Reflections of Fidel

How I wish I was wrong
(Taken from CubaDebate)

WHEN these lines are published tomorrow, Friday, in Granma newspaper, the 26th of July, a date on which we always recall with pride the honor of having resisted the onslaughts of the empire, will still be in the distance, despite it being only 32 days away.

Those who determine every step of the worst enemy of humanity – United States imperialism, a mixture of ignoble material interests, disdain and underestimation for other people inhabiting the planet – have calculated everything with mathematical precision.

In the Reflection of June 16 I wrote: “Diabolical news is filtering little by little between games and games in the World Cup, in a way that nobody is paying much attention to it.”

The famous sports event has entered its most emotional moments. For 14 days, the teams made up of the best footballers from 32 countries have been competing to advance toward the second round; afterward the phases of quarter finals, semifinals and the final of the event come in successive stages.

Fanaticism for sport is growing incessantly, captivating hundreds or millions and possibly billions of people all over the planet.

On the other hand, one would have to ask how many of them know that, since June 20, U.S. military vessels, including the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, escorted by one or more nuclear submarines and other warships with missiles and cannons that are more powerful that those of the old battleships utilized in the last world war from 1939 to 1945, have been navigating toward Iranian coasts via the Suez Canal.

The yanki naval forces are accompanied by Israeli military boats, with equally sophisticated armaments, to inspect every vessel that leaves to export and import commercial products required for the functioning of the Iranian economy.

At the proposal of the United States, with support from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the UN Security Council approved a harsh resolution that was not vetoed by any of the five countries which hold that right.

Another harsher resolution was approved with the agreement of the United States Senate

Subsequently, a third, even harsher one was passed by the countries of the European Union. All of this took place before June 20, which prompted an urgent trip to Russia by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the news, to meet with the head of state of that powerful country, Dmitry Medvedev, in the hope of negotiating with Iran and avoiding the worst.

Now it is about calculating when the naval forces of the United States and Israel will be deployed facing the Iranian coasts, and joining up there with aircraft carriers and other U.S. military boats which mount guard in this region.

The worst part is that, just like the United States, Israel, its gendarme in the Middle East, possesses extremely modern bomber aircraft and sophisticated weapons supplied by the United States, which has converted it into the sixth nuclear power on the planet given its firepower, among the eight recognized as such, including India and Pakistan.

The Shah of Iran had been defeated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 without using a single weapon. The United States imposed the Shah after the war on that nation with the use of chemical weapons, whose components it supplied to Iraq together with the information needed by its combat units and which were deployed by them against the Revolutionary Guards. Cuba knows that because, at that time, as we have explained on other occasions, it was president of the Non-Aligned Movement. We know very well the devastation that it caused among the population. Mahmud Ahmadinejad, now head of state in Iran, was chief of the sixth army of the Revolutionary Guards and chief of the Guard Corps in the western provinces of that country, which bore the brunt of that war.

Today, in 2010, after 31 years, both the United States and Israel are underestimating the one million soldiers in the Iranian Armed Forces and their capacity for fighting on land, and the air, sea and land forces of the Revolutionary Guards.

In addition to these, there are the 20 million men and women, aged from 12 to 60, selected and systematically trained by its diverse military institutions, from out of the 70 million people who inhabit the country.

The government of the United States drew up a plan to instigate a political movement that, supporting itself on capitalist consumerism, would divide Iranians and defeat the regime.

That hope has become innocuous. It is laughable to think that with U.S. warships plus those of Israel, that they can arouse the sympathies of one sole Iranian citizen.

Analyzing the current situation, I initially believed that the battle would begin in the Korean peninsula, and that that area would be the detonator of the second Korean war which, in its turn, would immediately lead to the second war that the United States would impose on Iran.

Now, reality is changing things in an inverse sense: that of Iran will immediately unleash that of Korea.

The leadership of North Korea, which was accused of the sinking of the Cheonan, and is all too well aware that it was sunk by a mine that the yanki intelligence services succeeded in placing in the hull of that corvette, will not hesitate for one second to act as soon as the attack is initiated on Iran.

