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Death of a revolutionary titan, Fidel Castro

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 18:48 UTC
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
The death of Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has provoked the usual praise of him from some and condemnation of him from others.

What no one denies is the colossal impact he has had, not just on his own country but on the world.

This fact bears repeating because it is so remarkable. Cuba - the country which Fidel Castro led - is small (its current population is 11 million) and relatively poor. It has no great wealth of natural resources, and no great industries. At the time Fidel Castro came to power its social services were primitive, its school and health systems hugely unbalanced and undeveloped, and much of its population was illiterate.

By no conceivable stretch of the imagination is Cuba a Great Power, and before Fidel Castro became its leader it occurred to no one to think of it as one.

That the leader of such a small country was able to have such an extraordinary impact on the world stage is little short of astonishing, and says a huge amount about Fidel Castro's personality as incidentally it does about Cuba and about the revolution he led.

Comment: Fidel: Internationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-apartheid hero of the revolution

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Che Guevara

The symbol of Cuban resistance: Fidel Castro's Soviet adventures in rare photos from his visit to USSR


RT
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 20:57 UTC
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikita Khrushchev at the rostrum of the Lenin Mausoleum. Next to them: Kliment Voroshilov and Leonid Brezhnev. Moscow, 1963
© Anatoliy Garanin / SputnikCuban leader Fidel Castro and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikita Khrushchev at the rostrum of the Lenin Mausoleum. Next to them: Kliment Voroshilov and Leonid Brezhnev. Moscow, 1963
The iconic Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro has passed away at the age of 90, marking the end of an era for Cuba and the world. RT looks back at his famous visit to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

Castro first visited the USSR in 1963, aged 36, and four years prior to his visit, Havana established diplomatic ties with Moscow. Having been the Soviet Union's ally during the Cold War, relations between the two nations' leaders cooled in 1962, when the USSR's Nikita Khrushchev removed Soviet missiles from the Caribbean island following an agreement with US President John F. Kennedy. Castro said the Soviet leader did it all behind his back.

To improve relations with Cuba, Khrushchev gave him a personal invitation to travel to the USSR. The visit lasted about 40 days, in which the revolutionary leader made an exciting tour all around the country.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro (left) talking with sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich (right), the author of a memorial complex on Mamayev Hill
© Aleksandr Smirnov / SputnikCuban leader Fidel Castro (left) talking with sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich (right), the author of a memorial complex on Mamayev Hill
Castro arrived in the USSR amid top secrecy in late April 1963. The date and time of the flight from Havana were kept secret. Castro's journey to Russia started in the northern city of Murmansk.
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Top Secret

The Thanksgiving myth: Reflecting on land theft, betrayal, brutality & genocide

Sarah Sunshine Manning
truth-out.org
Wed, 25 Nov 2015 01:25 UTC
first thanksgiving
© Rolled Ink Texture, Cracked Texture via ShutterstockFirst Thanksgiving
As Thanksgiving approaches, many schools throughout the U.S. are making preparations for the standard, and all too cliché, Thanksgiving Day lessons, and fairy tale-esque Thanksgiving plays.

And more often than not, the school Thanksgiving activities are largely based on what ultimately amounts to myth, created to serve the imaginations of the dominant society, and simultaneously functioning to erase the tragedies of Indigenous nations.

The myth usually goes a little something like this:
Pilgrims came to America, in order to escape religious persecution in England. Living conditions proved difficult in the New World, but thanks to the friendly Indian, Squanto, the pilgrims learned to grow corn, and survive in unfamiliar lands. It wasn't long before the Indians and the pilgrims became good friends. To celebrate their friendship and abundant harvest, Indians in feathered headbands joined together with the pilgrims and shared in a friendly feast of turkey and togetherness. Happy Thanksgiving. The End.

