History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Fidel Castro

72 Comments

He’s dead.

Hardest hit: Colin Kaepernick.

OK, actually, in the wake of that, NFL is hardest hit.

More substantial thoughts tomorrow.

[Update a few minutes later]

If we can lose a few more tyrants, that wouldn’t be a bad way to end the year.

[Sunday update]

Castro, Chavez, and “bad luck.”

[Monday-morning update]

A dictator dies a failure:

Lee Kwan Yew, Augusto Pinochet, Francisco Franco, Chiang Kai Shek, Park Chung-he: all of these dictators and authoritarians can mock Fidel Castro. They left their countries better off than they found them, and while many of them committed terrible crimes, they can also point to great accomplishments. Fidel has only the crimes.

Fidel never wanted “normalization” of economic relations with the United States. Normalization would mean the end of his dream. Without barriers, Cuban-Americans in Miami would buy back much of the island from its current owners, re-installing themselves as leaders in the society from which he hoped to banish them forever. Amrerican trade and American tourism would once more become the most important factors in Cuba’s economy, and American cultural and poltiical influence would flow unrestricted across the island on a tide of American media.

The openings Castro allowed, very limited in the Clinton years, wider in the Obama years, were forced on him by economic necessity. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s forced Castro to allow more remittances from Miami and to open up the island to more tourism to stave off a crisis at home. The collapse of Venezuela in the Obama years has once more driven Cuba to the wall. In the end, Fidel became what he hated most: a failed Latin caudillo, presiding over a corrupt and despairing society, propped up by the Catholic Church and the United States.

Nobody knew this better than Fidel Castro, and he must sometimes have cursed the fate that let him outlive not only the global socialist movement led by the Soviet Union but the regional socialist resurgence led by Venezuela. The failure of the Venezuelan revolution stripped the last shreds of credibility away from Fidel’s socialist dream. Not even a country awash in oil, facing no U.S. trade embargo, can make socialism work in Latin America. And it was the failure of Venezuela, and the loss of the economic subsidies that Chavez lavished on his mentor and inspirer Fidel Castro, that plunged Cuba back into its post-Soviet poverty and forced Fidel to remain silent as his brother Raul accepted the return of American tourists and an American ambassador to Havana.

Fidel leaves a shattered society and a desperately poor country behind him. Cuba is more divided today than it was when he conquered it; it is less able to shape its destiny than it was in 1959, and its future will likely be more closely linked to the United States after his death than before his seizure of power.

The good thing is, he died.

[Update a few minutes later]

Where’s the omelet?

As Heinlein once noted, a good cook can make a tasty meal from good ingredients, while an incompetent one can create an inedible mess from the same materials. Cuba had, and still has, great ingredients. As Will notes, Castro broke the eggs, but the meal never appeared.

[Tuesday-morning update]

Castro bet on the wrong horse, and died a failure.

Well, if you consider dying filthy rich by stealing from the people you oppressed and murdered a failure, I guess.

[Bumped]

72 thoughts on “Fidel Castro”

  2. 2016 started off a pretty bad year with the loss of so much music talent, but it is making so major political improvements in the end.

  3. Just remember all those he killed and imprisoned and their friends and relatives. Screw restraint. Burn in Hell you sonofabitch.
    A good day just turned into a great day.

  6. “If we can lose a few more tyrants, that wouldn’t be a bad way to end the year.”

    Sadly they seem to get replaced by other tyrants.

    There seems to be no shortage of tyrants in the world. Just look at the Democrat Party

  7. ‘ “If we can lose a few more tyrants, that wouldn’t be a bad way to end the year.” Sadly they seem to get replaced by other tyrants. ‘

    Y’know, I used to think the death or deposition of a tyrant was a generally good thing. But in review of the Shah of Iran, and Tito of (the now former) Yugoslavia, and Quaddaffy of Libya, and the chaos of Assad’s revolt in Syria, etc … I’m not so sure that a society of widely-shared bearable-oppression of all races and language groups under the steely gaze and iron fist of a tyrant is so general an evil as I had believed. Instead it seems that a tyrant who plays favorites is a bad thing — Idi Amin of Uganda, say. And, in truth, Castro of Cuba oppressed blacks and dark-skinned mixed-race subjects of his tiny monarchy much MUCH more than his admirers would ever admit. But an equal-opportunity rat-bastard might actually be an improvement in many societies — and in retrospect that “bastard’s” role was often well-played by outcasts of the British Empire. (Or, for another, specific and local, example, “Judge” Roy Bean in the wild territories “west of the Pecos”)

    Worthy of more thought, anyhow.

