26 ms·

Fidel Castro has died

• sergiotapia 10y ago
  I live in Miami and streets were full of pots and pans being banged around. Some fireworks too. A lot of cubans and venezolanos are my neighbors, and there is whistling going on.
• increment_i 10y ago
  A central figure of the 20th century - it would've been remarkable to be a fly on the wall for some of this man's life experiences.
• kilroy123 10y ago
  I went to Cuba earlier this year. It felt like a new era was upon the island. This just solidifies that. Looking back, it will be crazy to think, I went to Cuba while Fidel Castro was still alive.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    Damn, you're old! It's always amazing when something becomes history so suddenly.
    • NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      it could have been last week
  • firekvz 10y ago
    Castro's death changes nothing, he has been away from leading Cuba and decision making for about 8 years. The current president (his own brother) has his very same ideals
    • e98cuenc 10y ago
      same ideals, and close to the same age.
  • nfoz 10y ago
    It's been a vacation spot for Canadians for a long time :)
• andrewclunn 10y ago
  ... CIA takes credit for their fail safe "old age" assassination plan.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    They finally got him.
    • sizzzzlerz 10y ago
      It was the exploding suppository that finally did him in.
• grondilu 10y ago
  Good riddance
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• betolink 10y ago
  Fidel should have made it to the Guinness World Records, he survived more assassination attempts than we can count. I don't think there had been another man that had stood up to an empire for so long and had live to tell the story.
  • AmVess 10y ago
    If standing up to an empire means subjecting your country to half a century's worth of squalor and poverty, then...yeah, he really showed us what's what.
    • betolink 10y ago
      I'm not going to get into details but if you take major economic facts about Cuba before the revolution and after it the balance is clear. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CUB http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CUB comparatively they do better than most Latin American countries. It's a shame that their leaders weren't more pragmatic and allowed more civil liberties but then again, they always lived under an embargo and a permanent terror campaign from the CIA.
      • refurb 10y ago
        comparatively they do better than most Latin American countries. That explains why you see so many people from surrounding Latin America countries flocking to Cuba, right?
        • betolink 10y ago
          Why Cuba when the richest economy in the world is around the corner? Cuba doesn't have a functional economy for their own citizens let alone for potential immigrants. However, their standard of living is not as bad as people in the west think, that's why I refer to the human development index.
      • bzbarsky 10y ago
        Cuba was doing better than most Latin American countries before the revolution too, for what it's worth.
• zymhan 10y ago
  This feels like one more end of an era. Though I wonder if the opening of relations between the US and Cuba might have been the end of that era. In any case, Fidel lived long enough to see the American overreaction through most of it's shelf life.
• duncan_bayne 10y ago
  ... and nothing of value was lost. http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/cuba/dictatorship.html http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/cuba/dictatorship.html The man was an evil murderous dictator, and the world - and his subjects - are better off without him.
  • vixen99 10y ago
    The Left's love affair with murderous dictators is a wonder to behold. And boy, do they hate it when you point that out! http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/wont-jeremy-corbyn-like-look-behind-cubas-facade/ http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/wont-jeremy-corbyn-like...
• deleted 10y ago
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• NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  Is there anyway way that castro could have done his revolution that wasn't opposed to the us? suppose you lived in a country that was ruled by a dictator that was supported by foreign powers, and you wanted to end that dictatorship so the people got freedom? that part seems okay. castro was a communist, that was unforgivable. but think about how the us treated chile and pinochet and other south american leaders. Like most revolutions, there were good and bad things. I don't know enough about castro and cuba to draw conclusions. after he took power, did he become a new dictator himself? what did he do more than be a communist leader?
  • ant6n 10y ago
    Why is it 'unforgivable' to be communist?
    • mememachine 10y ago
      Because of the incredible harm to humanity done at the hands of communists over just the past 100 years alone
      • djsumdog 10y ago
        When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism. A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have not learned that much of what we learned about the communists was mostly propaganda; same way the US creates enemies out of "terrorists" today.
        • elcapitan 10y ago
          > When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up without trial because you are betraying communist ideals.
• elcapitan 10y ago
  I guess death by old age is definitely an "unnatural" death for a dictator. When he was very old but still in power, I always wondered if he would just suddenly die one day and his country would descend into chaos. At least that has not happened, what, if you like or dislike him, you should probably still credit him. I hope Cuba will develop into a freer society over time.
  • IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
    Cuba is not a dictatorship. It's a democracy with extremely localized control.
    • GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      And Venezuela is a paradise on earth!
      • IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
        Have you ever read anything about Cuban democracy besides the propaganda put out by the US government? If you're actually interested in educating yourself, there's an interesting sociology paper called Representative Government in Socialist Cuba.
        • GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
          I'm not particularly interested in Cuban propaganda, no.
• peterkelly 10y ago
  Excerpt from the article on CNN (probably edited by the time you read this): http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/26/americas/fidel-castro-obit/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/26/americas/fidel-castro-obit... "One Castro or another has ruled Cuba over a period that spans seven decades and 11 U.S. presidents. Fidel Castro outlived six of those presidents,[[[NOTE: change to seven if George H.W. Bush dies before Castro]]] including Cold War warriors John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan."
  • chipperyman573 10y ago
    https://archive.fo/BzXdt https://archive.fo/BzXdt and https://web.archive.org/web/20161126060559/http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/26/americas/fidel-castro-obit/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161126060559/http://edition.cn... for when they edit it out.
  • micaksica 10y ago
    What I love the most about this is that journalists write obituaries long before a significant figure actually dies to get on top of it ASAP.
  • raldi 10y ago
    The software they use to draft these should be given support for a special tag that it will refuse to publish to prod an article containing.
    • pp19dd 10y ago
      I worked on software like this. You wouldn't believe how many variations of a typo can escape parsing.
  • drukenemo 10y ago
    That's exactly one of my main criticisms about Castro - his self-belief that only him could govern Cuba. Was he immortal, he wouldn't have stepped down from power, I believe.
    • 10y ago
• redner 10y ago
  Finally , that As was a tyrant and son of the devil, I'm happy he is gone forever
• duncan_bayne 10y ago
  Not that I'm a Trump supporter by a long shot, but I really hope that Castro heard the news that Trump had been elected before he popped his clogs.
