Humberto Fontova: Cuban Stalinism at 50--and the Media Lies Continue
"Cuban mothers let me assure you that I will solve all Cuba's problems without spilling a drop of blood." Upon entering Havana on January 7, 1959, Cuba's new leader Fidel Castro broadcast that promise into a phalanx of microphones. As the jubilant crowd erupted with joy, Castro continued. “Cuban mothers let me assure you that because of me you will never have to cry."
The following day, just below San Juan Hill in eastern Cuba, a bulldozer rumbled to a start, clanked into position, and started pushing dirt into a huge pit with blood pooling at the bottom from the still-twitching bodies of more than a hundred men and boys who'd been machine-gunned without trial on the Castro brothers' orders. Their wives and mothers wept hysterically from a nearby road.
On that very day, the U.K. Observer ran the following headline: "Mr Castro's bearded, youthful figure has become a symbol of Latin America's rejection of brutality and lying. Every sign is that he will reject personal rule and violence."
These two events perfectly symbolize the Castro/Cuba phenomenon, even half a century later. The Castro regime oppresses and kills while issuing a smokescreen of lies not merely devious but downright psychopathic. The worldwide media abandons all pretense as "investigators" or "watchdogs" and adopts a role, not merely as sycophants, but as advertising agency. As Cuba's Stalinist nomenklatura celebrates fifty years of repression and high living this week --from Time magazine to USA Today, and from the BBC to Der Spiegel to the very U.K. Observer (now the Guardian) -- the usual idiocies on Cuba are spouting forth their usual sources, but in much greater profusion.
If what we constantly heard and read about Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in the mainstream media and college textbooks was merely in error it might be less obnoxious. Instead the media/academia clichés usually upend the truth. We get the precise opposite of the truth. Ignorance (usually willful) of conditions in pre-Castro Cuba, of Fidel Castro's background, of U.S.-Cuba relations pre-1960 all contribute to the cliché-ridden Castro legend. With the media wallowing in a Castro-cliché orgy on this hideous anniversary let's examine them one at a time, in no particular order of importance.
Cliché no. 1: A plucky Castro succeeded in defying a relentlessly hostile U.S. that worked ceaselessly to topple him.
The Facts: “We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along," wrote Nikita Khrushchev about the Missile Crisis Resolution.
"Security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba."
Henry Kissinger, as Gerald Ford's secretary of state, renewed the pledge. After the Missile Crisis "resolution," Castro's "defiance" of the U.S. took the form of the U.S. Coast Guard and even the British Navy (when some intrepid exile freedom fighters moved their operation to the Bahamas) shielding him from exile attacks. Far from "defying" a superpower, Castro hid behind the skirts of two superpowers, plus the British Empire....
Read entire article at American Thinker
The following day, just below San Juan Hill in eastern Cuba, a bulldozer rumbled to a start, clanked into position, and started pushing dirt into a huge pit with blood pooling at the bottom from the still-twitching bodies of more than a hundred men and boys who'd been machine-gunned without trial on the Castro brothers' orders. Their wives and mothers wept hysterically from a nearby road.
On that very day, the U.K. Observer ran the following headline: "Mr Castro's bearded, youthful figure has become a symbol of Latin America's rejection of brutality and lying. Every sign is that he will reject personal rule and violence."
These two events perfectly symbolize the Castro/Cuba phenomenon, even half a century later. The Castro regime oppresses and kills while issuing a smokescreen of lies not merely devious but downright psychopathic. The worldwide media abandons all pretense as "investigators" or "watchdogs" and adopts a role, not merely as sycophants, but as advertising agency. As Cuba's Stalinist nomenklatura celebrates fifty years of repression and high living this week --from Time magazine to USA Today, and from the BBC to Der Spiegel to the very U.K. Observer (now the Guardian) -- the usual idiocies on Cuba are spouting forth their usual sources, but in much greater profusion.
If what we constantly heard and read about Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in the mainstream media and college textbooks was merely in error it might be less obnoxious. Instead the media/academia clichés usually upend the truth. We get the precise opposite of the truth. Ignorance (usually willful) of conditions in pre-Castro Cuba, of Fidel Castro's background, of U.S.-Cuba relations pre-1960 all contribute to the cliché-ridden Castro legend. With the media wallowing in a Castro-cliché orgy on this hideous anniversary let's examine them one at a time, in no particular order of importance.
Cliché no. 1: A plucky Castro succeeded in defying a relentlessly hostile U.S. that worked ceaselessly to topple him.
The Facts: “We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along," wrote Nikita Khrushchev about the Missile Crisis Resolution.
"Security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba."
Henry Kissinger, as Gerald Ford's secretary of state, renewed the pledge. After the Missile Crisis "resolution," Castro's "defiance" of the U.S. took the form of the U.S. Coast Guard and even the British Navy (when some intrepid exile freedom fighters moved their operation to the Bahamas) shielding him from exile attacks. Far from "defying" a superpower, Castro hid behind the skirts of two superpowers, plus the British Empire....