    1. 1. Tyrants always play favorites.

      – there were people opposed to the tyrant’s ascendancy

      2. Power corrupts

      3. The concept pf the benevolent despot has always been around and tried from time to time. Never works. This is people humans are….human.

      1. The concept of the benevolent despot has always been around and tried from time to time. Never works for more than a couple of generations, tops.

    2. This one wasn’t disposed by force but natural causes and he had a successor waiting. Cuba won’t be erupting in chaos.

      Libya could have been different if Obama and Hillary had been half as thoughtful as Castro on the matter.

    3. I’m not so sure that a society of widely-shared bearable-oppression of all races and language groups under the steely gaze and iron fist of a tyrant is so general an evil as I had believed.

      You need to understand that despots traditionally create this situation so that everyone is divided against each other. Ethnic conflict is another tool of the tyrant.

      First rule of being a parasite: make it as hard as possible for the host to get rid of you.

  8. Assorted thoughts I left on Facebook:

    – The most neutral statement possible about Castro’s death would be “I hope he’s burning with Fulgencio Batista.”

    – I want Gloria Estefan to meet Kaepernick. Her dad fought at Bay of Pigs. She could give that little twerp a good history lesson.

    – Finding poetic justice in that his death occurred on the anniversary of the Elian Gonzalez rescue.

    – I have a challenge for Castro apologists: name ten freedoms Cubans have under the Castro government that blacks did not have under Jim Crow. The freedom to leave Jim Crow jurisdictions without getting shot does not count.


    1. ” The freedom to leave Jim Crow jurisdictions without getting shot does not count.”

      Really? I would think freedom of movement would be pretty important. Even if its just one way. Its still better than nothing.

    2. Obama’s most neutral statement had a lot of praise in it but he is still to big a coward to speak his mind. It is the perfect example of his dishonesty and the limp wristed Obama doctrine.

      1. It’s funny that all of the people who always have such good things to say about Cuba and other Socialist paradises never actually want to live there.

  10. If we can lose a few more tyrants, that wouldn’t be a bad way to end the year.

    Hah Castro was in control of a tiny irrelevant island nation. Compare that with Erdogan.

    There are plenty of tyrants around. Putin, Erdogan, Assad, Maduro, Morales, Merkel (in office for eleven years and counting), etc.

    Although one could probably count Assad more like a monarchic head of state than a standard tyrant by now. It’s in the second generation at least.

    2. Are you really calling die Bundeskanzlerin a tyrant because she has managed to form three consecutive coalition governments? Or do you consider any head of government who has had policies you disagree with a tyrant?

      1. 3 mandates (12 years) isn’t normal. Not to mention that she has publicly announced she is running for a fourth. If she gets elected she could be 16 years in power. You consider this normal?
        I still remember those H&K G36s caught on camera when Gaddafi was ousted. This from a country that claims they don’t sell weapons to failed states or terrorists. Then there’s the Euromaidan in Ukraine which was also suspicious like heck.
        I don’t like Putin but she doesn’t exactly smell like roses either.

          2. This from the guy who dislikes FDR for being there too long. 🙂

            She was basically one of the persons behind the overthrowing of Berlusconi and replacing him with Mario Monti in Italy. I’m not a fan of Berlusconi, but he was elected, and Mario Monti wasn’t, plus she has no business interfering with Italian politics… Ever since she was elected the EU has grown increasingly undemocratic and dictatorial. In her own country, foreigners who don’t know any better often laud her record at reducing unemployment, but her government did this by basically expanding under-employment, the so called “mini-jobs”, they basically stuck the German youth into low paying part time jobs like shoveling salt onto roads which basically means a lot of young people don’t have enough money to start a family, further contributing to Germany’s already negative birth rate.
            Then she pushes Eastern Europe against Russia, does business deals to increase EU dependence on the Russians e.g. for Natural Gas, at the same time cutting the German Army to the bone. I’ve heard some say she’s an infiltrated commie from the GDR working to destroy the EU from within and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right actually. In the long run Germany’s fucked.

          3. Yes, but I say that FDR was there too long because he was a tyrant, not that he was a tyrant because he was there too long. I’m not saying Merkel isn’t one, just that her longevity isn’t evidence for it in and of itself.

