THE wires made the announcement ahead of time. On January 6 we learned of Bush’s trip to the Middle East, just as soon as his very Christian Christmas holiday break was over. He would be going to Muslim territory, lands having a different religion and culture from that of the Europeans, who converted to Christianity, declared war on the infidels, in the 11th century A.D.
The Christians themselves killed each other, both for religious reasons and for national interests. It seemed that everything had been overcome by history. Religious beliefs remained that should be respected, the same as their legends and traditions, whether Christian or otherwise. On this side of the Atlantic, as in many parts of the world, children anxiously awaited every 6th of January, gathering enough hay for the camels bringing the Three Wise Men. I also shared in these hopes during the early years of my life, asking those three fortunate Wise Men for the impossible, with the same wishful thinking that some compatriots expect miracles from our determined and dignified Revolution.
I am not physically in a condition to speak directly to the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our elections next Sunday. I do what I can: I write. For me, this is a new experience: writing is not the same as speaking. Today, when I have more time to inform myself and to meditate about what I see, I have barely enough time to write.
One always expects good tidings; bad tidings tend to surprise and demoralize us. Being prepared for the worst is the only way to be prepared for the best.
It seems unreal to see Bush, the conqueror of other peoples’ raw materials and energy resources, setting out guidelines for the world with no thought of how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people die or how many clandestine prisons and torture centers must be created to attain his objectives. "Sixty or more corners of the world" must expect pre-emptive attacks. Let us not shut our eyes; Cuba is one of those dark corners. The head of the empire said that in just so many words and I have warned the international community of this on more than one occasion.
In Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, a few miles from Iran, AP says that "The President of the United States, George W. Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and its Arab allies must join together to confront the danger before it is too late.
"Bush has accused the Tehran government of funding terrorists, undermining stability in Lebanon, and sending weapons to the Taliban, the Afghan religious militia. He added that Iran is trying to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defying the United Nations and destabilizing the region as a whole by refusing to be open about its nuclear program."
"'Iranian actions threaten the security of nations everywhere’ Bush said. Therefore, the United States is strengthening our long-range commitments to security with our friends in the Persian Gulf and calling on our friends to confront this danger."
"Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace Hotel, built at a cost of 3 billion dollars, and where a suite costs 2,450 dollars per night. It is one kilometer from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach. According to Steven Pike, U.S. embassy spokesman in the United Arab Emirates, every grain of sand on this beach was imported from Algeria."
The entire world knows that he wants war on Iran, it is his war. Furthermore, he promises that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for at least 10 more years.
What is worse is that the main candidates of the two parties in line to succeed him are incapable of remedying this. Not one of them dares to even slightly contest this imperial practice, which is based on the excuse of fighting terrorism, an evil engendered by the system itself and its colossal and unsustainable consumerism, while striving for the impossible: sustained growth, full employment and no inflation.
Those were not the dreams of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Abraham Lincoln; nor were they the dreams of those great dreamers throughout humanity’s turbulent history.
Whoever has the time to read and analyze the news coming in on the Internet, in cables and in books, can ascertain the contradictions to which the world has been driven.
In an article run by El País, a widely read Spanish newspaper, the subject of the prices of food and fuel are dealt with. Signed by Paul Kennedy, professor of history and director of International Security Studies at Yale University and one of the country’s most influential intellectuals, the article states that "oil is the greatest element of dependency for the United States in terms of external forces."
"By the mid-18th century, Britain had the largest shipbuilding industry in the world. Yet, as its yards were launching hundreds if not thousands of sailing ships each year, certain English inventors were creating the magic of the steam engine, which used vast amounts of energy secured in the especially bituminous depots of South Wales. The steam and coal engine carried the British Empire onward for another 150 years."
Later on he indicates the point of view that is most interesting for us: the ever-greater interconnection between oil and food. The reasons are well-known: the enormous energy demands of the large Asian economies and the inability of the wealthiest countries –the United States, Japan and Europe– to reduce their consumption.
"But global soy bean demand is also spiraling upward; again, chiefly due to the rising consumption in Asia; China’s tens of millions of pigs devour an incredible amount of soy bean meal in a year. The soy bean futures prices are 80 percent higher this year (December 2007) than last (2006)."
"No one can be certain of that, but the continued increases in overall world population, and the surge in real incomes for more than two billion people in the recent past, will surely translate into ever-greater demand for the world’s protein: for more beef, more pork, more chicken, more fish, and thus for more grains to feed the animals."
The Yale professor might as well have added: more eggs and more milk, since their production requires considerable amounts of fodder. But a little later, he alludes to an article published in The Economist, the main newspaper of European finance, describing it as "highly detailed, impressive and very scary"; it is entitled "The End of Cheap Food". "That magazine began its food-price index way back in 1845. The price index is higher today than in anytime in its entire 162 years."
Brazil, which is now self-reliant in fuel and has abundant reserves, will doubtless escape this dilemma. Stretching across a plateau at 300 to 900 meters of altitude, it is 77 times larger than Cuba. This sister republic enjoys 3 different climates. Almost every food can be grown there. It is not hit by tropical hurricanes. Together with Argentina, these two nations could save the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico, although they could never guarantee security for them because they are at the mercy of an empire which will not allow that union.
Writing, as many people know, is an instrument of expression that lacks speed, tone and the intonation of spoken language, and it doesn’t use gestures. It also takes several times our scarce-available time. Writing has the advantage that it can been done at any time, day or night, but one doesn’t know who will read it; very few can resist the temptation to improve it, to include what was not said or to cross out what was said; sometimes one has the urge to throw it all in the waste basket since you don’t have the interlocutor there in front of you. All my life I have transmitted ideas about events as I was seeing them, from the darkest ignorance until today when I have more time available and I have the possibility of observing the crimes being committed against our planet and our species.
