Fidel Castro

[Donkey]

Am I the only person here who's considering him to be a thug and hate him?

[Takk]

I don't think he's a thug, and i don't hate him, but I will be glad to see the back of him.

[Dave]

I don't care, he isn't my leader. I don't think better of him because of the Manics, though. I don't think of him at all.

[Classified Machine]

Am I the only person here who's considering him to be a thug and hate him?

Why do you think he's a thug?

[Cam]

Am I the only person here who's considering him to be a thug and hate him?

You are Czech, right? I can understand why you might hate communism, socialism or any other ism for that matter, but what are you basing your views on?

I lived in Cuba for a year, so if you want some insight, just ring the bell.

[Daniel]

I don't care, he isn't my leader.

that's the spirit!

[Matt_o_Mac]

He just said it because he had nothing more constructive to say.

I would add that he constraints most of his doctors who have a high skill level, then again his country gave them the education, pretty double edged sword on that.

I nethier hate him or like him. Say goes for successful American presidents, i can only true hate someone if they affect me.

[user3837]

I don't care, he isn't my leader. I don't think better of him because of the Manics, though. I don't think of him at all.

seconded

[Symmanine]

I don't care, he isn't my leader.

What an atitude...

[The General]

He is simply running a dictatorship in his own country, this is affecting no-one but Cuba and the Cuban people. There are many faschist rulers in the world and Fidel Castro is only targetted because of the fact he's so close to the USA. Cuba isn't exactly living in terror, which can't be said for many other countries yet he is hated by the US government simply for being different and a possible influence.

There were around 90 plots to kill him, which makes no sense whatsover, he may be influencing people and may be killing others but killing him would only make him a matyr. He'll be dead soon on his own account.

[Classified Machine]

He is simply running a dictatorship in his own country,

How so? He was elected and workers still have a fair bit of political power in Cuba. Cuba is certainly more democractic than most.

[Guernica]

He has my respect. He has rattled conservative America's cage for so long you can't help but admire him just for that! :lol: Yeah yeah human rights violations blah blah, but the bottom line is that the MAJORITY of people in Cuba have better health care and education than we do here in the USA. Way better. 12 million Americans go without any health insurance at all....which basically means we get no care b/c we cannot afford it...

Plus, toward the end of his life, he did seem to be softening a good bit on several of the issues that he has been taken to task for over the years - which proves to me that, dictator or not, he *was* still listening to his people and trying to make decisions that worked for all.

And we've had FAR WORSE American presidents, just as you lot have had far worse PMs.

I do worry about what will happen after he passes, b/c I'm not sure the brother is quite as bright and quite as capable of looking long-term. But we shall see.

[unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed]

Yeah yeah human rights violations blah blah

I find that comment rather tactless, which isn't something I've come to expect from you!

[Guernica]

I find that comment rather tactless, which isn't something I've come to expect from you!

I just think the human rights violations are way overplayed in the U.K., but I'm sorry if you are offended.

EDIT (after some thought): The reason I'm so wary of the UK press screaming human rights violations is that I'm American and I know what it's *really* like in the USA. No, I would not want to be an out gay in Cuba, but sodomy between consenting adults is still illegal in the USA in some states (including mine) - so what right do *I* have to say that Cuba's human rights policies as regards alt. lifestyles are any better than ours???

Same with the political humans rights violations. I live in a country that's been force-fed the Patriot Act. Who am I to judge??

I don't by any means intend for this post to constitute a ringing endorsement of Fidel's government. But looked at objectively from over here, neither side is any better than the other really...

Hope that makes sense...

[Hans]

Am I the only person here who's considering him to be a thug and hate him?

Probably not.

[Hans]

I don't care, he isn't my leader. I don't think better of him because of the Manics, though. I don't think of him at all.

Lol. That's what they said about Hitler too... Look where that got them.

[Leoben]

Im not sure what to think of him really. Im not sure how I can find out the truth about him given how almost every bit of information is spun into propaganda.

I do care about learning about other countries leaders though. Call me weird, but I have an open mind about the world.

[Dave]

Lol. That's what they said about Hitler too... Look where that got them.

In which case, when Castro decides that at his age he'd like a bigger retirement home and invades Poland, I shall eat my hat.

[Guernica]

Im not sure what to think of him really. Im not sure how I can find out the truth about him given how almost every bit of information is spun into propaganda.

Haha, I had the same problem! My advice: check out the reviews on Amazon to see which books are slanted which way - then pick a couple.

For a "Cliff Notes" version, this DVD (http://www.videocollection.com/product.html?product_id=9043) is surprisingly not bad (considering the source!).

[Symmanine]

In which case, when Castro decides that at his age he'd like a bigger retirement home and invades Poland, I shall eat my hat.


If everyone is this damn world had such an "I don't care coz it aint my problem" attitude towards all mad dictators in the world - where would we be?

Your ignorance is dangerous.

