Nov. 27, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:03:14
3511 The Truth About Fidel Castro | The Cuban Revolution
While studying at University of Havana in April 1948, Castro participated in the Communist-lead riots in Bogotá, Colombia which lead to thousands of deaths. While many 22-year-olds were just starting their adult lives, Castro was getting revolutionary street credibility and laying the groundwork for his blood-soaked future. Fast forward to November 26th, 2016 and the controversial Cuban revolutionary and dictator is dead at 90 years old. What is the Truth About Fidel Castro? Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/truth-about-fidel-castroThe Truth About Che Guevarahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eMLk1nQh5oFor more detailed information on Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, we highly recommend the Black Book of Communism and the works of Humberto Fontova.The Black Book of Communism: http://www.fdrurl.com/Black-Book-of-CommunismThe Longest Romance: http://www.fdrurl.com/Longest-RomanceHollywood's Favorite Tyrant: http://www.fdrurl.com/Hollywoods-Favorite-TyrantExposing the Real Che Guevara: http://www.fdrurl.com/Real-Che-GuevaraDeclassified FBI Files on Cuba: https://archive.org/details/Anti-CastroAndCuba109-12-210Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
I hope you're doing well.
The recent death of Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro has produced a little bit of a split in society between the left and the right.
Between the left that leans towards the blood-soaked ideology of communism and the right that sees it for what it is.
Now, before we dive into the facts about Fidel Castro, let's just do a little bit of a primer, particularly for my younger audience who's been kind of lied to about communism throughout most of your young lives.
So, here's the reality.
If someone is four times better at something than someone else, generally we would say that one person is a professional and the other person is an amateur.
When it comes to slaughtering, disassembling, burying in mass graves, starving to death, shooting, imprisoning, murdering...
People, well, we have of course two ideologies in the 20th century that were particularly good at it.
One of course was National Socialism, also known as Nazism, which produced about 25 million deaths in its short tenure as head of Germany and some of the other territories.
So that's 25 million.
That's a lot of dead people.
That's gruesome.
That's horrifying.
Now communism, which had a habit of turning mass crimes into a full-blown system of government, well, killed about 94 million people in the 20th century.
We got 65 million killed in the People's Republic of China.
20 million!
In the Soviet Union, 2 million in Cambodia and North Korea, 1.7 million in Ethiopia, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, a million in the Eastern Bloc countries, 1 million in Vietnam, 150,000 in Latin America, and various other sundry piles of bodies.
So, communism as a whole killed about four times more people than Nazism or nationalism.
Socialism, communism gets the top prize as by far the most murderous regime in all of human history.
The most murderous ideology in all of human history.
This is death through forced labor, man-made hunger, mass deportations, general rounding up and genocide.
Because, of course, we think of Nazism as genocidal, as it was for particular groups.
But...
Same thing as Soviet crimes against people living in the Caucasus, of course.
Large social groups in the Soviet Union have been described as genocidal.
I mean, they weren't very different from very similar policies enacted by the National Socialists in Germany.
The difference is, of course, that the Communists genocided based upon class system, but the Nazis genocided based upon race and territory.
So I just really want to point this out, that...
Communism at least four times worse than Nazism or National Socialism.
And oh, also one other little tidbit we'll be touching on as well.
The head of the Communist Party of the United States of America endorsed Hillary Clinton.
So you remember how the media went mad because David Duke, a guy who was in the KKK decades ago briefly, had some positive things to say about Donald Trump?
Well...
KKK killed about 3,000 people in the entire history of the United States.
That's 3,000 too many.
Still quite a lot less than an ideology which killed 94 million people.
And the head of the Communist Party in the United States endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Did you hear anything about this from the mainstream media?
Of course not!
For reasons we're going to get into in this presentation.
So, let's talk about the truth about Fidel Castro.
So...
Let's just get some reactions from some famous people, shall we?
Naomi Campbell said, Meeting Castro was a dream come true.
These are two men, Castro and Nelson Mandela, in the world that I think are an inspiration to everyone.
They have fought with integrity to stick to their beliefs.
I'm so nervous and flustered because I can't believe that I met him.
He's a really, really intelligent person.
He said that seeing us in person was very spiritual.
All right, Naomi Campbell, not much of an intellectual.
Hey, let's go to French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who, I guess, in between threesomes with his graduate students, managed to say, Castro is at the same time the island, the men, the cattle, and the earth.
He is the whole island!
Yeah, that's very clarifying.
Good thing he was a philosopher and made things clarifying for people.
Norman Mailer, famous American writer who stabbed his wife with a knife.
Ex-wife with a knife, I think it was at the time.
And he said, oh, it's okay, man, because as long as it's only a knife, there's still some love left.
Lovely guy.
He said about Fidel Castro, the first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.
Gina Lollabrigida, actress.
said, Castro is an extraordinary man.
He is warm and understanding and seems extremely humane.
Francis Ford Coppola, I know.
I'm sorry.
I like the Godfather too.
He said, Fidel, I love you.
We both have the same initials.
We both have beards.
We both have power and want to use it for good purposes.
Harry Belafonte said, Deo!
Deo!
Work all night gunning down counter-revolutionary scum!
Oh, actually, sorry, I misread that.
He said, If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro.
Chevy Chase, the comedian, says, Socialism works!
I think Cuba proves it!
Dan Rather said, Cuba's own Elvis.
