“Fidel Castro’s Ideas Are Out of This World”
HAVANA TIMES — On Monday, as part of the series of interviews with historical figures of Castro’s revolution that Cuba’s Round Table program has been holding, Commander Guillermo Garcia Frias, the first farmer to join the detachment of combatants that would later become the Rebel Army, spoke of his experiences on Cuban television.
The interview, showing unbridled servility to the official discourse, was conducted by journalist Arleen Rodriguez Derivet.
Rodriguez Derivet engages in political kitsch like few other representatives of Cuba’s official journalism. Suddenly, she is moved by a photo she claims she has never before seen: an image of Raul Castro, climbing down from a tree, while Vilma Espin tenderly holds him up.
The Greatest Thing in Life
According to Garcia, the greatest thing in his life has been to have known Fidel Castro.
Predictably, the “historical reconstruction” sought by the interview became a sugary tribute to Fidel Castro.
“I gave him [Fidel Castro], and Raul, my full commitment, to the end of my life,” 87-year-old Garcia said.
The praise continued: Garcia claimed that Fidel Castro would give his own food to the prisoners of Cuba’s republican army, slowly demoralizing Batista’s forces.
Garcia added that Raul is the most profound thinker among those who follow Fidel Castro’s ideas. “We have to say it, he [Raul Castro] hasn’t enjoyed any of life’s pleasures, everything has been sacrifice.”
Against the Traitors
Garcia also spoke against traitors and the ambitions that lead to treason. “We’ve had traitors throughout the revolution,” the octogenarian insisted, as though he weren’t a consummate traitor of the ideals that gave birth to the revolutionary process he joined in his youth.
“Fidel’s ideas are extraordinary. Fidel’s ideas are out of this world,” he stated.
Near the end of the program, he said he had confidence in “the young, who must carry the emblems of the homeland and the ideas of Fidel and Raul.” “The revolution is eternal,” he sentenced.
This is the ejaculatory rhetoric of a generation that refuses to leave power and seeks to extend a legacy through words, while society heads in a totally different direction, tired of hearing of that generation’s adventures, which are obstacles to the country’s future.
Fantastic answer !!
Yes you are right, the US is not a democracy, it is a representative republic. In a democracy 3 wolves and a sheep decide whats for dinner. In a constitutional representative republic, the sheep is protected from the wolves
Very nicely said.
On Russia though, IMO, Lenin and Stalin were and are the past and of the Soviet Union and the old economy and social programs . Putin is representative of the dictatorial natures of the two from the past but quite differently, he and all the Russians are dealing with a new form of economy and society and world and so the Russians are learning a new game .
I don’t think the Cuban revolution and all its lessons have lost THEIR relevance especially given that the existential threat from the American Empire is very much alive in the embargo .
Having recently reread some 80s speeches of Fidel I could see that his words remain entirely relevant and accurate as regards the also unchanging imperial foreign policy ends of the USG.
I respond to your post just to point out how you twist words.
When I was speaking of the nuclear family structure it was how it CAN be totalitarian in societies where the man is ALWAYS the head of the house , always the authority who can not be questioned.
It had entirely to do with what is and what is not a democratic institution.
I said nothing about disliking families with fathers.
Your ability to comprehend precise English is compromised by your emotional and anti-intellectual avoidance or deliberate misapprehension of facts that point you out as what you are .
Time will test the roots. Cultures have a way of sustaining themselves, but memories are short in humans. In Russia it is Putin’s story and not Stalin or Lenin that has the 80% approval rating. Chavez’s posters are in danger as Maduro struggles to leverage the Chavez charisma. We will not know of Castro’s lasting guidance until years after they leave the stage. But forgotten, never.
Hahaha! Obviously you don’t know any young Cubans. They are more likely to quote Pit bull than Fidel.
In that same corner bar, there’s always the ever-present drunk at the end of the bar that smells of sweat, beer and urine and nobody pays attention to him except to hear him repeat the same old story about hating families with fathers.
This following story relates very well to the title of the article.
A great number of years ago, producer Jeff Greenfield ( Frontline or some such hour-long topical news show ) was asked why he never had Noam Chomsky on since he was/is the leading intellectual anti-imperialist in the world .
Greenfield replied : ” Because he’s from PLUTO”
They went to Chomsky and when told what Greenfield said , Chomsky replied ” He’s correct” and went on to explain ( paraphrased) Were I to tell you that (at that time in the 80s) Moammar Khaddafi was a danger to peace , a murderer and a war criminal who should be brought to justice , you would know exactly and immediately what I meant and accept it because that is what the corporate media/government has been saying EXCLUSIVELY for years.
If OTOH, I were to tell you that (then) Secretary of State George Schultz was a danger to peace, a murderer and a war criminal who should be brought to justice, you’d think I was from Pluto because you’d NEVER have ever gotten that kind of info from the corporate media or the government and it would sound unbelievable “.
He continued: “It would take me some twenty minutes just to begin listing the crimes of which Schultz was guilty and those shows are not formatted for long answers. ”
This was true then and it’s true now just about different matters.
Socialism /communism: a democratic economy would seem to be from Pluto to those who love totalitarian capitalism in their lives and who wish to impose it on the world.
Fidel’s stories of long ago are what sustains the Cuban revolution .
What he taught the people of Cuba in his years of four-hour speeches has been retained deep within the Cuban people.