• deleted 10y ago
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• chirau 10y ago
  As an African, I'd say the world has lost one of the most influential leaders of the past century. To pretend here, for me, as if he was cruel to our continent would be both ungrateful and untrue. The man offered free training and medical school for most of our African doctors, he harbored, trained and armed many a guerilla group in our pursuit of independence from colonization. Up until today, Cuba still sends significant numbers of doctors to remote African areas and provide expensive medical procedures for free. The truth is, if as a continent we are to point at individual world leaders who did the most for African nations, Fidel Castro is very high up that list, if not at the top. He had his fights and ills, but not with us. With that, rest in peace Fidel Castro. Your legend lives on.
  • gragas 10y ago
    He was also an evil dictator who silenced any and all opposition. And you can't argue that his political philosophy works either---just look at Cuba today.
    • wallace_f 10y ago
      > you can't argue that his political philosophy works either---just look at Cuba today. As someone who studied the subject formally, don't place maximum weight on the success and failures of the (statistically insignificant) rise and fall of modern nation states. This is a very far cry from a controlled experiment to begin with, anyways. Don't read into that too much. I'm not saying mainstream economics doesn't have compelling arguments to make about the elegant effectiveness of free (properly regulated) markets. I'm just trying to be fair: it's a far cry from a scientific fact, which it seems like not just this comment, but a lot of us in the west (even mainstream academic economics) sell the idea as.
      • gragas 10y ago
        Okay, I won't put too much weight on objective facts. I guess that destroys my argument that there hasn't been a single successful planned economy in history so far.
• matt4077 10y ago
  He has certainly led one of the most exciting lives of our times... And despite his flaws (and/or crimes against humanity) I can't help but wonder how Cuba would have faired under different leadership. Looking at the next-island neighbors in Haiti, or any number of comparable African countries, it seems the Cubans got the better deal. Just one example: life expectancy is 15 years higher than Haiti, and actually even a bit higher than in the US. Organizing the necessities for life on this island, with a superpower fixated on killing you (and ruining you economy) next door, and keeping it peaceful for 50 years must be some sort of high score. I know there'll be many Americans dancing on his grave (once the Trump International Hotel Havanna has opened). They may not even be wrong in an absolute sense. But there have been dozens of leaders in South America, Africa and Asia in the last 50 years much worse than Castro who don't seem to trigger the reflexes of righteousness. Actual mass-murdering sadists like Manuel Noriega, throwing living people into the ocean, from airplanes paid for by the CIA. Let's hope for a bright future for Cuba – I met many people there who felt paralyzed by the stagnation, the constant scarcity. The beginning of the end of the embargo may turn out to be one of the most significant legacies of President Obama.
  • gragas 10y ago
    >with a superpower fixated on killing you (and ruining you economy) next door Look at how awful the quality of life in Cuba is today. Look at its people's lack of basic freedoms. Look at its awful economy. The US tried to save Cuba from itself.
    • rorykoehler 10y ago
      The problem with the US model is it leaves no room for other/different ideas. It is all consuming. Now that it has no competition to keep itself in check it is well on the way to consuming itself.
      • Piskvorrr 10y ago
        No competition? Look again, this is not 1990 any more.
    • 10y ago
• friendlygrammar 10y ago
  .
  • sillysaurus3 10y ago
    You have been repeatedly breaking the site guidelines in this thread. Please comment civilly. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • friendlygrammar 10y ago
      How am I going to comment civilly? This is a dictator and there are people praising him here! WTF. This might be easy for you to comment on when you didn't lose your entire life because of this man but people have.
      • sillysaurus3 10y ago
        It's possible to comment civilly on difficult topics. It just requires that you choose to. HN is a place to gratify one's intellectual curiosity. Part of the fabric of the community is that we engage in a civil, substantive way. There are various topics that don't always make that easy, but it's important that we try.
        • friendlygrammar 10y ago
          I just have to ask, at what point does praise becomes uncivil? Is it when you praise Fidel who has stifled freedom of speech and condemned his people to a life of economic stagnation? What about Chavez who has condemned his people to starvation? Or is it praising Kim Jong Un? Or is it praising Hitler? Or is it praising Stalin? Or is it praising the KKK? There is only 1 ideology responsible for killing more than 100 million people in the existence of human civilization. Try considering that for a second. We will likely not understand what Fidel has done to the Cuban people for a few more decades but I will take the role of oracle and tell you. 100 years from now Cuba will still be poor and it will still be an inexpensive tourist destination for rich white people from Canada and Europe.
• plandis 10y ago
  I might not agree with his methods but he did seem like a leader that legitimately cared about Cubas citizens.
  • mememachine 10y ago
    intentions < results in my book
    • phs318u 10y ago
      Can you name a single leader of any stripe anywhere, in the last 50 years, whose results exceeded their intentions? Isn't it the very definition of a politician that they over-promise and under-deliver?
      • mememachine 10y ago
        i dont think you can make a coherent argument that castro simply had "underwhelming" results
  • edblarney 10y ago
    I don't see how a leader that 'cares about his people' would not allow them to leave their island prison, not have democracy, not have access to the internet, not trade with one another. I don't think he cared about them in any way. He had a totalitarian view of how they should be, and he forced that upon them.
    • kuschku 10y ago
      > not have democracy, not have access to the internet, So foreign countries’ propaganda can overthrow your democracy and put up a complete crazy, due to fake news? The US has seen how much Russia Today and fake news have influenced this presidential election. Would you want that to become an issue in your country? This is a serious problem one has to ask themselves.
• IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
  The Cuban Revolution lives on. Rest in power, comrade Fidel.
  • friendlygrammar 10y ago
    Nah, the Cuban revolution is dead. Get ready for A. Further integrations with the capitalist US or B. Fall of the Cuban economy because they are definitely not getting support from venezuela which propped up their economy in the first place.
    • IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
      Cuba is basically an autarky, for all intents and purposes, so they're not going anywhere on that front, and I think Diaz-Canel will help to steer Cuba away from liberalism/revisionism. But I've been wrong before.
      • Piskvorrr 10y ago
        Autarky with juuust a little bit of foreign aid (USSR/Venezuela). Slightly contradictory, no?
