Fidel Castro has died
bbc.com
bbc.com
I am not a fan of Fidel Castro - quite the opposite - but humans are cut from a common cloth. When we see revolutions turn into dictatorships, and idealism deteriorate into a cynical fight to survive, it is foolish and dangerous to dismiss the dictators and revolutionaries as "evil" or "idiots" or some similarly otherizing term. It is dangerous because it means we are refusing to learn from history, and to apply the lessons of other lives to our own. Fidel Castro's mistakes are our mistakes to repeat, or to learn from.
If you hold yourself holier than Fidel Castro, and think that celebrating the death of someone you perceive as "evil" is prudent, take a deep long moment and try to learn something non-trivial from his life. "Fidel Castro" in the particular was not some kind of unique demon who plagued humanity. He was a charismatic revolutionary who occupied a very complex time. His life's trajectory was in many respects one of tragic failure. He may have, in reality, occupied a very dark corner of history, but that is for us to learn and judge, not to assume.
If you think you're better, then do better. Be better. Don't refuse to acknowledge the humanity of another person because you believe you can totalize their entire life under a cheap tagline.
Arguably the US embargo, cut of diplomatic ties, invasion attempt, repeated assassination attempts, piles of money illicitly funneled to opposition, etc. had as much to do with Castro’s entrenchment/radicalization as anything to do with his personal ideology.
Just after the Cuban revolution, Castro was interested and open to US relations, but ideological prejudices and commitments by American elites made friendly relations impossible. Then a feedback loop ensued by which mutual trust was destroyed and both sides were increasingly radicalized.
Many things Castro did over his long career were reprehensible, but the same certainly can be said for pretty much every US president, and most other national leaders in similarly political turbulent situations.
Yes, while the Soviet Union was sending Cuba billions per year, it was much better there.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/the-amer...
The Human Development Index puts Cuba at position 40, despite the huge economic disadvantage of the embargo.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#2015_H...
> "One might best summarize the complex situation by saying that urban Cuba had come to resemble a Southern European country (with a living standard as high or surpassing that of France, Spain, Portugal and Greece) while rural Cuba replicated the conditions of other plantation societies in Latin America and the Caribbean," according to analyst Mark Falcoff. [0]
I've left off the bit about racism as that's already been much discussed in this thread.
[0] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/castro/peopleevents/e_precastro...
In Africa Fidel Castro also took part in one of the most murderous civil wars in the continent, the Angolan civil war, and fought to establish the continent's worse dictator and cleptocracy, José Eduardo dos Santos and his MPLA cronies.
Then, oddly enough, MPLA also intervened in Namibia's civil war against the communists.
The intersection of African Liberation politics and Cold war politics was very complex, but generally the west found itself on the side of the colonial authorities. In the end, colonialism and communism lost.
That's a blatant false dilemma.
The atrocities committed by Fidel Castro aren't whitewashed just because you can pick other nasty regimes.
Stalin isn't suddenly fabulous because he fought the Nazis.
Fidel Castro imposed a totalitarian regime on Cuba and extensively used violence and political assassinations to preserve his stranglehold on Cuba. Fidel Castro also projected his atrocities by intervening in decades-long civil wars.
You can't pretend nothing happened by playing the racist card.
I clearly stated that there are no clean hands: you are the one who is pretending like nothing bad was done by the west or their colonial allies/puppets by playing the communism card.
The old man in the back of the audience, marcoperaza, sighs and says, "Alas! If only it were the other way around..."
What happened in Cuba after Castro came into power is similar to what happened in other countries after the revolutionaries won. We should try and understand if these sorts of people were evil to begin with or became evil as a natural transition after tasting power following a successful revolution.
Simply terming them as evil (honestly, Castro and others did many evil deeds), and not trying to understand and learn from the pattern is going to be a problem that humanity as a whole will suffer from.
Neither was Rafidel Baticastro in any way special - he was just another human, using the chances that life presented him- and many of those for selfish reasons, like we all would. The Dynamics of revolution and upheaval could have swept anybody ruthless enough to the top. What the ruthless person then does, is on his account, but usually mirrors the way the opponents of the era engaged him/her and is only limited by nuclear deterrence from becoming total war as seen in Europe pre-nuke. Thus you are right in that he was evil when it came to trying to expand his power-base at any cost.
But then again, i also refuse the "single-saint-sinner" in the front row narrative. A individual like him needs followers, needs people desperate enough to throw there lives into the ring at his feet, needs a society that is prone to collapse anyway and this society is created by the every day villainy of you and me.
Its neither "tragic", nor inevitable, neither are the causes unknown. We all vote day to day with our feet for the likes of him and with the total of our life's for the circumstances to be "tragic".
We buy products assembled in sweatshops, we raise to large family's, who disguise themselves as SUVs and the ecological footprint of long commutes. And because we refuse to reduce our lifes-standard, this is "inevitable".
When the billing day arrives, we step back from the mess, throw ourselves on the floor in a tantrum, and demand the conservative equals to a economic "Safespace" aka a dictatorship of either a stabilizing Strong-Man or a Revolutionary (depending entirely on the ratio of nothing-to-loosers:small-time-croonies) .
So before writing history, i would like to hear more about the living circumstances, this all originated from. I would like to hear about your towns priest, who every Sunday preached, be fruitful and multiply, while condemning new ways of thinking, to a population consisting mostly out of hopeless-unemployed- youth.
I would like to here about the companys who held monopolys on sugar cane production, using up cheap human resources and sabotaged developments that would have reduced the availability of unskilled labor.
I would like to hear the whole story, see the whole picture. And yes, the murders are still on him. So that's it, another murderous Movement bastard, but if we dont find out what made him possible and prevent society from sliding into that direction again- your family suffered for nothing. Suffered to allow the survivors to suffer again the same fate, two or three generations down the row.
PS: My condolences to the CIA, who right at this moment must scrap the final assassination attempt - shooting him with salute guns at his funeral.
I think most people believe we already know. Suffering --> Revolution --> Dictatorship is a very common pattern. I think there is a lot to learn from the circumstances and based on the histories I've read of e.g. WWII germany, that feels like the general focus. I think its popular to initially focus on the person themselves, though once you begin any serious study of a particular revolution, the circumstances and cultural influences become so pronounced that the idea of the particular dictator being of importance begins to shrink.
Then why have people been allowing the upper classes in almost every developed and developing country to grind down the common people with suffering? How are we allowing the 1930s to happen over again if we've learned our lesson?
Franklin Roosevelt is turning in his damn grave these days. Every attempt he made to moderate the horrors of capitalism so as to avoid the worse horrors of totalitarianism is being rolled back! This must not be allowed!
I must admit i dont have any answer to this. And obviously more of the same doesn't work - i wish you could craft this learning experience into games. Like participating in a civil war- at the beginning you are blindly on a side- but then you play a second story, and lose some beloved character to your own murderous attitude, and you do that again and again, until it becomes clear that the enemy is you giving in to instinct.
But even that could only educate on basic humanity- you cant transport complex mistakes like economical mistakes in such game.
I can't say anything about your experience, but I can share something about my childhood in Brazil. A middle-class home, private school, private health-care family under a brutal US-sponsored military dictatorship. I never even suspected people were getting arrested and murdered for criticizing the government. I enjoyed the military parades. It never occurred to me that public school was really bad, that not every kid had access to it (most didn't), that unless you had a stable job (and, once labeled a subversive, that was mostly impossible), you had absolutely no health care. The cost of my happy childhood completely eluded me until I was an adult.
Batista was a violent, corrupt dictator. My grandmother lived in Cuba during those days in absolute poverty. It's not wise to talk in absolutes, your family was prosperous but most Cubans were not.
I believe we should be able to. I don't like Hitler and I'm quite on the left, but if we can start to stop demonizing political characters, it would appease many political problems.
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 fate/government.
> Dictatorship contains evil.
> this is a black-and-white matter
'Evil' has religious overtones but it's not a bad word to sum up such a situation.
Americans couldn't travel to Cuba. During the cold war, USSR. Americans couldn't freely express socialist ideas never mind communist ones. This in a democracy. I don't really see a big difference. The peculiarities of Cuba can be understood in its geopolitical context.
There is a general case to be made for regulating toxic substances and the examples given are of people arguing over if particular substances really are toxic enough.
> we're forced to do what someone
> tells us to do
You are confusing a lack of suffrage for effective slavery.
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?
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.
I assume the benevolent dictator would be someone, who allows different opinion, and who allows his policy to be changed by his people. And if they want to be governed by someone else, he would step down, have his own power limited or stripped. That wouldn't be a dictator then.
And you'd still have to deal with his administration which has it's own momentum. The 'benevolent dictator' could simply be replaced (killed) by his own clique with someone more in line with their interests.
Without it I think that the absolute position is naïve.
FDR had war powers too; he placed Japanese Americans in internment camps. I'm a big FDR fan but that will always be a stain on his legacy.
You're more right with George Washington. He was a commanding general during a civil war and the Continental Congress granted him more powers as he went along. What he's justly famous for, besides winning (or really if you want to be accurate, not losing and outlasting the Brits), was refusing dictatorial powers after the Revolutionary War (like Cincinnatus).
In the sense that both Washington and Lincoln were still subject to the Congress, I can't quite agree they were dictators, certainly not in the ne res publica detrimenti capiat (the Republic suffer no harm) sense where the Congress capitulates to the dictator.
And while I prefer liberal democracies, yes, I agree that:
Dictatorship is not a concept that is synonymous with evil.The respected daily Le Monde said the letters were exchanged between Castro and Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis.
In an acrimonious reply, Khrushchev suggested that Castro was irresponsible, since such a war would have killed millions of people in both East and West and destroyed Cuba."
So, let's get it clear that that doesn't make him humane and good for society.
>>If you think you're better, then do better. Be better. Don't refuse to acknowledge the humanity of another person because you believe you can totalize their entire life under a cheap tagline.
This is a disingenuous advice.
Will you not criticize Hitler? So, do you propose to acknowledge the humanity of Hitler and don't criticize him? Castro would have happily become Hitler, if he could get power.
Criticizing him or anyone is not necessarily reducing them to a tagline. He deserves much and harsh criticism than most thugs, criminals and religious extremists in the world. He was an extremely cruel, dictator with no remorse for his cruel and inhumane actions.
But what do you expect from a follower of communism? Communism is a very vicious ideology which leaves no room for any type of dissent. You either toe the party-line or get killed/maimed/imprisoned.
Sad, this criminal didn't die a lot earlier.
http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=55
Essentially he was a pre-revenue Hiltler.
Castro's long list of political executions are well documented. We may agree that Nazi death camps have a scale of their own, but this is no reason to turn a blind eye to the oppressive and persecutory nature of Fidel Castro's regime.
Hitler was right-wing.
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?
Honest question: is this taught in World History classes in American schools?
Exagerated what, the lie you wrote that only on Marxists regimes you can be persecuted?
the problem is that you see Mrxists even in the extreme right.
> All killing is immoral
It seems that not for you when youi minimize and deny anmy killing frok your side
Perhaps Videla was a hero for you, or Pinochet, or Stroessner.
"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 focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, although such aspects were later downplayed in order to gain the support of industrial entities, and in the 1930s the party's focus shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes."
For some objectivity, we could look at some stats. PPP adjusted GDP per capita is much lower than the US, but way better than China. Education is excellent [2] because they spend 10% of their budget on it. Life expectancy (~79, gasp!) is higher than the United States. All of this with a near total embargo from the next-door global economic super power.
Western record on human rights is equally bad. In Castro's time, the Vietnam war resulted in 1.3 million deaths. More recently, the invasion of Iraq has resulted in 125,000 non-combatant deaths. Western allies today like Saudi have the most egregious human rights records.
I hate communism, but even with unrestrained exaggeration, Castro isn't Hitler. Such a claim is either a result of media manipulation of history or a flawed history curriculum.
[1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2008/02/19/global-views-on-castro-a...
[2] https://novakdjokovicfoundation.org/education-system-of-cuba...
Because they didn't like him and got out. There were people who celebrated Margaret Thatcher's death. There would be people who would celebrate the death of some current world leaders. On the other hand there would be people who would mourn those deaths.
These are apples and oranges
"Why are cubans in miami celebrating his death?"
Because they are a group of Cubans who don't like him. There are also Cubans mourning his death. Like all politicians some people liked his policies (because they benefited from them) and will be sad he's dead and others disliked his policies (because they did not benefit from them) and will be happy he's dead. Ultimately what he did or didn't do has no relevance to your question.
Right after obama came to cuba there was a large influx of cubans who made the journey through the carribean to the us to gain the guarenteed citizenship [0]. Why would people risk their lives to leave? Are these individuals also upper class escaping slaughter?
[0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/05/cuban-immigr...
Cuban Revolution was not for a wimp.
It's important to note that even if this elite is the "1%" of the country, this 1% amounts to a significant number of people.
"... all three of us — papi, mami and me — got visas to leave. It took five years to get those visas and my folks were immediately fired from their jobs when they applied.