It is quite right that the football fans should enjoy their craving for the World Cup competitions. I am only fulfilling the duty of exhorting our people, thinking above all of our youth, full of life and hope, and especially our marvelous children, in order that events do not catch us completely unawares.

It pains me to think of so many dreams conceived of by human beings and the astounding creations of which they have been capable in just a few thousand years.

At a time when the most revolutionary dreams are being fulfilled and the homeland is firmly recovering, how I wish I was wrong!

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 24, 2010
9:34 p.m.

By Arthur Shaw

After jumping to Number One on the Venezuelan Twitter charts, President Chavez has launched a blog, a web page and totes a blackberry to keep his followers up to date and inform on his daily activities. The Bolivarian Revolution has quickly gain its footing in the Internet battleground.”

The blog, web page, and twitter are only a few of the moves that Venezuelan revolutionaries are making to update their electoral tactics. Golinger is a strong supporter of and participant in these tactical changes.

Lenin, who along with glorious Fidel and the glorious Ho Chin Minh, was one the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century, said in his book ‘What Is To Be Done’ that the class struggle has three main manifestations … the political, economic, and ideological … and each of the three manifestations are at par with the other two.

[We have not overlooked the fact that Fidel’s presence still blesses us in the 21st century.]

What a section of Venezuelan revolutionaries are doing with their laptops and cell phones has ramifications in both the political and ideological struggles within the wider class struggle.

Let’s look at the genesis of these changes. Howard Dean, the 2004 bourgeois liberal candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in the USA, massively introduced propaganda and organization through laptops and cell phones into the electoral struggle. But Dean and his forces overestimated the role of “high technology” and underestimated the continued importance to person-to-person organization in the 2004 Democratic Party primaries in the USA. So, Dean blew his big chance and let US Senator John Kerry whip Dean for the 2004 presidential nomination.

Then, the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela appeared on the world stage with their laptops and cell phones in 2007, repeatedly organizing and marching in large numbers around the issue of the non-renewal of the broadcast license of RCTV and later that year for the defeat of the constitutional reform proposed by Venezuelan revolutionaries led by Hugo Chavez.

The reactionary middle class students and their allies won the constitutional reform … that is, the reactionary youth made a big contribution to the defeat of the constitutional reform. But these reactionary middle class college students never understood or cared how politically powerfully the tool … the laptops and cell phones …. they held in their hands were.

Many people wondered whether what the reactionary middle class college students did was just a “Venezuelan thing,” and therefore inapplicable to the rest of the world.

Next, in 2008, appeared Barack Obama, assisted by the evil electoral genius, David Axelrod, and blew everybody’s minds. In 2008, Axelrod, intensified the impact and expanded the applications of laptop and cell phone campaigning like nobody would believe. The standard departments of electoral struggle are planning and budgeting, fundraising, targeting, voter contact, free media, paid media, candidate activity, opposition research, volunteers, get-out-the-vote, and anti-fraud operations.

In 2004, Howard Dean used his laptop and cell phone capabilities mostly for fundraising. In 2007, the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela used their similar capabilities mostly for mobilizing volunteers to march and to throw Molotov cocktails. But Axelrod, the electoral monster, applied with savage and barbaric intensity those capabilities to ALL eleven departments of the campaign in 2008.

AKP&D Message and the Media is the cutting-edge US electoral and media consulting firm catering to both liberal and reactionary candidates in the USA and abroad. For example, the reactionary Francisco de Narvarez in the Argentine 2009 legislative elections and the reactionary Kamla Persad-Bissessar in May 2010 general election in Trinidad & Tobago are two recent instances of the firm’s handiwork.

Before 2009, the firm known as Axelrod & Associates was the predecessor firm of AKP&D Message and Media with the above-mentioned David Axelrod as the managing partner of the firm. AKP&D is named after its four original partners: David Axelrod, John Kupper, David Plouffe, and John Del Cecato. All four were members of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, with Plouffe serving as campaign manager, Axelrod as senior strategist, and Del Cecato as media advisor. Axelrod left AKP&D to serve as senior advisor to the President and sold his interest in the firm to Kupper, Del Cecato and Larry Grisolano.

