War of the Words

One of my greatest fears, even before blogdom, was that with castro's falling a civil war would erupt on the island. I was somewhat sleepless last night ruminating this topic ad nauseam, until it hit me with the clarity of the sun reflecting on the ocean's surface: the civil war had already begun, it started the second fidel stepped into power. Our friend, and former contributor, Kill Castro always spoke of us being at war, but I always took it figuratively. Perhaps it was a depth that I didn't yet grasp.

Yet, it is not figurative it is real, we are at war and people are dying. And it is war unlike any other wars: fought with words and ideals. Many of us know that the battles in la Sierra Maestra were concocted by the barbudos and published through newspapers or Radio Rebelde. We all know that fidel's greatest weapon hasn't been missiles or tanks, but rather propaganda so insanely intense that it fueled the murderous oppression that continues on the island.

castro's greatest weapon-of-mass-hate has been the media. And sadly his allies include our own liberal biased media. A media that can kill -like the bloody results of Newsweek’s false report on Guantanamo Bay. The 20th century suffered under the dictatorship of the media, where truth was obfuscated and reality became fictionalized. And on the forefront of it all was fidel castro.

We are now on the eve of history in the making, as conductor so well put it in his post:witness to history. The advancement in communication, especially through the internet, is displacing the power that the main stream media has monopolized in the past century. We have found our weapon of retaliation, namely blogging, and we are advancing our cause for truth: speaking truth to power, as Val from Babalu so aptly puts it.

The issue, thus, is not whether Cuba will break into civil war with the fall of fidel for we are at Civil War right now. Rather, the issue is how will this war end, with more bloodshed or with diplomatic resolutions. And we can only hope and strive towards the latter since more bloodshed seems so inevitable.

We are at war with fidel, as we are at war with the dictatorship of our media, and we are winning the battle one word of truth at a time.