by Henry Lowendorf

International Conference: Yes to Peace – No to NATO
Lisbon, 2010 November 19
Presentation from the United States Peace Council
Henry Lowendorf

Introduction. The U.S. Peace Council thanks the Portuguese Council for Peace and
Cooperation for today’s opportunity to participate in the major actions for peace it has
organized this week.

The U.S. Peace Council joins the call of the World Peace Council for the immediate
abolition of NATO.

A triumphant United States created NATO in 1949 in order to advance the threat and
spread the expense of its expanding empire. The U.S. directs NATO on behalf of the
financial institutions, the weapons manufacturers, petroleum giants and other
transnational corporations. With NATO’s expansion eastward to absorb more member
countries U.S. imperialism hopes to more ably dominate the globe. This week in Lisbon
the U.S., in a much weakened position economically and politically, urgently seeks
NATO member states to take up the burden of imperialism that it can no longer afford.
A major step forward will be the popular demand to dismantle NATO altogether.
Military extensions of imperialism. The U.S. drew NATO countries into the wars on
Afghanistan and Iraq, and Yugoslavia before that. The militarists are prepared to occupy
Afghanistan and Iraq indefinitely. The people pay with hundreds of thousands dead,
millions wounded, millions forced to flee home, increased civil violence and despoiled
environments. These bloody wars of occupation are waged to control petroleum reserves
and pipeline routes in the oil-rich Middle East and the Caspian Sea region. They are
fought to extend the ring of military bases around Russia and to close in on China. The
thousand U.S. military bases on every continent threaten the national sovereignty of host
and neighboring countries. That the people of many NATO member countries have
forced their governments into recalling military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq is a
welcome step. This step forces the superpower to use its own diminishing resources to
fund its imperial dreams. Let us make sure that this step is not reversed. The U.S. Peace
Council joins the global majority by demanding that the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan end now, that all foreign troops and mercenaries be sent home now.
NATO’s agreement to target Iran with economic sanctions and threats of nuclear attack is
part of the undisguised plot to plant additional subservient governments, steal Iran’s
petroleum and install more military bases. Supporting the global network to close all
foreign military bases and shutting down NATO are key elements in fighting
imperialism. We insist that military threats against any country end now.
A major piece of the Pentagon scheme for first-strike capability and what it calls “full
spectrum dominance” is to place weapons in space. Already space satellites are being
used to direct drone attacks against targets in South Asia.

The so-called “missile defense” is part of this first-strike scheme. NATO countries that
agree to install such “missile defense” systems become parties to the Pentagon’s first
strike aggressions over which they will have no determination. They will become parties
to a new arms race that will absorb their resources and youth. They will be advancing
imperialist exploitation to their own and others’ detriment. We call on the people of
Europe and everywhere to forthrightly reject “missile defense.”

In 2009 President Obama announced that the U.S. would lead the effort to abolish nuclear
weapons. But then he dramatically increased the budget for nuclear weapons factories.
Building more nuclear weapons violates the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. Testing
nuclear-ready InterContinental Ballistic Missiles violates the NPT. The U.S. nuclear deal
with India violates the NPT. We must shout, “End these violations!” To obtain favors and
to support the vast armaments industry, the Obama administration is circling the globe
selling advanced weaponry, thus inflaming the prospects for war. Weapons sales, made in
America, are number one in the world. We join vast humanity in demanding that the U.S.
immediately remove its nuclear weapons from other countries and that the nuclearweapons
states agree on a convention to promptly and totally abolish all nuclear
weapons. We call on an end to the arms trade.

TURNING INWARD

Imperialism has scattered millions of victims over the planet. Among them are the people
of the United States of America. The U.S. empire is threatened by Latin America’s
independent development and its resistance to continued imperial penetration. A
militarist, profit-hungry few are driving the U.S. economy into a deeper ditch even as it is
apparent that other, fast growing economies are quickly recovering from the current
“global” economic crisis or have avoided it altogether. As a result, the financial and
corporate elites are more and more leveling their gun sights on the U.S. population.
Economic crisis. The economic crisis was catalyzed by overwhelming debt, personal,
corporate and national1. One-tenth percent of the U.S. population is bulging with wealth,
while 31 million workers are unemployed or underemployed. Two thirds of the
unemployed receive no compensation2. 42 million people, one in 7 households, receive
food subsidies3. Nearly 60 million people lacked health care coverage for all or part of a
year or more4. When fully implemented, the modest health care legislation signed into
law by President Obama last spring would eventually provide coverage to about half
those currently excluded. Yet many Congressional winners of the recent midterm election
vow to bury health care and additionally intend to slash pensions and medical care for the
elderly and very poor that the people’s struggles created over the last 75 years. In place of
this safety net they propose more tax cuts for millionaires.

Infrastructure crisis.

Imperialism has parasitized the infrastructure of the United States.
Dams, bridges, roads, railroads, water and schools are crumbling and desperately need
repair or replacement5. The United States is the most profligate abuser of energy in the
world. Conservation of energy and conversion of generating sources away from burning
petroleum to environmentally sustainable models is painfully needed but is barred by the
transnational fossil-fuel industries. Millions of jobs are waiting to be done. In order to fill
those jobs, however, the people must starve the war machine and tax the rich.

Going forward.

The existing peace organizations alone are not currently strong enough
to turn the U.S. and its NATO allies toward peace. It is critical that we work in unity with
one another, with broad alliances of labor, human rights, and environmental
organizations to create the kind of political pressure needed for essential change. In that
alliance is the possibility of finally terminating imperialism and reversing course toward a
peaceful world.

We salute the Portuguese Peace Council for its work in creating such alliances and in
organizing the events of this weekend. We are inspired by your enlightened example.

La luta continua!

Obrigado.

1 In order to accelerate their accumulation of wealth, corporations for the last 40 years have taken huge
profits from improved productivity. They have not raised real wages and workers are required to increase
family working hours and amass debt. Government starting with President Ronald Reagan reduced taxes on the rich in favor of borrowing from them, dramatically expanding government debt. The U.S. has become a debtor nation.
2 Art Perlo et al. “Program for Jobs in a green, productive, people before profits, economy for the
21st century.” 31 million workers is 20% of the workforce. The unemployment figures hide even
higher rates for Black and Latino workers, and still higher figures for youth.
3 http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/04/some-14-of-us-uses-food-stamps/ The
population using food stamps has increased 50% in the last 3 years.
4 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40098643/ns/health-health_care Nearly 60 million people
lacked health care coverage part of the year and half of that number lack coverage for a year or more.
Fifteen million of these have serious chronic ailments, asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes.
5 http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

Cuba, Fidel’s message to the students

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From: Embassy of Cuba in Greece, Tuesday, 23 November 2010

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Fidel’s message to the students

November 17, 2010

Dear university students and other guests,

I am very pleased by the presence at this meeting of the minister of Higher Education, of the rectors of the universities in Havana, a representative group from the Young Communist League (UJC), chaired by its First Secretary, the provincial leadership and the National Federation of Secondary Education Students.

I well remember that November 17th of 2005. We were celebrating International Students’ Day. You, the university students, had decided that I should speak on that day. They told me it was the 60-year anniversary of my starting university studies at the end of 1945. At that time I was just a bit younger than I am today; I was your age. But together we have lived through a phase of life.