"On that July 1967 day when we were scheduled to go, the three of us made it to the boarding ladder of the Eastern Airlines Freedom Flight bound for America. But a Castro soldier stopped us before we boarded and demanded to see the family’s papers. I remember this as if it was yesterday. That bearded guerrilla in green and carrying a rifle confirmed all three of us were cleared to leave Cuba.
"But, he added, that only two of us could leave because that’s what he personally was deciding. He then told my father to pick who goes and who stays. What ensued next is hazy to me. I know there were tears. I know there was drama. But suffice to say only my mother and I got on that plane.
"My dad stayed behind, and for three years he was unable to reunite with us. Other family members never were able to reunite with us."
Armando Salguero, Miami Herald sportswriter, in: http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/armando-...
Looks like you have no idea what communism really is.
My point was, restricting free speech is indeed part of communism, but be careful before judging the system in relations to other systems based on that small piece of information. It's easy to start spewing "communism = evil" because we've been told so many times, and just use any small piece of information to justify our position, rather than having a hard look, not only at communism, but all the systems in place, both their theory and applications.
Depends. Is your country trying to restrict even democratic socialists, respectful of human rights, from operating openly? Does your country use infiltration and assassination to grind its Left into dust? If so, you may just have to deal with the tankie communists.
That's more of a general European rhetoric. We (unfortunately) don't have free speech even in democratic capitalism!
Expected a higher level of discourse on HN. Wishful thinking.
Also, I didn't just put that only statement here. I made a reasonably well argument against the tyrant.
It was a US-caused political niche that was eagerly filled by the most opportunistic/capable people available.
That's like saying modern terrorism as practiced by groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS has nothing to do with a particular interpretation of Islam, but is rather just a response to colonialism and foreign interference in middle eastern countries, etc.
There was an ideological basis to the Cuban revolution that tapped into a existing global Marxist ideology. 'Packaging' was critical.
If you blame the atrocities committed on the packaging alone and not on the market that was created beforehand, you're not provinding any help to make sure history doesn't repeat itself.
Nor was there universal adulation of the Castro-ites by Marxists around the world.
There is a lot of criticism of the Cuban revolution, and debate whether it was in fact a revolution or a coup, within Marxism itself.
Castro himself was not a self-described socialist until after he was spurned by the U.S. who committed a major foreign policy blunder by supporting Batista, the landowner class, and the existing regime long after they had shown themselves to be brutal and corrupt and after Castro had overthrown them.
Castro threw himself into the Stalinist bloc out of necessity. Blame for the 50 year trajectory of Cuba can be placed squarely on ineptness of U.S. foreign policy to deal with the post-colonial reality. They committed similar and in fact bloodier and worse blunders in central America throughout the 70s and 80s with Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guetemala.
A very sad incompetent and shameful history that Obama looked like he was finally willing to confront.
A historically seldom act of courage it was for a leader of a state what Obama did there. Not as thorough as the Warsaw Genuflection by Brandt, but not far away either.
Nations cannot admit their past wrongdoings although unquestionable. Creating tensions, a foreign one, often a domestic one too (ie. Turkey and the Armenians, or Turkey and the Kurds). Former "patriots" are revealed as actually hurting their nation just as breaking such a cycle of having to act stubborn becomes unquestionably patriotic, once viewed from the distance of history.
That includes death penalty and political revolutions.
> is not OK
Morale/ethics do change over time, but not killing people has been shown throughout history to be the bare minimum for a decent society, and an accepted standard today. We can discuss and expand on adding more species, kingdoms and domains, but humans are not up for discussion.
> to be the bare minimum
> for a decent society
However, in that hypothetical case you describe, it might be up for discussion. My point was that by modern standards, killing other humans is not ok, and not up for discussion.
Dictators that prosecute and murder their opponents, like Castro did, share a very predictable set of psychopathic/narcissistic/paranoid personality characteristics. They are, by definition, not normal.
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.
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... :-)
If anything, the history of Cuba's attempted overruns by the US only serve to justify the regime's paranoia.
So, why didn't you compare with working democracies there.. instead of with cleptocracies that had coups and civil wars?
What is the real problem with doing as normal people and condemn all dictators?
Castro had options, he could have gone to Western Europe and asked for help in e.g. the 70s, as part of a democratization program.
(And when Cuba didn't have free money by being a client state, they even had problems feeding the population.)
This is dangerous when genuinely evil people apply the label 'evil' to people they wish to persecute.
Especially for locking his people in a prison island - an act which can't remotely be defended as 'in the interest of the people or socialism' or any progressive cause ...
Fidel - borderline evil.
Somewhat nuanced.
Definitely bad.
Not as bad a Hitler.
There you go.
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.
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.
Do you believe this puts you into a position of objective analysis?
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!
This is why people often seem to say "he seemed so normal" in bewilderment when someone they knew commits mass murder.
Perhaps, given the lack of slave reparations, the nationalizing of American property in Cuba is not the injustice that many in Florida would like us all to believe.
No - I'm objecting to this with this comment.
Moral relativism is a problem in our era.
Castro is Bad.
Period.
This why they are treated as such.
Castro is also bad (label), which is why Cubans revile him.
Oh the irony. Gitmo is in Cuba too :)
Cuba is a land full of regular citizens.
See the difference?
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 comparing the comments in this thread to those of world leaders. The vast majority of world leaders, including those in modern, developer, western states, are praising Castro for helping bring down apartheid, providing good health care and education to his citizens etc.
My point really is that on this issue as persons views are clearly shaped by the propaganda they are exposed to and their personal political opinions (e.g. socialism is evil, socialism is fair and good). Like most people Castro did good and bad. Some of the things he did may be construed as evil but he also did quite a lot of good things so brandishing the person as evil rather than considering all of the factors is foolish.
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/country/cuba https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/cuba
Edit: Additional reports from Ammesty International, Human Rights Watch and RSF below also.
"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 their Government". They also claimed a lack of criticism of U.S. human rights violations in the annual reports. Cuba also stated that these violations are well documented by other reports, such as those of Human Rights Watch. The Russian representative inquired "why this organization, an NGO which defended human rights, was against the creation of the International Criminal Court."
There is so much propaganda regarding this little Caribbean island, that it is wise to carefully consider one's sources.
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.
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 not to repeat the trope "but healthcare and education were good and free and available to all". I for many years allowed those reports, parroted so often, to soften my judgment of Castro. But now learning of the extent of the horrors of oppression, those outweigh any social welfare "results".
And now I have had cause to question even those results as I read and learn of a healthcare system where critical operations that were performed only after agonizing waits for eight months and then by doctors and nurses so starved of supplies that they sometimes operated with bare hands.
Castro should be remembered for the suffering he caused - all of it preventable. The best way to him sum up is to consider that he created an island prison where nobody was allowed to leave without his permission - and for an unbearable number of years most of the world applauded him. I hope you will remember this and hear the cynical trying to tie themselves to a "distinguished legacy" when politicians comment today.
Keep in mind during the same period that Cuba was repressing homosexuality, so was the United States. Cuba did not ignore the AIDS epidemic that killed literally an entire generation of gay people. The Cuban government did not laugh and call it the gay plague.
I don't like Cuba. I'm not a state socialist. But I find it disconcerting that everyone is so passionately piling up their attacks on the Cuban government but would never scrutinize the US government in such detail. There are people in this thread who are bringing up actions the US have taken that would be considered objectionable by the same standards, but they aren't being addressed; they are being brushed aside as irrelevant or incomparable.
Imagine being that drunk on propaganda. As if the United States did not forcibly dismantle political parties it deemed dangerous in the United States. As if the United States did not repress its LGBT minorities. As if the United States doesn't bully the entire world in order to get its economic benefits. As if the United States doesn't torture and murder civilians. As if the United States and capitalism are completely blameless for the extreme poverty in Detroit or Flint.
It's really sickening to watch people deny or downplay the violence inherent in the perpetuation of their favorite system of government. Ironic, I guess.
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 end of the cold war, it could no longer support Cuba. The island nation was driven further into poverty and essential goods like food and medicine became scarce.
And what did the US do at that point? Did they reopen diplomatic relations and try to find some rapprochement after an era of high tensions? No. Instead they decided that now was an excellent time to extend their embargo to include food and medicine as well, which were up to that point exempt from the trade ban.
To point to a single man and his inner circle as the sole cause for the sad state Cuba is in today is just as absurd as to deny the wrongs of the Castro regime, nor did he only do bad things for the Cuban people. The "trope" of education and healthcare being available to all is not some straw man. It is a legitimate achievement, and one that many nations the world around have not been able to match, no matter their affluence.
In American English, the phrase, "He murdered thousands," can't be followed by the word "but..."
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 much of the suffering (the "millions" not the "thousands") was directly caused by US actions, so don't come with the holier than thou.
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.
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 government ships spotted a tugboat full of refugees headed for Florida on July 13, 1994, they blasted it to pieces with high-pressure fire hoses. “Our tugboat started taking on water,” recounted one of the survivors, María Victoria García. “We shouted to the crewmen on the boat, ‘Look at the children! You’re going to kill them!’ And they said, ‘Let them die! Let them die!’” Forty-one of the refugees did. [2]
While you write about the good things he did from your comfortable home with high speed internet, with the rule of law in a capitalist liberal democracy, this is how desperate his citizens were to leave this country of “good things”, and how barbarous was Castro against his own people.
[1] https://twitter.com/YvonneMConde/status/802587003057410048 [2] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/...
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.
Then I hope you've been holding up to the same standard almost every American leader from the latter half of the 20th century till now - whether through political interference, violent regime change to authoritarian leaders, proxy wars, drone strikes or straight up war without a cause.
The truth is that in most people and things, we're inclined to overlook the good for the bad or the bad for the good, depending on our preconceived opinions. Most leaders - especially revolutionary ones - are this, but taken to the extreme, often liberating an entire populace while oppressing another. Which is why they often are notable for both, but more notable for one than the other depending on whether the person you're talking to suffered or prospered under their rule.
We shouldn't be afraid to say in the same breath that a person increased welfare and happiness for some and yet decreased it for others, stood up to imperialism and yet also was the pawn of larger global interests, was persecuted even while he persecuted others, was demonized even while he demonized others, was the target of many assassinations even while he ordered the murder of others, was spread lies and misinformation about even while he spread lies and misinformation about others. All of this happened together.
This doesn't mean it's balanced one way or another, or that one makes up for the other at all. This isn't excusing murder and atrocity - it's giving credence to the complexity of events. It's understanding how the life you live and the limited environment you live it in is very different from the experiences of others, and that people's realities, cares and worries are shaped more by things near them and less by things that don't affect them. It's a way towards understanding why others hold they opinions they do, and also a gateway to criticizing our own leaders and idols in the same way. Leaders should not be deified or demonized, but understood as a whole, wether to understand what to repeat and look up to or understand what never to allow to happen again.
Then when Fidel came to power one of the things he promised was to reduce the reliance on US trade. And he nationalized all of the private property and assets belonging to American individuals and companies.
And in response to that, the embargo was introduced. AND THEN there was the Bay of Pigs.
So lets not pretend the embargo is what destroyed US Cuban trade. Fidel did that all by himself, without the help of the embargo.
Also, the US didn't push Cuba into the Soviet sphere.. Fidel already had close tied to the Soviets before the embargo. It was one of the reasons for putting the embargo in place.
Keep in mind the Great Depression was worldwide, not just the US. It affected many countries, including those who did not trade with the US.
And yes, this happened decades before.. but it was one of the reasons Fidel came to power. In other words, there was already a strong anti-US sentiment in Cuba because of this and the forced military leases (which date back to the 1800s).
This was 30 years before Fidel, before the embargo. The point was, you already had this anti-US sentiment in Cuba before Fidel came to power.
US Cuban trade did not end at that point. But when Fidel came to power (30 years later), he used that anti-US sentiment to nationalize all American property in Cuba. That is what actually ended US Cuban trade.
>Castro should be remembered for the suffering he caused - all of it preventable.
>"distinguished legacy"
Isn't all the same true about Obama[0][1][2], perhaps to a lesser degree but still true? Will we eulogize him in the same way?
[0]http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/07/obamas-surveillance-stat...
[1]http://www.mintpressnews.com/barack-obama-the-nobel-peace-pr...
[2]http://warisacrime.org/content/why-obama-torturing-private-b...
I have to agree with the poster above in observing that much of the criticism here is nothing more than the regurgitation of propaganda that people have been fed since birth, and I question the ability of many posters here to distinguish between derived and received opinions on this topic.
This is why I ask how you're weighting the good and bad factors. No doubt your feelings are sincerely held, but since we're not privy to your personal moral calculus, how else can we evaluate it, or make meaningful comparisons with prior alternatives? This might seem academic, but it matters. I would likely have done quite badly as an individual in Castro's Cuba and would probably have been in a hurry to leave; on the other hand I can't but be aware of the dreadful conditions there that led to the overthrow of the Batista government in the first place, nor of the US' intransigence in refusing to tolerate a neighboring country following a path of political self-determination on purely ideological grounds, and putting it under extreme economic pressure for doing so. To use a Christian metaphor, don't be in such a hurry to point out the mote in your neighbor's eye that you miss the beam in your own.