To the youngest of our revolutionaries, in particular, I recommend them to be extremely demanding of themselves and to observe an iron-clad discipline. They should avoid being ambitious for power, presumptuous or vainglorious. Be watchful about bureaucratic methods and mechanisms and avoid succumbing to simple slogans. Recognize in bureaucratic procedures the worst obstacle. Use science and computation without falling prey to the excessively technical and unintelligible jargon of elitist specialists. Always have a thirst for knowledge, and perseverance, and both physical and mental exercise.
In the new era in which we live, capitalism is not even a useful instrument. It is like a tree with rotten roots, from whence only the worst forms of individualism, corruption and inequality sprout. Nor should we give away anything to those who could be producing and who don’t produce, or who produce very little. Reward the merits of those who work with their hands or their minds.
Just as we have universalized higher education, we must also universalize simple physical labor; it helps us to at least carry out a part of the infinite investments demanded by everyone, as if there was an enormous reserve of money and labor force. Be especially wary of those inventing state enterprises with just any excuse and then managing the easy profits as if they had been capitalists all their lives, sowing egoism and privileges.
Until we become aware of such realities, no effort can be made, as Martí would have said, to "timely prevent" the empire which he saw arising – living as he did in its entrails – destroys the future of humanity.
We must be dialectic and creative. There is no other possible alternative.
We are grateful for Bush playing his part as one of the Wise Men, visiting the place where the son of the carpenter Joseph was born, if anyone really knows the exact spot of that humble crib where the Nazarene was born. The leader of the empire bears the gift, this time, of tens of billions of dollars to the Arab countries to buy weapons that come from the industrial-military complex; and at the same time, two dollars for every one supplied to them in order to arm the state of Israel, where the United Nations agency which tackles the subject assures us that 3.5 million Palestinians have been deprived of their rights or expelled from their territory.
His obsessive instrument is to threaten the world with nuclear war. Only he is capable of bearing this Epiphany Gift.
Fidel Castro Ruz
January 14, 2008,
7:12 p.m. •
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lies in the service of the empire
REUTERS headed the list of international news agencies yesterday which presented Pedro Miret and Osmany Cienfuegos as historical figures dismissed by Raúl Castro. It was followed, in order, by EFE, which affirmed textually: "they were dismissed as vice presidents of the Council of Ministers on March 2."
The pretext for this intrigue, widely reported throughout the world, was the publication in the Gaceta Oficial (Official Gazette), on March 24, of the decree on the restructuring of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, approved on the 2nd of this month.
Pedro Miret is a magnificent compañero, with great historic merits, a man whom we all respect and for whom I feel a great affection. He has been unable to hold any office for a number of years now, for health reasons. The slow settling-in of his illness led to the progressive cessation of his political activity. It is not fair to present him as "dismissed," without any consideration whatsoever.
Osmany Cienfuegos, the brother of Camilo, undertook important tasks, not only as vice president of the Council of Ministers, but also as a member of the Party and fulfilling my instructions when I was Commander in Chief. He always was and is a revolutionary. From long before I became ill, his functions were progressively ending. He was no longer acting as vice president of the Council of Ministers. Compañero Raúl Castro, president of the Council of State, has absolutely no responsibility in this. In both cases, it concerned purely legal steps.
Reuters and EFE are two of the Western agencies closest to the imperialist policy of the United States. Occasionally, the latter behaves worse, although it is much less important than the former.
Making use of a habitual technique, EFE quotes Joaquín Roy, director of the European Union Center in Miami, to publish the following in another cable on March 24: "Spain has been rediscovered as a key country in certain regions of the world of interest to the United States, such as Latin America and, in particular, in two countries: Cuba and Venezuela."
The EFE immediately adds: "The expert stated that the greatest interest of the United States, more than pressuring for its [Cuba’s] opening up, changes, etc., is the island’s stability.
"For years now, he explained, studies by U.S. security agencies have not pointed to Cuba as a military threat, but have remained attentive to the development of changes in order to avoid potential internal frictions that might destabilize the region.
"It is of no interest to the United States if the result of the opening is civil war in Cuba.
"According to Roy, the European Union and Spain have no problem working jointly with the United States, but ‘cautiously,’ in order not to give the impression or be accused in Cuba of following Washington’s lead."
As clear as day: the ideas of the old Spanish empire on crutches, trying to help the corrupt, tottering and genocidal yanqui empire.
The U.S. superpower and the Spanish minipower have learned nothing from the heroic resistance of Cuba throughout more than half a century.
Fidel Castro Ruz
The pretext for this intrigue, widely reported throughout the world, was the publication in the Gaceta Oficial (Official Gazette), on March 24, of the decree on the restructuring of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, approved on the 2nd of this month.
Pedro Miret is a magnificent compañero, with great historic merits, a man whom we all respect and for whom I feel a great affection. He has been unable to hold any office for a number of years now, for health reasons. The slow settling-in of his illness led to the progressive cessation of his political activity. It is not fair to present him as "dismissed," without any consideration whatsoever.
Osmany Cienfuegos, the brother of Camilo, undertook important tasks, not only as vice president of the Council of Ministers, but also as a member of the Party and fulfilling my instructions when I was Commander in Chief. He always was and is a revolutionary. From long before I became ill, his functions were progressively ending. He was no longer acting as vice president of the Council of Ministers. Compañero Raúl Castro, president of the Council of State, has absolutely no responsibility in this. In both cases, it concerned purely legal steps.
