Longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead at age 90. While many around the world spoke highly of Castro’s success in greatly reducing illiteracy and proving basic services like health care, I have long been critical of his reign and his enablers in the West. Whatever success he achieved, he did so through a brutal dictatorship that denied freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other basic civil liberties. For those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, he was a defining character of our generation. The menace across the border. When we were being taught to shelter under our desks in any nuclear attack, it was his image with that of the Soviet premier that would be flashed across the screen. It was a time of utter madness and mania — on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Castro clearly had the leadership skills and courage to be much more after overthrowing a corrupt puppet like President Fulgencio Batista. Instead, he elected to follow the Soviet communist model and reduced his economy to little more than an agrarian state that was frozen in time — as vividly shown by the cars from the 1950s that still drive around the island. He ordered the torture of thousands and the killing of opponents. It is certainly true that the United States has an equally horrific record in supporting Battista and his cronies and repeatedly trying to overthrow Castro or destroy the Cuban economy. However, Castro is quoted as saying that “history will absolve me.” Certainly there are some professors on the left who have always idealized dictators like Castro or Hugo Chavez. From Bernie Sanders to Dr. Jill Stein to 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick there have been expressions of support for Castro’s record on educational and health benefits. However, history can not wipe clean, let alone absolve, a man whose legacy is soaked in the blood and suffering of tens of thousands of political prisoners.
He was an interesting historical figure to be sure. Many do not know that Castro was a lawyer and came from a wealthy family. He was born in 1926 to a servant of a Cuban sugar plantation owner. He father eventually recognized him as his son but only when he was 17 and Castro then took his name. He attended Jesuit schools before joining the University of Havana law school. By then, he was a committed socialist. It was after the failed 1953 attack on a military barracks and the trial that he said in his own defense “history will absolve me.”
I do not question the remarkable life of someone who overthrow a dictator and stood off the world’s most powerful country. That took guts and leadership. However, he then replaced one dictatorship with his own dictatorship. People were tortured in the many of Communism rather than capitalism. Reporters and political dissidents were jailed in the name of the people. At a time when Communism was denying freedom in Eastern Europe and rolling tanks through the streets to prevent democratic elections, Castro embraced the Soviet empire. His government ultimately representing little beyond authoritarian power masked by collective rhetoric — a point driven home by the fact that he was replaced by his own brother like some Communist Aristocracy. Likewise, the claim of a government of the people would be a tad more convincing if the Castro brothers ever let the people choose their government. Instead, they jailed opponents, barred the free press, and stomped out any protests over their rule. Those apologists internationally (who often cite how teams of Cuban doctors would travel the world or literacy advances) did not live under their autocratic rule without democratic freedoms and basic rights. Castro offered doctors and education in a trade for basic civil liberties. Only the greatest moral relativists viewed that as a fair trade.
Nevertheless, world leaders like Justin Trudeau expressed “great sorrow” at the passing of Castro. Journalists like MSNBC Andrea Mitchell insisted Castro “will be revered” for “education and social services and medical care to all of his people.” Really? He will be “revered” because he gave his people services while torturing and jailing those who wanted democracy? Mitchell may want to check out the free medical care that Castro gave people like Armando Valladares, who was initially a supporter of Castro but was arrested when (as a worker at the Office of the Ministry of Communications for the Revolutionary Government) he refused to put a plaque on his desk that read, “I’m with Fidel.” He was arrested and spent 22 years in Castro’s prisons being tortured, starved and left in solitary confinement. He might not be as reverential about those services, but then again Mitchell did not have to live under the dictatorship of the Castros.
One can certainly argue that he had little choice when the CIA was mounting aggressive attacks. However, Castro had long before adopted the ideology of the “people’s revolution.” It was simplistic and violent. It ultimately denied the fundamental human rights that belong to all people. He did so in the name of equality. He succeeded in achieving equality by reducing a society of a level only slightly above agrarian status and became a willing pawn for the Soviet Union. Without the shipments from Soviets to keep his population alive, his government would have collapsed. To this day, the island operates on the lowest level of economic exchanges and production. His unquestioned success on literacy and health care is no substitute for human rights. He placed his name on a long list of dictators who emerged from political and economic chaos. He did not end the brutality but merely justified it as a means for a new cause.