I thought that that meeting we had at the University of Havana, 5 years ago, would never be repeated. I was 79 years old then. But just two months ago, to be more exact, when I presented the second book about our revolutionary war, “The Strategic Counter-offensive”, at the Great Auditorium on September 10, 2010, at the end, I spoke with many of the veterans of those battles and at the exit from that hall I greeted an enthusiastic group of university student leaders who were waiting there, I chatted with them, and they explained to me their anxious anticipation of the 17th so I could talk about the speech.

I liked that group. They were not promoting any “cultural revolution”; they wanted to hear a reflection once more about the ideas put forth that day.

That meeting was already theirs. It seemed to me that a lot of time would pass between September 10th and November 17th; other things were going through my mind and I answered: “We’ll see each other on that day”.

Nevertheless I knew that that speech raised some worries, given the moment we were living, facing a powerful enemy that was threatening us more and more, blockading our economy with an iron will and making efforts to sow discontent, promoting the violation of laws and the illegal departures from our country, taking away a youthful, cultural and technically well-educated work force reserve. Many of them were later led to illicit activities and crime.

There was also the fact of my tendency to be self-critical and ironic about our actions. Even though my words were stinging, I defended principles and made no concessions.

I was remembering all that, but not the exact words I had used, the bulk of the arguments wielded and the considerable length of the speech.

I asked the Council of State Archives for a textual copy and I was looking at 115 single-spaced pages which implied more than 200 as these barely go for more than 40.

Work has been intense in the last few weeks, and dedicated to many tasks; among these meetings with interviews with the principal editor of the Global Research website, Michel Chossudovsky, the overwhelming electoral victory of the far-right in the US and, within it, that of the fascist group the Tea Party, the unprecedented economic crisis, the currency wars closely followed by the G-20 Summit Meeting in Seoul, the APEC Summit in Yokohama, Japan and within two days, the NATO Summit in Portugal on November 19 and 20, something that must be followed closely.

In spite of that, I was not resigning myself to postponing or suspending the date of our meeting.

Bolstered by the original text, I was picking out the main ideas of the speech that I had given then, in order to present them with the very same words I used at that time. In the interest of brevity, I omitted numerous examples that were backing up the opinions I held.

I must confess that the timeliness of the ideas expressed surprised me; 5 years later they are more current than they were then, since many of them had to do with the future, and events have gone on as they were foreseen, only that today, with the knowledge available about phenomena such as climate change, the economic crisis that surpasses any previous one, the dangers of war and the drifting off of imperial power towards fascism demand the maximum of dedication and effort from our university youths in the ideological battle.

One of the first ideas I expressed was:

“The combination of factors that made life possible occurred after billions of years on planet Earth, this very fragile life form that can only survive between a few limited degrees of temperature, between a few degrees below zero and a few degrees above zero…”

“I was trying to recall how those universities were, what we did, what our concerns were. We were concerned about this island, […] There was no talk then of globalization; there was no television or Internet; instant communication were not possible from one end of the planet to the other; […] In my time, back in 1945, our passenger planes could hardly make it to Miami…”

“…there had been a terrible war that took the lives of some 50 million people. I am speaking of the time in 1945 when I entered the university, on September 4th. Well, I started on that date, and you, of course, have taken the liberty to celebrate the anniversary any day of that year.”

Later on, I asked: “What kind of world is this? What kind of world is this where a barbaric empire proclaims its right to launch pre-emptive attacks on 60 or more countries, and is capable of bringing death to any corner of the globe, using the most sophisticated weapons and killing techniques?”

“Even today, the empire is threatening to attack Iran if nuclear fuel is produced there.”

“There is already an international debate on what day and at what time a pre-emptive attack will be launched on the research centers for production of nuclear fuel and on whether it will be the empire that does it, or its satellite Israel as it was the case in Iraq.”

“…and Iran is demanding its right to produce nuclear fuel just like any industrialized nation and not be obliged to destroy the reserves of a raw material, which can be used not only as an energy source but also as a raw material for numerous products such as fertilizers, textiles and many others currently used worldwide.”

“…. Let’s see what happens if they decide to bomb Iran in order to destroy any facility used in the production of nuclear fuel.”

“We have never considered producing nuclear weapons. We have a different type of nuclear weapon: it’s our ideas […] Our nuclear weapon is the invincible power of moral weapons. […] nor have we ever considered seeking biological weapons […] weapons that defeat death, that defeat AIDS and cancer that we dedicate our resources.”

“…anywhere in the world you can find a secret prison where defenders of human rights are tortured. They are the same people who order their little lambs to vote in Geneva, one after another, against Cuba, a country where torture is unknown, something that brings honor and glory on this generation. It is the honor and glory of this Revolution struggling for justice, for independence and for human decorum, and we must keep its purity and dignity untouched!”

“…. This morning there was news about the use of live phosphorus in Fallujah. It is there that the empire discovered that a nation, to all intents and purposes unarmed, could not be defeated and the invaders found themselves in the situation of not being able to leave or to stay. If they leave, the combatants would return; if they stay, these troops would be required in other locations. Over 2,000 young US troops have already died, and some are asking: How long will these men continue to give their lives for an unjust war?…”

“…enlisting in the army has become an employment opportunity. The ones who enlist are the unemployed and very often they try to enlist greater numbers of Afro-Americans to fight their unjust war. However, news is coming out that fewer Afro-Americans are enlisting in the army, despite their high levels of unemployment and their marginalization…”

“They are chasing after Latinos, immigrants, who cross the border trying to escape hunger; this is a border where more than 500 emigrants die every year, many more in only 12 months than those who died during the 28 years of the Berlin Wall.”

“Young people entered this University exactly like that. It must be remembered that this University was not for the poor, it was for the middle class, for the rich, although young people tended to rise above class ideas and many of them were capable of struggling, as in fact they did throughout the history of Cuba.”

“Eight students were executed in 1871. They were like the seeds of the noblest of sentiments and of the rebellious spirit of our people…”

“Mella was one of them, also coming from the middle class because the children of farmers who could neither read nor write …”

“…I mentioned Mella. I could have mentioned Guiteras, or Trejo who died […]who died in one of those demonstrations on September 30…”

“…when the Batista tyranny returned with a vengeance, many students fought and many students died, and that young man from Cardenas, Manzanita as he was called, always smiling, always jovial, always affectionate with everyone, became well-known for his bravery, his integrity […] when he faced the police.”

“If you visit the house where [Jose Antonio] Echevarria lived –Jose Antonio, we’ll call him—you’ll see that it is a good house, an excellent house. You could see how the students were often oblivious of their social or class origins; at that age of so many hopes and dreams.

“At that university, there was only one medical faculty, and one teaching hospital, yet, many students received prizes and awards, first prize in medicine and even in surgery without ever having operated on anybody.”

“Some made it […]That’s how there were good doctors, not a huge numbers of good doctors […] they were unemployed and with the triumph of the Revolution, that’s where they went, straight to the USA and Cuba was left with half of all her medical doctors, 3,000 of them, and 25% of her professors. We started at that point, until we got to where we are today, standing up almost like the capital of world medicine.”

“…the country […] have more than 70,000 medical doctors.”

“We came to the university at the end of 1945 and we began the armed struggle in Moncada on July 26th, 1953, […] only eight years later, and the Revolution triumphed five years, five days and five months after Moncada, after a long journey by way of prison, exile and fighting in the mountains.”

“…not even being too knowledgeable about the laws of gravity. We headed upwards, struggling against the empire which was already the most powerful one […] when another super-power also existed. […] marching upwards, gaining experience, seeing our people and the Revolution gain in strength, until this point where we are today.”

“…the human being is the only one capable […] of rising above all instincts […] Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues …”

“…in spite of the differences between human beings, they can become as one in a single instant or […]they can be a million strong just through their ideas.”

