Protest slanders, subpoenas on supporters of Cuba
In 1959, led by Fidel Castro, Cuba’s workers and peasants made a thoroughgoing social revolution and have defended it arms-in-hand for 67 years. They have inspired workers and oppressed peoples worldwide to seek to emulate their socialist revolution, including in the U.S.
The bipartisan U.S. rulers have never forgiven them for taking this jewel out of their greedy hands. Today they are escalating their assault on Cuba.
Street protests and other public actions are needed to demand a halt to the U.S. rulers’ brutal drive to starve the Cuban people into submission. Join in building actions to demand an end to Washington’s blockade and win your co-workers and unions to take part.
Show Cuba’s workers and farmers they aren’t alone in the fight to defend their revolution. Use the Militant to get out the truth about Cuba and answer Washington’s lies about the real cause of the devastating conditions there today.
The U.S. rulers continue to ratchet up their punishing sanctions and have imposed an oil blockade to deprive the Cuban people of electricity, essential goods and cripple production.
At the same time, the capitalist rulers are stepping up their attacks at home on workers’ jobs, wages and conditions to boost profits and provide funds to expand their military. They’re driving to deal blows to their rivals abroad to reinforce their weakened domination, an effort that will inevitably lead to new, devastating wars worldwide. Crucial to advancing both of these goals is crushing the one example that shows there is an alternative to capitalist exploitation and oppression. The Cuban Revolution shows that with leadership workers anywhere can take power into our own hands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated Washington’s slanders Aug. 1 that Cuba is a “failed state” and “a national security threat to our country.” Days earlier the State Department issued a scurrilous report, “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” that fingers organizations and individuals as “subversive” and “foreign agents” because they speak out in defense of Cuba’s sovereignty.
The government has subpoenaed three organizations — The People’s Forum, BreakThrough News and Tricontinental: Institute of Social Research — that have spoken out in defense of Cuba. It’s also grilling volunteers who deliver aid to Cuba. This attempt to force testimony from opponents of U.S. foreign policy is an assault on constitutional protections of free speech and political association. All working people have a stake in defending these freedoms. The subpoenas should be immediately quashed.
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The Cuban people refuse to bow to Washington’s dictates and to surrender their country’s sovereignty. They refuse to go back to the days when they lived in impoverished conditions, faced bloody repression and had no control over their destinies — under the domination of U.S. imperialism and its local henchman, dictator Fulgencio Batista.
In the face of the crisis imposed by Washington today, workers and farmers in Cuba are looking out for one another and fighting to ensure the most vulnerable get seen to first. They’re using ingenuity and collaboration to counter the impact of the U.S.-driven shortages.
Their efforts are a product of how the Cuban people were transformed in their historic battle to take power and uproot capitalist exploitation. They mobilized to eradicate illiteracy and racial discrimination, drew women into social action, nationalized the banks, big business and the land, and took control of their own destiny. Working-class solidarity flourished.
In the decades that followed, hundreds of thousands of Cubans joined anti-imperialist struggles, from Vietnam to Africa; in Guinea-Bissau, bringing down Portuguese colonialism; in Angola, defeating the invading South African apartheid army; and much more.
Their fighting qualities and internationalism give toiling humanity a powerful glimpse of our future.
Join the defense of the world’s one living socialist revolution! U.S. hands off Cuba! Drop attacks on supporters of Cuba!