And Without Irony (Note on Granma)

From time to time I like to take a look at Granma, the daily newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. In today's web edition the top of the page invites us to take another look at a fragment of one of Fidel's speeches, this one from December, 1988. It's a harangue about the dangers of "social indiscipline," this counterrevolutionary fifth column that threatens to undermine the island. 1988 is twenty years after the beginning of the infamous "Caso Padilla," when poet Heberto Padilla was condemned for publishing his work Fuera de juego. One of the better poems in that collection is "En tiempos difíciles" and it does a nice job of deconstructing the kind of Big Brotherish terror-think that Fidel has been such an expert at inflicting on Cubans for the past half century. Padilla was tortured for daring to call out the double speak.  Castro's "reflection" is a battle cry, a call to fight on many fronts. The classic call from the dictator for his people to sacrifice all for the grand cause so beautifully represented by the Leader.
The image shown above is moving around cyberspace as a call for internet access for Cubans. See a brief explanation here.