“Ideas make us a combatant people on a collective and not just an individual basis; ideas make us a mass of revolutionaries. Then, the people can never be defeated…”

“…90 miles away from the colossal empire, the most powerful empire ever in the history of the world. Forty five years have passed and there it is, farther away than ever from the possibility of forcing the Cuban nation to its knees, the same nation they humiliated and offended for some time …”

“I think it was Agramonte, others say it was Céspedes, who responded to the pessimists when he had just 12 men with him: […] with these 12 men I can make a nation […] what we call a revolutionary conscience […] nation is born of love for the homeland and love for the world; and we cannot forget that the homeland is humanity, a statement made more than a hundred years ago.”

“Never forget those who for years were our working class, going through decades of sacrifice, suffering the attacks of mercenary bands in the mountains, invasions like Girón, thousands of acts of sabotage that killed our sugar cane workers, our industrial and factory workers, those in the merchant marine or in the fishing industry, those who were suddenly attacked with cannons and bazookas, only because they were Cuban, only because they wanted to be independent, only because they wanted to improve the lot of our people…”

“Cuba speaks whenever it is necessary, and Cuba has much to say; but we are not in a hurry, we are not impatient. We know very well when, where and how to deliver the blows to the empire, its system and its lackeys.”

“…I believe that this humanity and all the great things it is capable of creating must be preserved while it is still possible to do so.”

“…this admirable and marvelous nation. Yesterday, it was but a seed and today it is a mighty tree with deep roots. Yesterday, it was filled with noble potential and today it is filled with true nobility. Yesterday, it dreamed of knowledge and today that knowledge is real, when we are just beginning in this huge university that today is Cuba.”

“…new cadres are springing up, young cadres.”

“As you know, we are presently waging a war against corruption, against the re-routing of resources, against thievery …”

“…But don’t you think for a moment that stealing resources and materials is just a present-day illness, nor is it an exclusive phenomenon of the Special Period. The Special Period aggravated it, because in this period we saw the growth of much inequality and certain people were able to accumulate a lot of money.”

“. In the times I’m referring to, we needed 800 kilograms of cement to produce a ton of concrete; it was good quality concrete […] they should use only around 200 kilograms. See the wastage, the re-routing of resources, see the larceny”

“In this battle against vice there will be no truce for anyone and we shall be thoroughly scrupulous. We will appeal to everyone’s sense of honor. We are sure of one thing; every human being possesses a healthy dose of honor. When one looks in the mirror, one is not always the harshest of judges, even though, in my opinion, the first responsibility of a revolutionary is to be extremely severe with oneself.”

“Criticism and self-criticism, it’s all very good, as it did not exist in the past. However, if we are going to war we need weapons of greater caliber; we must carry out criticism and self-criticism in the school room, in the party cells and then outside the party cells, in the municipality and finally in the entire country.”

“Afterwards, we might have other questions. How much are we earning? And if the question deals with how much we are earning, we might begin to understand the dream of everyone being able to live on their salary or on their adequate pension. “

“I can assure you that we have become aware of this. The entire life is a learning process, right up to our last breath…“

“Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism. It seemed to be a sure fact, as well-known as the electrical system conceived by those who thought they were experts in electrical systems. […]be idiots if we think, for example, that economy is an exact and eternal science and that it existed since the days of Adam and Eve, and I offer my apologies to the thousands of economists in our country.

“All sense of dialectics is lost when someone believes that today’s economy is identical to the economy 50 or 100 or 150 years ago, or that it is identical to the one in Lenin’s day or to the time when Karl Marx lived. Revisionism is a thousand miles away from my mind and I truly revere Marx, Engels and Lenin.”

“When I was a student, once I learned what utopian communism was, I realized that that’s what I was a utopian communist because all my ideas took off from the idea: “This is not good, this is bad, this is a crime. How can we possibly have an overproduction crisis and hunger at the same time, when there is more coal, more cold, more unemployed, because there is more capacity to create wealth? Wouldn’t it be simpler to produce and distribute the wealth?’

“Just as Karl Marx thought in the period of the Critique of the Gotha Program, it seemed like limits for abundance were inherent in the social system; it seemed that just as production forces developed, they could produce everything that the human being needed to satisfy all his essential requirements almost limitlessly, be they material, cultural, etc.”

“When he wrote political books like The 18th Brumaire and the Civil War in France, he was a genius with a crystal clear interpretation. His Communist Manifesto is a classic. You can analyze it and be more or less satisfied with this and with that. I moved on from utopian communism to a communism that was based on serious theories of social development …”

“In our real world, which must be changed, every revolutionary tactician and strategist has the obligation to conceive of a strategy and a tactic that will lead to the fundamental objective, to change the real world. No divisive tactic or strategy can be a good one. “

“I had the privilege of meeting the followers of the Liberation Theology once when I visited Allende in Chile, in 1971. I met many priests, representatives of various religious denominations, and they were presenting the idea of united forces in the struggle, regardless of any specific religious beliefs. “

“The world is desperately crying out for unity and if we cannot achieve a minimum of unity, we are not going to go anywhere.”

“Above all, Lenin studied State issues; Marx did not speak of the worker-peasant alliance because he lived in a country that had a highly developed industrial base; Lenin recognized the under-developed world, he was aware of the country where 80 to 90 percent were peasants, and even though it had considerable strength in its railroad workers and in some other industries, Lenin saw with utmost clarity the necessity to forge a worker-peasant alliance. No one before had spoken of this; they had philosophized, but they hadn’t talked about this. The first socialist revolution, the first real attempt at a just and egalitarian society, takes place in a huge semi-feudal, semi-under developed country. None of the previous societies slave-based, feudal, medieval or anti-feudal, bourgeois, or capitalist could ever propose the existence of a just society even though much was said about liberty, equality and fraternity. “

“Throughout history, the first serious human attempt to create the first just society began less than 200 years ago…”

“One could never have arrived at a strategy through dogma. Lenin taught us a lot, because Marx taught us to understand society. Lenin taught us to understand the State and the role of the State. “

“… when the USSR crumbled, many people were left on their own, including the Cuban revolutionaries. But we knew what we had to do, what our options were. Everywhere, revolutionary movements were carrying on their struggle. I am not going to say which ones, I’m not going to say who they were; but they were all very serious revolutionary movements and they asked us whether there should be some negotiation process in the face of such a desperate situation, whether the struggle should continue or not, whether negotiations should begin with the other side to strike a peace accord, even though everyone knew the consequences of such a peace. “

“…I would tell them: “You cannot ask us our opinion, as it will be you fighting the battle, and you alone who will die, not us. We know what we are going to do and what we are prepared to do: but these are decisions which each one must make for themselves.” That was the highest expression of our respect for the other movements. We have never attempted to impose ourselves on the basis of our knowledge and experience, or the enormous respect they show for our revolution which motivated them to listen to our point of view. “

“I believe that the experience of that first socialist State, a State that should have been fixed and not destroyed, was a bitter one. You may be sure that we have thought many times about that incredible phenomenon where one of the mightiest powers in the world disintegrated the way it did; for this was a power that had matched the strength of the other super-power and had paid with the lives of more than 20 million of her people in the battle against fascism. “

“Is it that revolutions are doomed to fall apart, or that men cause revolutions to fall apart? Can either man or society prevent revolutions from collapsing? I could immediately add to this another question: Do you believe that this revolutionary socialist process can fall apart, or not? (Exclamations of: “No!!”) Have you ever given that some thought? Have you ever deeply reflected about it? “

