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Fidel Castro has died

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Re: Fidel Castro has died

#481

Post by kristianc »

narrowrail wrote: post #470
kristianc wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well, Freedom House, according to wikipedia: "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 th…

It's a little rich of the Russian representative to claim that, given that Russia has just withdrawn from the International Criminal Court.

For what it's worth, Human Rights Watch's report about Cuba is also pretty damning:

> The Cuban government continues to repress dissent and discourage public criticism. It now relies less on long-term prison sentences to punish its critics, but short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others have increased dramatically in recent years. Other repressive tactics employed by the government include beatings, public acts of shaming, and the termination of employment.

As is Amnesty International's:

> Despite increasingly open diplomatic relations, severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and movement continued. Thousands of cases of harassment of government critics and arbitrary arrests and detentions were reported.

And Reporters Sans Frontieres rank Cuba 171 out of 180 countries in the world for Press Freedom.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#482

Post by aorth »

gragas wrote: post #36
friendlygrammar wrote: post #29

.

I agree. It's absolutely insane to side with Castro. Even if you agree with his political philosophy, there is overwhelming objective evidence of how awful it is: - Cuban economy - Cuban quality of life - basic Cuban freedoms (like supporting parties other than the one in power)

Cuba does very well on the human development index. Among the top ten in the Americas and top fifty in the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#483

Post by vic-traill »

I found Castro's Cuba a very interesting place, primarily because of its independence from American direct influence (and yes, I realise that Cuba has longed been defined by America's influence on it, even in opposing it).

American culture has had a huge effect on the world. To attend an island off the coast of Florida and find it more or less free of that cultural influence was fascinating. Fascinating in that they were even just able to do it.

I didn't see an island prison there. Which is not to whitewash anything. However, I was free to go anywhere I wanted and did. People I met were kind, welcoming and seemed, to my eyes and ears, content.

The view of Fidel as a tyrant is not the view one finds as they travel the world. Neither is he viewed as a saint. He is viewed as someone who achieved something incredible, with all that entails, good and bad.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#484

Post by gaius »

throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #475
gaius wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When were you in Cuba?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#485

Post by clarete »

kristianc wrote: post #445
k-mcgrady wrote: post #397

Earlier 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…

> 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…

I'm not sure I'd count that source as valid after reading what they wrote in /brazil. The text has the same opinion as the media they rate as "partially free". They're defending the side that won without really understanding what happened there. I wonder how better the analysis on Cuba could be.

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#486

Post by berntb »

bnegreve wrote: post #385
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…

> Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, Sorry, this is not a discriminative feature of dictators, non-dictators also prosecute and murder their opponents. (e.g. see any government involved in a war) The difference is that you feel like they are right to do it.

You seriously argue that there is no difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

A trivial counter example -- if you causally dismissed your government as a Cuban in Cuba online, what happens?

(Since Cuba has a really, really strict control of the Internet last I looked, it is of course a bit of an academic question...)

Edit: This comment is really jumping up and down in votes... :-)

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#487

Post by Oletros »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #419
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"First they came for the Socialists..." Hitler was right-wing.

Hitler was NOT right-wing, please! His party was national socialist workers party. He learned from the best, his friend Stalin. Then they do what communists do best betray themselves and kill adversaries. Nobody, nobody come even close to kill even a fraction of the number of communists killed by other communists http://louderwithcrowder.com/myth-busted-actually-yes-hitler... So no, nobody is coming for you in a free…

> So no, nobody is coming for you in a free society that is not marxist

Then we can tell the people disappeared in militar dictatorships in the Latin countries in the 50s-70s than they were prosecuted by marxist governments.

School of the Americas was marxist, was not?

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#488

Post by zazen »

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.

Yes. I don't disagree with a single word of that. I took jknoefpler's comment as an invitation to reflect on the fact that Castro, and even H----r, are members of the same species as us, and what that might say about the human condition. Nothing pleasant, surely, but part of the truth of what we are. And this might be a better conversation to have than comforting ourselves by distancing ourselves from these people with unthinking use of labels like "evil".

I could be wrong. There may well be people in this thread actually trying to justify or minimize Castro's actions. In any case, it doesn't look like there's much prospect for a good conversation in this thread at this point. We're still waiting for the solution for how to have good conversations about touchy topics in anonymous internet forums!

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#489

Post by tomohawk »

The most chilling testament to this dictators intolerable cruelty is all of the various hand crafted boats that Cubans used over the years to flee his control.

The first time I saw one on the beach in the Florida Keys, I was astonished at the ingenuity of the craft and marveled that someone had so longed for freedom that they had spend years building it in secret.

Then, I was chilled.

http://www.floatingcubans.com/

https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...

Re: Fidel Castro has died

#490

Post by dade_ »

This utter failure of foreign policy is such an embarrassment for the US. Even against a small island country that they partially occupy, the US couldn't cause a regime change. Everyone can spend all day debating if Fidel's army is better than Capone's gangsters, or living off state payments in squalor is better than being a peasant harvesting fruit for the wealthy Dole family with no healthcare, but the fact is that Fidel was only their #2 enemy, after America. I have no idea how the wounds between the people will ever heal, but the only way forward is if America's leaders choose to learn from their past mistakes and take a new, probably completely different approach. Obama started down a path, but the next 4-8 years are a complete mystery for now.
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