AKP&D did very well in Trinidad in May when Obama’s political consulting firm openly helped to stab Patrick Manning, Obama’s top and most servile ally in the Caribbean, in the back and substitute a bourgeois reactionary in Manning’s place. But, in the same month of May, things didn’t turn out so well in Suriname where revolutionary Desi Bourterse, aspires for power, contending against AKP&D which disguised itself as Dutch and no-name US operatives. The results of the Suriname contest in May are still indeterminate. Bourterse, in Suriname, used AKP&D tricks against AKP&D. Bourterse cleverly reached out to young voters who are more familiar with cell phones and laptops and therefore more familiar with electronic voting machines … and vice versa … than their older compatriots. But the effort of Bouterse was somewhat different because it assumed a participatory character. The campaign mostly supplied the scripts which supporters individually and independently reached out to voters. It worked.

The National Endowment For Democracy (NED) … the US government’s front organization in international electoral struggle, which corrupts the political processes of other countries with millions of dollars in bribes … seems to be struck in prolong negotiations with AKP&D over whether AKP&D or NED will boss the so-called “opposition” in the September 26 legislative elections in Venezuela.

AKP&D must be slobbering or foaming at the mouth to get at Venezuela, because Venezuela is a cell phone heaven. The outcome of the inter-imperialist tug of war is a foregone conclusion since since NED answers to US Sen. John McCain and AKP&D to the Oval Office.

A some people, like Eva Golinger, are trying to alert the workers and revolutionaries about the unique challenges that the September 26 electoral contest poses for the revolution. But suddenly some of these people, like Golinger, who side with the workers and revolutionaries, find themselves surrounded by bizarre specie of animals … barking, growling, snarling, screeching, and … last but not least, howling,

Long before the repulsive breakthrough of the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela in 2007, Eva Golinger saw and spoke about the possibilities of a class struggle waged, in large part, on laptops and in cell phones in both the spheres of political and ideological struggle. Indeed, Golinger pioneered some of the tactics in the ideological struggle now used in cyberspace.

Often, these tactics, which Golinger initially developed, are used by opportunists to disparage Eva Golinger herself.

Now, the mass of the workers’ and revolutionary movement is looking at the recent moves of Hugo Chavez in cyberspace. But this time, the masses are looking at Chavez, not as his audience to be persuaded and entertained. Now, the masses are looking at Chavez as his students to be informed. How can they harness themselves the potentialities of the Internet and IT stuff to advance the workers’ and revolutionary movement without the intervention of the State or the Party?

If the workers and revolutionaries themselves seize the possibilities of Internet and IT stuff, their advance will become unstoppable in the class struggle.

The advance of the workers’ and revolutionary movements doesn’t make everybody happy. Some people are jealous and envious by nature or others by habit or still others by congenital depravity (an aberration of nature). So, these jealous and envious people sneak up behind other people who contribute to the workers’ and revolutionary advance and these sneaky people take a bite out of these contributors. The jealous and envious say they bite because they believe in “the truth” and the people, whom they bite, don’t believe in “the truth.” But this “truth,” about which jealous and envious brag, is only a pretext to bite.

Fortunately, Golinger carries a stick with her and keeps her eyes open for these bizarre people who bite.

Using her stick, Eva Golinger has cracked many of these people, who bite, over their big heads as they neared her.

Arthur Shaw writes:

Eva Golinger, who usually dwells in the concrete in a highly empirical manner, stretches out into the theory of power, mentioning number of patterns and regularities that come into being, abide or pass away as the process in Venezuela develops.

In my comment, I’ll try to touch on one thing Golinger mentions — revolution.

Under a caption of “Power to the People,” Golinger writes: “The foremost achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution, as it is called in Venezuela, taking the namesake of Liberator Simon Bolivar, has been the inclusion of a mass majority, previously excluded and invisible, in the nation’s politics and economic decisions. What does this mean? It means that today, millions of Venezuelans have a visible identity and role in nation-making. It means that community members — without regard to class, education or status — are actively encouraged to participate in policy decisions on local and even national matters. Community members, organized in councils, make decisions on how local resources are allocated. They decide if monies are spent on schools, roads, water systems, transportation or housing. They have oversight of spending, can determine if projects are advancing adequately, and even can determine where the workforce should come from; i.e. local workers vs. outside contractors. In essence, this is a true example of an empowered people — or how power is transferred from a “government” to the people.”

