Slashdot Mirror
Fidel Castro Is Dead (nytimes.com)
Striek quotes the New York Times: Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba's maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died Friday. He was 90. His death was announced by Cuban state television.
In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when he was felled by a serious illness. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raul, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raul Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother's closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018.
Kebertson shares an AP article which remembers a book proclaiming "Castro's Last Hour" -- in 1982. And Miamicanes jokes there'll be celebrations among Castro-haters in Miami, sharing a CNN article which notes that in the end, Castro "lived long enough to see a historic thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States."
In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when he was felled by a serious illness. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raul, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raul Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother's closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018.
Kebertson shares an AP article which remembers a book proclaiming "Castro's Last Hour" -- in 1982. And Miamicanes jokes there'll be celebrations among Castro-haters in Miami, sharing a CNN article which notes that in the end, Castro "lived long enough to see a historic thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States."
Hopefully Trump won't renew the economic oppression of the Cuban people.
Unsure how to respond. If you mean is Trump the heir to Fidel, the answer is no. If you mean the stupid embargo, that was the best thing to happen to Castro; he couldn't have asked for a better justification to continue his own oppression of the Cuban people.
If you actually do think Castro was good for Cuba, you are sadly ignorant. Batista's Cuba was famous for literacy and doctors per capita, compared to the rest of Latin America, so Castro's improvements were pretty small, he killed far more people, and destroyed all chances for improvements.
Maybe you are one of the who thinks Che Guevara was heroic and cannot see the irony of selling t-shirts with his picture.
Infuriate left and right
it's actually more to do with Obama, the Democrats and how our presidential elections work.
Cuban immigrants were a big part of winning Florida for the Republicans. They're why we've maintained the embargo. Anyone politician who tried was dead in the water on a national stage.
That said time passed, those immigrants died and their kids didn't listen much to granddad's story and Obama formed a big anti-Bush jr coalition to put him in the Whitehouse.
That left us open to normalizing relations. Businesses have wanted this for years but politics made it impossible. So at this point it's got more to do with the dems free trade policies and general progressivism than anything else. That and marginalizing the remaining anti-Castro voters left in Florida.
So yeah, we embargoed a country for 30+ years because their refugees settled in a populous swing state. Take those same people and drop them off in TX and things would be completely different. Man, our politics are a mess. And don't get me started on Israel...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/