Oliver Stone said, Castro is very selfless and moral, one of the world's wisest men.
Jack Nicholson said, a genius.
Kevin Costner said, it was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him.
The US State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all listed Fidel Castro's Cuba as among the worst violators of human rights on the planet.
While the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the harassment and imprisonment of journalists.
But apparently, a lot of fairly prominent people love him.
And the fact that they love him is gross enough, but the fact that they're not facing any negative repercussions For loving him, it tells you everything you need to know about the communist or commie sympathizing mainstream media, the vile enablers of all things red and collectivist and totalitarian that the 20th century and to some degree the 21st century has to offer.
Imagine if these people were saying this about Hitler.
Hitler being an amateur when it comes to those who enacted communism who killed four times as many people.
So, let's talk a little bit about his history.
Now, while studying at the University of Havana in April 1948...
Huh, how do I know 1948?
That's right.
That's the year that...
1984 was finished by George Orwell, named Eric Blair, and what he did was he flipped 1948 to 1984 to get his year.
So, April 1948, Castro participated in the communist-led riots in Bogota, Colombia, which led to thousands of deaths.
Less than a decade later, an estimated 100,000 Colombians had been slaughtered during the period in Colombian history, which would be known as La Violencia.
Now I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but I don't think that means the violet flowers.
I think that means the flower of blood.
Now, of course, while many 22-year-olds are just starting their adult lives, Castro was getting his revolutionary street cred, his blood juice, and laying the groundwork for his very blood-soaked future.
Declassified Soviet documents reveal that Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, was a reliable KGB contact since at least 1953, prior to the revolution.
Now, he will, of course, they will deny any engagement or involvement with the KGB or with Russia or any involvement with communism, but these declassified Soviet documents are revealing quite a bit, along with the fact that McCarthy was largely right.
There were hundreds of Soviet spies in the State Department, but we'll do that presentation another time.
In June 1955, Ernesto K. Guevara met Raul Castro, who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, and the plot to overthrow the Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista came together.
Now, we have a whole presentation of the truth about K. Guevara, and, um, spoiler!
Fidel Castro had K. Guevara killed because K. Guevara had a habit of killing children.
Mm-hmm.
Now, interestingly, Fulgencio Bautista was a mixed-race grandson of slaves who led the majority white Cuban population.
While 72% of the Cuban population was white, the head of state, minister of agriculture, chief of the army, and president of the Senate were black.
So, you know, this was a, I think, affirmative action kind of government.
And you would think, of course, that those who...
We're keen on minority rights or on black rights, would have been quite keen on this country and not so keen on its overthrow, but since their mission is to serve communism rather than anything else, you'll see how it came out.
So on November 25th, 1956, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Kay Guevara, and their guerrillas set sail for Cuba, announcing themselves as pro-democracy and anti-communist freedom fighters.
Remember this.
Pro-democracy and anti-communist freedom fighters.
How's that going to work out?
We've got a government program called liberation.
Now, the United States media.
Now, in its eighth decade of betraying the American dream, the United States media would later explode with stories of bloodbaths and brave guerrilla warriors, but the reality of what happened was, in fact, quite different.
The stories of Que Guevara's military exploits are largely fiction, as Castro had figured out a different and more effective way to take over Cuba.
In a deal called the Miami Pact, Castro conspired with anti-Batista Cuban politicians and wealthy exiles to acquire a large fund that he later used to bribe military commanders in Batista's army.
Having secured their position in Cuba, the guerrillas invited US media and started reporting manufactured stories of their fights with Batista's army.
The New York Times.
Now, before we get into detail about the New York Times, just wanted to mention the New York Times had a little bit of a history of being a tiny, tiny bit on the pro-communist side.
So, one of its most famous reporters, Walter Durante, the one-legged wanderer, He received a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a series of reports in the New York Times about how wonderful the Soviet Union was.
See, he'd been shown around the Soviet Union in what were called Potemkin villages, where they took people from the concentration camps, fattened them up, and then had them smile at gunpoint to show Durante and his naivety just how wonderful life was in the Soviet Union.
So in June 1931, he published the stories in 1932.
He actually received a Pulitzer Prize for how wonderful his stories were.
And he was criticized for them, for the falsehoods and his gullibility in being taken in by Stalin.
And he just denied this widespread famine that occurred later in 1932 to 1933 in the USSR, and particularly the Oludomor, the mass starvation in Ukraine.
And there were, of course, calls later, years later, to revoke his Pulitzer, but even the New York Times said that his articles constituted, quote, some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper.
Never gave back the Pulitzer.
So, New York Times, along with the mainstream media as a whole in the United States, extremely pro-communist in many ways, which is one of the reasons why They attacked McCarthy, who was exposing communist infiltration in the U.S. government, and he did this in conjunction with Richard Nixon, which is why when Richard Nixon became president, the leftist, commie-sympathizing media had to go after Richard Nixon.
So, the New York Times in February 1957 wrote, Fidel Castro is humanist, a man of many ideals, including those of liberty, democracy, And social justice.
The need to restore Cuba's constitution and to hold elections.
And other meaningless words that have no particular relation to anything the man said or believed.
Of course, the warning here, and this is of course some 60 odd years later, but social justice.
See, not justice.
Social justice, which is actually the opposite of justice, as we will see, played out in this god-awful revolution.
