fidel castro - c or d?

"two weeks."

I'm sure many a Cuban would find it shocking that we have people who die through inability to afford medical treatment, or be unable to read, or have children dying regularly in their first year of life through poverty.

"Ah they're not so bad, they even named a street in San Francisco after me..."

(aide whispers in his ear)

"It's full of whaaat?!"

pst pix plz

k thx bye

Oppressing them? Can't deny there's problems there. But most countries do it; that doesn't excuse it, but the attempts to portray Fidel as a bloodthirsty dictator have always been way way wide of the mark. I wish in an ideal world Cuba didn't do this, but in that world, the blockade is lifted and the US isn't putting it in the second tier Axis of Evil, even though the terrorists associated with Cuba tend to be based in Florida and are close to the CAF.

Dud because you're thinking all the posts will be tedious invocations of "human rights" and "oppression" and "democracy". And if they're not, they'll be tedious invocations of "literacy" and "healthcare" and "the blockade".

You know which side you'll be on at the end of the thread before you even start reading. It's the side that's in the right. And you get to the end of the thread - and this isn't it, yet - and you find yourself on the same side you thought you would be.

So praise be to Aimless.

We haven't even gotten into Fidel's persecution of homosexuality (a "bourgeois perversion") for most of the time he has governed Cuba. Thankfully in the last ten years, the Cuban has quit sending gay Cubans to forced labor camps and institutionalizing them. Newly-enlightened Fidel just bans them from party membership and only occasionally cracks down on public homosexual behavior (like, say, going to clubs).

As much as I'd like to support a guy who is so good at deservedly pissing off his much more powerful enemies, I can't get behind Castro.

Let's not even discuss Che. It's one thing to send a bunch of naive students who read his book to their useless deaths at the hands of sophisticated, US-backed thug militaries; after all, he did the same thing to himself with his meaningless campaign in Bolivia. It's quite another to oversee ideological purges that result in the execution of people who disagree with him. Did I say "oversee"? I meant "ordered."

As much as I detest the folks in Miami who backed the wrong side (if near-total control of wealth and resources in a desperately poor country is really a "side"), and as embarrassed and opposed to US policy in Cuba as I am, I ain't gonna be forced into saying that Castro is anything other than a punk-ass dictator. And his brother and romantic Che are far, far worse.

I'm picturing an immortal bionic Castro who still continues to hector the US President well into the 22nd century.

Although living in Cuba still means you're without certain luxuries enjoyed in the West, the idealistic side of me says "so fecking what?"

As a result, I'm going with classic.

are you sure you're not confusing your idealistic side with your cynical side?

Cuba is part of the East???

Poeple can read. They have healthcare. They have education. They do not die when kids. Maybe one day, they can move onto the second-order.

although i take issue with calum implicitly referring to homosexuality as a "luxury"

As much as I'd like to support a guy who is so good at deservedly pissing off his much more powerful enemies, I can't get behind Castro.

Let's not even discuss Che. It's one thing to send a bunch of naive students who read his book to their useless deaths at the hands of sophisticated, US-backed thug militaries; after all, he did the same thing to himself with his meaningless campaign in Bolivia. It's quite another to oversee ideological purges that result in the execution of people who disagree with him. Did I say "oversee"? I meant "ordered."

As much as I detest the folks in Miami who backed the wrong side (if near-total control of wealth and resources in a desperately poor country is really a "side"), and as embarrassed and opposed to US policy in Cuba as I am, I ain't gonna be forced into saying that Castro is anything other than a punk-ass dictator. And his brother and romantic Che are far, far worse.

-- Benjamin (benjami...), September 6th, 2003.

OTM.

WTF?

MEANINGLESS?

P.S. Every leadership will always have its faults, but Castro strikes me as a lot more principled and good hearted than many of the so-called "democratic" leaders around today.

P.P.S.

a lot of places in the East, esp. the Middle East, while definitely not at Western-style tolerance, are more tolerant of homosexuality than Cuba.
-- hstencil (hstenc!...), July 23rd, 2004.

This is simply not true. And how tolerant are some American states of homosexuality? I assume that Alabama is right up there with the gay rights situation...

I mean, if you discovered that Gandhi wasn't supportive of homosexuality would that make him a sudden DUD?

As Dave said - for fucking fucks sake. To dismiss everything Castro has done on this is utterly preposterous and I stick to my point that gay rights is a relatively new phenonemon, even in the developed world.

the brain washing is also fun, as is the killing off of dissidents, and the flip flopping on things like god (look, either you are hardcore communist and dont let catholicism in, or you arent and you exploit the pope)

As for Bolivia, as a military campaign it was meaningless. C-Man, it's unspeakably obvious that an ideologically-driven guerilla war has at its core "meaning." I'm not really taken by the glamor of young, educated radicals throwing themselves into certain death "fighting" against US-backed military forces all over the third world. So there's some irony in Che's own death-- the Bolivian CP gave very little support after bringing Che over and installing him with a small group of poorly-armed fighters in a jungle camp, where they were quickly crushed by the CIA and its henchmen. Good Marxist-Leninist thought may offer "meaning," but the actual fighting part of the Cuban revolution wasn't chock full of M-L indoctrination. The whole vanguard approach was a recipe for slaughter, and wasted a lot of lives, not only Che's but the lives of those he encouraged. I'd call that "meaningless," but I think martyrdom is stupid.

Heh.

So, being more even handed, the issue to me is whether someone, on balance, is a good guy or a bad guy. Sorry to be so old-fashioned and manichean about it. Fidel's in the former camp for me because of his stance on economic issue, his championing of the developed world, his ability to act make a revolution happen (as opposed to Che who was actually k-rub).

It occurred to me that whatever propaganda on both sides can be brought to bear, the fact remains that you have people -- for whatever reason, be it political or economic or what -- making decisions that hopefully none of us would have to, to run a risk, cut oneself off from one's family directly, possibly forever, go to a country where while there is still a strong network in place to help is nonetheless a land where much has to be learned, starting with the language, etc. People that wanted out, part of a stream that has been mythologized in the American vision as 'Cuban refugees,' the apparently endless stream of people coming over to the Good US to escape from the Bad Castro.

And yet again, political posturing aside, the fact remains: people want to leave, can't, and resort to desperate measures to leave anyway. And the traffic pretty well appears to be one way.

Does this alone condemn Castro specifically? I actually don't think so. No one person can be the entirety of a government and a series of institutions, though obviously one can direct it as much as possible, and such is the case here. And clearly the entire country isn't up and leaving by any means necessary, and US policy over four decades plus has been erratic bunkum above and beyond who is in the White House at any one time.

Nonetheless, when you look at that one factor alone -- the sacrifices and the honest risk people run in order to leave -- it's hardly a glowing testimonial for Castro.

What's Castro's policy on immigration, I wonder? There are a few first-world reds who found refuge there, of course. But is migration at anything more than a statistically negligible level an economic issue (free movement of workers) and would require "liberalization"? I don't know enough about demography to know the answer.

Socialism is not for everyone, no is denying this. I would not say that Che's death of the battle in Bolivia was meangingless at all. I strongly believe that Che had a good heart and honestly wanted to see a world where the poor had the same opportunities as the rich.

Next.

Anybody read John Jeremiah Sullivan's NYT Mag piece today?

he's a dud, but most rulers of countries are duds

classic