• xufi 10y ago
  I wonder if Raul (since he seems a bit more relaxed) will hold general elections or stay in power till he too passes (which doesn't seem that far since he's only 4 years younger than his brother )
• redthrowaway 10y ago
  He had the dubious honour of being the least awful communist dictator. I hope Cuba can move forward now that it's free from his shadow.
  • douche 10y ago
    I think there might be an argument to be made for Marshal Tito to have that "honor" over Castro. But hopefully the foolishness of the embargo can really end now.
• miiiiiike 10y ago
  Growing up in a northern US state Cuba and the US policies affecting it always seemed remote. Besides studying the facts in school I never gave the Cuban Revolution, Cuba, or Castor much thought until I played "Cuba Libre: Castro's Insurgency (1957-1958)" this summer. Reading the historical/design notes in the player's guide and watching events unfold while playing as M26 brought history to life in a very visceral way. I spent the week after playing obsessively reading about modern Cuban history. http://www.gmtgames.com/p-497-cuba-libre-reprint-edition.aspx http://www.gmtgames.com/p-497-cuba-libre-reprint-edition.asp... Cuba Libre is part of a game series on COunter-INsurgencies (COIN). "Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection" covers the American Revolution using the same system. http://www.gmtgames.com/p-582-liberty-or-death-the-american-insurrection-reprint-ed.aspx http://www.gmtgames.com/p-582-liberty-or-death-the-american-...
  • FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    Yes! There is nothing like a video game ability to spark interest in history, at least for me. I experienced the same thing after playing "Empire: Total War. Napoleon." Afterwards, I inhaled biographies on him. My favorite was the Felix Markham book: https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Signet-Classics-Felix-Markham/dp/0451531655/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480142615&sr=1-15&keywords=napoleon https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Signet-Classics-Felix-Markha...
    • miiiiiike 10y ago
      Agreed! But board games in my case. I have Command & Colors: Napoleonics and a biography of Napoleon sitting next to my desk as I type this. http://www.gmtgames.com/p-576-commands-colors-napoleonics-3rd-printing.aspx http://www.gmtgames.com/p-576-commands-colors-napoleonics-3r...
• Stratoscope 10y ago
  I was fascinated by Fidel's choice of attire when he appeared before the Communist Party congress in April. I think I've only seen him in the green military uniform. But at the congress he wore an Adidas jacket! It would be interesting to know the story behind that. Edit: Naturally, a half hour after posting this, I realized there was probably a way to find out... https://www.google.com/search?q=fidel+castro+adidas https://www.google.com/search?q=fidel+castro+adidas
• Lordarminius 10y ago
  After reading some of the comments here, my fath in the human race is not enhanced. Castro was a genuine hero and a great man; indeed among the top 10 greatest individuals of the 20th century. He believed in freedom and dignity. He saw the US government as the enemy of progress everywhere in the world; he wanted people to be free and he devoted his life to that ideal. How many people can you say that of? > He was also an evil dictator... Lol @ evil dictator. Fidel Castro never killed as many people as Nixon, Reagan, Bush or Blair. He did not go half way around the world as Thatcher did to claim an Island 4,000 km away from home (Falklands). >...who silenced any and all opposition What opposition? Imperialists and mafia members who wished to turn Cuba into an enclave for gambling? CIA operatives who tried to return Cuba to its occupied past? > just look at Cuba today Just look at Iraq, Libya,Syria today. And while you are at it; look also at Iran, China, Russia (which evaded western occupation). Indeed, look at Mexico which is friendly terms and has not been invaded yet by the US and tell me how much they have gained from that relationship. I detest the hypocrisy I see in many (not all) western commentators. The spin and one sided arguments, the glossing over historical truths. Cuba is behind in development because of the American embargo.Simple. Not because the regime had no plan for economic development. In healthcare, this small nation with a health care budget 0.001% of the US beats the USA hands down in universal coverage and access to health. Who knows what would have happened if previous administrations had left them alone. Finally, Castro sent troops to Africa to fight against colonial occupiers. He sent armies to harass the apartheid regime at the Angolan/ Namibian border. This counts as a plus in my book. Rest on Fidel. You have fought the fight and lived like a man. I will pray for you. May heaven receive your soul.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • matt4077 10y ago
    I'm actually quite surprised by the amount of people in this thread highlighting the nuances, the "50 shades of gray – elder statesmen edition" if you will. There's a lot of positive things to be said about Castro. But your unqualified hymn isn't going to help your cause. Just the number of people making the rather dangerous journey to the US proves how misguided your comparisons are.
• hal9000xp 10y ago
  As a Russian, who was born in USSR, I regret that CIA has failed to assassinate him 50 years ago. May be Cuba would be liberated from communist/socialist disease. Look at countries who declared a war against free markets - Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea. They are absolutely pathetic.
  • usaphp 10y ago
    Look at counties that did not declare war against free markets. Look at mexico, look at Haiti, or some other Caribbean countries, most of them are doing much worse than Cuba. Communism/socialism disease did not harm China that much ether. Embargo is what hurt Cuba
    • hal9000xp 10y ago
      Haiti on the bottom of economy freedom rating [1] and corruption rating [2]. Haiti has huge anti-free market red tape and rampant corruption. It means that Haiti did declare a war against free markets. Free market economy is possible only in country with strong property rights, rule of law with no corruption, and no red tape. All countries which adopted these principles are rich and have very high standard of living. I think 99.999% of folks who like communism/socialism don't understand what free market capitalism IS. [1] http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking [2] http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015#results-table http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015#results-table
      • wycx 10y ago
        *no red tape Those three words are where things get complicated. In a general sense red tape is the difference between a laissez faire economy and a free market economy, if you mean government regulation when you say red tape. Though by red tape you might also mean anti-competitve regulations implemented at the behest of a firm or sector of the economy. In that case it is still very important to acknowledge that free markets are not a natural state, and require regulation of some form to remain functional or even exist.
• wutangson1 10y ago
  ¡¡ Hasta la victoria final !!