So while the mainstream media joined his course within a private letter written in 1957, see, if you just look a paragraph up, that's the same year the New York Times said he was so wonderful, Fidel Castro admitted to lusting for war with the United States.
Quote, War against the United States is my true destiny.
When this war's over, I'll start that much bigger and wider war.
So, this guy wanted to destroy the United States, and the New York Times was his friend.
Just mull that over for a moment, would you?
According to Havana CIA Station Chief Jim Noel, 1958, Quote, We've infiltrated Castro's guerrilla group in the Sierra Mountains.
The Castro brothers and Ernesto K. Guevara have no affiliations with any communists whatsoever!
Now, remember, Fidel Castro's brother was a communist spy in close connection with the KGB. But it's good.
It's good to know the CIA. Well, I think this is the only time they got something wrong.
All the other times, 100% bang-on accuracy, but this time may have slipped the mark just a little bit.
Slipped away from the bullseye.
Former Cuban diplomat Guillermo Bell, 1958, quote, If the Castros come to power, there will be a bloodbath in Cuba.
A social revolution will take place in Cuba.
The communists will control the government of Cuba.
He's just a Cuban diplomat.
What does he know?
Actually, I wonder.
I wonder if this former Cuban diplomat, after the revolution succeeded, became just former Cuban.
In 1958, Castro's July 26 movement kidnapped 50 Americans at gunpoint, mostly Marines and Navy officers with a few civilians near America's Guantanamo naval base.
Now, this struck me as a little bit odd.
I mean, Marines and Navy officers, aren't these guys well-trained and well-armed?
How did they just get kidnapped by a bunch of revolutionary amateurs with toy guns?
Well, the answer is that it seems that they were on some sort of...
Recreational or vacation tour on a bus.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to say...
No gun zone?
Gun free zone!
And good job gun control for handing over Cuba to communism.
Fidel's brother Raul instructed for the American hostages to be used as human shields.
which led to Presidente Fulgencio Batista ordering a ceasefire out of concern for the political ramifications of injuring Americans.
The Castro-led guerrillas continued to receive weapons shipments during this time, strengthening themselves for the battle ahead.
Now again, I don't know what Batista was thinking, but I'm guessing he had read the American newspapers and media and had noticed that they were extraordinarily pro-Castro, which meant if there had been any kind of fight, that the media would have attacked Batista and been pro-Castro which kind of tied his hands a little bit, rather than blaming these revolutionaries for any bloodshed that ensued.
Shortly thereafter, Castro forces hijacked a Cubana Airlines plane which was traveling to the U.S. When attempting to land the airliner near Castro headquarters in Cuba's Oriente province, the hijackers crashed the plane, leaving few survivors.
This is back when, I guess, hijacking was a bit of an amateur sport, and sadly it's gotten better since then.
The violence continued in November 1958 as Castro forces targeted Havana, rigging 100 smaller bombs in what would come to be known as La Noche de las 100 Bombas.
The overall goal was to provoke an aggressive response from Batista's forces which could be used to influence public sentiment.
The bombings left significant property damage, many wounded and killed approximately six people.
Reports differ.
False flag, false flag, false flag.
After significant favorable coverage from the US-based mainstream media, Castro scored a massive victory in 1958 when Washington decided to ban arms sales to Batista's forces, thereby announcing that the US no longer supported his regime.
Abandoned by both his military and US allies, Batista was forced to leave the country.
And this, my friends, is the power.
of the mainstream media in the United States.
See, by continually portraying Batista as bad and Fidel Castro as a sort of revolutionary hero who wanted peace and equality and sunshine and puppies and roses and all that kind of stuff, they generally swayed U.S. policy to the point where the U.S. abandoned a former ally and basically...
Stopped giving him the supplies that kept him in power.
That is really an amazing thing.
Remember, the goal of the mainstream media in general is to spread communism.
At least it was at the time.
Now, we'll see.
But it's Marxist and communist and communist sympathizing and so on.
And we can see that in the way that they treat lefty dictators versus people who aren't on the left who aren't dictators.
And so they want to spread communism, and here's a good opportunity to do so.
The State Department and the Foreign Service in China had been very pro-Chairman Mao.
He was an agrarian reformer and basically handed China over to communism in the late 1940s, and so their goal was to continue to spread communism, and this is how they did it.
Skeptical of media reporting officials from the Cuban U.S. Embassy used their local information network to find out that the total number of combat casualties on both sides was 182.
Kay's own diaries revealed that his forces' losses during a two-year civil war amounted to 20 people.
I was going to say 20 souls, but they're communists.
So they're materialists, and no soul for you.
According to military historian Arthur Campbell, quote, The guerrilla war in Cuba was notable for the marked lack of military skills or offensive spirit in the soldiers of either side.
Now, that's not a Cuban exile with an axe to grind.
It's military historian Arthur Campbell in his authoritative book, Guerrillas, A History and Analysis.
So, how did they get a new government if they have so few casualties?
The media, my friends.
The very, very dangerous media.
According to British historian Paul Johnson, you've got to read Modern Times, a great book, quote, During the rebels' advance,
staunch anti-communists started disappearing from their ranks, fueling the growing fear that Soviet agents had infiltrated Castro's army and were now getting rid of any potential opposition.
Remember, communism is international and therefore wants to take over the entire planet.
It's not national socialists, although the degree to which socialists invading other countries, because it's considered nationalist, is another question.
But they're willing to impose communist regimes wherever they can find a way to do so in the world.
