by David Moglen

Created on: June 25, 2008

Americans are unaware of Fidel Castro's pre-presidential life, which is vital to understanding the context of a Castro-Chavez axis. The puppet figurehead of Cuba-as-client state was Fulgencio Batista. This dictator was held in power by the U.S., as are so many others throughout the world, now and through history. Batista (and his U.S. supporters) allowed a parliamentary election. The rising political star, ecstatic to be a successful front-runner in his country's hopeful nascent democracy was Fidel Castro. A young and charismatic leader, he ran for office as did our own political stars like JFK and Obama.

Unfortunately, this still being the Batista-U.S. run dictatorship, our puppet cancelled elections at the last minute. It became evident to all Cubans that American would under no circumstances allow democracy in Cuba. Seeing that the Batista dictatorship was the only option offered, Castro initiated his own dictatorship. This context is apparently unknown to all Americans, and can be found detailed in historian Stephen Kinzer's must-read book, Overthrow.

The crux of a client-state puppet is that while America would like a popular leader who would also do our bidding, we have to always choose one or the other because a foreign-installed and backed puppet is never popular with his countrymen, and could never win a truly democratic election. This is how America supported the brutal Shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, and today dictators of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and so many other countries where those dictatorships would have no chance at survival without continuous copious U.S. support.

Just about the only credible source about Venezuela is www.Venezuelanalyis.com. It is an infinite resource on every major topic with extremely intellectual and articulate articles. The site is usually available; occasionally it is apparently hacked into and replaced with the shallow front page of a nonexistent travel services company. But most of the time you can see the site, in its depth and contrast from the U.S. mainstream media.

Like Chavez, China has strategic relations with Cuba, but you don't see this relationship systematically demonized. This is despite the fact that the undemocratic forces maintaining power in Cuba and China are much more similar than any false symmetry with Venezuela's democratic electoral system. Perhaps it is just a simplicity, a convenient target of our media due to the fact they are both from the same general region (Latin America) and speak the same language. Direct similarities end there. But for the goal of demonizing leftists, that may be enough for our one-sided U.S. media, the eviscerated fourth pillar of government stripped down to an amplifier of GOP talking points.

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