Castro Was Not A Great Leader, and Communism/Socialism is Not Great Either.

Meanwhile the Cuban people have been suffering and starving, Fidel castro's net worth in 2006 was 900,000,000 U.S.D. That's 900 million U.S.D. in 2006

Fidel Castro net worth rises, according to 'Forbes'

Fidel castro owns a few small islands around Cuba where he has mansions, where he receives guests, meanwhile Cubans live in houses that would be deemed inhospitable in western nations.

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Like I said, Cubans who also lived there, have told me otherwise.

Do they have picture of the Ivory Towers they know about?

originally posted by: xuenchen
Do they have picture of the Ivory Towers they know about?

They didn't mention ivory towers.

originally posted by: luthier
I wouldn't be too snide about academics, without them we wouldnt have "Two Treatises of Government, we wouldn't have science, we wouldn't have Voltaire, Roseau, Locke, the French and Glorius revolution etc.

All those things led to the US constitution.

Most modern political academicians aren't contributing anything in terms of philosophical development.

These days most are simply trying desperately hold on to long discredited world views and political ideologies.

a reply to: xuenchen

Well, not sure if anyone has been able to take pics of all his mansions and all he had. But castro's main island is called "Callo Piedra."

Castro even had anti-ballistic missiles in the island.

One of his bodyguards, who worked for castro from 1974 until the 1990s has said in interviews no one had ever tried to kill him during that time. The communists have snitches/spies in several nations, including in the U.S. To this day there are known secret messages sent from Cuba's "number stations" to spies in the U.S. and other nations. Every day secret messages are sent to spies in nations like the U.S., which includes Americans who are pro-communist.

Atención: 7. A Cuban numbers station is accused of transmitting instructions to spies by the U.S. Government

The number station "Atencion" stopped transmitting in 2013. But there are others.

Cuba's Mysterious 'Numbers Station' Is Still on the Air

Here is a video showing photographs of that island. You have to change subtitles for English.



BTW, the automatic translation to English is really messed up, at times it writes things they don't even say.

Raul castro also has his own island.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Castro is Dead!
Donald J Trump

You can rest assured that Cuba's days of socialism, their exemplary education and health care systems, will soon be history, as Pres. DJ Trump's capitalistic wet dreams come true, and his golf courses, hotels and resort shops carrying his family's Chinese made shirts, ties and knock off shoes, handbags and jewelry, along with the TRUMP name, are spattered from coast to Cuban coast!

Cuba:

The island nation, at one time known for its cigars and rum, an island paradise, where the climate was excellent and business flourished.

However, before condemning a person or group, it would be prudent to look at the history of the island.
Cuba was colonized by the Spanish, in their attempts to find gold and create an empire. It was one of many colonies, having appointed government, and it was done under a ruling class, as sanctioned by the king and queen of Spain. As will most of the colonies in the new world conquered by Spain, the native peoples were decimated and subjugated by both royal decree and papal bull. And it was also one of the destinations for the slave trade in the new world, as a port and point on the slavery triangle. Slaves would be brought there, only to be sold and moved to other countries, sugar and rum sold from there to the rest of the world.

This would continue on, including several civil wars and revolutions, building up to the Spanish-American war, where it ceased to be a colony of Spain and a protectorate/territory of the United States. Following there was a change in the government, where the people could now elect a government. This would continue on until about the 1940’s and the rise of Batista.
Initially there was political calm in the country of Cuba, and then soon that gave way to more corruption in the government and an oppression of the citizens. While the people would elect various people, Batista would return with a minority government and take it over with a bloodless coup. While though the country would prosper, there was dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, to include an ever widening gap in the culture and among the masses. It was very apparent to those who not only traveled to the US and was able to read and view various media, the special interest groups, especially the labor unions, would get more special treatments, in exchange for the political power. In short the Batista, though it was at the expense of the people on the ground.

Castro was a young lawyer and then sought to remove the Batista government by legal means. When the courts ignored the petitions and the legal challenges brought up, that is when the revolution went into a heated conflict. And Fidel Castro and the revolution won ousting the Batista government.

