Fidelity

I was up late yesterday finishing a script for one of the most promising projects I am working on. Just a small update and/or explanation as to why this blog is so late. I had absolutely no idea what to write, yet again, but woke up to the news that Fidel Castro died. It was not the fact that he died that was so shocking, but rather the manner in which that information was transmitted to me.

I was scrolling through twitter and this glorious peach of a tweet popped up on my timeline:

Jesus W. Christ Donald…every time I think you can’t possibly surprise me again, you pull of something like this. At this point I’m not even convinced that you even run this account yourself!  I mean that tweet is so perfect, it can’t possibly have been you right? This tweet accomplishes so many things at once:

1. It reaffirms you as being a soul-less fascist.
2. It demonstrates a complete lack of empathy.
3. It’s exactly what a President-Elect should NOT tweet!

When your business is basically getting people to talk about you as much as possible, there really is no better tweet out there, is there? Never mind the fact that you yourself are about to become the leader of the supposed free-world, and will probably have tweets like that written about you within the next 20 years. I mean, it’s the exclamation mark that seals the whole deal, and there is really no need for it. You could have ended with a full stop, all anyone would think then is :’ Thank you Donald, how informative of you! You know this guy might just be more In the loop than we thought!’
But no you just had to end in the most inappropriate way. The election is won Donald, you can tone down the ridiculousness.

But on to the deceased himself, and what can you really say about Fidel Castro? I don’t, know, please tell me, I have 665 words left. Well, since I DO have a degree in Political Science (lol) from the American University in Cairo (double lol), I’ll try and think of something.

Fidelity (do you see what I did there) is defined as a faithfulness to a person, cause or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. I think at the end, this is the reason Castro will be remembered as one of the most important figures in our history. He was, and is, the ultimate symbol of revolution against the USA’s attempts to control the world. Despite the CIA’s attempts to assassinate him over 600 times (grow up btw), Castro remained loyal to his beliefs, which included that the USA has no say, and would continue to have no say, in the running of his country.

Sure, the fact that he toyed with them by instigating the Cuban missile crisis is really just the icing on top of the massive Fuck-off cake he built over the years. He didn’t have to allow the Soviets to transport nukes over the Atlantic and plant them in Cuban soil, but he did it because he wanted to see those gringo’s squirm. You have to admire that level of Fidelity. Those were different times though, those Cold War years, and you wonder what his legacy would have been if things had turned out differently. If he had actually sparked the end of days, would he be remembered so fondly? Probably not. But he would still be the bad-ass who brought it all down, so that’s something.

Another thing about which Castro was extremely faithful, was the elimination and subjugation of his enemies and detractors, even among his own people. And it is on this point that his place in history is shattered. This is something that is not foreign to most Middle-Eastern countries either by the way, but a side-effect of Castro’s determination was a brutal dictatorship, which resulted in the millions of Cuban-Americans in the USA today, who apparently do not remember him very fondly at all. And who can blame them? The guy was by all accounts a murderous dictator. But I wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Did the CIA’s attempts on his life, starting with the now infamous Bay of Pigs invasion, foster the man’s paranoia, and consequently his brutality? Sadly I think we will only ever be able to wonder about this point, without achieving a real answer. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, the man had a tendency towards brutality, which was fostered and fueled by his paranoia in the years the USA so blatantly supported his enemies and tried to eliminate him. I mean, that can’t not affect your psyche, knowing that the next assassination attempt could be around the corner. 634 (which is apparently the actual number) assassination attempts is not a small figure. Did the CIA ever think about the psychological effect this would have on their target? And how this would in turn, effect his people?

Probably not. And they probably didn’t care either. That was the Cold War era, where the politics were built on realism, not liberalism (as is still the case in most of the world), and the CIA functioned purely as the US’s Machiavellian arm (and probably still does).

Some people will miss Castro, others will not. I stand somewhere in the middle, I deplore his actions towards his own people, but admire his stand against America, and his unwillingness to depart from his communist agenda. I do not think the young Castro aspired to be a murderous dictator. I am sure this was not in the ‘Pro’ column when envisioning revolution with Che Guevara. I think he was a man who attempted to do something great, and was a victim of circumstance. Unfortunately, like all of humanity, the man was deeply, deeply flawed.

More Tomorrow.

