[R-G] The Super-Revolutionaries: Fidel

[Macdonald Stainsby]

September 4, 2007
We Don't Hope for Favors from the Worst of Empires
The Super-Revolutionaries

By FIDEL CASTRO

Every day I carefully read the opinions about Cuba in the traditional 
press agency releases, including those from the peoples which were part 
of the USSR, those from the People's Republic of China and others. News 
reaches me from the Latin America press, from Spain and the rest of Europe.

The picture is increasingly uncertain as we face the fear of a prolonged 
recession like that of the 1930s. On July 22, 1944, the United States 
government received the privileges granted in Bretton Woods to the most 
powerful military power, that of minting the dollar as the international 
exchange currency. After the war, in 1945, with its economy intact, that 
country had at its disposal almost 70 percent of the world gold 
reserves. On August 15, 1971, Nixon unilaterally decided to suspend the 
gold backing for each dollar minted. With this he financed the slaughter 
in Vietnam in a war that cost more than 20 times the real value of its 
remaining gold reserves. Since then, the United States economy is 
sustained by natural resources and the savings of the rest of the world.

The theory of continuous growth from investment and consumption, applied 
by the most developed to the countries where the vast majority is poor, 
surrounded by luxuries and the wastefulness of a tiny minority of 
wealthy individuals, is not only humiliating but destructive, too. That 
pillage, and its disastrous consequences, is the cause of peoples' 
growing rebelliousness, even though very few are aware of the history 
behind the events.

The most gifted and cultivated intellects are included on the list of 
natural resources and they have their price tags on the world market of 
goods and services.

What is happening with the super-revolutionaries of the so-called far 
left? Some simply lack realism while others enjoy the pleasure of 
dreaming sweet dreams. Others still are far from being dreamers and are 
experts in the subject; they know what they are saying and why they are 
saying it. It is a well conceived trap that should be avoided. They 
recognize our breakthroughs as if it were a favor to us. Are they really 
short of information? That is not how it is. I can assure you that they 
are absolutely well informed. In certain cases, the alleged friendship 
with Cuba allows them to attend numerous international meetings and chat 
with as many people from abroad or from the country as they want, 
without any objection from our imperial neighbor just 90 miles away from 
the Cuban shores.

What is their advice to the Revolution? It's pure poison; the most 
typical of the neoliberal formulae.

The blockade does not exist; it would appear to be a Cuban invention.

They underestimate the Revolution's most colossal achievement, its work 
in education, the massive cultivation of peoples' talents. They sustain 
that some must live doing simple and rough work. They underestimate the 
results and exaggerate the costs of scientific investments. Even worse: 
they overlook the value of the healthcare services that Cuba provides to 
the world; actually, with modest resources the Revolution is stripping 
bare the system imposed by imperialism which is lacking the human 
personnel to carry it out. They advise investments which are ruinous, 
and the services they provide, such as rent, are practically free. If 
foreign investments in housing had not been stopped in time, they would 
have constructed tens of thousands wi thout any more resources than the 
prior sales of that same housing to foreign residents in Cuba or abroad. 
Furthermore, they were joint enterprises governed by a legislation 
intended for productive companies. There were no limits for the 
authority of the buyers as owners. The country would supply services to 
those residents or clients, without the need of being knowledgeable in 
science or computers. Many of the dwellings could be acquired by the 
enemy intelligence agencies or their allies.

We need some of the joint enterprises since they control very necessary 
markets. But you can hardly flood the country with money and not sell 
our sovereignty.

The super-revolutionaries who prescribe such medication deliberately 
ignore other resources which are truly decisive for the economy, such as 
the growing production of gas which, when purified, becomes an 
invaluable source of electricity without affecting the environment and 
brings with it hundreds of millions of dollars each year. About the 
Energy Revolution promoted by Cuba, of vital and decisive importance for 
the world, not one word is spoken. They go even further: they see an 
energy advantage for the island in the production of sugarcane --a crop 
that was grown in Cuba with semi-slave labor-- to counter the high cost 
of diesel being guzzled by the au tomobiles of the United States, 
Western Europe and other developed countries. The egotistical instinct 
is being fostered in human beings while the price of food is doubling 
and tripling.

Nobody has been more critical of our own revolutionary work than I have, 
but they shall never see me hoping for favors or apologies from the 
worst of the empires.
-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
Coordinator, http://oilsandstruth.org
--
moderated radical news & discussion list:
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In the contradiction lies the hope.
    --Bertholt Brecht.