That is what history will remember about Fidel Castro.
“Around 1981 God gave me a prophetic word of knowledge…The Lord told me the following:
“When you see that the Berlin wall comes down and when you see the Soviet Union take a severe blow then it makes a recovery, and then you see the death of Fidel Castro; then shall come the collapse of the economic system of the United States.””
https://unitedstatesprophecy.com/visions-dreams-and-prophecies-for-america/
Time to get rid of your paper assets and buy some silver…
Amo 3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
For future reference check out a Cuban politician named Miguel Diaz Canal. Only saying that the future is in front of us and this guy may possibly be the first none Castro to lead that country.
I grew up in the 50s when Castro overthrew Batista. It was a time of celebration. The economy of Cuba is not one of conspicuous consumption. That went with Batista and the on-coming US embargo. History will see Castro as a much better man and leader than the US propaganda has always portrayed him.
And not everyone was put in fear because we had to do such a dumb thing as hide under our desks. My body went under the desk like everyone else’s, but my mind was saying WHAT??? It would have been WTF but I didn’t know that phrase at the time.
Bettykath.
I mentioned before the good reception Castro received on his U.S. tour, following the overthrow of Battista.
It was not until he seized U.S. assets and planted his nose firmly up Khruchev’s *ss that U.S.-Castro turned sour.
The celebration that greeted Castro…both in the U.S. and in Cuba- moderated as he executed and imprisoned political opponents.
But feel free to overlook these minor historical details in your tribute to Fidel.
Whooopsie! Walker did the Poor Man’s Lenin.
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It also occurs to me that if rich old Yankees swarm down to Cuba, and buy up all those old cream puff cars from the 1950s, the Cuban economy will probably be set for years…..
Jay S – it is all those gang bangers who want those 50s cars so they can customize them. They are starting to run out of supply here in the states.
I have not seen any sort of sober analysis here as to whether most Cubans were better off or worse off under Castro, than they were under Batista.
Jay S.
-You can google “Cuba before Castro” by Bruce Walker (Dec. 22, 2014) for an evaluation of pre-Castro/post Castro conditions in Cuba.
Nick, finally, someone who agrees with me. Salvation.
Indy bob, If you want a great laugh, go to Twitter #trudeaueulogy. A couple tidbits
“Today we mourn the loss of Saddam Hussein among whose many accomplishments was providing mustard to the Kurds.
“What can be said of Idi Amin other than he had a taste for Uganda and its people.”
This Canadian obsessively ridicules this country and our politicians, but Canada has a retard Prime Minister who has lit up social media for his vapid comments. This is in the same week he got caught w/ his hand in the poutine jar.
Rest in Hell.
Big question is, “Who go the money?” The dude was a steeeeenin’ multi millionaire in the end. Nice job if you can get it.
Back in the old days when Fulgencio Batista (Ione ‘T’ in each position) ruled the island the policy of the US Government – (statists) and their backers (Corporatists) and let’s not forget the third element of the primary group in power of the USA the ‘union leaders) – was to treat the entire region of Latin America as a series of Banana Republics without of course interfering with USA leadership (political and economic) or their hold on power in the USA itself and much of the Western Hemisphere. The primary leadership I just defined is the same triumverate that just went down to defeat in our recent election.
Do not make the mistake of believeing PC definitions the right wing of that triumverates political branch included much of what we now call Republicans In Name Only. They are and until voted out remain the right wing of the left which is not the same as right wing of the entire USA.
So on to reality and some history without the snowflake antics of Po Boy. Back then the entire public was still fairly fresh out of WWII and Koirea. facing an enemy far more dangerous in something called the ‘not so’ Cold War. This one had more brinksmahship than any in the past. Kennedy played that role at least twice once in allowing the Cuban Refugees to re-invade their homeland but without backup and the not long after with the blockade of Cuba to ships carrying ICBMs to already prepared launching sites.