[Corpse In The Bathtub]

Am I the only person here who's considering him to be a thug and hate him?

i think hes an interesting figure and in terms of international thuggery,then the USA are well ahead in spending years bullying the rest of the world and then being shocked when it comes back to bite them in the ass.I admire what he and the Cuban revolution tried to achieve in standing up to the USA.But Id also disagree strongly with some of his policies and views on homosexuals and AIDS sufferers

[Dave]

If everyone is this damn world had such an "I don't care coz it aint my problem" attitude towards all mad dictators in the world - where would we be?

Your ignorance is dangerous.

So is you speaking to me like that.

[Bartek Wyre]

If Cuba is such a nice place then why do Cubans swim across the sea to Florida on pieces of furniture? :lol:
Castro started off well, having defeated Batista and, for example, relieved Cuba of all the mobsters from USA, who had their hideouts and "small" businesses there. But revolution always seems to swollow her own children, doesn't it?

[Guernica]

If Cuba is such a nice place then why do Cubans swim across the sea to Florida on pieces of furniture? :lol:

Because they have NO idea what they're getting into, that's why.

Look, I'm not trying to make Cuba out to be some kind of utopia; just saying that in lots of ways the US is as bad and nowadays in some ways it's plenty worse. :(

[maradona]

I don't hate Castro - he is just a hypocritical murderous, dictatorial piece of shit with a great ability to make rich liberals in the West fall over themselves to excuse his crimes because he does it wrapped in a red flag talking of the Revolution. Excused by the type of people who think thumbing ones nose at the Great Satan excuses every jailed dissident, journalist or homosexual.

[unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed]

I just think the human rights violations are way overplayed in the U.K., but I'm sorry if you are offended.

EDIT (after some thought): The reason I'm so wary of the UK press screaming human rights violations is that I'm American and I know what it's *really* like in the USA. No, I would not want to be an out gay in Cuba, but sodomy between consenting adults is still illegal in the USA in some states (including mine) - so what right do *I* have to say that Cuba's human rights policies as regards alt. lifestyles are any better than ours???

Same with the political humans rights violations. I live in a country that's been force-fed the Patriot Act. Who am I to judge??

I don't by any means intend for this post to constitute a ringing endorsement of Fidel's government. But looked at objectively from over here, neither side is any better than the other really...

Hope that makes sense...

You didn't offend me! I just thought the completly dismissing it with a blah blah was a tiny tactless, and a bit unlike what your usual posts! But you've more than adequately explained what you mean now! :)

[Alan Noir]

I've no doubt that his revolutionary ideals were genuine, but i've no time for an autocracy. the revlution desended into beurocracy. i dont view cuba as any sort of ideal society, it has its pro's and it has its cons. its really only a sidestep from most western countries. The rest of latin america is where the exciting stuff is happening

[Donkey]

I'm too tired tonight, will reply the questions tommorow...

But something...:
My friend met some Cuban man in Berlin (some meeting of something, I don't remember...) and the Cuban guy was afraid to talk about his genuine opinions of his country and Castro. just like G.O.: 1984

[jeli]

Hooray for the equal society where the majority is poor.
Hooray for the censorship.
Hooray for sending to prison who opposites to his regime.
Hooray for the fact that there isn't elections.
and so one.

What a great man.:rolleyes:

[Mr Inconspicuous]

Freedom of speech is important to me.

But it won't feed my children!:p

[Classified Machine]

Hooray for the fact that there isn't elections

There are. Lots of them in fact. Once every two and a half years for the Municipal Assemblies and every five year for the Provincial and National Assemblies.

Castro himself was elected and even he is recallable and the same is true of any member of the Cuban government. So they're actually accountable to the people that elect them. Which is more than can be said for any of our politicians....

Cuba can be accused of a lot of things but it is relatively democractic. It isn't the case that Casto took over in 1959 and decided his personal views would be forced on people. He is not a dictator. There are plenty of checks and balances. So on issues like homosexuality, I suspect it has previously been something that was frowned upon by a lot of the population. That isn't to condone it but it wouldn't be that different from many other nations across the world, in that respect.

[Hans]

the Cuban guy was afraid to talk about his genuine opinions of his country and Castro. just like G.O.: 1984

So are the Americans.
And the Chinese.
And some Arabs.

Your point?

[user3837]

Hooray for the fact that there isn't elections.


hooray for the fact that our western capitalist dictatorships disguised as democracy has loads of powerless elections

[maradona]

There are. Lots of them in fact. Once every two and a half years for the Municipal Assemblies and every five year for the Provincial and National Assemblies.

Castro himself was elected and even he is recallable and the same is true of any member of the Cuban government. So they're actually accountable to the people that elect them. Which is more than can be said for any of our politicians....

Cuba can be accused of a lot of things but it is relatively democractic. It isn't the case that Casto took over in 1959 and decided his personal views would be forced on people. He is not a dictator. There are plenty of checks and balances. So on issues like homosexuality, I suspect it has previously been something that was frowned upon by a lot of the population. That isn't to condone it but it wouldn't be that different from many other nations across the world, in that respect.


