Castro: Profile of the great survivor

Castro: The communist on America's doorstep

Fidel Castro, who has announced he is stepping down as Cuba's president, has run the country for so long that nearly three-quarters of its people have known no other leader.
Although the US has tried hard to get rid of him, President Castro outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents during his 47-year rule.
In July 2006 President Castro underwent emergency intestinal surgery and has not attended any public events since.
Though officials say their leader is recuperating, his prolonged absence has raised questions about his health.
On 19 February 2008 he announced: "I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief."
He had hinted as much on 17 December, in a letter read out on Cuban television in which he said he had a duty not to cling on to power or stand in the way of a younger generation.
While his (also elderly) brother Raul has been acting president since last year, the reference to younger leaders suggests Raul may not automatically succeed him.
The question that remains is whether Cuba's Communist Revolution will outlast Fidel Castro.

Wealthy family :

The Communist leader - known for his long-winded anti-American rhetoric - was born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz in 1926 to a wealthy, landowning family.
He received a Jesuit education, and graduated from Havana University as a lawyer.
But, shocked by the contrast between his own comfortable lifestyle and the dire poverty of so many others, he became a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary.

Castro's band included Che Guevara :

In 1953, he took up arms against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista.
Aiming to spark a popular revolt, on 26 July Mr Castro led more than 100 followers in a failed attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
Fidel Castro and his brother Raul survived, but were imprisoned.
Amnestied after two years, Mr Castro continued to campaign against the Batista regime while in exile in Mexico, and established a guerrilla force known as the 26 July Movement.
His revolutionary ideals attracted support in Cuba and in 1959 his forces overthrew Batista, whose regime had become a byword for corruption, decadence and inequality.
Cuba's new rulers - who included the legendary Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara - promised to give the land back to the people and to defend the rights of the poor.

Cold war battleground :
Fidel Castro insisted his ideology was, first and foremost, Cuban. "There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy," he said at the time.

Castro's bond with Khrushchev alienated the US. He was soon snubbed by US President Dwight Eisenhower and claimed he was driven into the arms of the Soviet Union and its leader, Nikita Khrushchev. Cuba became a Cold War battleground.
In April 1961, the US attempted to topple the Castro government by recruiting a private army of Cuban exiles to invade the island.
At the Bay of Pigs, Cuban troops repulsed the invaders, killing many and capturing 1,000.

Missile crisis :

A year later, US reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missiles on their way to sites in Cuba. The world was suddenly confronted with the possibility of all-out nuclear war.
The superpowers stood eyeball to eyeball, but it was the Soviet leader who gave way, pulling his missiles out of Cuba in return for a secret withdrawal of US weapons from Turkey.
Fidel Castro, though, had become America's enemy number one.
The CIA tried to assassinate him - more than 600 times, according to one Cuban minister.
Getting him to smoke a cigar packed with explosives was one idea.
Other anti-Castro plots were even more bizarre, including one to make his beard fall out and ridicule him.

The Soviet Union poured money into Cuba. It bought the bulk of the island's sugar harvest and in return its ships crammed into Havana harbour, bringing in desperately needed goods to beat the American blockade.
Despite his reliance on Russian help, President Castro put Cuba at the head of the newly emerging Non-Aligned Movement.
Yet, in Africa especially, he took sides, sending his troops in to support Marxist guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique in the 1970s.

Exodus :

But the 1980s era of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proved catastrophic for President Castro's revolution.
Moscow in effect pulled the plug on the Cuban economy by refusing to take its sugar any more.
Still under American blockade and with its Soviet lifeline cut off, chronic shortages and empty shelves in Cuba were inevitable. Tempers grew shorter as the food queues grew longer.
By the mid-1990s, many Cubans had had enough. Thousands took to the sea in a waterborne exodus to Florida. Many drowned.
It was a crushing vote of no-confidence in their leader.
Even his own daughter Alina Fernandez prefers a life of exile as a dissident in Miami to rule under her "despotic" father.

State of the nation :
President Castro has used US hostility as a reason to reject democratic reforms to his one-party state.
But Cuba under his rule has made impressive domestic strides.

Pope John Paul II criticised Castro's human rights record Good medical care is freely available for all, there is 98% literacy, and Cuba's infant mortality rates compare favourably with Western nations.
Fidel Castro retains his ability to rattle and irritate the US, lately engaging in a diplomatic tussle with the US Interests Section over a propaganda display outside the building.
He has also engineered a rapprochement with oil-rich Venezuela, run by his great friend, Hugo Chavez.
While many Cubans undoubtedly detest Castro, others genuinely love him. He is the David who stood up to the Goliath of America.
Even after nearly 50 years, he remains a divisive figure.

SOURCE: www.bbcnews.com

Spy satellite missing ?

According to a recent news a US spy satellite has gone out of control and might collapse down to earth surface.

It will be of no surprise if the missing satellite hit down to Iran’s nuclear centre. This may be a planned missing of spy satellite. Collapsing down of satellite is not a new thing but this one might be well controlled. As Iran is called threat to America and Israel , a satellite may collapse on Iran’s nuclear plants. This form of  accidental destruction might bring lesser criticism than hitting Iran directly .

Now waiting to see if anyone who becomes the victim.

I fear………..

My limitations have taken my control . All false are celebrating their long lasting existence. Limitations and false are very powerful in me. Without their consent nothing can take place in me. Force of truth is too thin to combat lies. I am suffering from my limitations as they are too painful . I am far away from truth. But limitations are so strong and active that upto now I have failed to do anything with them. Seems to me I fear truth I fear to surpass limitations. I fear to get at truth.