• jknoepfler 10y ago
  I would encourage the commenters in this thread who see Fidel's legacy as a black-and-white matter of an "evil dictator who did bad things and was wrong about economics" to step back, bear witness to the objective facts about Fidel Castro's life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro), think sincerely about what could lead a highly intelligent and charismatic person to become or follow Fidel Castro (as many have), and take a moment to reflect on the complexities of global politics in the 20th century. I am not a fan of Fidel Castro - quite the opposite - but humans are cut from a common cloth. When we see revolutions turn into dictatorships, and idealism deteriorate into a cynical fight to survive, it is foolish and dangerous to dismiss the dictators and revolutionaries as "evil" or "idiots" or some similarly otherizing term. It is dangerous because it means we are refusing to learn from history, and to apply the lessons of other lives to our own. Fidel Castro's mistakes are our mistakes to repeat, or to learn from. If you hold yourself holier than Fidel Castro, and think that celebrating the death of someone you perceive as "evil" is prudent, take a deep long moment and try to learn something non-trivial from his life. "Fidel Castro" in the particular was not some kind of unique demon who plagued humanity. He was a charismatic revolutionary who occupied a very complex time. His life's trajectory was in many respects one of tragic failure. He may have, in reality, occupied a very dark corner of history, but that is for us to learn and judge, not to assume. If you think you're better, then do better. Be better. Don't refuse to acknowledge the humanity of another person because you believe you can totalize their entire life under a cheap tagline.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • marcoperaza 10y ago
    My family and the family of just about everyone I grew up around had their whole lives destroyed by this evil man. He has executed thousands, has imprisoned thousands more, and has totally ruined a country that was once the most prosperous in Latin America. You may philosophize about the 'complexity' of the life of this evil man, but for people who actually lived under his abuse, who have seen what he has done to their homeland, or whose families suffered greatly to flee his terror, it is very simple.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
  Has there been a single anti-American dictator who has actually improved the lives of their people? It seems the amount of anti-American rhetoric is directly correlated with how much they screw their country over.
  • hawkice 10y ago
    Some of that is just because being an "anti-American dictator" entails not just disagreeing with America but making America-hate a topic you never shut up about. China has done pretty well and disagreed with America on lots of policy issues -- they just don't have the monomania that e.g. North Korea has.
  • chillacy 10y ago
    Interesting question. I think that depends on how you define "their people". In some sense, all dictators improved the lives of "their people". Nelson Mandela for instance made life better for black South Africans, but he's implicated in violence against white south africans. Hitler made life better for many Germans, especially given the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Turning back to the US, you could argue that those descended from native americans have not had their lives improved by an ugly history of genocide. The US also enslaved people who our citizens today descended from. There was also internment of Japanese-American citizens. And to this day, high incarceration rates for the poor/minorities.
    • kgwgk 10y ago
      Mandela or Hitler are don't seem particularly anti-American. "The forms of government have always been different. But this cannot be a reason for hostility between different nations, as long as one form of government does not try to interfere with another, outside of its naturally ordained sphere." http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html
      • chillacy 10y ago
        I suppose I didn't pick the best examples. Though Mandela was a critic of the US in later years regarding Iraq / Israel, and Hitler's sentiment on America seems to be complex: a combination of not taking america too seriously and not desiring conflict too early. But I don't think that changes my original point, which is that all dictators can be seen as serving their people, depending on how you define "their people".
• MarkMc 10y ago
  Castro's poor judgement led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Afterwards John F Kennedy estimated there was between a one-third and one-half chance that it would have escalated to nuclear war [1]. That seems like an underestimate considering that we now know some of the missiles were fully operational [2] Yet today it's difficult for most people to appreciate the extreme threat and terror of nuclear weapons in the 1960's. Half of US voters think life was better then than now [3]. Really? To me, there's no level of job security that could possibly compensate for such a high chance of nuclear catastrophe. [1] Reported in https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKO6MS8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RKO6MS8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... [2] As described by Robert McNamara in 'The Fog of War' [3] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/20/6-charts-that-show-where-clinton-and-trump-supporters-differ/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/20/6-charts-tha...
  • sssilver 10y ago
    Wait, I thought it was Kennedy's poor judgement that "led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis" by placing nukes on the USSR border?
    • sooheon 10y ago
      I wonder if your parent has an answer to this. It seems the US putting weapons in threatening positions to other countries would be justified somehow.
    • MarkMc 10y ago
      I don't mean to suggest that Castro was the only person who showed poor judgement. Placing Jupiter missiles in Turkey ratcheted up tensions and invited some kind of response from the USSR - it increased the chance of nuclear war to some degree and it's fair to criticize Kennedy for that. But it wasn't a step-change in the perceived balance of power. Given all the possible Soviet responses, I don't think it was reasonable for Kennedy to conclude that placing missiles in Turkey would lead to a 50-50 chance of nuclear war.
    • tszyn 10y ago
• slau 10y ago
  My aunt knew him pretty well. She runs a few hotels or resorts in Cuba (I'm quite estranged from that part of the family, so don't have many details), and had to cook for/host him on a regular basis. I remember stories about how he, or Raul for that matter, would request to have sushi, even though she didn't have access to salmon, tuna nor eel. Even sushi rice was impossible to get by. The classic seaweed another hard to find item. These kind of crazy requests would usually come in a handful of hours, or less, before said meal was due to happen. Her job for many years was to pass off whatever she had access to as the real deal. Call it "tantrum trompe l'œil", if you will. I remember being surprised when she said it was probably the most fulfilling position to be in as a chef, because of how challenging it was.
• geff82 10y ago
  So I open a bottle of champagne as another surpressor is gone. He did not care about the lives of his opponents, so I have nothing against his own departure. Would have been great if he had used his power to build up something.
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• illuminati1911 10y ago
  Couldn't be more happy that this monstrous mass murderer and dictator is dead. It's funny to see how leftist liberals are crying over this lunatic from New York hipster cafe's with their Macbooks and complaining about evil capitalism while all the Cubans who are living in the States and have actually experienced the life in Cuba are celebrating on the streets.
  • jondubois 10y ago
    Remember, many of those who are partying in the streets in the US are those who left Cuba (and risked their lives by doing so) - They are not representative of the average Cuban (some of which are actually very happy being there). I think that those Cubans who fled are the most capitalist-minded of all Cubans; these are people who had a very strong desire for acquiring material possessions and wealth - To the point of risking their lives and leaving behind entire families. I don't think many people would do that - Even among capitalists.