So, of course, Washington, the Washington Times and New York Times and other American newspapers were pro-Castro, as was, of course, the KGB and the Soviet Union and so on.
So prior to entering Havana to take power, Fidel Castro wrote a private letter to Melba Hernández.
Quote, We cannot, for a second, abandon propaganda.
Propaganda is vital.
Propaganda is the heart of our struggle.
For now we use a lot of sleight of hand and smiles with everyone.
There will be plenty of time later to crush all the cockroaches together.
That sort of reminds me of the Rwanda.
They use the phrase cockroaches, right?
That they dehumanize and make vile and evil anybody who opposes them so that they can kill them and feel like good people.
The Cuban Revolution officially ended when Castro took power on January 1st, 1959, but the propaganda war naturally continued.
Fidel Castro, upon entering Havana on January 9th, sorry, January 8th, 1959, Cuban mothers, let me assure you that I will solve all Cuba's problems without spilling a drop of blood.
Cuban mothers, let me assure you that because of me, you will never have to cry.
It's appealing to women, not using facts but feels.
It's never been done before.
Castro quickly closed independent newspapers, executed hundreds of people who worked under the Batista administration, So the day after, promising not to spill a single drop of blood, Castro's forces gunned down over 100 men and boys near San Juan Hill in eastern Cuba, executing them without trial and bulldozing their bodies into mass graves.
So I guess you could say in this sort of Shylock kind of way, he did promise not to spill a single drop of blood and...
By gunning down over 100 men and boys, he didn't actually spill a single drop of blood.
More like, you know, several, I guess, swimming pools full.
Not a single drop.
According to the Observer, January 9th, 1959, Mr.
Castro's bearded, youthful figure has become a symbol of Latin America's rejection of brutality and lying.
Every sign is that he will reject personal rule and violence.
See, you can only be this blind to people if you have a hidden agenda.
If your goal is to promote the spread of communism around the world, these are the kind of lies you're going to tell to people.
Ah, newspapermen, your hands stained more with blood than with ink.
Kay Guevara said, Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail we execute from revolutionary conviction.
Fidel Castro said, Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals, so we sentence them based on moral conviction.
Huh.
Be terrible if something like that was used to adjudicate disputes around sexual propriety in universities.
Good thing we avoided all of that.
According to a great writer and author, Umberto Fontova, quote, Fidel Castro's regime jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin's during the Great Terror and murdered more people out of a population of 6.5 million in its first three years in power than Hitler's regime murdered out of a population of 65 million in its first six.
Should we just take a moment and simmer in this revolutionary hammer and sickle style of bloodletting?
Fidel Castro's regime jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin's during the Great Terror and murdered more people out of a population of 6.5 million in its first three years in power than Hitler's regime murdered out of a population of 65 million in its first six.
See how?
Communists better at killing people than Nazis.
But the head of the Communist Party can formally endorse Hillary Clinton and no one will tell you anything.
What has changed?
On January 24th, 1959, K. Guevara arranged for 3,000 books to be publicly burned.
As it turned out, these books belonged to Cuba's Anti-Communist League, a private research organization who had accumulated information on 250,000 Latin American communist agents and KGB contacts.
Yeah, it's important to burn the books because judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail, according to K. Guevara.
So, yeah, you get rid of all of the information that might be used to root out spies.
Fidel Castro on April 21st, 1959.
I am not a communist for three reasons.
Communism is a dictatorship, and for my earlier life I have been against dictatorships.
Furthermore, communism means hatred and class struggle, and I am completely against such a philosophy.
And finally, because communism opposes God and the Church, I say this, to set your minds and spirit at rest.
There's some other politician recently who talked to bankers in Brazil and said, don't worry about what I say in public.
This is what I really mean.
The public-facing stuff is completely different.
Billary Binton?
Ah, let me know in the comments below.
CIA, Latin American communism expert!
Communist, CIA expert!
Communism expert.
Gary Drohler, April 1959.
Fidel Castro is not only not a communist, he's a strong anti-communist fighter.
He's ready to help us in the hemisphere's anti-communist fight and we should share our intelligence with him.
He's so stupid.
Reader's Digest, April 1959.
The Cuba of Fidel Castro today is free from terror.
Several liberties have been restored in Cuba and corruption seems to be drying up.
These are large steps forward and they were made against fearful odds.
These people, let's dig them up and pee on their bones, shall we?
Washington Post, April 1959.
Remember I mentioned them a little earlier?
It would be a great mistake even to intimate that Castro's Cuba has any real prospect of becoming a Soviet satellite.
God.
You can't be all this wrong by accident.
Newsweek, April 1959.
Still helping out, are you?
Castro is honest, and an honest government is something unique in Cuba.
Castro is not himself even remotely a communist.
Former President Harry Truman, July 1959.
Fidel Castro is a good young man, trying to do what's best for Cuba, and we ought to extend our sympathy and help him to do what is right for them.
Fine young man.
U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, July 1959.
Remember Dwight Eisenhower?
He complained about the dangers of the military-industrial complex after he left office.
Didn't really seem to do much about it while he was in office, but afterwards he said, well, this thing I can't do anything about now, which I could do something about before, is really bad.
So, Eisenhower said, now these things, Castro-communist accusations, are charged, but they are not easy to prove.
The U.S. government has made no such charges.
