A more succinct Fidel Castro asserts himself

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

A more succinct Fidel Castro asserts himself

By Jeff Franks
HAVANA | Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:43pm EDT

(Reuters) - A new, briefer Fidel Castro has emerged in Cuba, where for the past 10 days he has been dispensing varied bits of wisdom in Twitteresque pieces that have people wondering what he is up to.

The former leader famous for his marathon speeches and long-winded essays is now expressing his thoughts in a couple of paragraphs, haiku-like in their brevity and opaqueness.

He is publishing something almost every day, versus every few weeks as he did when he was writing full-blown columns, or “"Reflections" as he calls them.

The change in style and the burst of productivity have led to a number of theories about what Castro is doing, which he may have tried to explain in his first new-format Reflection, written on June 10 under the headline "“What are the FC?"

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-cuba-castro-reflections-idUSBRE85J01920120620

[flamingdem]

1. When will he get a twitter account?

He would be more popular than Hugo. I imagine 10 million followers, more than Brittney I believe.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. succinct? or incoherent?

On Tuesday, he published two Reflections, one a two-paragraph entry on the expanding universe, the other a single paragraph marveling at yoga experts and plugging a Cuban television show.

.............
Those were preceded on Monday by a piece about the cultivation of moringa and mulberry trees to provide food and fiber for Cuba.

He praised former East German leader Erich Honecker in one column and dissed former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in another, which some viewed as a warning that economic reforms promulgated by his younger brother, President Raul Castro, should not stray too far from communist ideals.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Honecker was famous for his resistance to changing the communist system even as the Cold War was ending, while Deng initiated reforms that led to “market socialism in China.

[joshcryer]

3. He's not been very coherent since he said al-Qaeda was a threat.

[EFerrari]

9. Fidel is an excellent writer.

I really can't think of another head of state in my lifetime that has been so gifted.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Rotters consults the CIA and "dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez"'s Tweets...

...along with "a Communist Party member who asked not to be named"--for comments on this curious article.

Why this article? That is the question.

They never covered Castro's political speeches and writings on world affairs when those speeches and writings were long, detailed and distinctly "dissident" as to the CIA's view of the world. Why did they decide to cover his "haikus" now?

It must puzzle these "Castro watchers" to have a world leader not uttering canned phrases in the "warspeak" of the 1%. For those kind of leaders, all they have to do is plug a few names and dates into the program, to produce endlessly uninformative, so-called 'news' articles. Imagine them in their hovel in Langley pouring over the elderly Castro's thoughts on the expanding universe or farming.

Lol!

How to "spin" it? What "talking point" to slip to Rotters, et al, in the back alleys of Washington DC? And--my original question--why?

Did you ever wonder why the CIA is so obsessed with Castro? They thought they had taken care of him with the exploding cigars and all, but he just keeps on keeping on. It could be that kind of obsession. They just can't stand it, that they can't kill him and can't shut him up and all of their efforts have gone for naught in Latin America where virtually everybody--right, left and center--recognizes Cuba's government as legitimate. Indeed, that is the opinion of the world in general. What is the CIA's problem?!

Now they're ridiculing him in his old age, when--let me tell you--thoughts of the macrocosm and the microcosm (the expanding universe and farming) definitely start occurring to people as this "mortal coil" slips away from us. What have we done with our tiny "paradise" in this mindbogglingly vast and apparently expanding cosmic space exploding with hundreds of billions of stars?

How to get Marriots onto those pristine beaches (the sort of thing the CIA aims at, on behalf of our transglobal rulers) seems monumentally petty and venal, as you get older (if you have any sensibility at all). Is it that "Castro"--as an idea--stands in the way of these petty, money-grubbing schemes--so they have to keep picking at him? Is this article a CIA facial tic?

[flamingdem]

5. Beautifully stated Peace Patriot

nt

[Peace Patriot]

6. Inspired--the CIA "facial tic"--if I do say so myself!

I can see this old, Graham Greene-type guy, looking shabby, decrepit and out-of-time, in his dirty white fedora and wrinkled suit--the ghost of Richard Helms--sitting alone in a dark corner of a pole-dancing dive in Miami, getting quietly drunk, staring into space with bleary red eyes, completely indifferent to the tits and ass on stage and to the raucous celebrants all around him and tens of thousands more out dancing in the streets of Miami, on the day of Fidel Castro's funeral. The scene ends with a tracking shot into his murky corner and a close-up of his ravaged visage. Tears aglitter from the revolving mirror ball fall from his eyes onto his long white beard and an uncontrollable facial tic flutters like a butterfly next to his left eye.

I think I'll write me a movie script called "The Tic."

[flamingdem]

7. I'm up for being the producer!

How does the movie open?

[Peace Patriot]

8. The movie opens on Nov. 22, 1963, with two covert operatives toasting each other...

...in a dark corner of a Miami bar.

1st covert operative writes, "What next?" on his cocktail napkin. The 2nd covert operative scribbles something which, with all the new special effects capabilities, spins around the empty bar breaking rows of glasses and whiskey bottles, and ends up written across the Miami sky as a banner trailed by a small aircraft: "Fidel!"

Meanwhile, in Havanna....

[flamingdem]

10. Who are you going to cast as Fidel?

[Peace Patriot]

11. Johnny Depp, of course. Who else?

It'll be kind of like "Men in Black." With a big scoop of "Dr. Strangelove." And a bit of "E.T.," too, for the kiddies (the part where the men in "clean suits" come in through the "clean tubes" and almost kill E.T.) (in this movie, they do.) (Scratch the kiddies--"R" rating.) Oh, and John Cleese will play Richard Helms (or maybe Bush Sr.)