Krushchev blinked the missiles went elswhere. Where is still open to debate. But I clearly recall as a very iyoung high school student the day where even the ‘sun stood still’ as the President announced what we all thought was the opehing days of WWIII.
Cotext of the times. The ruling strategy was something called Mutally Assured Destruction. Which meant if one missile is fired all the missiles will be fired. Somehow ducking under our school desks did not seem a particularly good option.
A different world? Yes. Has it changed for the better? No.
A key phrase in politics is the definition of a legitimate government.. It is one that makes a change using peaceful means and does so repeatedly. Cuba has yet to experience it’s first. The USA may well have experienced it’s last one given the outsider influenced and paid for acts of some.
But while they poinit fingers may I point out they are aligned with the same political faction that gave us WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, a handful of other events up to skip Kuwait (an action pushed by that same side along with even more imterference in more areas pushed by that same political system and said to be for the noble purpose of stopping mass genocide) and Iraq. Why weren’t the Republicans in power. Yes so we will give that brand of Republicans the credit.) Since then eight solid years of non stop war.
All of it in the name of progressivism. While more and more the Constitutional Republic and the Constiution receded and was ignored in favor of ….what? Nothing I recognized as a legitimate government acting undere the powers ‘granted’ in accordance with it’s oath of office. Don’t forget the now aptly named Republicans In Name Only were part of that and still are.
This November saw yet another ‘somewhat ‘ peaceful change in power and one not expected by the left and it’s warmongers and economic socialist road wreckers. It also so Cuba still waiting for a peaceful change of Government. Raul was hardly a change in Government. I prefer to remember Raul as the joined at the hip with Che as tghe butchers of the Cuban Revolution and 1960 is not that long ago for many of us who lived in the context of the times in the ‘old days.’
But in the intervening 56 years near enough I’ve seen massive changes. in the world. For the better? Well…the missiles didn’t fly – but they still may. Will the Constitutional Republic of the USA recover and re-assert it’s message of independent individual freedom and free thinking and reasoning more important self governing responsible citizens? I sincerely hope so. For the missiles still exist. There is one difference.
This time if the sun stands still waiting for a broadcast from 1600 Pensylvania Avenue we can be thankful Mutually Assured Destruction will not occur. Instead……
The new unspoken last ditch last gasp policy is Unilaterally Assured Destruction.
Best be thinking about supporting those who do not treat with the enemy and try to provide them with the same power.
Best be thinking about something besides non stop warfare and economic despair
Best be thinking about a world where governments committed suicide.
This time around we’re not up against the ‘not so mad’ Madmen of the Kremlin who in the end want to live.
This time it’s a part of the world that welcomes death and uses that belief as a weapon.
And a government at home that the Constitutional Republic has inherited and how to change it so that one day fifty six years from now Cuba may have a string of peaceful government changes the USA may be approaching it’s 300th year with something truly positive for today’s 16 year old to write about
besides ‘how many children would have been alive today instead of strewn about the globe as ‘cannon fodder’
Unedited, spellings not corrected. I’ll leave that to the next generations – if there are any.
It was worth starting a war when Cuba had missiles to defend against another U.S. attempt to overthrow their government via military force – but Russia shouldn’t be upset about U.S. military bases in countries bordering Russia?
Missing the point intentionally or evading the point intentionally or just unable to break the reframing/redefining habit when intellect fails to provide ability to think and reason? Try again or don’t try again.It is of little importance to the conversation either way.
From what little sense I could ‘guess at’ you are championing a ‘two wrongs make a right to commit a further wrong position?’ Question? Which U.S.? There are three just in this hemisphere. Did the second and the third have a wright to use that name? Shouldn’t the first be upset? Is it wrong to use U.S. if it’s been taken already by another? How about if two do such a thing? Would two rights make wrong and three rights make it unanimous?
Try again. is it Boxers or Briefs?
