Fidel Castro’s resignation as Cuban leader ends 49 years of his ironfisted, charismatic rule — but not Cuban tyranny. Political power is now in the hands of his brother Raul (in photo with Castro), who is expected to continue his older brother’s socialist program.
But Raul is old, too — 76 — and the Castro era clearly is coming to an end, which might provide a diplomatic opening for the United States. President Bush and other U.S. leaders are calling for a transition to democracy and real elections.
In the meantime, it’s dictatorship as usual.
Perhaps that’s why Miami’s Little Cuba was largely quiet at news of Castro’s retirement.
41 Comments
I read in the link I posted on the Open Thread that Cubans in Cuba were also very quiet. Not sure how to decipher that.
Maybe, as the Rolling Stones sang, they realize that “Time is on my side”. :-)
Every civilization, no matter what type of political rule that governs its own people, will always suffered under the leadership of just one person.
Democracy does not live in just one man alone.
The Miami Cubanos are like the dog finally catching the car he’s been chasing. Now what?
Good news, but it could be better. Maybe someday soon he will go to that hottest region of hell and join Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara and all the other mass murderers of the 20th Century.
Hasta La Vista Baby…
Man, it must suck to live in a country where the government can wiretap your lines without a warrant. Oh nevermind.
Good one, Doug . . .
Or throw you into jail without trial for as long as they want.
Thank God, it’s business as usual with the biggest communist dictatorship in the world, RED CHINA.
Prescott Bush, the president’s uncle, wouldn’t be able to make millions building golf courses there otherwise . . .
It’s good that the communist dictator who stole all of the property and freedom from his people relinquishes power. He cannot die soon enough.
The Cuban people have been free in the past. Our government should do everything it can to make it happen again.
“Patriot” –
Just when was the last time the Cuban people were “free?”
Good question, MH.
They sure weren’t free under US-backed Baptiste.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002/02/19/usat-prescott-bush.htm
Along with access, the family name has also brought scrutiny to Prescott Bush’s deals:
He was criticized in 1989 for visiting China to meet with business and government leaders just three months after the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which army troops fired at pro-democracy demonstrators.
His Shanghai partnership with the Japanese firm Aoki in 1988 proved embarrassing when revelations surfaced that Aoki at the same time was allegedly trying to get business contracts by bribing Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, whom the first President Bush later ousted from power.
His connections to an American firm, Asset Management, came into question in 1989, when the company was the only U.S. firm able to skirt U.S. sanctions and import communications satellites into China.
When Asset Management went bankrupt later that year, Bush’s deal to arrange a buyout through West Tsusho, a Japanese investment firm, raised eyebrows. Newspapers reported that Japanese police were investigating West Tsusho’s alleged ties to organized crime.
*****
Yup, no need to let the Tienanmen Massacre in which students holding up a Statue of Liberty were mercilessly gunned down get in the way of making piles of filthy lucre.
And BTW, Manuel Noriega?
He’s the thug dictator the United States government installed right after we had the democratically elected leader, Torrijos murdered.
Cubans are not like the Muslims in Iraq. They understand freedom and they will learn to cherish it once again.
Why do you criticize freedom “CapnAmerica”? Why do you go out of the way to criticize your country?
What a sorry joke of name you use.
“Patriot” –
You failed to answer my question. Just when were Cubanos “free?”
When was the last China had free and fair elections? When are they going to release their political prisoners?
I was not a Cuban history major “Monkeyhawk”. And I did not fail to answer your irrelevant questions. I chose to ignore you.
If you wonder about dates, ask our Cuban friends down in Miami, who I am sure would have plenty to say to you about that and your implication.
Castro came to power when he deposed another dictator – Batista. I don’t think Cuba has ever had democracy. The differences between Castro and Batista are that (a) the US supported Batista and (b) the US now gives haven to his followers.
I dont think Cuba was free when the US enforced the Platt amendment either
MonkeyHawk,
I was in Havana in 1954. At that time, Cuba was wide open for tourism. Castro didn’t become leader until 1959. I haven’t read up on Cuban history, so I’m not sure what government was there when I was 3, but maybe the people were “free”?
And before you ask, yes, I do remember little bits and pieces of Havana and the trip there.
“Patriot”
I don’t criticize my country, which I love.
I criticize its government for putting corporate interests ahead of democracy.
It’s mental four year olds like you who have to love big mommy America that need to grow up and work to make our country live up to its creed.
Thanks, Ben, for clearing that up. All I know was that Cuba was open for tourism until Castro took power. At least that’s what I was told. Funny, but I do remember hearing the name Batista over the years, now that you mention it.
Batista was a dictator, who promoted Cuba and tourism thereto. From memory, there was gambling, etc., in Havana in particular, allegedly sponsored by organized crime figures in the U.S. post WW II.
I’m no student of Cuban history either, but in my lifetime, Cuba has been governed by a dictator, whether Batista or Castro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista
Castro stole private property and wealth and appropriated it for his communist dictator government. Private commerce became a thing of the past. The Cuban economy was destroyed. And we in the United States had to face living with a Soviet satellite off our coast. That nearly led to nuclear war.
Good riddance Fidel.
Patriot, what happened to the private property of the Tories after the American revolution? or the french aristocracy after the revolution theirs, or the wealthy elite during the Mexican revolution.