• chirau 10y ago
  'Zimbabwe' not Simbabwe
  • grzm 10y ago
    Likely carried from another language, e.g., https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbabwe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbabwe Similarly Ruanda/Rwanda
    • chirau 10y ago
      granted :) my mistake, overlooked that possibility
      • matt4077 10y ago
        No, it's quite alright – I should be writing in English. I do manage to, in general. But these "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike my native language"-words sometimes trip me up.
  • sctb 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042260 and marked it off-topic.
• ereyes01 10y ago
  I know that in geopolitics, there are no good guys, that each nation acts in their own self-interest. I know that the crimes of one nation may be horrible, but pale in comparison to those of a bigger enemy. I know that politics has winners and losers, that the winners get to claim the moral high ground, while the losers mourn their injustice. But tonight, I'll remember my family members that were killed in Las Cabañas by Che. I'll embrace my uncle who endured torture in Cuban prisons for buying black market bread. I'll remember my late aunt, who had to flee Cuba for her life under an assumed identity as a housekeeper. I'll remember my grandparents, who were always optimistic that they would soon return to their homes that were taken from them. Tonight is for us. Tonight, I celebrate...
  • cmbailey 10y ago
    Thank you for sharing the personal experiences in your family. Admirers of Fidel Castro around the world - and all his admirers on this page - have one thing in common: they never had to live under his dictatorship.
• sfblah 10y ago
  He outlived Kennedy by ~53 years. Kind of amazing.
• marcoperaza 10y ago
  Replace "Castro" with Pol Pot, Stalin, or Hitler and you'll see how ridiculous this "complex life" and "made mistakes" narrative is to anyone who is actually informed about Castro.
  • int_19h 10y ago
    And yet there are plenty of people who feel positive about Stalin. It's good to at least understand why.
    • swah 10y ago
      Bush & Trump on the other hand...
      • int_19h 10y ago
        It's good to understand why some people feel positive about them, as well.
  • 50CNT 10y ago
    Though socially frowned upon, you could make the same argument substituting Stalin or Hitler, and it'd still make sense. Matter of fact, Germans regularly do. "Never again" requires you to view what happened objectively. If you viewed Hitler as a bogeyman, an anomaly, it becomes easy to argue that it won't happen again, but letting your guard down is precisely what will let it happen again. Because "Class Warfare", "Lebensraumpolitik", and the "Caliphate" aren't necessarily different ideas.
    • KON_Air 10y ago
      "Never again" yeah, right. http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21710847-germanys-chancellor-not-campaigning-leader-global-liberal-order-running http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21710847-germanys-chanc... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/europe-forges-ahead-with-plans-for-eu-army/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/europe-forges-ahe...
    • 10y ago
• Grue3 10y ago
  Good riddance.
• partycoder 10y ago
  Most Cubans do not support the Castro dictators. Only party members do, and they have a lot of privileges compared to the general population. People live in very basic conditions under constant surveillance. Phone lines, Internet connections, etc. are monitored. Most cars and electronics are still from the 50s, from the Batista era, and are repaired with homemade parts. People can study for free, but there are no job opportunities, so you can see architects sweeping the streets and physicians driving cabs. Disturbing a tourist is a grave offense and lead to years in jail. There are 2 currencies, one for tourists, another one for nationals, and nationals are not allowed to have tourist currency. Nationals are not allowed to enter hotels or tourist facilities. People grow animals at home and give all scraps to them. Once they grow big enough they kill them for consumption. People rely on the black market for their basic needs. Some set up clandestine restaurants at home to make a living. Cubans are not allowed to leave the country. They need to pay for the privilege of traveling, and all trips must include a return ticket. If multiple family members are traveling, at least one has to stay to ensure the family doesn't escape the regime. People bypass that by creating fake families through marriage. As you can see, their life experience is BAD. The Castros are personally responsible for a lot of it. They should have stepped down for humanitarian reasons. People that supported the revolution initially would not have done so if they knew what was going to happen to them.
  • dharma1 10y ago
    This was my experience also. Do you think things will change now or stay more or less the same?
    • partycoder 10y ago
      It will take time to erode years of brainwashing. The regime was not only authoritarian / militaristic, but also ideological... starting from an early age in schools. The ruling caste is completely brainwashed and will not let go.
• pastProlog 10y ago
  One of the great men of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That he will be vilified by the soon-to-be-led-by-Trump empire to his north, and Cuba's old idle class, which now lives in Florida, is a given. The empire's last outpost in Guantanamo Bay is where the empire takes other anti-imperialists it has kidnapped and holds them indefinitely without any sort of trial or Geneva convention procedure, and tortures and waterboards them. How different it is in the Cuba outside there, where Castro maintained his country's independence, and saw to the needs of all his country's people. While maintaining a large force of international health aid workers around the world, as well as aiding in such conflicts as the fight against the apartheid South African invasion of Angola. It is amazing that a small island could defy the empire to his north for half a century. Such courage is probably what caused Khrushchev to send him nuclear missiles when talk of invasion of the rebelling perceived colony became widespread in the US. Courage, fortitude, the love of the people and international solidarity helped maintain the Cuban people's defiance of and independence from the empire which is soon to be Trump's.
  • tim333 10y ago
    I think he'd be vilified by quite a few of his own people if they could do it without ending up in jail.
• iansowinski 10y ago
  For all interested in good photography - Castro had great photo session shoot by street photographer Elliott Erwitt - really worth seeing! (https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Elliott-Erwitt/1964/CUBA-NN110092.html https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Elliott-Erwitt/1964/C...) Also: there is nice set of photos here: http://lahabanaphoto.com/?page_id=132 http://lahabanaphoto.com/?page_id=132
• int_19h 10y ago
  There's a lot of complaining about Castro here (and elsewhere) specifically because he was a communist. But if you think about it, the capitalist West has really dropped the ball on this. Most of these communist movements - in Vietnam, Cuba etc - were originally national liberation movements. And the reason why they appeared was because the respective countries were colonies, and their people were painfully (in many cases, literally so) aware of that fact. Now, suppose you're a leader of such a movement. What's going to be your ideology, beyond just national self-determination? Well, on one hand, you look at the guys that are currently busy denying you that, and you notice that they generally tend to be capitalist countries. If you listen to what their ideologues have to say, they notice they aren't actually saying much about your plight at all - it's all about some abstract stuff like free markets. On the other hand, you have those communists, who constantly talk about imperialism and colonialism, and how it sucks for those on the receiving end. And you know it's true, from your own experience. And those guys haven't ever made you their colony, and aren't demanding that you become one. Basically, their talk on that subject is entirely in your favor. Well, why wouldn't you believe that they're right on all those other things, as well? There are actually several examples of leaders that weren't initially particularly left-wing becoming more so solely because they were fighting against some Western country occupying them, other Western countries were just pretending nothing's happening (at best; at worst, they were actively helping the occupier, as in e.g. Indochina), while the Soviets were ready and willing to supply food, arms, and everything else you need to fight. Of course, it came with ideological strings attached, but beggars can't be choosers. Castro, for example, was not a communist when he first started to participate in violent resistance. He was anti-American, and specifically anti-American involvement in the countries in the region, which then consisted of backing dictators like Batista and Trujillo. It was sometime after he started down that road that he became to radicalize along Marxist lines, especially after several bitter setbacks (that also made it clear that fighting against US requires a powerful ally to succeed).