Reuters and EFE are two of the Western agencies closest to the imperialist policy of the United States. Occasionally, the latter behaves worse, although it is much less important than the former.
Making use of a habitual technique, EFE quotes Joaquín Roy, director of the European Union Center in Miami, to publish the following in another cable on March 24: "Spain has been rediscovered as a key country in certain regions of the world of interest to the United States, such as Latin America and, in particular, in two countries: Cuba and Venezuela."
The EFE immediately adds: "The expert stated that the greatest interest of the United States, more than pressuring for its [Cuba’s] opening up, changes, etc., is the island’s stability.
"For years now, he explained, studies by U.S. security agencies have not pointed to Cuba as a military threat, but have remained attentive to the development of changes in order to avoid potential internal frictions that might destabilize the region.
"It is of no interest to the United States if the result of the opening is civil war in Cuba.
"According to Roy, the European Union and Spain have no problem working jointly with the United States, but ‘cautiously,’ in order not to give the impression or be accused in Cuba of following Washington’s lead."
As clear as day: the ideas of the old Spanish empire on crutches, trying to help the corrupt, tottering and genocidal yanqui empire.
The U.S. superpower and the Spanish minipower have learned nothing from the heroic resistance of Cuba throughout more than half a century.
Fidel Castro Ruz
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
It had all been said
LAST night the grand finale of the Classic took place between the two Asian giants. The U.S. team was glaring in its absence. The multinationals that exploit sports lost nothing and earned a lot. The American people are complaining.
Everything was forecast. The Japanese gave their opponents a hard time, even though Matsuzaka was not having his best day. They hit the first pitch of the game, sending a homerun through center field. At that moment, those accustomed to a traditional way of seeing that sport since the days of Babe Ruth dreamed of a deluge of yanki hits.
It got even worse when Matsuzaka walked one player and the black U.S. player Jimmy Rollins hit a fly between second base and center field that was perfectly catchable but fell into the field after it was blocked by no less than Hiroyuki Nakajima, the exceptional Japanese shortstop. The same thing was happening to the Japanese team in that game as the United States the day before; the Americans had a one-run lead at the beginning of the first inning.
The Japanese manager was kind to his opening pitcher, who was announced with great fanfare, not wanting even a flower petal to graze him. He talked to him, patted him on the back a few times and left him alone.
Japan was the home team and 27 outs were to come; its famous pitcher gave it an extra go and finished the inning.
Immediately, the Japanese began their effort to eliminate that lead and in a short while they were already 4 runs ahead of the United States.
That afternoon Matsuzaka was not the invincible pitcher. After a few more pitches, he was replaced by another from Japan’s excellent collection of pitchers; the manager replaced them without the least hesitation whenever he sensed the slightest danger. He had reserves for winning that encounter and all he needed for the final game of the Classic the following day.
Every time the U.S. team shortened Japan’s lead by one run, the Japanese manager would look for and rapidly obtain the runs needed to stay 4 ahead.
Ichiro Suzuki, Japan’s leadoff hitter, had failed four times that day, but when it was really necessary, he hit a double and the lead went up to 5, with which the game ended in the ninth inning.
On the next day, March 23, at 6:30 in the afternoon, in full daylight in Los Angeles and 9:30 p.m. in Cuba, the final game between Japan and Korea was played. Korea was the home team and couldn’t resist the temptation of using a pitcher who had defeated the Japanese team twice in the Classic, in games of 1 or 2 runs, very quick, a curve-ball thrower who does not strike out much, and who had been very well-studied by the Japanese specialists and batters.
This time, the first pitch resulted in a homerun through center field, a carbon copy of the yanki homer the day before — a terrible beginning for the other Asian baseball superpower. In spite of that, as proof of the quality of both the teams, it was one of the closest games imaginable between professional baseball players. The Japanese manager did not err in his choice of pitcher.
Hisashi Iwakuma, Japan’s opening pitcher, threw 7 and two-thirds innings, several of them with less that 10 pitches per inning.
In the 4th inning Japan was still leading 1-0.
In the 5th, Korea tied with a homerun.
In the 7th, Japan batted 3 consecutive hits and moved ahead 2-1.
In the 8th, Japan got another run and the score was 3-1. In the bottom of that same inning, Korea scored a run, making it 3-2.
In the 9th, Japan’s best right-hander, Yu Darvish, walked two players in a row and, when they were just 2 strikes away from victory, a Korean hit tied the game.
In the 10th, Japan drove in 2 runs that decided its victory, 5-3.
Led by the man who is, no doubt, the best batter in the world, Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese had 18 hits.
In a few short lines, that is how the game evolved, but it was full of complicated situations, spectacular offensive and defensive plays, hugely important strikeouts, keeping the tension and emotions high throughout all 10 innings.
I am not a sports commentator. I write about political issues which I never stray from; that is why I pay attention to sports; that is why there was no reflection yesterday regarding the very important encounter that would be taking place that day.
It had all been said and anticipated several days in advance. My friends, the reporters of the Western news agencies, will not have any material to highlight, with greater or lesser emphasis, which in their opinion are difficulties linked to socialism.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 24, 2009 2:53 p.m.
Everything was forecast. The Japanese gave their opponents a hard time, even though Matsuzaka was not having his best day. They hit the first pitch of the game, sending a homerun through center field. At that moment, those accustomed to a traditional way of seeing that sport since the days of Babe Ruth dreamed of a deluge of yanki hits.
It got even worse when Matsuzaka walked one player and the black U.S. player Jimmy Rollins hit a fly between second base and center field that was perfectly catchable but fell into the field after it was blocked by no less than Hiroyuki Nakajima, the exceptional Japanese shortstop. The same thing was happening to the Japanese team in that game as the United States the day before; the Americans had a one-run lead at the beginning of the first inning.