Comment: Lest we forget: The genocidal roots of Thanksgiving:

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Info

7,000-year-old lost city discovered in Egypt


The Guardian
Wed, 23 Nov 2016 17:48 UTC
Luxor
© AlamyThe discovery was made across the Nile from the city of Luxor, pictured.
Egypt has unearthed a city more than 7,000 years old and a cemetery dating back to its first dynasty in the southern province of Sohag, the antiquities ministry has said.

The find could be a boon for Egypt's ailing tourism industry, which has suffered a series of setbacks since the uprising that toppled the autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but remains a vital source of foreign currency.

The city is likely to have housed high-ranking officials and grave builders. Its discovery may yield new insights into Abydos, one of the oldest cities in ancient Egypt, the ministry said in a statement.

Experts say Abydos was Egypt's capital towards the end of the predynastic period and during the rule of the first four dynasties.
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USA

Remembering JFK's state-sponsored assassination

Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Tue, 22 Nov 2016 01:21 UTC
John F Kennedy
© Sofa King Podcast
I won't ever forget hearing the news - working in Pittsburgh as a marketing analyst, returning from lunch with colleagues when we it was announced.

November 22, 1963 was a Friday. The working day ended once the news broke, everyone in my department stunned, unable to focus on anything else.

It was too early to know what evidence later revealed. Lee Harvey Oswald was a convenient patsy, uninvolved in what happened, a state-sponsored assassination, CIA and secret service dirty hands likely responsible.

Killing him mattered. Things might have been different had he lived, at least for a time. November 22, 1963 remains a stain on America's deplorable legacy.

JFK's body was flown to Washington from Dallas. On Sunday, November 24, a horse-drawn caisson carried his flag-draped coffin to lie in state on Capitol Hill.

On November 25, officials from over 90 countries attended his state funeral. After a St. Matthew's requiem mass, he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

The events of that time will stay with me always. JFK was assassinated for transforming himself from a warrior to peacemaker.

Rejecting Pax Americana, wanting nuclear disarmament, rapprochement with Soviet Russia, all US forces out of Vietnam by December 1965, and other anti-establishment policies proved his undoing.
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Birthday Cake

Remembering JFK: Photos from the Kennedy Presidency


National Journal
Fri, 29 May 2015 09:57 UTC
Friday would have been President John F. Kennedy's 98th birthday.

JFK
© John F. Kennedy Presidential LibraryJohn F. Kennedy with dog, Bobby, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1925.
JFK
© John F. Kennedy Presidential LibraryThe Kennedy children in Hyannis Port, 1928. From left: Jean, Bobby, Patricia, Eunice, Kathleen, Rosemary, Jack, Joe Jr.
JFK
© John F. Kennedy Presidential LibraryJohn F. Kennedy poses with "Dunker" the dachshund at The Hague, Netherlands, 1937.
JFK
© John F. Kennedy Presidential LibraryJohn F. Kennedy graduates from Harvard University, Massachusetts, 1940.
JFK
© John F. Kennedy Presidential LibraryLt. John F. Kennedy in the South Pacific, 1943.

Comment: For more information on this remarkable human being, read these articles written by Laura Knight-Jadczyk:

The JFK Series

November 22, 1963: The Day America Died

JFK: The Debris of History

The Gladiator: John Fitzgerald Kennedy

JFK: The Bushes and The Lost King

Sim City and John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy and All Those "isms"

John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, Organized Crime and the Global Village

John F. Kennedy and the Psychopathology of Politics

John F. Kennedy and the Pigs of War

John F. Kennedy and the Titans

John F. Kennedy, Oil, and the War on Terror

John F. Kennedy, The Secret Service and Rich, Fascist Texans

John F. Kennedy and the Monolithic and Ruthless Conspiracy

Listen to:

SOTT Talk Radio: The JFK Assassination 50 Years Later

Watch:

Evidence of revision (the assassination of America)

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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Allen Dulles' 'Indonesian strategy' and the assassination of John F. Kennedy

Edward Curtin
Global Reaearch
Sun, 12 Jun 2016 22:17 UTC
President John F. Kennedy with CIA Director Allen Dulles and Director-designate John McCone
© Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, BostonPresident John F. Kennedy with CIA Director Allen Dulles and Director-designate John McCone on September 27, 1961.
Review of Greg Poulgrain's book "The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesian Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles".