  • int_19h 10y ago
    Speaking of Trujillo, one thing I would recommend to understand the effect and legacy of Castro's rule is to compare Cuba to another, otherwise similar country in the region that didn't undergo a long period of communist rule. I'm talking about the Dominican Republic. US had ensured that it would not go communist or socialist by two direct successful military interventions. It had its own corrupt capitalist dictator, but from there gradually reformed into a free (albeit still corrupt) democracy. It is geographically very close, and has a similar population size. So it's interesting to compare and contrast metrics like GDP, life expectancy, literacy etc: http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/cuba.dominican-republic http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/cuba.dominican-re...
• faragon 10y ago
  It's time for ending the Cuban orwellian nightmare.
• sebastianconcpt 10y ago
  I invite you to step back and think that you are free to share your filomarxisms here where you have freedoms instead of promoting a genocidal system that is at heart and soul of totalitarian people like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro. Hasta la liberty siempre! Enjoy
  • CalChris 10y ago
    Castro just doesn't belong in that sentence. Hitler does. Why does the Right Wing have such a love affair with Putin and such a hatred for Castro?
    • tehwebguy 10y ago
      Maybe some of us have distant relatives that died in Castro's prisons for the crime of dissent?
      • peteretep 10y ago
        Something that also happens in plenty of democracies.
        • sooheon 10y ago
          Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden come to mind. Is the hypocrisy not palpable? Or is the world exactly as simple as America and sanctioned clique good, rest bad?
          • CalChris 10y ago
            Chelsea Manning is not in prison for dissent and Edward Snowden is not in prison at all.
            • sooheon 10y ago
              How is the imprisonment of Manning not essentially for dissent? Snowden yes, is technically not imprisoned, but effective exile and hiding under threat of imprisonment or worse.
• mrleinad 10y ago
  His enemies claim he was a king without a crown, mistaking unity for unanimity. And in that his enemies were right. His enemies say if Napoleon had had a newspaper similar to the «Granma», no french would have ever heard about Waterloo. And in that his enemies were right. His enemies say he used power by talking and not listening, because he was more comfortable with echoes than with voices. And in that his enemies were right. But his enemies won't say that he didn't just stood by while history moved forward that he faced the bullets when the USA invasion arrived, that he faced hurricanes with equal fury as the wind, that he survived 637 attemps on his life, that his energy was decisive to turn a colony into homeland and that it wasn't by any spell or miracle that that homeland was able to survive 10 US presidents. And his enemies won't say Cuba is one of those countries that won't compete in the International World Cup as to whom is the most servient. And they won't say this revolution, grown in punishment, is what could be and not what it wanted to be. Nor they say that the division between the wish and the reality grew taller and wider thanks to the imperial blockade, that drowned the development of a cuban democracy, forced militarization of society and granted bureaucracy, which for every solution has a problem, the alibies it needed to justify and perpetuate itself. And they won't say that despite all of the problems, despite the agressions from outside and arbitrariness from inside, this small island, suffered but stubbornly happy, has created the least unjust latin american society. And they won't say that this achievement was because of the sacrifice of their people, but also because of the stubborn will and outdated sense of honor of this gentleman who always fought for the losers, much like that renowned colleague from the fields of Castilla. Eduardo Galeano. (apologies in advance for any mistakes I may have made while translating this from spanish)
  • Lordarminius 10y ago
    > His enemies claim he was a king without a crown, mistaking unity for unanimity ... Thank you for posting this.
• throw2016 10y ago
  The US has far more sins on its hand than Castro. Its not even a contest. There are over 59 self serving armed interventions in other countries since 1950 the last being Iraq, Syria, Libya and that's not counting stirring up 'revolution' that usually leads to US friendly despots in place. This is destruction and devastation of tens of millions of lives. Libya was one of the most advanced countries in Africa, now its a basketcase. That's millions of lives in disarray setback for generations. Who takes responsibility for this? If these are not crimes against humanity what is? We have got used to a fraudulent narrative supported by 'our' media where we can judge and think the worst of others and not examine our own devious actions. But if we want to judge and get self righteous about Castro we must first hold our own government to account to have an iota of credibility. Since there is zero interest in prosecuting or even reining in the warmongers this persistent kneejerk rush to the moral highground is a sinister posturing by people who know exactly what this country has been doing and are out to defraud the world.
• dharma1 10y ago
  I once spent 2 months in Cuba, about 12 years ago as a musician. We lived and rehearsed in Havana for a month with mostly a local band, and spent another month touring the country, big and small cities. The level of poverty I saw as someone from the Nordics was new to me, and while things like hospital visits were free (even for me as a tourist), people really had so little money, to the point it drastically affected the kind of food they could buy. And indeed many types of food wasn't even available in the peso shops, or was rationed. At the same time, there was very little crime, and it was generally quite safe, probably due to a large police force, and lack gangs or organised crime. The people were fantastic, so warm and hospitable even they had so little. There was inequality too, some very nice houses in the rich parts of Havana reserved for members of the political/military elite while a lot of people live in extremely run down conditions, and bizarre things like taxi drivers who get paid in dollars and receive dollar tips easily making 20-40x more per month than doctors. I understand that part of the reason the country has been struggling is the long US embargo, but I can't help feeling part of it is due to bad governance too. When I arrived I had a rose-tinted picture of Cuban communism like many tourists, but it shocked me when I asked some of the band memebers what would be needed to make things better, they said "The best thing would be if Fidel died". Now that has happened, I wonder what the way forward will look like - if they will be able to retain the best parts of the socialist ideals and start growing the economy responsibly, or if it will turn into a land grab with the majority being left in poverty.
