June 14 is the birthday of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna known to most of us by his nickname "Che".

If all you know about Che is stuff you’ve picked up from US media, then take some time today to educate yourself about the other side of the Che story. I’ve added Jon Lee Anderson’s "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life" to my book recommendations.

I dare anyone to read that book, along with Che’s diaries, and still think this man was a violent, bloodthirsty dictator.

I’ve read them both (along with a few other books about Che) and it just doesn’t add up in my mind. Violent dictators rarely talk endlessly about social justice. Che (and Fidel too, for that matter) spent his life arguing eloquently for the need to equal rights for all people. He put his life on the line to fight for the rights of the poor people in Cuba and Bolivia.

If all he wanted was power (which is usually what motivates dictators), why leave Cuba at the height of his success to go into the jungles of Bolivia? It doesn’t make sense.

Compare Che’s words to the speeches and writing of Hitler or Stalin or even the last half dozen American Presidents and you’ll spot the difference.

And, if you can, watch Steven Soderbergh’s recent film about Che. I don’t think it’s out on DVD yet but I’ve seen Part One and it’s terrific.

I was having coffee with TPN host Nick Bruse this morning before he and his partner leave tomorrow to travel around South America for six months (anyone want to take over the Cleantech Show on TPN? Ping me). We were talking about the application of nanotechnology to building a cleaner world and I asked Nick if he’d every read K. Eric Drexler’s classic “Engines Of Creation”. He said he hadn’t and told me I should post my library up online. It got me thinking…

As I’m once again packing up my book collection into boxes, I thought it was a good time to make a database of the books I’ve got. Bronwen pointed me to this online tool called Shelfari which is pretty bloody good. You enter the title or author of the book and it searches a database and presents you with some options. You click on the “Add To My Bookshelf” button and search for the next book. You can share your collection with others and they have blog widgets, etc. Very nicely done!

When I was about 19 I met a self-made millionaire called Peter Daniels. He gave me this piece of advice: “Spend 10% of your income on your brain for the rest of your life.” Astoundingly simple but how many of us do that? Do you get that message drilled into you from the media, the government, the education system, the church? It’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received.

Tonight, as I peruse through my library, I have such fond memories of so many of these titles. I could probably tell you what lesson I learned from each one. Every book I’ve kept holds a special place in my library and in my life.

If you are what you read, then the below widget contains my brain. I am just starting to add them – check back over the next week to see my entire library.

Yesterday I was presented with an early Xmas gift from Nick Hodge – Fidel Castro’s “My Life”, a recently published volume of interviews conducted by Ignacio Ramonet, the long-time editor of the French magazine Le Monde Diplomatique, professor of communication at the University Denis Diderot in Paris and founder of Media Watch Global.

This has jumped to the very top of my reading list.

Ramonet spent one hundred hours interviewing Castro between 2003 and 2005. Castro then reviewed the entire manuscript in 2006. This, then, is the closest we will ever get to having Fidel Castro’s autobiography.

Ramonet says he wrote it because young people around the world know little of the truth about Castro. After 48 years of American negative propaganda against him and the Cuban Revolution, the perception of Castro is mostly negative. He is perceived as a brutal dictator, a relic from the Cold War. Ramonet, however, paints a very different picture of the man. He describes him as “shy, a polite, affable man who pays attention to each person he talks to and speaks without affectation, yet with the manners and gestures of a somewhat old-fashioned courtesy that has earned him the title of ‘the last Spanish gentleman’.” He is also “indefatigable” – in his eighties, he still sleeps on average 4 hours a night, working through until five or six am every day, with his entourage of young assistants asleep on their feet. He lives frugally, with no luxury spent on himself – no palaces for Fidel. He is a man with a never-ending series of Big Ideas.

Ramonet writes of Castro:

“Moved by humanitarian compassion and internationalist solidarity, he has a dream, which he has spoken about a thousand times, of bringing health and knowledge, medicines and education, to every corner of the planet.

As for Cuba itself, Ramonet writes:

“Although the face of Fidel is often in the press, on television and in the street, there is no official portrait, nor is there a statue or coin or avenue or building or monument dedicated to Fidel Castro or any other living leader of the Revolution.

Despite the unceasing harassment from abroad, this little country, clinging to its sovereignty, has achieved undeniably admirable results in the area of human development: the abolition of racism, the emancipation of women, the eradication of illiteracy, a drastic reduction in infant mortality rates, a higher level of general knowledge…. In questions of education, health, medical research and sports, Cuba has achieved results that nany developed nations would envy.

Despite the persistent attacks by the United States and the 600 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, Cuba has never responded with violence. For forty-eight years, not a single act of violence encouraged or sponsored by Cuba has occurred in the United States.”

Cuba gets (and deserves) criticism from Amnesty International for some of its policies which deny it’s citizens civil freedoms, such as the freedom of association, freedom of opinion, freedom of movement, and the use of the death penalty. However there are no reported cases of torture in Cuba or ‘disappearances’, the murder of journalists or political assassinations or protest marchers beaten by police. There has NEVER been a popular uprising against the regime – in nearly fifty years. To understand why Cuba has some of those civil freedom restrictions, you have to understand the forces trying to destroy Cuba.

The Unites States government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this decade alone trying to oust Castro, through NGO’s such as the “National Endowment for Democracy” (NED) and the “United States Agency for International Development” (USAID), which alone has delivered over $65 million to anti-Castro groups since 1996. According to Ramonet, hundreds of journalists around the world are paid to spread negative propaganda about Castro. Funding is provided by the USA to terrorist organisations hostile to the Cuban government such as Alpha 66 and to the now-perhaps-disbanded Omega 7.

Cuba has been under a devastating and evil economic embargo from the USA since 1960, severely crippling its economy, and yet Castro continues to defy their attempts to destroy the Revolution. He has survived relentless attacks on his person and his country by the most powerful economic and military superpower on the planet for 48 years while continuing to improve the living conditions of the 11 million citizens of Cuba.

The key to understanding Cuba and Castro is that you have to understand what life was like back before the Revolution when Cuba was governed by a series of corrupt and brutal regimes directly supported by the US government and US corporations. The quality of life for the citizens of Cuba was terrible. Castro changed all of that. He ousted Bastista’s corrupt regime and the US interests that backed it. He has significantly improved the living conditions of the Cuban people, all while fighting off the US government’s continued attempts on his life.

Please – read this book.