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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#751

Post by celticninja »

wooter wrote: post #706
andrepd wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama didn't murder thousands? Yet I hear good things about him. FDR? Any US president basically? The people responsible for staging coups abroad to replace democratically elected leaders, install sympathetic dictators and overall fuck up life in a region for 50 years? Yet I hear good things about them too. Why can't the same be applied to Fidel? He committed atrocities and he did good for the country. And indeed muc…

I'm a cuban american and I don't see how people don't understand the most obvious viewpoint. You can condemn both the evil actions by the US and by Fidel. The fact that they've both committed atrocities doesn't mean that we can't criticize either harshly, it means that we MUST criticize BOTH. I hate the whitewashing of Obama's wars. Its a BIG reason I was against Hillary (and pro Gary Johnson). The left is spineless…

Greedy? I have not really heard of him siphoning of money like other dictators but would happily read any info you have on this sort of behaviour.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#752

Post by celticninja »

edblarney wrote: post #735
Trombone12 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a second I though you where talking about the renditions to Guantanamo, but no, of course that is different.

The people in Guantanimo are mostly terrorists (label) and very bad (label). This why they are treated as such. Castro is also bad (label), which is why Cubans revile him.

The people in guantanomo are mostly terrorists, except for the ones that aren't, but they will be treated so badly that they will probably become terrorists so really guantanomo is like a minority report prison for terrorists.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#753

Post by celticninja »

Veen wrote: post #403
formula1 wrote: post #394

Earlier 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.

Ah yes they lost everything because they supported the previous dictatorship. Then when they may have been in danger as others were when they were living the high life they fled the country.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#754

Post by celticninja »

barsonme wrote: post #323
ifdefdebug wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some points of propaganda: > Fidel does not allow his people to leave, with the threat of punishment. Everybody is (now) free to leave Cuba. But OK, I think that's fairly recent. > Fidel's private Army own's 85% of the economy "Fidel's private Army" is just an ugly sound byte. It's the Cuban army and it's not going to be dissolved now that he's dead. > Cuban's live in relative poverty While poverty is a prob…

Is American and Cuban poverty the same?

No because the US has the resources and wealth to ensure that its citizens do not have to live in poverty and could provide health care and education to everyone (they just choose not to) . In Cuba they don't have the resources or wealth but they still manage on health care and education but are still struggling with poverty.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#755

Post by kamjam »

ianamartin wrote: post #711
jknoepfler wrote: post #119

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'm really glad that this post is at the top. This is the kind of intelligent and nuanced discourse that keeps me coming back to HN. Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion, good sir. In addition to what I wrote below about the nature of the Good/Evil abstraction, I want to put this here. I think there's a level at which this all boils down to beliefs. Not which ones you (generally you, not you as an in…

"There's a principle of ideology that we must never look at our own crimes. We should on the other hand exult in the crimes of others and in our own nobility in opposing them."

I believe the quote is from Noam Chomsky but couldn't find any references. Some interesting debate in this thread, but as you and the OP say, there is no black and white, good vs evil, just many shades in between with many actors playing many roles simultaneously. Fidel Castro was certainly no saint and at times was the devil, but there were also those other times inbetween.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#756

Post by acjohnson55 »

cmbailey wrote: post #744
andrepd wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama didn't murder thousands? Yet I hear good things about him. FDR? Any US president basically? The people responsible for staging coups abroad to replace democratically elected leaders, install sympathetic dictators and overall fuck up life in a region for 50 years? Yet I hear good things about them too. Why can't the same be applied to Fidel? He committed atrocities and he did good for the country. And indeed muc…

Obama didn't have his fellow-citizens shot by firing squad without a trial merely because they were political opponents, like journalist Yvonne Conde's uncle [1]. Agreed the sanctions were unproductive. More than anything else, US sanctions helped Castro stay in power for half a century. But to blame the sanctions for his atrocities - or to say the good he did outweighed the bad - is to be willfully blind: When Cuban…

Over the course of Fidel's rule, the US has committed many atrocities in the name of liberal democracy. Don't forget that we, not they, are the world's greatest incarcerators. We, not they, firebombed villages in Vietnam and Cambodia. We, not they, persecuted protesters in the civil rights movement.

Fidel was a tyrant, that's for sure. But lack of tyranny has hardly prevented American atrocity, often wrapped in layers of policy, plausible deniability, and indirection of responsibility. It's far easier for us to think of our voters and leaders as mostly good people, whereas Fidel personally owns all of the excesses of the Cuban state.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#757

Post by yarou »

wooter wrote: post #706
andrepd wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama didn't murder thousands? Yet I hear good things about him. FDR? Any US president basically? The people responsible for staging coups abroad to replace democratically elected leaders, install sympathetic dictators and overall fuck up life in a region for 50 years? Yet I hear good things about them too. Why can't the same be applied to Fidel? He committed atrocities and he did good for the country. And indeed muc…

I'm a cuban american and I don't see how people don't understand the most obvious viewpoint. You can condemn both the evil actions by the US and by Fidel. The fact that they've both committed atrocities doesn't mean that we can't criticize either harshly, it means that we MUST criticize BOTH. I hate the whitewashing of Obama's wars. Its a BIG reason I was against Hillary (and pro Gary Johnson). The left is spineless…

Wholeheartedly agree with you. I consider myself to be on the left, in the classical sense, but the political discourse of the United States does not tolerate multi-faceted and nuanced opinions about the issues.

The groupthink is prevalent on both sides of the aisle - you're either on my team or you're on the other. What sucks is when you're ostracized from both.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#758

Post by sctb »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #366

I invite you to step back and think that you are free to share your filomarxisms here where you have freedoms instead of promoting a genocidal system that is at heart and soul of totalitarian people like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro. Hasta la liberty siempre! Enjoy

We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042192.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#759

Post by kamjam »

ant6n wrote: post #32
chirau wrote: post #24

As an African, I'd say the world has lost one of the most influential leaders of the past century. To pretend here, for me, as if he was cruel to our continent would be both ungrateful and untrue. The man offered free training and medical school for most of our African doctors, he harbored, trained and armed many a guerilla group in our pursuit of independence from colonization. Up until today, Cuba still sends signi…

And to those who cheer the advent of capitalism in Cuba as a 'freer society', consider that now there's the form of proto-capitalism that existed in Eastern Europe and the former soviet countries after the fall of the wall. It's the time when society divides into economic winners and losers, and the wealth gap will increase - sometimes dramatically. So yay innovation and (somewhat more) freedom, but woe social tensio…

It's also worth bearing in mind that America, the godfather of capitalism, have just had their crazy election. People were saying they as a nation had been left behind due to globalization. Isn't the capitalist market supposed to self regulate and spread the wealth? If US citizens are feeling left behind, how exactly are other nations supposed to feel when western nations "come to liberate them and give them democracy"?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#760

Post by pvaldes »

erokar wrote: post #365
jknoepfler wrote: post #119

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…

Both parts were evil. I don't justify what he did, but we should not forget that they tried to kill him on more than 600 occasions. To plot to assassinate a person in other country just because this seems convenient for your interests is, in its own nature, 100% evil. Trials were created for some reason. I bet that even the more equilibrated mind would become extremely paranoid and ruthless in that scenery.
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