Of course their actions should be condemned but what you wrote is just wrong, a lot of them were like us until they stopped.. Most murderers do not born as murderers, they are made murderers.
Your argument as a whole was a bit funny...
You use personal arguments about someone else as thinking in black and white -- then define people with different backgrounds as good or bad, according to our local cultural definitions.
Please read some history. It was no better, it was just not internationally infamous clan societies for a while. Then we had violent national states (check e.g. Polish deluge or the 30 year war).
But I think the same pattern is found everywhere. Most cultures were much more violent in the past. I think Pinker wrote a book about the phenomenon, he is good (I haven't read that but others).
(Let me note that reading about the Polish deluge was one of the shocks of my life, the Swedish school system really didn't mention much about the Polish side of it. I guess the Germans are the only ones that ever took any form of responsibility for historical atrocities.)
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.
Suggested reading as to why it's not ambiguous: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4375527
The history of how the FBI suppressed Black, Native, Latino, and New Leftist organizations more generally is a bloody one. Cuba has never had a monopoly on authoritarian behavior in the Western Hemisphere.
No, you seem unwilling to read the link I gave? From the article:
"That same month, on April 23, 1976, the Church Committee released its Final Staff Report on the FBI and CIA’s rampant domestic illegalities which included a chapter entitled “The FBI’s Covert Action Plan to Destroy the Black Panther Party.” The chapter concluded by highlighting the Hampton raid as a COINTELPRO operation and quoting from the bonus documents that we had obtained only weeks before."
I guess the people massacred at that MSF hospital were terrorists, too.
That wasn't a drone strike. That was an accidental attack by an AC-130 gunship.
I'm sure folks in Yemen or Afghanistan are a political threat to Obama. Right.
If humans can attack during at least 30 minutes a (well-known) position by mistake, why should I believe that every single droned person was a terrorist?
To be fair, earlier in the year the administration promised to implement additional safeguards and oversight for these programmes, but brass tacks a progressive administration killed US citizens in non-war zones because of an executive decision with no due process.
Why, instead of taking a comically bad example, you don't pick a more controverte place like Singapore, an organized state where drug consumption leads to the death penalty and you will be suppressed it dissent is attempted, yet has one of the highest standards of living in the world?
On the contrary, my example is probably the best you can get because the point I'm making is the equivalence between one government and another, or between US presidents and Castro is a false one. No one is saint obviously but the offenses have a different gravity hence we have as different societies as North and South Korea.
Some Western people might feel like the US or the UK are literally totalitarian states but they just didn't live under autocratic regimes.
Speaking of which, the false equivalence narrative is actively exploited by such regimes to legitimize their own miserable state of affairs. It's fascinating how it works but apparently if something is bad in, say, Russia and also bad in the US (as told by the state TV), Russian citizens are fine with their conditions not being improved.
Really have to question this reification of "evil" per se. Evil is most immediately a religious construct. Or, in the words of Hannah Arendt, it is "banal." When did calling people evil ever lead to more justice in the world?
As if George W Bush having the courage to call Iran and Iraq and Libya the "Axis of Evil" led to the US promoting peace in those countries? No, there's been a proportional increase in US-led suffering (death toll in Iraq post-invasion around .5 million).
I don't honestly know too much about Fidel Castro, but take a minute to look at the US-installed Batista, who was overthrown. And, gawd, what about JFK? What about Kissinger These leaders had all the advantages of starting out in a relatively functional industrially-developed democracy, and they managed to do all kinds of evil, mainly to countries like Cuba.
Tangentially, IMHO, I don't believe Castro was nearly as "pathological" a human being as a number of US presidents.
No dude, "evil" is a social and cultural construct. We are doing this as a species, as in relying on taboos and moral rules, in order to survive. It's why we don't fuck our relatives, kill our children or eat our dead. This inherited culture is how 7 billion of us live on this earth without killing each other. And we need it because frankly many of us are too stupid to be rational all the time.
As for calling "evil" when seeing it, this is basically about communicating to other human beings a danger sign that can be universally understood. Which is in itself an act that can be used for evil, like the US propaganda for entering Irak, but then again we are flawed creatures trying to live our lives.
What I'm trying to say here is that this isn't an argument that you can win. And I'm not even sure that being more rational would be good for us. Because IMO even perfectly rational people can be easily fooled into believing flawed statistics and logical fallacies and I don't even care what Fidel's dream was for Cuba because the end never justifies the means IMO.
Well, history is effectively written by the victors, so it will be written so that the ends will retroactively justify the means, or at the very least will be scrutinized far enough into the future that we can disengage emotionally.
If Castro's dream was to avoid Cuba from turning into a Haiti or a Honduras, it was a resounding success. If it was about turning it into a socialist utopia where people lived as if was the first world, it would probably be unrealistic in the first place but things remain to be seen.
The point is that, in fact, we do justify evil when it aligns with our policies and goals, because a lot of our well-being depends on it. The American quality of life depends a great deal on the intervention and installment of puppet regimes in countries that provide natural resources to guarantee a steady stream of supplies for manufacture; that was the basis of the Monroe Doctrine and it justifies atrocities to a level where Castro's worst was just baby play.
I actually do agree that there is evil in the repression of the country, but at the same time good is not the absence of evil either, and you can't talk about the evil without recognizing the successes of the Cuban regime. Otherwise you cannot even begin to make a single claim on the good things of the US because it has been based, to a great degree, on the control and oppression if millions of innocent people through projected global power.
This is NOT ok, and I'm shocked that it's even a thought to entertain here on HN.
Like the well-known western government(s) that deliberately destabilized The Congo early in its independence and installed a dictator, because they did not like the ideological leanings of whoever was in power then? A conflict that still continues 56 years later?
But then it becomes hard to pick out a specific person and say how evil they are, and how they're different from me and you.
* A tendency which is underappreciated in politics. Consider for example, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as an instantiation of George W. Bush for the Iranian political market.
Do they? What facts have you go to support your thesis?
It is easier to hate people than to accept that their behavior is emergent and afflicts us as well. The most intelligent, benevolent AI or angel will fail in our complex systems/organizations. This is an incredibly desperate understanding, particularly when you realize that those in power are disincentivized from making improvements.
Organizations DEMAND 'evil' behavior. It is not User Error.
CGP Grey has a great video that can help open your mind, if you are willing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
They've become a psychological comforting mechanism where we apply "good" to things we like or want to like and "evil" to things that we don't. But the words themselves connote something deeper than that--something foundational about morality.
It's convenient. Tidy. We all want to think of ourselves as "good." We don't want to think that we, individually or as a nation or whatever group identity we cling to, is capable of being "evil." Calling something evil is a way of creating cognitive distance between ourselves and what we don't like.
I think it's dangerous. Literally dangerous to engage in the world this way. The real fact of the matter is that perfectly normal, sane, rational, "good" people are capable of doing atrocious things. Even you. Even me.
Hitler wasn't fundamentally different from any of us. Any one of us could become just as bad under the right (wrong?) circumstances.
Pretending that we are different in some basic way paves the path for us to become "evil." It allows us to believe that we are immune to certain types of bad actions.
But we aren't.
Any single individual among us has the capacity to do awful things. Some people were simply able to scale awfulness effectively. That doesn't make them fundamentally different from us.
Calling some individual "evil" isn't semantically different from applying the "good" label to yourself. And when you believe that you are good, it's a lot easier to bend the rules.
There's a specific and frightening chain of logic that goes like this:
I'm good. Good people don't do evil things. So this [insert bad behavior here] is good. Because I'm good.
But the good/evil lens of the world has another drawback. It removes accountability and consequence. If I believe that I'm "good", there's no credit to be given when I choose not to do "evil" deeds. Of course I wouldn't do that. I'm not "evil".
When you apply a label like "evil" to a person, what else could you expect? Of course that person is going to do horrible things. That person is "evil."
The Good/Evil abstraction is pernicious, self-fulfilling, and circular.
We need to be better than that. We need to own up to the full spectrum of our nature and accept it so that we can guard against the worst parts of it.
Pretending that we are not capable of being "evil" is pretty much the foundational mechanism that allows truly terrible things to happen.
Bottom line, as has been posted already, and much to the chagrin of demagogues and their supporters, the world is not comprised solely of "goodies" and "baddies". Realpolitik is shades of grey. It's possible for leaders, governments, regimes, parties, to have done both good and bad things. This applies as much to "us" as "them". Sorry to rain on your[1] patriotism parade.
[1] 'you' collectively. Not erokar individually.
No cuban children sleeps in the streets tonight. You can't say that about northamerican children.
Of course, this idea gets lost to the mind of the Western middle class because in general they just don't think about the poorest members of their society (or some just think they deserve their fate).
The Communist era had numerous well-documented flaws, but really, the things it got right aren't spoken about enough in the West. We could learn something from that. For example, the levels of education of the population in the Soviet Union were never attained in the United States. How do we fix that in the Capitalist system? Do we want a more educated population in the first place? Do we want to live in a society with no children in the streets? If we do, what do we have to change in our society to attain that? It's important not to take a whole system for granted as a full package ignoring its flaws, be it Communist or Capitalist.
But indeed, the saying _is_ correct: "Millions of children will sleep on the streets tonight. None of them is Cuban."
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426334/cuba-working-cl...
But no, we hold Cuba to a standard that no country on Earth has achieved. Maybe except for the Germans, since Merkel is keen on doing her own groceries.
> The Castro family can travel the world and enjoy a lavish lifestyle
But not if you finish the sentence:
> while most of the population lives in poverty and are not allowed to leave the country.
Also, I do consider their levels of education to be a grandiose achievement, and "to what end?" — well, their levels of healthcare for one. I don't claim their system is perfect or even good, but one can't judge the value of education only on the salaries they bring.
We didn't have children living on the streets either. But the reason for that was that giving children up for adoption was essentially illegal, the women of our country being denied contraception, having a mandate to reproduce and raise offsprings. And also foster homes were essentially prisons, some in really poor conditions; at least those that had the children with special needs were absolutely horrible (i.e. the new men couldn't admit the existence of the handicapped).
So you know, the actual reason many of these countries haven't had children on the streets is because the police wouldn't allow it ;-)
And I feel compelled to mention this for those among you that might get romantic ideas about how communism happened to be in practice.
This is still true of most orphanages in countries like Brazil. It still beats dying of hunger and cold under a bridge any day, which is unfortunately still a common occurrence in those countries.
Please stop trying to humanize him.
Or is it just a matter of calling dissenters "traitors" and then it's fine? I'm sure Castro ticked that checkbox before the executions.
He generously donated it every time he executed a dissenter.
i don't see how i could ever turn into a dictator who puts his political opponents in jail (as well as everyone who just wants to get out of the country) - all in the name of some higher cause. Interesting if these dictators ever took note of the discrepancy between the Cause and reality; or were they always able to self-justify their actions like in the 'grand inquisitor' by Dostoevsky, who knows...
All the complexities in the world won't cover up the fact that communism was by far the worst evil of the 20th century, beating nazism by a mile, by tens of millions of people killed to no benefit. It had no redeeming qualities. Murder, slavery, and poverty is all communism gave to the world.
Now its major protagonists can burn in hell together. I hope they do.
---
Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) and former ambassador to Mauritania said:
> In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, [my working group was asked] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. […] After the task force concluded its work, Congress [passed] U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331 ... the US definition of terrorism. […] one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." […] Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. […] And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.[62]
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 individual) have, but rather if you believe anything at all.
Beliefs--like believing in good and evil, but there are many--are fundamentally a scary proposition. And I can't understand how people maintain them.
Belief, by definition, is accepting something as true while knowing there is insufficient evidence for that thing to be true.
This is not substantively different from a definition of insanity: a case where a person accepts something as true that isn't supported by a reasonable body of evidence.
This is kind of a bold statement, but I stand by it. People who believe things are not really different from people who are insane. There's a lack of reason common to both categories of people.
The Good/Evil dichotomy is only one projection of belief. But it may well be the most important one. Because fundamentally, assertions of good and evil are really just high-level abstractions for the beliefs.
Good vs. Evil is a shortcut to feeling good about yourself. It's a shortcut for saying, "I believe x about y and I have no reasonable proof for any of that, but it makes me feel good about myself."
We should do away with beliefs. We're smarter and better than that. And getting rid of beliefs would have the nice effect of tossing the good/evil garbage out as well.
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.
And despite his flaws (and/or crimes against humanity) I can't help but wonder how Cuba would have faired under different leadership. Looking at the next-island neighbors in Haiti, or any number of comparable African countries, it seems the Cubans got the better deal. Just one example: life expectancy is 15 years higher than Haiti, and actually even a bit higher than in the US.
Organizing the necessities for life on this island, with a superpower fixated on killing you (and ruining you economy) next door, and keeping it peaceful for 50 years must be some sort of high score.
I know there'll be many Americans dancing on his grave (once the Trump International Hotel Havanna has opened). They may not even be wrong in an absolute sense. But there have been dozens of leaders in South America, Africa and Asia in the last 50 years much worse than Castro who don't seem to trigger the reflexes of righteousness. Actual mass-murdering sadists like Manuel Noriega, throwing living people into the ocean, from airplanes paid for by the CIA.
