[Marxism] [CubaNews] Fidel Castro - The Chinese Victory

[Shane Mage]

On Apr 5, 2008, at 1:48 PM, Walter Lippmann wrote:

> Reflections by Comrade Fidel - March 2008
> THE CHINESE VICTORY
>
> Without some basic historical knowledge, the subject I am dealing  
> with would
> not be understood.
>
> ...Columbus, an intelligent and intrepid sailor, was aware of the  
> Greeks’ knowledge about the roundness of the Earth. His own  
> observations led him to coincide with
> those theories. He came up with the plan of reaching the Far East  
> sailing
> westward from Europe. But, he calculated the distance with far too  
> much
> optimism, for it was several times greater...

One should not claim "basic historical knowledge" when one is  
basically ignorant.  The "roundness of the Earth" was not a "Greek  
theory"--it was a well known fact, known to every educated person and,  
of course, to every seafarer educated or not (and the Church had long  
ago rebuked the ignoramuses within its ranks who tried to cite  
Biblical phrases to support Flat Earth idiocies).  But of crucial  
importance are the facts (1) that the Alexandrian scientist  
Eratosthenes had *measured* the circumference of the Earth with  
accuracy only surpassed by modern instruments, and (2) that Plato (in  
the Timaios) had specified that a "true continent" enclosed the
Atlantic Ocean, and (3) that Scandinavian and Irish Christian seamen  
had travelled to the Western continent.  Queen Isabella La Catolica  
was assured (on the basis of the Eratosthenes measurements) by the  
Jesuit astronomers at her court that Columbus could not possibly reach  
the Indies, but she hocked her jewelry to finance his impossible  
project anyway.  The "Indies" bit was nothing but a cover story to  
hide Spanish plans from their Portuguese rivals.  The notion that  
Columbus didn't
have any idea where he was going is nothing but a long-lived fable.   
No lie in history, except for the story that Judas Iscariot betrayed  
Jesus, has been more widely accepted.


Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to  
be called Zeus."

Herakleitos of Ephesos