This indeed is the foremost achievement. In other words, the foremost achievement of the revolution is the revolution itself. The above-quoted statement is more than an affirmation of the classical concept of revolution, which tolerates a focus on revolutionary leaders and celebrities. The statement emphasizes the role that the masses play in the struggle since the struggle is participatory as well as representative. And, the statement indicates that steps are being taken to grow and strengthen the participatory side of the struggle. Power is being peeled from the representatives.

V.I. Lenin, who possessed extraordinary powers of perception, said “The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of that term.”

What does this mean? Does it match Venezuelan reality? There seems to be some differences between Lenin and Golinger.

Lenin talks about the passing of state power from one class to another, while Golinger talks about “power is transferred from a ‘government’ to the people.” Since the working class constitutes the mass of the “people,” Golinger implicitly hints power passes from the State to the working class, not so much from the capitalist class to the working class. The difference is the social point from which power begins to pass. Both Lenin and Golinger seem to agree that the people or the working class is the social point to which power passes. Unlike Lenin, Golinger emphasizes that revolution is perhaps something more than a passing of power from one class to another. Golinger seems to suggest that revolution is also the exercise of power by the class to which power passes, not just the exercise of power by representatives or leaders of the class. This may be also what Lenin meant by “class.”

The main difference between Golinger and Lenin on the essence of revolution is that Golinger implies some “government” has state power before it passes, while Lenin seems to think that some “class” that happens to own the government has state power before it passes. Perhaps Golinger suggests that after state power in Venezuela passes from the capitalist class to the working class, power remains concentrated within the “proletarian” state. So, a second passing becomes necessary … that is, a passing of power or, at least, some of the power from the state to the people.

The Nazarenes talk all the time about a second coming. So, revolutionaries can talk about a second passing.

It seems that before the second passing can take place, the first passing must occur. Impressionistically, I would estimate or, better still, guess that only half of the state power in Venezuela has passed from the capitalist class to the working class. In some agencies and entities of the State, say the intelligence services, perhaps more that half of the power has passed. But in other agencies and entities, say the police and most of the bureaucracy, less than half of the power seems to have passed. So, overall, what has passed and what has not passed seem to balance out at about half of the power remaining the hands of the capitalist class and other half transferred to the working class for further distribution away from the government apparatus into masses.

Golinger’s idea about the dispersal among the masses of some of the power that has passed from the capitalist class to the working class accelerates the proletarianization of the state power, especially the proletarianization of parts of the bureaucratic apparatus infested by servants, representatives, and agents of the bourgeoisie. Impressionistically, we can guess at how much power has passed from the capitalist class to the working class, but we can’t seem to guess about how much of that half that has passed has been subsequently passed from the semi-proletarian or semi-bourgeois state to the masses.

When Lenin talks about a passing and Golinger about a “transfer,” it seems that a rate of passing or a rate of transfer is implied. Is power passing at the right rate in Venezuela? Or is the passing too fast or too slow?

Conceptually, it would seem that the rate of passing of state power should accord with the capacity of the working class to absorb and assimilate the power ideologically, politically, and organizationally.

It’s hard to say whether the rate is right or wrong.

Sometimes however concepts aren’t any good in making determinations about things. One must rely on class instinct. And, my proletarian instinct tells me … in regard to the first and second passings … that the rate is wrong. The rate should be stepped-up. The rate is too slow.

But one thing is for sure. It is only by the exercise of power that the capacity and appetite of the working class for power grows and, it is by the exclusion or withdrawal or abstention from the exercise of power that the capacity and appetite die.

By Arthur Shaw

On May 19, 2010, the bourgeois regime in Washington D.C., under Obama, finally accused 16 people … almost all Venezuelan millionaires … of conspiracy to launder money from drug trafficking through Venezuela’s illegal or so-called ‘parallel’ foreign exchange market, a market which unofficially and illegally rigs the foreign exchange rate between the US dollar and Venezuelan bolivar.