What he said in those speeches was the truth and those truths remain valid and historically correct to this day.
I agree that a new generation will take over and will deal with the problems of the time but I believe it will be with the spirit of Fidel that they go forward.
I’d like to think so.
You should read the several books of Fidel’s speeches that are available .
His ideas were not new but certainly valid.
But I understand that is something you cannot and would not do.
Any society or country that has a capitalist economy cannot be democratic.
The economic systems in any country have immense power that works against democracy first in our 9-5 lives and ultimately 24-7 by control of the government as well.
There is no community of democratic nations because all operate under totalitarian capitalism and capitalist-corrupted governments.
That can be state capitalism as in Cuba, DRK , china or the free enterprise version of the American Empire. Both versions are top-down totalitarian systems .
Democracy must be defines as one=person, one vote majority rule or it is not democracy .
Capitalism is the antithesis of democracy.
I’ll kill anyone who says I have an anger issue.
Havana Times is like the corner bar . Anyone can come in and buy a drink.
Anyone can come in and, like you, spout inanities.
As in that bar, people can agree with you, ignore you or argue with you.
When I call you a loser it is because you have backed the overthrow of the Cuban revolution and it’s not going to happen.
Oh , you and the immoral lot that continue the embargo can continue to make life miserable for everyone on the island but you will not undo the revolution because it is in the people of Cuba .
Compare China today, to China under Mao, especially to China during Mao’s dreadful ‘cultural revolution’. Almost everything has changed. Mao would be horrified at what has happened.
And yet … Mao is still honored. Why? The secret is to be found among the first words he uttered publically when taking power in 1949: THE CHINESE PEOPLE HAVE STOOD UP!
You can meet young citizens of the People’s Republic today, traveling around the world, as modern as you are … you can argue about the need for multiple parties in China, about the importance of an independent judiciary, about the evils of government censorship of the internet — and you won’t find a lot of adamant disagreement. Talking to them gives you confidence that China’s current political system is not set in stone.
But they are proud of their country, and how it ‘stood up’ to the foreign powers that had been eating China alive. That’s why Mao is still honored.
If you want to see democratic change in China, or Cuba, you had better understand this feeling, and not appear to be trying to undermine it.
Personal assessments of the men and women who led the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions can be left to future generations. What was done was done.
The only things worth arguing about today are: what to do next, to bring both of these countries into the community of democratic nations, (all of which have their own problems), while preserving what their populations find good about them now.
A majority of the population was born after 1959. The octogenarian’s that still rule will leave a strong legacy, it could not be other wise after six decades. As they pass away a new generation will rule and change to meet today’s challenges. It is the experience of what has worked and not that will inform decisions. Stories of long ago events will have little impact.
Yes, of course it is. Unless he lives to be a hundred, it must be.
However, we have heard the same cant from Fidel Castro’s detractors for the past 40 years, and so far it’s been just as wrong as the usual divination that we hear from astrologers etc. this time of the year.
What are you a teenager with anger issues?
What a load of old shit. That’s exactly what we are thought to show when in front of tourists. In my school Nicolaz Estebanes tourists visiting were taken to one specific class, where everyone in there was BLACK or mixed, you know to keep up the “tropical island appearances” then there was this teacher that had memorized the same answers to all the questions the tourists have. Same thing happened at the University of Havana, and where my mom used to work as a surgeon. Pure propaganda, nothing new.
Frias is right on one point: Fidel’s ideas are out of this world. As in unreal, idiotic and alien to life on earth.
Just another octogenarian headed to pasture. The time of Fidel is passing.
Personal insults are beneath the level of appropriate discourse for this blog. There are many other blogs where otherwise inconsequential people exercise ‘keyboard courage’ to write things I am convinced they would not or could not do in person. I recommend that you seek out one of those blogs. Havana Times deserves better.
Congratulations
Loser.
So this morning, at 7:15, I meet with my dermatologist, who I believe is the best in the world, and ask how he’s doing. Well Brian, we just got back from a ten day trip to Cuba. Wow! So I ask, how was it.
Briefly, the educational and medical system, in his words, were extraordinary! He was fully aware how much Doctors make but as far as caring for it’s citizens, hands down, Cuba does well. I was unaware how college graduates must do three years community service as compensation for said education. He met and dined with medical staff and some local’s and yes, very poor and infrastructure devastating. Food, good and people quite nice. He did state that in his opinion, if Cuba had an election with oppositional candidates, Castro would win and that almost every person he met had nice words to say about Fidel Very interesting conversation and the best news was my cancer is no longer.
“History will absolve me”…..well perhaps not but it will render judgement.
These “históricos” are nuts. Most of them educated their children abroad and their grandchildren live like kings in Miami. Yet, they still cling to the rhetoric. I count amount my Cuban friends, a retired former Cuban ambassador to Nicaragua. He’s a little over 70 years old and idolizes Fidel. He was only 14 when he lied about his age so that he could join the revolutionary army and grew up with the Castro propaganda. Otherwise a very smart and street-savvy old man but absolutely blind to any connections between Fidel and the current problems in Cuba. And of course, when all else fails, he blames the US embargo. Like a lot of old southern white racists in the US, these históricos will never change. They will just have to die and along with them the ridiculous revolutionary nonsense they wholeheartedly believe.