Media Scoundrels Denigrate Fidel by Stephen Lendman
Media scoundrels are masters of fake news, serving as press agents for wealth, power and privilege, including denigrating independent leaders, unwilling to bow to Washington’s will.
Fidel was heroic, a revolutionary giant, beloved by most Cubans, his agenda an antidote to governance of, by and for the privileged few alone, the way things are in America and most other societies.
When he ended tyrannical Batista rule, Cuba was “a country where there was (mass) unemployment, (mass impoverishment), (mass) illiteracy, (deplorable repression and human misery), and where one had to beg to get into a hospital,” he said in a September 1961 UN General Assembly address.
Thousands of children died for lack of vital medicines and treatment. “Yankee monopolies” and rich Cubans owned the land, preventing agrarian reform he instituted.
Cuba was a mafia-infested brothel, exploited for profit, resisters imprisoned or otherwise eliminated. Castro changed things, providing vital social services, including healthcare, education and employment, considered fundamental human rights. Imagine how much more was possible had illegal embargo not been imposed for 56 years.
The New York Times turned truth on its head, saying he ruled by “repression and fear that kept him and his totalitarian government in power for so long.” What rubbish, typical Times misreporting.
Neocon Washington Post editors deplorably called Cuba under Castro “a decrepit museum piece of Soviet-style totalitarianism.” Disgraceful!
Wall Street Journal editors said his leadership was “murderous and tragic,” ludicrously describing pre-Castro Cuba as “relatively prosperous (with) a vibrant civic life,” making Batista-style tyranny sound like paradise.
Visiting Cuba at age 81, the late Gore Vidal said it was “so rare to see a contented people…no sullenness…We’ve seen the bad side of Cuba because we’re fed nothing else by the media.”
Fidel Castro “has been generally benign. The bloodcurdling stories we’ve been told by our government (and media are) not…true at all.”
Addressing a University of Havana audience, he said “(i)t gives me pleasure to be in a place full of hope.” In America, “people do not have the basic understanding of what they have lost. There has been a (duopoly power) coup and the republic has died.”
Castro cared about the welfare of all Cubans. He deplored wars and other forms of imperial adventurism. He once said “(t)hey talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
Where is it successful in North America except for the privileged few?
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.