Fidel Steps Down, Press Puts Him Down; Obama, McCain Win Again

by Danny Schechter
A wall of predictable mostly one-sided media hostility, sarcasm, criticism and contempt in the press, laced with a large dose of anti-communism and “democratic” pretension greeted the announcement that Fidel Castro was stepping down as the President of Cuba in a peaceful transfer of power after having outsurvived 8 US presidents, most of who tried to ignore, isolate and even kill him. That in itself is quite a political achievement.

 

I am sure if a global poll was taken tomorrow on who is more admired, the Cuban President or our own, you know which would get the most votes.

 

“This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of ‘Reflections by comrade Fidel.’ It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be careful.” 

- Fidel Castro

 

I am very well aware of the criticisms of Cuba based on our ideas about human right, rights hardly observed IN Cuba by the US at Guantanamo—and other defects of their revolution. I am critical myself but it is more important at this time to recognize what Cuba accomplished under Castro, the story we rarely hear.

Compare and contrast its achievements not up against the US but any other Caribbean country and what will you come up with terms of education, health care, literacy, technology etc etc. Compare Cuba to Haiti and weep. (Cuba has doctors there helping people as it does in many poor countries!)

Lets also remember, even if our press won’t, that Fidel’s support for the fight against apartheid—the battle its troops fought in Angola against the South African troops and various CIA backed armies won it the thanks of the South African people as expressed frequently by Nelson Mandela and other leaders of their long struggle.

Of course, this achievement is never noted in our press. Pay attention too to the vast crowds that turned out to greet Castro in his trips to South and Central America and compare that to the reception our leaders received. I am sorry, but you can’t just let this issue be defined by the loudmouths in the -wing émigré community in Miami, only a fraction of whom by the way of Cuban Americans, many who want better relations with Cuba.

How can you listen to the Bush Administration lecture Cuba about democracy when they have abandoned so many of its precepts? Yuk!

NYT: Castro Is Stepping Down as Cuba’s President

The announcement opens the way for Fidel Castro’s brother Raúl or another member of his inner circle to become president when Parliament chooses a new leader this weekend.

NYT: On Havana’s Streets, Few Expect Much Change

What emotion Fidel Castro’s announcement elicited was on the sly, under the eye of a heavy police presence (This is a common press theme–heavy police presence in Cuba but rarely in Baghdad or for that matter the US)

Karen Wald, who spent many years in Cuba, comments on yesterday’s State Department briefing:

 

Notice that not ONE SINGLE reporter asked what spokesman McCormack means by “democratic government”, how he defines it. No one asked – or ever asks — about the actual democratic electoral system in Cuba and what the US government spokesmen find wrong with that, specifically. Because their whole focus is on denial that it even exists.

 

Daily Press Briefing Sean McCormack, Spokesman …Washington, DC February 19, 2008

Events in Cuba Somewhat Unpredictable / U.S. Sees Democratic Future [ie, capitalist future. We don’t have a democratic future in the US –klw]

MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody, just barely. I don’t have anything to start off with so we can get right into your questions. Okay, that’s it. Call it a wrap. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Do you want to officially tell us what you think of Fidel Castro’s move today?

MR. MCCOLRMACK: Well, I think you heard from the President earlier today in his press conference and he noted that the real question is what does this mean for the Cuban people and what are the Cuban people going to make of it.

It’s very clear that there’s a transition underway from Fidel Castro to some other form of government. Unfortunately, at the moment, that form of government is not an elected democracy. [Actually, it IS an elected democracy. What he really means it is not a dependent capitalist economic system in which corporations decide on the form of government. klw]…

IN STEPPING DOWN, CASTRO BLASTS U.S FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY AND DEPENDENCE ON DEBT

CASTRO AUTOBIOGRAPHY UPDATED

LA TIMES: Throughout the book, Castro touts what he considers prime accomplishments of his revolution — universal literacy, free higher education, one of the world’s lowest infant-mortality rates and a health care network that treats all Cubans for free and provides relief in the Third World and to victims of natural disasters from Pakistan to Haiti.

• “I have not one iota of regret about what we’ve done in our country and the way we’ve organized our society,” Castro told co-author Ignacio Ramonet.

Leave it to a progressive publication, in this case Mother Jones to bash him on the way out and as he struggles for life. I wonder what the real Mother Jones would have thought. David Corn does the deed. See everyone, MJ is not a mouthpiece for romantic leftists…yadda yadda.