Let's hope for a bright future for Cuba – I met many people there who felt paralyzed by the stagnation, the constant scarcity. The beginning of the end of the embargo may turn out to be one of the most significant legacies of President Obama.
Look at how awful the quality of life in Cuba is today. Look at its people's lack of basic freedoms. Look at its awful economy. The US tried to save Cuba from itself.
That's how you keep power and that's why you have such a high standard of living. You think it's because you work hard but it's not. At least not primarily.
Libya was a NATO intervention that was pushed and led by France, specifically Sarkozy's government.
It ended marginally better because NATO's intervention decisively tipped the scales against Gaddafi's regime.
The Syrian civil war has been in a stalemate for years, and only recently has Assad's regime been making inroads due to Russia's decisive and no-holds-barred military intervention.
And yes Syria is an intangible mess now, probably the same would have been in Lybia if it was left to own civil war for 5 more years.
Now, factor in the fact that Libya is now a failed state and the refugee crisis is largely caused by human traffickers using Libya as a staging area to send those countless lifeboats packed with countless unwitting victims, a great number of which end up dead in the Mediterranean.
Furthermore, non-intervention only meant no actual American troops in Syria, not staying out of the conflict: the US has funded, armed and trained much of the opposition from the start of the conflict, and US made and supplied anti-tank weapons are prominent in the rebels ability to counter the armoured forces of the Syrian army.
Any of the US involvement to Syria beyond verbal support occurred only years into the conflict, and even then it was minimal compared to meddling of Turkey, Arab states or Russia.
I've been to Cuba, and life there is somewhat boring, and the standard of living is obviously low. But it's not the kind of poverty you seen many other countries. No starving old people and children in the streets, also no gang violence ruling your block.
Streetlife in general seemed quite happy – old people playing chess, young girls playing soccer (in school uniforms, no less), groups of three or four neighbors fixing one of those old cars etc.
Now it sounds too much like glorification – I also listened to 6 hours of Castro's labor day sermon in 2003 and most people around me felt I was insane for attending it voluntarily – they only went because somebody, somewhere had to check their name of a list or they may get into trouble. That's a price I wouldn't be willing to pay.
I hope Cuba will find a way to preserve a bit of what made it bearable in its worst times.
Why didn't you compared Cuba before the coup, and after Fidel Castro established his dictatorship?
Comparing Cuba to one of the lowest developed nations on earth, particularly while ignoring the other half of the island (Dominican republic) is a tad disingenuous.
You can argue whether that's something that can be blamed on him, but if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt I wouldn't call that a fair comparison.
For example, there was a story posted on HN long ago about a Soviet dissident who had his life ruined because he was known to be a dissident. They didn't imprison him and torture him, they just got him fired, made sure he couldn't find any but the most menial work, discredited him, etc. Would we say that it was his fault for adopting a pro-Western position? That it was "his policies" that ruined his life, family? Or that an external force opposed to his views and more powerful than him punished him for his views?
How is the fact that they've done relatively well in spite of the embargo supposed to make the comparison not fair?
Seems to be a direct consequence of Fidel Castro's political initiatives. I'm sure we can agree that Castro's regime has at least some responsibilities in this outcome.
> You can argue whether that's something that can be blamed on him, but if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt I wouldn't call that a fair comparison.
That assumption is rather disingenuous. There's a clear before/after period in Cuba. I'm sure you agree that Fidel Castro is the direct responsible for this revolution. If he is responsible for this change, what exactly leads you to believe that he holds no responsibility in any negative consequence that arose naturally from his direct political actions and planning?
So, you believe that the Cuban missile crisis was yet another misunderstanding that Fidel Castro had absolutely no say in the subject, do you?
What an unfortunate saint, Fidel Castro has been. Those countless political asylum-seekers risking their lives in makeshift boats must be a whole bunch of ungrateful fools for not enjoying living in Castro's paradise on earth.
Does this sound better?
Back in power, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans.[4] Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large US-based multinationals who were awarded lucrative contracts.[4][5] To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions; ultimately killing anywhere from hundreds to 20,000 people.[6][7][8] For several years until 1959, the Batista government received financial, military, and logistical support from the United States.[9]
Cuba was twice as rich as Haiti (see graph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Cuba#/media/File:GD... for example) even before the revolution and had a lot more social capital. Yes, there was a good bit of inequality. Yes, the Batista regime was not great in all sorts of ways. But I expect Cuba would have been better off than Haiti even without the revolution happening.
What African countries are you thinking of that you consider comparable to Cuba in 1958?
Fully agreed on your last paragraph, though.
The United States subsidizes many government within its sphere of influence, too. In turn it also trades with them and gains significant sway over the economic affairs of those countries for the benefit of US markets. Cuba had none of this for the last 25 or so years.
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 significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free.
The truth is, if as a continent we are to point at individual world leaders who did the most for African nations, Fidel Castro is very high up that list, if not at the top.
He had his fights and ills, but not with us.
With that, rest in peace Fidel Castro. Your legend lives on.
As someone who studied the subject formally, don't place maximum weight on the success and failures of the (statistically insignificant) rise and fall of modern nation states. This is a very far cry from a controlled experiment to begin with, anyways.
Don't read into that too much. I'm not saying mainstream economics doesn't have compelling arguments to make about the elegant effectiveness of free (properly regulated) markets. I'm just trying to be fair: it's a far cry from a scientific fact, which it seems like not just this comment, but a lot of us in the west (even mainstream academic economics) sell the idea as.
I guess that destroys my argument that there hasn't been a single successful planned economy in history so far.
Well anyways, the objective fact here is that Cuba is objectively richer and more successful than some nearby economies that have had more right wing influence in nearby Central America.
Centrally planning an economy is an NP complete problem. Marxism is dumb and if any would be socialist on this forum can explain to me how we as a society can retain the benefits yielded by capitalism without the use of capital and how socialism of such a form can exist without a centrally planned economy, I'm all ears.
Marxism has failed and failed and then failed again, and then it also led to the deaths of 100 million.
For a concrete example, someone who is interested cannot really respond to you if they wanted to because you're firing in every direction with very little detail or explanation. How is anyone supposed to guess at what you consider to be the "benefits yielded by capitalism"? What socialism "of such a form" do you mean? Why do you seem blind to the many "dumb" parts of capitalism or liberal democracy? Do you study the various alternatives that have been discussed in the history of political science and theory? What specifically do you find dumb about Marxism, particularly as compared with its counterparts in other economic models and interpretations of human history?
On HN, you'll find emotional, knee-jerk reactions receive a swift, negative response. Especially when they're negative emotions, delivered with insults and anger. You can do much better than this, and you'll find interesting conversations coming your way.
Cuba has been embargoed only by the USA.
Cuba can buy absolutely anything it needs - even American products - simply by going through any one of a myriad of interlocutors: Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Venezuela.
There is absolutely no forgiving Fidel's cruel dictatorship.
Just as I understand there is some Cuban goodwill with respect to the doctors they send abroad - and early on Fidel's creation of better literacy/healthcare programs.
But remember this: Fidel worked with the Russians to put nuclear weapons 40 miles away from the USA - and created a crazy situation - the closest the world has ever been to full blown nuclear war. That was this man's hubris - he nearly helped put the world on fire. That kind of existential threat is not easily forgotten. Point being: the 'embargo' is 100% Fidel's fault, and he could have easily taken steps to have it removed, but his ego would not allow it.
That's after US did the same to Russia and failed invasion of Cuba. “In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to agree to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter future harassment of Cuba.” [1]
You may want to read [2], which was posted on HN before. In short, US was a real bully back then. Anything did by Cuba and USSR were mostly reactive knee-jerking response to the aggressive stance of US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real...
It was a response to the Cuban revolution, which was Communist, and 'Soviet inspired' from day one - a global movement which was threatening the entire world.
I'm not an expert on the embargo, and it's a bit complicated because it's got multiple pieces of enabling legislation, but at first glance the only one of those that says anything close to what you're saying is Title III of the Helms-Burton act (see http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/... for full text). That explicitly allows companies "trafficking in property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959", if it was confiscated from a United States national, to be sued in US courts. This obviously only matters to companies doing business in the US, because otherwise they don't care whether they get sued to start with. Note also that certain forms of real estate are excluded from the provisions of this law, again at first glance.
Am I just missing something? Do you have a citation for your claim?
The same happened with MasterCard and VISA, and is part of the reason why I think Germany should continue to keep its own payment system, and just ban MasterCard and VISA and PayPal within the EU.
Or that you can’t technically put apps on the iOS App Store or the Google Play Store if you trade with Cuba.
(As you technically need an export declaration, as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10835045 )
The Reddit discussion references the Helms-Burton act, and for the case of things like banks and payment processors, I expect the problem is Title I section 103, which prohibits US nationals from extending loans or other financing to anyone for the purpose of financing transactions involving confiscated property as defined elsewhere in the act.
So for the cigar case, if the cigars were grown on land that was confiscated (for example), my reading of it is that processing a payment for the cigars would be prohibited under the act. Certainly so for MasterCard and Visa, which are clearly extending credit.
That's not the same as a blanket ban on both doing business with Cuba and business with US companies, but it does make things very complicated, I agree, especially because there are so many ways of extending credit when companies deal with each other.
An embargo sparked by Castro. Just saying.
The comment you are replying to is embracing that complexity. Paving over it with simplistic thinking "Castro was evil and wrong" does a great deal of violence to the truth.
I am no fan of the shape Fidel Castro's Cuba took, but I think it is more important that we learn from the mistakes of the revolution (which are not a simple matter of being 'evil' or 'wrong') than that we demonize them.
In general, we should learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.
I honestly agree.
I just think it is ridiculous to claim that Castro was "a great leader" when Cuba has fared very poorly under Castro in almost every respect. I felt obliged to point this out.
Were they given the chance (cold war, embargo, et al)?
I feel obliged to point this out too.
But I'd say its factually incorrect.
Should incorrect statements be downvoted even if it shows an interesting state of mind?
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 tensions.
Many central and south American heads of state have tried to stand up to that empire, and many have died in plane crashes. Hugh Chavez, demonized in American media, put pieces of the bill of rights on all food packaging, stood up for the poor and was opposed by the rich. Those people help him survive a military coupé. I would not be surprised if in 40 years, declassified documented revealed that coupé was US led.
For those who think that's crazy tin foil hat, remember that the US did cause the September 11th 1973 uprising in Chile, which led to the deaths of 11,000 civilians.
In a few hundred years when this era is not covered in the relentless nationalism that paints our view of the world, people will discover how much of our modern world was controlled by so very few.
The US didn't cause this. They tried to stop it.
If that wasn't obvious by itself, a brief glimpse at Venezuela and what Chavez/Maduro's regime has accomplished should dispel any remaining doubt.
+ Fidel does not allow his people to leave, with the threat of punishment.
+ Fidel does not allow democracy
+ He does not allow any real internet access
+ Fidel puts political dissidents in jail
+ Fidel's private Army own's 85% of the economy
+ Cuban's live in relative poverty
+ Only the US 'embargos' Cuba, they are free to trade with 167 other nations in the world - and even buy American products from wherever they want - just not America.
This is not 'propaganda'.
Except, any company making a deal with Cuba is automatically banned from dealing with the US.
To this date, the US even interfers in Europe regarding that: There is a famous case where a German bought Cuban Cigars from a Dane, and the FBI interfered, and seized the funds from their bank accounts.
If any company ever touches the USD, the US claims to have jurisdiction over them.
> + Cuban's live in relative poverty
The median wealth and income in Cuba is higher than most middle american countries.
Cuba is not a great country to live in, but please don’t distort the facts. That doesn’t make you any better than the North Korean propaganda that claims the US president eats babies.
Can you be more precise by what you mean when you say "making a deal"? Does flying to Cuba constitute "making a deal"? Air Canada has flown there for years and still flies to the US.
Just to put a concrete point, Per capita GDP of Cuba is 4 times the largest democracy country (India).
I'm seeing it at closer to 3x based on <http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp-per-capita> and <http://www.tradingeconomics.com/cuba/gdp-per-capita>.
But even granting 4x, notice that it was 5x back in 1970 (which is as early as the Cuba chart in this dataset goes). And if you look at numbers from right before the Cuban revolution, it was about 6x...
Of course the embargo, the Soviet subsidies, the removal of those subsidies, and the sugar price crash in the 90s make it hard to make much practical sense of Cuban GDP per capita and its evolution.
I _would_ like to respond to your "normal characteristics" point, though. The "people aren't allowed to leave" your country _is_ a normal characteristic of communist states, but that doesn't make it OK. And I would argue that it's not necessarily inherent to "communism", and _is_ "evil" in pretty basic terms: it violates the right of freedom of movement. See also UN declaration of human rights, article 13. I understand the practical reasons such a restriction is instituted, and I can even make some moral arguments for it (e.g. owing a debt to the society that provided your education and hence not being allowed to take your skills elsewhere), but I still don't think the outcome is OK.
> 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 problem, it's not a Cuban problem. For instance, Americans also live in poverty (at least 45 millions of them)
On the other side, western propaganda blanks out a lot of facts about Cuba. Among those is the fact that a significant percentage of Cubans approve their government.