There were reasons why Castro rejected the USA, and some of those were valid. The USA government was in bed with the Batista government, aiding into that corruption, including supplying arms to the Cuban army. Castro resented how the USA was treating Cuba and its people, along with its interference with the country. It was the USA interference with Cuba, including trying to block the attempts to purchase military hardware, pushing other countries not to sell. This forced Castro to turn to the USSR. This in turn lead to the missile crisis and policies against the USA. At one time it was estimated that the intelligence agency of Cuba was one of the best in the world, with its spies infiltrating many of the government agencies in the USA and not getting caught.

Over the years the relation between the USA and Cuba warmed and soon resulted in the opening of embassies between the 2 countries, with hopes of normalizing such again.

Now as far as Castro, he was no angel, of that there can be no doubt. His policies were harsh and yes, under his rule, people were killed, and exiled from the country. Thousands lost their lives due to the revolution or trying to escape from the country. Political dissidents were punished, along with their families, as he was a dictator.

However, there are a few things to be noted, that is not all bad. The first is that even with limited supplies, they still offered free medical to the entire population of the country. And before 1959, the literacy rate was between 60 and 76 percent of the population, however, Castro did reform the education system and it was raised to 96%.

So while Castro was a tyrant, how much suffering was also due to the policies of the USA towards the island of Cuba? How many lives could have been saved if the USA did not seek to impose its will on the island nation or seek to overthrow its government? Isolating a country for political purpose and gain, often does not get the results wanted, but the exact opposite and often causes far more harsh feelings towards the country that started the isolation in the long run.

On a side note, it should be interesting to note, that Cuba does not want a US base on it and has not accepted payment for the base that is there at all.

a reply to: sdcigarpig

Again, no, Cubans have not been suffering because of the U.S. embargo... Cuba had business dealings with many European nations and Canada for DECADES. Just Fidel castro's net worth in 2006 was 900 million U.S.D., and that's not counting the net worth of Raul castro, and their other family members and the high ranks in the communist party who are also multi-millionaires meanwhile the people suffer.

Just look at Venezuela which embraced the same "rationing socialist system" that was imposed on Cuba. That's the reason why Cubans suffer...because of the socialist rationing system

hunger in Cuba arranged America, not only in Cuba, it was in Russia when the US citizen Trotsky. this plan www.gwu.edu... of sabotage against Cuba, a document of 16 pages you have to open your eyes and for 2001

a reply to: sdcigarpig

As for castro not being such a bad person?... Do you even know what castro was doing, and why him and his group of "revolutionaries/communists" were imprisoned? Fidel was no angel at all.

During his "student years" as he was studying to be a lawyer he participated in assassinations, and bombings.

WARNING!! the following video shows a real assassination by firing squad that Fidel ordered. You have to sign in, on youtube to watch it, or you can watch without signing in the link below the video.

Fidel Castro’s firing squads in Cuba

Fidel Castro is often portrayed as the “benevolent” dictator of Cuba, such portrayals are unarguably wrong. The evidence of his bloodthirsty and murderous nature is unequivocal and available for anyone who wants to know the truth. Unfortunately such evidence is rarely discussed by the news media and at schools. There’s perhaps no more grizzly atrocity committed by Fidel Castro than the firing squads which he implemented. Beginning as a rebel, before he would eventually take power in Cuba, Fidel Castro used firing squad executions to enforce discipline, punish followers deemed disloyal or intimidate potential opposition. At the beginning of the Castro regime there was a reign of terror typical of revolutions in which the firing squad was used prominently but the executions continued for decades.
...
The Cuba Archive which documents deaths and disappearances resulting from Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution has documented 3,615 firing squad executions conducted by the Cuban state since Castro took over on January 1, 1959.
...

WARNING!! this website has a lot of images of Cubans who were murdered by firing squad and the images are horrific.
babalublog.com...

The above figure is not counting those who were hanged, or were murdered as political prisoners inside Cuban jails. The figure of Cubans Fidel ordered to be executed is much higher. Many were simple farmers who didn't have much but didn't want to give up their lands, or didn't want to become part of the "revolution" and were deemed "counter-revolutionaries". No one knows the exact number of Cubans that were executed because that information is hard to get from a country known to suppress news, and evidence throughout the nation.

Che Guevara, castro's main executioner, and a bloodthirsty doctor that the left loves and claim is a hero once said.

...
“To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”
...

babalublog.com...

There have been many other Cubans who throughout the years have been murdered by the communist regime.