And…context being everything, let’s use facts in order to derive conclusions:
————————————————
“”The U. S. government also spends $27 million each year to broadcast Radio and TV Mart�, even though the television signal is effectively blocked by the Cuban government. The largely futile propaganda effort has cost U.S. taxpayers half a billion dollars over the last twenty years, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
Beyond the economic costs, the blockade has deprived U.S. citizens of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs. Cuba has developed the first meningitis B vaccine; treatments for the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa; a preservative for un-refrigerated milk; and PPG, a cholesterol-reducing drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effect: increased sexual potency. And last summer Cuba released CimaVax EGF, the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. The drug triggers an immune response that extends life in lung cancer patients and can ease breathing and restore appetite.
The blockade has always cost the United States more, but the gap has widened considerably. By 1992, U.S. businesses had lost over $30 billion in trade over the previous thirty years, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins. At that time, Cuba’s loss for the same period was smaller, but not by much: $28.6 billion, according to Cuba’s Institute of Economic Research. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba’s diversification and increased trade with other countries has widened the gap between the costs to Cuba and the costs to the United States.
While the dollar cost to the United States may be higher, Cuba has suffered a greater economic hit relative to its size and resources. Although lifting the blockade will inevitably boost Cubans’ living standard, the Cuban economy will still be saddled with its colonial legacy as a mono-crop producer. Unequal trade terms enforced by treaties and organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund maintain formerly colonized countries as underdeveloped purveyors of raw materials, subsidizing the high standard of living in industrialized countries. It is useful to remember this uneven playing field whenever making U.S.-Cuba comparisons.
Regardless of all these obstacles, the socialist island has managed to provide its inhabitants with what the United States, one of the most affluent countries in the world, so far has not: free top-notch health care, free university and graduate school education, and subsidized food and utilities. Meanwhile, 36.2 million people go hungry in the United States and 47 million lack health coverage. Indeed, Cuba compares favorably to the United States on a number of basic social factors:
Housing: There is virtually no homelessness in Cuba. Thanks to the 1960 Urban Reform law, 85% of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their mortgages. Mortgage payments can’t exceed 10% of the combined household income.
Employment: Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8% according to CIA data, compared with 7.6% (and rising) in the United States. One factor contributing to Cuba’s low unemployment is undoubtedly the 350,000 jobs that have been recently created by the burgeoning sustainable urban agriculture program, one of the most successful in the world, according to U.S.-based economist Sinan Koont.
Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States’ rate (97%), according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Infant mortality: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (4.7 per 1000 live births) than the United States’ (6.0).
Prisons: Cuba even does better on prisons. Its rate of incarceration—estimated at around 487 per 100,000 by the UNDP—is among the highest in the world, yet it is considerably lower than the U.S. rate of 738 per 100,000. Now that the number of political prisoners Cuba locks up is in decline, according to a February Associated Press news release, there is even less justification for the blockade.””
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0309pepper.html
Beyond the economic costs, the blockade has deprived U.S. citizens of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs.
There were no medical ‘breakthroughs’ in Cuba anyone would care about. It’s a poor country with a badly corrupted educational system. Such countries are consumers of other countries’ r & d, not producers of it.
I have more books on more subjects on my ten meter boat than does any house in Cuba. As one of the said we CAN read but we have nothing TO read.
Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States’ rate (97%), according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
You’re an easy mark.
Too bad those literate Cubans can only read what is approved by the government.
I am very tough on the vapid Nancy Pelosi. But, I give her kudos on her statement about Castro. “After decades under Fidel’s doctrine of oppression and antagonism, there is hope that a new path for Cuba is opening.” She obviously didn’t clear this statement w/ her President or her Pope.
It looks like the vapid, pretty boy, Canadian Prime Minister, Dummy Trudeau, is not going to be around long. He made a fawning statement about the brutal dictator, calling him a “remarkable leader.” The Canadian press and Twitter is ripping Trudeau a new anal orifice. Hell, he may like that!
“Remarkable” doesn’t necessarily denote for good or for bad.
SHAME on Prof. Turley for even mentioning Castro’s frequent and repeated use of torture and murder to eliminate undesirables.
