U Not Gonna Like This

More on the man, the myth, the legend that is Fidel Castro.

From Discover The Networks (link):

Castro had only been in power two months when he started sending armed guerrillas to attempt the overthrow of neighboring nations. The Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela were the early targets. In fact Castro's very first trip abroad as head of state was to Caracas, where on January 25th, 1959 he implored then Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt to join his "master plan against the gringos!" Basically this involved massive loans, financial aid and shipments of free oil to Castro from Venezuela, Betancourt balked and no sooner had Castro returned home empty handed, then he was planning subversion in Venezuela, including assassination attempts against Betancourt.



For 34 years Markus Wolf was the chief of East Germany's foreign intelligence service, a branch of the STASI with many contacts and operations in Castro's Cuba. It was the STASI rather than the KGB that undertook the training of Castro's police and intelligence services. Wolf's autobiography is titled, "Man Without a Face" and subtitled, "The Autobiography of Communism's Greatest Spymaster." Most intelligence experts agree that the subtitle fits. Wolf was once asked about the Kennedy assassination and quickly replied. "Don't ask me -- ask Fidel Castro."



Among other initiatives at the Conference, Cuba formed OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People from Africa, Asia and Latin America.) and the DLN (National Liberation Directorate). This later was under the direction of KGB Col. Vadim Kotchergine and set up massive terrorist training camps in western Cuba. These were soon filled with guerrillas and terrorists from Al Fatah, to the Sandinistas, to El Salvador's FMLF, to the Tupamaros to the Weather Underground to the IRA and Spain's ETA.




In 1968 Castro sent military instructors into Palestinian bases in Jordan to train Palestinian Fedayeen. In November 1974 Castro personally decorated his brother-in-arms, Yasir Arafat, with Cuba's highest honor, the Bay of Pigs Medal. The Egyptian newspaper Ahar Sa'ah reported in September 13, 1978 that 500 Palestinian fighters were training in Cuba.



Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the infamous "Carlos The Jackal" known as the world's most notorious terrorist throughout the 1970's received his training in Cuba and lived in Cuba for years. Everyone from America's Black Liberation Army to Puerto Rico's Macheteros, to South Yemen's NLF, to Argentina's Monteneros, to Colombia's ELN , to Namibia's SWAPO, to the Black Panthers, to Western Sahara's Polisaro to the IRA have received training and funding from Castro. "Thanks to Castro," boasted Colombia's FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) commander Tiro-Fijo in a 2001 interview, "we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band."

Lean more about Castro by visiting these links:

UK Leftists Praise Chavez, Castro (link)

Castro's East-German Terror Education (link)

Castro and Terrorism: A Chronology (link)

Hollywood's Mindless Love Affair With Castro (link)

Cuba Expects Big Show of Support at UN (link)

Obama 'Won't Wait for Castro to Die' Before Opening Ties (link)

Megaphone for a Dictator (link)



Sites that cover current life in Cuba under Fidel Castro

http://therealcuba.com (highly reccomended)

http://www.lacasacuba.com/

http://www.netforcuba.org/

http://www.netforcuba.org/blog/

http://postaldecuba.com/blog2/

http://www.habanacuba.com/

http://www.nocastro.com/

http://www.noticierocuba.com/

http://ramminternational.blogspot.com/

http://blogforcuba.typepad.com/my_weblog/

http://elcubanocafe.blogspot.com/

http://ideasocultas.blogspot.com/

http://cubacompanioni.blogspot.com/

http://www.casacuba.org/

http://www.militaramilitar.com/

http://www.cubanology.com/

http://babalublog.com/

http://www.lacasacuba.com/

http://www.cubanosmex.com/

http://www.habanacuba.com/

http://www.cubaeuropa.com/

http://candidatesoncuba.blogspot.com/

http://www.abajofidel.blogspot.com/

http://cubatruthproject.blogspot.com/

http://www.castrodeathwatch.com/

http://ninetymilesaway.blogspot.com/

http://workingtowardsafreecuba.blogspot.com/

http://cubaarchive.org/home/index.php

Why the word needs to be spread about communist thugs like this guy (link):

Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, (link) (link) which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."

