Brains........ *cough cough.

Oh, well that makes it all better than. And I'm sure if Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or any other of the world's great monsters had made apologies to their victims just prior to dying, all would be forgiven as well.

Tell that to Ramon Limon


/hot like Lana

Let him eat gay brains.

Kentucky Fried Panda: Tell that to Ramon Limon


/hot like Lana

Came for this (reference), leaving satisfied

ROBO-Jesus: Oh, well that makes it all better than. And I'm sure if Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or any other of the world's great monsters had made apologies to their victims just prior to dying, all would be forgiven as well.

castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

maybe more pinochet. (gasp, a RIGHT WING DICTATOR?)

Weekend at Fidel's

zephyy: castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

I agree that the scale of human suffering he caused was significantly lesser in terms of both numbers and severity, but that's not an excuse. Charles Manson isn't a nicer psychopath because he killed less people than John Wayne Gacy, and wasn't as disgusting as Jeffery Dahmer. Just as an individual committing a single murder is seen as disgusting by society, so should a dictatorship sentencing a single person to slave labour or unjust execution.

What really pisses me off about Castro is the fact that there's a whole bunch of 'leftists' (I dislike that term) who somehow think because the US was 'mean' to him and he long-windedly condemns the US, he's suddenly a good guy. Like Chomsky's early support of Pol Pot, there's too many idiots who think 'an enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

ROBO-Jesus: Oh, well that makes it all better than. And I'm sure if Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or any other of the world's great monsters had made apologies to their victims just prior to dying, all would be forgiven as well.

See if this article had been about Che Guevara you would have had a little creditability.

zephyy: ROBO-Jesus: Oh, well that makes it all better than. And I'm sure if Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or any other of the world's great monsters had made apologies to their victims just prior to dying, all would be forgiven as well.

castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

maybe more pinochet. (gasp, a RIGHT WING DICTATOR?)

Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

Most certainly. Castro had far fewer 'enemies' to clean up, and knowing that the international spotlight was upon him (especially in recent years), most political dissenters get sentences of a few years, combined with harassment and ostracization. There's also been plenty of instances of attempted refugees being shot or jailed. But as the article demonstrates, he still ran forced labour camps for quite some time, and was more than willing to throw in people whose lifestyles he disagreed with. If he was really sorry for that, he'd turn himself over to The Hague for justice.

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

I find it a bit odd that the thing you lament the most about a dictator being in power is not being able to buy stuff to support his economy.

zephyy: ROBO-Jesus: Oh, well that makes it all better than. And I'm sure if Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or any other of the world's great monsters had made apologies to their victims just prior to dying, all would be forgiven as well.

castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

maybe more pinochet. (gasp, a RIGHT WING DICTATOR?)

Maybe more comparable to your average American president?

ROBO-Jesus: Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

Most certainly. Castro had far fewer 'enemies' to clean up, and knowing that the international spotlight was upon him (especially in recent years), most political dissenters get sentences of a few years, combined with harassment and ostracization. There's also been plenty of instances of attempted refugees being shot or jailed. But as the article demonstrates, he still ran forced labour camps for quite some time, and was more than willing to throw in people whose lifestyles he disagreed with. If he was really sorry for that, he'd turn himself over to The Hague for justice.

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

I find it a bit odd that the thing you lament the most about a dictator being in power is not being able to buy stuff to support his economy.

I find it a bit odd that he's blaming Cuba for the embargo.

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

Castro's not preventing trade with the USA. It's the American government that's put an embargo on trade. Cuba would be more than happy to do business with us.

H31N0US:
I find it a bit odd that he's blaming Cuba for the embargo.

Well it is Castro's fault for not surrendering to the Americans years ago, so they could divvy his island up among the corporations and corrupt rich families who were squeezing every peso they could out of it during the pre-revolutionary era.

Not that that excuses the communists' human rights record, but there is a history there, they weren't rebelling against nothing.

Embargoes are very successful. In modern history, embargoes have always caused a peaceful change in government, rather than keeping a dictator in power and causing greater poverty.

Right?

"Mistakes were made, certain comrades got too excited over the constant victories of socialism and became too zealous. But we executed them, so that's okay now." - Stalin, every 5 years or so.

zephyy: castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

Bull. Crap. 300,000 dead, or 3,000,000; mass murder is still mass murder.

Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

In a word, NO.
Scumbag sonofabiatch directly or indirectly ordered the murder and/or torture (not in that order) of anyone who dissented or tried to defect. I have a close personal friend who was stationed down at Guantanamo Bay for a large chunk of the 60s and 70s, and he has repeatedly told me about how there was a constant stream of human traffic trying to either get onto or near the base, or at least get away out into the ocean. Men, women, women so pregnant they were ready to explode, and children. Every new moon, they would try to swim for it or cross the barbed wire electric fences. The patrol boats didn't just shoot the people, they would gig them or slice their Achilles tendons and then dump them back into the water for the tiger sharks to eat. Sometimes the guards would turn off the electric fences, and when people had reached the top, they would turn them back on again and electrocute them, then leave the bodies hanging there to rot as a warning to anyone else that tried.

For almost the entire 15 years that he was stationed there, he would repeatedly ask people why they risked such horrors to leave the "Communist Paradise", and they all said the exact same thing: "Anywhere has to be better than here!"

There is a reason why all the Cubans in South Florida and abroad hate Castro so very much, and are staunch Republicans in spite of the usual Democrat bend of Hispanics: They know. They know from personal experience or from that of friends and relatives what that Commie shiathole was really like, and they will never forget. It isn't because they want their land back, it's because of what they had to suffer.

If you can watch Hulu.com, watch this. (pops)

thespindrifter: zephyy: castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

Bull. Crap. 300,000 dead, or 3,000,000; mass murder is still mass murder.

Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

In a word, NO.
Scumbag sonofabiatch directly or indirectly ordered the murder and/or torture (not in that order) of anyone who dissented or tried to defect. I have a close personal friend who was stationed down at Guantanamo Bay

Ah the irony of climbing on the moral high horse. Would you care to take a stab at how many direct or indirect murders and tortures US leaders are responsible for?

Yet one is a villain to you, and the others are fine gentlemen.

Well, at least I don't have to worry about Rule #1

/obscure?
//probably not

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

Yeah, because pandering to the descendants of the robber barons kicked out of Cuba and various other "OMFG SACARRRREE COMMIES!!" types is soooo important.

Damn politicians. Grow the hell up. It was 50 years ago. Deal with it. Jessie Helms in in the ground.

phial: thespindrifter: zephyy: castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

Bull. Crap. 300,000 dead, or 3,000,000; mass murder is still mass murder.

Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

In a word, NO.
Scumbag sonofabiatch directly or indirectly ordered the murder and/or torture (not in that order) of anyone who dissented or tried to defect. I have a close personal friend who was stationed down at Guantanamo Bay

Ah the irony of climbing on the moral high horse. Would you care to take a stab at how many direct or indirect murders and tortures US leaders are responsible for?

Yet one is a villain to you, and the others are fine gentlemen.

5/10 "fine gentlemen" got you extra points.

phial: Ah the irony of climbing on the moral high horse. Would you care to take a stab at how many direct or indirect murders and tortures US leaders are responsible for?

Yet one is a villain to you, and the others are fine gentlemen.

Exactly where in my statement did you read that?? Oh right, nowhere, you just ASSumed, and like all assumptions, you are dead-ass wrong. The moral high horse is calling out ALL murderers. Just because I picked today to clarify the standing of one, does NOT mean that I have or ever will justify any of the others. Ever.

Make no mistake, I am very clear on just how many deaths, and really murders, our various leaders are responsible for. Kennedy. LBJ. farking Nixon. Ford not so very much. Yes, even Carter. Reagan. Bush. Oh yes, Mr. Clinton turned a blind eye to the 1.5 million deaths in Rwanda, while endorsing other "policing actions". farking Bush Jr., with his damned near depopulation of Iraq, shrugging his shoulders and glibly joking about the @ 30,000 people that died directly or indirectly in Iraq because of the invasion. And now the 'Great Leader of Hope and Change©™" who continues business as usual in Afghanistan.

Yes, they are all guilty, and probably of far worse than we will ever know in our lifetimes. The CIA alone is a farking meat grinder of international citizens, no matter what they may say in public about "no more assassinations".
Wait, hold on a sec, I hear something outside my doo

syberpud: 5/10 "fine gentlemen" got you extra points.

Not sure if that was a troll or not, so I responded anyway.

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

Wouldn't that be more ADM's fault, and not Castro?