This is a time to honor and revere than man for his splendid achievements for all of humanity.
And we should also recall fondly that he was one of the funniest dictators we have ever been blessed with. Here’s an early example of Castro’s unique sense of humor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dnm8N9JbvU
We will all miss him.
Yes, “on the outside, so we can check !”
Nick, the Pope’s a commie.
He is indeed. Jesuits are socialists and they were Castro’s teachers.
Issac, I don’t think Donald Trump talks like that about you!
The U.S. did not intervene in the Battista-Castro civil war.
Cubans in Florida who had fled from BATTISTA helped to fund and arm Castro’s guerilla insurgency.
Then found out that they traded in one dictator for another.
I’ve pointed out that Castro had options when he took power, and he chose to adopt Communism and suck up to the Soviet Union.
He has fewer defenders today than he once did, but to some he was “their kind of dictator”, and they willfully overlook his despotic grip on the island.
When American corporations take control of Cuba, and they will, and they install their own dictator and they will, it will bring about another Che or Fidel. Can’t you just see Marco Rubio opening a new Trump resort on the beach?
Meanwhile, back in the world in which we actually live, all Latin American countries bar Cuba have elected governments, and all have had such governments without interruption for more than 25 years. No institutional military regimes have been established de novo since 1980. nor have any entrepreneurial soldier-caudillos established themselves since 1969. The last specimen of that sort was Omar Torrijos, who was exhibitionistically hostile to the United States. Nor can you locate any examples of “American corporations” ‘installing’ any dictator in years past.
The left has no time for history. Everything is social fiction.
Step, you better reread your history books, you got it allllll wrong.
Just look up Honduras.
Prove it.
You will not find an example of “American corporations’ ‘installing’ any dictators in Honduras.
What some of these ding-a-lings here forget is that people risked drowning and sharks to get the EFF out of Castro’s Cuba.
Others, who haven’t forgotten, are simply Democratic Party thugs who are jealous of all the government power that Castro wielded, and wish that they could have been him!
Finally, the remainder who mourn his passing, and have nice things to say about him, are just typical SJW-types and Socialist/Progressive morons, who think Castro (and Chavez!) had the right idea, and will continue to think so until they have to carve up their own pets, Fido and Fluffy, for dinner. And who knows, but they are sooo stupid that maybe even then they still won’t get it,
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“For those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, he was a defining character of our generation. The menace across the border. When we were being taught to shelter under our desks in any nuclear attack, it was his image with that of the Soviet premier that would be flashed across the screen.”
Prof Turley,
You prove the point that you as well as most Americans of the era are the result of massive brainwashing and one-sided feed of the history. You are obviously unwilling to adjust your thinking after some of the CIA files of the era have been declassified. What Cuba has suffered is non-stop bullying by the USA (and not to bring democracy – I am sure you know about Batista – you mention him)
I would like to see know, how (violently) we would have reacted under similar circumstances.
“What Cuba has suffered is non-stop bullying by the USA (and not to bring democracy – I am sure you know about Batista – you mention him)”
I’m trying to follow your logic here; are you suggesting Castro’s dictatorial regime was the natural outcome to a United States “bully-like” foreign policy? That makes no sense.
Olly, what I am saying is that US bullying was not about bringing democracy to Cuba, it was always about hegemony. We made several attempts to assassinate Castro and to overthrow his government. It is my read of history that Castro made several attempts in the beginning for better relationship with USA (similarity to Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam); however, we were in the pocket of the large US corporations and when he confiscated their plantations and businesses we broke off relations and imposed sanctions. It is then that he turned to USSR.The Bay of Pigs invasion was the last straw which convinced Castro that USA government was not going to be a friend.
As for dictatorship, we are very quick to label a dictator, any one we disagree with; All elections that take place anywhere but Europe, Japan and Australia, New Zealand must meet our standards and be approved by us or they are fishy and the winner declared a dictator (Madura, Chavez, Ortega, Putin…etc); whereas Egypt, KSA, Ukraine go unchallenged. I am not even mentioning the string of dictators we established in Central and South America.
