Fidel Castro turns 83 with economy on his mind

HAVANA (Reuters) – Former Cuban President Fidel Castro marked his 83rd birthday on Thursday with a gloomy warning about the global economic crisis, which is hitting his country hard, and a vow to "carry on."

Castro, the leader of Cuba's 1959 revolution that brought communism to the Caribbean island, has remained out of public view for the last three years and in 2008 handed over the presidency to younger brother Raul Castro for health reasons.

But while he leaves day-to-day running of the government to Raul Castro, he remains influential behind the scenes and writes regular commentaries for state-run media.

In a column published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Thursday, Fidel Castro expressed skepticism about perceptions in the United States and in Europe that the world recession may be easing.

"The tendency among American politicians is to believe that as soon as the banks make available enough money to grease the machinery of the productive apparatus, everything will be on track toward an idyllic world beyond our dreams," he wrote.

"Some say that the economic crisis is the end of imperialism ... Maybe it must be wondered if it does not mean something worse for our species," he said in the commentary.

Closing his column on a more upbeat note, he said, "In my judgment, it will always be best to have a just cause to defend and the hope to carry on."

Although he has handed over the reins to Raul Castro, who is 78, Fidel Castro has stayed defiant against what he portrays as continuing U.S. efforts to end the socialist system in Cuba he led and defended for nearly half a century.

Fidel Castro meets with 3 visiting US lawmakers
By WILL WEISSERT
April 7, 2009

HAVANA – Signaling its willingness to discuss improved relations with the Obama administration, Cuba on Tuesday granted three visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus the first meeting with Fidel Castro by American officials since he fell ill in 2006.

[snip]

"Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., current head of the 42-member caucus, said at a news conference in Washington after the group's return that lawmakers met for nearly two hours with Fidel Castro and found him 'very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking.'

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., who also met Fidel with Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said Castro 'looked directly into our eyes' and asked how Cuba could help Obama in his efforts to change the course of U.S. foreign policy. Richardson said she had the impression that 82-year-old Fidel wants to see changes in U.S.-Cuba relations in his lifetime.

Raul Castro, added Lee, 'said everything was on the table.' ..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_us
________________________________________________________

Roland Burris and Rep. Bobby Rush (speaking)
at a Chicago news conference announcing
Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of
Burris to the U.S. Senate Dec. 30, 2008.
CBS
________________________________________________________

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BOBBY RUSH:

* Democratic Member of Congress

* Member of the radical Progressive Caucus

* In 1968, went AWOL from the U.S. Army

* Co-founder of the Illinois branch of the Black Panther Party

* In 1969, served six months in jail for an illegal weapons conviction

* Advocates reparations for African Americans

"Bobby Rush has described his involvement with the Black Panthers as part of his maturation process, as a youthful indiscretion that he abandoned immediately after Hampton's death. He described his role mostly as running the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children program.

But Bobby Rush served six months in jail for a 1969 illegal weapons conviction and, even after his release, in 1971 his comrades were still describing him as the 'Deputy Minister of Defense' for the Black Panther Party in Illinois. In 1992 the socialist magazine In These Times praised fledgling congressional candidate Rush, writing that he 'has continued to support progressive policies and has never disavowed his Panther past...."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1198
________________________________________________________

From the Maoist Internationist Movement:
[1960s/original] Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
From the article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS

"On May 1st, May Day [1969], the day of the gigantic Free Huey rally, two of Alioto's top executioners vamped on the brothers from the Brown Community who were attending to their own affairs. These brothers, who are endowed with the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party defended themselves from the racist pig gestapo.

Pig Joseph Brodnik received his just reward with a big hole in the chest. Pig Paul McGoran got his in the mouth which was not quite enough to off him.

The revolutionary brothers escaped the huge swarm of pigs with dogs, mace, tanks and helicopters, proving once again that "the spirit of the people is greater than the man's technology."