So let's dive into the cult of personality that is Che Guevara.




First a bit of intro from Alvaro Vargas Llosa (link)

Che Guevara, who did so much (or was it so little?) to destroy capitalism, is now a quintessential capitalist brand. His likeness adorns mugs, hoodies, lighters, key chains, wallets, baseball caps, toques, bandannas, tank tops, club shirts, couture bags, denim jeans, herbal tea, and of course those omnipresent T-shirts with the photograph, taken by Alberto Korda, of the socialist heartthrob in his beret during the early years of the revolution, as Che happened to walk into the photographer’s viewfinder—and into the image that, thirty-eight years after his death, is still the logo of revolutionary (or is it capitalist?) chic. Sean O’Hagan claimed in The Observer that there is even a soap powder with the slogan “Che washes whiter.”





It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth. (Many Rastafarians would renounce Haile Selassie if they had any notion of who he really was.) It is not surprising that Guevara’s contemporary followers, his new post-communist admirers, also delude themselves by clinging to a myth—except the young Argentines who have come up with an expression that rhymes perfectly in Spanish: “Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué,” or “I have a Che T-shirt and I don’t know why.

here's his résumé (link)

* Chief executioner for the Castro regime, responsible for the murder of thousands

* Was appointed Cuba's Minister of Economics in 1960; within months the Cuban peso was practically worthless.

* Was appointed Cuba's Minister of Industries in 1961; within a year a previously prosperous nation was rationing food, closing factories, and losing hundreds of thousands of its most productive citizens, who were happy to flee with only the clothes on their backs.

A summary on the book Exposing the Real Che Guevara
goes a bit futher into the matter (link):

A masterfully written critical biography of the iconic communist revolutionary, and an expose of the ignorants who lionize him (link) by Humberto Fontova. (He has appeared on many radio and television shows and is active in the Cuban American community.)



Nearly four decades after his death, it's impossible to avoid the image of Ernesto "Che" Guevara everywhere from T-shirts to cartoons. Liberals consider Che a revolutionary martyr who gave his life to help the poor of Latin America. Time named him one of the one hundred most influential people of the last century. And a major Hollywood movie is about to lionize him to a new generation.



The reality, as we learn from Cuban exile Humberto Fontova, is that Che wasn't really a gentle soul and a selfless hero. He was a violent Communist who thought nothing of firing a gun into the stomach of a woman six months pregnant whose only crime was that her family opposed him. And he was a hypocrite who lusted after material luxuries while cultivating his image as a man of the people.




Fontova reveals that Che openly talked about his desire to use nuclear weapons against New York City. Such was Che's bloodthirsty hatred that Fontova considers him the godfather of modern terrorism.

by thew way Che really loved his job (link):

Hard-Working Firing Squads


Che's initial headquarters was the massive La Cabana fortress in Havana where his firing squads literally worked in shifts, their work occasionally slowed when Che's hand and wrist needed a rest from signing death warrants. Che had a slab-stone wall of his office turned into a picture window so he could enjoy watching the firing squads at work. Che's pattern of killing seems to suggest an erotic motive rather than an ideological or a juridical one. Most people, fortunately, prefer more salubrious kinds of sexual excitement. Killing seemed to do it for Che; killings he performed personally or merely ordered.



