Who does the speaker of " i'm explaining a few things" call his brothers?
a. raúl , rafael and federico
b. treacherous generals
c. the audience
d. the poets

The right answer is the A: Raúl, Rafael and Federico, fellow poets and close friends who had lived with him in the emblematic House of the Flowers in Madrid, and who were indeed like brothers to him. He remembers them in these lines with nostalgia and affection. They were the Argentinian Raúl González Tuñón, and the Spaniards Rafael Alberti and Federico García Lorca, whose assassination at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936) caused a tremendous impact on Neruda and on his poetry.  

the speech this question is referring to is president kennedy's special message to the congress on urgent national needs, may 25, 1961

kennedy responds in a very direct and concrete way to those thinking that communism is a positive system:

"yet their aggression is more often concealed than open. they have fired no missiles; and their troops are seldom seen. they send arms, agitators, aid, technicians and propaganda to every troubled area. but where fighting is required, it is usually done by others--by guerrillas striking at night, by assassins striking alone--assassins who have taken the lives of four thousand civil officers in the last twelve months in vietnam alone--by subversives and saboteurs and insurrectionists, who in some cases control whole areas inside of independent nations." (kennedy)

president kennedy presents communism as cowardly, as a hidden and treacherous weapon that strikes from the shadows like thieves, he represents the system as not even being capable of showing and open and overt attack or confrontation. to finish up the response, he expresses that the system attacks even a country's idependence and freedom.

obama was told in early july 2004 that he was chosen to deliver the address, and he largely wrote the speech himself, with later edits from the kerry presidential campaign.