For the national assembly there are 609 seats filled by election. The Communist Party / State approves all 609 candidates to stand for election. The Communist Party is the only party allowed to stand (it is the only legal political party after all) although some "Independents" are allowed as well. These "Independents" are however chosen by the Party and the State.

I know there are many definitions of democracy, but if on a ballot paper you have 1 choice of Party to choose from and everyone who is pre-approved by the State gets elected how can this be described as anything other than a sham election? Is this a form of democracy that you would accept and support in the country you live? Would you accept the outlawing of any public political opposition to the State? The outlawing of any political parties who do not support the State? The jailing of people who belong to these parties when they are operating underground? If this sort of stuff is not acceptable for you then why are such elections acceptable for Cubans? Cubans who if they don't vote or spoil their ballot paper in protest can end up being blacklisted.

What a great democratic workers paradise. :rolleyes:

[Donkey]

So are the Americans.
And the Chinese.
And some Arabs.

Your point?

Is this the reason to think it's common and there is no bad thing on it?? :eh:

[Donkey]

Why do you think he's a thug?
he's a dictator, his goverment keeps it's oppostition in prison, there's no liberty, "human rights" mean: You should be glad You're alive...
everyone who inhibits elections is thug!

You are Czech, right? I can understand why you might hate communism, socialism or any other ism for that matter, but what are you basing your views on?

I lived in Cuba for a year, so if you want some insight, just ring the bell.

Yes I know what does it mean when there are news that are just silly (4 example: The IMPERIALISTS are moving their weapons so that they would be able to attack us, BUT Soviet Union is prepared to save us!) And I don't believe there's something different there.

[Classified Machine]

For the national assembly there are 609 seats filled by election. The Communist Party / State approves all 609 candidates to stand for election. The Communist Party is the only party allowed to stand (it is the only legal political party after all) although some "Independents" are allowed as well. These "Independents" are however chosen by the Party and the State

They're all Independents. No one stands as a party candidate. They're not chosen by the party but the people in their local community who can then accept or reject them in a secret ballot. They're also recallable. In 1998, 25% of the NA were not even in the Communist Party.

If this sort of stuff is not acceptable for you then why are such elections acceptable for Cubans? Cubans who if they don't vote or spoil their ballot paper in protest can end up being blacklisted

But the Cubans time and time again reject any move towards changing their political system. 96% ratified the constitution in the mid 70's and a dissident group could only manage 11,000 signatures to try and force another referendum a few years back. These 11,000 weren't rounded up and put away. They're so much in the minority it would be pointless.

If they don't want change then it's their right as a sovereign nation. On the other hand the US freely admits that it wants to see it done away with, no matter what the Cubans want. Just google the "Helms-Burton Act". The US generally seems to struggle with this 'sovereign nation' concept.

Obviously it could be even more democractic but I suspect the unwillingness to go down the reform route is because they know the system will be bought like it has been time and time again in that part of the world. This is why they don't have campaigning and all the cost that goes with it. It costs nothing whatsoever to stand in elections in Cuba.

In answer to what I'd rather have - Yes, I'd much rather have a political system where I got to nominate candidates, who can be voted on and recalled at anytime. This is as opposed to what we have at a general elections here - candidates invariably chosen by their local parties, who then almost always follows his/her party line in parliament (thanks to the wonderfully democractic whipping system) and are not accountable.

Cuba isn't perfect and it's certainly no workers paradise but it would be laughable for me to knock their democracy when you consider the 'choice' we have here.

[user3837]

as a great thinker once said on Cuba......

"We have choice but no freedom;
They have freedom but no choice"

*he may retract this once he reads it again

[maradona]

They're all Independents. No one stands as a party candidate. They're not chosen by the party but the people in their local community who can then accept or reject them in a secret ballot. They're also recallable. In 1998, 25% of the NA were not even in the Communist Party.



Have I stepped into some Orwellian nightmare here? In a State ruled by one Party where only one Party is allowed and where all candidates have to be approved by the State / Party then candidates that are approved to stand are not Independent, they are to all fundamental purposes Party candidates. 609 approved candidates contesting 609 seats. Where is the democratic choice?



But the Cubans time and time again reject any move towards changing their political system. 96% ratified the constitution in the mid 70's and a dissident group could only manage 11,000 signatures to try and force another referendum a few years back. These 11,000 weren't rounded up and put away. They're so much in the minority it would be pointless.

If they are so much a minority why are they not allowed to organise openly? Why do any public meetings have representatives of the CDR present and packed full of informants?

Come to think of it why does every single apartment block in Cuba have a representative of CDR keeping files on every resident? What a marvelous free and open society.


Obviously it could be even more democractic but I suspect the unwillingness to go down the reform route is because they know the system will be bought like it has been time and time again in that part of the world. This is why they don't have campaigning and all the cost that goes with it. It costs nothing whatsoever to stand in elections in Cuba.

