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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#91

Post by Lordarminius »

After reading some of the comments here, my fath in the human race is not enhanced.

Castro was a genuine hero and a great man; indeed among the top 10 greatest individuals of the 20th century. He believed in freedom and dignity. He saw the US government as the enemy of progress everywhere in the world; he wanted people to be free and he devoted his life to that ideal.

How many people can you say that of?

> He was also an evil dictator...

Lol @ evil dictator. Fidel Castro never killed as many people as Nixon, Reagan, Bush or Blair. He did not go half way around the world as Thatcher did to claim an Island 4,000 km away from home (Falklands).

>...who silenced any and all opposition

What opposition? Imperialists and mafia members who wished to turn Cuba into an enclave for gambling? CIA operatives who tried to return Cuba to its occupied past?

> just look at Cuba today

Just look at Iraq, Libya,Syria today. And while you are at it; look also at Iran, China, Russia (which evaded western occupation). Indeed, look at Mexico which is friendly terms and has not been invaded yet by the US and tell me how much they have gained from that relationship.

I detest the hypocrisy I see in many (not all) western commentators. The spin and one sided arguments, the glossing over historical truths. Cuba is behind in development because of the American embargo.Simple. Not because the regime had no plan for economic development. In healthcare, this small nation with a health care budget 0.001% of the US beats the USA hands down in universal coverage and access to health. Who knows what would have happened if previous administrations had left them alone.

Finally, Castro sent troops to Africa to fight against colonial occupiers. He sent armies to harass the apartheid regime at the Angolan/ Namibian border. This counts as a plus in my book.

Rest on Fidel. You have fought the fight and lived like a man. I will pray for you. May heaven receive your soul.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#92

Post by justicezyx »

elcapitan wrote: post #66
djsumdog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism. A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have no…

> When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up w…

This is a good joke, but unfortunately, is not an accurate description of communism. As the parent comment suggests, there were no real communism nation on earth ever.

""" In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] """ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#93

Post by vivekd »

chirau wrote: post #24

As an African, I'd say the world has lost one of the most influential leaders of the past century. To pretend here, for me, as if he was cruel to our continent would be both ungrateful and untrue. The man offered free training and medical school for most of our African doctors, he harbored, trained and armed many a guerilla group in our pursuit of independence from colonization. Up until today, Cuba still sends signi…

I'm sure every horrible person did some good and charitable things sometimes. Hitler started the first anti smoking campaigns, was opposed to animal cruelty and did many charitable works to help the poor in his nation. That doesn't change that he was a very oppressive leader and the mere fact that we can find some good things he did doesn't make Hitler a Legend who lives on.

No I'm not denying that providing hospitals and doctors to Africa is a good thing, but America, and even ordinary Americans like Bill Gates have done so much more for Africa than Castro ever did, and it seems rather unfair that Western efforts are neglected and we are seen as colonizers to seek independence from whereas brutal and oppressive dictators such as Castro are presented as honored crusaders for throwing a smidgen of help to Africa.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#94

Post by aaron695 »

Shanea93 wrote: post #28
chirau wrote: post #24

As an African, I'd say the world has lost one of the most influential leaders of the past century. To pretend here, for me, as if he was cruel to our continent would be both ungrateful and untrue. The man offered free training and medical school for most of our African doctors, he harbored, trained and armed many a guerilla group in our pursuit of independence from colonization. Up until today, Cuba still sends signi…

Not sure why this is being downvoted, it adds to the conversation, there is merit to the viewpoint that you can be both terrible to your own people while being generous to the people of other countries. I might not have liked the man but the reasoning behind his interventions in Africa were just as sound as the US interventions.

The view point is very interesting.

But I'd say its factually incorrect.

Should incorrect statements be downvoted even if it shows an interesting state of mind?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#95

Post by mememachine »

phs318u wrote: post #76
mememachine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

intentions < results in my book

Can you name a single leader of any stripe anywhere, in the last 50 years, whose results exceeded their intentions? Isn't it the very definition of a politician that they over-promise and under-deliver?

i dont think you can make a coherent argument that castro simply had "underwhelming" results

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#96

Post by ekianjo »

CalChris wrote: post #50
gragas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's absolutely insane to side with Castro. Even if you agree with his political philosophy, there is overwhelming objective evidence of how awful it is: - Cuban economy - Cuban quality of life - basic Cuban freedoms (like supporting parties other than the one in power)

Per capita GDP for Cuba is $6,789 Mexico $9,909 Guatamala $3,666 Honduras $2,495 I'd say Cuba is in the mix GDP-wise. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

> Per capita GDP for Cuba is $6,051.22

That does not mean anything if the wealth is not well distributed (which is the case when elites keep the wealth and everyone else is poor).

