16 ms·

Castro has his doubts on Communism

17 points by zmitri 16y ago

zmitri 16y ago
This has really changed my view point on Castro. I'm not sure if he's been looking at lives of Cubans and realizing that maybe the revolution wasn't worth it, or if he's just getting older and his youthful " altruistic idealism" is fading. Nice to see people can change their mind, and recollect... even after decades.
- stephenjudkins 16y ago
  It would have been great if he'd realized it earlier. However, I imagine that growing up during the great depression (especially under a series of kleptocrat dictators) changes one's perspectives on the relative merits of different economic systems. I'm currently reading a book on J. Robert Oppenheimer, and I've been struck by the seeming ubiquity of very left-wing views among brilliant young theoretical physicists in the 1930s. Combine the dire economic circumstances in the US at the time with the rise of the Nazis and little accurate knowledge of life under Stalin, and some very smart people came to conclusions that seem very misguided in retrospect.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    It is very difficult to develop your own philosophy from scratch, which is what it took back then to come to correct conclusions. In fact, doing this took nothing less than a genius in the field, and these are very rare.
ataggart 16y ago
>"The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore." Anymore?! What, it was working sometime during the past half-century of murders, starvation, political imprisonment, destruction of wealth and civil liberties, poverty, de facto slavery, and general screwing-over of generations of Cubans to the extent they'd be willing to risk their lives floating in a cardboard box to Florida?
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  For "them" (defined as the speaker and his immediate cronies) it worked just fine.
- jbooth 16y ago
  It's actually been a lot nicer to live in Cuba during most of that time than much of the rest of Latin America. Pinochet comes to mind.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    What was so bad about Pinochet by South American dictator standards? It's hard to think of any metric under which Pinochet's Chile could be considered worse than Castro's Cuba.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      That's because you've spent your American life hearing about how Castro is the devil (because Cuba was allied with the USSR!) and hearing very little about Pinochet or any of the rest of Reagan's buddies. I mean look at the comment I responded to, it sounded like they were running gas chambers in Cuba. I'm no defender of communism or non-democratic governments but just because someone wasn't allied with us doesn't necessarily make them more of a monster.
      - hugh3 16y ago
        Actually I asked for information on how Pinochet was worse than Castro, not just a repetition of the assertion that he was combined with a false assumption about my nationality. I don't claim to be an expert on South American dictators, but as far as I know the worst thing Pinochet did was to kill and imprison thousands of political dissidents, which is coincidentally also the worst thing that Castro did.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
absconditus 16y ago
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-cuban-model-doesnt-even-work-for-us-anymore/62602/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fid...
gloob 16y ago
This is the very definition of politics.
echaozh 16y ago
At least he admits what's real. We know the system doesn't work here in China, but they won't admit it. They even force people to think the opposite.

17 points by zmitri 16y ago

This has really changed my view point on Castro. I'm not sure if he's been looking at lives of Cubans and realizing that maybe the revolution wasn't worth it, or if he's just getting older and his youthful " altruistic idealism" is fading. Nice to see people can change their mind, and recollect... even after decades.

stephenjudkins 16y ago
It would have been great if he'd realized it earlier. However, I imagine that growing up during the great depression (especially under a series of kleptocrat dictators) changes one's perspectives on the relative merits of different economic systems. I'm currently reading a book on J. Robert Oppenheimer, and I've been struck by the seeming ubiquity of very left-wing views among brilliant young theoretical physicists in the 1930s. Combine the dire economic circumstances in the US at the time with the rise of the Nazis and little accurate knowledge of life under Stalin, and some very smart people came to conclusions that seem very misguided in retrospect.
- maxharris 16y ago
  It is very difficult to develop your own philosophy from scratch, which is what it took back then to come to correct conclusions. In fact, doing this took nothing less than a genius in the field, and these are very rare.

ataggart 16y ago

>"The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore." Anymore?! What, it was working sometime during the past half-century of murders, starvation, political imprisonment, destruction of wealth and civil liberties, poverty, de facto slavery, and general screwing-over of generations of Cubans to the extent they'd be willing to risk their lives floating in a cardboard box to Florida?

InclinedPlane 16y ago
For "them" (defined as the speaker and his immediate cronies) it worked just fine.
jbooth 16y ago
It's actually been a lot nicer to live in Cuba during most of that time than much of the rest of Latin America. Pinochet comes to mind.
- hugh3 16y ago
  What was so bad about Pinochet by South American dictator standards? It's hard to think of any metric under which Pinochet's Chile could be considered worse than Castro's Cuba.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    That's because you've spent your American life hearing about how Castro is the devil (because Cuba was allied with the USSR!) and hearing very little about Pinochet or any of the rest of Reagan's buddies. I mean look at the comment I responded to, it sounded like they were running gas chambers in Cuba. I'm no defender of communism or non-democratic governments but just because someone wasn't allied with us doesn't necessarily make them more of a monster.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Actually I asked for information on how Pinochet was worse than Castro, not just a repetition of the assertion that he was combined with a false assumption about my nationality. I don't claim to be an expert on South American dictators, but as far as I know the worst thing Pinochet did was to kill and imprison thousands of political dissidents, which is coincidentally also the worst thing that Castro did.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]

absconditus 16y ago

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-cuban-model-doesnt-even-work-for-us-anymore/62602/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fid...

gloob 16y ago

This is the very definition of politics.

echaozh 16y ago

At least he admits what's real. We know the system doesn't work here in China, but they won't admit it. They even force people to think the opposite.