The system is already bought, its just Castro and the Party elite who hold all the levers of power. When change comes many this elite will still in charge, just as in Russia as many of the nomeklatura became the new capitalist class and oligarchs. Same shit, same people, same greed, same power, different ideology.


In answer to what I'd rather have - Yes, I'd much rather have a political system where I got to nominate candidates, who can be voted on and recalled at anytime. This is as opposed to what we have at a general elections here - candidates invariably chosen by their local parties, who then almost always follows his/her party line in parliament (thanks to the wonderfully democractic whipping system) and are not accountable.

What a shining beacon of democracy with the people have all these rights to bring their rulers to answer for their actions. But they never ever need to do it because all the people are always totally and utterly happy with their leader who is a magical man from happy land who lives in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!


Cuba isn't perfect and it's certainly no workers paradise but it would be laughable for me to knock their democracy when you consider the 'choice' we have here.

The 'choice' I had in the last election i participated in was: Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservative, SNP, SSP, Solidarity, Communist, Green, Scottish Voice, Scottish Unionist, Socialist Labour, Scottish Christian Party, the Pensioners Party, UKIP as well as many other even more minor parties like Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers or the Nine Per Cent Growth Party. That is a choice pretty much covering all of the political spectrum, hardly a comparison to Cuba...

[Classified Machine]

Have I stepped into some Orwellian nightmare here? In a State ruled by one Party where only one Party is allowed and where all candidates have to be approved by the State / Party then candidates that are approved to stand are not Independent, they are to all fundamental purposes Party candidates. 609 approved candidates contesting 609 seats. Where is the democratic choice?

They do not have to be approved by the party. This is virtually impossible anyway as it's a grassroots democracy where the Municipal Assemblies have a fair bit of power. Similar in a sense to our wards expect someone elected at this level can also ultimately be elected to the National Assembly and they often are.

They are invariably 32,000+ candidates in these elections and about half get elected. Anyone can stand or be nominated to stand in the Municipal or National Assembly elections. In the Municipal elections there are numerous candidates defeated. Around 50% of the National Assembly delegates are also in Municipal Assemblies. So they'll be doing very well to rig the system. Surely there would be easier ways if they really wanted to do it?

Maybe they should allow other parties but all the evidence suggests the Cubans overwhelmingly support their political system as it stands. And you can understand why they might be wary of multi-party elections given the history of them in that part of the world! Time and time again you have parties and candidates funded from outside, by the usual suspects, buying the election. There is no reason to think multi-party elections have to be inherently more democractic. It depends on the circumstances.

If they are so much a minority why are they not allowed to organise openly?

They're allowed within the parameters of the system to garner 10,000 signatures to get a referendum on any issue. Direct democracy. No absolute right to assembly is not good but if there was a lack of support for the government then there are still plenty of opportunities to show it. A tiny percentage spoilt their secret ballots in elections. For all the stories about people sailing out on rafts - this is very rare. People are allowed to leave the country. There are thousands upon thousands of doctors and nurses aboard for a start and very few defect. Apart from that they can't have open borders given the pattern that has emerged with this before. After the revolution the US took a large number of doctors, and other trained professions from Cuba through bribes and propanganda ("Cuba will send your kids to the USSR!!", anyone?)

Plus the Cubans have something of a history of not putting up with a system they don't like! The evidence just isn't there that there is a great deal of repression or that the political system is unpopular.

The system is already bought, its just Castro and the Party elite who hold all the levers of power. When change comes many this elite will still in charge, just as in Russia as many of the nomeklatura became the new capitalist class and oligarchs. Same shit, same people, same greed, same power, different ideology

Possibly it will go the same way but not as it stands. The bureaucracy isn't as strong and there is more democracy.

What a shining beacon of democracy with the people have all these rights to bring their rulers to answer for their actions. But they never ever need to do it because all the people are always totally and utterly happy with their leader who is a magical man from happy land who lives in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!

They do bring them to account. There is a high turnover of delegates to the National Assembly. As for Castro, well do you doubt his popularity in Cuba? It is therefore no surprise he kept getting re-elected.

The 'choice' I had in the last election i participated in was: Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservative, SNP, SSP, Solidarity, Communist, Green, Scottish Voice, Scottish Unionist, Socialist Labour, Scottish Christian Party, the Pensioners Party, UKIP as well as many other even more minor parties like Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers or the Nine Per Cent Growth Party. That is a choice pretty much covering all of the political spectrum, hardly a comparison to Cuba...

But yet you can be fairly sure they all had to pay deposits to stand and that they'll do, to a certain extent, what they like when in office. They're not there to represent the views of those who elected them. And if you don't like what they're doing, you've got a 4 or 5 year wait to kick them out....for someone else who'll not represent you in the same way. So no, not a great deal of choice. The Cubans don't have to put up with any of that. They can nominate and elect the someone from their local neighbourhood, who can end up in the National Assembly, who can then be held to account if the people feel it is required.

