Travails of Trudeau le Petit

Tags

america, cia, communist revolution, cuba, Fidel Castro, justin trudeau, Pierre Trudeau

 

So, he won’t be going to the funeral of Fidel Castro, because his “schedule does not permit it”. Fidel came to the funeral of Trudeau le Grand. When major world leaders die, their counterparts usually attend obsequies, even though no one’s schedule probably permits it. It’s pathetic really – since it is not the schedule but public opinion that prevents him from going. Having said that Fidel was “a remarkable politician”, and received the usual backlash of hate from right-wing no-nothings, le Petit ought to have delivered a little history to those who think yesterday is long ago. But, since he did not, I will.

In 1959, the youthful Fidel overthrew Juan Batista, a brutal puppet-dictator, controlled largely by the American Mafia, whose members regarded Cuba as their personal fiefdom, a cess-pit for smuggling, gambling, drugs, prostitution, and other forms of exploitation. No one in Washington then thought this was such a bad idea, and Fidel was invited to the US in 1963, for what should have been talks to normalize relations between the two nations. But, because of the usual hysterical reactions to anything progressive – mainly from the demented Republican-fringe – exception was taken to Fidel’s appropriations of land and property, taken from fleeing millionaire gangsters and given back to the poor farmers from whom it had been stolen, these talks ended in acrimony. Bagman for the Mob, Meyer Lansky’s relatives even recently tried to reclaim his illicit Cuban properties. In 1963, Fidel addressed the United Nations, saying that he had been looking for friends in the West, but had only found one in Soviet Russian Premier, Nikita Krushchev. Encouraged by Moscow, he then conceived the idea of fomenting revolutions across Central America – something the area was ripe for, yet also something guaranteed to raise Washington’s hackles. Fidel’s sister, Juanita Castro, who has lived in Miami for the last fifty years, says that this was when her brother turned his back on the democratic revolution he had initially proclaimed, adopting the hard-line dictatorial stance favoured by Moscow.

We now know that, over the succeeding years, there were over 600 risibly unsuccessful attempts by the US Government to assassinate Fidel. If someone tried to kill you over 600 times, in what kind of light would you regard them? Nonetheless, during the hopeful presidency of Jimmy Carter, a former staff member of the US Embassy in Havana – closed in 1961 – was sent to Cuba as an envoy to re-open talks between the two nations. There seemed to be a chance in those years, but, again, paranoid agents of big business in Washington, ever-fearful of the commie plague that would end their own form of tyranny, stymied all attempts at a reasonable compromise. And when the Messiah, Ronald Reagan, came to power, he naturally had no desire to parley with any pinko lair of Satan – not that affable Ronnie knew anything at all about Cuba, beyond the smuggled cigars he offered to guests. The relationship fell into decay until Obama, who, to his everlasting credit, used his Executive Order – one of the few tools left him by a stacked Congress – in an attempt to open up dialogue. By then, the Soviet Union had collapsed, Fidel was ailing, and his brother, Raoul, led the country. Russia’s new czar, Vladimir Putin, showed no interest in the Caribbean nation, and Cuba was, and is, in need of powerful friends.

As part of his new Art of the American Deal, Herr Trump has, unsurprisingly, threatened to close down what little has been opened up with Cuba, unless his particular demands are met. Of course, typically, we have no real idea what these demands will be – but it is not looking good. No doubt, Fidel is glad not to be obliged to see the future.

In a very minute nutshell, that is the history lesson. In any accounts of the 20^th century, Fidel will always have his own chapter, and many of these accounts may well note that the Canadian Prime Minister, son of Fidel’s good and lifelong friend, could not be bothered to attend his funeral – in a pallid attempt to salvage a rapidly sinking public image. It will be interesting to see what his hectic schedule actually entails for the dates in question. Boo!

 

Paul William Roberts

 

Fidel Castro RIP & The Travels of Trudeau le Petit

Tags

Bay of Pigs, cia, cuba, Fidel Castro, Francophonie, human rights, John F Kennedy, justin trudeau, USA, Women's Rights

Fidel Castro RIP

 

Without any doubt, Fidel Castro will remain one of the 20^th-century’s major historical figures. But there are two stories about Fidel – just as there are two stories about everyone and everything. To some, Fidel will always be the heroic revolutionary who rescued Cuba from a corrupt kleptocracy and instituted an egalitarian society in defiance of Washington and the West. To others, he was a brutal tyrant who crushed all opposition and trampled over human rights. In fact, both stories are true. To the Marxist, however, the “opposition” crushed would be greedy class-traitors, and the human rights trampled over would be those of people seeking to debase the moral climate of society. It is worth remembering that Plato’s vision for his Socratic Republic entailed expelling all the poets and artists as social debasers – even though Socrates himself was sentenced to death for “corrupting the morals of youth”.

