Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died, state media report. He was 90. https://t.co/oZz0jU4MJI pic.twitter.com/HU1OH3GSVz
— CNN (@CNN) November 26, 2016
I'm sure one of the things Fox News is salivating for in a Donald Trump presidency is his threat to reverse President Obama's restoration of diplomatic relations. How Castro's death affects Trump's policy (or not) remains to be seen. But I'll bet Fox tries to use it that way.
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Bemused commented
2016-11-26 16:02:51 -0500
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Thanks d d - I don’t think Geraldo was expressing an opinion but rather the truth based on facts. I find it amusing to note that the Oxford Dictionary has selected the term “post truth” as the neologism of the year.
Bemused commented
2016-11-26 15:56:19 -0500
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Just watched CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, France24, Rai24, Sky24 and three local stations. Only Al Jazeera provided a reasonably balanced account of Castro’s life and accomplishments/failures. The others spent a lot more time on the negatives with only passing reference to the positives.
Nobody has as yet mentioned the fact that Battista’s regime had been one of the most repressive and blood thirsty in the Americas. That society had been a free one only for a small minority (under 10% if memory serves me well). The vast majority of Cubans had nothing and any attempt at protest was brutally repressed by the police. They had no idea what freedom was.
Castro’s father had been a wealthy landowner and he’d been decent enough to marry his mother, a lowly maid (dixit CNN). That was a pretty revolutionary thing to do, actually, and that may be where Fidel got his social conscience. He renounced to the perks of wealth and privilege to fight for social justice (Saint Francis just popped into my mind). He made mistakes but who doesn’t?. And he was certainly not being helped by the looming and hostile Goliath to the north. Perhaps unwittingly, he created the preconditions for today’s situation where Cubans can complain about things other than dire poverty, deprivation, starving, illiteracy and lack of health care. Today’s Cubans are frustrated on a completely different scale, having had access to a quality of education once reserved for the relatively better off. The stories told to me by Cubans in the Tampa area during the late ’50s/early ’60s make it impossible for me to sympathise with the ex fat cats who are celebrating in Miami.
Nobody has as yet mentioned the fact that Battista’s regime had been one of the most repressive and blood thirsty in the Americas. That society had been a free one only for a small minority (under 10% if memory serves me well). The vast majority of Cubans had nothing and any attempt at protest was brutally repressed by the police. They had no idea what freedom was.
Castro’s father had been a wealthy landowner and he’d been decent enough to marry his mother, a lowly maid (dixit CNN). That was a pretty revolutionary thing to do, actually, and that may be where Fidel got his social conscience. He renounced to the perks of wealth and privilege to fight for social justice (Saint Francis just popped into my mind). He made mistakes but who doesn’t?. And he was certainly not being helped by the looming and hostile Goliath to the north. Perhaps unwittingly, he created the preconditions for today’s situation where Cubans can complain about things other than dire poverty, deprivation, starving, illiteracy and lack of health care. Today’s Cubans are frustrated on a completely different scale, having had access to a quality of education once reserved for the relatively better off. The stories told to me by Cubans in the Tampa area during the late ’50s/early ’60s make it impossible for me to sympathise with the ex fat cats who are celebrating in Miami.
d d commented
2016-11-26 10:55:55 -0500
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@bemused: American media seem to be unable or unwilling to accept that anything positive was ever done.
-———
Earlier this morning, I watched a F&F segment on Castro’s death. Geraldo (who has reported from Cuba several times) was on as a guest and, contrary to the rest of F&F’s coverage on Castro, he made mention of some of the positive things that Cubans liked about Castro (healthcare, etc.).
Of course, the F&F hosts (Ed Henry, Dana Perino and Pete Hegseth) didn’t agree with him but instead of being respectful to Geraldo for his opinion, they were making faces, about to start laughing and just generally being rude. It’s one thing to disagree but to have it show with regards to their behavior/faces while the guest is talking is unprofessional.
Earlier this morning, I watched a F&F segment on Castro’s death. Geraldo (who has reported from Cuba several times) was on as a guest and, contrary to the rest of F&F’s coverage on Castro, he made mention of some of the positive things that Cubans liked about Castro (healthcare, etc.).
Of course, the F&F hosts (Ed Henry, Dana Perino and Pete Hegseth) didn’t agree with him but instead of being respectful to Geraldo for his opinion, they were making faces, about to start laughing and just generally being rude. It’s one thing to disagree but to have it show with regards to their behavior/faces while the guest is talking is unprofessional.
