Interesting piece by John Judis at TPM. It's short so I'll put the final three graphs in here.
Quote:In 1954, the CIA engineered a coup in Guatemala to overthrow its democratically elected social democratic government, whose labor reforms had run afoul of the United Fruit Co. In its place, the US installed a military dictatorship. Castro was the first Latin America leader to defy the dominance of American corporations in the region and to get away with it. That’s a big reason why he remains a hero in Latin America to people who have and had no love for Soviet communism nor supported the kind of dictatorship that Castro erected in Cuba.
The Cuban revolution was also hugely important to the development of a new left in the United States. It was the first crack in the façade that liberal Cold Warriors had erected to justify American intervention abroad in place in places like Guatemala and Iran and contributed to the early skepticism that many of us had about American intervention in Vietnam. In my own case, I’d trace my first inkling that something was wrong with US foreign policy to an article in the very early ‘60s that the New Republic (well before the Marty Peretz era) published about the Cuban revolution.
Castro was also the reason for my first big fight with my father over politics. He and my mother were visiting me in Berkeley in late 1964, I think, and my girlfriend and I had a photo of Castro, looking somewhat like Jesus, on the wall of our apartment. My father saw it and ripped it down. We didn’t talk for a year after that. He was sort of a Richard J. Daley Democrat, but I had never seen him agitated about politics before. I recall that just to say what a very big deal Fidel Castro was to people like me in the early 1960s.
http://bit.ly/2guXnXu
That's quite a range of estimates. From 237 executed by the Castro regime to 17,000. The low number seems not too bad for a revolution, especially if the Batista regime had torturers, the high number would seem to be horrendous.
By the way, Cuba ranks right next to the United States in terms of life expectancy at birth-out of 183 total nations, US is 31st, Cuba is 32nd. Since life expectancy is accepted as a rough guide to living standards, it looks like economically the Castro regime did pretty well. They're not poor.
In fact, Cuba's standard of living is rated among the Very High Human Development section by the United Nations Development Program. The US is ranked 8th, Cuba is ranked 40th. Portugal, or instance, is ranked 38th.
Like it or not, it appears that the Castro regime, regardless of their political methods, has hugely benefited the Cuban people economically.
I'm mixed re Castro, somewhat closer to the Canadians a2kers here on him but not without distaste either, re repression by the regime. Wondering about the numbers' variation, figure it has to do with timing and/or points of view. Meantime, I'm going to reread my one Leonardo Padura book, Havana Red. That's part of a fiction series (Bitter Lemon Press) by him about Havana and its goings on.; he's also a journalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Padura_Fuentes
I also have never lived in Florida or Canada and haven't known any Cubans myself, and if I had talked with them, might have adjusted my take in one direction or another.. basically, I don't know enough.
I've never visited the place and have never set to any real study of it. But we're certainly more likely to get a proper picture of it and of him via human rights/civil right organizations than from US political or intel sources or those folks who've absorbed the propagandist stories.
@edgarblythe,
Did he not seize the companies and compensate them at the worth they had declared for tax purposes? Or is that a delicious dream? He was certainly no worse.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote: He was in my view no worse than Batista.
Batista.
Batista was a brutal dictator.
There was a reason for the popular revolution against Batista.
Quote:Cuban support for Castro’s revolution, however, spread and grew in the late 1950s, partially due to his personal charisma and nationalistic rhetoric, but also because of the increasingly rampant corruption, brutality, and inefficiency within the Batista government. This reality forced U.S. policymakers to slowly withdraw their support from Batista and begin a search in Cuba for an alternative to both the dictator and Castro.
I find this kind of amusing.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cuban-dictator-batista-falls-from-power
Quote:American efforts to find a “middle road” between Batista and Castro ultimately failed. On January 1, 1959, Batista and a number of his supporters fled Cuba. Tens of thousands of Cubans (and thousands of Cuban-Americans in the United States) joyously celebrated the end of the dictator’s regime.
Batista was brutal, as noted above. I knew more refugees from Batista than from Castro, though I do know many recent refugees from Cuba living near me.