Most of the crooked Venezuelan millionaires and their other accomplices were arrested in the Miami, Florida; New York City, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the search for additional racketeers is continuing.

The illegal currency market in the Venezuela routes its racketeering operations through US banks, especially the Bank of America, with the full knowledge of the US authorities, including the FBI, DEA, and federal reserve system officials. The Obama and Bush regimes in Washington for the most part looked or looks the other way because the illegal foreign exchange market in Venezuela is a key part of a US imperialist aggression against the Venezuelan Revolution. The illegal foreign exchange market in Venezuela aims, under imperialist supervision, to produce a currency crisis of the bolivar, the Venezuelan currency … that is, something like a 2000-point crash or sudden depreciation of the bolivar which may produce a collapse of the whole financial system in Venezuela.

To implement the plot to produce a currency crisis in Venezuela, US imperialists have recruited, trained, and financed about 100 Venezuelan quislings to run a huge currency trading operations. The I6 people arrested this week by the US authorities are mostly mere employees or mere representatives of these 100 big shot imperialist agents.

These 100 big crooks, the creme de la creme of the financial sector of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, make their money chiefly in four ways.

(1) Laundering money from drug trafficking

(2) Laundering money from human trafficking

(3) Manipulating the size of difference (the “spread”) between the value of the dollar and value of the bolivar

(4) Speculating on the US dollar-denominated debt securities issued by the Venezuelan government.

The US imperialists are most interested in (3) …” the spread” … because it is by the use of this difference in value between the dollar and bolivar that the US imperialists dream of bringing down the Venezuelan economy through a collapse of the economy’s financial and monetary components.

But the 100 or so Venezuelan financiers who dominate the illegal foreign exchange market are more interested in (1) and (2) … that is, money laundering and drug trafficking … because the (1) and (2) generate bigger profits than (3). Thus, something of a contradiction has emerged between the interests of the US imperialists and the drug-trafficking, money-laundering elements in the financial sector of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie over the operation of illegal foreign exchange market which uses US bank for its infrastructure.

It is unlikely the Eric Holder, the US Attorney General and the highest law enforcement authority in the USA, will seriously pursue the cases against the 16 Venezuelans now under arrest in the USA, because the criminal element of the financial sector of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie may, in retaliation, sabotage the CIA’s conspiracy or intelligence operation to produce a currency crisis in Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that he will ask the US government for information related to the 16 people charged with money laundering from drug traffic through Venezuela’s illegal or” parallel” currency exchange market.

The imperialist regime in Washington always protects these drug traffickers and money launderers and, at the same time, the imperialist regime whines, snivels, nags, and bitches that the revolutionary government in Caracas isn’t doing enough to suppress drug trafficking.

By James Thompson

HOUSTON – According to an article in the Texas Tribune on 4/28/10, the Port of Houston has gained permission for its container vessels to sail to Cuba. This development could strengthen Texas’ position as a trading partner with the island nation.

The trade potential is significant. In 2009, the U.S. total trade with Cuba was $521 million. In 2008 it was $710 million. $85 million worth of goods was sent to Cuba from Texas in 2009.

Restrictive trade laws implemented by the Bush administration made trade with Cuba extremely difficult. The policy change was approved by the U.S. Commerce Department, the Bureau of Industry and Security and Cuba’s Alimport agency. It will ease the flow of cargo through the port.

Current legislation is pending before the U.S. House of Representatives which would ease the draconian trade restrictions imposed by the Bush administration as well as previous administrations. H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act would allow U.S. citizens the freedom to travel to Cuba which has been denied them for many years. It would also loosen punitive financial restrictions imposed by the Bush administration in a retaliatory move in 2005. The Bush policy mandates that Cuba pre-pay for its goods through a third country’s banking system. This leaves the Cubans vulnerable, because the U.S. government could seize the pre-payment before the goods were delivered and then stop the delivery of the goods. No other nation in the world has to deal with this punitive trade policy.

Jeff Moseley, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, states, “The potential economic impact on our nation and region is really too great not to proactively explore restoration of trade with Cuba.” He calls for achieving “peace through commerce.”