ROBO-Jesus: Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

Most certainly. Castro had far fewer 'enemies' to clean up, and knowing that the international spotlight was upon him (especially in recent years), most political dissenters get sentences of a few years, combined with harassment and ostracization. There's also been plenty of instances of attempted refugees being shot or jailed. But as the article demonstrates, he still ran forced labour camps for quite some time, and was more than willing to throw in people whose lifestyles he disagreed with. If he was really sorry for that, he'd turn himself over to The Hague for justice.

blackhonda: The worst thin about Castro is he prevents trade with Cuba. I have Canadian friends who vacation there and we are missing a lot. Plus they make very Fine cigars we can't buy legally.

I find it a bit odd that the thing you lament the most about a dictator being in power is not being able to buy stuff to support his economy.

Arizona also runs forced labor camps. And other parts of the US have as well, on and off.

/No one can eat 50 eggs.

Psst, all you libtards that wear Che Shirts, Che was his right hand man.

voltOhm: Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Franco, Mao, and yes, Castro.

Doesn't matter who makes whatever flavor of Marxist shiat sandwich, it's still a shiat sandwich and it's always wrong.

I'm thinking you need to go back and reread your history books.

Oldiron_79: Psst, all you libtards that wear Che Shirts, Che was his right hand man.

Nah, Che was the sexy dude who killed for him. His right hand man was Kermit. Ms. Piggy was usually on the left. But that's hush-hush. Don't spread it around.

/The term libtard is self-conflicted.

phial: thespindrifter: zephyy: castro may have been an injustice dictator but he's not comparable to any of those people.

Bull. Crap. 300,000 dead, or 3,000,000; mass murder is still mass murder.

Timdesuyo: Pinochet dissapeared a whole shiat-ton of people. Did Castro? I mean, I know that the revolution wasn't exactly the least bloody thing in the world, but after that, didn't things settle down?

In a word, NO.
Scumbag sonofabiatch directly or indirectly ordered the murder and/or torture (not in that order) of anyone who dissented or tried to defect. I have a close personal friend who was stationed down at Guantanamo Bay

Ah the irony of climbing on the moral high horse. Would you care to take a stab at how many direct or indirect murders and tortures US leaders are responsible for?

Yet one is a villain to you, and the others are fine gentlemen.

You're right, the US is a terrible place, responsible for most of what is wrong in the world. The best apology you can make for our faults is to kill yourself.

Kentucky Fried Panda: /hot like Lana

Truckasaurus!

Oldiron_79: Psst, all you libtards that wear Che Shirts, Che was his right hand man.

So was Speedy Gonzales (that's because Castro thinks he real) Andele Speedy and Che

voltOhm: Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Franco, Mao, and yes, Castro.

Doesn't matter who makes whatever flavor of Marxist shiat sandwich, it's still a shiat sandwich and it's always wrong.

Dude, really?

/shaking my head

Timdesuyo: Arizona also runs forced labor camps. And other parts of the US have as well, on and off.

And the US has also condoned slaver; attacked democratic movements both at home and abroad; executed innocent people; allowed rampant abuse of the weak by the powerful; and practiced perhaps the most reprehensible foreign policy outside of the USSR, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Britain. These instances should all be condemned, and I condemn them. But there's still leagues of difference between a country like the US that has at least a semblance of a working, democratic government. It's not yet illegal for anyone to protest Arizona's forced labour camps, or the treatment of gays, or the military budget of the government. And, dammit, I think that counts for something.

As I mentioned in my [second?] post, I hate the attitude of "an enemy of my enemy..." Fidel Castro is an evil, asshole of a man. He committed crimes against humanity, no matter how 'mild' in comparison to the last century's more violent tyrants. For those crimes, he and his government should be condemned by everyone who cares about human rights, democracy, and justice. For those crimes, he should have been hanged long ago.

I think that coming out and saying "Hey, shiat went down that shouldn't have gone down" is a step forward.

Summercat: I think that coming out and saying "Hey, shiat went down that shouldn't have gone down" is a step forward.

You know what would be a more meaningful step forward? Stepping down from power; holding elections; establishing free speech, free press; releasing all the current political prisoners; stopping the secret police from harassing dissenters; giving your vast personal fortune back to the people you stole it from; going to the Hague to stand trial for your crimes. You know, an actual 'step'.

Talk is cheap. Especially for a guy who likes to drone on for hours and hours.

Tough call. Castro vs. Batista is a very sad choice of dictators to be stuck with. Not quite the Hitler vs. Stalin light being cast in some posts but not so very far from it. Looking back on some of the history, had I been a citizen of Cuba in them days I'dve likely cast a bullet-ridden vote for Castro as well, even if only for the sake of "regime change".

