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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#631

Post by kamjam »

ekianjo wrote: post #96
CalChris wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita GDP for Cuba is $6,789 Mexico $9,909 Guatamala $3,666 Honduras $2,495 I'd say Cuba is in the mix GDP-wise. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

> Per capita GDP for Cuba is $6,051.22 That does not mean anything if the wealth is not well distributed (which is the case when elites keep the wealth and everyone else is poor).

That's the same for any country, not just Cuba. The wealth distribution of the US or any other western society is not evenly distributed and the pay gap is growing even more rapidly.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#632

Post by sooheon »

burke wrote: post #590
uf wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So you're saying it's a logical impossibility for a dictator to act in the best interest of the people? Does some switch flip where all of a sudden they have no free will? Don't get me wrong, I think the circumstances that lead to a dictator becoming a dictator make it very unlikely, but to call it impossible just seems crazy to me.

Of course it is crazy. Reasonable people will disagree, but most will acknowledge that S. Korea did much, much better under Park Chung Hee than N. Korea under Kim Il Sung during the same period, starting from a worse industrial and economical base. Many Singaporeans rate LKY's legacy hugely net positive, despite dictatorial qualities.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#633

Post by sebastianconcpt »

dorfsmay wrote: post #437
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 foc…

"Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric" that's the socialist rhetoric. The part where Hitler was against communism is the part where he saw communists occupying his own socialism-based plans. Stalin, total strategy genius, let the guy go destroy Europe for him and then he kept half of it for himself.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#634

Post by kuschku »

raverbashing wrote: post #321
duncanawoods wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My impression was then when America tried to force other countries to participate in the embargo they told them to shove it. Your impression is wrong. An example knock-on effect relevant to HN is that as a UK company, we couldn't sell windows software to Cuba because things like windows run-time libraries would be covered by the US export embargo. In theory, they wouldn't even have a legal copy of any US operating…

This is naive As even you said, Cuba was not supposed to have Windows copies, but I'm sure they had Iran theoretically couldn't have access to Boeing parts (and this was a stricter embargo), but they had There's always a way of solving things. Most of Cuban problems were caused by themselves, not the embargo.

> There's always a way of solving things.

Except, not really.

You can’t put any app using any encryption technology up on the Google Play Store or the iOS App Store, if you also distribute anything to Cuba.

For the first you need to get an approval from the US DoD, which requires that you never interact with Cuba.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#635

Post by CalChris »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #629
CalChris wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Castro just doesn't belong in that sentence. Hitler does. Why does the Right Wing have such a love affair with Putin and such a hatred for Castro?

Putin, an ex-KGB, is not right-wing. Check what cultural war is. Also hear what Yuri Maltsev, ex economic advisor of Gorbachev, have to say about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNaB0jdODCM

I didn't say that Putin is Right Wing although he has all the markings of a Right Wing authoritarian. What I want to understand is our Right Wing's infatuation with Putin.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#636

Post by sooheon »

nl wrote: post #393
pif wrote: post #297

Earlier 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…

What's your position on Singapore?

Interesting lack of response. I suspect your parent simply isn't familiar with the legacies of people like Lee Kuan Yew or Park Chung Hee, because they haven't been depicted as much in western pop culture and propaganda.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#637

Post by Fr0012 »

It is so sad to read comments from uneducated educated americans about Fidel Castro. Cuba under Fidel had the best education and health system in the world. Maybe you should apologized for the 600+ tries of assassinations launched by Americans towards a country that was communist. I would rather live in Cuba than in the States/Europe where everything is measured by you stinking paper you call money and autocratic ways of governing people. I mean, what the fk. Does England has a constitution? No it does not? I am disgusted that these comments come from the VCs and other people who think capitalism was the best thing that came around. Look at you inner cities and homeless people you create. Look at the murderous ways your country has been involved in toppling governments in Latin America financing dictators. By eh, Castro was a dictator and your Saudi Arabians friends are doves of freedome and democracy. I just want puke.

Long Live Comantade

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#638

Post by sooheon »

peteretep wrote: post #504
tehwebguy wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some of us have distant relatives that died in Castro's prisons for the crime of dissent?

Something that also happens in plenty of democracies.

Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden come to mind. Is the hypocrisy not palpable? Or is the world exactly as simple as America and sanctioned clique good, rest bad?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#639

Post by finid »

67726e wrote: post #547
finid wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, like Castro did,... The US govt has done that too, so US presidents are no different from people like Castro, Franco, etc. We have just been brainwashed that our leaders are the good guys and the other guys are the bad guys.

Do tell, when is the last time a sitting US president has murdered his political opponents?

I think most replying to this comment are too young to remember that the CIA made several unsuccessful attempts to kill Castro himself, and Muammar Gaddafi. And those where the unsuccessful attempts that we know.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#640

Post by [deleted] »

sspiff wrote: post #562
cmbailey wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that Fidel Castro made many mistakes and is responsible for many atrocities. But the plight of Cuba is not his doing alone. He leaves behind a Cuba that was embargoed by the US, their closest and largest trade partner after the US had staged a failed invasion to overthrow the government. This forced them into the Soviet sphere of influence for supplies and trade. Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed at the e…

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