Fidel Castro: The Insanities
of Our Times
HAVANA (Prensa Latina) - Leader of the Cuban
Revolution Fidel Castro, said that the
infinite cost of investments in the relevant
research is showing the impossibility to
achieve in a few decades what it took the
universe tens of thousands of millions of
years to create.
In an article entitled "The Insanities of
Our Times," released by Cubadebate website,
Fidel Castro said that science has
experienced a remarkable growth but
ignorance and poverty grow too.
"The human being managed to raise its life
possibilities to such limits as exceeds his
own capacity to survive, and in this battle
they are consuming at an accelerated pace
the raw materials available to them.
Fidel Castro stresses that "at the same
time, science has created the capacity to
destroy the planet several times over in a
matter of hours. The major contradiction of
our times is precisely the capacity of the
human species for self-destruction and its
inability to govern itself."
Prensa Latina posts below the full-text
version:
Reflections by comrade Fidel
The Insanities of Our Times
We have no choice but to call a spade a
spade. Those who still have a pinch of
common sense find it easy to see how little
realism is being left in today's world.
When American President Barack Obama was
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Michael
Moore said, "Now, earn it." Many people
liked the ingenious comment; it was a smart
phrase, even though many found the decision
of the Norwegian Committee an example of
demagoguery and the exaltation of the
apparently harmless petty-politics of the
new US President, an African-American, a
good communicator and a clever politician
leading a powerful empire involved in a deep
economic crisis.
The World Conference in Copenhagen was about
to be held and Obama sparked off hopes that
the United States would join the world
consensus in favor of a binding agreement to
prevent the ecologic catastrophe threatening
the human species. What happened there was
disappointing; the international public had
become the victim of a painful deception.
At the recent World Conference of the
Peoples on Climate Change and the Rights of
the Mother Land held in Bolivia responses
were offered filled with the wisdom of the
ancient indigenous nationalities, invaded
and virtually devastated by the European
conquerors who, in search of gold and easy
wealth, imposed for centuries their selfish
cultures incompatible with the most sacred
interests of mankind.
Two news reports received yesterday are an
expression of the empire's philosophy
intending to make us believe in its
"democratic, peaceful, selfless and honest"
nature. Suffice it to read the text of said
press dispatches dated in the US capital.
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2010. - US
President Barack Obama is examining the
possibility of deploying an arsenal of
missiles with conventional non-nuclear
warheads and a very powerful explosion
capacity that can hit their targets anywhere
in the world in about an hour.
Albeit the new super-bomb, delivered by
Minuteman missiles, will not carry nuclear
warheads their destructive capability will
be similar, as confirmed by the fact that
their deployment is foreseen in the recently
signed START 2 agreements with Russia.
The Moscow authorities demanded, and managed
to include in the agreement, that the United
States will remove one of its nuclear
warhead missiles for each one of these
missiles.
According to reports in the New York Times
and the CBS TV network, the new bomb known
as Prompt Global Strike (PGS) should be able
to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in a
cave in Afghanistan, destroy a North Korean
missile in full preparation or attack an
Iranian nuclear site, �all of this without
crossing the nuclear thresholds.
The advantage of having the military option
of a non-nuclear weapon with the same effect
of the targeted impact of a nuclear bomb is
judged interesting by the Obama
Administration.
The project had been initially undertaken by
Obama's predecessor, Republican President
George W. Bush, but it was blocked by
Moscow's protestations. The Russian
authorities had said that given the
Minuteman's capability to deliver nuclear
warheads, it was impossible to determine
that the launching of a PGS did not mark the
beginning of a nuclear attack.
However, the Obama Administration feels that
it can give Russia and China the necessary
guarantees to avoid misunderstandings. The
missile silos of the new weapon will be
raised in areas distant from the nuclear
warhead deposits and they can be regularly
supervised by experts from Moscow or
Beijing.
The super-bomb could be delivered by a
Minuteman missile capable of flying through
the atmosphere at sound speed while carrying
one thousand pounds of explosives. Then,
extremely sophisticated equipment will
enable the missile to release the bomb
letting it fall with great accuracy on the
selected targets.
Responsibility for the PGS project -at an
estimated cost of $250 million only in its
first experimental year fell on General
Kevin Chilton, commander of the US nuclear
arsenal. Chilton explained that the PGS will
be filling up a gap in the range of options
currently available to the Pentagon.