A Cuban woman whose husband had merely been a policeman and in no way a "war criminal" under Batista was sentenced to death by firing squad. She somehow succeeded in making her way into Che's office to plead for his life. He listened, then without saying a word to her picked up the phone and barked orders for his execution to be moved up to that very night. He heard the plea of a young boy prisoner who told Che his mother needed his meager earnings for support. Che murdered him on the spot. Che got annoyed when a group of women gathered outside the prison to claim the bullet-ridden bodies of their husbands. Che yelled there'd be no "visits" that night and had his goons tear-gas the widows. These are only a sprinkling of the less gruesome tales of Che; all are well corroborated.

and to find out more about THE REAL Che Guevara

Mugshot of a Murderer (link)

Che Guevara RIP (link)

Of Che Guevara and "Constitutional Rights" (link)

'Cool' Icon Che Guevara Was a Murderous Thug, Author Says (link)

Che Guevara's Dubious Legacy (link)

The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified (link)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_xHirDOoRu8

http://www.therealcuba.com/MurderedbyChe.htm

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1258340,00.html

http://www.neravt.com/left/che.htm

http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDguevara.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/index.htm

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5762714709014580290

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1535

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/oct04/che.htm

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/23/154142.shtml

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006484

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9962/che1.html

http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ww/guevara/
http://www.companeroche.com/

http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ww/guevara/1967-mtt.htm

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/Che-1.html

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4450

http://www.therealcuba.com/page5.htm

More on on him from Wikipedia (link)

Antonio Gramsci (January 23, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. A founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy, he was imprisoned by Mussolini's Fascist regime. His writings are heavily concerned with the analysis of culture and political leadership and he is notable as a highly original thinker within the Marxist tradition. He is renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a capitalist society.

You can find out more by visiting the following sites:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm

http://www.soc.qc.edu/gramsci/

http://www.italnet.nd.edu/gramsci/

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?s=contents&issue=114

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=162&issue=109

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm

http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-gram.htm

http://www.acessa.com/gramsci/

http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/media/staff/ls/Modules/Theory/Gramsci.htm

http://www.antoniogramsci.com/

http://colr.ucc.ie/2003ix.htm

http://www.italnet.nd.edu/gramsci/audio-video/index.html


http://www.victoryiscertain.com/gramsci/

The other half of the team that molded this evil idea known to the world as communism.

More on Friedrich Engels from Wikipedia (link):

Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820 – August 5, 1895) was a German social scientist and philosopher, who developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). Engels also edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Marx's death.



Later years



After Marx's death, Engels devoted much of his remaining years to editing and translating Marx's unpublished works. However, he also contributed significantly to other areas, such as feminist theory. Engels believed that the concept of monogamous marriage was created from the domination of men over women. Engels would tie this particular argument to communist thought by arguing that men have dominated women just as the capitalist class has dominated workers. One of the best examples of Engels' thoughts on these issues are in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State.

Read more on Engels by visiting the following links:

http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Friedrich_Engels

http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Engels,%20Friedrich

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/letters/45_03_17.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume02/preface.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/engels/en-1893.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/index.htm


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/letters/95_05_21.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/engels/en-1892.htm

http://libcom.org/library/communist-manifesto-marx-engels-0

http://libcom.org/library/heroes-of-exile-marx-engels

http://libcom.org/library/prefaces-communist-manifesto

http://libcom.org/library/origin-family-private-property-state-engels

http://libcom.org/library/principles-communism-engels

From Wikipedia (link)

Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx and edited in part by Friedrich Engels in German. The book is a critical analysis of capitalism and its practical economic application and also, in part, a critique of other related theories. Its first volume was published in 1867.

A synopsis of Capital by Engels (PDF document, 54 pages)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Synopsis_of_Capital.pdf

A synopsis of Capital by Otto Ruhle (PDF document, 48 pages)

http://www.workersliberty.org/filestore2/download/3073/ruhle.pdf

Here are copies of Das Kapital from the Online Library of Liberty (link)


46.21 MB This is a facsimile or image-based PDF made from scans of the original book.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/files/967/0445-03_Bk.pdf

13.07 MB This is a compressed facsimile or image-based PDF made from scans of the original book.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/files/967/0445-03_Bk_Sm.pdf

5.46 MB This text-based PDF or EBook was created from an earlier HTML version of this book and is part of the Portable Library of Liberty.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/files/967/Marx_0445.03.pdf