Richard Santalone commented
2016-11-26 10:04:15 -0500
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@ David Lindsay How right you are David. Let us NEVER forget these immortal words from Dr. Amos Wilson:
“To analyze a problem in America you need to look at who PROFITS from the problem, NOT who suffers from the problem”
’Nuff said.
“To analyze a problem in America you need to look at who PROFITS from the problem, NOT who suffers from the problem”
’Nuff said.
David Lindsay commented
2016-11-26 09:46:53 -0500
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Richard, I saw “Sicko” and enjoyed it. Especially the part where he took Americans without health care into godless commie Cuba and got them medical attention they needed from real doctors. Cuba has the best per capita healthcare in Latin American countries because it is not one doctor looking after the guy that owns the banana plantation.
Eyes On Fox commented
2016-11-26 09:18:58 -0500
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Doesn’t Cuba – with or without Fidel – offer Orange Hitler the perfect opportunity to play with the nuclear launch codes? Doesn’t his Archie Bunker crowd always say better dead than red?
All kidding aside, I’ve always thought singling out the communist Cubans for an embargo while going full bore laissez-faire capitalism with the far more dangerous People’s Republic of China is an insane policy. But then the largely conservative business class will even sell humanity’s future for some short-term profits. Witness global warming.
The Fox Newsies will argue Hair Hitler sees the China threat now but his argument is purely a thinly veiled scapegoating of foreigners to make his Archie Bunker supporters realize (irony alert) their super-race is only being defeated by a rigged game requiring heavy-handed protectionism to bring back into balance.
I’m hardly pro-Castro. He’s another corrupt revolutionary failing to look after his people. Too tied up in power and ideology (sound familiar Fox News). But our own anti-democratic Electoral College combined with the fact a huge population of displaced Cubans is concentrated in powerful swing state Florida, Cuba would be treated little differently than any other nation.
That’s not me minimizing the tragedy of people forced to leave their homeland and naturally pining to return. But after the embargo failed miserably the obvious solution was normal relations. Look at China. Similar policies could have had many American Cubans partnering once again with native Cubans in businesses. They could travel to visit their relatives and rather than just send them money as charity help them develop their own economic opportunities. Ex-pats could even live in Cuba on extended visas managing their business interests. Short of returning all the left behind but far, far better than what they have now.
Now what do we have to show after all these years but bitterness on each side? Thanks Archie Bunker. Better dead than red indeed.
All kidding aside, I’ve always thought singling out the communist Cubans for an embargo while going full bore laissez-faire capitalism with the far more dangerous People’s Republic of China is an insane policy. But then the largely conservative business class will even sell humanity’s future for some short-term profits. Witness global warming.
The Fox Newsies will argue Hair Hitler sees the China threat now but his argument is purely a thinly veiled scapegoating of foreigners to make his Archie Bunker supporters realize (irony alert) their super-race is only being defeated by a rigged game requiring heavy-handed protectionism to bring back into balance.
I’m hardly pro-Castro. He’s another corrupt revolutionary failing to look after his people. Too tied up in power and ideology (sound familiar Fox News). But our own anti-democratic Electoral College combined with the fact a huge population of displaced Cubans is concentrated in powerful swing state Florida, Cuba would be treated little differently than any other nation.
That’s not me minimizing the tragedy of people forced to leave their homeland and naturally pining to return. But after the embargo failed miserably the obvious solution was normal relations. Look at China. Similar policies could have had many American Cubans partnering once again with native Cubans in businesses. They could travel to visit their relatives and rather than just send them money as charity help them develop their own economic opportunities. Ex-pats could even live in Cuba on extended visas managing their business interests. Short of returning all the left behind but far, far better than what they have now.
Now what do we have to show after all these years but bitterness on each side? Thanks Archie Bunker. Better dead than red indeed.
Richard Santalone commented
2016-11-26 09:11:21 -0500
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@ David Lindsay Let me say this much: like him or not, YOU DO NOT OUTLAST TEN AMERICAN PRESIDENTS like Fidel Castro did if you don’t have widespread support from the impoverished and working class masses — and don’t forget, unlike Americans, CUBANS DO HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” goes into great details about it.
Bemused commented
2016-11-26 05:41:39 -0500
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Watched about 15 minutes of CNN on this story and remain constantly perplexed at the degree of hatred that continues to characterise reporting on relations between the most powerful nation on this planet and a tiny island. American media seem to be unable or unwilling to accept that anything positive was ever done. CNN had a guy who tried but he changed his tune immediately upon realising that that wasn’t what was expected of him.