It is often indicative of character when people rejoice over the death of a figure beloved of many – and this is what is happening now in the Floridian Cuban community. Many of these people escaped the island, or were expelled by Fidel, either as criminals or class-traitors. It is easy to understand both points of view, but I have been to Cuba a number of times, and am inclined to think that Fidel did far more good than bad. The complaints of emigres are all too often that their purloined wealth was confiscated, either in the form of land returned to the peasants who farmed it, or from confiscated rentier properties, which contribute nothing to national productivity. Few seem to remember the state Cuba was in before Fidel’s revolution. Run by a puppet dictator, it was ostensibly owned by the American Mafia, which had turned it into a private fiefdom of gambling and prostitution. The crime colony island of Spectre in Ian Fleming’s excellent James Bond novels is based on Cuba – Fleming himself lived in nearby Jamaica. Before this period, Cuba had been invaded and plundered by the US as part of a burgeoning would-be tropical empire. The United Fruit Company, active across the Caribbean and Central America, was owned by the Mafia. Like many Third World nations, the island was still in the 17^th-century when the 20^th-century dawned. Fidel Castro seized it by the neck and dragged it forwards, as Mao had done in China, and Stalin had done in Russia. When absolute power corrupts absolutely, what happens? It would seem to be a galloping paranoia, a fear of all critics and criticism – real or imagined. In Fidel’s case, however, it seems to have been more real than imagined. We know for a fact that the CIA were trying to kill him – preposterously at times. Someone was once hired to put a poisonous powder into his shoes that would make his hair and beard fall out – presumably on the premise that such an un-American beard must be the source of his power. Then, of course, there was the disastrous Bay of Pigs attempt at invasion. True, Fidel had allowed the Soviets to place nuclear missiles on the island, but he seems to have realized he was just a pawn in a far larger game, ordering the missiles disarmed and returned to Russia – and thereby averting the Apocalypse. John F. Kennedy’s sensible withdrawal from conflict with Cuba is said by some to be the cause of his assassination – which seems to have been a plot by the Mafia and Cuban exiles.

Few countries are suited to immediate democracy, and Cuba is certainly one of them. This, of course, assumes that democracy is even viable anywhere. Yet, whatever Fidel did, he was adored by the vast majority of Cubans for over fifty years. Most had seen their lives improve dramatically. When I was first there, the Leader would drive himself around Havana in a jeep, cigar clenched in his teeth, and stop to chat with anyone he encountered. He was not a man of the people – he was educated at a private Jesuit school with Pierre Elliot Trudeau – yet he understood the people, and they responded to him with love. At least ten million people will be mourning him tonight. Cuba is definitely a far better place because of him – and the greater good is a Marxist principle.

One of my favourite anecdotes about Fidel is from the memoirs of Kenneth Tynan, the eminent theatre critic and playwright. He was on the island with Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway and others. Cuba’s most famous resident, Hemingway had not left after the revolution, as some seem to think he did. Indeed, understanding the island better than most, he approved of Fidel, who, like most of his close revolutionary comrades, was still very young at the time. This lustrous crew were awaiting an audience with young Fidel, when Truman Capote said, to whoever was listening, “Do you think that boy over there would go get us some tacos if I gave him the money?”

“Unlikely,” said Hemingway, “he’s the Minister of Health…”

 

The Travels of Trudeau le Petit

 

He’s swanning around Africa now, bleating about women’s rights, and denying his party fund-raising is dubious. A PM used to be able to avoid these embarrassing questions on foreign trips – but not anymore. Like his bromancee, Obama, he seems to be so thoroughly decent and innocent that one is inclined to believe his protestations. But, with innocence, comes naivety. At the Madagascar Francophonie, countries seem to have issues far more pressing than those Trudeau is blabbing about. Mali, for example. The French want Canadian troops in there and elsewhere to help quell chaos. But le Petit seems more concerned with women’s rights across the continent. Perhaps this is a grave problem to many western industrial women, who only hear about Africa in the media. But, to the Liberians or South Sudanese, the appearance of this bright and bushy white kid preaching modernity must be perplexing. Imagine if he had beamed himself down into 19^th-century England, during the Industrial Revolution, declaring votes for women and a fair minimum wage. Even the Proletariat, whose average age of death was then nineteen, would have thought he was out of his tree. Change comes slowly, and if it comes quickly there is upheaval and mayhem – and then no improvement at all. Karl Marx understood this, and he advocated gradual change from the top down to avoid catastrophe. He believed the revolution, when it came, would happen in England – because he thought it depended upon general education. What happened in Russia would have surprised him, and he wouldn’t have approved of it in any way. It is hard to accept that le Petit is so naïve he thinks western social values can be instantly implemented by nations that are still effectively in the late 18^th-century. They have many other more pressing issues than human rights, so why keep harping on the topic? I hate to think that Trudeau is only doing it to court favour with his dewy-eyed fans back home…