Don’t know how long will it take me to get rid of these lies and limitations. But I am trying and will continue trying and I don’t fear to lose my everything whatever little I have. Any how I wanna reach that ultimate truth of which I have no knowledge yet.

MARXISM VICTIM OF CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA

Lets start with excerpts from ccommunist manifesto:
the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Communists labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians(working class) have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

So communist manifesto sounds not as publicized by capitalists. To understand the working of capitalist media read Noam Chomsky’s Media Control The Spectacular Achievements Of Propaganda and Manufacturing Consent.

Marx start a trend in philosophy: before Marx philosophers only analyzed society, they did not prescribe how society could be changed. Marx introduced revolutionary philosophy .And modern philosophers are following revolutionary ideas to devise a philosophy named critical theory.

Core concepts of critical theory are: (1) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and (2) That Critical Theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology.

At last I want to mention a point regarding effect of socialism. At present once socialist Chinese Tycoons are less rich than their Indian counterparts. Its implication is in China resources are still well distributed than that in India. In India wealth is concentrated highly among few capitalist where in china wealth is better distributed among capitalist.

To have a good idea on modern version of Marxism u can read writings of Louis Pierre Althusser.

Lets finish with one of my favorite slogans:

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

Some political realities in Bangladesh

Almost all football fans follow one rule rigidly: if for some reasons one once support a football playing country, he never takes away his support for that country. This observation has a pathetic recurrence in politics-most ones always vote for same party. No matter how qualified the candidate is. Its’ a political inertia that force most people to discover excuses when candidate of his party is less qualified. It has now become a social norm to follow one party for generation after generation.

We are only following one feature of democracy-election. But what we are doing –we are forming our opinion once for entire life. Our people dislike democracy, they dislike change, and they are unaware of their non democratic nature.

This is a dangerous form of extremism.

When we are reading newspaper we read papers that support our views. We don’t want to read actual news rather we like to read news distorted in favor of our party. When anyone points out faults of our preferred party instead of accepting it we start pointing out faults of opposition party. We always accuse other parties.

We have accepted these practices of politics. We think -in politics there will happen corruption. We accepted much earlier that for doing various tasks we have to offer bribe. Its not a fault of politician that they are corrupted. We regard that they have rights to be corrupted as they spend lots of money at the time of election.
Politicians will steal public resources and will direct general resources to special groups. We all accepted it.

The most disgusting thing is: when a politician of our preferred party is doing corruption we tend to overlook it, even many enjoy it that personnel of his own party is doing corruption.
When politicians of other party do corruption we say its their chance to do it and our chance will come sooner.

Most of our politician are business person or are tools of business persons. Day by day we are reaching towards establishing an idea-we want such political system under which poors are extremely poor and rich are extremely rich.

We have silently accepted many things-we will never raise our voice against any thing. We don’t have anything but eye and ear-as we only do watching and hearing.

Waiting for the days when our people will be able to use their head, mouth, eye, ear and all other organs to establish a political system appropriate for a country like Bangladesh.

I want to work very hard without hope for any reward to establish such a political system with others.

Robert Browning's poem: The Patriot

The Patriot

An old story

I

It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

II

The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels--
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" . . . . . . 10

III

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Nought man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

IV

There's nobody on the house-tops now--
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. . . . . . . 20

V

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

VI

Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me?"--God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so. . . . . . .30

-------------------------------------------------------------
"The Patriot" is a hero's story of the reward and punishment
dealt him for his services within one year. To act
regardless of praise or blame, save God's, seems safer.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Patriots of our country:In 1971 some fought for independence and some
worked against it.Now we are a independent nation.Some of those freedom fighters,most new fighters ,and traitors are now managing their rewards:as people are not spontaneously awarding them ,they themselves are managing awards .They can consider any and many things as awards.popular response is appropriate:watching and silently accepting...

Seems Creator gives us infinite patience and ability to accept any thing.Politicins are ceaselessly running after award without ever stoping :how much patience and ability they have?General people have more patience:watching ,watching...never bored.We(politicians excluded) are blessed with the quality of "rise once and then tolerate forever".

we all believe onething:this world is only for politicains and world after death is for all of us.We are continuously justifying our belief :(

ACHIEVING KNOWLEDGE

Achieving knowledge (justified true beliefs) is the usual point of thinking. The tools of thinking, then, are the devices and processes we use in that enterprise:

* Experience provides the basic new input for our thinking: what we see, taste, smell, feel, hear, etc. It can be firsthand or secondhand.
* Memory provides a link to data previously collected by whatever means. Without memory, we would be perpetually at the starting point.
* Association functions with both immediate experience and with remembered experiences to group the data we have into clusters and sets.
* Pattern discernment and recognition enable us to make sense of what we remember and associate. Only when we begin to cluster information into some kind of pattern are we in a position to begin to use the next tool.
* Reason is where the hard work of thinking gets done. Reason takes many forms, such as deduction, generalization, extrapolation, and hypothesis construction.
* Invention is the point at which people of genius and creative imagination take over, proposing hypotheses, theories, models, and new ways of construing data that we can then put to work.
* Experimentation is the tool for keeping our thinking under the constraint of testing; of constantly looking to see whether what we have reasoned conforms to what we are experiencing.
* Intuition is a good thing when it happens, but it is rare and, by definition, uncharted.