The Japanese manager was kind to his opening pitcher, who was announced with great fanfare, not wanting even a flower petal to graze him. He talked to him, patted him on the back a few times and left him alone.
Japan was the home team and 27 outs were to come; its famous pitcher gave it an extra go and finished the inning.
Immediately, the Japanese began their effort to eliminate that lead and in a short while they were already 4 runs ahead of the United States.
That afternoon Matsuzaka was not the invincible pitcher. After a few more pitches, he was replaced by another from Japan’s excellent collection of pitchers; the manager replaced them without the least hesitation whenever he sensed the slightest danger. He had reserves for winning that encounter and all he needed for the final game of the Classic the following day.
Every time the U.S. team shortened Japan’s lead by one run, the Japanese manager would look for and rapidly obtain the runs needed to stay 4 ahead.
Ichiro Suzuki, Japan’s leadoff hitter, had failed four times that day, but when it was really necessary, he hit a double and the lead went up to 5, with which the game ended in the ninth inning.
On the next day, March 23, at 6:30 in the afternoon, in full daylight in Los Angeles and 9:30 p.m. in Cuba, the final game between Japan and Korea was played. Korea was the home team and couldn’t resist the temptation of using a pitcher who had defeated the Japanese team twice in the Classic, in games of 1 or 2 runs, very quick, a curve-ball thrower who does not strike out much, and who had been very well-studied by the Japanese specialists and batters.
This time, the first pitch resulted in a homerun through center field, a carbon copy of the yanki homer the day before — a terrible beginning for the other Asian baseball superpower. In spite of that, as proof of the quality of both the teams, it was one of the closest games imaginable between professional baseball players. The Japanese manager did not err in his choice of pitcher.
Hisashi Iwakuma, Japan’s opening pitcher, threw 7 and two-thirds innings, several of them with less that 10 pitches per inning.
In the 4th inning Japan was still leading 1-0.
In the 5th, Korea tied with a homerun.
In the 7th, Japan batted 3 consecutive hits and moved ahead 2-1.
In the 8th, Japan got another run and the score was 3-1. In the bottom of that same inning, Korea scored a run, making it 3-2.
In the 9th, Japan’s best right-hander, Yu Darvish, walked two players in a row and, when they were just 2 strikes away from victory, a Korean hit tied the game.
In the 10th, Japan drove in 2 runs that decided its victory, 5-3.
Led by the man who is, no doubt, the best batter in the world, Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese had 18 hits.
In a few short lines, that is how the game evolved, but it was full of complicated situations, spectacular offensive and defensive plays, hugely important strikeouts, keeping the tension and emotions high throughout all 10 innings.
I am not a sports commentator. I write about political issues which I never stray from; that is why I pay attention to sports; that is why there was no reflection yesterday regarding the very important encounter that would be taking place that day.
It had all been said and anticipated several days in advance. My friends, the reporters of the Western news agencies, will not have any material to highlight, with greater or lesser emphasis, which in their opinion are difficulties linked to socialism.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 24, 2009 2:53 p.m.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The facts are proving me right
ON Tuesday, March 17, I wrote: The Classic was organized by those who run the exploitation of sports in the United States…" I immediately added: "They placed the three best teams from the (first) Classic and the Olympics — Japan, Korea and Cuba — in the same group, so that they would eliminate each other. Last time, they placed us in the Latin American group, this time in the Asian group.
For that reason, between today and tomorrow in San Diego, one of the three will be irremissibly eliminated…"
In relation to the players in the selection from the Republic of Korea, I stated, "They constitute the principal adversary, because they are likewise methodical and bat with more strength than the Japanese."
Two days later, on March 19, I explained: "IN the game between the Japanese and Cuban teams that concluded today at close to 3:00 a.m., we were unquestionably defeated."
"However, I doubt that any team from the West can defeat Japan and Korea within the group of competitors who will be playing in Los Angeles in the next three days. With their quality, only one of the two Asian countries will decide who takes the first and second places in the Classic."
In relation to the Japanese I provided some details:
"Training sessions are incredibly rigorous and methodical. They have devised technical methods to develop the reflexes required by every player. Every day, batters practice with hundreds of balls pitched by left- or right-handers. As for the pitchers, they are obliged to throw 400 balls every day. It they commit any error during the game, they have to pitch another 100. They do it with pleasure, as if it were a form of self-punishment. In that way, they acquire a notable muscle control that obeys orders sent by their brains. That is why their pitchers’ ability to place balls exactly where they want them amazes everyone. Similar methods are applied to all of the activities each of the athletes must carry out in the positions that they defend and in their activities as batters.
"Athletes are developing with similar characteristics in the other Asian country: the Republic of Korea, which has already become a powerhouse in professional world baseball."
Events have been developing precisely in that way:
Yesterday, around 12.30 a.m. Cuba time, the Korean team defeated the Venezuela team 10 to 2, despite the magnificent professional quality of that selection. They didn’t stand a chance of winning faced with the Korean sophisticated methodology of training and rigor.
The Venezuelan opening pitcher, Carlos Silva, could have spared himself an unnecessary humiliation when, after regaling a walk to first base to the opening batter and two consecutive errors in the defense, they connected three hits in succession, putting the scoreboard at 1-0 and bases full with no outs, in the first inning. The Koreans were reading the Silva’s pitches and he needed to be replaced immediately. They connected a homerun with three batters on bases, thus giving Korea a 5-0 advantage in the very first inning. With a team like that Asian one, things were already decided, although it is only fair to note that the Venezuelan selection fought without demoralization throughout the game. By the end, their objective was solely to avert a knockout.