Fidel Castro, while visiting favorable reporter Herbert Matthews at the New York Times offices in 1959, Without your help, and without the help of the New York Times, the revolution in Cuba would never have been!
We'll get to the death count the New York Times is responsible for shortly.
Author Umberto Fantova said, 562 men had been riddled by firing squads without trial by this time.
Habeas corpus had been abolished, and Cuban jails had held five times the number of political prisoners as they had under Fulgencio Batista.
For the first time in Cuba's history, many of the prisoners were women.
Their crime?
Having been wives, daughters, and mothers of the executed men.
Most of these were of humble background, many black.
Castro's sister, Juana Castro, would later testify before the US Congress about her concerns about the revolution starting in 1959.
She said,"...I started to worry about the road the revolution was taking, a revolution that was supposedly democratic.
They started censoring the press.
They also started infiltrating the ranks of the revolutionary army with communist leaders." I knew of the plans for intervention in all schools in Cuba, both public and private, Protestant and Catholic.
I also knew that they were planning to expel priests and nuns.
In 1960, U.S. ambassadors to Cuba, Arthur Gardner and Earl Smith, warned about Castro's communist plans and testified under oath to Congress about the media-slash-government collusion which brought Castro to power.
Arthur Gardner said, In my everyday contact with the State Department, I always stressed this point, that I felt that Batista had proved a great friend to this country and his administration had proved a great ability to develop the country itself and develop the friendship with us.
Warnings!
Don't you all think that when you ring the alarm, someone's going to show up?
Sometimes they just show up to disconnect the alarm.
Arthur Gardner said, No, it's not a fetish, Arthur.
It's just pro-communism.
Earl Smith said, The State Department played a large part in bringing Castro to power.
The press and other government agencies, CIA, members of Congress, are also responsible.
We refused to sell arms to a friendly government and we persuaded other friendly governments not to sell arms to Cuba.
Yet, on the other hand, revolutionary sympathizers were delivering arms, bodies and ammunition daily from the United States.
I wonder how many Soviet spies remained in the State Department even after this is post-HUAC, post-McCarthyism, and the State Department policies did not get hugely impacted by the anti-communist rooting out of the HUAC and of Richard Nixon and of Joseph McCarthy, so I wonder...
Earl Smith went on to say, I did not have the proof at that time that he was.
However, there was no question that there was communist infiltration and communist control of this movement.
Senator James Eastland said, Your advice was that it was not in the best interest of the United States for Castro to come to power, and yet in spite of that, of your advices to our government, you say that our government was primarily responsible in bringing Castro to power?
Earl Smith, that is absolutely correct.
Batista had been in control off and on for 25 years.
His government was disintegrating.
At the end, due to corruption, due to the fact that he had been in power too long, police brutality was getting worse.
On the other hand, there were three forces that kept Batista in power.
He had the support of the armed forces.
He had the support of the labor leaders.
Cuba enjoyed a good economy.
That's kind of ironic how communism helps overthrow a man who has the support of the labor leaders and giving them no power after that.
Earl Smith went on to say, 1957 was one of the best years in the economic history of Cuba.
The fact that the United States was no longer supporting Batista had a devastating psychological effect upon the armed forces and upon the leaders of the labor movement.
This went a long way toward bringing about his downfall.
On the other hand, our actions in the United States were responsible for the rise to power of Castro.
Until certain portions of the American press began to write derogatory articles against the Batista government, the Castro revolution never got off first base.
Castro's propaganda apparatus declassified 1984 CIA document.
Quote, Castro's use of propaganda assets, interviews with journalists, radio broadcasts, during his guerrilla war against Batista contributed in a major way to his victory and was a preview of the methods he would use so successfully after coming to power.
Immediately after assuming power, Fidel Castro set out creating a propaganda empire that today is perhaps the most effective in the Western Hemisphere.
Raul Castro, 1960, said this.
My dream is to drop three atomic bombs on New York.
Okay, maybe if you hit the New York Times.
No, no, no, that would be totally wrong.
Raul Castro, 1960, my dream is to drop three atomic bombs on New York.
Now, of course, Raul, in charge now, right?
He met with Obama.
Kay Guevara said in 1961, Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates.
The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible.
Instead, the young must dedicate themselves to study, work, and military service.
Youth should learn to think and act as a mass.
Straight out of the Hitler textbook.
In 1961, an estimated 14,000 Cuban prostitutes were rounded up by gunpoint and forced into re-education camps.
Homosexuals in the country were also herded into camps for re-education.
Despite promises of democracy, Cuba officially declared itself to be a Marxist-Leninist state on December 1st, 1961.
No communism there.
Marxist-Leninism.
It's communism, by the way.
Castro's sister, Juana Castro, said, Cuba has become a colony of communist imperialism.
The Moscow regime exerts great influence on the Cuban regime.
The communist regime has forced on the Cuban people the lowest standard of living ever observed in Cuba.
Fidel never tired of lying to the Cuban peasants, to the Cuban workers, by making false promises to them.
He promised the moon to everyone, and he did not keep any of the promises he had made.
Ah, revolutionaries have children who with their first faltering words do not learn to call their father wives who must be part of the general sacrifice necessary to carry the revolution to its destination.
Their circle of friends is strictly limited to the circle of revolutionary companions.
There is no life outside the revolution.
A father who devotes himself to the revolution cannot be distracted by the thought of what his child needs, or of his worn shoes, of the basic necessities which his family may lack.