“Were you aware of all these inequalities that I have been talking about? Were you aware of certain generalized habits? Did you know that there are people who earn forty or fifty times the amount one of those doctors over there in the mountains of Guatemala, part of the “Henry Reeve” Contingent, earns in one month? It could be in other faraway reaches of Africa, or at an altitude of thousands of meters, in the Himalayas, saving lives and earning 5% or 10% of what one of those dirty little crooks earns, selling gasoline to the new rich, diverting resources from the ports in trucks and by the ton-load, stealing in the dollar shops, stealing in a five-star hotel by exchanging a bottle of rum for another of lesser quality and pocketing the dollars for which he sells the drinks. “

“I could also explain why we no longer cut cane today; there are no cane cutters here and the heavy machinery destroys the sugar cane fields. The abuses of the developed world and the subsidies have led to sugar prices that were scraping the bottom of the trash bins, on the world markets. In the meantime, Europe was paying its growers two or three times more. “

“So, we are now coming to the point of asking ourselves this question –I have already reached this point myself, some years ago– in the face of this super-powerful empire that stalks us and threatens us, that has transition plans and military action plans in this specific historical moment. “

“They are awaiting a natural and absolutely logical event, the death of someone. In this case, they have honored me by thinking of me. It might be a confession of what they have not been able to do in a long time. If I were a vain man, I could be proud of the fact that those guys admit that they are waiting for me to die, and this is the time. They are waiting for me to die, and everyday they invent something new: Castro has this, he’s suffering from that, and now the latest is that they say Castro has Parkinson’s disease. “

“Yes, it’s true, I had a very bad fall and I’m still in rehab for this arm (He shows the arm), and its improving. I’m very grateful for the circumstances which caused me to break my arm, because now I’m forced to be even more disciplined, to work more, to dedicate more time (almost 24 hours a day) to my job. I had been doing this ever since the Special Period began, and now I dedicate every second to my work and I fight harder than ever…”

“That’s a little like the guy (I was making reference to Forbes Magazine) who discovered that I was the wealthiest man in the world. “

“I asked you a question, comrade students; don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten, and I’d like to believe that you will never forget it. It is the question that I ask in view of historical experiences we have known, and I ask you all, without exception, to reflect on it: Can the revolutionary process be irreversible, or not? Which are the ideas or the degree of conscience that would make the reversal of the revolutionary process impossible? “

“A leader has a tremendous power when he enjoys the confidence of the masses that put full trust in his abilities. The consequences of errors committed by those in authority are terrible, and this has happened more than once during the revolutionary processes. “

“Such is the stuff for meditation. One studies history, one meditates on what happened here and there, on what happened today and on what will happen tomorrow, on where each country’s processes will lead, what path our own process will take, how it will get there, and what role Cuba will play in this process. “

“That was why I commented that one of our greatest mistakes at the beginning of, and often during, the Revolution was believing that someone knew how to build socialism. “

“What kind of a society would this be, how worthy of joy could we be when we assemble on a day like today, in a place like this, if we were not minimally aware of what we need to know, so that on our heroic island, this heroic people, this nation which has written pages in the history books like no other nation in the history of mankind can preserve the Revolution? Please, do not think that this who is speaking to you is a vain man or a charlatan, or someone inclined to bluff. “

“Forty-six years have passed and the history of this country is known and the people of this nation know it well. They also know their neighbor very well, the empire, with its size and its power, its strength and its wealth, its technology and its control over the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, all the world of finances. That country has imposed on us the most incredibly iron-clad blockade, which was discussed at the United Nations where 182 nations supported Cuba, voting freely even though they ran a risk voting against the empire. […] We forged this Revolution alone, against all risk, for many long years and we had realized that if the day ever come when we would be under direct attack by the US, no one would ever fight for us, nor would we ask anyone to do so. I was making reference to the USSR. “

“It would have been naïve of us to think, or to ask for, or to expect that one super-power would fight against the other, in this day and age of modern technological development, to intervene in this island 90 miles away. We came to the conclusion that such support would never happen. And another thing: once we asked them directly, a few years before the collapse: “Tell us frankly.” : “No,” they said. It was the answer we knew they would give and from that point on, more than ever, we accelerated the development of our concept and we perfected the tactical and strategic ideas which have seen to the triumph and victory of the Revolution. The Revolution’s strength began with the struggle of seven armed men against an enemy with 80,000 troops including marines, soldiers and police, tanks, airplanes and all kinds of modern weaponry of the time. What an infinitely huge difference between our weapons and the weapons of that army, trained by the US, supported by the US and supplied by the US. “

“Today, we possess much more than those seven guns. We have a people who have learned to handle weapons; we have an entire nation which, in spite of our errors, holds such a high degree of culture, education and conscience that it will never allow this country to become their colony again. “

“This country can self-destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would be our fault. “

“I have been fortunate to have lived many years. That is not a special merit but rather, it is an exceptional opportunity to share with you everything that I am telling you, young leaders, all the leaders of the masses, all the leaders of the workers’ movement, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the women’s groups, the farmers, the veterans of the Revolution, organized throughout the country, hundreds of thousands who have struggled through the years carrying out glorious internationalist missions…”

“…it is impressive to see people from the most humble backgrounds in this country transform into 28,000 social workers and thousands of university students, university students!! What a force! And soon we shall also be seeing those who graduated a while ago in the Sports Coliseum. “

“The coliseum teaches us about Marxist-Leninism; it teaches us about social classes. A short while ago, about 15,000 doctors and medical students, some of them from ELAM (Latin American School of Medicine), and some from as far away as Eastern Timor, were gathered in the coliseum. It was an unforgettable event. “

“The image of those 15,000 white coats all together on graduation day can never be forgotten. That was the day that the “Henry Reeve” Contingent was created following in the tradition of many doctors who have been to places where exceptional events have taken place, in a time span much too brief to even imagine. “

“Allow me to tell you that today, human capital is practically superior to almost all of the others put together, and it is advancing very quickly to become the country’s most valuable resource. I’m not exaggerating. “

“They have discovered private gas stations, supplied with oil from these trucks. “

“We all know that many of the state owned trucks go all over the place, and sometimes they visit a relative, a friend, a family or a girl-friend. “

“I remember the time, several years before the Special Period, I saw a brand new Volvo front-loader on Fifth Avenue…one of those at the time would have cost 50,000 or 60,000 dollars. I wanted to know where the truck was heading at that speed so I asked my escort: “Hold on, ask him where he’s going; try to get an honest answer.” The driver confessed that he was off to visit his girl-friend in that new Volvo, going down Fifth Avenue at top speed. “

“Some things you’ll see, Mio Cid –I think it was Cervantes who said this— that would make the stones talk. “

“…this is some of what has been happening. In general, we all know, and many have said: “The Revolution can’t do that; no, it’s impossible; no, nobody can fix that.” But yes, the people are going to fix it this time, the Revolution is going to fix it, any way we can. Is it merely an ethical matter? Yes, it is above all an ethical matter; but even more, it is a vital economic matter. “

“Our nation is one of those that waste the most combustible energy in the world. We had proof of it right here, and you very honestly pointed it out; it is very important. No one knows the cost of electricity; no one knows the cost of gasoline; no one knows its market value. I was about to tell you that it is very sad when a ton of oil can cost 400 dollars and a ton of gasoline can cost 500, 600, 700 or on occasion 1000; this is a product which does not get cheaper. Whenever that happens it is circumstantial, and it does not last long…”