Would Allen Dulles have resorted to assassinating the President of the United States to ensure the achievement of his 'Indonesian strategy'?

This is the central question addressed by Greg Poulgrain in his extraordinarily important book, The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesian Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles.

Two days before President John Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, he had accepted an invitation from Indonesian President Sukarno to visit that country the following spring. The aim of the visit was to end the conflict (Konfrontasi) between Indonesia and Malaysia and to continue Kennedy's efforts to support post-colonial Indonesia with economic and developmental aid, not military. It was part of his larger strategy of ending conflict throughout Southeast Asia and assisting the growth of democracy in newly liberated post-colonial countries worldwide.

He had forecast his position in a dramatic speech in 1957 when, as a Massachusetts Senator, he told the Senate that he supported the Algerian liberation movement and opposed colonial imperialism worldwide. The speech caused an international uproar and Kennedy was harshly attacked by Eisenhower, Nixon, John Foster Dulles, and even liberals such as Adlai Stevenson. But he was praised throughout the third world.
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Blue Planet

The falsification of history: "Ukraine" is not an independent country

Nicholas Nicholaides
Katehon
Thu, 17 Nov 2016 22:15 UTC
Ukraine
© KatehonUkraine
Ukraine has degenerated from a Russian/Soviet region into an American colony.

The territory currently called Ukraine has never been a state or a country, nor will it ever be. It was always a part of another, real country or, even more frequently, divided between other real states such as Poland, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and most importantly Russia. Of course, according to the Kiev Nazi junta the Trojan War was fought between "Ukrainian tribes", Alexander the Great was secretly "proto-Ukrainian" and the Byzantine Empire was a "Ukrainian colony," but for the rest of the world the fact remains that there is not one single historical document or reference that refers to "Ukraine" as a state or an independent country. As much as "Ukrop" nationalists would like, they cannot change "old" history as they try to do with modern history, as they do, for example, in whitewashing the war criminal, Nazi collaborator, and mass-murderer Bandera. The Kiev Nazi junta tries to falsify even "old" history, but ancient and medieval authors and sources are too well known and too well documented to be falsified so easily.

Comment: See also: Will President Trump ditch the bad investment otherwise known as Ukraine?

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Video

Century of War: Sean Stone documentary looks at reasons US middle class is 'in despair'


RT
Mon, 21 Nov 2016 16:44 UTC
A four-part documentary, A Century of War seeks to find answers of what led to the collapse of America's industrial and manufacturing sector and economy, and what steps could be taken to revive it in a post-industrial society. The series was created by Sean Stone, co-host of RT America's Watching the Hawks show.




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Wolf

Flashback Invasion of America: Interactive map show how US took more than 1.5 billion acres from Native Americans

Rebecca Onion and Claudio Saunt
Slate
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:38 UTC
Map of Native American land
© University of Georgia
This interactive map, produced by University of Georgia historian Claudio Saunt to accompany his new book West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, offers a time-lapse vision of the transfer of Indian land between 1776 and 1887. As blue "Indian homelands" disappear, small red areas appear, indicating the establishment of reservations. (Above is a GIF of the map's time-lapse display; visit the map's page to play with its features.)

The project's source data is a set of maps produced in 1899 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The B.A.E. was a research unit of the Smithsonian that published and collected anthropological, archaeological, and linguistic research on the culture of North American Indians, as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

While the time-lapse function is the most visually impressive aspect of this interactive, the "source map" option (available on the map's site) offers a deep level of detail. By selecting a source map, and then zooming in to the state you've selected, you can see details of the map used to generate that section of the interactive. A pop-up box tells you which Native nation was resident on the land, and the date of the treaty or executive order that transferred the area to the government, as well as offering external links to descriptions of the treaty and of the tract of land.

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