Cuba Libre?
Well if only the drink meant something other than rum and coke because it sure don't mean "free Cuba.' Below are some of President Fidel Castro's comments made in another very long-winded and very verbose hot afternoon in Havana. First we here of the marvelous educational system existing in Cuba founded and completed by the Revolution. Secondly we read another one of those long-winded treatises by the effervescent ego manic Castro on the anniversary of General Maceo and Che; the heroes that Castro considers to be the inspiration of the Revolution. These excerpts are taken from Radio Cuba and I can just hear it blaring incessantly through the radios made in America from the 1950s when Capitalism claimed the Island and we know the rest. I can only imagine Lenin, Stalin and Hitler blaring over their radiowaves too. And now we have Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution to contend with so "buckle up it is going to be a bumpy ride." Bette Davis
"Today we are striving to perfect the work accomplished up until now,
and proceeding on the basis of entirely new ideas and concepts. Today
we are seeking for what should be and will be, in our judgment, an
educational system that increasingly corresponds to the equality,
full justice, self-esteem and moral and social needs of all people in
the type of society that Cubans have decided to build.
Such goals will never be within the reach of a capitalist society.
The required doses of humanism and solidarity do not exist and never
will exist in such societies, and their rates of education and
culture, no matter how great their technology and wealth will lag
further and further behind those of Cuba. There are already many
indicators that provide irrefutable proof of this fact."
"Today we are taking another oath, an oath that will be also taken by
the overwhelming majority of Cubans: that we shall be unshakeably
faithful to the homeland, the Revolution, and to socialism, that
imperialist domination and the capitalist system shall never return
to Cuba -- that would be like going back to the colonial system, or
even the feudal system or the slave system which preceded it, and
which were long ago abolished by history.
General Antonio Maceo: Cubans today, brought up on your immortal
example, would like to have shared with you the honor of being with
you that glorious day when you said to the representative of Spanish
colonial power "We want no peace without independence."
Che, beloved brother: all your comrades in arms would have liked to
have fought with you at Quebrada del Yuro and to have battled for the
liberation of America. It was an unrealizable dream. Destiny had
given our heroic people the mission to withstand 43 years of
aggressions and to finally say "NO" to the imperial government which is
threatening us and trying to impose a new Platt amendment on Cuba,
one more obnoxious than that of 1901.
This is why the people whom you helped to overthrow the tyranny are
today waging the most glorious battle in its history against the
government of the hegemonic superpower, which wants to destroy us.
Fellow Cubans:
Revolutionary Cubans, in the thick of the Battle of Ideas we are
waging and embroiled in the arduous and heroic defence of our
Homeland, the Revolution and Socialism, on a day like today we are
rendering a special tribute to our two great heroes, with a firm,
unshakeable decision:
We shall all be like Maceo and Che.
Long live socialism!
Homeland or death!
We will overcome!"
Official Translation - New York, 15 June 2002
