It is rare that I don't pay respect to one'side passing. Osama bin Laden was one. Fidel Castro is another.
I'm sure SJG is in mourning, but there are quite a few that have been looking forward to this day for a long time. He caused so much pain to so many.
Let's enjoy watching the celebrations in Miami. I am guessing the violence will be non-existent and destruction of property a minimum and accidental.
Obama, in his infinite wisdom, restore relations with Cuba.
We can all hope his brother either dies soon as well or that he opens Cuba up to allow some choice among the people, democracy where the people get to decide. For all those who want socialism, I suggest Cuba would be a good place to move to.
They are diehards in their beliefs unlike the Chinese. The Chinese wanted to stay communist but they saw no problem with using a capitalist market system to make their country rich and make their economy strong while improving the lives of their people. The Castros? They want everyone to stay in poverty and apparently want their country to stay poor.
Everyone poor except Fidel himself. His personal net worth has been estimated at right around $1B.
Suppose to be a good place to visit if you like hookers.
If I was in power, I would like to see lots of genuinely happy people. Not people fleeing the country and hundreds celebrating the death of your brother. However if someone is evil, I guess they aren't going to change their colors or suddenly become good again. I'm not sure what the current leader is like, good or evil and no nothing about his background. I did read the Catholic Church and the pope did some work attempting to open Cuba up and they may have contacted Obama to encourage it. If dialogue encourages change, hopefully Trump doesn't cause things to go backwards. Cuba operates like it is the 50's with only small changes. I see their cars look like antiques. People are not free to move and they have lots of restrictions against starting and running a business. The communists run everything. I believe the people just want to be free to move and work as they please, not whatever the Cuban government tells them they must do.
If the current leader wanted to be a whole lot richer, he could do a democracy reform of Cuba and own 20% stock in all the new companies and let everyone start or run a business and let the people hold elections and allow freedom of the press etc. As everyone else worked to grow their business etc, the current leader would grow very rich and wouldn't have to deal with all the day to day tasks of running the country.
Years ago I had the idea that the up and coming young leaders of the Cuban exile community and they young Cuban communist party leaders needed to be brought together on neutral ground somewhere (Dominican Republic, Guatemala or a similar locale) to spend a couple of weekends playing baseball, Jai ali, etc. Mostly just know one another socially in spite of the generational grudge. There would come a time when they would need to renegotiate the future of the island and it would help if they had at least some interpersonal experience with each other. Now Fidel is dead... who knows which way the tide will go for Cuba?
The 49ers are in Miami this weekend and a reporter picked a fight with Kaepernick for wearing a Castro shirt earlier this year. Looks like they'll have another reason to boo him Sunday.
Also read he died on the 17 year anniversary of Elian Gonzalez's rescue at sea.
Kaepernick's hero is dead.
His death is only symboluc, he had not been in power since 2006 due to poor health and had transferred power to his younger brother and right-hand man and minister of defense (Fidel was 90 when he died his brother is currently 85) - again his death was only symbolic and since he's been out of power for 10 yrs there isn't a power-vacuum.
Raul Castro (Fidel's brother currently in power) has put his son in a key position and also his grandson and said he would step down either in 2017 or 2018, one would think the next generation would make changes but who the hell knows - they need to be out of power and let Cuba be democratic w/ free elections
The mayor of Miami-Dade county who is is 62 y/o and fled Cuba w/ his family as a young boy had a very simple illustration, he said look at a picture of Havana from 1959 (when Castro took power) and look at a picture of it now (not a lot of difference), then look at a picture of Miami in 1959 and look at a picture of it now, that will tell you the difference b/w a totalitarian regime and a free system
Chavez is dead as well.
Capitalism --- self sponsored (and endorsed) exploitation of labor. Market decides price
Socialism --- state sponsored ( and endorsed) exploitation of labor. State decides the price, then it's currency gets devalued in relation to other markets.
^^^ A more humorous way I heard the above put (an intentionally sarcastic way):
"Under Capitalism everything is Dog eat Dog. Under Socialism, it is just the reverse". (Yay human nature!)
I still don't see much changing until his brother passes.
You want to watch something interesting, watch the "parts unknown" episode with Anthony Bourdain on Cuba. Pretty sad how poor that country is thanks to Fidel.
^^^ shailynn if everybody is just as poor you can still be happy (i am not talking about starvation poor which is extreme). It's more about if you are poor are all the rest are rich. progress is unending, do you think people 100 years ago were less happy than you. It's just western media's perspective that everybody should have a ps4 and xbox. Bhutan (small , poorest) country is most happy , while US has more than 50% population in depression.
