the best of fidel

it's pretty obvious that fidel castro is about to leave the world stage. there's plenty to criticize about fidel, though the creepy rich exiles waiting in miami to reclaim their fincas and mansions at the expense of the Cuban people do not exactly have my sympathy. anyway, here is an excerpt that caught my eye from his "second declaration of havana" in the early 1960s.

"The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution. It is known that the revolution will triumph in America and throughout the world, but it is not for revolutionaries to sit in the doorways of their houses waiting for the corpse of imperialism to pass by. The role of Job doesn't suit a revolutionary. Each year that the liberation of America is speeded up will mean the lives of millions of children saved, millions of intelligences saved for culture, an in­finite quantity of pain spared the people. Even if the Yankee imperialists prepare a bloody drama for America, they will not succeed in crushing the peoples' struggles, they will only arouse universal hatred against themselves. And such a drama will also mark the death of their greedy and carnivorous system. "

okay, forty years later. still waiting. I guess we've all become Job.