__
It always boggles the mind that we never learn to stay out of other countries' business. It's one thing to comment. It's another thing to go in and think we've got a clue on how to make things better.
@ehBeth,
I am sure the in between leader would have allowed for business as usual, after a time.
@edgarblythe,
Yeah, just like American-approved Batista did.
@dlowan,
What I rote of Batista is based on memory of the time he was in the news. I recall when the nuns were shot in the street when they protested him and such as that. Same with Castro. I don't spend time researching these people today. I mostly viewed Castro favorably. I did not recall reading that he compensated any American companies, but he well may have. I liked Che, but knew he was screwing up going to Bolivia.
@ehBeth,
As far as I am aware, we was actually Great Britain, later the US, Russia and increasingly China. Canada has its hands pretty clean, no?
The US should be shot for the mass murdering criminals it has supported through the years.
I have only rarely been in support of my government's war efforts. It always has seemed there should have been a humane way to work it out.
@dlowan,
Reasonably clean, but not as clean as I'd like. We've said yes to the US a few times we should have said back off. Cooperation with some rendition **** still has me scowling at a few political canvassers when I catch them (I think I'm on a stay away from her list with the PC's).
@dlowan,
dlowan wrote:
As far as I am aware, we was actually Great Britain, later the US, Russia and increasingly China. Canada has its hands pretty clean, no?
Don't confuse the absence of either temptation, oportunity or the means with virtue. Is Monaco a model for ecxcellence in its Foreign relations?
@ehBeth,
you are squeaky clean compared with us.
@georgeob1,
Nonsense. Canada has way more military clout than Monaco. Do not belie with false compare. We are likely less powerful than Canada and sadly we have joined the US in filthy acts many times.
The internet in Cuba is very censored. I was in Cuba shortly after people discovered pictures from google earth, of Fidel's family compound outside Havana. The people had no idea it was so palatial. They had believed he lived like them, poor. The anger was palatable. They worship Che but hate Fidel and Raul.
I really liked the Cuban people, but felt very conflicted being there. There is no crime. The people are friendly and very, very well educated. But most don't work in the profession they were trained in because there are either no jobs in their field, or they can make more money working in hotels/ service sector, but even then the almost always need a second job in the off season.
I went to several homes and they were all in big need of repairs and new furniture, everything was thread bare. Food, rent (they can now get mortgages - new since Raul) and electricity eat up most of their meager wages.
They can't travel - no passports - no visas except for a handful of countries, not enough money, unless they are doctors or musicians/dancers, athletes and only when allowed by the gov. Most have never eaten beef or seafood - it's saved for the tourists. They can't go fishing on a boat in the sea. There are so many places, islands in their own country they are not allowed to go, but tourists are. They have to be careful when interacting with tourists, they could lose their job or be jailed if seen to be overly friendly.
Almost every Canadian I know, brings gifts for the people. Generally, they give it to the hotel staff. Products that they can't buy there, like deodorant, nylons, feminine products, make-up, toothpaste, toys, electronics - like phones or laptops.
Still, I couldn't help but feeling I was part of the machine, feeding the Castro dictatorship, and I was bothered by it a lot. I don't think I could go back. It is a beautiful country, but it feels like the people are being jailed in paradise.
Well, there were an about 50 assassination attempts made by US government, and 20 of them were admitted by the government itself. I don`t know how it is called in the US, but in other countries, such behavior used to be called a crime
@Udyr,
Quote:I don`t know how it is called in the US, but in other countries, such behavior used to be called a crime
A crime cabal has been pulling the strings there for decades. They make **** up as they go along.
@dlowan,
Hi rabbit
I've made the observation here that Canadians (generally) hold quite different notions about Castro/Cuba that is generally common in the US. My observation is that this is a consequence of Cold War propaganda delivered to US citizens and at a much more intense and long-term level than in Canada.
Would you say something like that holds true in Australia? Have there been or are there now restrictions on Aussies travelling to Cuba?