One case which barely made the news in the U.S. was the tugboat massacre of "13 de Mayo". The Cuban government ordered the Cuban coast guard boats (Polargos) to sink the Tugboat "13 de Mayo". 41 Cubans drowned that day, including 10 children who drowned that day meanwhile the Cuban coast guards watched under orders from the communist regime.



There have been even legal U.S. residents who tried to help Cubans who were stranded at sea and were murdered by the castros inside international waters.



Here is another video from 2014 of the Cuban coast guard mistreating Cubans trying to leave the communist regime.



In Spanish you can hear one of the coast guard call another to prepare the water cannon. Then you can hear another Cuban coast guard saying that they have been ordered to get those people back to Cuba "a las buenas o a las malas" (whether willingly or by force). They are also told that if they cooperate the Cuban coast guard would not use force. The Cuban coast guard repeats this. The people filming are also part of the Cuban coast guard.

Meanwhile this was happening the left/democrats under Bill Clinton reformed the Cuban immigration to change and enforce the law "pies secos" (dried feet). Which meant that in order for Cubans to be able to seek sanctuary in the U.S. they have to touch dry land. Even under the Clinton administration the Coast Guard of the U.S. was also ordered to not allow Cubans to reach the coast of the U.S. The democrats have done this because they know the majority of Cubans would not vote democrat because it is too similar to socialism, and it is the reason why they want more illegal immigrants from Mexico. Because the majority of Mexicans vote democrat.

To this day democrats are doing the same.



One of the most recent cases is from November 17th 2016, when the U.S. Coast guard repatriated 90 Cubans who tried to get to the U.S.

Coast Guard repatriates 90 Cuban migrants

In July 2016 there was a picture taken of the U.S. Coast Guard welcoming Cubans in a full boat who were simply trying to leave the communist dictatorship.


www.cubaenmiami.com...

It doesn't happen always, but it does happen.

Back to the castro communist regime.

The castros were involved with Colombia's FARC which has caused the death of 220,000 people in Colombia. Fidel helped organize, and supplied the FARC and other communist "revolutionaries around the world" which have caused death and suffering.

...
Resources

Before the drug trade boom in the 1970s and 1980s, the FARC received weapons, training, and financial assistance from Cuba. [78] During that time, the FARC also kidnapped politicians and elites for revenue. Their kidnappings continued throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and peaked in 1999. The thriving drug business in Colombia also facilitated the FARC’s rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s, when it tripled in membership, and gave the FARC greater financial independence. In 2002, the growth of the FARC’s Eastern Bloc was funded by money earned from coc aine trade with Brazilian drug lords.
...

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army

The so called "peace accord" that fidel and Chavez "formed" with FARC and the government of Colombia occurred because these a$$holes have had dealings with FARC for decades. If you want to see some of the things the communists FARC have done to their own people, including the poor, there are plenty of videos on youtube about it. That's how communists really treat their own people.

For decades the communist regime in Cuba has given refuge to terrorists from around the world. From Black Panther assassins who murdered police in the U.S., to ETA terrorists, and other terrorist organizations.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Why go into all that when sdcigarpig said:

Now as far as Castro, he was no angel, of that there can be no doubt. His policies were harsh and yes, under his rule, people were killed, and exiled from the country. Thousands lost their lives due to the revolution or trying to escape from the country. Political dissidents were punished, along with their families, as he was a dictator.

You are on automatic pilot.

There are some accounts of the deeds of fidel castro as a violent revolutionary during his student years.

Here is one of those accounts.

...
As Georgie Anne Geyer reveals in her biography, Guerilla Prince: The Untold Storey of Fidel Castro, Fidel has always been a deceiver, an egoist and a thug. From his earliest days as a radical university student, Castro had an attraction to violence and totalitarianism (modeling himself after Mussolini), and once his ambitions to take over Cuba came true, he put his beliefs into practice.

The first to fall victim to his violent impulses were his political opponents, who were executed en masse, after show trials, by Nazi-like firing squads. But Castro’s long-time allies also became targets. Huber Matos, Manuel Urrutia and Carlos Franqui—who all worked with Castro to overthrow Batista—were soon demonized, jailed or exiled because they opposed Communism and envisioned an independent Cuba. Castro, who had assured the world in 1959 that he was not a Communist, immediately proved he was exactly that, suddenly announcing he was a Marxist-Leninist and would be till his dying day.

