The United States has demonized Castro for decades. Even when he's been dead for years, ask a random US American who Castro was and they either a.) don't know who he is or b.) will say he was that "evil dictator" who oppressed Cuba.
Fidel Castro was not only greater than any political leader the US has ever produced, he also did more to help the people of his country than any US political leader has for theirs. And even if you assume the worst about him that VoCMF says is true, every US president would still be guilty of more crimes against humanity than him by far (other than those presidents who like, died after a couple months in office)
We need a Fidel Castro biopic, just portraying him as the :gigachad-hd: he was
I know it wouldn't work on everyone but the Che movie helped me on my path :shrug-outta-hecks:
The Che movie is pretty cool. The style wasn't my cup of tea but I was just so into the subject matter that it didn't really matter.
(To me, the style reminded me of Das Boot... except of course that movie is kinda pro-fash so obviously it sucks. I just mean that style of war film that seems to sorta splice together scenes from that are only loosely connected to each other, if that makes sense)
I've been thinking about the Easter Rebellion and how only like 1800 men were able to hold onto some significant key landmarks of Dublin and only after the Brtish started just shelling the area were they finally displaced. The Brts even just sent wave after wave of soldiers into the hardened positions losing hundreds of people for like 2 kills. You had the heart of the empire literally next door and though they brought down hellfire on the rebels, it was a pivotal moment that inspired more people to try more in the future and also led to the formation of the IRA from the disparate groups that rose up.
Absolute Chad
(Though if I wanted to be a downer, while Fidel had all those people in his team, quite a lot of them also wore the "person with gun shooting fascists" hat.)
I heard somewhere that Ho Chi Minh started out with 17 men and 14 guns
This is what happens when you kill the hero in your head while trying to do good things. You don't blind yourself to the abilities of comrades around you.
You are cog in machine of revolution, you are not whole machine
So.
If you've been eating from the buffet of "hero" media (I'm being USA-centric here so I hope everybody else can forgive me), you typically see protagonists who can do everything perfectly, Rambo, John Wick, James Bond, etc. They're all supermen, essentially.
They can scale any wall, open any door, have a gizmo that magically gets them out of the exact jam they find themselves in.
This winds up translating into reality, where a person will think, "Hey, I'm not a politician so how can I change politics?" or "I'm not able to punch cops in the face, so I'm not going to be useful in a protest.", or "I don't think I could shoot somebody so I can't be part of the revolution."
The reality, is that you probably know something that could be absolutely useful in a mutual aid project, or at a protest, or in support of people at a protest, or in a revolutionary setting. A good leader isn't a superman who does everything on their own. A good leader is one who knows the mission, its purpose, can teach or find people who believe/agree with the mission and purpose, and can tease out what those comrades know or can do to succeed in the mission.
the most profound gigachad the world had ever seen until that guy from east germany showed up on the internet :gigachad:
near a museum for modern art in Havana, there's a park display showing vehicles associated with the July 26 movement / revolution. there's like a little red and black painted armored vehicle that is the size of a riding mower, which has steel plating as an outer shell w/ little slats to fire out of, and a commercial delivery truck that is all shot up which i believe was used as troop transport.
but the centerpiece is the Granma (after which the official news paper of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee is named), a cabin cruiser boat that was meant to accommodate 12 people. To see it and imagine more than 40 people is insane, let alone 80+.
if i recall che's memoirs correctly, he said something almost everybody had dysentery and was in poor health by the time they landed. and they were spotted by a plane belonging to the regime almost immediately, plus some informer turned on them and they lost some crucial weapons. the first week was an absolute shit show. also, che had asthma. if you haven't read his Reminiscences[/Episodes] of the Cuban Revolutionary War, it is wild. it's not really about politics, it's more of a log of engagements and events and not really something i would be into (not a big military history guy).
my takeaway is that Cuba under the animal and criminal Fulgencio Batista was deeply dysfunctional and everyone except a small rich minority hated it. on paper, Batista should have been able to smash the revolution. but the apparatus of state security was concentrated almost completely on suppressing revolution in the most populated cities and could not spare sending any leader with skills/brains into the mountains. instead suppression of the rural conflict was left up to the local hacienda style assholes and thugs who the local peasants hated more than they feared. the reprisals taken against these communities over the years may have been effective at maintaining the estate system, but the second someone felt there was an alternative, 99% of peasants/workers were either sympathetic, actively supporting, or joining. i think the rule was you could join formally if you brought your own weapon, which restricted the size of the revolutionary forces but led to them almost always having options for food, somewhere to send wounded troops, and guides etc.
We need a better shorthand for countercultural techies. I’m gonna go with programmer socks
Cat ears and a can of monster
Inb4 everyone in the replies tells me how monster is bad, actually.
I think pro wrestling is fundamentally about investing in the characters’ struggles and stories. Like WWE is some bonkers postmodern hellscape now, but there’s still something there
It may seem like sweaty dudes slapping and aggressively hugging but when you look at the stories they tell, it's very proletarian.
Also outside of leftist stuff it's insanely fun because it's a sport built almost entirely around audience participation.
Ah, I see. Those steven universe episodes make more sense now. We need an amethyst/purple puma emoji.
I'd say I want him back but he's right here in our hearts, he lives on as a part of us all :fidel-cool:
I'm pretty sure the owl is relatively useless outside of shitposting