Bottom is that it is their nation and they can do what they want as long as they don't interfere with others nations. Why can't others have the same attitude towards them?

[Hans]

Is this the reason to think it's common and there is no bad thing on it?? :eh:

I never said that.

It's just not a rare thing.

[Donkey]

I never said that.

It's just not a rare thing.

Yes (and I disagree about US) but no-one says China has great governemnt, no-one says Arabs have better heath-care than us but Lotta people is sad becuase Castro is dying!

Just like when my grand father came to a post office in 1953 and everyone there was silent and some women were crying and he asked one of them: What happend and she answered: "Stalin died!!" :D

[*lisa simpson*]

i don't think the michael moore film's been mentioned here yet?

Moore courts Cannes controversy

Michael Moore has launched his latest controversial documentary in Cannes, saying he feared it would be seized by US authorities before it was seen.

Sicko, in which the director attacks the US health system, has had its first screening at the French film festival.

But the US Treasury is investigating whether Moore broke the trade embargo against Cuba by filming there. Moore told reporters he had to send a copy of the film to an unnamed country in case they confiscated the original. The Treasury said it had no record of a licence being issued authorising travel to Cuba, and Moore could face a fine or jail.

A copy of Sicko was sent out of the US less than 24 hours after he was told about the investigation, the film-maker said. His lawyers advised him the master copy could be confiscated as part of the probe, he told journalists.

The documentary includes sequences in which Moore takes rescue workers from the 11 September attacks in New York to near the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay and a Cuban hospital.

The group are suffering from conditions thought to be linked to their work clearing up debris from the site of the World Trade Center.

"The point was not to go to Cuba, it was to go to American soil, to Guantanamo Bay, to take the 9/11 rescue workers there to receive the same healthcare that they are giving the al-Qaeda detainees," Moore said.

"No film-maker should ever have to be talking about jail or fines or where he or she can travel."

Moore travelled the world to look at different healthcare systems
In a letter dated 2 May, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control gave Moore 20 working days to provide more details of his Cuba visit, including who went with him and why.

"This office has no record that a specific licence was issued authorising you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," it said. Moore told a Cannes press conference: "I know a lot of you have written: 'How dumb are they to give us all this publicity?' "But I am the one who is personally being investigated, and I am the one who is personally liable for potential fines or jail so I don't take it lightly."

The film-maker described Sicko as a "call to action" over the provision of healthcare.

"We are never going to have real change in the United States if the public doesn't see that it will only happen when they rise up out of their theatre seats and do something about it."

Moore's film looks at healthcare provision in the UK, France and Canada, and the director said the US should adopt the best elements of other countries' systems.

"What we should do as Americans is what we always do... just take all the things that each of you are doing right and put it into one system, and call it the American system."

The film-maker won the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 2004 with Fahrenheit 9/11, an examination of the White House's decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He won an Oscar in 2002 for the documentary Bowling for Columbine, a critique of US gun culture in the wake of the shootings at Columbine High School.


i used to be a fan of moore. then i saw him at a q&a in london and he was immensely disappointing.

i read an interesting report about this film - about how lots of liberal /anti administration types in the US like to compare the cuban health system with the US one. the problem is that americans like moore who go to cuba to film are invariably shown the "show" hospitals - the ones which are used to prove the point. what they don't see (and i suspect moore will conveniently ignore because it goes against his argument) are the "hospitals" where people are forcibly detained for being gay/disabled/mentally ill etc...

i think the us healthcare system sucks, is elitist and generally gives the poor of the states a horrifically bad deal. however - castro is a dictator, like it or not, and the gloss that people like the manics (there i go again, denouncing them!) and moore see is really not the whole story.

edit: having read a bit more, i realise that the article misled me by making out he'd been to visit cuban hospitals. however it seems the film talks about various other health systems, not the cuban one. but i think my point stands

[screamingsoul]

I can't believe some people are defending Cuba basically on a line of "it's not thaat bad" and trying to make western democracy look worse.

Yes yes yes we've all heard the same tired line about how our system of government isn't perfect (I'd be the first to admit this, proportional representation is the way forward) but trying to compare it to a dictatorial communist regime and rationalise that said regime is more democratic is completely ludricous!

[Cam]

are the "hospitals" where people are forcibly detained for being gay/disabled/mentally ill etc...

Have you actually seen those, then?

gay

Yes, in the past, the Cuban government has been extremely discriminating against gay people. That's despicable and inexcusable, but it has changed over the years. It seems to me your information is a bit out of date.

Have you ever watched the (absolutely brilliant) film Strawberry and Chocolate? It was released in 1994 and if the governments rules against homosexualism were as harsh as you think they are, it simply wouldn't have been released at all!

Then again, gay clubs are pretty much clandestine, but the country has evolved a lot on that matter.

disabled/mentally ill

Now that's just absolute and unfounded rubbish.

I met a woman who had multiple sclerosis (leader of the Cuban MS association, as a matter of fact), she was about 60ish and apart from the fact she couldn't move her legs, her brain was lucid as ever. If she lived in any other country in the world, she would definitely be dead.