The consequences for Cuba and the world have been profound. Once in power, Castro banned the democratic elections he once promised, expropriated private property, created a one-party Communist state, and ruthlessly suppressed all forms of dissent and opposition. He dismantled the once thriving Catholic Church, crushing its educational system, expelling hundreds of priests, and forcibly indoctrinating baptized believers with atheism and Marxism. It is this fractured and persecuted Church that Pope Francis is now trying to revive, against huge obstacles in a police state.
...

www.firstthings.com...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

But "real" communism has never been successfully employed!!!

I love the mantra of those that sympathize with the fantasy land of a communist country. It cracks me up how ridiculously stupid they are.

a reply to: Winstonian

My other favorite is "It's a great theory on paper".

No it isn't. People who say stupid crap like that have never read or actually understood the Communist Manifesto.

a reply to: projectvxn

I seriously doubt you read the manifesto. It has plenty of flaws but it still pretty sound philosophy. Marx was also able to predict quite a bit of capitalist downfalls.

Personally I am a Kant, Locke, Voltaire guy I believe in classical liberalism but, the manifesto is possibly the most misunderstood writing out there.

By the way if you read the manifesto you would know communism was supposed to spring up from a workers revolt when wealth was contracted to a super minority in an advanced capitalist country.

The worst part of communism and the most short sighted aspect was including the promotion of a temporary authoritarian transition gov.

The irony right now is 65 percent or more of Americans couldn't survive off their wages without communism.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

I did not say Castro was not a bad person. I went into the history of Cuba, from its days as a colony up to the revolution. I did mention that he was no angel, and did call him a tyrant.

Revolutions are messy things, as a new group overthrowing the old, and usually the clean up is sometimes as messy as the actual act itself.

But I also believe that part of that issue was how the USA treated the Castro government after he took over, when he was rejecting how interference of the USA government in the internal policies of the United States, which did not help matters any. Isolating a country is never a good idea, and often leads to far worse problems in the long run.

a reply to: sdcigarpig

Often revolutions turn decent men into monsters. A thinker with a gun, and the trauma of war greatly effect the mind of most leaders.

This is Why Washington, Jefferson etc were so unique. They don't want the power, they used Locke's model which put limits on authority.

This post is purely anecdotal. I am not going to get into the back and forth of whether Cuba prospered under Castro. My opinion is based on the personal interaction I had with a teacher when I was in High School more than 30 years ago. I took two years of Spanish in High School. My Spanish teacher was from Cuba. He spoke about this only once. Someone asked him a question about his life in Cuba. He told us that he went to school with Castro. He told us in detail his experiences as they related to Castro as a young man. That's all I needed to know.

When Castro's revolution won, my teacher and his family fled Cuba. His personal story was enough to open my eyes even as a teenager. Castro was a dictator, pure and simple. Batista was corrupt but Castro was no better, just a different flavor.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

So... you're just going to look over everything he has done for other nations? He hated America for what she represented and for the pain she has caused all around the world. The powers that be tried so many times to assassinate the man but it always failed! Castro was great leader! Better than Trump will ever be! Better than any president for that matter!

originally posted by: projectvxn

originally posted by: Kettu
a reply to: projectvxn

Socialism can be incorporated into just about any economic system, including capitalism. Communism can't, as it's the entire package.

They aren't interchangeable, otherwise we would call Sweden a communist country.

Government services does not Socialism make. I wonder why people in the US think this..

Socialism is not a government provided education or health care or any other service.

Socialism is a "political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."

That "community" is actually the state, but those are just the details.

yay free stuff!!?? no? Oops.

So many Americans think that because the left won the so called "culture war" in the United States. As such, the media and education system teaches that. And there are socialist policies in the Untied States. Our welfare system is such a program. If the United States wasn't able to borrow its own money, that system would have failed a very long time ago. Just like any other socialist pyramid scheme does. I think people are beginning to self educate about economic systems and the governments involvement in them and are starting to fight back. Trump isn't THE ANSWER, but he is a good start. He is an attempt to end cronyism. Once that is destroyed (if it can be) then the next step is to destroy entitlement programs. If that ever happens then we will all be in a much better place.
However, the people who believe in the utopian left will never be happy with that. They will never be happy with anything. That is their main problem. They are unhappy with life, unhappy with the state of nature. I realize this is generalizing, but it does seem to be the case with every leftist I have ever known on a personal level.