Surprisingly Quiet Local Response to Fidel Castro's Exit

Yeah, and George W. Bush is still a hero for many, too.




OK, actually Fidel has a more important place in history than GWB.


You'd have to hear the old Horse of lately. He sounds completely senile, with jumps and lapses in his reasoning.
It was an obvious move, and he inherits the throne to his comparatively impopular bro.
But Fidel still heads the Cuban Communist Party, a signal that there is a Keeper of the Faith.


49 years 1 month and 19 days in power.



Things will change slowly at first. Let's hope the next US President has a sound policy towards Cuba. A policy that truly helps for a democratic transition (a FOREIGN policy, not a let's-appease-our-local-interest-groups one).

(listening)

So after numerous attempts to kill him or depose him or generally get rid of him, Fidel Castro has stepped down of his own will after seeing off

Eisenhower
Kennedy
Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Bush 2

I make that Cuba 9 USA 0.

Me, I remember some link I saved sometime ago about a guy who patched together a mercato (sp), with home grown produce in difficult circumstances - and remember that I liked something about that article about other than the scrappiness, which is an obvious like for me .. the usefulness of his model. Probably in the NYT, who knows.

I'm presently reading Peter Robb re northeast Brazil. Learning a lot, as a start, if not gospel of one kind or another. He's a visitor, an able writer whom I like to read. An eye for me.

I suspect that the cubans who have weathered all this have things to tell us, not all in our (e.g., US) favor and not all in Castro's favor. We should all shut up and learn.







Also, longer ago, back when I lived as a child in Evanston among, it seems in retrospect, mostly irish and germans,

Global Views on Castro and Cuba
Global Views on Castro and Cuba
by Richard Auxier, Research Assistant, Pew Research Center
February 19, 2008

Fidel Castro ends his long tenure as president of Cuba with international opinion mixed on the question of whether his leadership has been good or bad for his country. While Americans have an overwhelmingly negative view of Castro, attitudes in many Latin American countries are far more favorable to the longtime Cuban leader. The Pew Global Attitudes survey in the spring of 2007, for example, found that pluralities in Bolivia (42%), Brazil (39%), Argentina (39%), and Peru (38%) think Castro has had a positive effect on his country.

Opinion in Canada is also positive towards Castro, with 44% saying that his leadership has been good for Cuba, the highest percentage among the nine countries surveyed about Castro. Even there, however, opinion is mixed, with 36% saying he has been bad for his country.

Criticism of Castro in Latin America is most intense in Mexico (61% negative vs. 17% positive) and Venezuela (55% negative vs. 26% positive), where clear majorities see his leadership as harmful to his country. Chile is the only other country in Latin America where the balance of opinion is more negative (46%) than positive (23%).

While Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, an ally of the former Cuban president, retained the confidence of more than half of his people at the time of the Pew survey, even those who support Chavez have a mixed view of the Cuban leader. Only 43% of Chavez supporters say Castro has been good for Cuba, while 30% say he has been bad.

Well before Castro resigned as president this week (February 19), it was known that he was suffering from a severe illness. In July 2006, Castro handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raúl Castro, and a few younger cabinet ministers, after he underwent emergency abdominal surgery. According to the New York Times many Cubans long ago accepted the fact that he would never be able to return to power fully.

With Castro's health in question, respondents to the 2007 survey were asked whether conditions in Cuba would improve, worsen, or not change when Castro died. Very few voice the opinion that Cuba would be worse off, but in no country -- including America -- does a majority state that the country would improve following Castro's exit. In the United States, Mexico and Chile -- three countries with highly negative views of Castro -- pluralities of four-in-ten (40%) say things would get better in Cuba once Castro passes away. Nearly as many, however, believe Castro's death will not make a difference (34% in the U.S. and Chile, 28% in Mexico).

In all nine countries surveyed on the question, more people say conditions in Cuba will improve after Castro than say they would worsen, although in four countries (Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil) a plurality expresses the view that Castro's death would not change things much. Brazil is the most pessimistic country, with 24% saying conditions would deteriorate in Cuba after Castrol died, but that was still less than the 26% that say that things there would improve. Only 9% of Americans say conditions in Cuba would worsen after Castro's death, the lowest number of all countries surveyed.

Re: Fidel Castro: Still a hero for many

Sadly, ignorance and ideological zeal are hard to get rid of.

So was Fidel Castro, but finally he's gone now. Good riddance!

Re: Fidel Castro: Still a hero for many


I'm not sure he's really gone. Is he still head of the communist party?

BBB

Re: Fidel Castro: Still a hero for many


He still is.

And there will be no big changes while he's alive.

As I wrote, his last role will be that of Keeper of the Faith.
Just like Ayatollah Rojulah Khomeini in his last days.