Tonight’s game between Japan and the United States is a merely a formality.
On Monday, spectators within and outside of that country will be able to appreciate the encounter between the two Asian powerhouses in professional baseball.
It will be a hard road to re-establish Cuba’s primacy in that sports activity, where patriotism, national pride and our struggle for healthy and educational sport reached the highest pinnacles.
There are many lessons to be derived from this last Classic.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 22, 2009
1:54 p.m.
For that reason, between today and tomorrow in San Diego, one of the three will be irremissibly eliminated…"
In relation to the players in the selection from the Republic of Korea, I stated, "They constitute the principal adversary, because they are likewise methodical and bat with more strength than the Japanese."
Two days later, on March 19, I explained: "IN the game between the Japanese and Cuban teams that concluded today at close to 3:00 a.m., we were unquestionably defeated."
"However, I doubt that any team from the West can defeat Japan and Korea within the group of competitors who will be playing in Los Angeles in the next three days. With their quality, only one of the two Asian countries will decide who takes the first and second places in the Classic."
In relation to the Japanese I provided some details:
"Training sessions are incredibly rigorous and methodical. They have devised technical methods to develop the reflexes required by every player. Every day, batters practice with hundreds of balls pitched by left- or right-handers. As for the pitchers, they are obliged to throw 400 balls every day. It they commit any error during the game, they have to pitch another 100. They do it with pleasure, as if it were a form of self-punishment. In that way, they acquire a notable muscle control that obeys orders sent by their brains. That is why their pitchers’ ability to place balls exactly where they want them amazes everyone. Similar methods are applied to all of the activities each of the athletes must carry out in the positions that they defend and in their activities as batters.
"Athletes are developing with similar characteristics in the other Asian country: the Republic of Korea, which has already become a powerhouse in professional world baseball."
Events have been developing precisely in that way:
Yesterday, around 12.30 a.m. Cuba time, the Korean team defeated the Venezuela team 10 to 2, despite the magnificent professional quality of that selection. They didn’t stand a chance of winning faced with the Korean sophisticated methodology of training and rigor.
The Venezuelan opening pitcher, Carlos Silva, could have spared himself an unnecessary humiliation when, after regaling a walk to first base to the opening batter and two consecutive errors in the defense, they connected three hits in succession, putting the scoreboard at 1-0 and bases full with no outs, in the first inning. The Koreans were reading the Silva’s pitches and he needed to be replaced immediately. They connected a homerun with three batters on bases, thus giving Korea a 5-0 advantage in the very first inning. With a team like that Asian one, things were already decided, although it is only fair to note that the Venezuelan selection fought without demoralization throughout the game. By the end, their objective was solely to avert a knockout.
Tonight’s game between Japan and the United States is a merely a formality.
On Monday, spectators within and outside of that country will be able to appreciate the encounter between the two Asian powerhouses in professional baseball.
It will be a hard road to re-establish Cuba’s primacy in that sports activity, where patriotism, national pride and our struggle for healthy and educational sport reached the highest pinnacles.
There are many lessons to be derived from this last Classic.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 22, 2009
1:54 p.m.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Glory to the Good!
Our delegation was received early this morning with the recognition and the honors it deserves. Esteban Lazo and Frederich Cepeda spoke. Raúl, who presented the team with the national flag during the ceremony at the Palace of the Revolution, was also there.
They were given a copy of my reflection which was published today in Granma and that had already appeared on CubaDebate.
I spoke about the technology and discipline introduced to baseball by Japan; about the efforts undertaken by a nation with no less than 10.4 times Cuba’s population; where one also had to discount "those of weak conscience who let themselves be bribed by our enemies".
Of the 73 who flew to Mexico and San Diego, two poor devils did not return home.
One was editing video footage on baseball for Cuban National Television. It was pitiful to hear his lament published in the cables. He bemoaned that the only thing sad about it was that his dear mother and beloved girlfriend had not traveled with him. He had left on the very first day that the delegation arrived in San Diego.
The other one wrote for Juventud Rebelde on the same subject. This one had traveled several times but was waiting for the Classic to carry out his crime. He was with the team at every moment. He was positively ridiculous. Two hours before they left for the airport to return home, he disappeared.
What a couple of repulsive fakes they are, incubated by capitalist ideology!
Those cases are useful for turning the spotlight on the merit of the athletes in our honorable national team, prepared to give up their lives for the homeland.
Of course, individuals like those do not have a single grain of conscience. What a load of rubbish they must have published about baseball, which instead of guiding, only confuse!
Not everyone is like Bobby Salamanca or Eddy Martin, who gave such noble testimonies on our great sports victories.
Glory to those who devote their lives to building honor and love of the homeland!
Glory to the good!
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 20, 2009
4:23 p.m.
They were given a copy of my reflection which was published today in Granma and that had already appeared on CubaDebate.
I spoke about the technology and discipline introduced to baseball by Japan; about the efforts undertaken by a nation with no less than 10.4 times Cuba’s population; where one also had to discount "those of weak conscience who let themselves be bribed by our enemies".
Of the 73 who flew to Mexico and San Diego, two poor devils did not return home.
One was editing video footage on baseball for Cuban National Television. It was pitiful to hear his lament published in the cables. He bemoaned that the only thing sad about it was that his dear mother and beloved girlfriend had not traveled with him. He had left on the very first day that the delegation arrived in San Diego.
The other one wrote for Juventud Rebelde on the same subject. This one had traveled several times but was waiting for the Classic to carry out his crime. He was with the team at every moment. He was positively ridiculous. Two hours before they left for the airport to return home, he disappeared.
