Castro dies at 90

[rigsby]

I went to Cuba in the late 90's. Great place and really nice people. The USA have always tried to bully them and to this day do everything they can to give them bad press. Because someone stood up to them.

Walking round Havana is much safer than any city in the USA. Even women can safely hitch lifts, so the Cubans were amazed when I told them they could never do this in England.

The people have a good health system (lower baby death rates than us) better education and sports facilities. Work seemed to be the same pay for every job. To work in the tourist industry bought them certain perks but you had to be vetted and even if a maid was caught stealing they would be out, never to return.

As Tangled pointed out they are much better off than other countries and regimes in that part of the world, they have none of Jamaica's problems for example.

The Hotels were overstaffed but people liked their work under far less pressure. They were totally naïve about capitalism, so when you see news reports of unhappy Cuban's they really don't know that the grass is not that green in our world. I have to say of all the places I have visited, in terms of different to what I expected, Cuba is top of the list.....For the better.

By the way the people got a state ration of beer and rum per month and it seemed compulsory for Women to wear short skirts and flirt outrageously with us single English men......So apart from that, what did Fidel ever do for his people.

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

I went to Cuba in the late 90's. Great place and really nice people. The USA have always tried to bully them and to this day do everything they can to give them bad press. Because someone stood up to them.

Walking round Havana is much safer than any city in the USA. Even women can safely hitch lifts, so the Cubans were amazed when I told them they could never do this in England.

The people have a good health system (lower baby death rates than us) better education and sports facilities. Work seemed to be the same pay for every job. To work in the tourist industry bought them certain perks but you had to be vetted and even if a maid was caught stealing they would be out, never to return.

As Tangled pointed out they are much better off than other countries and regimes in that part of the world, they have none of Jamaica's problems for example.

The Hotels were overstaffed but people liked their work under far less pressure. They were totally naïve about capitalism, so when you see news reports of unhappy Cuban's they really don't know that the grass is not that green in our world. I have to say of all the places I have visited, in terms of different to what I expected, Cuba is top of the list.....For the better.

By the way the people got a state ration of beer and rum per month and it seemed compulsory for Women to wear short skirts and flirt outrageously with us single English men......So apart from that, what did Fidel ever do for his people.

all fair points, but very different points from whether an authoritarian dictatorship is justified. I think democracy is important. There are other places in the world with good health systems, education etc. where the population haven't had to live with the fear of being taken away in the night.

dictatorships are wrong, them achieving good stuff doesn't justify their evil things just as the evil things doesn't invalidate the good. they are different and the political repression is wrong, not 'open to question'

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Some of what Castro did was good but he achieved it by executing tens of thousands of people, prevented the press from speaking out and banned people from traveling abroad without the government's permission first. I'm not sure one brutal regime being replaced by another is anything to celebrate.

you really are a pathetic human being. at least be honest and say that you think all the deaths and torture was justified, don't say his use of those methods is 'open to question'.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/11/28/this-is-how-fidel-castro-persecuted-gay-people/

I was in the Prague this weekend, they know all about life under totalitarian dictatorships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Victims_of_Communism

Castro famously said that "History will absolve me."

Given the successes of the Cuban revolution in terms of universal free healthcare and improved literacy rates I believe he will be proved right.

Not to mention Cuba exporting the revolution to Angola, where 10,000 Cuban troops helped defeat the South African army for the first time ever,thus contributing to the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa.Nelson Mandela certainly recognised Castro's contribution to this.

Castro led a left-wing nationalist revolution against Batista.

Arguably,he probably would never have embraced Marxist-Leninism if the USA hadn't imposed it's 50 year trade embargo on Cuba

(Btw,I've been to Prague too).:smiles:

 

[rigsby]

you really are a pathetic human being. at least be honest and say that you think all the deaths and torture was justified, don't say his use of those methods is 'open to question'.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/11/28/this-is-how-fidel-castro-persecuted-gay-people/

I was in the Prague this weekend, they know all about life under totalitarian dictatorships:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Victims_of_Communism

Which club did PB manage in Prague then ?

 

[Shrimpers are Magic]

I think it would be interesting to hear what the cuban people have to say - on hang on, you can't, the internet is banned in Cuba isn't it?
1. Banning free speech
2. Persecuting gay and other groups
3. Thousands killed or locked up for expressing alternative views.

No wonder the cuban's who got out were dancing in the streets of Miami.

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Usually the left stands for things like gay rights and trade union right, but then when it's 'one of our own' who tortures and kills people for using their free speech, being gay or being in a trade union then that's alright?
that to me undermines the whole left wing case on so many things.

ok, the healthcare stuff is really good. but the constant feeling of fear in the pit of the stomach that the secret police can appear at any time, to me, seems to undermine lots of the good stuff

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Usually the left stands for things like gay rights and trade union right, but then when it's 'one of our own' who tortures and kills people for using their free speech, being gay or being in a trade union then that's alright?
that to me undermines the whole left wing case on so many things.

ok, the healthcare stuff is really good. but the constant feeling of fear in the pit of the stomach that the secret police can appear at any time, to me, seems to undermine lots of the good stuff

Interesting to read in John Bew's biography, Citizen Clem, that even Attlee thought Castro had been driven into the arms of the USSR by America's hard line,including the trade embargo with Cuba.

Much as I admire Clem,doubt if he'd rank on the left for many these days.

 

[rigsby]

Interesting to read in John Bew's biography, Citizen Clem, that even Attlee thought Castro had been driven into the arms of the USSR by America's hard line,including the trade embargo with Cuba.

Much as I admire Clem,doubt if he'd rank on the left for many these days.

Watched an interesting documentary about Castro on PBS America this weekend. Even they admit that things like the Bay of Pigs and Bobby Kennedy's continual use of the CIA to try and assassinate Castro or undermine the regime made him go more hard line.

Batista executed up to 20,000 people and amassed a fortune of £100m whilst selling off 70% of the land to the USA and allowing the Mafia a free rein. The people were kept illiterate and more or less in slave conditions as nice cheap labour for the multinational US companies.

Castro narrowly escaped the death penalty after his first suicidal attempt at revolution. He was released after an amnesty and fled to Mexico. When he returned with another small band they were again nearly wiped out on landing on the beach. He escaped into the mountains with just 17 other men including his brother Raul and Che Guevara. So you have to say not a bad effort to win from there.

Interestingly when he came up with the idea of taking back the land, the first estate that was confiscated was his own families. Apparently his mother never forgave him. In the end over 200,000 peasants became land owners but due to the US embargo they sold their sugar to the USSR.

As for them smoking cigars during the executions after first gaining power. They did have public trials and executed 500 form Batista men. However when you learn what they had been up to I thought that 500 was in no way excessive.