In short: You might disagree with the governments decisions on other policies, but Cuban health system is something that has got to be praised.

[*lisa simpson*]

Have you actually seen those, then?


no. and i was actually paraphrasing the report i'd read but hey.

i'm just not convinced that the image of cuba that is presented by castro's people is really what's going on.

[Guernica]

In short: You might disagree with the governments decisions on other policies, but Cuban health system is something that has got to be praised.

Word.

(Says she who lives in the self-styled "greatest country in the world" and cannot afford any sort of health care whatsoever.)

[Cam]

no. and i was actually paraphrasing the report i'd read but hey.

i'm just not convinced that the image of cuba that is presented by castro's people is really what's going on.

Fair enough, it's definitely not a paradise, and yeah, they tend to exaggerate their accomplishments.

But then again, achieving everything they have with that malicious US trade embargo (which actually gives the regime even more power and excuses) looming is something they can be proud about.

[TheFall2007]

i have mixed views on the man on the one hand he is a great leader, cuba has 100% better health care and literacy rates than the USA, but on the other hand Castro propped up cunts like Mengitsu in Ethiopia, Mobutu AND Mugabe, as well as a number of other african dictators who took their lead from communism.

[manicfan]

My sister went to Cuba and she said a lot of people in Cuba are not happy with some of Castro's policies, like the lack of free speech and the limited mobility. However she also said Cuba was a country where there was very little crime; where you need not be afraid of someone attacking you or something and where the people are generally friendly, generous and warm.
(She did not hang out in the tourist resorts by the way but travelled throughout the country in "the real Cuba".)

[Knight of the East]

Cuba has some good points. Cuba has some bad points. It should be praised for its achievements in the face of overwhelming and underhand tactics by the US. But would ya want to LIVE there? Nahhh!

[Matt_o_Mac]

To be honest condemning Cuba for having some faults, whilst ignoring the various faults that our countries perform on the world stage is comedy*.


*In a Kurt Vonnegut kind of way.

[Takk]

To be honest condemning Cuba for having some faults, whilst ignoring the various faults that our countries perform on the world stage is comedy*.


*In a Kurt Vonnegut kind of way.

Except most people here that condemn Cuba for its "faults" don't ignore the faults our countries perform.

[H]

Don't know 100% the ins & outs of communism, but isn't a bit ironic that Castro is worth about 5 billion, and yet most of the population of Cuba are living off skwabbles?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Don't know 100% the ins & outs of communism, but isn't a bit ironic that Castro is worth about 5 billion, and yet most of the population of Cuba are living off skwabbles?The questions you have to ask yourself is "IS Castro worth 5 Billion, & do I believe everything I read?"

[H]

The questions you have to ask yourself is "IS Castro worth 5 Billion, & do I believe everything I read?"

Yes, I believe EVERYTHING I read. Especially in The Sun

[Classified Machine]

Didn't Forbes come up with the figure based on everything that is nationalised in Cuba? :lol: Oh and some off shore bank accounts that apparently had millions in them. On the latter, Castro said if they could prove he had $1 in a foreign bank account, he would resign.....suffice to say, nothing more was heard from Forbes on the matter! :lol:

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

EDIT (after some thought): The reason I'm so wary of the UK press screaming human rights violations is that I'm American and I know what it's *really* like in the USA. No, I would not want to be an out gay in Cuba, but sodomy between consenting adults is still illegal in the USA in some states (including mine) - so what right do *I* have to say that Cuba's human rights policies as regards alt. lifestyles are any better than ours???

There are plenty of outdated, ludicrous laws still on the books in many U.S. states. But that isn't the issue--the issue is whether or not they're actively enforced, or even if they *can* be enforced. In Georgia--like every other U.S. state and federal jurisdiction--all anti-homosexual sodomy laws were invalidated by the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Any effort to remove anti-sodomy laws currently on the books--noble a move as it may be--would be merely symbolic, as they cannot legally be enforced.

For the record, all anti-sodomy laws have also been taken off of Cuba's books as well. What remains is a very strong anti-homosexual view, much stronger than it is in the U.S. and Europe. It's likely that non-state sanctioned discrimination against homosexuals occurs throughout Cuba, but as with most things of this nature, it resides in anecdotal evidence only.

With regards to Castro, he is a brute through and through, and while he's gotten some things right (health care, education), he has gotten many, many things wrong. The hyperbolic pronouncements against the Castro regime by the U.S. are tritely juvenile at this point, and the Cuba embargo continues to be a ridiculous "fuck you" to the Cuban government, but that doesn't change my feelings about Castro personally at all. He is a cold, impersonal man who is responsible for the death and disappearance of thousands of people, and the utter decimation of Cuba's economy, to go along with well-documented human and civil rights abuses.

