The life in Fidel, and Cuba

[Keith Brecher]

At 02:20 AM 4/11/97 GMT, Mike Weaver wrote:
>>From: Keith Brecher 
>>The answer to the CIA's failure to assassinate Castro is provided in Craig
>>Baldwin's film TRIBULATION 99: "You can't kill something that isn't
alive...."
>
Mike--
Whoa, I didn't expect that sorta response to my Craig Baldwin quote. I
personally have nothing against Fidel and taking the line from T 99 out of
context probably does Baldwin a disservice. Though what I quoted is
approximately the line in the film, the entire tone of T99 is ironic. From
what I know of Baldwin's politics, he may be pro-Fidel.

Keith
>It may have little direct Pynchonian context but I'm gonna have to challenge
>that one. It may be little more than a smartarse joke but the sight of a US
>citizen making such a comment about Fidel is just too much to stomach.  I'm
>not a Fidel groupie like a percentage of the international Cuba solidarity
>scene but IMO he is one of the very few national leaders who deserves far
>more respect than scorn.  Before age diminished his energy he spent much of
>his time visiting factories, farms, schools and the like listening to and
>talking with regular Cubans so as to genuinely represent their needs, hopes
>and desires.  Not like any capitalist  'leader' would do as part of a media
>circus but quietly and purposefully. Workers in a part of a factory he was
>not visiting would often only discover he had been there after he had left.  
>
>       When, in 1990/91,the ex communist Russian and  E European countries,
>sucking up to the U.S., withdrew their support,  the Cuban Communist
>government was expected to collapse. It staggered,  but six years later,  in
>the face of continually increasing pressure from the U.S. govt,  it is
>recovering  remarkably well, with one of the fastest growing economies in
>the world. 
>   
>        The government's response to the fuel and food crisis which occured
>in 1991/2 (they previously imported 60% of their food and 80% fuel) included
>importing and distributing (not selling) one million Chinese bicycles -
>cuban pop 11 million -and inviting anyone who wanted to take possession of
>waste and unused land in their neighbourhood and grow their own fruit and
>veg,  to do so.
>         I spent three months in Havana last year cycling round the province
>and working with gardeners,  helping them develop their patches.  I worked
>with a fair range of people,  not all by any means supporters of the
>government - though as many critics wanted less engagement with capitalism
>as wanted more! 
>        Cuba is not any kind of paradise,  the Cuban state apparatus is to a
>degree self serving and self-perpetuating like any other state apparatus,
>the Cuban population has its share of socio and psychopaths,  selfish sods
>and greedheads just like any other slice of humanity, a key difference is
>that the economic/social differentials between the richest and poorest are,
>in comparison with the capitalist world,  miniscule.
>  One collective garden I worked on was cultivated by a group of families,
>residents in a nearby block of flats. Some were party members, some not.
>The men were all workers for the national telephone or radio company. Two
>were department heads, a couple more technical specialists and the others
>engineers/ manual workers.  As one of the latter pointed out one evening as,
>we all made our way through a couple of bottles of rum, where in the
>capitalist world would you find such a range of people living in the same
>way and socialising together as a matter of course?  
>        Castro is not, as communist Cuba's enemies would have it, a dictator
>and solely responsible for the island's recent history good and bad,  but he
>does remain, for a majority of the population, a representation of their
>independence from the American empire and I find it sad that p-listers are
>not immune to Their propaganda.
>
>
>If there are any p-listers who are also into organic gardening the
>Australian permaculture group I worked with has a website plastered with
>photos and reports from Havana at
>http://www.peg.apc.org/~adamt/cuba/welcome.htm.
>
>Mike
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>"...if you do not love words,  how will you love the communication?
>  How will you, forgive me my tropes, communicate the love?" 
>R. A. Lafferty
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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