Trumpet

Good Morning everyone. I say that obviously knowing that for the majority of you reading this, it won’t be morning at all, but most likely somewhere in the afternoon/evening area. But it is morning for me, which is to say that it is the start of my day, regardless of the time. You may have noticed a distinct lack of blog yesterday and for anyone who is super perturbed by that I can assure you that If you check the end of the last blog, you will see that all is explained there. Go ahead and check, I’ll wait. Good, now that that is all cleared up we can move on. But what to move on to? My current plan for what to write today is to just bullshit my way through the next 1000 words. You see one of the problems with writing everyday is that some days will be quite good and others will be…well less good than that. And so with all the pressure that comes with having to bang out 1000 words first thing in the morning, I can’t really promise that all my posts will be the best quality, although I invite you all to stop reading now because there will most likely be nothing of substance below.

My favorite blog is actually an Arsenal blog called Arseblog. I have read it almost every day for the last 5 years. I realized though that good old Blogs over there has the advantage of talking about everything that might be going on at Arsenal every day, as well as filling up the blog with other randomness. But I unfortunately do not have a specific entity with which to refer and dedicate hundreds of word to, to make up the thousand. It now strikes me as an impossible task, to write a piece of that length every day, unless I mention something that’s happening to sort of help propel me forward. Well I guess I will have to pick something at random to talk about every day. The most interesting thing I read yesterday was the New York times full transcript of their meeting with Donald Trump. I won’t post the link here because most people don’t  click on links and also because you people need to learn how to search and find things for yourselves. Anyway, I’ll give you the 30 minutes you will need to find the transcript, read it and come back.

Wasn’t it just fascinating? Wait…I have to rethink this strategy…by making you read it I’ve given up the possible two full paragraphs of summary I could have written over here! FREE WORDS! NO STRINGS ATTACHED! Damn…well if you have read it by now my apologies, I’m going to have to discuss some of the finer points for the other 99% who definitely did not bother reading it. There are exactly 2 things in that transcript that to me, explain Donald Trump’s win in the election, and how in reality, it was not even close.

The first of these is Trump’s explanation of his campaign strategy, and especially how they felt they were going to win in the states that mattered. Hearing him say it makes it make much more sense, but he really was getting the types of crowds that Clinton just cannot muster, due to the fact the she is inherently unlikable. According to Trump, they were filling up stadiums, and had thousands of people standing outside who couldn’t get in, which was when they put up the monitors outside the stadium (something which the ‘liberal media’ found very funny). He describes their surprise at the amount of people they were drawing, and the fact that they just kept going back to the states they knew they had to win, and kept drawing big crowds. Trump also very rightly argues that the entire ‘Hilary won the popular vote’ narrative is a complete farce, because as he says, winning the popular vote is a different campaign altogether. Trump targeted the electoral college and hit the bulls-eye in every place that mattered. It’s true that he had more free media coverage, but it is also true, as we now know, that his campaign was just much better. He also spoke about the LA times poll that had him ahead due to the level of enthusiasm his supporters showed, something Clinton never had (but Bernie certainly did). I am 100% convinced that Bernie would have won the election if he were not forced out by Clinton’s corruption, and I am even more convinced after Trump laid down this bombshell: The USA have closed down 70,000 factories since 2008.

70,000 factories. What a number. Can you imagine the amount of pain and suffering caused across blue collar America caused by the loss of so many jobs? Suddenly this war against climate change makes sense as well. People don’t actually care whether or not climate change is happening. It’s the fact that climate-change initiatives took away all of their jobs that has Americans so  convinced it is a falsehood. And why wouldn’t they? They just want their jobs back, and this is something Trump makes clear will be one of his big initiatives, to restore America’s factories. In any case, I think Bernie would have thrived with his more socialist platform, although we will never know just how close that race would have been.

Another important part of this meeting was Trump categorically condemning the Nazi-esque  ‘Alt-right’ led by the deplorable Richard B.Spencer. This was, I think, an important stance for Trump to take. The fact that Steve Bannon is another Alt-right leader, and is in Trump’s team, is alarming. But Trump clearly states that if Bannon were to express any of these views, he would be fired. To assume that Trump himself is, or will become, some sort of Hitler figure is a bit too convenient in my opinion. Richard B. Spencer is one such figure, and he, thankfully, is not President of the United States. Nor should we be surprised that incidents of racism have increased across the US. For God’s sake, the white nationalist’s just had 8 years of a BLACK GUY (Much love Obama) as president of their country! It’s no wonder they feel emboldened and more confident to speak out in the wake of their ‘victory’. Let’s not forget however, that the majority of Americans are not ‘alt-right’ or outwardly racist. Those incidents simply travel farther and echo louder than the incidents of the reverse, which is nothing happening at all. Trump did not win because of race, he won because the American people felt, rightly, cheated and abused by their leadership, and because his campaign was extremely well run.

I expect these racist outbursts to die down, and for the good to triumph over the evil in the long-run. Although If I were living in the United states, I would have made sure I was living in a very, very blue state long before now.

More on something else tomorrow.