> On the other side, western propaganda blanks out a lot of facts about Cuba. Among those is the fact that a significant percentage of Cubans approve their government.
I can't help but notice that you skipped over the little details about a lack of democracy, a lack of free access to information, and how dissidents are punished.
> On the other side, western propaganda blanks out a lot of facts about Cuba. Among those is the fact that a significant percentage of Cubans approve their government.
Weird. Then why the resistance to holding elections?
And it is a dictatorship, so no elections. I wrote significant not majority.
Just wanted to point out that it's hard to get a realistic picture in the middle of all the propaganda. For instance, there's no starving in Cuba and health care for everybody. You cant say that about all countries with elections.
And I've seen just outside town the gorgeous villas with manicured gardens and water features, where members of the Party live. There's inequality in the West but nothing like there is in the "worker's paradise".
Unlike the USA, the UK has efficient universal healthcare and access to quality education, plus working safety net for the citizens. It might not be easy to rise from the poverty, but it is possible and indeed, most Britons are doing OK.
As to your small personal dab, I grew up in a Communist country and am familiar with the package, don't need no lectures from guys in Che t-shirts.
You went on a tourists' visit of poverty. Try doing the same in London, and let's see how you do there, bruv.
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.
On Cuba, even suggesting change of leadership is enough to put you in prison.
Ha ha ... haha hah .... ha
This is the big one. Many countries have restrictions on people coming, for various reasons, but any country/govt that prevents people leaving knows perfectly well that it's doing something that people want to flee.
Lots of people in Miami consider themselves Cuban and are just waiting for the opportunity to go home and reclaim their family's birthright. Leaving a particular regime doesn't mean abandoning your heritage.
I don't doubt that his doctors may have helped you.
However, the man has committed grievous crimes, keeps 'his people' in abject poverty, on an 'island prison'. More than 85% of the economy is in the control of the military - his private Army.
"Up until today, Cuba still sends significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free."
This is false and misleading. They do not provide it for free - they are paid by international agencies and it is one of the few real 'exports' that Cuba has.
Most perniciously - the money that is supposed to go to the doctors mostly goes to the military junta - while the doctors themselves receive very little.
Moreover - the Cuban doctors abroad are prisoners. They are held with the threat of violence or internment of their families back home. If they try to escape or leave - they go to prison:
http://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/CNews/y00/jun00/06e4.htm
Those doctors that 'helped you' get 5% of their 'salary' - while 95% goes to their captors.
Praise the doctors, not Fidel.
I find it abhorrent that such statements could be made about a cruel dictator, who has done 'some possibly good things' in the name of his legacy, whilst at the same time tormenting millions.
It's sad that people should hold such a tyrant in such esteem - because not only are those medical programs are paid for mostly by 'evil Western Nations' - aid to African nations is overwhelmingly from 'Western nations' (at least in terms of direct/indirect aid - of course China is a huge economic investor).
Let us not make a totem of this man without being cognizant of all the things he has done.
Way less crimes than those who accuse him. Never sprayed Vietnamese with Agent Orange or napalms for one, never dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, never supported Pinochet et co, doesn't have 25% of the world's incarcerated in just 4% of the global population, and lots of other things besides.
>keeps 'his people' in abject poverty
A 40+ years embargo has something to do with that too...
>More than 85% of the economy is in the control of the military - his private Army.
It's in control of the state, which is how things are supposed to work in communist countries. Not necessarily worse than having it in the hands of corporations...
For what its worth, I think "evil" is a word that shouldn't be used outside of storybooks. It is a binary word that is far too overgeneralised to the point it is meaningless to ascribe. It doesn't serve any persuasive or descriptive purpose.
Even that, I wouldn't call "evil" -- self-serving imperialistic and post-colonial would fit better. Evil is a BS biblical notion for pre-modern people. It's no way to look at history with a rational mindset, and doesn't offer any explanation of various acts, nor a historical perspective.
+ The US sprayed 'agent orange' on trees near their firebases, and the vast majority of the 'victims' were American soldiers, not Vietnamese. Obviously, they didn't know what it would do.
+ The 'embargo' is 100% the fault of Fidel. He put nuclear weapons 40 miles away from florida, from those who backed by the credible threat of using them, thereby putting hundreds of millions of lives at risk. That's why the embargo started - he had ample time to wind it down. Jimmy Carter, Clinton, Obama - and even Bush Sr. would have made a deal of Fidel agreed to have elections.
(Khrushchev, not known as one of the Cold War's more pacifistic figures, responded that he found Castro's suggestion quite disturbing)
That's straight up false. Between 3-4 millions Vietnamese suffered from it[1], and its devastating effects are still very relevant today. Concerning US soldiers, "By April 1993, the Department of Veterans Affairs had compensated only 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Effects_on_the_Vi...
And the US isn’t putting nukes into NATO states? Italy and Turkey already have had some before Cuba got some, so what’s next? Estonia?
> And the US isn’t putting nukes into Estonia?
Honest question: Where is this coming from? I'd hate to call this war-mongering and spreading misinformation, but this is a great way to polarize a conversation in one fell scoop.
It was the cold war, and the US had already put nukes into Italy and Turkey, well within range of Moscow.
In such a game-theoretical standoff, the USSR had had to react – to keep the balance of power.
It’s a completely crazy situation, and I’d consider both sides of the conflict as Evil, but I’m not sure why so many people try to claim the US was Good, while the USSR was Evil. Both stood for some good, and some very bad principles.
I edited the comment to reduce the conflict potential, but keep the general idea of it.
Given Russias interest in toying and more with its neighbors, misinformation like this goes a long way of "normalizing" those conflicts. It prepares whomever is reading your comment to say, "huh, the both sides here are shades of gray" and just accept that conflict as normal.
So yeah. There are no US nukes in Estonia. If there are, please back up your sources.
Objectively? They were both Evil. If you compare them, the USSR is hands down the evil one. I really hate this whitewashing of USSR's history just to put down the US. I'm pretty sure nobody here defending Castro or Cuba ever had to live under a communist dictatorship.
It's as simple as:
Ask anyone from Eastern Europe or even Cuba on whose sphere of influence would they had rather been. I'm willing to bet everything that 90% of the answers will be NATO.
But comparing the US and USSR isn’t nearly as easy. Both were (and are) horrible to non-citizen. And while the US was mostly okay to the white citizen, minorities had to suffer for quite a while. And nowadays, the US mistreating its own citizen is getting extreme.
> Ask anyone from Eastern Europe or even Cuba on whose sphere of influence would they had rather been
That question isn’t nearly as easy either.
In Germany we’re having a huge group of people who lived under communism – and want it back. In some states (those which lived under communism), up to 20% of the people.
(This also answers the "I'm pretty sure nobody here defending Castro or Cuba ever had to live under a communist dictatorship" question, I guess? I didn’t live myself under communism, but I know quite a few who’d want it back, because they had it better)
Go ahead and compare how the United States treated the citizens of, say, France, with how the USSR treated the citizens of, oh, say, Czechoslovakia. We'll wait.
> And while the US was mostly okay to the white citizen, minorities had to suffer for quite a while.
It's telling that you are attempting to draw an equality between segregation -- which was legally ended in 1957 as part of an open and democratic process -- with the USSR's extensive gulag system, intricate controls on freedom of expression and freedom of thought, and general lack of civil rights for everyone, which lasted right up until the day it disintegrated.
> In Germany we’re having a huge group of people who lived under communism – and want it back.
If Communism was so great, why did you have to build a wall to keep people from running away from it? That's the unanswerable point here.
That's a logical fallacy. You can't say that Castro's crimes against humanity are okay because the US has committed worse ones.
>A 40+ years embargo has something to do with that too...
Only a US embargo. That leaves more than 80% of the world GDP to interact with.
Tu quoque fallacy, for the record
This is tu quoque, because you're trying to say bad thing you did was OK because someone else did a bad thing too. However, you'll notice the above poster definitely did not claim what Castro did was OK.
Heck, US cops alone have probably killed much more people than the Cuban regime in those 50 years. And the place with 25% of the world's prisoners and 4% of the world's population is rich to call other places "police states".
That's a naive view. Do you really think the rest of the world can just straight up ignore the US's embargo and play nice with Cuba, while still staying on good terms with the US?
From wikipedia:
>>Cuba produces sugarcane, tobacco, citrus, coffee, rice, potatoes, beans and livestock.[2] As of 2015 Cuba imported about 70-80% of its food.[51] and 80-84% of the food it rations to the public.[52] Raúl Castro ridiculed the bureaucracy that shackled the agriculture sector.[52] Before 1959, Cuba boasted as many cattle as people. Today meat is so scarce that it is a crime to kill a cow without government permission.[53] Cuban people suffered from starvation during the Special Period.[29]
My impression was then when America tried to force other countries to participate in the embargo they told them to shove it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act
Also yes Cuba has trade with the rest of the world
http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/cub/
> Cuba is the 140th largest export economy in the world. In 2014, Cuba exported $1.74B and imported $5.91B, resulting in a negative trade balance of $4.17B.
> The top exports of Cuba are Raw Sugar ($392M), Refined Petroleum ($314M), Rolled Tobacco ($236M), Hard Liquor ($116M) and Raw Nickel ($108M), using the 1992 revision of the HS (Harmonized System) classification. Its top imports are Wheat ($234M), Refined Petroleum ($228M), Concentrated Milk ($207M), Corn ($204M) and Poultry Meat ($196M).
> The top export destinations of Cuba are China ($311M), the Netherlands ($157M), Spain ($141M), Senegal ($92M) and the United Kingdom ($67.3M). The top import origins are China ($1.05B), Spain ($920M), Brazil ($507M), Canada ($389M) and Mexico ($360M).
Of course geography still matters, the US is nearby, large, and rich. Exporting to the US would be a huge plus for the Cuban economy but it wouldn't change everything.
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 system.
I'm sure there were similar knock-on effects across all industries that had US products, suppliers or connections in their business.
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.
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.
It's not you selling to Cuba, it's Cuba buying through intermediates.
(Of course if you really want you can sell things directly to Cuba, but you need to find a way of disguising it)
You're (or, were) also forbidden from bringing Cuban cigars to the US, but if you arrive from a flight from Panama with a box of unmarked cigars nobody is going to do anything.
That’s part fo the issue.
What? This was the real world, a matter of first hand experience. We could not consider jeopardising sales to our biggest market (the US) by breaking US embargo for a barely significant market.
But see my other comment.
(However, I don't think Cuba has qualms about pirating software, if this was hw it would have been a different issue)
Same goes for other products. Don't base them on U.S. technology if you plan to trade with America's enemies.
Partly because we are not the US and did not have a direct confrontation.
But partly because Trudeau Sr. was a communist-revolutionary apologist, in the French intellectual sense - and chilled with Fidel to boost is 'socialist hipster' cred and to thumb the eye of the Americans.
As a young man, I found it admirable. Now that I know many ex-Cubans, I find it utterly repulsive and a stain on our history. It's one thing to have 'relations' or 'diplomacy' with another nation - it's altogether another to chum around with a thug. If it was in the name of getting Fidel to let his people off the island, or encourage democracy... sure ... but it was not that.
As opposed to a right-wing capitalist pig, like most other leaders?
The name-calling can go both ways.
The logical fallacy I think is yours for trying to compare Cuba to the USA in a tit-for-tat comparison of misrepresented facts and issues.
Dropping a nuclear bomb seems 'bad' until you put it in the context of what the Japanese were doing, and the costs otherwise.
The North Vietnamese that the Americans & South Vietnamese were fighting against were 10x worse than Castro (they executed 100's of thousands in the streets - and put millions in concentration camps after the Americans withdrew) - and using 'agent Orange' was an act of reasonable desperation on the part of the Americans as it was used only to clear foliage near American firebases, the casualties were mostly American and of course it was not done with the knowledge people would be hurt - the author of the note makes it seem like it was used on purpose to hurt Vietnamese which is a gross misrepresentation.
Americas role in the world is fundamentally different than that of Cuba (and of course there is the issue of scale) which makes it futile to compare the USA to Cuba, tit-for-tat in terms of 'things done'.
But the comparison is resolved rather more pragmatically:
People literally risk everything, including their lives to flee Cuba to get to America.
Never the other way around.
It isn't really clear if this is true, there is a clear bias of studies to focus on the effect on American veterans, but there are 1-4 million Vietnamese affected depending on what non-American source you believe.
The US has bombed and invaded Afghanistan for the crimes of a handful of (mainly Saudi-backed) loonies (after first sponsoring Bin Laden in the 80s), have invaded Iraq under BS false pretexts (WMDs etc) and created huge losses, chaos, anarchy and civil war, have helped destabilize Libya with the same outcome, have targeted the Syrian regime and in the process helped ISIS grow, and so on. And that's just the open actions since 2001...
