And not a single tear was shed about that.
RIP Señor Castro. I get the impression that he wasn’t the “evil dictator” American propaganda made him out to be. I, for one, have great respect for Castro and mourn the loss.
It’s hard to tell how “evil” the dude was.
I personally haven’t visited Cuba, yet and even if I did as a tourist every country is great.
What living there is like, that is the question.
I can imagine worse things though than living in a country that pays for your school, your university, your healthcare including teeth and shit though.
To me personally moving to America would be a nightmare of uncertainty. It’s either you function properly, or you end up like one of the walking dead hobo armies.
Judging from how cold war propaganda still has an effect on US and EU citizens, and how much the “red” man was demonized by the media during my childhood, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the prejudices we have about Cuba, Soviet Russia and China can be debunked and the failure of communist societies had more to do with western civilization sabotaging it.
I bet Cuba suffered a lot from embargoes set on them for being commies.
You just can’t expect powerful men that got rich off the backs of the poor, to tolerate a state idiology that is built upon the idea that people should be treated equally not only before the law but also in terms of wealth distribution.
If that shit proved successful, the workers in the west might have wanted their share of their work as well.
I also imagine it is fucking tough to get a successful state going that is situated in a tropical or cold climate.
I mean there’s a fucking reason why most wealthy countries are located in temperate zones.
That fucking weather means that harvests depend on mercy of nature, buildings need more maintenance, work itself is more cumbersome and exhausting among many other factors like being exploited by western companies for cheap luxury items and food.
Living too far south or too far north of the equator, is a huge burden by itself.
I mean sure Norway and other Scandinavian countries aren’t that bad off, but then again they never got invaded and exploited for centuries, so I dunno if they are good examples.
Yeah he was far from the evil monster the US and the Cuban expatriates made him to me. No lies, he was a dictator and as such he didn’t allow dissent (not even among leftists who dissagreed with him), but a dictatorship was probably the only way to free his country from US and its agents domination, in a time where the continent was full of US supported dictators that empoverished their countries. He wasn’t really a communist at first, he was a nationalist, but he saw the alliance with the soviets as the only way to advance his country.
When he rose against Batista, Cuba was little other than the US’s brothel. It only really produced sugar, the entire economy was dominated by US interests, poverty and illiteracy was widespread and there was not much in the way of free speech under Batista anyways. Under his rule he made one of the best educated people in the world, with excellent healthcare, greatly expanded the country’s cultural output and made the country a sports powerhouse.
All that at the doorstep of its major enemy, while fending off invasions, assassination attempts and a crushing embargo that would have destroyed any other Latin American nation. While I don’t condone his political persecution and his bureaucracy rotted like other similar Communist governments, anything he did was a joke compared to US interventionism in Latin America.
All in all, Cuba would have been a much worse place without him.
Wondering what direction Cuba is going to take now. I don’t suppose Castro had any worthy successors?
Fidel stepped down from power around a decade ago. His brother Raul has been leading Cuba since then, taking some timid free market measures and trying to lift the embargo.
Now, I don’t know who’s supposed to replace Raul in case of death.
Fun fact: cuba had a lottery where if you won, you were allowed to move to the US. Z
Source: met one of the winners. She badly missed her family.
His brother is currently in charge, and it doesn’t look like there will be a power struggle anytime soon. However, he’s supposed to step down as president in 2018, and as leader of the communist party in 2021, and from what I’ve understood there’s no clear plan for what’s supposed to happen then. Supposedly the party leadership is very old, and the newer generations haven’t gotten the chances they should have, leaving them quite inexperienced. This is a problem Cuba is going to have to address one way or another.
After talking to friends of mine who are far more knowledgeable than me on the subject of Cuba and its development in the last 50 years, I also realize my last post was overly harsh. I still do not condone of the lack of free speech and the brutal suppression of political opposition in any way, and thus I do still not particularly like the man, but there are definitely things Castro did that are worthy of praise as well, and several things cannot be blamed entirely on him.
(it should be mentioned that both the people I discussed the subject with are far more right-leaning than me politically, so it’s not politically motivated praise)
He was just another tyrant with relatively-good publicity. Don’t mourn that bastard.
Keep drinking that coolaid, what does a little gringuito de mierda that only knows what the propaganda that his government feed him anyway.
The guy the gay area in San Fran is named after.
Tragic. He was a close friend to José Mujica who arguably is one of the greatest presidents of past time, and José has praised Fidel, which, that alone, says a great deal of what kind of person he was.
If you don’t know who José Mujica is, do yourself a favor and watch this short clip. It will highly likely make you smile and question a lot of the things you’ve heard about Fidel.
did fidel castro took your grandpa’s brothel and gambling den?
Fidel Castro dies on Black Friday
Capitalism- 1
Communism-0
are we gonna pretend castro was a good guy or leader becasue the only thing he could give his citizens was free social services and rations in the midst of the worst embargo of all time?
I’ll say at the very least he was a savy and resourceful dictator that knew how to give people enough to keep them from saying fuck off, managed to at least fulfill some of the left utopia ideals (lofl at having an island full of PhD’s), and managed to be about the only country that successfully stopped American coup’s.
But I wouldn’t praise him as this great leader.
LMAO
Castro was pretty much all of North Korean leaders, Kim Ill Sung, Kim Jong Ill, and KimJong Un. Fact.
LMAO at cuba indeed
LMAO