The only problem with this that I see, is that it would likely enter a very similar Superpower Impasse like what we saw with the USSR/Cuba. A script is eventually written that makes Venezuela “Perpetual Enemy To Us” but in real life, it’s all a planned military and diplomatic standoff.

(*while to the US public, it’s supposed to be all serious and we better pay some money to help it out*)

But unlike the USSR/Cuba situation, Venezuela actually has something to give other nations, and not only that, Venezuela owns a major oil corporation that operates in the US. This is a much more convoluted situation to be sure.

At any rate, all that makes it real hard to determine “Who Writes Their Great Speeches?” Is it simply some Chinese guy or some globalist, or is much of it the man himself? To me, it seems on the surface that it is the man himself, which is why I like the speeches so much.

I don’t think the US policymakers ever truly cared about Cuba beyond the Bay of Pigs days. They spent and wasted a lot of time and money afterward keeping embargoes in place over the decades, making new ones, making new policies regarding Cuba etc. But they stopped wanting to outright kill him after the seminal BoP assault. This was probably first a truce with USSR on the Castro situation, and then later it after the USSR days, it was more like “meh…”

As to Chavez’s USSR support: maybe in his very early days? It’s nothing like the continued throughout-his-rule bankrolling Castro got. As for China, that is trade. It’s not the same as “hi, we’re going to bankroll you just so you can sit and thumb your nose off the Florida coast you whole life.” Yeah… Chavez’s country actually has stuff other people want, which is a luxury Castro did not have.

All in all, regardless of either man’s situations, their speeches throughout their lives were actually awesome. They have been packed full of what *seems* to be initial gut philosophy, and -that- is why I find both Castro and Chavez speeches to be so valuable on their own merit. They lack a careful think-tank scripting that lends a really unique aspect compared to Western nation leadership speeches.

“Chavez” may be the right answer.

Then again, maybe not. He’s been propped up by Cuba, post-Soviet Russia and especially China (through both trade and direct aid in the tens of billions) … a pretty good post-Soviet reconstruction of the same Soviet model that propped up Castro.

Once again, I’m not an admirer of Castro, but think of it this way:

It took a little over three years for the US to defeat Dai Nippon and the Third Reich simultaneously. The ringleaders of both regimes killed themselves or got their necks stretched (excepting Hirohito, who was re-defined to a non-political status).

Little Fidel’s been sitting 90 miles off the US coast, flipping Washington the bird regularly, for 50 years. He will likely die of old age, and it’s starting to look like the regime he founded may be re-defined on his terms and his say-so, rather than on the basis of external pressure or internal collapse. That’s no small thing.

Yes, he held it together with USSR $$$. Your point? Name a Caribbean or Latin American strongman who DIDN’T hold it together with either USSR or US $$$. Castro outlasted them all — Somoza, Ortega, Pinochet, the Duvaliers, Torijosa, Noriega, et al.

Not to mention all three Kennedy brothers, Nixon and Reagan.

I don’t have to like the sonofabitch to admit that he racked up some bragging rights for endurance.

Ousting Batista, that was his finest, and real, achievement.

You write:

“Fidel Castro is going to have to act along with his words.”

Well, no … and as a matter of fact that’s the entire point.

When he was formally The Man, too much was always at stake for him to risk rocking the boat he’d launched.

His own head was on the line if the revolutionists he’d empowered turned against him; and assuming he believed himself to have been acting rightly and even necessarily for the most part, the things he had accomplished were on the line, too.

Now that he’s putatively retired — obviously still involved but no longer “in charge” — he’s free to … well, revise and extend his remarks. His legacy/reputation is secure. No matter what happens next, he’ll always be the guy who overthrew Batista, established socialism in Cuba, held it together for 50 years, and passed the baton on his own terms.

Now, he can change directions — and someone else (Raul, whoever) gets to deal with the fallout. If things go to shit, hey, he was just some guy talking. If, on the other hand, the people respond to what he’s saying and Cuba ends up substantially more free, he gets a big piece of the credit for that too.

Wow, I wouldn’t have ever imagined that I would ever write something like that; the world sure is changing.