REST IN POWER GREAT CONSCIOUS LEADER
Fidel Castro has died
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Re: Fidel Castro has died
#572I 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…
There doesn't seem to be much consistency with what gets called evil, however. You tend to find many more people who call Castro evil than call Xi Jinping evil. I remember a time when the newspapers would almost always talk about human rights when they wrote about Cuba, but never mentioned it when they talked about UAE (and talking about Dubai as if it was a wonderful resort).
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#573I see the Cuban revolution like Israel/Palestine. Anybody who has a black-and-white opinion on the subject is aggressively wrong.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#574Re: Fidel Castro has died
#575I 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…
simply replying to save this well phrased comment
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Re: Fidel Castro has died
#576A wonderfully productive life and human example in service for humanity.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#577I 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…
'it's dangerous not to call out evil for what it is'
Really have to question this reification of "evil" per se. Evil is most immediately a religious construct. Or, in the words of Hannah Arendt, it is "banal." When did calling people evil ever lead to more justice in the world?
As if George W Bush having the courage to call Iran and Iraq and Libya the "Axis of Evil" led to the US promoting peace in those countries? No, there's been a proportional increase in US-led suffering (death toll in Iraq post-invasion around .5 million).
I don't honestly know too much about Fidel Castro, but take a minute to look at the US-installed Batista, who was overthrown. And, gawd, what about JFK? What about Kissinger These leaders had all the advantages of starting out in a relatively functional industrially-developed democracy, and they managed to do all kinds of evil, mainly to countries like Cuba.
Tangentially, IMHO, I don't believe Castro was nearly as "pathological" a human being as a number of US presidents.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "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…
Fidel Castro leaves behind a nation awash with tears and blood from thousands of executions, tens of thousands of political prisoners, concentration camps for gay men, labor camps for those who thought differently, listened to jazz, or even just had long hair. These are facts I learned only after doing more research, after listening to friends who are gay and who did years of research. So we all need to be careful no…
Indeed those words about good free education and healthcare in "those days" are what "former" communists use to try to brainwash the kids from today in former socialist block countries like my homeland Bulgaria. The history textbooks are written by communists. Grandparents express their nostalgia for those days ('cause they were young back then and now they live in mysery).
Every now and then the communists come back to power and one realizes for the nth time, that there's no such thing as a former communist. Another thing they say in Bulgaria is that you take the power from a communist the same way you can take the lard from a pig - with a knife. So, yes, those bastards need to be talked about the same way Hitler is talked about in Germany, make sure kids are aware of the evil and can spot and identify it as soon as it emerges.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#579After 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…
Look I don't think Fidel was as black and white as most Americans make him out to have been, but people trying to just say "American presidents are worse" are just hilariously obtuse. Like comparing Nixon and Castro. Nixon's most famous scandal was when he tried to wiretap his political opponents. It ended with his resignation. Castro outright killed his political opponents, and had the rest thrown in prison. He cont…
Nixons most famous scandal was the illegal carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos effectively bringing the Khmer Rouge to power [1]. Watergate was a drop in the ocean compared to this.
Re: Fidel Castro has died
#5802016 has been very sad for left wing. Brexit, Trump now Castro...