  • eng_monkey 10y ago
    > taxi drivers who get paid in dollars and receive dollar tips easily making 20-40x more per month than doctors And what is wrong with this? Or should physicians continue using health to become rich as it is the case in so many other countries?
• douche 10y ago
  What a terrible mistake it was not to annex Cuba in 1898.
• seesomesense 10y ago
  Fidel Castro was an inspiration for much of the world. He demonstrated that it is possible to survive without compromising with the hegemon.
• edblarney 10y ago
  Today, most Cuban ex-pats around the world are celebrating his death. Liberal Arts students across the Western World are saddened. To me that's funny.
  • formula1 10y ago
    Some one mentioned on twitter how ironic Fidel castro died on black friday. His death has multiple dimensions of irony!
  • quonn 10y ago
    The ex-pats are almost by definition opposed to the regime. No surprises here. Meanwhile, the liberal arts students may have learned to compare Cuba to other and similar countries and draw their conclusions. I have referred to the HDI in a different post where Cuba ranks 40. I have also traveled extensively throughout Latin America and lived there for some time. So I can make some comparisons as well.
  • rospaya 10y ago
    To me it's equally funny how it's ok to group one side into wimpy liberal arts students (you forgot their MacBooks and lattes!) and the others into ex-pats. These days it's like superhuman to be able to look at an issue from two sides.
    • edblarney 10y ago
      I didn't say wimpy :) And my comment is not trolling. I was seeing all the news of Cubans around the world celebrating, and then reading some comments here, in the Guardian, in the Globe and Mail - and noting the differences. It's shocking to see so many people support someone who was almost so cruel. 'Please help us, this man we escaped is a totalitarian' 'Oh, you just don't understand your experience, we agree with this ideology and anti-Americanism, so whatever happened to you - it couldn't have been that bad, let's not judge him'. It's one of those things that really tells us a lot about people.
  • dang 10y ago
    On HN, comments about provocative things need to be more substantive, not less. Posting like this amounts to trolling. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042460 and marked it off-topic.
• known 10y ago
  RIP Sir
• Castroeted 10y ago
  Finally! WTF?
• GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  This is propaganda, disgustingly incorrect propaganda, so far off base the only conceivable way you could have written it is to be maliciously lying.
  • Lordarminius 10y ago
    > This is propaganda, disgustingly incorrect propaganda, so far off base the only conceivable way you could have written it is to be maliciously lying. Your emotional reaction(disgust) is up to you. Be objective. Pray,what part of it is untrue? What is incorrect and where do I lie? Kindly be specific.
    • GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      > He believed in freedom and dignity. That's exactly why he never allowed free election, a free press, free speech, free markets, or freedom to leave his island paradise. >He saw the US government as the enemy of progress everywhere in the world That just makes him an idiot. The US government has been the primary proponent of progress, spreading free markets and democracy around the globe. >What opposition? Imperialists and mafia members who wished to turn Cuba into an enclave for gambling? The million plus refugees from Castro's island paradise. Most of whom were not wealthy. Just not fans of Castro's brutality. Go to Miami and tell them how awesome Castro was. Fidel was a brutal dictator and his memory deserves to be pissed on. Any who celebrate him are ignorant, evil, or fools.
      • Lordarminius 10y ago
        > The US government has been the primary proponent of progress, spreading free markets and democracy around the globe Who would have guessed? The Iraquis, libyans, Chileans (after 1972), maybe the people of Zaire under Mobutu,or the oppressed blacks in apartheid South Africa , heck forget that look at the blacks in America!, and the native American Indians!!, how great their lot is; the list of people who have 'enjoyed' American democracy is long. > Fidel was a brutal dictator and his memory deserves to be pissed on. Any who celebrate him are ignorant, evil, or fools. I guess that includes me and many others on HN and around the world. Have a nice night :)
• forgetsusername 10y ago
  Where do American administrators who are droning Arabs to death fit on that list of "evil peole"? What's the line you need to cross to make it on there?
  • __s 10y ago
    Why, let's include everyone who pays their taxes to support those dronings. Every American citizen who isn't evading taxes is evil Oh no I'm defending Trump, get me out of here
    • up_so_floating 10y ago
      As far as I know, Trump paid all the taxes that he was legally required to pay.
    • mempko 10y ago
      Taxes don't pay for federal government spending. So you don't even need to pay taxes to be culpable.
  • lizardking 10y ago
    So causing casualties while waging war is morally equivalent to assassinating domestic political opponents and agitators?
    • danharaj 10y ago
      Irrelevant; the United States did assassinate domestic political opponents and agitators.
  • lizardking 10y ago
    So causing casualties while waging war is morally equivalent to assassinating domestic political opponents and agitators?
  • sctb 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042948 and marked it off-topic.
• kingkawn 10y ago
  Judging judging judging based on metrics that are amazingly forgiving of ourselves and our leaders. What a convenient lazy worldview. Castro tried, all the way.
• mimimimi 10y ago
  Lots of people followed Fidel probably for similar reasons they followed Trump, their willingness to be easily lied to. Fidel and Trump, same stuff.
  • Trombone12 10y ago
    No, not at all. People started following Fidel during a US supported dictatorship, which is quite distinct from the situation in which people started following Trump.
  • sctb 10y ago
    This account has been posting primarily political comments, in related and unrelated threads alike. This is an abuse of the site, so we have to ban the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post civilly and substantively in the future. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042192 and marked it off-topic.
    • mimimimi 10y ago
      Bah. I'll just create another one. [Evil laugh...] Through a different ip. You Trump supporter you. Frankly you are just incentivising to use my programing skills for...[is that good or evil? No sure anymore] [Evil Maniacal laugh (Even my cat is looking at me funny now)]
• coldplay 10y ago
  Adiós Comandante Castro!
• puppetmaster3 10y ago
  On hacker news? Celebrating left.