Wow, I am Vietnamese, and this is so shockingly far from the truth. FYI, the total number of American casualties in the Vietnam war amounted to something like ~50,000, while the conservative estimate for the total number of Vietnamese deaths was at least one million- the majority of which were civilian. What's worse, Agent Orange's effects were far reaching. Long after the war had ended it continued creating unimaginable damage, to the environment, to the people, to the economy [1]. Conveniently downplaying this horrible crime (which the US has still not owned up completely) is misrepresenting the facts. And yes, Western nations have done 'worse'. Much of the tragedies around the world in the 20th century had much to do with the Western countries' imperialiastic mindset.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Effects_on_the_Vi...
Correct, but it can help a lot of people come down off of their high horse.
Nope. The US brutally punished countries which traded with Cuba. The best and most macabre example of this would be the 1974 Bangladesh Famine, which had a death toll of 1-1.5 million, and was almost entirely preventable.
After the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war, when Bangladesh achieved its independence from America-backed Pakistan, US initially refused to recognize Bangladesh as a country and trade with it because Bangladesh wanted to prosecute Pakistani war criminals, responsible for the worst genocide since the Holodomor(and committed using American arms). Infact, Nixon and the US refused to condemn Pakistani actions, and actively worked to suppress evidence of their crimes.
When the famine started in 1974, the US initially promised food aid to Bangladesh, but refused to deliver because Bangladesh exported jute to Cuba(Cuba was one of the first countries to recognize Bangladeshi independence). By the time Bangladesh agreed to stop all trade relations with Cuba, and US aid finally arrived, the famine was pretty much over and had claimed its 1,500,000+ victims. Now, to make it clear, the US had 2 million+ tonnes of grain pretty much ready to deliver, but held back at the last moment while hundreds of thousands were starving to death. This was also while US was giving huge amounts of grain as food aid to surplus food producing South Vietnam, which the Vietnamese traded for weapons.
Yes, on the North Vietnamese invaders who had a track record of murdering civilians well before the US was ever involved. And the Japanese who perpetrated the Rape of Nanking, etc.
But even so - the US has voted out these previous politicians whereas Cubans were and are not able to do that.
BTW, you are wrong: cubans do vote, too.
I'm also wondering why so many people were so desperate to leave Cuba in rickety rafts even though they could have just voted out the Castros instead in one of these elections you mention, but I'm sure you can explain that too.
Yes, because comparing the capabilities of a small, poor island nation is the same as comparing the capabilities of the most powerful country in the world.
Castro had no capability to do what the US has done, had he had the chance how would've done much worse.
A discussion that doesn't contain a "what about" element is one-sided. Those criticizing "whataboutism" only want their own shit to be left out of the discussion.
That some would call whataboutism a bad thing just goes to show how much some pots are used to be the only ones allowed to call the kettle black.
What is sad is how quickly people reach for a wide, monotone brush they like to paint things with lately. As an american, i have heard roughly your description of castro my entire life. To hear another version, from someone living a life in a continent i have never visited is both refreshing and educational.
I guess it's fair that many Americans don't know a lot about him and don't know about the details of his activities in Africa with doctors (and military, by the way). But that's kind of an American thing ... not enough 'world events' in the American press :), no offense.
I didn't really want to comment in this thread but to be clear, the US embargo has kept Cuba in abject economic poverty not Castro.
As for the two doctors your pointed to, I am sure they are the exception. I happen to be Zimbabwean, actually, a good number of my childhood doctors were Cuban and they were there happily and willingly. My brother, a doctor himself, has many friends from Cuba who say the same.
You should read this article when you get a chance.
http://qz.com/846337/cuban-leader-fidel-castro-was-a-liberat...
There really is nothing disturbing about my opinion. At least on the African continent that is. Perspectives differ, I guess.
[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Political...)
That said, I have yet to see anything resembling a credible source that claimed more than 10,000 direct deaths caused by the Castro regime. I've seen much higher numbers (50,000 or more) in terms of indirect deaths: people trying to get out of Cuba and drowning in the process.
The population of Cuba around the time of the revolution was about 7 million; now it's around 11 million. The population of the Soviet Union in the 1930s was between 150 and 200 million (good statistics are hard to come by; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937) for why). Even if we take the extreme 7 million and 200 million numbers, 10,000 Cuban deaths is equivalent to about 285,000 Soviet deaths on a per-capita basis. And that's over a 50-year or so period. So yes, Stalin killed a lot more people no matter how you count it. Of course, "leader who killed a smaller percentage of the population than Stalin" is a _really_ low bar; pretty much everyone except Pol Pot clears it.
In general, the "Cuba under Castro" numbers for political violence don't seem any worse than other Latin American countries in the 20th century. Again, this isn't _good_, just like it's not good that we can end up talking about "oh, that's equivalent to hundreds of thousands of deaths on a per-capita basis, which is _tiny_". :(
For comparison Puerto Rico have had about 10k murders in the last 15 years alone[1], and that's in less than half the Cuban population.
From 1998 figures[2] and 2002 population numbers I guesstimate that officially about 820 murders occur per year in Cuba, and the 10k in 50 years evens out to 200 per year.
[1] http://www.estadisticas.pr/iepr/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=nf...
[2] http://www.sld.cu/sitios/dne/buscar.php?id=3297&iduser=4&id_...
Yep. Would it likewise surprise you to learn that the Pinochet government, which is described in similar ways, killed (at the high end of the estimates; the officially accepted ones are 10-20% lower) about 3200 people and "disappeared" about 1000, over the course of 17 years? Also, about 30,000 tortured, though; I have not seen claims of this for Castro's Cuba. All this out of a population of 10-13 million. It sure surprised me when I looked up the numbers.
I'm not condoning the things either government (Pinochet's or Castro's) did, but they are both nowhere close to being "drenched in blood" the way Stalin's or Pol Pot's or Mao's governments were.
I'm also surprised that the population isn't more, Chile felt like a "big" country to me compared to tiny Sweden, but 11 is not much bigger than 8. Though by now it's 18 and 9 millions, so I child deaths seem to be down in Chile since the 80's.
No I'm not denying that providing hospitals and doctors to Africa is a good thing, but America, and even ordinary Americans like Bill Gates have done so much more for Africa than Castro ever did, and it seems rather unfair that Western efforts are neglected and we are seen as colonizers to seek independence from whereas brutal and oppressive dictators such as Castro are presented as honored crusaders for throwing a smidgen of help to Africa.
Many don't know this, but George W. Bush had quite an impact:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Emergency_Plan_for...
> He had his fights and ills, but not with us.
Yeah, generally with his own citizens who he stomped on for decades. But hey, at least you got a couple free doctors out of it so screw those guys.
What do you have to say, as an African, to Fidel Castro's role in the Angolan civil war, and in establishing Angola's dictatorship?
"One Castro or another has ruled Cuba over a period that spans seven decades and 11 U.S. presidents. Fidel Castro outlived six of those presidents,[[[NOTE: change to seven if George H.W. Bush dies before Castro]]] including Cold War warriors John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan."
Castro was a genuine hero and a great man; indeed among the top 10 greatest individuals of the 20th century. He believed in freedom and dignity. He saw the US government as the enemy of progress everywhere in the world; he wanted people to be free and he devoted his life to that ideal.
How many people can you say that of?
> He was also an evil dictator...
Lol @ evil dictator. Fidel Castro never killed as many people as Nixon, Reagan, Bush or Blair. He did not go half way around the world as Thatcher did to claim an Island 4,000 km away from home (Falklands).
>...who silenced any and all opposition
What opposition? Imperialists and mafia members who wished to turn Cuba into an enclave for gambling? CIA operatives who tried to return Cuba to its occupied past?
> just look at Cuba today
Just look at Iraq, Libya,Syria today. And while you are at it; look also at Iran, China, Russia (which evaded western occupation). Indeed, look at Mexico which is friendly terms and has not been invaded yet by the US and tell me how much they have gained from that relationship.
I detest the hypocrisy I see in many (not all) western commentators. The spin and one sided arguments, the glossing over historical truths. Cuba is behind in development because of the American embargo.Simple. Not because the regime had no plan for economic development. In healthcare, this small nation with a health care budget 0.001% of the US beats the USA hands down in universal coverage and access to health. Who knows what would have happened if previous administrations had left them alone.
Finally, Castro sent troops to Africa to fight against colonial occupiers. He sent armies to harass the apartheid regime at the Angolan/ Namibian border. This counts as a plus in my book.
Rest on Fidel. You have fought the fight and lived like a man. I will pray for you. May heaven receive your soul.
There's a lot of positive things to be said about Castro. But your unqualified hymn isn't going to help your cause. Just the number of people making the rather dangerous journey to the US proves how misguided your comparisons are.
Well, yeah. After all, they have been fed anti-fidel/anti-communist propaganda for half a century.
American embargo was put in place because the US can't afford communist fools on its border. Simple. You swing at the big guy and you lose. That is war. Mistakes are unforgivable.
> I detest the hypocrisy I see in many (not all) western commentators.
A counterexample: this photo was taken in NYC after the most recent US presidential election:
http://i.imgur.com/DcVbqAm.jpg
It's a picture of someone standing in front of Trump Tower holding a sign that says "You're not my president. Fuck you."
Can you imagine someone getting away with that in Castro's Cuba?
I'm genuinely asking. Not from the US and just today found out (by curiosity) where Cuba is.
>"In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Contempor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Cuba
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/six-fact...
I do not know about a specific instance of someone holding up a sign like the one in the photo I linked to, but I also sincerely doubt anyone in their right mind would attempt such a thing.
The closest recent example I can find is someone painting the names of the Castro brothers on a pair of pigs and being thrown in prison for it (in 2015):
http://www.newsweek.com/cuban-protest-artist-el-sexto-you-ha...
Far worse things happened during the early days of the revolution. I was going to link them but I changed my mind because I don't want to weaken my point. Freedom of speech is far stronger in a place like the US than in a place like Castro's Cuba.
Maybe Americans value their rights more than anything else, but to me as a Chinese citizen, this is both laughable and disrespectful.
I certainly do, but sadly not every American agrees. There are many "law and order" types who would have that person arrested and beaten if they could. Fortunately our rights are still intact, even after all this time. People can do such things without fear. Far from being "laughable and disrespectful", I consider it a sign of a healthy, functioning society. "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism", as the saying goes.
Leave other people alone to determine their own fate and destiny that's what the world asks
" They talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?"
" ...I began a revolution with 82 men.
If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15
and absolute faith.
It does not matter how small you are if you have faith
and a plan of action."
Fidel Castro 1926 - 2016When Castro asked that question in 1991, around 60% of people in East Asia were living in extreme poverty. Today it is 3.5% [1]. The change is mostly due to China switching from a socialist to capitalist economy.
[1] http://www.vox.com/world/2016/10/2/13123980/extreme-poverty-...
You mean, the colonialists sent by the UK government?
They shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Nice to see you put the territorial ambitions of a literal fascist like Galtieri on a higher pedestal than the right of the people that have lived there to self governance though...
Like comparing Nixon and Castro. Nixon's most famous scandal was when he tried to wiretap his political opponents. It ended with his resignation. Castro outright killed his political opponents, and had the rest thrown in prison. He continued to rule for decades. There is absolutely no comparison.
Yes, I understand that U.S. foreign policy played a huge role in shaping the revolution. But let Castro's legacy stand on what he actually did, not on trying to throw shade on everyone else.
Apart from carpet bombing Laos And Cambodia as hackeboos has pointed out, he engaged the Vietcong leadership in secret discussions to prolong the war so that Democrats would lose the '74. Elections. Think on that. Killing your fellow soldier citizens for political power.
Letting historical arguments about borders override the basic question if the culture of the people living there right now is stupid, 18th-century thinking.
I'm sympathetic to Argentina's arguments about resource rights to the water surrounding the island, but the nationality of the island itself is not in question, and Thatcher was right to protect British people.
Israel Gaza and Iraq are not thousands of miles from the original home countries.
But I am genuinely curious that you answer these:
1.How can the nationality of the Island not be in question and at the same time Argentina have valid claims to the resources? It must be one or the other else there is a contradiction there.
2.There were Britons living in enclaves in South Africa during the Thatcher era.Some of these dated back 400 years. Would the UK have been justified in sending troops to defend their land claims?
But tonight, I'll remember my family members that were killed in Las Cabañas by Che. I'll embrace my uncle who endured torture in Cuban prisons for buying black market bread. I'll remember my late aunt, who had to flee Cuba for her life under an assumed identity as a housekeeper. I'll remember my grandparents, who were always optimistic that they would soon return to their homes that were taken from them.
Tonight is for us. Tonight, I celebrate...
Admirers of Fidel Castro around the world - and all his admirers on this page - have one thing in common: they never had to live under his dictatorship.
I remember stories about how he, or Raul for that matter, would request to have sushi, even though she didn't have access to salmon, tuna nor eel. Even sushi rice was impossible to get by. The classic seaweed another hard to find item. These kind of crazy requests would usually come in a handful of hours, or less, before said meal was due to happen. Her job for many years was to pass off whatever she had access to as the real deal. Call it "tantrum trompe l'œil", if you will.
I remember being surprised when she said it was probably the most fulfilling position to be in as a chef, because of how challenging it was.
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...
Yet today it's difficult for most people to appreciate the extreme threat and terror of nuclear weapons in the 1960's. Half of US voters think life was better then than now [3]. Really? To me, there's no level of job security that could possibly compensate for such a high chance of nuclear catastrophe.