Many Texans recognize the potential for increasing jobs as a result of easing travel and trade restrictions with Cuba. In light of the current economic and jobs crisis, it only makes sense to trade with one of our closest neighbors. It is clearly a win-win proposition.

By Arthur Shaw

QUESTION: And also, in Venezuela. Venezuela and Russia – there is this thing that they want to buy and the Russians apparently want to sell them about $5 billion worth of weapons. Have you anything on this? Do you consider this a threat? Do you know which kind of weapons?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, what relationships governments have is up to them. What they do in those relationships is, again, a matter of a bilateral issue between Venezuela and Russia. We don’t care. On the other hand, to the extent that Venezuela is purchasing military equipment, we’re hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for this equipment. Our primary concern is not – if Venezuela wants to acquire these – this equipment, we can probably think of better things that could be invested on behalf of the Venezuelan people. But our primary concern is that – that if Venezuela is going to increase its military hardware, we certainly don’t want to see this hardware migrate into other parts of the hemisphere. And we would simply remind Venezuela that through a number of accords has responsibility for transparency in its acquisitions and must make clear about the purpose of acquiring these materials.

Two days later, April 7, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez described the concerns of the bourgeois and imperialist regime in Washington, over arms deals between Venezuela and Russia, as cynical. Chavez pointed out that the imperialist regime under Obama is fueling the military build-up in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“They are so cynical that they criticize us just because we are trying to strengthen our defense,” Chavez said.

US imperialists spend more on arms than all of the other countries of the world combined. They have over 800 military bases scattered all over the globe which threaten all peoples of the world, including Venezuelans. The runaway military spending of the imperialist US regime has helped to bankrupt the regime, plunging the desperate regime into trillions and trillions of dollars of debt. The ongoing aggressions and occupations by the armed forces of the imperialist regime in DC are exterminating human beings at monstrous rate … 2,000,000 war-related fatalities in seven years so far in Iraq demonstrated by a series of scientific mortality studies, an estimated 5,000,000 war-related fatalities in Afghanistan in nine years, and the fatalities in Pakistan are approaching the magnitude of the Iraqi and Afghan numbers, 30,000 occupation-related fatalities in the two year occupation of Haiti between 2004-2006 that was supervised by the Bush regime. As pretexts for its aggressions against other countries, the imperialist regime resorts to lies, facts, and everything between lies and facts. The imperialist regime in the USA deploys huge non-combat private armies of US mercenaries … 110,000 mercenaries in Iraq … which conduct genocide or mass extermination operations against civilians of countries occupied by US imperialists. The savage regime of US imperialists operates a international network of 70 concentration camps that holds over 500,000 political prisoners, often kidnapped or “rendered” and often tortured or subjected to “enhanced interrogation” before many of them are murdered or “executed or neutralized extra judicially.”

Most of these atrocities or these massive violations of human rights, the US imperialists openly boast about and they argue that their regime has to do these terrible things in order to win the so-called war on terrorism. This is the same argument that Hitler and Pol Pot made.

Like Hitler and Pol Pot, the imperialist regime in Washington is itself the main terrorist.

With this rogue regime in Washington on the loose in the world, the rogue says “We’re hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for this equipment” which Venezuela buys from Russia to defend itself. Clearly, the Obama regime believes that the needs of a country to defend itself from US imperialist aggression, occupation, and genocide is not legitimate.

“We are threatened by the empire,” Hugo Chavez said on April 7.

Why are US imperialists “hard-pressed” to see what are Venezuela’s “legitimate defend needs” given the imperial threat aimed at Venezuela? The only way US imperialists could be “hard-pressed” to see Venezuela’s legitimate defense needs is the imperialists close their eyes to Venezuela’s legitimate defense needs. When one closes one’s eyes, one is “hard-pressed” to see anything. Using its quislings in Venezuela, US imperialism in April 2002 tried to overthrow democracy in Venezuela and set up a brutal bourgeois dictatorship that was friendly to US imperialists. No doubt, the US imperialists are “hard-pressed” to see anything wrong in this 2002 aggression against the Venezuelan people. In 2009, the US imperialists announced they were increasing the number of US military bases in Colombia, a country that borders Venezuela on the west, from three to ten and expanding the size and capabilities of all 10 US military bases in Colombia. No doubt, these US imperialists are “hard-pressed” to see that their military expansionism poses a threat to Venezuela and all of Latin America.

