Media Scoundrels on Fidel Castro's Passing

by Stephen Lendman

They spend over half a century denigrating him - now dancing on his grave to their shame.

NYT: "Mr. Castro brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere…briefly push(ing) the world to the brink of nuclear war" - The Times calling him "a self-obsessed zealot" for good measure, along with other insults.

Neocon Washington Post: "Fidel Castro, Cuban dictator, dies at 90…Under (his leadership), Havana became something of a Marxist Disneyland - a shiny, happy veneer over something much uglier."

Wall Street Journal: "Castro inspired millions with his promises of justice and progress but presided over an oppressive state."

Chicago Tribune: "Cuba's Fidel Castro, who defied US for 50 years, dies at 90" - the Tribune publishing an AP News account of his death, largely denigrating him while calling him "an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa."

Reuters: "A towering figure of the second half of the 20th century, (Castro) built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States…"

Los Angeles Times: "For Cubans in Miami, Castro's death prompts revelry and reflection."

CNN: "Crowds flood streets of Miami's Little Havana to cheer Castro's death."

ABC News: "Cuban-Americans Fill the Streets of Miami's Little Havana to Celebrate Fidel Castro's Death."

NBC News: "Castro antagonized 11 United States presidents and cast a uniquely long shadow over American politics."

CBS News: "Fidel Castro, Cuba's fiery former leader, dead at 90…Little Havana…cheer(s), danc(es) and wav(es) Cuban flags."

Miami Herald: "No other individual has ever tormented Washington more or longer."

BBC: "As communist regimes collapsed across the world, Castro kept the red flag flying on the doorstep of his greatest enemy, the United States."

London Guardian: "The comandante overthrew Batista, established a communist state and survived countless American assassination attempts…bringing an end to an era for the country, Latin America and world."

Al Jazeera: "(T)he Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the US, has died aged 90."

I was a graduate student when he liberated Cuba from US-supported tyrannical rule. I recall his September 1960 New York visit, heading Cuba's UN delegation, climaxed by his world body address.

He came as a man of peace, not confrontation, saying Cubans lacked freedom "for quite some time," adding "(i)t has not been easy for us to come here…to state the problems of Cuba," and receive hostile treatment in New York, including "notice(s) to all hotels not to rent rooms to us…"

"(A) Negro hotel in Harlem offered to rent us rooms," despite a State Department official "d(oing) all in his power to prevent our staying" there.

Before liberation, he called Cuba "a colony of the United States," stealing its land, resources and fundamental freedoms.

"There was no independent republic. There was only a colony where orders were given by the ambassador of the United States," he explained.

"(W)e are proud to say that today no embassy rules our country. Our country is ruled by its people…tyranny (forced) upon us" ended.

Castro explained deplorable conditions affecting Cubans under the Batista regime - including rampant poverty, mass unemployment, half the population without electricity, living in "huts, shacks and slums, without the slightest sanitary conditions," illnesses left untreated, 95% of rural children affected by parasites, high infant mortality, "just the opposite of the average life span."

Constitutionally mandated revolutionary change followed. Yankee imperialism yearns to regain control, a new generation of Cuban leadership hopefully up to the challenge to prevent it.

On November 28 and 29, Cubans nationwide are invited to honor Fidel by signing a "solemn oath of complying with the concept of the revolution."

A mass gathering is planned in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution where Fidel often addressed huge crowds. On November 30, his ashes will be transported from Havana to Santiago - his revolution beginning with an unsuccessful July 1953 attack on the city's Moncada army barracks.

His remains will be laid to rest where it all began. Millions worldwide join Cubans in mourning his passing. Rest in peace, Fidel.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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