[1] Reported in https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKO6MS8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
[2] As described by Robert McNamara in 'The Fog of War'
[3] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/20/6-charts-tha...
That explains why you see so many people from surrounding Latin America countries flocking to Cuba, right?
Yes, I understand that's the question at hand. In the case of Korea, there is a good argument to be made that the entire country would have had the quality of life North Korea has if it were not for the intervention.
> by definition ussr did not even have communism
Yes, and neither did China, nor Cuba, nor Vietnam, etc, etc. At some point we end up with a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. In any case, the fear was of "the thing calling itself communism", not "theoretical platonic communism".
The fear, at least for people who actually thought about the matter, was based on the following facts:
1) Communism (as it was being practiced; I will assume this parenthetical henceforth) was incompatible with fundamental aspects of society that were considered important in the US. For a simple example, if you look at the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the US constitution), the only right that was not being actively being violated in the countries that called themselves "communist" was the one granted by the Third Amendment. Well, except it _was_ being violated in the USSR in the early 20s. But generally 20th century nation-states have housed their own soldiers.
2) Communism was actively expansionist when it had the chance to be; see eastern Europe, the Korean peninsula.
3) Communism had as part of its doctrine the goal of fomenting revolutions in countries that were not yet communist.
4) There were communist parties in various countries, including the US, and some of their members (not all, yes) were actively involved in item #3.
5) There were various people in the US who were not members of the communist party but were clearly sympathetic to the idea of the communist party having more power or seizing power altogether. A number of these people were highly placed in the existing US government.
So at least in some quarters there was the perception of a plausible existential threat to the US as currently constituted (literally; throw out the Constitution and replace it with a totally different setup).
In addition to this, there was of course the usual fear of the other, the fear of the labor movement on the part of owners of capital, and so forth. In many cases these various reasons for fear were self-reinforcing.
> Both countries were allies in world war.
Yes. That doesn't always mean much on its own; the USSR and Germany were allies from 1939 to 1941.
> What was the need for a piss of contest between the two?
This is a question without a simple answer.
To some extent, in both cases, it was driven by domestic political considerations. It's a lot easier to maintain power if you keep telling people there are external enemies they need to worry about and hence shouldn't rock the domestic political boat too much. In the case of the USSR this was a quite explicit (and longstanding; it dates back to the 20s) policy of the Communist Party. In the US, I think it was a bit more opportunistic and not as organized.
Add to that concerns regarding the fate of allies, the pre-existing tensions I talk about below, and lots of stuff I am not thinking of right now and may not even know about...
> I would say ussr's involvement in cold war was caused by passive aggressive tactics began by USA.
The tension dates back way longer than that. There were quite a number of people in the US who fundamentally mistrusted the USSR for the reasons listed above, and that distrust went back to the original October Revolution. There were quite a number in the USSR, including in high government positions, who distrusted the US because of its participation in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus... . There was tension over the UN declaration of human rights and its article 13. There was tension over the post-war division of Europe. I'm sure you're aware of the Soviet blockade of West Berlin and the ensuing Berlin Airlift; that situation was not precipitated by the US. The Korean War was not precipitated by the US.
Claiming that the US "began" the cold war in some sort of sole act of aggression involves some serious revision of history as far as I can tell.
> It was USA who first deployed nuclear weapons near Russian border.
Yes. The context was that the US was looking for a way to be able to defend western Europe from invasion by Warsaw Pact forces. There was no realistic way to match those in terms of actual troop numbers and materiel without deploying a _lot_ more troops to Europe than the US was willing to do (for various reasons, including cost), so nuclear deterrent was viewed as a way to provide the needed defensive capabilities.
I agree that it was an escalation of the nuclear situation. I don't know to what extent the fears of a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany (say) were justified. But given what had just happened on the Korean peninsula a few years earlier, they weren't entirely baseless. I won't claim the missile deployment in Turkey and Italy was the right call, but I have a hard time categorically saying it was the wrong call...
> When russia deployed in response in cuba, suddenly that was news
In the US, sure. The deployment in Turkey was sure news in the USSR. ;)
> Most americans didn't even know that it was their country that started it
Indeed.
> Just like they are doing it now in the name of terrorism
I think the fear of communism was a _lot_ more justified than the current fear of terrorism. In particular, communism was a _lot_ more successful both in terms of seizing power and in terms of gaining mindshare in countries where it was not yet in power. For example, I have yet to see a US government official saying it would be good if the US were run more like ISIS-controlled areas. There were quite a few saying that sort of thing about communism in the 40s.
Again, I won't claim the US response to the threat was perfect. But I think the threat was real, and did need a response.
Interchange usa with ussr and communism with capitalism in the above para. Then read it as if you are from ussr.
What I would strongly advocate for is open governance. That would prevent waging war for profit. Perhaps those who calls for war should lead it like old times. Waging war for profit in the comfort of your home while your soldiers die like expendibles causes career politicians to take that risk. If won its profit, if lost then its just an election for them.
I wonder if law banning hipocracy is the answer. Most Politicians does not experience suffering of commons.I wouldn't have a problem with most politicians if at least half of them displayed an expertise in solving real problems rather than expertise in saving face
Here is a very good article that has many ideas I strongly agree with. It addresses many fundamental problems involved.
https://medium.com/rethinking-security/the-problem-with-nati...
Net negative compared to the counterfactual of perfect interventions or the counterfactual of no interventions?
Again, I think there were lots of cases in which the US screwed up. That's easier to tell in hindsight in some of those cases. On the ground at the time, was it obvious that the Korean War was a good idea and the Vietnam War a bad one? (I think it _did_ become obvious that the Vietnam War was a bad idea quite a bit before the US actually pulled out of it; again, I won't claim that the US didn't make preventable mistakes!)
What I don't have a good handle on is what the world would look like if the US post WWII had adopted the sort of foreign policy it had in 1910 or 1925 and just minded its own business and ignored the rest of the world. And if you're not suggesting it should have done _that_, then I'm not sure what you're suggesting, exactly.
> Which is why USA is no more a world leader.
Is the USA less of a world leader than in the 1920s or 1930s? I don't think so.
Is it less of one than it was in 1946? Maybe, but that was inevitable, for at least two obvious reasons:
1) Its economic influence decreased as its share of world GDP dropped (which it _had_ to; in 1946 a lot of the rest of the world's industrial capacity was in ruins, and let's not get started on the service sector in most of 1946 Europe, Japan, China, USSR). Also, the dependence of other countries on US exports or aid dropped from 1946 to now, generally speaking. This is, of course, a good thing.
2) The rest of the world caught up to the US in some areas in which it had had moral leadership, thus decreasing the moral leadership aspect. As one example, the non-communist European countries which hadn't done so yet finally got around to introducing women's suffrage (Belgium 1948, France 1944, Greece 1952, Italy 1945, Liechtenstein 1984, Portugal 1976, San Marino 1959, Spain 1976, Switzerland 1971 or 1991 depending on how you count).
Which countries would you consider to be more "world leaders" than the US at the moment? Or is your claim that the US is no longer _the_ world leader (as if it ever were)? I would say that's a very good thing.
> Spying even the heads of states of allies
Do you seriously believe that the US is the only country doing that? I would be quite shocked if this were the case.
> Then read it as if you are from ussr.
I _am_ from the USSR (back when there was one). So yes, I have some idea, both from my reading and from talking to people of my parents' and grandparents' generation of what things looked like from that side. A bit from personal experience as well, but that covers a somewhat small slice of post-WWII history of the USSR.
> What I would strongly advocate for is open governance.
Do you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_government or something else? If that's what you mean, then I'm all in favor.
> I wonder if law banning hipocracy is the answer.
I'm not sure whether you mean http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hipocracy or something else. "Hipocracy" is not a word I've seen before you used it just now, and I can find no other references to it. Not sure whether you mean "hypocrisy", but that wouldn't fit in with the rest of the paragraph that follows the above-quoted sentence...
> Here is a very good article that has many ideas I strongly agree with.
Thank you for the link. I'll need to take some time to read it and think before I can comment on it intelligently.
Just because other governments do it doesn't make it right.
Open governance that I suggested is very similar to Open government wiki link you linked.
And I spelled hypocrisy wrong.
My understanding is the world would be a better place if everyone works together and live peacefully.
Now please convince the Latvians of that, say. Seriously, the case that the second half of the 20th century would have turned out better with an isolationist US is a hard case to make.
> Just because other governments do it doesn't make it right.
I'm not entirely convinced. The problem is that alliances are not permanent...
> And I spelled hypocrisy wrong.
Then as I said, I don't understand the rest of your paragraph.
> My understanding is the world would be a better place if everyone works together and live peacefully.
Sure. We'd need no police, no armies, etc. It would be pretty nice.
The question is how we get there.
The level of poverty I saw as someone from the Nordics was new to me, and while things like hospital visits were free (even for me as a tourist), people really had so little money, to the point it drastically affected the kind of food they could buy. And indeed many types of food wasn't even available in the peso shops, or was rationed.
At the same time, there was very little crime, and it was generally quite safe, probably due to a large police force, and lack gangs or organised crime. The people were fantastic, so warm and hospitable even they had so little.
There was inequality too, some very nice houses in the rich parts of Havana reserved for members of the political/military elite while a lot of people live in extremely run down conditions, and bizarre things like taxi drivers who get paid in dollars and receive dollar tips easily making 20-40x more per month than doctors.
I understand that part of the reason the country has been struggling is the long US embargo, but I can't help feeling part of it is due to bad governance too. When I arrived I had a rose-tinted picture of Cuban communism like many tourists, but it shocked me when I asked some of the band memebers what would be needed to make things better, they said "The best thing would be if Fidel died".
Now that has happened, I wonder what the way forward will look like - if they will be able to retain the best parts of the socialist ideals and start growing the economy responsibly, or if it will turn into a land grab with the majority being left in poverty.
And what is wrong with this? Or should physicians continue using health to become rich as it is the case in so many other countries?
And in that his enemies were right.
His enemies say if Napoleon had had a newspaper similar to the «Granma», no french would have ever heard about Waterloo.
And in that his enemies were right.
His enemies say he used power by talking and not listening, because he was more comfortable with echoes than with voices.
And in that his enemies were right.
But his enemies won't say that he didn't just stood by while history moved forward that he faced the bullets when the USA invasion arrived, that he faced hurricanes with equal fury as the wind, that he survived 637 attemps on his life, that his energy was decisive to turn a colony into homeland and that it wasn't by any spell or miracle that that homeland was able to survive 10 US presidents.
And his enemies won't say Cuba is one of those countries that won't compete in the International World Cup as to whom is the most servient.
And they won't say this revolution, grown in punishment, is what could be and not what it wanted to be. Nor they say that the division between the wish and the reality grew taller and wider thanks to the imperial blockade, that drowned the development of a cuban democracy, forced militarization of society and granted bureaucracy, which for every solution has a problem, the alibies it needed to justify and perpetuate itself.
And they won't say that despite all of the problems, despite the agressions from outside and arbitrariness from inside, this small island, suffered but stubbornly happy, has created the least unjust latin american society.
And they won't say that this achievement was because of the sacrifice of their people, but also because of the stubborn will and outdated sense of honor of this gentleman who always fought for the losers, much like that renowned colleague from the fields of Castilla.
Eduardo Galeano.
(apologies in advance for any mistakes I may have made while translating this from spanish)
Thank you for posting this.
Now, suppose you're a leader of such a movement. What's going to be your ideology, beyond just national self-determination?
Well, on one hand, you look at the guys that are currently busy denying you that, and you notice that they generally tend to be capitalist countries. If you listen to what their ideologues have to say, they notice they aren't actually saying much about your plight at all - it's all about some abstract stuff like free markets.
On the other hand, you have those communists, who constantly talk about imperialism and colonialism, and how it sucks for those on the receiving end. And you know it's true, from your own experience. And those guys haven't ever made you their colony, and aren't demanding that you become one. Basically, their talk on that subject is entirely in your favor. Well, why wouldn't you believe that they're right on all those other things, as well?
There are actually several examples of leaders that weren't initially particularly left-wing becoming more so solely because they were fighting against some Western country occupying them, other Western countries were just pretending nothing's happening (at best; at worst, they were actively helping the occupier, as in e.g. Indochina), while the Soviets were ready and willing to supply food, arms, and everything else you need to fight. Of course, it came with ideological strings attached, but beggars can't be choosers.
Castro, for example, was not a communist when he first started to participate in violent resistance. He was anti-American, and specifically anti-American involvement in the countries in the region, which then consisted of backing dictators like Batista and Trujillo. It was sometime after he started down that road that he became to radicalize along Marxist lines, especially after several bitter setbacks (that also made it clear that fighting against US requires a powerful ally to succeed).
I'm talking about the Dominican Republic. US had ensured that it would not go communist or socialist by two direct successful military interventions. It had its own corrupt capitalist dictator, but from there gradually reformed into a free (albeit still corrupt) democracy. It is geographically very close, and has a similar population size. So it's interesting to compare and contrast metrics like GDP, life expectancy, literacy etc:
http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/cuba.dominican-re...