What a couple of repulsive fakes they are, incubated by capitalist ideology!
Those cases are useful for turning the spotlight on the merit of the athletes in our honorable national team, prepared to give up their lives for the homeland.
Of course, individuals like those do not have a single grain of conscience. What a load of rubbish they must have published about baseball, which instead of guiding, only confuse!
Not everyone is like Bobby Salamanca or Eddy Martin, who gave such noble testimonies on our great sports victories.
Glory to those who devote their lives to building honor and love of the homeland!
Glory to the good!
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 20, 2009
4:23 p.m.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
We are the ones to blame
IN the game between the Japanese and Cuban teams that concluded today at close to 3:00 a.m., we were unquestionably defeated.
The organizers of the Classic decided that the three countries holding the first three places in world baseball should confront each other in San Diego, including Cuba arbitrarily in the Asian group despite the fact being the Caribbeans that we are.
However, I doubt that any team from the West can defeat Japan and Korea within the group of competitors who will be playing in Los Angeles in the next three days. With their quality, only one of the two Asian countries will decide who takes the first and second places in the Classic.
What mattered to the organizers was to eliminate Cuba, a revolutionary country that has heroically resisted and has remained undefeated in the battle of ideas. Nevertheless, one day we shall again be a dominant power in that sport.
The excellent team representing us in the Classic, made up mostly of young athletes, is without a doubt a genuine representation of the finest athletes in our country.
They competed with great courage; they didn’t lose heart and sought victory right up to the last inning.
The line-up, suggested from Cuba by the leading bodies with expert advisors, was good and inspired confidence. It was strong both offensively and defensively. They had a good reserve of pitching talent and strong hitters, in the event of the changing circumstances of a game requiring it. By applying the same concepts, they defeated and dominated the powerful Mexican team.
I should point out that the team leadership in San Diego was abysmal. The old criteria of well-trodden paths prevailed against a capable adversary who is constantly innovating.
We must learn the relevant lessons.
Among all the sports, baseball today is the most capable of sparking off expectations given the enormous variety of situations that could arise and the specific role of each one of the nine men on the diamond. It has a reputation everywhere as a genuinely emotive show. Even though the stadiums fill up with fans, nothing is comparable to the images captured by the cameras. Baseball would seem to have been devised to be transmitted by that media. Television heightens that interest by going into great detail about every action. It even offers the possibility of seeing the stitching and rotation of a ball pitched at a speed of 100 miles per hour, a ball rolling along a white line or being caught in the glove of a defender one tenth of a second before or after the runner’s foot touches base. I can think of no other sport that could compete with such a variety of situations, except chess, where the activity ceases to be muscular and becomes an intellectual one, something impossible to televise.
In Cuba, where we practice almost all sports and have numerous amateur players, baseball has become a national passion.
We have rested on our laurels and we are now paying the consequences. Korea and Japan, two countries that are geographically at a good distance from the United States, have invested abundant economic resources into that imported, or imposed, sport.
Development of that sports activity in those two Asian nations obeys their own distinctive characteristics. Their inhabitants are hard-working, self-sacrificing and tenacious.
Japan, a developed and wealthy country with more than 120 million inhabitants, has devoted itself to developing baseball. Like everything within the capitalist system, professional sports are big business, but national will has imposed rigorous standards on their professional players.
Cuban players who have worked in Japan are very familiar with the standards imposed. The salaries paid to professionals in the U.S. Major Leagues are logically much higher than in Japan, a country which, for its part, possesses the most powerful professional league after that of the U.S. No professional Japanese player can go one to play in the U.S. Major Leagues, or in any other foreign country, until he has played in the Japanese national league for eight years. For that reason, none of the members on its international team is under 28 years old.
Training sessions are incredibly rigorous and methodical. They have devised technical methods to develop the reflexes required by every player. Every day, batters practice with hundreds of balls pitched by left- or right-handers. As for the pitchers, they are obliged to throw 400 balls every day. It they commit any error during the game, they have to pitch another 100. They do it with pleasure, as if it were a form of self-punishment. In that way, they acquire a notable muscle control that obeys orders sent by their brains. That is why their pitchers’ ability to place balls exactly where they want them amazes everyone. Similar methods are applied to all of the activities each of the athletes must carry out in the positions that they defend and in their activities as batters.
Athletes are developing with similar characteristics in the other Asian country: the Republic of Korea, which has already become a powerhouse in professional world baseball.
The Asian players are not as physically strong as their western rivals. Neither are they as explosive. But strength alone is not enough to defeat the reflexes that their players have developed; nor can explosiveness alone compensate for the methodology and sangfroid of their athletes. Korea has tried to find heavily-built men capable of hitting with more force.
Our hopes were based on the patriotic dedication of our athletes and the fervor with which they defend their honor and their people, starting with a reserve with several times, even dozens of times, fewer human resources in comparison, for example, with Japan, discounting from those resources those of weak conscience who let themselves be bribed by our enemies. But this is not enough to maintain our supremacy in baseball. We have to apply methods that are more technical and scientific in developing our athletes. Our country’s excellent educational and sports base allows that.
We currently have enough young pitchers and batters with magnificent athletic qualities. In a nutshell, we have to revolutionize the methods for the preparation and development of our athletes, not just in baseball, but in all the sports disciplines.
Our national team should be returning home in the next few hours. Let us receive them with all the honors that their exemplary performance merits. They are not the ones responsible for the errors that led them to the adverse result. We are the ones to blame, because we were not able to correct our errors in time.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 19, 2009
2:58 p.m.
