The greatest revolutionary leader of the 20th Century is dead.
Fidel Castro embodied with burning passion the values of communion, courage, joy, humor, compassion, sorrow, remembrance, true justice and -- perhaps most important -- HONESTY. Comandante Castro, for all the Cold War nonsense regarding East vs. West and North vs. South, was the greatest Christian leader of his time: Christian in fact, in deed, in thought -- rather than the vampires and their minion who have so degraded the term.
How many people throughout history have been blessed with the guts, strategic brilliance and cunning to become their nation's leader? And blessed with the deep sympathy and understanding of the powerless, the weak, the sad? Fidel Castro was one of the great intellectuals of his age and one of the great political historians. (Imagine the United States being led by a combination of Malcolm X and Noam Chomsky.) Comandante Castro was a man who could have used his power to be just another exploiter, pimp, or baboon -- instead he chose to be a protector of all those needing protection. And yes, by any means necessary. Yes -- any means! Why give up the weapons of violence to the scum of the earth?
In the Big Dark of the American End of Empire, it is very easy to feel a daily despair. Think of Castro: his humor, outrage, faith, brilliance, and total honesty. One example:
"The fascists stop at nothing. They try to find the weak spot. They invent the most ridiculous lies. They try to create terror and unrest among the people by telling the most outrageous lies. Their appeal is always to the gutter instincts: hatred, fear, racism, economic insecurity, selfishness, ignorance. They feed off of keeping people stupid. They resort to every method they can think of. And what do fascists do when their own institutions no longer guarantee their domination? How do they react when the mechanisms they've depended on historically to maintain their domination fail them? They simply go ahead and destroy those institutions, without a moment's look back. The fascists stop at nothing."