Naturally, US imperialists deny that they were behind the 2002 attempt to overthrow the democratic government of Venezuela. But US imperialists always lie when they are asked to admit their culpability in these things. So, their denials should never be believed, unless confirmed by independent sources. No such sources have so far confirmed the imperial denial.

Among the main threats to Venezuela mentioned by Chavez are US military bases in Colombia, Panama and the Netherlands Antilles, as well as the reactivation of the 4th US Fleet in the Caribbean.

Compared to the huge US imperial military presence in the Caribbean, Russia’s recent arm sales to Venezuela are miniscule.

Russia has sold to Venezuela MI Helicopters, Sukhoi aircrafts and AKM rifles, and Venezuela is expecting the arrival of anti-aircraft tanks and shoulder-fired SAM missiles that utilize cutting-edge technology.

By the way, what “legitimate defense needs” do the US imperialists have for their current huge military presence in the Caribbean?

I am “hard-pressed” to see any legitimate defense needs of the imperialist regime in Washington that are served by its 13 US military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We know that about one third of the US people … the reactionaries or the conservatives … are delighted by the imperial bestiality exhibited by two Bush regimes and the Clinton and Obama regimes. Most of the highly-paid US mercenaries who are skilled in genocide come out of this reactionary sector of the US people. These animals are eager to do genocide on the Venezuelan people or any other people, including their own people in the USA.

Another third of the US people … so-called independents who occupy ideological and political space between the reactionaries and liberals … are more or less disposed against the adventures of US imperialists, but they are not disposed very strongly. The idea of another US imperialist attack on Venezuela appals them, but they are not prepared to fight to prevent another US imperialist attack on Venezuela.

The remaining third of the US people … the liberals … are disposed against the adventures of US imperialist predators against other countries, including Venezuela, and are fighting to prevent such attacks. So, the basic issue is whether the liberal or the reactionaries will win over the independents.

The de-composition that is the imperialist sector of the US bourgeoisie says it speaks for the US people, but in reality they speak only for the reactionary sector of the US people, a mass of animals.

The majority of the US people opposes the adventures of US imperialists and this majority is rather consistent in expressing their opposition when they vote or otherwise express themselves.

The problem is the US imperialists pay little or no attention to the majority of the US people.

With neither provocation nor justification, the Europe Parliament viciously bit Cuba … Thursday, March 11, it adopted a resolution that condemns the alleged “avoidable and cruel” death of Cuban “political prisoner” Orlando Zapata and the resolution voices concern at the “alarming state” of another “political prisoner,” Guillermo Farias. The resolution also repeats a call to the Cuban Government for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all political prisoners and urges the EU to begin a “structured dialogue” with Cuban “civil society.”

The EU approved the resolution by 509 votes to 30 with 14 abstentions.

Statements by Reina Tamayo, the mother of Orlando Zapata, and statements of the Cuban doctors who treated Orlando Zapata refute the lies of the EU about the “avoidable and cruel” death of Cuban “political prisoner” Orlando Zapata.

Senora Tamayo was a constant visitor at the National Hospital for Inmates, at Havana’s Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital and at Amalia Simone Hospital in Camaguey where her son was treated during various stages during his voluntary 80-day hunger strike which began of December 8, 2009 and ended in death on February 23, 2010.

“Well, thank you very much � we have full confidence � we can see your concern and that everything that is being done to save him.” Reina Tamayo said in clip filmed weeks before his son’s death and aired on Cuban TV after his death.

“They came to get us late to take us to the meeting with the masters (master’s degree holders) who came to analyze Zapata’s health, and they explained to us that it was very critical, critical; that they were doing everything possible to save Zapata, but every day, something else in his body became worse; that they even had a kidney ready in case his failed, that they were going to fight to the end, but the situation is critical, critical,” Reina Tamayo, the mother, told Cuban radio before here son’s death, as renal complications set in.