Because of what Castro faced he had to develop an internal security apparatus to withstand our interventions and step on civil liberties (Look at what we have done here since 9-11….); I am sure during the early years a huge majority of the Cubans supported (this does not include the business owners who fled to USA and became a source of agents for our interventions).
So, yes our interventions had a large part to play in what Cuba is today, whether it is a natural outcome I do not know and do not make that claim. Castro did over time evolve into a ‘dictator’. We need to accept our role; we are very quick to move on and deny our role in the state of affairs (examples like, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria come to mind – but then history has never been a strong suit of us Americans!)
PS: Sorry for the long response, but it may clarify my earlier post.
Castro did over time evolve into a ‘dictator’. We need to accept our role;
We played no role and there was no ‘evolution’. He and Che Guevara started their rule with mass executions and property seizures. No one compelled them to do that, and they never had any intention of doing anything else. Cutting deals with the East Bloc was part of the plan
You don’t know anything but insist on running your mouth at irritating length.
Dictatorship? Many people say the U.S. is ruled by a dictatorship of the 1% and their enforcers aka the Military/Intelligence/Security complex. Millions of U.S. citizens have been held against their will in our own version of a Gulag – more than in any other country on Erf! For smoking a flower instead of purchasing officially approved drugs. Our dictatorship depletes our budget by spending billions each year to arrest and imprison their fellow citizens who haven’t hurt anyone or stolen anyone’s property.
We pay to overthrow foreign ;leaders, invade countries, and bomb civilian populations – and all of this is morally superior to the example of Castro and Cuba?
Bill, you’re a mental patient. No one here should be responsible for trying to talk you out of your delusions.
1. One of the reasons Oregon used to pass the prescription then recreational marijuana use laws was the many in prison under three strikes was the third strike involved use of the heathen devil week ‘pot!
How many of those have been released and their strikes reduced to TWO thus freeing up space for the really violent and anti social types we are told would then be able to find bed and Airconditioner space.
Same for California, Washington and where ever else that reasoning has been used.
2. Are there any valid statistis on the use on the following two subject areas.
2A. Incidents of DWI or acts while under the influence of’ and I’ portion was drug or marijuana related since it’s legalized status began. No verdict no comment just for information is that statistic even maintained?
2B Any idea of the amount produced versus demand -Economics 101 related question – and is theire any evidence of transport to states where consumption is illegal – or is it a case of Mohammed Going To The Mouintain?
Given the time since Oregon, California, Washinton and Colorado have made usage legal what is the ecnomic effect with emphasis on tax receipts to the State? Can we expect a federal tax as is in place on tobacco? Do the laws prohibit smoking regardless of substance smoked or is that still tobacco only related?
I’m done my spelling has gone to the region of a “D” grade if I am lucky.
You mean your delusion that you could refute a position that you don’t understand – by juvenile name calling?
your two posts convince me that you are not only ignorant of history but refuse to even learn. When any one counters you , you resort to name calling and yes running your mouth.
You are the delusional one…
If you had a substantive reply, we’d hear it.
I just don’t see how “what we have done here since 9-11” even remotely compares with the level of oppression, suppression and dictatorial rule imposed by Castro in Cuba.
There is no logic. We don’t buy Cuban sugar, ergo ‘non-stop bullying;’. What gets you about the left is their utter absence of a normal human being’s sense of agency and sense of what banal terms actually mean.
spiral007 – I was 19 y/o and in Omaha when we had the Cuban Missile Crisis. Omaha was close enough to be a target and since is was the headquarters of all the B-52 bombers, it was a target. At that time, a missile was considered accurate if it hit within 20 miles of the target from that distance. Omaha was now collateral damage. We went to church. Kiss our ass good-bye. And pray for the best. There were B-52 bombers circling Omaha all the time.
A true Fox talking head. Talk to your former clients that worked at “area 51” and then tell me about thoughtless suffering.
Anger management is available, Mr. Noe.