Several different summaries on socialism:



COMMUNISM (link)

Strictly speaking, communism means a scheme of equalising the social conditions of life; specifically, a scheme which contemplates the abolition of inequalities in the possession of property, as by distributing all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all. The means to achieve this is by collectivisation of all private property. Although meant to indicate the means of production, to be consistent communism requires that no individual may own anything exclusively, privately. Not the product of his work (thus his mind), nor any personal material benefit he may achieve as a result of it. All material is centralised and distributed by legislators, the intention being to achieve equal utility (of material) by all. Freedom of expression tends also to be mediated by the state for the same reasons and to maintain the 'integrity' of the collective. You can find a Marxist book in a US bookstore but you cant find Ludwig von Mises in a Cuban library



In practice communism fails dismally. The only way it can be achieved is if every single member of a communist society is in absolute agreement with the above arrangement - and that the legislators are not open to corruption in the form of personal acquisition or favour. We have seen in section one that is it proper for man to own the product of his mind, or that acquired by accident of birth. If such is taken in any way other than voluntarily it is robbery.




For a fuller explanation of communism please refer to the communist manifesto and observe the manner in which human beings are to be moulded and shaped according to Marx and Engels' beliefs.

also from Conservapedia (link)

The ideology of Socialism is subject to a variety of interpretations. From a conservative perspective, socialism is an economic system whereby the means of production are seized and monopolized by the government without compensation to the builders of the capital, and where investments, production, distribution, income, prices, and economic justice are administered by a government nomenklatura that regulate the transfer of money, goods (including capital goods), and services primarily through taxation and regularized and institutionalized aggressive coercion. However, the majority of socialists would reject this description.



Democratic socialists advocate a system of governance based on the principles of solidarity, equality and liberty, viewing these principles as interconnected, with increased socio-economic equality associated with increased practical freedom to fulfil human potential. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, socialist movements have been built on Christian and co-operative bases, embracing the notion that individuals should 'treat others as they would wish to be treated', and arguing that all individuals have a moral responsibility for the welfare of other members of their society. Socialism seeks to prioritize human welfare over other goals, such as profit and wealth accumulation by elites; it views increased redistribution of wealth as vital to securing greater freedom and happiness for the bulk of the people, and deplores the devastating effects of gross inequality on society in terms of increased crime, mental illness, unhappiness and lack of life chances.

and this (link):

Communism is Karl Marx's proposed establishment of a "classless society" by means of eliminating private property. However, no communist society has ever been classless; each has been dominated by a self appointed Nomenklatura.

and this (link):

The Nomenklatura were a self-appointed group running the administration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the era when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had a political monopoly and outlawed opposition. The nomenklatura were the only group of persons who held citizenship rights. At the time of the Soviet Union's demise along with the nomenklatura in 1992, nearly 300 million people were dominated, controlled, and were citizenshipless in the country of their birth.



The idea of an elite and privileged nomenklatura to staff the civil service of the Soviet state originated with its founder, Vladimir Lenin.



According to some sources, in less than the past 100 years, governments under the banner of communism have claimed between 65 million and 110 million lives. Today, it continues to oppress one-fifth of the world's people. It is worth noting that no states of any magnitude have existed that strictly fulfilled the definition of "communist", although they have approached it with varying degrees of accuracy. Many states have, however, proclaimed themselves as communist.

This is part of the reason why socialism is bad for you.

To find out more you can visit the following sites:

At Library of Congress: Search for Author: Ortoneda Baldomero

http://catalog.loc.gov/

http://www.memorialsighet.ro/en/colectie.asp?id=3

http://www.victimsofcommunism.org

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm#part3

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/faqframe.htm

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/musframe.htm

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/musans.htm

http://www.nysun.com/article/23082?page_no=1

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2526

http://www.sarasotamagazine.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=365

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/lelivrenoir.htm