“Take a look at our nickel mines, leaving great holes where once there used to be a lot of nickel. This is happening to oil; the great oil fields have all been found and every day there is less of them. This is a subject about which we have had to think long and hard…”

“…if I remember correctly, there were around 3,000 entities that were handling convertible currency and were managing their profits with generous expenditures in convertible currency, buying this and that, painting their houses, buying a new car and getting rid of the old clunker. We realized that, given the conditions this country is living in, such habits must be broken…”

“Quite simply, we had to shut down sugar mills or we were going to disappear down the Bartlett Trench. The country had many, many economists and it is not my intention to criticize them, but speaking with the same honesty I used to describe the errors of the Revolution, I would like to ask why we hadn’t discovered that maintaining production levels of sugar would be impossible. The USSR had collapsed, oil was costing 40 dollars a barrel, sugar prices were at basement levels…so why did we not rationalize that industry instead of sowing 20,000 caballerias that year, equivalent of almost 270,000 hectares, obliging us to till the land with tractors and heavy ploughs, sowing cane that afterwards had to be cleaned using machinery, fertilize with expensive herbicides, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”

“The USSR had already collapsed, we had been left without oil overnight, with no raw materials, no food, no cleaning products, nothing. Probably, it was good that this happened, after all. Maybe it was necessary that we suffered as we did, so that we are ready to give our lives a hundred times over before we surrender the country or the Revolution…”

“Maybe it was all necessary, for we have committed many errors. It is these errors that we are trying to correct, if you will, that we are in the process of correcting. “

“…without abuse of power! for nothing would ever justify the abuse of power. We must be audacious enough to tell the truth, but not all of it, because we don’t need to say everything at once. Political battles follow certain tactics, with adequate information, following their own path. […] Don’t worry about what the bandits are saying or what the news services will report tomorrow or the day after: he who laughs last, laughs best. “

“It’s not just a matter of printing bills and distributing them without having them backed up with merchandise or services…”

“We ended up giving away the houses, some people bought theirs, they were the owners, they had paid 50 pesos a month, 80 pesos, or, if the money was sent to them from Miami, it amounted to about 3 dollars; some sold theirs in 15 000 or 20 000 dollars, when they had originally paid less than 500. “

“Can the country resolve its housing problem by giving away houses? And who will get them, the proletariat or the humble people? Many humble people were given houses for free and then they sold them to the new rich. How much can the new rich spend on a house? Is this socialism? “

“Maybe it’s down to necessity at a certain moment in time, maybe it’s a mistake, because the country suffered a shattering blow when overnight the great power fell and we were left alone, all on our own, and we lost all the markets on which to sell our sugar and we stopped getting supplies, fuel, even the wood with which to give a Christian burial to our dead. And everyone thought: ‘This will fall apart’, and the idiots still believe that it is all going to fall apart here and that if it doesn’t fall apart now it will fall apart later. And the more illusions they entertain and the more they think, the more we should think, the more we should draw our own conclusions, so that this glorious people who has so trusted all of us is never defeated. “

“The empire shall not come here to set up secret jails in which to torture progressive men and women from other parts of this continent that are today rising to fight for the second and final independence! “

“Before we go back to living such a repugnant and miserable life there better not be any memory, even the slightest trace, of us or our descendents. “

“They had fooled the world. When the mass media grew in full force it took control of peoples’ minds and exercised its power through not only lies, but also conditioned response. A lie isn’t the same as a conditioned response: a lie affects one’s knowledge whereas the conditioned response affects one’s ability to think. And being misinformed isn’t the same as having lost the ability to think, because responses have been created for you: ‘This is bad, that is bad; socialism is bad, socialism is bad’, they say, and all the ignorant people and all the humble people and all the exploited people are saying: ‘Socialism is bad’. ‘Communism is bad’. And all the poor people, all the exploited people and all the illiterate people are repeating it: ‘Communism is bad’. “

“‘Cuba is bad, Cuba is bad’, the empire has said it, it has been said in Geneva, it has been said all over the place, and all the exploited people around the world, all the illiterate people and all those who don’t receive medical care, or education or have any guarantee of a job, or of anything are saying: ‘The Cuban Revolution is bad, the Cuban Revolution is bad’. “

“What are they talking about? What can the illiterate people do? How can they know if the International Monetary Fund is good or bad, or that interest is higher, or that the world is being ceaselessly subjugated and pillaged by a thousand different methods put into practice by this system? They don’t know. “

“They don’t teach the masses to read and write, yet they spend a million dollars on publicity every year; but it isn’t the fact that they spend it, it’s the fact that they spend it on creating conditioned responses, because someone bought Palmolive, someone else bought Colgate, and someone else bought Candado soap, just because they were told to a hundred times over, because they associated the products with a pretty image and this sowed its seed and carved its place in the brain. They who talk so much of brainwashing, it is they who carve their place, who mould the brain, who take away from the human being his capacity to think; it would be less serious if they were taking away the ability to think from someone who had been to university, who could read a book. “

“What can the illiterate read? What means have they of realizing that they are being conned? What means have they of knowing that the biggest lie in the world is the one that claims that the rotten system that reigns over there and what they have in many places, if not almost all of the countries that copied that system is a democracy? […]This is what, in the end, makes everyone much more revolutionary than they were when they were unaware of many of these things, when they only knew about elements of injustice and inequality. “

“At the moment, while I’m talking to you about this, I’m not theorizing, although it is necessary to theorize; we are working, we are moving towards full changes in our society. “

“The price of oil nowadays is not in keeping with any supply and demand rule; it conforms to other factors like the shortages, the extensive squandering by the rich countries, and it’s not a price that is anyway in keeping with economic rules either. The reason behind it is the shortage of this product together with the increasing and extraordinary demand for it. “

“We invite everyone to take part in a great battle, it’s not just a fuel and electricity battle, it’s a battle against larceny, against all types of theft, anywhere in the world. I repeat: against all types of theft, anywhere in the world. “

“I’m not against anyone, but neither am I against the truth. I don’t believe any lies, I’m sorry, but I’m telling them all now that they are going to loose the battle, and it won’t be an act of injustice or abuse of power. “

“In total you spend 1.9 dollars for 300 kilowatts of electricity; that is to say, 0.63 cents of a dollar for one Cuban kilowatt of electricity. How amazingly brilliant! “

“How much do the Cuban people spend because of that dollar that is sent to you from over there? Because that wasn’t a dollar that you earned, or a peso, by working for it […]; it was sent to you by a healthy person, who studied free of charge right from primary school, who isn’t ill, they are the healthiest citizens that go to the United States, where there is an Adjustment Act, and where the sending of remittances is also prohibited. “

“Obviously, you didn’t spend any of what they sent you on medicine, for medicine here are subsidized, if you bought it in the drugstore, that is, what wasn’t stolen and resold, and then you spent 10% of what it costs in hard currency. If you went to the hospital and had an ankle or even heart operation, your operation could cost 1000, 2000, 10,000 in the United States; if you suffer a stroke and are given a valve, this could cost one of our employees over in the Interests Section 80,000 dollars, but here you’re treated. There could an incident of mistreatment in a hospital, but have you ever been to a hospital where you have not been treated? “

“One day, the Revolution will be able to trace the location of every truck anywhere, using the most sophisticated technical instruments. Nobody will be able to take that truck to pay a visit to auntie or to the sweetheart. Not that there is anything wrong with looking after your private business, but it cannot be done in a vehicle used for work…”

