Cuban-Americans, and they have rewarded Burton generously for his work. In 1996, for example, he raised $67,550 in the sunshine state, $25,000 more than he got from his own constituents.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/burton/



Photo of the fourth Cuban Congress"exile", Republican Mario Diaz-Balart, brother of Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Their aunt, Mirta, shown here with Fidelito, their son, is the ex-wife of Fidel Castro.

Her father, a general, and brothers were all connected with the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista, with one of the brothers being an undersecretary for the Minister of the Interior.

If no one remembers, and it gets no media mention, Castro came to us just after the revolution, to ask for aid in pulling his country together after the fighting ended.

Our corporate owned government was pissed because with batista out of power their many deals were out the window, so we told him to take a hike. Russia, of course, welcomed him with open arms, if only to have a client state in our hemisphere, and supported him ever since.

Just another example of corporate interests overwhelming the interests of the whole region, if not the world.

This may have been the worst mistake of the cold war. It forced a militant regime away from our influence and over to the communists. Wonder what might have happeded if we had welcomed him instead.

Despite the fact that for the past few years a golden opportunity to end the embargo was handed to the people of the USA on a silver platter and a bipartisan majority of Congress critters pleaded with the public for their support to do so but even progressive underground democrats sat on their duffs and did sweet f*k all about it allowing the Bushistas and Florida’s “exiles” to do whatever the hell they want so they tightened the trade and travel restrictions for American-Americans while loosening them for Cuban-Americans with nary an iota of opposition.

The Cold War ended and the Soviets left over 10 years ago, Cuba can’t wait forever for brainwashed Americans to get their heads out of the sand so in recent months they’ve been signing trade deals with China. Déjà vu anyone?

Btw, anyone who still insists on labeling Cuba as “communist” is a brainwashed pawn who ought to have the spine by now to stand up for their own rights and go and see Cuba for themselves before jumping to the ignorant conclusions that the USA’s cold war propagandists want you to think.

by calling his audience "Uruguayans" instead of Paraguayans. Also he referred to the current date (August 18) as July 17.

Ah well. He could give Shrub lessons on recovering after misspeaking. He bowed his head while the boos were going on and then extended his arm to resume speaking, smiled, and said, "Something like this can be fixed."

According to many who have met him, one of the things that makes President Castro so personable and amicable is his ability to laugh at himself.



Cuba's President Fidel Castro laughs after mistakenly
saying Uruguay instead of Paraguay during his speech
behind a hand drawn poster of Cuban poet Jose Marti
in a meeting of Paraguayan social organizations in Asuncion,
Paraguay on Saturday Aug.16, 2003.

and drop the barrier between himself and others. That's why he can laugh, with his audience, at his own mistake, instead of becoming defensive about it.

That absolutely genuine mirth is so infectuous. It's the real thing. He's not a puffed up, self-important zero like some would-be leaders.

Great seeing that photo! What a breath of fresh air!

Castro has things very well planned for after his death. If he's been able to handle his country for 40 years and 90 miles away from its greatest enemy (also the larget superpower in human history), I'm sure he'll have SOMETHING for after his death.

Never underestimate people who lived fighiting as guerrillas. They are still alive to day for a reason.

down the Cuban government and ALL plans have failed. It is not surprising to me that Fidel is a hero in all of the Third World. Wherever he goes he arrives to the sound of crowds cheering his name and chanting the name of his country Cuba!, Cuba!, Cuba!, Cuba!

This was posted to one of the Cuba News boards that I read:

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go to www.reuters.com

on the top left click on the TV screen

you will see a little button that says "more"

click on 'more' until you get the little screen that says "Fidel, Fidel."

There is something hilarious in the video ... towards the end of the clip, Fidel is at the podium to make a speech to the Paraguayan people ...

He begins by saying "Hermanos uruguayos," ... then he realizes his mistake and he says, "This can be fixed."

If you have DSL you can see Fidel holding his head and laughing ... when I saw it tonight, I was LOL and folks near me at work were asking what was going on .. did not bother to explain, they would not understand ..

Paraguayos greeted Fidel with the worldwide soccer chant ... "Ole, Ole, Ole, Fidel, Ole, ..

btw, reuters TV has footage that is not seen in the USA on the mainline networks ...

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I watched the clip and saw the crowd chant Fidel!, Fidel!, Fidel!, and Cuba!, Cuba!, Cuba! and I read that when the crowd sang him Happy
Birthday that he got weepy. If this guy is hated like Uncle Sam wants everyone to believe, you'd never guess it by watching clips of him in Latin America.

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Parguayan people salute Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) as he pays tribute to Paraguayan Heroes in Asuncion, Paraguay on Saturday, August 16 , 2003.(AP Photo/Jorge Saenz

There is no defense - only piss poor excuses. Castro is a bad person that has managed to keep his sorid ways hidden from the poor people that don't know any better. His crocodile tears will not fool those with an IQ above his age.