And I'd like to add one final remark to Guernica's point above: the actions of our--or any people's--government in no way diminishes our moral standing as citizens to condemn what we, personally, deem offensive. I find torture a horrific and offensive crime, and personally condemn any nation or organization that partakes in it, in spite of the fact that my own government has employed those disturbing tactics. I find racism and sexism vile, and am offended by nations and cultures that practice them, in spite of my own country's history and ongoing struggle with them.

There is not a single government in the history of civilization that has gotten it all "right". None is beyond reproach. Yet to accept the "glass houses" argument as it is presented, one would have to refrain from condemning practically any behavior whatsoever, no matter how offensive, in the name of avoiding even an image of hypocrisy. Sometimes, it's permissible to sit in judgment of others, when the abuses are so blatant and horrific. Thus, I make no apologies for my disgust with the behavior and actions of people such as castro, in spite of the fact that my own nation is dealing with a litany of problems that may or may not occur in a similar vein.

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

I don't hate Castro - he is just a hypocritical murderous, dictatorial piece of shit with a great ability to make rich liberals in the West fall over themselves to excuse his crimes because he does it wrapped in a red flag talking of the Revolution. Excused by the type of people who think thumbing ones nose at the Great Satan excuses every jailed dissident, journalist or homosexual.

I replied before I saw this post by Maradona who is--as usual--spot on.

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

Castro himself was elected

Yes, and Saddam Hussein was as well. With 100% of the vote, I believe.

[Invader Zim]

For his critics, as you dislike him so very much then please do tell me if you would have preffered the Batista CIA puppet regime?

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

For his critics, as you dislike him so very much then please do tell me if you would have preffered the Batista CIA puppet regime?

One's got nothing to do with the other.

[Pooziesuz]

One's got nothing to do with the other.

Fidel overthrew batista didnt he.

[Classified Machine]

Yes, and Saddam Hussein was as well. With 100% of the vote, I believe.

Well I'm guessing in that respect he was either the only candidate or it wasn't a secret ballot and if you didn't mark an x in the right place then you went missing etc. Either way, there was not much opportunity to show dissatisfaction towards him.This is just not comparable to Cuba where there are numerous opportunities to do that and people have done so. There are no disappearances and great swaths of 'political prisoners'. Even Amnesty has praised Cuba's improvement on that front.

Say what you like about him, all the evidence I've seen suggests Castro is relatively popular in Cuba and Cubans are happy with their political system. Therefore it's irrelevant if us non-cubans don't like it. It's their nation and it's not like they're a threat to other nations, so they should be allowed to determine their own destiny.

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

Fidel overthrew batista didnt he.

It's not an either-or proposition.

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

Well I'm guessing in that respect he was either the only candidate or it wasn't a secret ballot and if you didn't mark an x in the right place then you went missing etc. Either way, there was not much opportunity to show dissatisfaction towards him.This is just not comparable to Cuba where there are numerous opportunities to do that and people have done so. There are no disappearances and great swaths of 'political prisoners'. Even Amnesty has praised Cuba's improvement on that front.

Cuba a bastion of human rights? That's merely laughable. You might wish to review the Amnesty report of which you speak prior to invoking it. Excerpts from the 2007 Amnesty Int'l report on Cuba:

Freedom of expression, association and movement continued to be severely restricted. At least 69 prisoners of conscience remained imprisoned for their political opinions. Political dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists continued to be harassed, intimidated and detained, some without charge or trial.

Scores of people continued to be held without charge on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities or on unclear charges. Their legal status remained unclear at the end of the year.

Severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association persisted. All print and broadcast media remained under state control. There was a rise in the harassment and intimidation of independent journalists and librarians. People suspected of links with dissident groups or involved in promoting human rights were arrested and detained. There was an increase in arrests on charges of "pre-criminal dangerousness". Access to the Internet remained severely limited outside governmental offices and educational institutions.

There was an increase in the public harassment and intimidation of human rights activists and political dissidents by quasi-official groups in so-called acts of repudiation.

There are most certainly numerous opportunities to voice dissent against the Castro regime. There are also numerous ways to be detained, intimidated, and harrassed for doing so.

Say what you like about him, all the evidence I've seen suggests Castro is relatively popular in Cuba and Cubans are happy with their political system.

That is an exceedingly naive view of the situation in Cuba. It bears repeating that all media in Cuba is state-owned, so it stands to reason that the news coming out of the island would be filled with the recantations of satisfied peoples. There are, however, hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees who would beg to differ with your assessment, and countless more still living on the island who are not at all "happy with their political system" and yet are unable to voice it. Who are these people who are so happy to be living under such a regime? Aside from official releases from Cuban state-sponsored press, their voices are remarkably silent.