“We have to apply maximum rationality to salaries, prices, pensions. There should be zero over-spending and wastage. We are not a capitalist country where everything is left to chance. “

“Subsidies and free services will be considered only in essentials. […] “What are we going to pay all this with?”[…] Everything that is within our reach, everything belongs to the people, the only thing not to be allowed is egotistical and irresponsible wastage of our wealth. “

“I really had no intention of getting involved in a dissertation on such sensitive matters, but it would have been a crime not to take advantage of the moment and tell you some of the things related to the economy, to the material life of the country, to the future of the Revolution, to revolutionary ideas, to the reasons why we began this struggle, to the colossal strength we possess today, the country we are today and we may continue to be, which is much more than we are now. “

“I have been speaking to you with all the trust that I can. “

“…the country will have much more but it will never be a consumer society. It will be a society of knowledge, of culture, of the most extraordinary human development imaginable, development in art, culture, science […] with a breadth of liberty that no one will be able to dismantle. We know this already, we don’t need to proclaim it, but it is worth remembering. “

“Nobody should have the right to manufacture nuclear weapons. There should be no privileges for imperialism to impose its hegemonic rule and to take the natural resources and raw materials away from the nations of the Third World. “

“There must be an end to stupidity in the world, and to abuse, and to the empire based on might and terror. It will disappear when all fear disappears. Every day there are more fearless countries. Every day there will be more countries that will rebel and the empire will not be able to keep that infamous system alive any longer. “

“It’s only fair to struggle for that and that is why we must use all our energy, all our effort and all our time to be able to say with the voice of millions, or hundreds of thousands of millions of people: It is worthwhile to have been born! It is worthwhile to have lived! “

This way I ended my speech, which I ratify today once again.

Thank you.

November 17, 2010.

By James Thompson

It must be really confusing to be a follower of the right wing these days. Most of the Tea Party people, I imagine, would consider themselves to be Christians or Jews. Of course, this means that they were raised to believe that one should “love thy neighbor as thyself”, “do not kill”, “do not steal” and to “not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Traditional Christmas greetings declare “Peace on earth, good will to all men.” The Golden Rule teaches that people should “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” When Jesus came upon some people about to stone an adulterous woman, he declared, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first one to cast a stone at her.”

These lessons must really stick in the craw of those people who buy into the hate against immigrants, Obama, people of color, and any others they perceive to be different or less fortunate. It should be remembered that anger and hate are merely emotional defenses against fear. That is why the right wing does everything it can to stir up fear among the populace. When you can get someone really scared, you can control them in many ways and get them to agree with many things they would not agree to if they were in a calm state. Adolf Hitler was a master at this tactic and whipped some elements of the German people into a frenzy of hysterical hatred of who they identified as non-Germans. The Nazi state then used this as a justification for invading other countries, enslaving and slaughtering working people and stealing their wealth.

The contradictions that those on the right have to swallow these days must produce some awful mental heartburn. The paid for media, as seen on Fox News and embodied by the red faced, frothing at the mouth commentators like Glenn Beck, rails against communists, socialists, democrats, progressives, our President and lumps all these people into the same group. In fact, there are so many people they hate, their spokeswoman and leader of the moment, Sarah Palin, cannot even keep who they hate straight. In a kinder, gentler statement, she referred to North Korea as a U.S. ally. Maybe this means that Ms. Palin will truly become a leader and advocate that the U.S. expand its narrowing base of allies.

Back on the home front, the contradictions are particularly sharp and Texas is a good illustration of this. Although the right wing organizations in this country are funded by some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations the world has ever seen, it must recruit its foot soldiers from the ranks of the people who listen to the bombastic hate radio programs. These people are mostly working and poor people since there are so few wealthy people. Of course, the wealthy people would not want to get their hands dirty with the vile filth that spews out of the media they own, so they hand it over to working people, much like they have done through the history of mankind. The wealthy always manipulate working people to perform those tasks they find distasteful. In Germany, the international wealthy class, including many U.S. corporations, funded the Nazi Reich, and rewarded Hitler handsomely for doing their bidding.

In Texas, the right wing was just rewarded handsomely as well. Governor Perry, handpicked by George W. Bush (the most unpopular U.S. President of all time), was just re-elected in spite of his veiled advocacy of secession. That’s right, he talked of Texas seceding from the Union, which was just a recapitulation of the old Ku Klux Klan line based on racism, hatred and fear, financed by the wealthy and bought into by some workers. Once elected, he and his right wing cronies in the legislature announced they wanted to end Medicaid in the state of Texas. Medicaid, of course, is the publicly funded insurance program that provides access to health care for poor people. Once again, we see a policy based on fear and hatred of those less fortunate. Those who hate the less fortunate can only be thought of as cowards. Of course, the contradictions here are particularly trying. The Medicaid program is so pervasive that there is hardly a family in Texas that does not have some relative who is elderly, disabled, poor and is a recipient of this publicly funded health benefit. Working people in Texas who have supported Republicans must really find it distasteful that their interests are being so openly attacked by those they have supported.

In the run-up to the passage of what the right wing refers to as “Obamacare”, red faced, frothing at the mouth Republican politicians charged that President Obama was going to throw granny out of the nursing home to die in the street. Of course, if they end Medicaid, that is precisely what would happen to many grannies. Again, we see fear used as the tool of manipulation. The few working people who have lined up to support the anti-working people positions of the right wing must be suffering from a terrible case of mental vertigo as they try to justify these harsh measures which hurt their families, friends and neighbors.

Meanwhile all this hate is extremely profitable for the ultra-wealthy. Although we are in a horrible economic crisis, profits are continuing to rise. When white workers buy into hate of black and brown workers, they make it easy for the wealthy corporations to lower the wages of all people. Low wages are the fuel that drives profits into the stratosphere. When workers say nothing while jobs are shipped to the lowest paid labor markets in the world, corporations are jubilant. However, as unemployment rises, so does the misery of working people.

Wars rage across the globe, justified by hatred and fear. These wars suck up the taxpayer’s money at a rate never before seen in the history of mankind. This money could be used on people’s needs here at home, such as education and healthcare and rebuilding the infrastructure devastated by neglect and budget cutting. Tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations compound the problem, but the right wing uses fear and hatred to justify the unjustifiable.

It is no coincidence that Glenn Beck attacked this website for an article which was written advocating the nationalization of BP. The article called for the wealth of BP, which was produced by its workers, to be used to benefit the working people so egregiously harmed in the Gulf Coast. Shameful Texas politicians such as Joe Barton(R-Ennis), publicly apologized to BP for what he called the “shakedown.” He was referring to the Obama administration’s demand for compensation for the Gulf Coast from the corporation to help rebuild what was destroyed by its negligent and reckless safety procedures. Sadly, Barton was re-elected by working people in Texas.

As long as there are ultra-wealthy people, there will be struggle between the rich and poor. Many battles have been won by the wealthy, but the overall trend through history is for the progress of working people and the victories of the workers are many. The establishment of this nation was one of the first defeats of British imperialism. Slavery has been ended as well as indentured servitude. Nazism and Japanese imperialism were smashed. Women have the right to vote. There is freedom of religion in many parts of the world. Although we have suffered recent setbacks in education and healthcare in this country, many countries in the world today have universal healthcare and education and it will not be long before we have these services here. Racism and hatred are still around, but they are much less potent forces than they were in the past.

