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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#471

Post by fspear »

zazen wrote: post #396
edblarney wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, ok. Especially for locking his people in a prison island - an act which can't remotely be defended as 'in the interest of the people or socialism' or any progressive cause ... Fidel - borderline evil. Somewhat nuanced. Definitely bad. Not as bad a Hitler. There you go.

>Fidel - borderline evil The point isn't to quibble about the label. It's to refrain from leaping straight to applying labels. The pleas you're seeing for a calmer and broader conversation are not attempts to exculpate Castro.

>The pleas you're seeing for a calmer and broader conversation are not attempts to exculpate Castro.

Those of us who have been directly affected by Castro's actions feel that justice was never made, his legacy is not something we want celebrated or glorified.

Yes, it was not all black but the black/white ratio of Castros's regime is more 80/20 than 50/50.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#472

Post by Trombone12 »

geezerjay wrote: post #339
epicureanideal wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also not a "fan" of Castro and don't identify with socialist politics, but comparing Cuba before Castro and after Castro wouldn't be fair. Pre-Castro there was a lot of foreign investment, post-Castro there was an embargo. You can argue whether that's something that can be blamed on him, but if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt I wouldn't call that a fair comparison. For example, there was a story post…

> but comparing Cuba before Castro and after Castro wouldn't be fair. Pre-Castro there was a lot of foreign investment, post-Castro there was an embargo. Seems to be a direct consequence of Fidel Castro's political initiatives. I'm sure we can agree that Castro's regime has at least some responsibilities in this outcome. > You can argue whether that's something that can be blamed on him, but if we were to give him th…

Well, it's weird to call the foreign policy decisions of bordering nations "naturally arising". They are quite obviously very different consequences compared to pollution or traffic jams following heavy car subsidies.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#473

Post by narrowrail »

fspear wrote: post #471
zazen wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fidel - borderline evil The point isn't to quibble about the label. It's to refrain from leaping straight to applying labels. The pleas you're seeing for a calmer and broader conversation are not attempts to exculpate Castro.

>The pleas you're seeing for a calmer and broader conversation are not attempts to exculpate Castro. Those of us who have been directly affected by Castro's actions feel that justice was never made, his legacy is not something we want celebrated or glorified. Yes, it was not all black but the black/white ratio of Castros's regime is more 80/20 than 50/50.

>us who have been directly affected by Castro's actions

Do you believe this puts you into a position of objective analysis?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#474

Post by jobigoud »

drukenemo wrote: post #180
peterkelly wrote: post #19

Excerpt from the article on CNN (probably edited by the time you read this): http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/26/americas/fidel-castro-obit... "One Castro or another has ruled Cuba over a period that spans seven decades and 11 U.S. presidents. Fidel Castro outlived six of those presidents,[[[NOTE: change to seven if George H.W. Bush dies before Castro]]] including Cold War warriors John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ro…

That's exactly one of my main criticisms about Castro - his self-belief that only him could govern Cuba. Was he immortal, he wouldn't have stepped down from power, I believe.

Let's focus this subthread on the meta note left in the article and was published.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#475

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

gaius wrote: post #427
throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you've spent a lot of time in some of the estates in Tottenham, Harlesden or Haringey. You went on a tourists' visit of poverty. Try doing the same in London, and let's see how you do there, bruv.

I have and the worst sink estate in London is nothing like as bad as Havana, at least not in terms of the physical infrastructure. Crime is probably worse in London. And yes I am aware that as a tourist those are the bits I was allowed to see; I'll wager the "real" Cuba is far worse.

> I have and the worst sink estate in London i nothing like as bad as Havana

You really haven't bruv.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#477

Post by Trombone12 »

varjag wrote: post #316
geezerjay wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like how US saved Haiti and Libya and Iraq, right? Libya was a NATO intervention that was pushed and led by France, specifically Sarkozy's government.

It also ended up a lot better than non-intervention in Syria. Although make no mistake, the USA is blamed for both anyway.

There is still civil war in Libya, it barely gets any mentioning so I don't know how much less the killings are.

Furthermore, non-intervention only meant no actual American troops in Syria, not staying out of the conflict: the US has funded, armed and trained much of the opposition from the start of the conflict, and US made and supplied anti-tank weapons are prominent in the rebels ability to counter the armoured forces of the Syrian army.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#478

Post by quonn »

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…

> but the economic and societal destruction of communism is in its own category

The Human Development Index puts Cuba at position 40, despite the huge economic disadvantage of the embargo.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#2015_H...

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#479

Post by fspear »

narrowrail wrote: post #473
fspear wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The pleas you're seeing for a calmer and broader conversation are not attempts to exculpate Castro. Those of us who have been directly affected by Castro's actions feel that justice was never made, his legacy is not something we want celebrated or glorified. Yes, it was not all black but the black/white ratio of Castros's regime is more 80/20 than 50/50.

>us who have been directly affected by Castro's actions Do you believe this puts you into a position of objective analysis?

No. And I'm not against objective analysis, however by humanizing such individuals in the name of "objectiveness" you are disregarding the suffering of a lot of people.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#480

Post by berntb »

lossolo wrote: post #466
erokar wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You see world in black and white only. There is no black and white, there are only shades of gray. You think that those people were psychopaths from the beginning? Then you are wrong. A lot of dictators were idealists, they would do everything for their country, sometimes too much. They were loving fathers and sons. Some of them truly believed in equality for all and wanted to make their country better, life of their…

People are "programmed" by culture. It wasn't so many generations ago when people with similar genes as me (a Scandinavian) did organized clan warfare with slavery, murder, plunder and everything else we see as bad in today's Western world. But the people then were "loving fathers and sons" too, of course. Attitudes to things you/we deplore are trivially cultural.

Your argument as a whole was a bit funny...

You use personal arguments about someone else as thinking in black and white -- then define people with different backgrounds as good or bad, according to our local cultural definitions.

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