Second, policies don't change if the regime is founded on extreme principles. So Castro's successor would enforce his visionary (or questionable) policies more fervently. When Osama died a worse person replaced him and after they killed him, the next guy was even worse (they gotta prove it).
Unless you have a Gorbachev who does a volte-face and fucks his daddy's world. Where the principles / liberties are taken for granted you get a lot of variance in the type of people taking office ( Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump). Do you think if there is some common policy among those 4?
I don't live in Cuba and I don't know if people are really unhappy there. We see what the media projects. I would say the Quality of life 100 years back and now is almost same in US and other developed countries just smaller faster more powerful electronic devices, better healthcare (it's only for rich) and cosmetic surgeries. But we must keep making progress unless there is no meaning of human civilization.
@papi the difference b/w totalitarian and free system is a fucked up Gini index. Yeah everybody gets something trickled down to them in a capitalist free market even if that's just few dew drops. the 1% vs 99% is just masking the truth , the real difference is 0.1% holding 99% of the wealth. I would tell you a story and interview question from Goldman Sachs but it would be too long for here.
interestingly the western media always projects right wing dictatorships differently that left wing (socialist) dictatorships. I guess you this is the first time you are hearing that there can exist right wing dictatorship ( 2 most famous cases supported (financed , armed and propped) by US , Greece in 70s , pinochet in Chile )
Actually the ones I've looked to are more Raul Castro and Che Guevara.
Quite good: amazon.com
SJG
Truthfully right now there is a lot of opportunity in Cuba, if you are a business minded person, just being intelligent about it, now is the time to get a foothold in that country, one thing is certain if it isn't us as Americans, then the Russians or the Chinese will get in on the ground floor so the smart money is in the opportunity. Remember you snooze you lose.
burn in hell Fidel.
"Truthfully right now there is a lot of opportunity in Cuba, if you are a business minded person, just being intelligent about it, now is the time to get a foothold in that country, one thing is certain if it isn't us as Americans, then the Russians or the Chinese will get in on the ground floor so the smart money is in the opportunity. Remember you snooze you lose."
That's exactly what the "Parts Unknown" episode was talking about.
Yeah, Cuba is pretty virgin and they need of everything a modern nation needs including massive infrastructure work
It's times like these when I almost wish there really was a hell.
I'm glad 2016 finally got around to killing someone who deserved it.
It's too bad he's going to be cremated. Fueling a Cuban economic recovery would be so simple if they'd build an outhouse on top of his grave and charge $100 a dump to shit on him.
I wonder what he knew about Hillary.
If Che were alive, I'd be fighting along side him. And Raul Castro was a strong supporter. Fidel himself was an authoritarian, but the Bautista and the Mafia he replaced, had to go.
SJG
The question seems to be "Should the U.S. send some one to his funeral"? Best answer is to send the Surgeon General to make sure he is dead.
Like Papi said, he was already just an icon rather than an actual ruler, and Raúl is trying to entrench a dynasty while he can. Then again he was the only one of the great icons of the Revolution who lived (or was allowed to live) to be old and see it rot. With or without him, this has gone on too damn long.
Back when normalization was set forward, I was just fine with it because, as I saw it, if the US normalized relations with fuckin' Vietnam we can normalize them with anyone. Cuba did not cost us 57,000 dead, hundreds of thousands messed up, and kids shot in campus protests. And Vietnam and China and (name-any-of-a-bunch-of-countries) remain entrenched institutionalized dictatorships yet we make deals with them.
Which is something we can't forget, they DID establish a brutal opression, with firing squads and forced labor and abuse of old ladies making peaceful protests; filling the prisons and "mental hospitals" with those who failed to get in line and then dumping them abroad together with the real criminals. It was not just the properties of the Mob and the foreign corporations that got seized, it was anything of any productive value, and then they proceeded to render it utterly unproductive.
People don't try to cross the sea aboard a truck bed converted into a raft just because life is inconvenient.
Problem is, the Cuban Commies' whole point of existing by now is to claim they stood up to us. Fidel and Raul stubbornly insisted to not back off from actual communist policies, even as it ruined everything they had once tried to build up, because they were standing up to the Yanquis. How long can they keep that up? Vietnam and China were willing to make deals and open up business opportunities and lighten up a bit on some nonthreatening independent activity, just as long as everyone understood the Party stays in power. But would anyone in the PCC settle for THAT? Would the US?
Cuba deservse better. Much better. Maybe in burying the icon and eventually in a transition, those in charge of the transition can bury the need to prove a point even if it kills them.
About Castro,
SJG
I remember his interview a few years back where he was still furious Russia chickened out of the missile crisis and didn't put nukes in Cuba.
Is there still a sugar embargo on Cuba? That was supposed to last until Castro died because of the Cuba missile crisis.