Today, Saturday, December 3, 2016, is Fidel Castro’s funeral. On six occasions, our C.I.A. attempted to assassinate him. Our Government has a long history of overthrowing governments it doesn’t like, especially in Central and South America. Fidel Castro and his Communist Government survived, in spite of our Government arming and training the “Bay of Pigs” so-called “freedom fighters.” Actually, they were fighting to restore an economic system known as Capitalism–where few can be obscenely wealthy, while many can live in abject poverty.
Prior to Castro’s revolution, the island nation was ruled by our puppet, Jon Batista. It was a corrupt Government with only two classes, rich and poor. At the start of the revolution, many of the wealthy shifted their wealth to banks in Miami, FL, to where they later fled. Yes, they hate Castro. Damn it, if I were a billionaire and had to switch my money to a Cayman Island bank, then flee there, leaving my mansion behind, I wouldn’t exactly love the jerk that made me do it.
Echoing the culture of hate from Miami is Senator Marco Rubio, “It’s still morning, and I am already fuming! Statements are issuing about Fidel Castro in the wake of his death at the age of 90. This man was a dictator and a thug. He was not a ‘revolutionary’ nor a ‘leader.’ It would be worth it to see him cremated, so that families of his victims could pee on his ashes.” (RedState, November 26, 2016).
This comes from someone who never lived in Cuba; never visited Cuba; never met Fidel; obviously knows little of Cuba’s history. His parents immigrated to the U. S. A. from Batista’s Cuba in 1956, three years before Castro came to power.
Senator Ted Cruz likewise issued his statement, “Fidel Castro’s death cannot bring back his thousands of victims, nor can it bring comfort to their families. Today we remember them and honor the brave souls who fought the lonely fight, against the brutal Communist dictatorship he imposed on Cuba (press release, November 26, 2016).” Cruz shares the same connections to Cuba as Rubio. Rubio was born in 1971 and Cruz in 1970, some ten-to-eleven years after the Cuban revolution. They have no personal memory of it. They have no idea of what Cuba was like before the revolution.
Expressing a very different view is Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, who does know Cuba’s history; who does know what life was like under Batista; who has lived his life in Cuba. “Fidel dedicated his whole life to solidarity…with the poor. And for the poor, he became a symbol of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist fight, for the emancipation and dignity of the people (funeral address, November 29, 2016).”
We might ask, how many are homeless in Cuba? Answer: zero.
How many are homeless in the U.S.A.? Answer:
- some 57,000 veterans
- 1.5 million children will experience homelessness at some point in time every year
- 46.2 million U. S. citizens live in poverty
- 15.8 million–12.7% of our population–experience hunger.
Maybe the Cubans don’t want a government like ours or an economic system like ours. In Cuba, all education is free, even medical school. Here, education costs money even in “free” public schools. Our college students rack up huge debts. In Cuba, all medical care is free and available to all. Not so for us.
Rubio and Cruz complain that the Castro Government imprisoned “thousands,” yet no Nation has more of its population in prison than our Nation. They complain about Cuban Government brutality but ignore our own Government’s brutality. Perhaps they don’t consider the National Guard shooting and killing university students protesting the Vietnam War as brutality; the beating of civil rights marchers as brutality; the clubbing of Wall Street protester as brutality; the injuries sustained by the peaceful protesters at Standing Rock as brutality.
No, Senators Rubio and Cruz and their political allies prefer to vote to repeal “Obama Care,” cut “food stamps,” and fight any increase in the minimum wage. Fighting homelessness, hunger, and poverty simply is not on their agenda.
Fidel Castro surely was no saint. But I certainly can understand why the Cubans who remained in Cuba mourn his passing.