Also: there is nice set of photos here: http://lahabanaphoto.com/?page_id=132
Reading the historical/design notes in the player's guide and watching events unfold while playing as M26 brought history to life in a very visceral way. I spent the week after playing obsessively reading about modern Cuban history.
http://www.gmtgames.com/p-497-cuba-libre-reprint-edition.asp...
Cuba Libre is part of a game series on COunter-INsurgencies (COIN). "Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection" covers the American Revolution using the same system.
http://www.gmtgames.com/p-582-liberty-or-death-the-american-...
Afterwards, I inhaled biographies on him. My favorite was the Felix Markham book: https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Signet-Classics-Felix-Markha...
I have Command & Colors: Napoleonics and a biography of Napoleon sitting next to my desk as I type this.
http://www.gmtgames.com/p-576-commands-colors-napoleonics-3r...
But hopefully the foolishness of the embargo can really end now.
Looking back, it will be crazy to think, I went to Cuba while Fidel Castro was still alive.
It's always amazing when something becomes history so suddenly.
I think I've only seen him in the green military uniform. But at the congress he wore an Adidas jacket!
It would be interesting to know the story behind that.
Edit: Naturally, a half hour after posting this, I realized there was probably a way to find out...
Look at countries who declared a war against free markets - Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea. They are absolutely pathetic.
Haiti has huge anti-free market red tape and rampant corruption.
It means that Haiti did declare a war against free markets.
Free market economy is possible only in country with strong property rights, rule of law with no corruption, and no red tape. All countries which adopted these principles are rich and have very high standard of living.
I think 99.999% of folks who like communism/socialism don't understand what free market capitalism IS.
Those three words are where things get complicated. In a general sense red tape is the difference between a laissez faire economy and a free market economy, if you mean government regulation when you say red tape. Though by red tape you might also mean anti-competitve regulations implemented at the behest of a firm or sector of the economy. In that case it is still very important to acknowledge that free markets are not a natural state, and require regulation of some form to remain functional or even exist.
Free markets do require very strong laws but these laws should be:
1) In favour of strong property rights;
2) Equally friendly to new enterprises/small business/big business;
3) Lean, not over-complicated;
Basically role of the government is to keep highly competitive economic enthronement without favouritism.
It's hard to build a free market when you have an embargo and a huge pressure from the outside world
Your problem is thinking that covered operations make the world better. It obviously didn't work in Iran, Vietnam, Cambodia, Congo, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and many others countries. In fact it made the situation worse in most cases.
US sucks at finding and supporting right side.
If US just assassinated Castro but did nothing else communist regime won't fall, it can even gain stronger support from masses. The coup should be well prepared and US should feel responsibility about what will happen after.
Coup is definitely very difficult and complicated surgery.
No, they do a perfect job at finding the right side. They always install, whatever is best for them, ie. American Corporations.
The US does not care about human rights, it's all just used to legitimize their position. Capitalism has no conscious, it ONLY does what is most profitable, whatever it might be. What should they gain by having a democracy somewhere else? "Free Markets", is another topic. The US loves those, especially if their companies can expand their "market" or, even better, use the locals to produce under inhuman circumstances.
Considering that, I believe the US is a "great" imperialist power, and really good at choosing their puppets. What a pity those "stupid cubans", didn't give the US a second chance to exploit them under a different puppet. It would have been a lot better.
Long Live Comantade
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.
The story is much broader than that. Fidel was also the liberator of his country from a military dictatorship which had sold Cuban casinos to the Mafia [0] and swaths of Cuban agricultural land to the United Fruit Company. [1]
In that context, Castro was certainly not the tyrant.
History is nuanced. Look below the surface.
The room goes totally silent. All eyes on Castro and his bodyguards lining the walls. He says 'when the missiles were removed, the US vowed not to invade Cuba. I would've been a fool to do anything that would give the US the desire and moral high ground to break that promise. Nothing could come from killing Kennedy that would justify such a risk for Cuba'.
The remarkable part, I'm told, is that he laughed it off and the revelry continued.
In any case, Fidel lived long enough to see the American overreaction through most of it's shelf life.
People live in very basic conditions under constant surveillance. Phone lines, Internet connections, etc. are monitored.
Most cars and electronics are still from the 50s, from the Batista era, and are repaired with homemade parts.
People can study for free, but there are no job opportunities, so you can see architects sweeping the streets and physicians driving cabs.
Disturbing a tourist is a grave offense and lead to years in jail. There are 2 currencies, one for tourists, another one for nationals, and nationals are not allowed to have tourist currency. Nationals are not allowed to enter hotels or tourist facilities.
People grow animals at home and give all scraps to them. Once they grow big enough they kill them for consumption. People rely on the black market for their basic needs. Some set up clandestine restaurants at home to make a living.
Cubans are not allowed to leave the country. They need to pay for the privilege of traveling, and all trips must include a return ticket. If multiple family members are traveling, at least one has to stay to ensure the family doesn't escape the regime. People bypass that by creating fake families through marriage.
As you can see, their life experience is BAD. The Castros are personally responsible for a lot of it. They should have stepped down for humanitarian reasons. People that supported the revolution initially would not have done so if they knew what was going to happen to them.
This is destruction and devastation of tens of millions of lives. Libya was one of the most advanced countries in Africa, now its a basketcase. That's millions of lives in disarray setback for generations. Who takes responsibility for this? If these are not crimes against humanity what is?
We have got used to a fraudulent narrative supported by 'our' media where we can judge and think the worst of others and not examine our own devious actions. But if we want to judge and get self righteous about Castro we must first hold our own government to account to have an iota of credibility.
Since there is zero interest in prosecuting or even reining in the warmongers this persistent kneejerk rush to the moral highground is a sinister posturing by people who know exactly what this country has been doing and are out to defraud the world.
I don't think he cared about them in any way. He had a totalitarian view of how they should be, and he forced that upon them.
So foreign countries’ propaganda can overthrow your democracy and put up a complete crazy, due to fake news?
The US has seen how much Russia Today and fake news have influenced this presidential election. Would you want that to become an issue in your country?
This is a serious problem one has to ask themselves.
He demonstrated that it is possible to survive without compromising with the hegemon.
A lot of cubans and venezolanos are my neighbors, and there is whistling going on.
When he was very old but still in power, I always wondered if he would just suddenly die one day and his country would descend into chaos. At least that has not happened, what, if you like or dislike him, you should probably still credit him. I hope Cuba will develop into a freer society over time.
China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism.
A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have not learned that much of what we learned about the communists was mostly propaganda; same way the US creates enemies out of "terrorists" today.
Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up without trial because you are betraying communist ideals.
And it's not like nobody got locked up in the 50s without a hint of a trial just for the suspicion of being 'communist' and betraying the capitalistic ideals.
""" In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] """ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.
That's not how it works; some terrorists may call themselves muslims and even form "Islamic" societies, but I hope you'll agree that muslims and Islam shouldn't be judged on their actions. The same goes for Christianity.
Now if one of you gets ill, or decides to slack off then that person will still be supported. If everyone slacks off then the society is f'd.
The initial concept is very theoretical, there are many gaps left.
Buying beer and sharing with friends week after week is a good example of capitalism, as the bar owner is profiting so much from you and your friends buying all this beer.
Communism (of the Marxist variety) would be you and your friends being allocated the same amount of beer by the state, which owns the beer (along with all goods), and deals out the same amount of beer to everyone, regardless of what they do (i.e. what would have corresponded to their class).
I suppose there is another kind of communism where you and your friends live on a commune and some grow hops and some grow barley and some are in charge of fermentation vats and all just relax and drink their beer after a long day. That is, until the tax man cometh...
Marx suggested that communism will only emerge after the failure of capitalism. Every single communist regime has ignored this idea.
While I agree that many countries who have followed communist ideas have done some horrible things, the same can be said for every other system, including the current system we have now.
Furthermore pure capitalism has never really been tried either, because it begins to fail and government intervention is needed very quickly.
Actual communism doesn't really mean dictatorship, I think we might see a comeback of ideas related to communism & command style economies in the future. Especially if we start implementing Strong AI to better manage resources and trade. I could see a future where free market may not exist in the form we have it now, instead there might be a system focused on harm reduction managed by various planning systems, better and more careful resource allocation, etc.
Let's not forget that communist ideas also allowed many countries to industrialize rather quickly.
How is communism going to handle malicious parties, since there's no ownership? How is communism going to handle needs for abstract needs, such as those for services? Marx didn't really think things through. You don't need strong AI, you need the singularity to centrally plan humanity. Until then you need to allow freedom of action for individual actors, i.e. rule of law + market economies.
People aren't going to say "I want more loli hentai".
In my personal opinion, I don't think that if communism ever emerges it will be through forced means as it was before, I think it will occur naturally where Capitalism will simply fail in certain areas and the system will need to change.
For example say in 100 years, climate change causes enormous damage worldwide in various aspects of life. At this point perhaps governments will realize we can't just exploit raw resources, pollute and allow people to do what they want, so new economic systems emerge that utilize central planning and needs based production and distribution as to avoid harm, it will no longer be simply market driven. Just a rough example, of what could happen.
You're talking about dictatorships that called themselves communist. Some were economically communist, but the governance was never as Marx intended.
Marx envisioned a system of 'councils' that would exist in many aspects of society (e.g. for each factory), each would send a representative to a higher level council. This is what 'soviet' refers to. This system was never really implemented.
Economic system and governance are not the same thing. It's conceivable to implement communism using a proper 'soviet' (council) system, or maybe even using a parliamentary democracy. I don't quite believe this would work that well, but calling the belief itself 'unforgivable' is ...simplistic.
Especially considering that many people who believe in communism do so out of a sense of idealism that is much less selfish than capialists; in some sense communist beliefs stem from a sense of empathy that is much more compatible with evangelical values rather than capitalism.
The blockade of Cuba began before Castro nationalized the American-owned oil refineries by Eisenhower drastically reducing the amount of sugar Cuba could export to the US. As the Cuban economy was dependent on sugar exports they didn't have much choice when the Soviet Union stepped in and offered to buy their sugar.
The rest is history. Cuba aligning with the Soviet Union was by force, not by choice. That's why the blockade was such a cluster-fuck from the beginning.
Communism looks awesome on paper, but hardly works in practice.
Castro tried, all the way.
<3 <3 <3
It is amazing that a small island could defy the empire to his north for half a century. Such courage is probably what caused Khrushchev to send him nuclear missiles when talk of invasion of the rebelling perceived colony became widespread in the US. Courage, fortitude, the love of the people and international solidarity helped maintain the Cuban people's defiance of and independence from the empire which is soon to be Trump's.
A thought exercise: Here is an attempt to take on an argument made by the communist apologists about Cuba in favor of Castro: that "there are no children sleeping on the streets."
May be that's true even if we don't have any independent scrutiny made by human rights organizations to support it. But "no children sleeping on the streets" is not a sufficient condition to judge the social progress of the nation.
For instance, these children may be sent to gulags (if they happen to be of the lesser equal people) or they may be forced to sleep on floors in a dungeon and still the claim "no cuban children sleeping on the streets" will be technically true. Or even the tyrant Castro might have ordered to kill all the children who were seen to be sleeping on streets (who's to prevent him from doing so there?)
The apologists just shun away from such critique as they are dishonest or are passionate followers blinded by their faith in communism.
Liberal Arts students across the Western World are saddened.
To me that's funny.
Meanwhile, the liberal arts students may have learned to compare Cuba to other and similar countries and draw their conclusions. I have referred to the HDI in a different post where Cuba ranks 40. I have also traveled extensively throughout Latin America and lived there for some time. So I can make some comparisons as well.
These days it's like superhuman to be able to look at an issue from two sides.
And my comment is not trolling.
I was seeing all the news of Cubans around the world celebrating, and then reading some comments here, in the Guardian, in the Globe and Mail - and noting the differences.
It's shocking to see so many people support someone who was almost so cruel.
'Please help us, this man we escaped is a totalitarian'
'Oh, you just don't understand your experience, we agree with this ideology and anti-Americanism, so whatever happened to you - it couldn't have been that bad, let's not judge him'.
It's one of those things that really tells us a lot about people.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042460 and marked it off-topic.
Similarly Ruanda/Rwanda
Nelson Mandela for instance made life better for black South Africans, but he's implicated in violence against white south africans.
Hitler made life better for many Germans, especially given the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.
Turning back to the US, you could argue that those descended from native americans have not had their lives improved by an ugly history of genocide. The US also enslaved people who our citizens today descended from. There was also internment of Japanese-American citizens. And to this day, high incarceration rates for the poor/minorities.
"The forms of government have always been different. But this cannot be a reason for hostility between different nations, as long as one form of government does not try to interfere with another, outside of its naturally ordained sphere." http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html
But I don't think that changes my original point, which is that all dictators can be seen as serving their people, depending on how you define "their people".
In all those cases they're helping some group in their country, even if its the political elite.
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/cuba/dictatorship.html
The man was an evil murderous dictator, and the world - and his subjects - are better off without him.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/wont-jeremy-corbyn-like...