ah the old Hitler analogy.. never fails when in a pinch!
its obvious you don't want to have an actual exchange of ideas... I write 500 words you respond with a link to someone else's thinking... as if "Hey lookie here boys! Somebody else said this so it must all be right and I don't have to think for myself!!!! goodie!"
as I said I will not mourn his passing but over and beyond any human rights crimes Castro committed he is remarkable..the fact that he stayed leader of Cuba in spite of so many efforts by the US to get rid of him decade after decade. .the fact he became a leader of the developing world in the 1970s...the fact under his leadership Cuba played an outsized role all over the world...the fact that he became an iconic figure in the world.. now, in 2016 its hard for people who weren't there and don't believe in reading or studying the past to understand just how big a personality Fidel Castro was back in the day....we more easily remember the past 15 years where he was a shadow of himself and largely off the scene....but there are many remarkable things he did... you just don't happen to know anything about Castro or Cuba... the thousands of Doctors Cuba sent all over the developing world to help people.... go ask about Castro in may African countries and see what they say before you come posting your links... heck, the revolution in Cuba... As I mentioned in a previous post Batista - OUR little dictator in Cuba- wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.. And, again, before you go pointing the finger at someone else's human rights abuses you should look into the human rights abuses the US actively supported, encouraged and funded in many places around the world...
Its very easy to simply say "He killed millions of people and was like Hitler".. its a little harder to learn...
I'm sorry, I don't have 500 words worth of work time to dedicate to message board monologues nor do I have it at home either. I agree that he did a number of good things for his people (as did Hitler). I just can't get past the human rights abuses enough to mourn and glorify the dude. Maybe we're not so different in our assessments of the man. Maybe I just like to be contrary and you just like to show us how smart graduate school made you.
I'm not mourning or glorifying Fidel..as I have said... its possible Trudeau glorified him.. maybe so maybe not.. but you do have to realize
Fidel was a pallbearer at his dad's funeral so it is not unexpected he would say a few perhaps exagerated nice words about him when he dies...
there is something to be said for learning and I happened to take a brilliant course on Cuba where I had to work my a s s off.... the CIA dude who taught it was good if somewhat biased coming at it from the pro-US vantage point as I was biased coming at it from the anti-US vantage point...but I learned a lot and lost a lot of respect for Fidel...and I got a lot out of the course... I kind of think the Professor wanted to get me into the CIA or something but I was not interested..
but to simply say he was a bad dude as many like to do ignores the whole picture.... Castro came out of a specific context and as leader I dont' think there is much doubt that he did better than a whole hell of a lot of democratically elected leaders...Americans don't know very much about Latin America and that which they do know seems pretty naive...
I also think Americans are too quick to cast stones at other world leaders and do not understand what their own leaders do... or simply ignore it or excuse in them what they condemn in others... when the US drops a bomb somewhere and kills 30 people celebrating a wedding.... man, there is something wrong with that.... the war we started with Iraq has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians... its nice to ignore it.. it sure helps to go to bed at night... I mean you ever visit Hiroshima? I understand Americans want to think they HAD to drop the atomic bombs.. but man oh man...
Its not all good or all bad for the US.. its not all good or all bad with Castro... its complicated....life is complicated... I wish Castro had given up power in the 1970s but he is not unique in not having done so... Stroessner ruled Paraguay for decades as a dictator with US support...same for Somoza in Nicaragua and you could go on....Pinochet was installed by the US.. what about the dictators in Argentina? They all committed atrocities. in some cases bordering on genocidal....Even Jimmy Carter for all his talk when he was President looked the other way at what was going on in Argentina...My dad actually came to DC as part of the Argentine delegation to among other things act as translator for General Videla in his meeting with President Carter at the White House and trust me they got along swimmingly..... Which dictator did more for their people in the end? The US supported Somoza or Stroessner or Castro? It is not even close. Castro by a country mile.
We all hate the present regime in Iran but the US organized a coup against Iran's democratically elected government (Mossadegh) and installed Reza Pahlevi... who then proceeded to barbecue his own citizens for shits and giggles over decades.. so there was a counter reaction..Khomeini.. and Iran still suffers it..
I don't mourn or glorify him but Fidel represents something very important to Latin Americans and many in the developing world... RESISTANCE to the United States.. If you dont' understand the things the United States has done in the world then of course this will mean nothing to you... You will simply buy the party line that the US is good and oh my god the horror at what our enemies do...