The organizers of the Classic decided that the three countries holding the first three places in world baseball should confront each other in San Diego, including Cuba arbitrarily in the Asian group despite the fact being the Caribbeans that we are.
However, I doubt that any team from the West can defeat Japan and Korea within the group of competitors who will be playing in Los Angeles in the next three days. With their quality, only one of the two Asian countries will decide who takes the first and second places in the Classic.
What mattered to the organizers was to eliminate Cuba, a revolutionary country that has heroically resisted and has remained undefeated in the battle of ideas. Nevertheless, one day we shall again be a dominant power in that sport.
The excellent team representing us in the Classic, made up mostly of young athletes, is without a doubt a genuine representation of the finest athletes in our country.
They competed with great courage; they didn’t lose heart and sought victory right up to the last inning.
The line-up, suggested from Cuba by the leading bodies with expert advisors, was good and inspired confidence. It was strong both offensively and defensively. They had a good reserve of pitching talent and strong hitters, in the event of the changing circumstances of a game requiring it. By applying the same concepts, they defeated and dominated the powerful Mexican team.
I should point out that the team leadership in San Diego was abysmal. The old criteria of well-trodden paths prevailed against a capable adversary who is constantly innovating.
We must learn the relevant lessons.
Among all the sports, baseball today is the most capable of sparking off expectations given the enormous variety of situations that could arise and the specific role of each one of the nine men on the diamond. It has a reputation everywhere as a genuinely emotive show. Even though the stadiums fill up with fans, nothing is comparable to the images captured by the cameras. Baseball would seem to have been devised to be transmitted by that media. Television heightens that interest by going into great detail about every action. It even offers the possibility of seeing the stitching and rotation of a ball pitched at a speed of 100 miles per hour, a ball rolling along a white line or being caught in the glove of a defender one tenth of a second before or after the runner’s foot touches base. I can think of no other sport that could compete with such a variety of situations, except chess, where the activity ceases to be muscular and becomes an intellectual one, something impossible to televise.
In Cuba, where we practice almost all sports and have numerous amateur players, baseball has become a national passion.
We have rested on our laurels and we are now paying the consequences. Korea and Japan, two countries that are geographically at a good distance from the United States, have invested abundant economic resources into that imported, or imposed, sport.
Development of that sports activity in those two Asian nations obeys their own distinctive characteristics. Their inhabitants are hard-working, self-sacrificing and tenacious.
Japan, a developed and wealthy country with more than 120 million inhabitants, has devoted itself to developing baseball. Like everything within the capitalist system, professional sports are big business, but national will has imposed rigorous standards on their professional players.
Cuban players who have worked in Japan are very familiar with the standards imposed. The salaries paid to professionals in the U.S. Major Leagues are logically much higher than in Japan, a country which, for its part, possesses the most powerful professional league after that of the U.S. No professional Japanese player can go one to play in the U.S. Major Leagues, or in any other foreign country, until he has played in the Japanese national league for eight years. For that reason, none of the members on its international team is under 28 years old.
Training sessions are incredibly rigorous and methodical. They have devised technical methods to develop the reflexes required by every player. Every day, batters practice with hundreds of balls pitched by left- or right-handers. As for the pitchers, they are obliged to throw 400 balls every day. It they commit any error during the game, they have to pitch another 100. They do it with pleasure, as if it were a form of self-punishment. In that way, they acquire a notable muscle control that obeys orders sent by their brains. That is why their pitchers’ ability to place balls exactly where they want them amazes everyone. Similar methods are applied to all of the activities each of the athletes must carry out in the positions that they defend and in their activities as batters.
Athletes are developing with similar characteristics in the other Asian country: the Republic of Korea, which has already become a powerhouse in professional world baseball.
The Asian players are not as physically strong as their western rivals. Neither are they as explosive. But strength alone is not enough to defeat the reflexes that their players have developed; nor can explosiveness alone compensate for the methodology and sangfroid of their athletes. Korea has tried to find heavily-built men capable of hitting with more force.
Our hopes were based on the patriotic dedication of our athletes and the fervor with which they defend their honor and their people, starting with a reserve with several times, even dozens of times, fewer human resources in comparison, for example, with Japan, discounting from those resources those of weak conscience who let themselves be bribed by our enemies. But this is not enough to maintain our supremacy in baseball. We have to apply methods that are more technical and scientific in developing our athletes. Our country’s excellent educational and sports base allows that.
We currently have enough young pitchers and batters with magnificent athletic qualities. In a nutshell, we have to revolutionize the methods for the preparation and development of our athletes, not just in baseball, but in all the sports disciplines.
Our national team should be returning home in the next few hours. Let us receive them with all the honors that their exemplary performance merits. They are not the ones responsible for the errors that led them to the adverse result. We are the ones to blame, because we were not able to correct our errors in time.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 19, 2009
2:58 p.m.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
More News on the Agonies of Capitalism
TODAY I read the cables from March 11th. Information is continuing to rain down on the international economic crisis.
This time, it was Joseph Stiglitz, the well known economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences speaking; the press and academia regularly quote him. The French AFP news agency refers to his statement made yesterday in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“’President Barack Obama’s economic rescue package of $700 billion-plus is much better than Bush’s response in 2008… but it is not enough and the crisis will worsen.
“’We need to see things in perspective. (President George W.) Bush was paralyzed and things got worse every day while he did nothing.’
”Stiglitz noted that many emerging countries have become the innocent victims of the crisis. ‘The irony is that while the U.S. government was giving lessons on rules and institutions in emerging countries, its policies were a total disaster’.