The progress of working people has always been resisted by the wealthy with everything they can throw at us. Goons, stool pigeons, red baiting, slander, rigged elections, propaganda, misinformation, lies, threats, thugs, racism, police, military and even nuclear weapons have been used by the wealthy to terrify working people and break down their will to unite and fight for their rights. However, the fight continues. We workers need to keep this in mind and remember “…I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” and “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” However, these are hollow words if workers ignore the words of Frederick Douglass when he said “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” It is up to us workers to struggle for our rights and a better world in spite of the awful roar of the right wing haters.

PHill1917@comcast.net

By Rick Nagin

Remember those who grew this food

Who picked and packed

Who shipped and sold.

Bronze rainbow arms

Have set this food upon our table.

Remember those who built this house

Assembled, weaved, created

Light and warmth and health.

Remember those who fought and died

To break the king’s command, the slaver’s yoke

And slay the Nazi beast.

Remember those who walked in darkness

Eyes on the gourd and the Trail of Tears,

Marching in Selma, martyred in Memphis

They can’t kill the dream, Jesús y Maria,

Che on his cross in the Andean highlands

Shot in the stadium, pushed from the airplane

Martyrs for freedom

And America.

Never forget

Our ancient foe

His craft and power,

His cruel hate

His endless thirst

Through blood and oil

For profit, profit

Uber alles.

Remember those whose songs of love

Restore us still

Pablo, Diego, Woody and Giant Paul

Mus’ keep on fightin’, Comrades all

Remember those who grew this food

Who mined and forged

Who sang and loved

Who fought and died

Who made all wealth

All honor and glory,

All power and peace

Be unto you

Be unto you.

Originally published in 2006 by People’s Weekly World.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/152166.html
Press TV
November 23, 2010

In an article published on Tuesday, the former Cuban president called
the Western military alliance an “aggressive institution” that ignored
“billions of persons suffering from poverty, underdevelopment and food
shortages.”

Castro also dismissed plans unveiled by Western leaders in the Lisbon
summit last week to hand over security in Afghanistan to local forces
by 2014.

He said he believes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) will be forced to “hand over power” to the Afghan resistance
“in defeat.”

Castro’s comments come only days after Afghan President Hamid Karzai
signed an agreement with NATO in the recent Lisbon conference,
ensuring the presence of US and NATO forces there even beyond 2014 – a
self-declared deadline for the end of NATO military operations in
Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama has meanwhile said that American forces
will remain in Afghanistan even after other Western countries withdraw
their troops, by far backtracking on an earlier pledge of a major
drawdown from the war-torn country by July 2011.

“Obama already admitted that his promise to withdraw US soldiers from
Afghanistan may be postponed….After the Nobel Prize, we would have
to award him with the prize for ‘the best snake charmer’ that has ever
existed,” Castro said.

Led by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, the Western military
alliance started the Afghan war nine years ago under the pretext of
rooting out Taliban militants.

However, NATO has admitted that the militants have increased their
power in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

———-

KOMINFORM

http://www.kominform.eu/

Reflections of Fidel

THAT is what the G20 meeting that began yesterday in Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea, has turned into.

“What is the G20?” many readers, inundated with initials, will ask. Yet another monster of the powerful empire and its richest allies, which created the G7: the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada. Later on they decided to admit Russia into the club, which was then called the G8.

Subsequently they deigned to admit five important emerging countries: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Then the group increased with the admission of various OECD countries – more initials, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – Australia, the Republic of Korea and Turkey. Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Indonesia were added to the group, taking it to 19. The twentieth member of the G-20 was none other than the European Union. One country, Spain, has boasted the unique denomination of “permanent guest” since 2010.

Another important high-level meeting is taking place almost simultaneously in Japan, that of the APEC. If our patient readers add to the previous group the following countries: Malaysia, Brunei, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Papua new Guinea, Chile, Peru and Vietnam, all with important trade exchanges and all of them bathed by the waters of the Pacific, they have what is called the APEC: the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the complete jigsaw. They would only need the map; a laptop could perfectly well provide one.

At such international events fundamental aspects of the economy and finances of the world are discussed. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, with decisive power in financial affairs, have their master: the United States.

It is important to recall that, at the end of World War II, the industry and agriculture of the United States were intact; those of Western Europe were totally destroyed apart from exceptions like Switzerland and Sweden; the USSR was materially razed and with enormous human losses in excess of 25 million people; Japan was conquered, ruined and occupied. Approximately 80% of the world’s gold reserves had moved to the United States.

From June 1 to July 22, 1944, in an isolated but spacious and comfortable hotel in Bretton Woods, a small location in the state of New Hampshire, northeast United States, the Monetary and Financial Conference of the recently-created United Nations Organization took place.

The United States had the exceptional privilege of converting its paper money into an international currency, convertible into gold at the fixed rate of $35 per Troy ounce. As the overwhelming majority of countries deposit their currency reserves in United States’ banks, something equivalent to a considerable loan to the richest country in the world, its convertibility at least established a ceiling to the unlimited printing of paper money. And it at least signified a guarantee for the value of the countries’ reserves deposited in its banks.

On the basis of that enormous privilege and insofar as the printing of bills had the limit of their convertibility into gold, the powerful country increased its control over the riches of the planet.

The military adventures of the United States in alliance with the former colonial powers, particularly the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland and the recently-created Western Germany, led them into military wars and adventures that placed the monetary system born in Bretton Woods in crisis.

In the era of the genocidal war on Vietnam, a country in which the United States was at the point of using nuclear weapons, the U.S. president took the shameful unilateral decision of suspending the convertibility of the dollar. From that moment the emission of paper money had had no limits. He abused that privilege in such a way that the Troy ounce gold value passed from $35 to figures already in excess of $1,400; in other words, no less than 40 times the value that it maintained for 27 years, until 1971, when Richard Nixon adopted that disastrous decision.

The worst of the current economic crisis currently hitting U.S. society is that the anti-crisis measures of other moments in the history of the imperialist United States capitalist system have not succeeded in restoring its normal march. Submerged in a state debt that is approaching $14 trillion; in other words, as large as the GDP of the United States, the fiscal deficit remains; the enormous outlay to save the banks and the reduction to almost zero of interest rates have barely been able to reduce the unemployment level to under 10%, nor the number of families whose homes are being repossessed. The gigantic budgets channeled into defense – which exceed those of the rest of the world put together – are growing, and graver still: those directed toward war.

The president of the United States, elected barely two years ago by one of the traditional parties, has suffered the greatest defeat recalled in the last three quarters of a century. Frustration and racism are mixed together in that reaction. The U.S. economist and writer William K. Black coined it with a memorable sentence: “The best way to rob a bank is to own one.” The most reactionary sectors of the United States are sharpening their claws, making their own an idea that would be the antithesis of that of the Bolsheviks in October 1917: “All power to the extreme right of the United States.”

It would seem that the government of the United States, with its traditional anti-crisis measures, has had recourse to another desperate decision: prior to the G20 meeting the Federal Reserve announced that it was to buy $60 billon U.S. dollars.

On Wednesday, November 10, one of the most important U.S. news agencies announced: “President Barack Obama has arrived in South Korea to take part in meetings with the 20 principal economic powers of the world.

“Tensions over monetary policies and commercial interests have been notable prior to the G-20 Summit. The atmosphere remained heated due to a U.S. decision to pump $600 billion in cash into its sluggish economy. The maneuver has infuriated leaders around the world.

“However, Obama has defended the measure taken by the Federal Reserve.”