          4. Actually ALL government is intrinsically tyrannical. The thing you want is stability within borders and diminished repression.

            Democracies and republics have the same flaws (some worse) as any other form of government. A king that benefits his people is vastly better than either except they die eventually and some despot usually replaces them.

          5. Actually ALL government is intrinsically tyrannical.

            No, it’s not. The US Constitution is intrinsically anti-tyrannical. So would be a government that actually followed it.

  11. An acquaintance of mine named her cats “Fidel” and “Che,” and by coincidence is taking a vacation in Cuba, arriving just as the tyrant’s death was announced. She’ll be in mourning, I guess. At the same time she’s very pro-Gay and is concerned Trump will be bad for Gays. I wonder how she’ll square her admiration for Fidel with the treatment of Gays in Cuba,

    1. I wonder how she’ll square her admiration for Fidel with the treatment of Gays in Cuba,

      People can be quite amazing at compartmentalizing information to avoid getting upset at contradictions like that…

    2. Fidel was there a long time, when he came to power homosexuals were being persecuted in many Western countries, by the time he left power Castro was calling the persecution of homosexuals while he was in power “a great injustice, great injustice!” Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, “If anyone is responsible, it’s me…. We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments, I was not able to deal with that matter [of homosexuals]. I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions.” Castro personally said that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country’s pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality wiki.

      Today Raul’s daughter is an advocate for the LGBT community.

    3. I suppose Cuba has the usual two to three percent of homosexuals, under Communism, it has very few gay people.

  12. What is the over/under on Obama attending the funeral? If he doesn’t go, should be interesting to see who he sends.

      1. I think the President should indeed go, and he can flirt with the head of state of Denmark, and the FLOTUS can give him the stink-eye?

        1. I’m with you, Paul. It’s selfie time!

          He gets an extra free trip to Cuba. He gets to be the center of attention one more time. He can selfie with other socialists. What’s the negative for going? It’s not like it will hurt Democrat’s chances of winning Congress.

  13. I tend to despise Twitter, but the hashtag #trudeaueulogies is giving the Canadian fencepost-with-nice-hair plenty of well-deserved ridicule.

    2. I will never apologize for calling the PM “Justin Bieberlake.” I nicknamed him that weeks ago.

      His speech reminded me of detail in the comic book “Elvis Shrugged” – Mary Hart and John Tesh plugging Oliver Stone’s new film “Stalin: A Loving Portrait.”

    3. Ezra Levant had Turdeau labeled years ago – the “shiny pony”. Canadians are a peculiar sort of gullible.

  14. I’d rank Castro no where near the top in a list of tyrants, he overthrew a US supported dictator who was far worse, the number of executions under his rule dropped quickly after 1959, with the last 3 executions over a dozen years ago. Compared to people like Assad, Saddam, Pinochet, Batista, Amin, the IS pricks, Kim in NK, the Shah of Iran and Pol Pot Fidel was no sadist, his biggest fault was his adherence to socialism, an addiction that would ensure Cuba remained poor. If America hadn’t been so rabidly anti-Castro, a product of the US being so pro-Batista, it’s likely Castro would have been willing to ditch many aspects of socialism in the pursuit of a stronger economy. Castro often claimed that the US pushed him into the arms of the Soviets and I think that’s correct.

    1. Andrew’s logic is that’s the reason Castro stuck with socialism, nearly 2 decades after the fall of the Soviet Union is because of US opposition. Andrew thinks that is correct. LOL

      I think the simple answer is socialism provides a lot of power to tyrants; hence the reason most of Andrew’s top ten list used a form of socialism in their government.

    2. That’s right, we forced the S.O.B. to turn his country into an impoverished island prison. He had no choice once we forced him to go to the Canadians (and the Europeans, and the Chinese, the Japanese, and pretty much every other country on Earth) for his tiolet seat covers.

      1. The US invaded Cuba in an attempt to overthrow a popular government, then imposed a blockade. Yes, the US did go out of its way to make itself an enemy of Castro who did seek to develop good relations with the US after the revolution.

        Castro was a dictator, but the propaganda of him that the US right tries to sell is over the top, and often hypocritical. Until the US Supreme Court ruling in 2001 gays were persecuted in many US States, The US Government has on several occasions persecuted people for their political beliefs, including imprisoning them.