• vic-traill 10y ago
  I found Castro's Cuba a very interesting place, primarily because of its independence from American direct influence (and yes, I realise that Cuba has longed been defined by America's influence on it, even in opposing it). American culture has had a huge effect on the world. To attend an island off the coast of Florida and find it more or less free of that cultural influence was fascinating. Fascinating in that they were even just able to do it. I didn't see an island prison there. Which is not to whitewash anything. However, I was free to go anywhere I wanted and did. People I met were kind, welcoming and seemed, to my eyes and ears, content. The view of Fidel as a tyrant is not the view one finds as they travel the world. Neither is he viewed as a saint. He is viewed as someone who achieved something incredible, with all that entails, good and bad.
  • vixen99 10y ago
    Someone who held no free nor fair elections for half a century, imprisoned his political opponents after trials presided over by crony judges, completely controlled all the national media and installed his brother as his successor? And that's not a tyrant?
    • vic-traill 10y ago
      Well, that's a part of the story. And the only part of the story that you have been able to encounter in the American media since the 1950's. The story is much broader than that. Fidel was also the liberator of his country from a military dictatorship which had sold Cuban casinos to the Mafia [0] and swaths of Cuban agricultural land to the United Fruit Company. [1] In that context, Castro was certainly not the tyrant. History is nuanced. Look below the surface. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky#Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky#Cuba [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Cuba
• tomohawk 10y ago
  The most chilling testament to this dictators intolerable cruelty is all of the various hand crafted boats that Cubans used over the years to flee his control. The first time I saw one on the beach in the Florida Keys, I was astonished at the ingenuity of the craft and marveled that someone had so longed for freedom that they had spend years building it in secret. Then, I was chilled. http://www.floatingcubans.com/ http://www.floatingcubans.com/ https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1510&bih=778&q=cuban+refugee+boats&oq=cuban+refugee+boats https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...
• dade_ 10y ago
  This utter failure of foreign policy is such an embarrassment for the US. Even against a small island country that they partially occupy, the US couldn't cause a regime change. Everyone can spend all day debating if Fidel's army is better than Capone's gangsters, or living off state payments in squalor is better than being a peasant harvesting fruit for the wealthy Dole family with no healthcare, but the fact is that Fidel was only their #2 enemy, after America. I have no idea how the wounds between the people will ever heal, but the only way forward is if America's leaders choose to learn from their past mistakes and take a new, probably completely different approach. Obama started down a path, but the next 4-8 years are a complete mystery for now.
• encoderer 10y ago
  My Father in Law had dinner with Fidel 10-15 years ago on a trade delegation. One of his colleagues had a little too much to drink and over cigars he turned to Castro and said 'I have to ask. A lot of people in my country think Cuba might have been involved in the assassination of JFK. What do you think about that?' The room goes totally silent. All eyes on Castro and his bodyguards lining the walls. He says 'when the missiles were removed, the US vowed not to invade Cuba. I would've been a fool to do anything that would give the US the desire and moral high ground to break that promise. Nothing could come from killing Kennedy that would justify such a risk for Cuba'. The remarkable part, I'm told, is that he laughed it off and the revelry continued.
• Jnnz 10y ago
  Finally.
• sidcool 10y ago
  We can debate all we want about Communism and democracy, but if history is any guide, democracy has definitely had more positive effect on the world. Communism looks awesome on paper, but hardly works in practice.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• thiagoharry 10y ago
  Hasta siempre, Comandante Fidel Castro. It was a huge victory succeed in a revolution, survive hundreds of kill attempts coming from USA and then, die of natural causes at 90.
• TS_BROOKE 10y ago
  REST IN POWER GREAT CONSCIOUS LEADER .
• TS_BROOKE 10y ago
  REST IN POWER GREAT CONSCIOUS LEADER
• Pxtl 10y ago
  I see the Cuban revolution like Israel/Palestine. Anybody who has a black-and-white opinion on the subject is aggressively wrong.
• moo 10y ago
  A wonderfully productive life and human example in service for humanity.
• elcct 10y ago
  2016 has been very sad for left wing. Brexit, Trump now Castro...
• brianbreslin 10y ago
  Do you guys think Trump will reinstate the embargo?
• FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  Good riddance
• edgartaor 10y ago
  With the Fidel Castro death, will there be changes in the Cuba's government? What about the relationships with others countries?
• edgartaor 10y ago
  With the Fidel Castro death, will there be changes in the Cuba's government? What about the relationships with others countries?
• Fr0012 10y ago
  It is so sad to read comments from uneducated educated americans about Fidel Castro. Cuba under Fidel had the best education and health system in the world. Maybe you should apologized for the 600+ tries of assassinations launched by Americans towards a country that was communist. I would rather live in Cuba than in the States/Europe where everything is measured by you stinking paper you call money and autocratic ways of governing people. I mean, what the fk. Does England has a constitution? No it does not? I am disgusted that these comments come from the VCs and other people who think capitalism was the best thing that came around. Look at you inner cities and homeless people you create. Look at the murderous ways your country has been involved in toppling governments in Latin America financing dictators. By eh, Castro was a dictator and your Saudi Arabians friends are doves of freedome and democracy. I just want puke. Long Live Comantade
• maverick_iceman 10y ago
  The last of the communist monsters is dead.
  • tim333 10y ago
    North Korea still to go.
• ramonvillasante 10y ago
  dictators and dictatorships are failures to avoid, period.
• dschulz 10y ago
  Good. One less dictator.
• euccastro 10y ago
  Hasta siempre comandante! <3 <3 <3
• tmptmp 10y ago
  I am not a big fan of greedy-unchecked-capitalism but communism is not the answer for problems of the world. A thought exercise: Here is an attempt to take on an argument made by the communist apologists about Cuba in favor of Castro: that "there are no children sleeping on the streets." May be that's true even if we don't have any independent scrutiny made by human rights organizations to support it. But "no children sleeping on the streets" is not a sufficient condition to judge the social progress of the nation. For instance, these children may be sent to gulags (if they happen to be of the lesser equal people) or they may be forced to sleep on floors in a dungeon and still the claim "no cuban children sleeping on the streets" will be technically true. Or even the tyrant Castro might have ordered to kill all the children who were seen to be sleeping on streets (who's to prevent him from doing so there?) The apologists just shun away from such critique as they are dishonest or are passionate followers blinded by their faith in communism.
• throwAwayEsp 10y ago
  Official Brussels' statement: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-4042_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-4042_en.ht...