The same agency communicated to world opinion on November 11:

“A strong sense of pessimism shrouded the start of an economic summit of rich and emerging economies on Thursday, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders arriving in Seoul sharply divided over currency and trade policies. “Founded in 1999 and elevated to summit level two years ago, the Group of 20 (G20, a forum that covers developed countries like the United States and Germany, as well as emerging giants like China and Brazil) has become the centerpiece of government efforts to reactivate the global economy and avert another world financial collapse…”

“Failure in Seoul could have severe consequences. The risk is that countries would try to keep their currencies artificially low to give their exporters a competitive edge in global markets. That could lead to a destructive trade war.

“Countries might throw up barriers to imports — a repeat of policies that worsened the Great Depression.”

“But agreement appeared elusive as the summit began, divided between those such as United States that want to get China to allow its currency rise in the face of other currencies, in order to reduce the enormous trade surplus of the Asian giant with Washington by pushing up Chinese exports and cutting U.S. imports.

“Other countries are irate over U.S. Federal Reserve plans to pump $600 billion of new money into the sluggish American economy, effectively devaluing the dollar. They see that move as a reckless and selfish scheme to flood markets with dollars, driving down the value of the U.S. currency and giving American exporters an advantage.”

“The G20 countries […] are finding no common ground on the most vexing problem: how to address a global economy that’s long been nourished by huge U.S. trade deficits with China, Germany and Japan.”

“Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, warned that such policies would “bankrupt” the world.

“If the rich countries are not consuming and want to grow its economy on exports, the world goes bankrupt because there would be no one to buy,” he told reporters. “Everybody would like to sell…”

“The summit began with a certain pessimism for Obama and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, whose ministers were not able to reach agreement on a free trade treaty, bogged down for some time and for which there were hopes that it could be solved this week.”

“The G20 leaders met on Thursday night in Seoul’s National Museum of Korea for the dinner marking the official start of the summit.”

“Outside, a few thousand protesters rallied against the G-20 and the South Korean government.”

Today, Thursday 12, the summit concluded with a statement of 20 points and 32 paragraphs.

As one would suppose the world is not constituted of the total of 32 countries which make up the G-20 or the APEC on its own. The 187 which voted in favor of eliminating the blockade of Cuba, as opposed to the two that voted to maintain it and the three that abstained, add up to 192. For 160 of them there is no tribunal whatsoever where they can voice one word about the imperial plunder of their resources and their urgent economic necessities. In Seoul, the United Nations Organization does not even exist. That distinguished institution will not even say a single word?

During these same last few days really dramatic news arrived concerning Haiti – where, in a matter of minutes, an earthquake killed approximately 250,000 people in January of this year – via the European news agencies:

“Haitian authorities are warning of the rapidity with which the cholera epidemic is extending through the city of Gonaives, in the north of the island. The mayor of this coastal locality, Pierreleus Saint-Justin, confirms that he personally buried 31 persons on Tuesday, and expected to inter a further 15 corpses.

“‘Others could be dying as we speak,’ he has declared. […] Since November 5, 70 corpses have been buried in the urban nucleus of Gonaives alone, but ‘there are more people who died in rural areas’ close to the city.”

“…the situation ‘is becoming catastrophic’ in Gonaives […] flooding caused by Hurricane Tomas could make the situation worse.”

“On Wednesday, the health authorities in Haiti raised the total of victims throughout the country due to the disease to 643 up until November 8. The number infected with cholera in the same period is 9,971. Radio stations are noting that figures to be announced on Friday could talk of more than 700 dead.” “…the government is now confirming that the disease is seriously affecting the population of Port-au-Prince and threatening the suburbs of the capital, where more than one million people are still living in tent cities in the wake of the January 12 earthquake.”

Today, the news agencies were talking of 796 dead and 12,303 people affected.

More than three million inhabitants are threatened, many of them living in tents and in the ruins left by the earthquake, without drinking water.

The principal U.S. news agency informed yesterday:

“The first portion of U.S. reconstruction money for Haiti is on its way more than seven months after it was promised to help the country rebuild from the Jan. 12 earthquake.

“… will transfer $120 million – about one-tenth of the total amount pledged – to the World Bank-run Haiti Reconstruction Fund in the next few days, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.”

“Having completed the process as outlined in the appropriation, we are now moving aggressively to commit that money to Haiti’s reconstruction,” Crowley said.

“A State Department aide said money destined for the fund would go toward rubble removal, housing, a partial credit guarantee fund, support for an Inter-American Development Bank education reform plan and budget support for the Haitian government.”

On the epidemic of cholera, a disease that has already affected many South American countries over the years, and could extend throughout the Caribbean and other parts of our hemisphere, not one word is being said.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 12, 2010
8:49 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

By Fidel Castro Ruz and Michel Chossudovsky

Note: Go to the URL for the complete report

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21892

Global Research, November 13, 2010

Introductory Note

From October 12 to 15, 2010, I had extensive and detailed discussions with Fidel Castro in Havana, pertaining to the dangers of nuclear war, the global economic crisis and the nature of the New World Order. These meetings resulted in a wide-ranging and fruitful interview.

The first part of this interview published by Global Research and Cuba Debate focuses on the dangers of nuclear war.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads. We have reached a critical turning point in our history.

This interview with Fidel Castro provides an understanding of the nature of modern warfare: Were a military operation to be launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the US and its allies would be unable to win a conventional war, with the possibility that this war could evolve towards a nuclear war.

The details of ongoing war preparations in relation to Iran have been withheld from the public eye.

How to confront the diabolical and absurd proposition put forth by the US administration that using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran will “make the World a safer place”?

A central concept put forth by Fidel Castro in the interview is the ‘Battle of Ideas”. The leader of the Cuban Revolution believes that only a far-reaching “Battle of Ideas” could change the course of World history. The objective is to prevent the unthinkable, a nuclear war which threatens to destroy life on earth.

The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned. Against this backdrop, Fidel’s message to the World must be heard; people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.

The “Battle of Ideas” is part of a revolutionary process. Against a barrage of media disinformation, Fidel Castro’s resolve is to spread the word far and wide, to inform world public opinion, to “make the impossible possible”, to thwart a military adventure which in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.

When a US sponsored nuclear war becomes an “instrument of peace”, condoned and accepted by the World’s institutions and the highest authority including the United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has indelibly been precipitated headlong onto the path of self-destruction.

Fidel’s “Battle of Ideas” must be translated into a worldwide movement. People must mobilize against this diabolical military agenda.

This war can be prevented if people pressure their governments and elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities, spread the word, inform their fellow citizens regarding the implications of a thermonuclear war, initiate debate and discussion within the armed forces.

What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war, a global people’s movement which criminalizes war.

In his October 15 speech, Fidel Castro warned the World on the dangers of nuclear war:

“There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people. In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”

The “Battle of Ideas” consists in confronting the war criminals in high office, in breaking the US-led consensus in favor of a global war, in changing the mindset of hundreds of millions of people, in abolishing nuclear weapons. In essence, the “Battle of Ideas” consists in restoring the truth and establishing the foundations of World peace.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG),

Montreal, Remembrance Day, November 11, 2010.

——————————————————————————–

“The conventional war would be lost by the US and the nuclear war is no alternative for anyone. On the other hand, nuclear war would inevitably become global”

“I think nobody on Earth wishes the human species to disappear. And that is the reason why I am of the opinion that what should disappear are not just nuclear weapons, but also conventional weapons. We must provide a guarantee for peace to all peoples without distinction

“In a nuclear war the collateral damage would be the life of humankind. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”

“It is about demanding that the world is not led into a nuclear catastrophe, it is to preserve life.”

Fidel Castro Ruz, Havana, October 2010.