Everything for the state, everything for the revolution, nothing outside.
Destruction of the family, separation of fathers and wives, separation of children and parents.
This is standard totalitarian tactics.
Ah, infant mortality.
Maybe you've heard some good things, maybe even from Michael Moore about this.
So according to United Nations figures, Cuba's infant mortality rate is 31st from the top worldwide, even beating the United States of America.
This is heralded as a big success for the Castro regime.
However, what is often admitted is that in 1954, Cuba ranked 13th from the top worldwide.
So it's gone down almost three times over communism.
In 1954, Cuba had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, even coming out ahead of France, Belgium, Japan, Austria, Italy, West Germany, Israel, Spain, and Portugal.
Present day, all of these countries rank ahead of Cuba, with the country falling behind under the Castro regime.
And unfortunately, the numbers are even worse than they appear on paper due to Cuba's astronomically high rate of abortion, which is strongly encouraged by the state at the slightest hint of pregnancy complications or issues.
According to the United Nations, quote, Dr.
Juan Felipe Garcia said, quote, The official Cuban infant mortality figure is a farce.
Cuban pediatricians constantly falsify figures for the regime.
If an infant dies during the first year, the doctors often report the baby was older.
Otherwise, such lapses could cost them severe penalties and his job.
Dr.
Julio Alfonso said, We personally used to perform 70 to 80 abortions.
A day.
A day.
Cuban documents have also shown medical professionals being reprimanded severely for even delivering premature babies.
Many women have reported being strongly pressured into having abortions, including a Cuban exile, Janet Sanchez, who said, They told me I should end the pregnancy.
It was my very first pregnancy.
I wanted to have the child.
Feminists?
Hello!
Hello, feminists!
Perhaps what you'd like to do is shuck off the general impression that all rational people have that you're just Marxism in granny panties and perhaps you'd like to get really outraged at the Cuban regime basically to pressuring or sometimes forcing women to have abortions or rounding up prostitutes into re-education camps.
Hello, feminists!
Echo!
Echo!
Yeah, we won't.
Just use our concern for women to advance socialism.
That's what it's all about.
Cuban Missile Crisis, I'm not going to go into great detail about this, but it was a very, very dangerous time, largely because of Fidel Castro.
So during the heart of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so this is when basically...
U.S. satellite systems showed potential missile installations in Cuba, and Soviet ships were bringing missiles to Cuba, which could have been used to send nuclear warheads directly into America with very little notice.
And there was this big standoff.
So, in the heat of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is October 26, 1962, Castro reportedly sent Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev a coded telegram known as the Armageddon Letter.
Concocting a lie in an attempt to instigate nuclear war.
Quote, We have solid intelligence that the U.S. attack is coming within 24 to 72 hours.
Strike first!
It's an act of self-defense.
There is no other solution!
Just pause on this for a moment.
This insanely evil human being was trying to goad Russia into a civilization destroying nuclear strike upon America.
A preemptive nuclear strike upon America.
This is the depth of the man's hatred for America, for the West, for freedom, for capitalism, for the separation of church and state, for whatever you want to call it, the Western tradition.
This is how much he hated it.
He was trying to manipulate and get the Russians into launching nuclear warheads straight into America.
He's a great guy.
He almost ended life on this planet, people!
He went on to say in this Armageddon letter, I believe the imperialists' aggressiveness is extremely dangerous.
And if they actually carry out the brutal act of invading Cuba in violation of international law and morality...
That would be the moment to eliminate such danger forever through an act of clear, legitimate defense, however harsh and terrible the solution would be.
Yeah, so much into morality.
This is the guy who threw aside due process and just executed people.
Yeah, all about the morals.
Nikita Khrushchev said, it would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba for a country 6,000 miles away.
For us, war was unthinkable.
The United States and the Soviet Union reached an agreement which led to the removal of missiles from Cuba.
The U.S. took a bunch of missiles out from Turkey.
Kay Guevara, November 1962, said, If the missiles had remained, we would have used them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York.
We must never establish peaceful coexistence.
In this struggle to the death between two systems, we must gain the ultimate victory.
We must walk the path of liberation, even if it costs millions of atomic victims.
These are the bastards the mainstream media got into power.
These are the bastards the mainstream media praised and continues to praise to this day.
Murderous, genocidal maniacs who would have not hesitated to cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in America through nuclear war to get their supremacy, to get their way.
But you see, Trump is Hitler.
The media must share this hatred of the United States if they promote these people.
This is basic logic.
Former Chief of the Soviet General Staff, General Adrian Danilovich, in the late 1980s said, Mr.
Castro pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the U.S., up to and including nuclear strikes.
We had to actively disabuse him of this view by...
Spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the US.
Yeah, so these guys, I guess, fairly good at revolution as long as they're aided by the traitorous US media and Democrats as a whole, but not so good at, say, I don't know, geography or radiation or wind patterns.
In 1963, Kay Guevara released reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and commented on the important role of the American media.
Foreign reporters, preferably American, were much more valuable to us than any military victory.
Much more valuable than recruits for our guerrilla forces were American media recruits to export our propaganda.
Dictatorship enabling traitors to all that is good and noble.
Mainstream media.
Sewage.
Castro's sister, Juana Castro, testified before Congress in 1965.
Fidel's feeling of hatred for this country cannot even be imagined by Americans.