'At the moment,' he said, 'we can target any
place in the world with non-nuclear weapons
in a frame of time of no less than four
hours.For a faster action,' he conceded, 'we
only have the nuclear option.'
With the new bomb, in the future the United
States could act quickly and with
conventional resources both against a
terrorist group or an enemy country, in a
much shorter time and avoiding international
indignation over the use of nuclear weapons.
It is planned to start testing in 2014 and
to have it available in the US arsenal by
2017. Obama will no longer be in power but
the super-bomb can be the non-nuclear legacy
of this President who was already awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize.
WASHINGTON, April 22, 2010. - A US Air
Force non-piloted spaceship took off from
Florida this Thursday, its military mission
covered by veil of secrecy.
The automated spaceship or X-37B was
launched from Cape Canaveral in an Atlas V
rocket at the 19:52 hours local time (23:52
hrs GMT), according to a video distributed
by the army.
'The launching is imminent,' said to the
France Press Agency US Air Force Major Angie
Blair.
The plane looking like a miniature spaceship
is 8.9 meters long by 4.5 meters wingspan.
It has taken years to manufacture the
reusable spaceship and the army has offered
only vague explanations on its objective or
its role in the military arsenal.
The vehicle has been designed 'to create the
ambiance of an "orbital laboratory" to put
to the test new technologies and components
before these technologies are assigned to
ongoing satellite programs,' stated the Air
Force in a recent communiqué.
Officials have said that the X-37B will be
landing at the Vandenberg Air Force base in
California, although they did not say how
long its first mission will last.
'To be honest, we don't know when it will
return,' said to the press this week Gary
Payton, second assistant secretary of the
Air Force space programs.
Payton indicated that the ship could stay in
space up to nine months.
The aircraft, manufactured by Boeing,
started in 1999 as a US National Space
Agency (NASA) project and was later
transferred to the Air Force, which has
plans to launch a second X-37B by 2011.
Do they need anything else?
Today they face an enormous obstacle: the
already unstoppable climate change. There is
talk of the unavoidable rise of heat by more
than two degrees centigrade, with
catastrophic consequences. Within only 40
years, the world population will increase in
2 billion to reach the figure of 9 billion
people in that short time. Harbors, hotels,
tourist resorts, roads, industries and
facilities close to the ports will be
underwater in less time than a generation
from a wealthy and developed nation needs to
enjoy half their lives, the same nations
that today selfishly refuse to make the
least of sacrifices to preserve the survival
of the human species. The farming land and
the drinking water will be considerably
reduced. The oceans will be contaminated and
many marine species will no longer be edible
while others will be extinct. This is not
simply a logical assertion but the result of
scientific research.
Through natural genetics and the transfer of
various species from one continent to
another, human beings had been able to
increase food and other useful crop
productions per hectare. Thus, for some
time, man suffered less from the shortage of
such food as maize, potato, wheat, fiber and
other necessary products. Later, genetic
manipulation and the use of chemical
fertilizers also contributed to the solution
of crucial needs but they too are coming to
the end of their possibilities to produce
healthy food for human consumption.
On the other hand, we are witnessing the
depletion in barely two centuries of the
hydrocarbons that it took nature 400 million
years to create. Likewise, crucial
no-renewable mineral resources required by
the world economy are being depleted. At the
same time, science has created the capacity
to destroy the planet several times over in
a matter of hours. The major contradiction
of our times is precisely the capacity of
the human species for self-destruction and
its inability to govern itself.
The human being managed to raise its life
possibilities to such limits as exceed its
own capacity to survive, and in this battle
they are consuming at an accelerated pace
the raw materials available to them. Science
made it possible to turn matter into energy,
as in the case of the nuclear reaction,
--through large investments-- but there is
no sign that turning energy into matter is
even viable. The infinite cost of
investments in the relevant research is
showing the impossibility to achieve in a
few decades what it took the universe tens
of thousands of millions of years to create.
Will it be necessary for Barack Obama, the
wunderkind, to explain it to us? Science has
experienced a remarkable growth but
ignorance and poverty grow too. Can anyone
prove the opposite?
Fidel Castro Ruz
April 25, 2010
6:30 P.M. |
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