“’As a result of that, the crisis today is severe throughout the world and countries like Brazil are really going to suffer’, Stiglitz informed the newspaper, which had consulted him about the 3.6% drop in the Brazilian economy in the last quarter, the heaviest since the same period in 1996, and reported on Tuesday.
”He also warned that despite the fact that ‘there is a global agreement not to turn to protectionism,’ many of the aid packages ‘have protectionist measures at their base and it will be the developing countries that will suffer the most.’”
Reuters informs us that “Severstal, Russia’s largest steel company, announced on Wednesday that it is to cut 9,000 to 9,500 jobs in its country’s steel mills in response to weak world demand, and that it is also laying off workers in its coal and iron ore mines.
“The Russian steel companies joined their rivals in other countries in cutting back production in the last quarter although, to date, they have avoided mass layoffs due to the politically sensitive nature of such a measure.
“’Additional cut-backs are in the pipeline for their coal and iron ore mines in Russia,’ Mordashov stated.
“Severstal has reduced production in several plants in Russia, Italy and the United States in the last few months, due to a decreased demand for steel. In February, it was reported that crude steel production in the last quarter fell by around 4% as compared to the previous period.”
In a cable dispatched from Dar Es Salaam, the same agency noted:
”’China can lead the world out of the economic crisis thanks to its healthy foreign exchange reserves, robust trade surplus and massive investments round the globe,’ an adviser to the U.N. secretary general said.
”China has so far withstood the economic downturn better than Europe or the United States, though the slump in the United States and Europe has hurt its export sector hard, causing factory shutdowns and job losses.
“’I hope that China can lead the world out of this crisis first,’ said Jeffrey Sachs, adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.
"’They did not have as big a bubble as in the United States or Europe. China has got lots of foreign exchange reserves, it's got a trade surplus, it's got lots of investment. China has the wherewithal to start the recovery first. If that succeeds in this year, then that would spread to other economies.’
”China, the world's third largest economy, usually runs a large current account surplus, with vast exports and relatively contained imports.
”Economic data released on Wednesday showed that China's exports tumbled in February as the world's third-largest economy felt the full force of the global financial crisis, but capital spending accelerated with the help of the government's massive stimulus package.
”The country holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Its current account surplus stood at $440 billion as of end of 2008, up 20 percent over the previous year, according to government statistics…”
”The United Nations has said that it would take $72 billion a year to help Africa, a fraction of what governments in Europe and the United States have put into resuscitating their economies.”
No hope for the countries of the Third World is forthcoming from New York or Washington.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 12, 2009
10:14 a.m.
This time, it was Joseph Stiglitz, the well known economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences speaking; the press and academia regularly quote him. The French AFP news agency refers to his statement made yesterday in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“’President Barack Obama’s economic rescue package of $700 billion-plus is much better than Bush’s response in 2008… but it is not enough and the crisis will worsen.
“’We need to see things in perspective. (President George W.) Bush was paralyzed and things got worse every day while he did nothing.’
”Stiglitz noted that many emerging countries have become the innocent victims of the crisis. ‘The irony is that while the U.S. government was giving lessons on rules and institutions in emerging countries, its policies were a total disaster’.
“’As a result of that, the crisis today is severe throughout the world and countries like Brazil are really going to suffer’, Stiglitz informed the newspaper, which had consulted him about the 3.6% drop in the Brazilian economy in the last quarter, the heaviest since the same period in 1996, and reported on Tuesday.
”He also warned that despite the fact that ‘there is a global agreement not to turn to protectionism,’ many of the aid packages ‘have protectionist measures at their base and it will be the developing countries that will suffer the most.’”
Reuters informs us that “Severstal, Russia’s largest steel company, announced on Wednesday that it is to cut 9,000 to 9,500 jobs in its country’s steel mills in response to weak world demand, and that it is also laying off workers in its coal and iron ore mines.
“The Russian steel companies joined their rivals in other countries in cutting back production in the last quarter although, to date, they have avoided mass layoffs due to the politically sensitive nature of such a measure.
“’Additional cut-backs are in the pipeline for their coal and iron ore mines in Russia,’ Mordashov stated.
“Severstal has reduced production in several plants in Russia, Italy and the United States in the last few months, due to a decreased demand for steel. In February, it was reported that crude steel production in the last quarter fell by around 4% as compared to the previous period.”
In a cable dispatched from Dar Es Salaam, the same agency noted:
”’China can lead the world out of the economic crisis thanks to its healthy foreign exchange reserves, robust trade surplus and massive investments round the globe,’ an adviser to the U.N. secretary general said.
”China has so far withstood the economic downturn better than Europe or the United States, though the slump in the United States and Europe has hurt its export sector hard, causing factory shutdowns and job losses.
“’I hope that China can lead the world out of this crisis first,’ said Jeffrey Sachs, adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.
"’They did not have as big a bubble as in the United States or Europe. China has got lots of foreign exchange reserves, it's got a trade surplus, it's got lots of investment. China has the wherewithal to start the recovery first. If that succeeds in this year, then that would spread to other economies.’
”China, the world's third largest economy, usually runs a large current account surplus, with vast exports and relatively contained imports.
”Economic data released on Wednesday showed that China's exports tumbled in February as the world's third-largest economy felt the full force of the global financial crisis, but capital spending accelerated with the help of the government's massive stimulus package.
”The country holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Its current account surplus stood at $440 billion as of end of 2008, up 20 percent over the previous year, according to government statistics…”
”The United Nations has said that it would take $72 billion a year to help Africa, a fraction of what governments in Europe and the United States have put into resuscitating their economies.”
No hope for the countries of the Third World is forthcoming from New York or Washington.
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 12, 2009
10:14 a.m.
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