“I was able to see the doctors who were there before I went in, and there were doctors from CIMEQ (Center for Medical Surgical Research), the best doctors, trying to save his life�,” Reina Tamayo judges the quality of the medical services received by her son as the condition of her son deteriorated near the end.

The mother of Orlando Zapata was at her son’s side during his hunger strike and during the efforts of Cuban doctors to save her son from the complications that set in during his hunger strike. The EU wasn’t there. The mother has no political and ideological motive, unlike the EU which commonly grovels before US imperialists, to misrepresent the circumstances of Orlando Zapata’s death.

Statements of members of the Cuban medical team that worked to save Orlando Zapata’s life corroborate the statements of Orlando’ mother and refute the lies contained in the resolution passed by the EU.

“The patient suffered a series of complications inherent to prolonged inanition, of being so long without ingesting any food,” said Dr. Gimel Sosa Martin of the National Hospital for Inmates.

Dr. Jesus Barreto Penie at Havana’s Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital said: “In that case, one can maintain the person more or less well-nourished by implementing artificial feeding techniques, which may include parenteral techniques, but that is not sufficient to guarantee long-term survival, when the digestive tube or digestive tract is not used — essentially the small and large intestines, which have a series of vital functions that precisely guarantee contact with the food ingested. If a person does not receive that stimulus for days or weeks, the intestine begins to lose its functions, and one of the most important is the immunological one. The intestine is the most important immunological organ, and what maintains that immuno competence is precisely contact with the foods that one receives; hence, atrophy of the intestinal mucous may occur; the intestine becomes thinner; in fact, it is described as becoming almost like transparent paper. That’s where complications come in, such as digestive haemorrhages, intestinal perforations, and what is the most dangerous and most serious — which is what ends the life of many of these patients — is when they begin to pass along the bacteria that normally co-exist in the small intestine, and above all in the large one, into the blood, and multiple infections occur, which are what kills the patient.”

“The patient did not wish to eat, by his own desire. When one decides not to eat, the body begins to self-cannibalize; in other words, this is a person who begins to consume him or herself because his or her own body is looking for away to sustain itself in face of that insufficiency of food intake orally. That was what happened to Orlando; he began to exhaust his proteins, to exhaust his carbohydrates, to exhaust his fats, and after 47 or 48 days without ingesting food, he was a patient (for whom) it is very difficult to recover via the oral channel,” said Dr. Mariano Izquierdo.

Doctor Daile Burgos said: “At this center, we continued providing the medical attention to Zapata, which he received at the Amalia Simone Hospital in Camaguey. This patient was in the open wards for some time, and later was transferred to a progressive care and intensive therapy unit, because of his state of debilitation produced by the inanition resulting from his voluntary fast, and for artificial, parenteral nutrition; that is, feeding through a vein, due to the patient’s refusal to ingest food. Here, there was very close follow-up by this hospital in Camaguey, including with support from a psychological standpoint to warn him about all the deadly consequences that this prolonged fast could bring. And I do think that he was closely followed and treated, including with cutting-edge products, with respect to alimentation and very close follow-up by the therapy units at that center.”

In other words, the consensus of the doctors, an opinion with which the patient’s mother concurs, is Zapata’s death is neither “unavoidable” nor “cruel.” The consensus of the doctors is Orlando Zapata died from (1) inanition… this is, an exhausted condition that results from lack of food and (2) a set of complications including infection, renal, and immunological conditions produced or aggravated by inanition. The Cuban Doctors tried to force food into Zapata’s body through his veins and this procedure relieved somewhat the problems associated with (1), the inanition, but not the problems associated with (2), the set of complications that largely arose from inanition.

Why would the EU pass a resolution against Cuba that is glaringly contrary to the evidence of the most credible witnesses … namely, Zapata’s family, and glaringly contrary to the most competent witnesses, the Cuban doctors who treated Zapata?

Credibility and competence are pearls that should never be cast before swine, especially in the EU parliament … they can’t distinguish between pearls and the mixture of mud, filth, and slop they love.