After Battista was overturned, Cuban bigshots – the wealthy, the well-off and the non-petty criminals – fled to Florida. Most of the “foreign” students at Universities in Tampa were recent arrivals from Cuba. I guess they’d be called “refugees” today, but they were welcomed, ostensibly because Castro was not Battista but my guess it’s because they were wealthy (Haitians got and are getting a quite different reception). At one of the cocktail parties held to further their integration, one guy started complaining bitterly, going on and on, that the government was distributing “only” one chicken a week per family (indeed, one of Castro’s first actions had been to buy incubators and fill them with eggs). The “local population” at that party included some students of Cuban origin. A girl whose parents had moved to Tampa before WW2, finally shut the guy up by saying, very gently: “That’s 52 chickens a year more than my parents ate as children”. He went off in a huff.
Although CNN has been trying desperately to become a credible news source since the election (going so far as to block an anti-Castro rant by some columnist in Miami), I heard nothing positive about Castro, not even the phenomenal work done in certain social fields, like universal education and health (including nutrition). Early on, the government decided to focus on services that would upgrade the country’s human resources, from illiterate manpower for the cane fields, living in hunger in roadside shacks, to almost 100% literacy and a high rate of graduation in professional skills.
As Cuba didn’t have jobs for so many highly skilled education, health and scientific personnel, they sent large teams abroad. For over thirty years, my way of finding them in Africa had been to ask a taxi driver to take me to a baseball game. During the early ‘70s, I found a six-team tournament in Aden … wish I’d had the nerve to walk onto the field and borrow a glove.
IMHO, Castro’s biggest fault was not keeping his promise of standing down after 10 years. By that time, it was clear that the embargo had delayed things and he probably felt it necessary to work harder. Then, he succombed to the addiction of power. A few years ago, I saw a documentary on Cuba where young people, highly literate, capable but jobless, complained bitterly while the elderly pointed to all sorts of things that the government did for them, including schools for their kids and grandkids.
Rant over, with apologies for the length.
After Battista was overturned, Cuban bigshots – the wealthy, the well-off and the non-petty criminals – fled to Florida. Most of the “foreign” students at Universities in Tampa were recent arrivals from Cuba. I guess they’d be called “refugees” today, but they were welcomed, ostensibly because Castro was not Battista but my guess it’s because they were wealthy (Haitians got and are getting a quite different reception). At one of the cocktail parties held to further their integration, one guy started complaining bitterly, going on and on, that the government was distributing “only” one chicken a week per family (indeed, one of Castro’s first actions had been to buy incubators and fill them with eggs). The “local population” at that party included some students of Cuban origin. A girl whose parents had moved to Tampa before WW2, finally shut the guy up by saying, very gently: “That’s 52 chickens a year more than my parents ate as children”. He went off in a huff.
Although CNN has been trying desperately to become a credible news source since the election (going so far as to block an anti-Castro rant by some columnist in Miami), I heard nothing positive about Castro, not even the phenomenal work done in certain social fields, like universal education and health (including nutrition). Early on, the government decided to focus on services that would upgrade the country’s human resources, from illiterate manpower for the cane fields, living in hunger in roadside shacks, to almost 100% literacy and a high rate of graduation in professional skills.
As Cuba didn’t have jobs for so many highly skilled education, health and scientific personnel, they sent large teams abroad. For over thirty years, my way of finding them in Africa had been to ask a taxi driver to take me to a baseball game. During the early ‘70s, I found a six-team tournament in Aden … wish I’d had the nerve to walk onto the field and borrow a glove.
IMHO, Castro’s biggest fault was not keeping his promise of standing down after 10 years. By that time, it was clear that the embargo had delayed things and he probably felt it necessary to work harder. Then, he succombed to the addiction of power. A few years ago, I saw a documentary on Cuba where young people, highly literate, capable but jobless, complained bitterly while the elderly pointed to all sorts of things that the government did for them, including schools for their kids and grandkids.
Rant over, with apologies for the length.
David Lindsay commented
2016-11-26 02:41:43 -0500
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Ya know, if you frame this question right, democrats are a far bigger threat to America than the Russians are.
David Lindsay commented
2016-11-26 02:30:24 -0500
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I do not see how Russian interests could be closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Ellen commented
2016-11-26 02:20:06 -0500
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I saw something similar on Twitter. The Tweeter’s alternate possibility was that he figured his lifelong mission to destroy the US had been realized with the election of Trump.
David Lindsay commented
2016-11-26 01:18:25 -0500
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He survived Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Idiot and Obama. Couldn’t handle the Orange One though. Too many conflicting messages from the Kremlin for the olive drab cigar smoker.