To these brothers the revolutionary people of racist America want to say, by your revolutionary deed you are heroes, and that you are always welcome to our camp."

Source: Maoist Internationist Movement
Article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS (May 11, 1969):
http://web.archive.org/web/20041230150623/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html
________________________________________________________

Barbara Lee
Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from California's
9th district Incumbent
Assumed office April 7, 1998

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BARBARA LEE:

* Democratic Member of Congress, co-chair of the radical Progressive Caucus

* Former agent of Black Panther leader and convicted killer Huey Newton

* Collaborated with the Marxist dictatorship of Grenada to deceive the U.S. Congress

* Voted against using military force against terrorists following the 9/11 attacks

* Has consistently voted against U.S.-led military action, regardless of circumstances

"While attending Mills College in Oakland, California during the early 1970s, Lee worked as a volunteer for the local chapter of the Black Panther Party's Community Learning Center. She also worked on the 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign of Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and she served as a confidential aide to the Panthers' 'Minister of Defense,' Huey Newton."

[snip]

In the 1980s she worked as a staff member for the radical Left Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, who headed the House Sub-Committee on Military Installations. Aided by Lee, Dellums used his authority to impede U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Communist dictatorship of Grenada, where many Soviet bloc advisers, in conjunction with Cuban military personnel, were busy constructing an airport capable of accommodating Soviet military planes. As the ranking Democrat member of the House Armed Services Committee, Dellums traveled to Grenada to conduct an on-site "fact-finding" tour and on his return whitewashed the Grenadian dictatorship:

"Based on my personal observations, discussion and analysis of the new international airport under construction in Grenada, it is my conclusion that this project is specifically now and has always been for the purpose of economic development and is not for military use…. It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States' national security."

What legislators did not know at the time was that Dellums, before testifying to Congress, had previously submitted, through his emissary Barabara Lee, his prepared report (about the airport) to Grenada's Communist dictator for the latter's approval and/or revisions. The minutes of a Politburo meeting attended by that dictator and his military command stated:

"Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the international airport that was done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary. They will be willing to make the changes."

When Dellums retired in 1998, Barbara Lee won his vacated congressional seat and has held it ever since.

In June 2002, Lee joined 30 fellow members of Congress (including such notables as John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Cynthia McKinney, and Maxine Waters) in filing a federal lawsuit to block President George W. Bush from withdrawing the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been signed in 1972 with the old Soviet Union. The lawsuit named Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as defendants.

[snip]

Author and political commentator David Horowitz has called Lee "an anti-American communist who supports America's enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=936

CNN Uses Pro-Communist American to Tout Cuban Health Care
NewsBusters.org ^ | August 8, 2009 | Rich Noyes

Gail Reed

There’s something deeply wrong with journalism that scrutinizes and criticizes the institutions of free and successful nations, but produces puff pieces on the supposed achievements of totalitarian dictatorships. On Thursday, CNN aired a piece of Communist Party propaganda about how Cuba could serve as “a model for health care reform” in the United States, complete with an authoritative sound bite from an American medical expert, identified only as someone “who’s lived and worked in Cuba for decades.”

But the expert, Gail Reed, is a longtime admirer of the Cuban revolution, married to the Cuban official who served as ambassador to Grenada in the early 1980s when U.S. troops liberated the island from hardline communists who had executed the leftist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. She's also worked at Granma, Cuba’s official communist party newspaper.

[snip]

As for Reed, she was profiled in the Miami Herald back in 1983 after she and her husband returned to Cuba after American forces liberated Grenada. She talked about the fear she felt at seeing U.S. Marines surrounding the Cuban embassy, and told the newspaper, “I feel I have a very strong identification with the Cuban revolution.”

“When I first came to Cuba in the ’70s, I was very impressed with their efforts in building a new kind of society,” Reed explained.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2009/08/08/cnn-uses-pro-communist-american-tout-cuban-health-care

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