461–470 of 842 posts
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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.
Cuban Revolution was not for a wimp.
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…
> He believed in freedom > I detest the hypocrisy I see in many (not all) western commentators. A counterexample: this photo was taken in NYC after the most recent US presidential election: http://i.imgur.com/DcVbqAm.jpg It's a picture of someone standing in front of Trump Tower holding a sign that says "You're not my president. Fuck you." Can you imagine someone getting away with that in Castro's Cuba?
Maybe Americans value their rights more than anything else, but to me as a Chinese citizen, this is both laughable and disrespectful.
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Castro is up there with the worst of the worst (Hitler, Pol pot, amin, mugabe, chavez, Kim Jong, Stalin, Mao, etc) these individuals resigned to their humanity the moment they decided to step all over their citizen's rights and dignity for their own benefit. Please stop trying to humanize him.
A yes, one bucket holds all evil, and the bool is the only integer the honest man needs, that's your position I take it?
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Mandela or Hitler are don't seem particularly anti-American. "The forms of government have always been different. But this cannot be a reason for hostility between different nations, as long as one form of government does not try to interfere with another, outside of its naturally ordained sphere." http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html
I suppose I didn't pick the best examples. Though Mandela was a critic of the US in later years regarding Iraq / Israel, and Hitler's sentiment on America seems to be complex: a combination of not taking america too seriously and not desiring conflict too early. But I don't think that changes my original point, which is that all dictators can be seen as serving their people, depending on how you define "their people"…
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Right after the USA acknowledges ALL of their crimes against humanity, which are far more and spread much more wider. No cuban children sleeps in the streets tonight. You can't say that about northamerican children.
How could you possibly assume that no children in Cuba sleep on the streets?
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…
On the contrary, it's dangerous not to call out evil for what it is. Of course it might be wise to try to analyze what genetic/family/social/economic/political factors shape people like Castro, Gaddafi, Franco etc. — but if you think you're dealing with people like you and me you fail to grasp the phenomenon. Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, like Castro did, share a very predictable set of psychop…
Of course their actions should be condemned but what you wrote is just wrong, a lot of them were like us until they stopped.. Most murderers do not born as murderers, they are made murderers.
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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…
It's easy to forget the cost of prosperity to those who were not prosperous. Pre-Castro Cuba was rife with racism and inequality, extreme and abject poverty, a segregated society, under violently repressive and corrupt governments. I can't say anything about your experience, but I can share something about my childhood in Brazil. A middle-class home, private school, private health-care family under a brutal US-sponso…
He has certainly led one of the most exciting lives of our times... And despite his flaws (and/or crimes against humanity) I can't help but wonder how Cuba would have faired under different leadership. Looking at the next-island neighbors in Haiti, or any number of comparable African countries, it seems the Cubans got the better deal. Just one example: life expectancy is 15 years higher than Haiti, and actually even…
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…
i don't see how i could ever turn into a dictator who puts his political opponents in jail (as well as everyone who just wants to get out of the country) - all in the name of some higher cause. Interesting if these dictators ever took note of the discrepancy between the Cause and reality; or were they always able to self-justify their actions like in the 'grand inquisitor' by Dostoevsky, who knows...
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>> "On the contrary, it's dangerous not to call out evil for what it is." Judging on the comments on this thread most people (I'm not specifically referring to you) are making statements based on what they've heard, not by what they've personally researched, and unfortunately a lot of that information is biased or propaganda. I'm not coming down one way or the other but something I found very interesting was comparin…
> Judging on the comments on this thread most people (I'm not specifically referring to you) are making statements based on what they've heard, not by what they've personally researched, and unfortunately a lot of that information is biased or propaganda. By any objective measure - and according to experts on human rights and liberty - Cuba is one of the most repressive countries on earth. https://freedomhouse.org/co…
"U.S. Government funded non-governmental organisation (NGO) that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights
Representatives of Cuba said that the organization is a U.S. foreign policy instrument linked to the CIA and "submitted proof of the politically motivated, interventionist activities the NGO (Freedom House) carried out against their Government". They also claimed a lack of criticism of U.S. human rights violations in the annual reports. Cuba also stated that these violations are well documented by other reports, such as those of Human Rights Watch. The Russian representative inquired "why this organization, an NGO which defended human rights, was against the creation of the International Criminal Court."
There is so much propaganda regarding this little Caribbean island, that it is wise to carefully consider one's sources.