[NYTr] Fidel Castro: The Super-Revolutionaries

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


Reflections by the Commander in Chief

The Super-Revolutionaries

by Fidel Castro Ruz

Every day I carefully read the opinions about Cuba in the traditional 
press agency releases, including those from the peoples which were part 
of the USSR, those from the People's Republic of China and others. News 
reaches me from the Latin America press, from Spain and the rest of 
Europe.

The picture is increasingly uncertain as we face the fear of a 
prolonged recession like that of the 1930s. On July 22, 1944, the 
United States government received the privileges granted in Bretton 
Woods to the most powerful military power, that of minting the dollar 
as the international exchange currency. After the war, in 1945, with 
its economy intact, that country had at its disposal almost 70 percent 
of the world gold reserves. On August 15, 1971, Nixon unilaterally 
decided to suspend the gold backing for each dollar minted.  With this 
he financed the slaughter in Vietnam in a war that cost more than 20 
times the real value of its remaining gold reserves. Since then, the 
United States economy is sustained by natural resources and the savings 
of the rest of the world.

The theory of continuous growth from investment and consumption, 
applied by the most developed to the countries where the vast majority 
is poor, surrounded by luxuries and the wastefulness of a tiny minority 
of wealthy individuals, is not only humiliating but destructive, too. 
That pillage, and its disastrous consequences, is the cause of peoples' 
growing rebelliousness, even though very few are aware of the history 
behind the events.

The most gifted and cultivated intellects are included on the list of 
natural resources and they have their price tags on the world market of 
goods and services.

What is happening with the super-revolutionaries of the so-called far 
left?  Some simply lack realism while others enjoy the pleasure of 
dreaming sweet dreams. Others still are far from being dreamers and are 
experts in the subject; they know what they are saying and why they are 
saying it. It is a well conceived trap that should be avoided. They 
recognize our breakthroughs as if it were a favor to us. Are they 
really short of information? That is not how it is. I can assure you 
that they are absolutely well informed. In certain cases, the alleged 
friendship with Cuba allows them to attend numerous international 
meetings and chat with as many people from abroad or from the country 
as they want, without any objection from our imperial neighbor just 90 
miles away from the Cuban shores.

What is their advice to the Revolution?  It's pure poison; the most 
typical of the neoliberal formulae.

The blockade does not exist; it would appear to be a Cuban invention.

They underestimate the Revolution's most colossal achievement, its work 
in education, the massive cultivation of peoples' talents. They sustain 
that some must live doing simple and rough work. They underestimate the 
results and exaggerate the costs of scientific investments. Even worse: 
they overlook the value of the healthcare services that Cuba provides 
to the world; actually, with modest resources the Revolution is 
stripping bare the system imposed by imperialism which is lacking the 
human personnel to carry it out. They advise investments which are 
ruinous, and the services they provide, such as rent, are practically 
free. If foreign investments in housing had not been stopped in time, 
they would have constructed tens of thousands without any more 
resources than the prior sales of that same housing to foreign 
residents in Cuba or abroad. Furthermore, they were joint enterprises 
governed by a legislation intended for productive companies. There were 
no limits for the authority of the buyers as owners. The country would 
supply services to those residents or clients, without the need of 
being knowledgeable in science or computers.  Many of the dwellings 
could be acquired by the enemy intelligence agencies or their allies.

We need some of the joint enterprises since they control very necessary 
markets.  But you can hardly flood the country with money and not sell 
our sovereignty.

The super-revolutionaries who prescribe such medication deliberately 
ignore other resources which are truly decisive for the economy, such 
as the growing production of gas which, when purified, becomes an 
invaluable source of electricity without affecting the environment and 
brings with it hundreds of millions of dollars each year. About the 
Energy Revolution promoted by Cuba, of vital and decisive importance 
for the world, not one word is spoken. They go even further: they see 
an energy advantage for the island in the production of sugarcane --a 
crop that was grown in Cuba with semi-slave labor-- to counter the high 
cost of diesel being guzzled by the automobiles of the United States, 
Western Europe and other developed countries. The egotistical instinct 
is being fostered in human beings while the price of food is doubling 
and tripling.

Nobody has been more critical of our own revolutionary work than I 
have, but they shall never see me hoping for favors or apologies from 
the worst of the empires.

Havana, September 3, 2007, 8:36 p.m.