Judging judging judging based on metrics that are amazingly forgiving of ourselves and our leaders. What a convenient lazy worldview.
Castro tried, all the way.
Fidel Castro has died
431–440 of 842 posts
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did Magret Thatcher execute people? Did she create an air of fear and enforce isolationism at the expense of a country they ruled? These are apples and oranges
In case you completely misunderstood my point here it is again: "Why are cubans in miami celebrating his death?" Because they are a group of Cubans who don't like him. There are also Cubans mourning his death. Like all politicians some people liked his policies (because they benefited from them) and will be sad he's dead and others disliked his policies (because they did not benefit from them) and will be happy he's…
Your answer sums up to "ying/yang" and "balance in all things". At what point do you condemn actions? Do you only condemn those that condemn?
I shouldnt spend any time on you. Your going in a rediculpus directiom
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are cubans in miami celebrating his death? Are they misguided minorities that should follow the example of armchair politicians in privledged countries?
Because they are descendants of the middle and upper classes who benefited from the previous regime and lost everything when Castro came to power.
I would say everyone other than those in the government of Cuba or associate with its members lost out.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fidel does not allow his people to leave, with the threat of punishment This is the big one. Many countries have restrictions on people coming, for various reasons, but any country/govt that prevents people leaving knows perfectly well that it's doing something that people want to flee.
How much does it cost to stop being an American citizen? How many poor American people can afford that cost?
How is that relevant?
Lots of people in Miami consider themselves Cuban and are just waiting for the opportunity to go home and reclaim their family's birthright. Leaving a particular regime doesn't mean abandoning your heritage.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you write "evil dictator", you mean that a dictator could not be evil. This is hugely wrong. Dictatorship contains evil. I appreciate your effort to invite people to learn from history instead of just rejecting a portion of it. But this is a black-and-white matter: he chose to be a dictator, and he was wrong. Subsequent crimes and economics theories are less important once you keep people from choosing their fat…
No, a dictator can be benevolent. What if a foreign government destroys your country, the populace is largely uneducated and you have the power to reinstitute order in to then transition to a government by and for the people? The US, under Obama, destroyed Libya, what if someone with genuine good intentions would have seized the opportunity in order to prevent what did become reality, that all the people got was a pu…
The 'benevolent dictator' is a nice oxymoron, but that's it. For a good and stable dictatorship you really want to control all three powers. What good is a dictator if I can sue him and his clique?
What does 'genuine good intentions' even mean? Whose intentions? His, yours? Mine, or the ones from the guy next door? Who decides what good intentions are?
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
Charismatic? Yes, but so was Hitler and Osama bin Laden. Revolutionary? yes, but so was Hitler. So, let's get it clear that that doesn't make him humane and good for society. >>If you think you're better, then do better. Be better. Don't refuse to acknowledge the humanity of another person because you believe you can totalize their entire life under a cheap tagline. This is a disingenuous advice. Will you not critici…
> Communism is a very vicious ideology which leaves no room for any type of dissent. Looks like you have no idea what communism really is.
On the contrary, he knows exactly what communism is. He's just mistakenly ascribed the realities of communism to the ideology. Even then, I suspect this is all semantics and he doesn't actually think Marx was advocating despots and totalitarian rule.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
Best case where Godwin becomes a non-antiargument because you are talking about a socialist totalitarian in both cases right?
"First they came for the Socialists..." Hitler was right-wing.
It was a socialist party. It does not reflect on socialism in general, but don't equate racism, natinalism etc... to necessarily extreme right:
"Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei": National Socialist German Workers' Party
"Its precursor, the German Workers' Party"
"The party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.[7] Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, although such aspects were later downplayed in order to gain the support of industrial entities, and in the 1930s the party's focus shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes."
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#438This is propaganda, disgustingly incorrect propaganda, so far off base the only conceivable way you could have written it is to be maliciously lying.
> This is propaganda, disgustingly incorrect propaganda, so far off base the only conceivable way you could have written it is to be maliciously lying. Your emotional reaction(disgust) is up to you. Be objective. Pray,what part of it is untrue? What is incorrect and where do I lie? Kindly be specific.
> He believed in freedom and dignity.
That's exactly why he never allowed free election, a free press, free speech, free markets, or freedom to leave his island paradise.
>He saw the US government as the enemy of progress everywhere in the world
That just makes him an idiot. The US government has been the primary proponent of progress, spreading free markets and democracy around the globe.
>What opposition? Imperialists and mafia members who wished to turn Cuba into an enclave for gambling?
The million plus refugees from Castro's island paradise. Most of whom were not wealthy. Just not fans of Castro's brutality. Go to Miami and tell them how awesome Castro was.
Fidel was a brutal dictator and his memory deserves to be pissed on. Any who celebrate him are ignorant, evil, or fools.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not going to get into details but if you take major economic facts about Cuba before the revolution and after it the balance is clear. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CUB comparatively they do better than most Latin American countries. It's a shame that their leaders weren't more pragmatic and allowed more civil liberties but then again, they always lived under an embargo and a permanent terror campaign…
Cuba was doing better than most Latin American countries before the revolution too, for what it's worth.
Even so, were would it have been if intervention attempts by Uncle Sam against Cuba succeeded? Name one country that is better of than it was before western intervention.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#440I 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…
I've come to see the Cuban revolution as something different than the sole work of Castro etc. wether you regard their work as accomplishment or atrocity. Also Socialism, Communism, Marxism are just the packaging. The core of the whole movement back then was the wast income inequality combined with US-foreign-affair meddling with Cuban domestic affairs, perfectly illustrated by mafia movies depicting Cuba as the play…
>Also Socialism, Communism, Marxism are just the packaging.
That's like saying modern terrorism as practiced by groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS has nothing to do with a particular interpretation of Islam, but is rather just a response to colonialism and foreign interference in middle eastern countries, etc.
There was an ideological basis to the Cuban revolution that tapped into a existing global Marxist ideology. 'Packaging' was critical.