Batiste and his crew murdered people with the army so they could profit from corruption and graft of big American mafiosi (among others).
But given the way the corporatocracy has operated since WW2, it’s difficult to see how big multinationals are much different from mafiosi.
If a democratically-elected official gets in their way by wanting to protect his people, he just ends up in a convenient “accident” like Panama’s Rolden or Nicaragua’s Torrijos.
It was the current administration who planned to execute the thrice-elected Hugo Chavez, and only scrapped those plans when knocking off Saddam Hussein took precedence.
Good point, Tom.
Using Patriot’s reasoning, we should give Wichita back to the Osage Indian tribe.
RD – Cuba is open toy tourism now. A lot of Canadiens go there during the winter to get away from the snow. I recall seeing a lot of tourism ads for Cuba when I was in Montreal last spring.
The Osage tried to increase their defense budget but couldn’t, due to the Libs in the tribe.
That’s what happens.
Ben, perhaps the better way to say it is that Cuba is open for tourism, but the United States isn’t open to allowing tourists to travel to Cuba. Fidel, et al, have been promoting tourism for several years, as I understand it; one purpose, to obtain hard currencies for use in the world markets.
Liberal logic is an oxymoron. You are comparing invading forces with the consequences of an internal revolution? Ridiculous. And you side with the American hating dictator Chavez. Traitor.
I pity our country if communist sympathizers the likes of you ever come to power. It will be good that patriots can defend ourselves.
We have relations with North Korea and Red China, both communist countries. What is special about Cuba that we can’t establish a relationship with that country that is of no threat to us?
Is it because the Miami Cubans are such a critical poltical force? Did anyone notice how Huckabee flip-floped on his Cuba positions after visiting the Miami Cubans?
My undertanding is that many developers are waiting for the day it is legal to go to Cuba. Some money will be made at that time. It is beautiful country and would make an excellent 51st state. We’ll just have to find some place else for the Gitmo prisoners to go, though.
Steven Davis, you post my personal hypothesis on why there are no diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. This hypothesis leads me to think that the reason the Cuban exiles in Florida were so quiet is based upon the realization that they may lose their political power/influence soon, and this is most distressing to them.
Ben: A lot of people go there most of them European. There is a lot of foreign money invested in Cuba, just not American.
Nixon introduced Pizza Hut and Pepsi-Cola to Russia. Coca-Cola (or, as it was originally known, “Bite the Wax Tadpole”) and McDonald’s got into China. And all of a sudden, the profit motive took hold and helped bring down communism and the Cold War.
The only places on the planet where communism has survived has been in nations where capitalism hasn’t been able to enter. Fidel Castro never prevented Pepsi or Pizza Hut or Coca-Cola from getting back into Havana; the Republic Party has prevented introducing capitalism into Cuba!
Whatever tyrany Castro may have imposed upon that island, it’s not all that different from what the United States of America did to Native American populations and people held in slavery. Castro did it 50 years ago? And America did it 150 years ago? Just where’s the moral high ground in that argument.
In the meantime, Cuba has universal healthcare that comparable to the technolgies and expertise available in the United States. In the meantime, Cuba enjoys 100% literacy (or not, and they can’t count either). In the fifty years prior to Castro coming to power in 1959, there were countless numbers of power struggles and political coups and tyranical dictators. In the fifty years since, there’s been no success in rousing a meaningful popular uprising against Castro’s governance. He may just be the best damned dictator ever. But the evidence is much stronger that Fidel delivered the goods to the people and they aren’t all that eager, as a group, to overthrow him.
In the aftermath of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and emergence of a capitalist China, Fidel Castro held power. Not because he was communist, but because he delivered food and medicine and education to the people of Cuba. If he’d had American capitalists money, he might have achieved his revolutionary goals sooner. But the Republic Party refused rapprochement with Castro — when the getting was really, really good — simply to get Cubano expatriate votes on election day.
Thanks for the Cuban history lessons, all. I’d heard rumors that there was tourism now, so it’s good to have that confirmed. The U.S. will ever have its nose in the air, where some countries are concerned. I’m amazed this admnistration hasn’t banned travel to France. ;)
The other force that terrifies communist countries is information. Why else would China insist on being able to censor internet communcications into their country. There is a complete ban of the internet in Cuba and my understanding is that they effectively jam any such signal into their country. McDonaldization and the internet – put those forces to work and Cuba will be our 51st state in no time.
McDonaldization is not always a positive force in case any of you might have wondered.
Read an article in Wired a few years ago. Computers are very popular in Cuba. Any Americans who get to the country are badgered by natives for any “El Soft” (software) they can spare.
As dictaors go Fidel is one of the better ones. He doesn’t execute people wholesale like the Arabs and China nor has he enriched himself at the expense of the Cuban people. In fact Cuba does pretty well even with limited resources. Even Michael Moore had to take Americans who got sick after working at Ground Zero on 9-11 to Cuba to get medical care because they couldn’t get it here.
I have been to Cuba and it is really a beautiful country- at least Cardenas is. I hope Americans don’t get the idea they can go over there and turn it back into a crime ridden whorehouse that is was under Batista. I was there for 6 days and it was one of the best vacations I have ever had. And the Cubans are quite friendly even to Americans.
Obama thinks Cuba is a beautiful country too.
He thinks our National Anthem was written and to be sung like this, “O Che can you see…”, as in the Communist Che Guevara.
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