 

Paul William Roberts

C.I.A.: R.I.P.

Tags

castro, cia, cuba, dick cheney, fox news, george bush, United States of America

 

                ^{Some years ago I was talking with a man who had been Canadian Ambassador to Iran in the 1970s, before Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution. A decent, highly-intelligent man, with an open mind, he spent much of his free time in the holy city of Qom, discussing Islam with the mullahs, imams, and ayatollahs there. Returning one day from Qom to Teheran, he ran into then CIA Bureau Chief, Richard Helms, who asked him where he had been. After hearing the answer, Helms said, “Why do you waste your time with those guys; they’re of no account here.” As we know, the Iranian clergy were the heart and soul of the Revolution. I asked the Ambassador how it was that the CIA could have overlooked the radical influence of clerics, and he replied, “Well, Intelligence may be the Agency’s middle name, but it is not its modus operandi…”}

                ^{Fast forward to today, and we find:}

1. ^{The disastrous scandal of the Senate report on CIA torture practices.}
2. ^{The embarrassing failure of a CIA attempt to co-opt Cuban hip-hop artistes and train them in subversive activities, with cash incentives. This resulted in the Cuban government’s ban on a previously untampered-with hip-hop festival in Havana, thus defeating its own purpose.}
3. ^{Now, today we hear that the US Government intends to normalize relations with Cuba, a nation unjustly persecuted on ideological grounds for 55 years now, not only by trade embargoes, but by covert CIA operations, ranging from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to attempts to poison Fidel Castro, and even make his beard fall out by placing toxins in his shoes.}

^{Do we need to list all the other botched CIA operations, from coups and assassinations in Central and South America, to the laughable attempt to deploy New York abstract expressionist art, and Encounter magazine as a Cold War weapon against Soviet Russian social realism and the lack of creative freedom typical of totalitarian states?}

                ^{No, I think not. My memory is good, although my sight is non-existent, so I cannot check on the CIA’s rate of success in its dastardly operations, all – including the proven drug-trafficking – protected by the magic cloak of National Security, a shield behind which most political abominations hide. I have interviewed a couple of ex-CIA directors and found them to be pathological liars. George Bush the First was a CIA director, before becoming Vice-President, then President. As VP, he held important portfolios – rare to the post – including those of the so-called War on Drugs, to Terrorism, both of which activities flourished on his watch. It should, perhaps, thus not be so surprising to find out how many subsequent CIA directors were close friends of the elder Bush and his close buddy Dick Cheney.}

                ^{Now, however, it seems that the Agency is in its death-throes, with even its most reliably, if irrationally, hated of foes, Cuba, being extracted from the hoary old hit-list. One must conclude that the cowboys of Langley, Virginia, will soon be seeking employment in the booming private-sector security business – if, indeed, anyone there can concoct a resume demonstrating skilled success in any aspect of their previous career. I await with keen anticipation the well-researched book detailing all CIA operations since 1950, revealing the resounding successes – if any – and the ignominious failures, of which we seem to know already so much more, implying that either success is modestly concealed, or failure is laudably admitted to.}

                ^{If the American people could tune out Fox “News” and the rest of their propaganda machine – whose success is measured by its apparent objectivity: lies don’t work if you know they’re lies – and, possibly read some reputable sources, like Gore Vidal or Noam Chomsky – or Counterpunch.org — they would be hollering for a full investigation of their own terrorist organization, condemned by half the world, yet still operating with impunity in the USA. Such an investigation would, and, I believe, will, result in the arrest and prosecution of many, and the dismantling of this lair of bungling criminal half-wits at Langley, who have lied to the taxpayers funding their calamitous, illegal schemes for over sixty years.}

Love from Paul William Roberts.