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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#271

Post by Lordarminius »

Lordarminius wrote: post #91

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 als…

Its too late to edit my prior post so I'll just stick these Castro quotes in here:

  " They talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?"

  " ...I began a revolution with 82 men. 
    If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 
    and absolute faith. 
    It does not matter how small you are if you have faith
    and a plan of action."

    Fidel Castro 1926 - 2016

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#272

Post by chillacy »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #121

Has there been a single anti-American dictator who has actually improved the lives of their people? It seems the amount of anti-American rhetoric is directly correlated with how much they screw their country over.

Interesting question. I think that depends on how you define "their people". In some sense, all dictators improved the lives of "their people".

Nelson Mandela for instance made life better for black South Africans, but he's implicated in violence against white south africans.

Hitler made life better for many Germans, especially given the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Turning back to the US, you could argue that those descended from native americans have not had their lives improved by an ugly history of genocide. The US also enslaved people who our citizens today descended from. There was also internment of Japanese-American citizens. And to this day, high incarceration rates for the poor/minorities.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#273

Post by oblio »

tekni5 wrote: post #137
mememachine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the incredible harm to humanity done at the hands of communists over just the past 100 years alone

Just want to mention that actual communism has never been implemented on any significant scale, the Soviet Union for example never reached communism, arguably never even really reached socialism. Marx suggested that communism will only emerge after the failure of capitalism. Every single communist regime has ignored this idea. While I agree that many countries who have followed communist ideas have done some horrible…

Theoretical communism is useless and this "no true Scotsman" argument is useless, at least for the foreseeable future.

How is communism going to handle malicious parties, since there's no ownership? How is communism going to handle needs for abstract needs, such as those for services? Marx didn't really think things through. You don't need strong AI, you need the singularity to centrally plan humanity. Until then you need to allow freedom of action for individual actors, i.e. rule of law + market economies.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#274

Post by bzbarsky »

betolink wrote: post #191
endisukaj wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fidel never had as much subjects as Stalin to kill.

How many did Fidel kill?

Finding unbiased numbers is hard, obviously. Maybe we'll know more about it 50 years from now, but at the moment our knowledge is approximately what it was for the Soviet Union right after Stalin's death or so, yes?

That said, I have yet to see anything resembling a credible source that claimed more than 10,000 direct deaths caused by the Castro regime. I've seen much higher numbers (50,000 or more) in terms of indirect deaths: people trying to get out of Cuba and drowning in the process.

The population of Cuba around the time of the revolution was about 7 million; now it's around 11 million. The population of the Soviet Union in the 1930s was between 150 and 200 million (good statistics are hard to come by; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937) for why). Even if we take the extreme 7 million and 200 million numbers, 10,000 Cuban deaths is equivalent to about 285,000 Soviet deaths on a per-capita basis. And that's over a 50-year or so period. So yes, Stalin killed a lot more people no matter how you count it. Of course, "leader who killed a smaller percentage of the population than Stalin" is a _really_ low bar; pretty much everyone except Pol Pot clears it.

In general, the "Cuba under Castro" numbers for political violence don't seem any worse than other Latin American countries in the 20th century. Again, this isn't _good_, just like it's not good that we can end up talking about "oh, that's equivalent to hundreds of thousands of deaths on a per-capita basis, which is _tiny_". :(

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#276

Post by pavanky »

wildmusings wrote: post #233
jknoepfler wrote: post #119

I would encourage the commenters in this thread who see Fidel's legacy as a black-and-white matter of an "evil dictator who did bad things and was wrong about economics" to step back, bear witness to the objective facts about Fidel Castro's life ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro ), think sincerely about what could lead a highly intelligent and charismatic person to become or follow Fidel Castro (as many ha…

My family and the family of just about everyone I grew up around had their whole lives destroyed by this evil man. He has executed thousands, has imprisoned thousands more, and has totally ruined a country that was once the most prosperous in Latin America. You may philosophize about the 'complexity' of the life of this evil man, but for people who actually lived under his abuse, who have seen what he has done to the…

I am sorry others have been dismissing your comment outright. But please understand what OP is saying does not seem to imply that we philosophize the 'complexity of life' of Fidel Castro the individual, but rather the set of people he belongs to: popular revolutionaries who became dictators hated by their own people.

What happened in Cuba after Castro came into power is similar to what happened in other countries after the revolutionaries won. We should try and understand if these sorts of people were evil to begin with or became evil as a natural transition after tasting power following a successful revolution.

Simply terming them as evil (honestly, Castro and others did many evil deeds), and not trying to understand and learn from the pattern is going to be a problem that humanity as a whole will suffer from.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#278

Post by int_19h »

matt4077 wrote: post #153
gragas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with a superpower fixated on killing you (and ruining you economy) next door Look at how awful the quality of life in Cuba is today. Look at its people's lack of basic freedoms. Look at its awful economy. The US tried to save Cuba from itself.

Like I said: Compared to Haiti, or Venezuela, or Panama, or Simbabwe, or Ruanda, they did pretty well. Depending on the point in time over the last 50 years and your position in society, even Mexico (Drug wars, now), Argentina (during the dictatorship), or Brasil (born into the wrong class, today) may not be clearly superior in every regard. I've been to Cuba, and life there is somewhat boring, and the standard of li…

Why not compare to the Dominican Republic, say? That seems like a much closer comparison in so many ways - capitalism under a ruthless dictator, a long history of US intervention etc.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#279

Post by jacobolus »

wildmusings wrote: post #236
Animats wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fulgencio Batista was better?

We are talking about Fidel's regime and how he decided to rule. Batista was an evil man and a bad ruler, but the economic and societal destruction of communism is in its own category, as is the level of totalitarian control that the Castro regime has imposed, which includes a committee in each neighborhood responsible for suppressing dissent. Because of how backwards Cuba is today, everyone thinks it was always like…

Consider that despite many natural disadvantages Cuba had higher standard of living, better educated public, better healthcare system, etc. than any of the countries in Latin America which started at similar level but were left under the control of US-backed right wing governments. I’d much rather live in Cuba of the 1960s–1980s than in any of Washington’s pet quasi-fascist police states or in those Latin American states undergoing active civil war with US-trained paramilitaries genocidally slaughtering peasants.

Arguably the US embargo, cut of diplomatic ties, invasion attempt, repeated assassination attempts, piles of money illicitly funneled to opposition, etc. had as much to do with Castro’s entrenchment/radicalization as anything to do with his personal ideology.

Just after the Cuban revolution, Castro was interested and open to US relations, but ideological prejudices and commitments by American elites made friendly relations impossible. Then a feedback loop ensued by which mutual trust was destroyed and both sides were increasingly radicalized.

Many things Castro did over his long career were reprehensible, but the same certainly can be said for pretty much every US president, and most other national leaders in similarly political turbulent situations.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#280

Post by saretired »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #121

Has there been a single anti-American dictator who has actually improved the lives of their people? It seems the amount of anti-American rhetoric is directly correlated with how much they screw their country over.

The obvious symmetrical question is whether there has been a pro-American dictator who actually improved the lives of the citizens. But 'improving the lives' is extremely vague. Measured by what? Literacy, GNP, health care, growth of a middle class, civil liberties, respect for contracts, life expectancy, public safety, etc.?
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