          1. Well he was just a poor latin fellow, so obviously he can’t be held accountable for his own actions. The power of you gringos is just plain awesome.

          2. Did I say something inaccurate? I don’t blame America first, I just find many of the accusations here hypocritical, Castro’s adherence to socialism was predictable given US efforts to overthrow him, assassinate him, undermine his countries economy, so he turned to the Soviets. You find that surprising? It’s what usually happens when the US launches that sort of campaign against another country, the leaders of the targeted country look for allies elsewhere.

          3. It’s true that the U.S. made for a nice scapegoat, but no, putting political opponents in prison and/or killing them did not protect Castro from poison cigars and half assed invasions.

          4. Did I say something inaccurate?

            Just a few things. BTW, how many Cuban’s live in New Zealand. I’m curious how many you’ve actually had one on one conversations to form your delusions.

          5. BTW, how many Cuban’s live in New Zealand. I’m curious how many you’ve actually had one on one conversations to form your delusions.

            Very few, but we do have quite a few American’s living here, the American’s here are overwhelmingly anti-Trump, now if I were an idiot I would follow the reasoning that you’re obviously so keen on: assume that American’s living in NZ are representative of Americans as a whole and conclude that the US elections must have been rigged. Fortunately I’m not that stupid and I recognize that American’s who choose to live outside of the US are probably not a fair representation of all American’s. Ditto for Cuban’s.

            And before you you start building strawmen, I don’t rate Castro as a great leader, or a good leader, he’s as guilty of being carried away with fanaticism as American’s convinced that (name of one of numerous groups) are their enemies.

          6. Nah, Andrew; I’m just pointing out your ignorance of the topic for which you decided to opine. Your free to write stupid things born of ignorance, but I’ll call it out.

            My advice; stick to topics for which you have knowledge.

            Oh and I find it humorous to see you build a straw man, burn it down, and then lecture me about not doing the same. Your sophistry didn’t go unnoticed.

    3. Cuba still has gulags so why does it matter if they don’t outright kill people? Cuba also started out with a small population, you have to look at the ratio of people killed compared to the total population and not just total numbers.

      1. “Cuba still has gulags”
        No doubt you agree that any country that detains political prisoners for extended periods without trial is reprehensible.

          3. Who said they were all enemy combatants? What evidence was offered? Do you believe everything your government tells you?

            The reason for due process would be to determine if the claims made against each of the prisoners was justified, that’s what happens in civilized countries. It’s only in states run by thugs that people are denied due process.

          5. “They were picked up on battle fields, that makes them combatants.”

            Nonsense, very few if any were “picked up on battlefields”, the majority were fingered by informants including foreign governments and accused of being involved in terrorism, in many cases the evidence was circumstantial and wouldn’t hold up in court – hence the US government chose to avoid the courts.

            Not claiming they’re all innocent, just that there’s been no due process, a principle of justice the US government selectively claims to support.

          6. You have any evidence to support your claims, Andrew. Statistical data from a reliable source would be useful to back up your claim. I’m sure you have it, because you have a history of not opining on subjects on which you are ignorant. Perhaps you are ready to continue the tradition?

  15. “Cuba under Castro was a worker’s paradise! It had the best medical system in the world! Just ask your own Yanqui filmmaker Michael Moore!”–Havana Jaime

    1. CNN ran Sanjay Gupta’s dog and pony show to one of Cuba’s hospitals. It never seemed suspicious to him that the tour of outpatients started across the street with a lady in a fancy house with a flat screen TV watching cable and a full time nurse.

  16. CNN… Breaking News…

    This item just in at our news desk. Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is reported as still dead, however we are checking with our sources await further confirmation…

    Just ahead our panel discussion on the likelihood of a Trump cabinet appointment for Satan….

  17. …in further developments here at CNN:

    We regret to inform our viewers that the story that lead to today’s panel discussion was in error. One hour ago the Trump transition team published a correction to a typographical error in a previous press release, to state that the transition team is considering whether or not Santa (not Satan as previously reported) should receive a temporary cabinet assignment as a good-will ambassador from the Dept Of Health And Human Services to disadvantaged children across the United States. CNN strives for accuracy in its reporting and deeply regrets the error in our earlier report.

    Stay tuned later tonight for our next panel discussion: “Should secular symbols of religious holidays have any role in our federal government?” Tonight at 9 Eastern 8 Central…

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