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#97

Post by coldtea »

grzm wrote: post #57
friendlygrammar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How am I going to comment civilly? This is a dictator and there are people praising him here! WTF. This might be easy for you to comment on when you didn't lose your entire life because of this man but people have.

Here's a possible starting point: It's crucial to remember that Castro silenced all who disagreed with him. He condemned an entire nation to poverty! His most notable achievement with regards to Africa was sending soldiers to extend the life of wars. It's stripped of the insults to those that disagree with you and complaints of down voting. In my experience users on HN will down vote tone more often than they will do…

>He condemned an entire nation to poverty!

That's more because of the embargo than anything Cubans did. And even given that, they do way better than most latin american "free" nations.

>His most notable achievement with regards to Africa was sending soldiers to extend the life of wars.

Let's not go into which country, besides Germany and USSR, started more wars, meddled in more places, held more peopls down by installing friendly dictators in power, and caused more hurt in the 20th/21st century...

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#98

Post by edblarney »

coldtea wrote: post #77
edblarney wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a disturbing position. I don't doubt that his doctors may have helped you. However, the man has committed grievous crimes, keeps 'his people' in abject poverty, on an 'island prison'. More than 85% of the economy is in the control of the military - his private Army. "Up until today, Cuba still sends significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free." This…

> However, the man has committed grievous crimes Way less crimes than those who accuse him. Never sprayed Vietnamese with Agent Orange or napalms for one, never dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, never supported Pinochet et co, doesn't have 25% of the world's incarcerated in just 4% of the global population, and lots of other things besides. > keeps 'his people' in abject poverty A 40+ years embargo has something to…

+ "It's in control of the state, " - actually, it's in control of the Army directly.

+ The US sprayed 'agent orange' on trees near their firebases, and the vast majority of the 'victims' were American soldiers, not Vietnamese. Obviously, they didn't know what it would do.

+ The 'embargo' is 100% the fault of Fidel. He put nuclear weapons 40 miles away from florida, from those who backed by the credible threat of using them, thereby putting hundreds of millions of lives at risk. That's why the embargo started - he had ample time to wind it down. Jimmy Carter, Clinton, Obama - and even Bush Sr. would have made a deal of Fidel agreed to have elections.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#99

Post by meowface »

edblarney wrote: post #54
chirau wrote: post #24

As an African, I'd say the world has lost one of the most influential leaders of the past century. To pretend here, for me, as if he was cruel to our continent would be both ungrateful and untrue. The man offered free training and medical school for most of our African doctors, he harbored, trained and armed many a guerilla group in our pursuit of independence from colonization. Up until today, Cuba still sends signi…

This is a disturbing position. I don't doubt that his doctors may have helped you. However, the man has committed grievous crimes, keeps 'his people' in abject poverty, on an 'island prison'. More than 85% of the economy is in the control of the military - his private Army. "Up until today, Cuba still sends significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free." This…

I think we can admit that there was good and bad to him and he was not objectively virtuous or evil.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#100

Post by wallace_f »

gragas wrote: post #48
wallace_f wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't argue that his political philosophy works either---just look at Cuba today. As someone who studied the subject formally, don't place maximum weight on the success and failures of the (statistically insignificant) rise and fall of modern nation states. This is a very far cry from a controlled experiment to begin with, anyways. Don't read into that too much. I'm not saying mainstream economics doesn't have…

Okay, I won't put too much weight on objective facts. I guess that destroys my argument that there hasn't been a single successful planned economy in history so far.

There is not even such thing. There exists no major economy in modern history which is either 100% planned or 100% "free market" (anarchist).

Well anyways, the objective fact here is that Cuba is objectively richer and more successful than some nearby economies that have had more right wing influence in nearby Central America.

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