[Everlasting_Emptiness]

Somewhat dated (originally written in 1988), but succinct and powerful. An essay by University of Havana profressor Ricardo Pages on the castro regime and human rights:

Earlier this month, while the world commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Fidel Castro began preparing to celebrate 30 years of revolutionary power in Cuba. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev unintentionally pointed out the great gap in meaning that exists between these two anniversaries in his speech to the United Nations last week.
After making several respectful references to the Dec. 10th anniversary of the Human Rights Declaration, Mr. Gorbachev announced: ``The most fitting way for a state to observe this anniversary of the Declaration [of Human Rights] is to improve its domestic conditions for respecting and protecting the rights of its own citizens.'' He then described steps he is taking to create a new legal framework within which these human-rights covenants will be protected. However superficial those steps may end up being in the long run, Mr. Gorbachev's public appreciation of the human-rights declaration stood in contrast to Castro's continuing dismissal of any effort to do the same in Cuba. This dichotomy in the Communist world has precedents.

A few years before Castro's triumphal arrival in Havana on Jan. 1, 1959, the slow process of de-Stalinization began in the Soviet Union. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cracked open the door for the first time, exposing the massive political crimes of the Stalinist era. But in March 1959, Soviet state security advisers began to arrive in Cuba, thanks to Anibal Escalante, the KGB's point man in Havana. This advance team became the first substantial step toward the introduction on the island of a blueprint of society based on the classical formulas of the Stalinist police state developed in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European orbit.

Once the first Soviet ``development technicians'' trained the repressive forces of Fidel Castro in ``the Resources of Method,'' the Cuban leader saw himself in possession of a transcendental weapon that to this day has squashed every effort at reform or political change in the country. The notion was to find and create guilt among the entire population. Since nobody's perfect (a truth which Communist ideology denies, but which Communist leaders apply religiously), everybody is guilty of something and anyone, therefore, is subject to arrest at any moment. ``The Terror'' began to intrude upon every facet of national life until it reached the very bosom of the Cuban family. It created a polar climate chilled to the bone, placing on stage a Neo-Cartesian drama -- ``I do not think, therefore I survive'' -- that the majority of the Cuban people have been forced to suffer ever since.

None of the Soviet efforts to dismantle Stalinism have meant a tinker's damn to the Cuban political hierarchy. Khruschev's de-Stalinization efforts were never reflected in Cuba's role as exporter of this KGB technology to the Third World; the neo-Stalinism of Brezhnev was useful to the goals of the Castroites; and Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika have been summarily rejected by Cuba's Maximum Leader.

Thirty years after Castro arrived to power, the nation continues to live under a system that attempts to close to all its citizens every access to thought that is unorthodox or out of tune with official liturgy. More than a quarter of a century as a maximum ideological mentor has convinced Fidel Castro that he holds a monopoly on truth. On the eve of 1989, Havana's Senor Presidente aspires to a reign of political unanimity on earth, and it does not matter if this unanimity applies only to tombstones.

Given such realities, one can imagine Castro's scorn and irritation at the current universal sensitivity about violations of human rights. For many years, Castro's revolution enjoyed absolute impunity before international public opinion. Atrocities against human rights and fundamental liberties that take place on the largest island in the Caribbean were largely ignored:

The massive executions, through secret trials without procedural safeguards of any type; the disappearances of the mortal remains of executed political opponents; the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of opponents, either through kangaroo courts that did not even provide defendants with attorneys or through the so-called ``files of the socially dangerous;'' the tortures, the cruel and degrading treatment, and the inhuman living conditions that officially became known as ``The Secret War of Extermination of Every Form of Deviation or Resistance to the Cuban Governmental Ideology;'' the implacable religious persecution; the discrimination -- apartheid-style -- enforced for reasons of political opinion or religious belief; the denial of freedom of movement and the forced exile of Cubans who live abroad; the total disappearance of freedom of speech, of assembly, of peaceful association, of union rights, and of every civil and political right that are the bases of modern society.

These are all part of the catalogue of crimes of Fidel Castro's Cuba that the international community began to notice only a few years ago. The ignorance of many, and the silent complicity of others, made possible a net balance of victims and a much greater catastrophe than would have been true had the cries for help been listened to much earlier. Although a part of the truth about the human costs of Castroism have begun to be known, there still are few places where a just analysis of this critical period in the existence of Cuban society can be heard. Recently, some specialized human-rights delegations visited Cuba, including executives of Americas Watch, the Committee for Human Rights of the Bar of the City of New York, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. But by examining the reports prepared by the aforementioned first three organizations, it is clear that they have done little more than scratch the surface of the national reality of this subtropical island.

Unlike other countries examined by these groups, in a Stalinist state there is no access to any independent information about the government; there are no religious groups that monitor human-rights abuses, there is absolutely no history of any independent press, there are no international journalists based in the country, etc. It is difficult for foreigners just arrived and without any experience in the context of Stalinist structures to obtain adequate information that would permit the formulation of responsible opinions.

Thus, on the eve of 1989, when we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, and when the leader of the Soviet Union dazzles the world with his message of hope before the U.N., Cuba's Fidel Castro remains securely beholden to an order of things already condemned by history. And yet the ideal of human rights -- the most progressive, revolutionary and popular ideal of our times -- will make its home on Cuban soil eventually.