This week on the New World Next Week: the FBI expands powers with Rule 41; France plans to drop carbon tax proposal; and Juncker begs EU members to stop having referendums.
As the U.S. plows toward a New Cold War, remnants of the old one resurfaced with the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro as the mainstream U.S. media flashed back to old Cold War rhetoric, says William Blum. By William…Read more →
After Fidel Castro passed away Friday night at 90 years old, the obituaries written about him in the American press typified the U.S. government propaganda used for decades to demonize Castro and obscure the tremendous social and humanitarian advances that the Cuban Revolution was able to achieve in the face of unrelenting interference, subversion and destabilization. None were more over-the-top in their bias than the obituary in the New York Times.
I’ve been fascinated by historic letters and correspondence for some time; and I wrote a post covering some of this a while ago. Letters, particularly communications never meant for public consumption, provide a fascinating insight into significant historic or cultural events, times or figures. They also can help to humanise certain figures – both historic […]
“Fidel Castro, October 12, 1987”. That is what Fidel wrote on my book, Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans living and working in the new Nicaragua, after reading it.
In 1980, I fell in love with a Danish woman, Grethe, and moved to her country. On my way to assist the rebellion in El Salvador, in 1987, we traveled to Cuba. This was my first visit to Cuba and my first book had just come out when I met Fidel.
A student stands at attention holding images of Fidel Castro at the university where Castro studied law as a young man, during a vigil in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2016. Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of U.S. presidents during his half century rule, died Friday at age 90. (AP Photo/ Dario Lopez-Mills)
When Fidel Castro died in his sleep at 90 on November 25 in Havana, American news consumers might have been forgiven for thinking he was slain in battle.
“Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades,” said Donald Trump, according to CNN.
Many years ago, Fidel declared:
Men do not shape destiny. Destiny produces the man for the hour.
Fidel Castro was a staunch ally of nationalist, anti-colonialist and pro-independence African leaders like Nelson Mandela [Xinhua]
The 20th Century’s last great revolutionary, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, died on November 25.
And the age of revolution died with him.
Loved and respected by many, hated by some, there is no questioning that Fidel played a pivotal role in shaping the world in which we currently live.
François Hollande, president of France, called him a “towering figure of the 20th Century”. And so he was.