His intention, his obsession to destroy the US is one of his main interests and objectives.
This is well known.
This is not hard to find information, my friends.
She said, Fidel knows that the main obstacle against his plans is the United States.
Fidel has quite a strong feeling of hatred for the United States because the United States is a progressive country where true democracy, freedom, and justice exist.
He is trying to use these elements, these fanatics, to subvert the country.
And Fidel Castro said in 1968, These youths walk around with their transistor radios listening to imperialist music.
What is that?
The March of the Emperor from Star Wars?
They corrupt the morals of young girls and destroy posters of K. What do they think?
That this is a bourgeois liberal regime?
No!
There's nothing liberal in us.
We are collectivists.
We are communists.
There will be no Prague Spring here.
Author Umberto Fontova said, in 27 years, between 200 and 300 people died while trying to breach the Berlin Wall.
In twice that period, about 30 times that number, between 65,000 and 80,000 people, men, women and children, entire families at a time, have died trying to escape from Castro's Cuba.
The Black Book of Communism has estimated that over 16,000 Cubans were murdered by firing squad throughout Castro's leadership without trial or any judicial process.
If you adjust for population figures, that would be the equivalent of nearly one million murderers in the United States.
Looking at the various numbers, the Cuba Archive Project has estimated that under Castro leadership, through murderous deaths in prison, forced labor camp casualties, and sea drownings, approximately 100,000 deaths have occurred.
For those who are counting, that's about, what, 30 times, a little less than 30 times the number of deaths from 9-11.
And if you adjust for population, we're talking...
6.25 million people murdered under the cast, like the American equivalent of 6.25 million murdered.
Hmm, 6 million murdered.
Good thing he's being praised by so many people.
And Jews did not do so well under the communist dictatorship.
An AP story from 2003 when Steven Spielberg was visiting Cuba.
He met with Cuban Jews.
They dwindled from 15,000 before the revolution to 1,300 afterwards.
And this reduction in the number of Jews was basically between 1959 to 1962.
So maybe it had a little something to do with the imposition of communism.
So what was it like in these jails?
Let's have a look at what people are praising the man for.
Ex-Castro male prisoner Eswebio Penalver said, quote, For months, I was naked in a six-by-four-foot cell, four feet high, so you couldn't stand.
But they never succeeded in branding me as common criminal, so I felt a great freedom inside myself.
I refused to commit spiritual suicide.
Ex-Castro female prisoner Maritza Lugo said, The punishment cells measure...
Three feet wide by six feet long.
Reminds me of the Peter Gabriel song, Wallflower.
Anyway, the punishment cells measure three feet wide by six feet long.
The toilet consisted of an eight-inch hole in the ground through which cockroaches and rats enter.
Especially in cool temperatures, the rats came inside to seek the warmth of our bodies and we were often bitten.
For weeks we'd be locked up in total darkness with a little cup of filthy water daily to drink.
Nothing to wash or to flush the excrement and vermin-crammed hole that passed for a toilet.
Nothing to wash away the menstrual fluid that caked to our legs.
Suicide right among women prisoners was very high.
Now, by 1986, Cuba's suicide rate reached 24 per thousand.
It was double the average in Latin America, and it was triple.
The suicide rate was triple Cuba's pre-Castro rate.
And Cuban women were the most suicidal in the world.
Suicide was the primary cause of death for Cubans aged 15 to 48.
And at that point in 1986, the Cuban government ceased publishing these suicide-related statistics.
The island murder prison.
Press freedom.
You'd think that the American media might have some concerns about press freedom, but again, it's all about advancing communism or collectivism or globalism or totalitarianism, one-world government, whatever you want to call it.
I don't care about any of this stuff.
The Cuban constitution has outlawed private ownership of the press, including any form of independent journalism.
Speech, print, or video issuing is permissible provided that it, quote, conforms to the aims of a socialist society.
Be forewarned that anything deemed enemy propaganda and unauthorized news Will lead to extremely strict penalties.
The law of national dignity mandates prison sentences between three and ten years for anyone who in a direct or indirect form collaborates with the enemy's media.
So if the New York Times had been located in Cuba...
Ah, a man can dream.
Spanish TV correspondent Vicente Botin said, self-censorship is a very common practice.
No one on the island can write the truth of what happens there.
So, the monster is dead.
And what do people have to say?
This is what would go down in history.
As the mark...
Of moral stance at this time in the passing of a darkly evil, destructive, totalitarian, murder-fest human being from the world stage.
Let's see who's got the moral clarity, shall we?
U.S. President Barack Obama.
At this time of Fidel Castro's passing, we extend a hand of friendship.
To the Cuban people, we know that this moment fills Cubans in Cuba and in the United States with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation.
History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.
Yeah, I guess you could say alter the course of individual lives.
Oh, are you heading to the grocery store?
Let me alter your course to a mass grave!
Oh, are you thinking of having this baby?
Sorry, it died in your womb.
Are you thinking of expressing your opinion?
Into the rat cell 1984 style with you.
Enormous impact of this singular figure?
Yeah, I guess so.
You know, enormous impact in the same way that a bullet might have an enormous impact on your spleen.
Obama went on to say, For nearly six decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was marked by discord and profound political disagreements.
During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences, but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends, bonds of family, culture, commerce.
And common humanity.
I guess Tuesday is who do we kill today with collateral damage drone disaster day for Barack Obama, so they may share something in common more than commerce.
Common humanity.
This engagement includes the contributions of Cuban Americans who have done so much for our country and who care deeply about their loved ones in Cuba.
Yeah, you know, like you care about hostages in a brutal dictatorship.
Today, we offer condolences to Fidel Castro's family.
And her thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people.
In the days ahead, they will recall the past and also look to the future.
As they do, the Cuban people must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States.
Oh, God, the man is just mochaccino pablum.
Such drivel.
Such crap.
It's like you open up a book expecting something halfway decent and you get...
Hallmark card sentimentality that rolls like treacle down the page and some tinny Christmas music that's quickly shut off because it's politically incorrect.
Garbage and nothingness.
Ah!
That it gets worse.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Fidel Castro was a larger-than-life leader who served his people for almost half a century.
A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr.
Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.
While a controversial figure, both Mr.
Castro's supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people, who had a deep and lasting affection for El Comandante.
I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away.
It was also a real honor to meet his three sons and his brother President Raul Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.
On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr Castro.
We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.
On behalf of all Canadians, no!
I disavow you, you tousle-haired, ab-heavy, snowboard-addled uber-cuck!
His brother wanted to nuke New York!
This great guy!
So, those are people on the left talking about him.
Do they have any capacity to see the evils of communism?
No!
But Trump is Hitler!
Russian President Vladimir Putin The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history.
Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia.
Castro managed to build a free and independent Cuba that became an influential member of the international community and served as an inspiration for many countries and peoples.
Castro was a strong and wise person who always looked to the future with confidence.
He embodied the high ideals of a politician, a citizen, and a patriot sincerely convinced of the rightness of the cause to which he dedicated his whole life.
His memory will forever remain in the hearts of the citizens of Russia.
You know, just that the hearts of the citizens of Cuba remain buried under the ground eaten by worms because they looked at the El Comandante the wrong way.
French President François Hollande Fidel Castro was a towering figure of the 20th century.
He incarnated the Cuban Revolution in both its hopes and subsequent disillusionments.
France, which condemned human rights abuses in Cuba, had equally challenged the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and France was glad to see the two countries reestablish dialogue and open ties between themselves.
So, to be fair, slightly more balanced than the, you know, the head of the cheesy eating Surrender Monkey Nation has been in the past, so we'll give him a 5 out of 10.
Human Rights Foundation Chairman Gary Kasparov, yes, the chess guy, he said, Fidel Castro was one of the 20th century's many monsters.
We should lament only that he had so long to inflict misery on Cuba and beyond.
Yay, Gary!
Facts creaking in through the skylight of propaganda.
He said, don't rationalize or apologize for Castro's decades of brutal repression, torture, and murder.
He didn't fight for freedom.
He destroyed it.
History does not judge from the perspective of a dictator's followers and defenders, but from that of his victims.
A freaking man.
Well played.
Checkmate.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
The tyrant, hashtag Castro, is dead.
New hope dawns.
We will stand with the oppressed Cuban people for a free and democratic Cuba.
Viva Cuba Libre!
President-elect Donald Trump.
Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.
Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights.
Gosh, hard to imagine.
Hard to imagine how he won.
It's called reality.
He said, while Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.
Though the tragedies, deaths, and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.
So, the mainstream media are no friends of yours.
They are friends to dictators, to communists, to totalitarians, to socialists, to central planners, to repressors of every type and hue along the leftist spectrum.
This is a regime that wished to physically irradiate, nuke and destroy America and were trying to get their ally, the Soviet Union, to do it on their behalf by lying to them about an imminent US attack.
They were trying to kill you and your loved ones.
All of those people who are praising these murderous, genocidal monsters, these totalitarian uber-assholes of medieval brutality and torture.
Let's just say, some guy wants you dead.
Seriously wants you dead.
Wants you dead.
And your friend says, oh, I love that guy.
That guy's great.
He's a genius.
He's wonderful.
Well, your friend also wants you dead.
You understand that, right?
He's not taking a stand.
This guy wants you dead, and your friend loves him.
No friend of yours.
This man was a monster, this man, and his brother, and his family, and all of them, and the people who supported him, who enabled him, right?
This guy is a shadow cast by the influence of the mainstream media, who wanted, similarly, to promote Hillary Clinton to put her finger on the nuclear button, who was willing to declare war against Russia because she thought maybe they might be hacking someone, or there might be social media accounts that could possibly be interfering with the election.
Dear God, it's the same deal.
They want you dead.
You understand this, right?
I mean, look at what the media says about right-wing figures.
Look at what they say about Sarah Palin or Margaret Thatcher or Ann Coulter or Ayn Rand or you name it, right?
Phyllis Schlafly.
Look at what they say.
That's who they reserve their vitriol and their abuse for.
Those women and men.
Look what they say about right-wing figures.
Look what they said when Reagan passed.
Look what they said when Margaret Thatcher passed versus this monster.
They're telling you everything you need to know.
You understand that.
They're not hiding anything.
You scratch a liberal and they bleed red.
And the world bleeds buckets.
Tsunamis.
They got this monster into power and he murdered the Cuban equivalent of over 6 million Americans.
100,000 Cubans and suicide rates and forced abortions.
Come on.
The media is extremely and exceedingly, genocidally, world-endingly dangerous.
The bullet, with your name on it, with my name on it, is always first loaded with words.
The inky fingers use words to load the bullets that has our name on it.