ROBO-Jesus: Timdesuyo: Arizona also runs forced labor camps. And other parts of the US have as well, on and off.

And the US has also condoned slaver; attacked democratic movements both at home and abroad; executed innocent people; allowed rampant abuse of the weak by the powerful; and practiced perhaps the most reprehensible foreign policy outside of the USSR, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Britain. These instances should all be condemned, and I condemn them. But there's still leagues of difference between a country like the US that has at least a semblance of a working, democratic government. It's not yet illegal for anyone to protest Arizona's forced labour camps, or the treatment of gays, or the military budget of the government. And, dammit, I think that counts for something.

As I mentioned in my [second?] post, I hate the attitude of "an enemy of my enemy..." Fidel Castro is an evil, asshole of a man. He committed crimes against humanity, no matter how 'mild' in comparison to the last century's more violent tyrants. For those crimes, he and his government should be condemned by everyone who cares about human rights, democracy, and justice. For those crimes, he should have been hanged long ago.

It's unlikely that the US will ever do anything directly to Castro anymore. We've farked up our topple-the-dictator nation building almost every time we've tried it, with the exception of Japan's rehabilitation, so I don't see the American people or Congress supporting military action against the Cuban government.

Here's the thing: what do we do with Cuba? We've been doing the embargo thing for decades now; I don't think it is destabilizing his government. It is probably contributing to the misery of the Cuban people in general, as embargoes don't exactly target individuals well.

Castro himself is ancient, and will probably die in the next decade or two. All the people involved in the so-called Revolution are probably not far away from retirement if they haven't done so already.

How do we move forward on this? It won't be long before the people running the government were not responsible for the killings and labor camps. Maintaining the embargo hasn't destabilized a government we don't like, and won't bring Castro to justice. Ending the embargo would improve the lives of the people on the island. While the government we don't like would probably take credit for that, is it better to care about improving an impoverished people?

I was born well after the Cuban Revolution and have lived in the southwestern US all my life, so I don't understand the visceral reaction that much. There are, and continue to be, many horrible, despotic, murderous regimes in the world; some of which the U.S. has supported either directly or indirectly. Cuba does not threaten us militarily and does not (as far as I know) support terrorism against the United States or its allies. It just seems that the current policies against Cuba is a continuation of the previous decades, and is extraordinarily ineffective.

IrishBlunder: Tough call. Castro vs. Batista is a very sad choice of dictators to be stuck with.

A horrible situation, and mainly thanks to the US.
MaskedBandit: Here's the thing: what do we do with Cuba? We've been doing the embargo thing for decades now; I don't think it is destabilizing his government. It is probably contributing to the misery of the Cuban people in general, as embargoes don't exactly target individuals well

You raise a lot of good points. The embargo of Cuba is thoroughly hypocritical when compared to the current trade relationship between the far more brutal government of the PRC and the US. But I'd disagree that embargoes in general don't work - they work very well, but it requires far more cooperation then has ever been achieved. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of Cuba's economy has been propped up by Canadian (and US, via) and EU tourism and exports. Likewise, North Korea and Burma's dictatorships, though far more isolated by Western countries, have been long funded and supported by China as a counter to potentially more western, democratic influence in the region. India has recently opened up more strategic talks with Burma's junta fearing that China will claim all the oil resources. It's actually quite sad, now that we've so thoroughly enriched the Chinese dictatorship that we've lost the ability to apply economic pressure to other countries. When the Darfur genocide was making news, most western countries threatened Sudan with sanctions; the Sudanese government was able to shrug its shoulders knowing that China would be more than happy to deal.

MaskedBandit: Ending the embargo would improve the lives of the people on the island. While the government we don't like would probably take credit for that, is it better to care about improving an impoverished people?

It's a difficult question. Our experiment with "strategic engagement" with China has sort of backfired on us; though standards of living have vastly improved in that country (at least for some), more significant democratic and structural reforms have yet to come to fruition. In fact, the emergent middle class has built rather solid ties to the CCP, gladly trading dissent for nicer apartments and luxury goods.

Remember also that the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied states was largely the result of widespread economic disorder; perestroika and glasnost were established in the hopes that they could reboot the economy. As conditions didn't get better, people from all walks of life became more and more willing to stand up to the government. If the West was, at the time, willing to take advantage of the situation to build factories in Russia, Ukraine, and East Germany in exchange for lax environmental and labour regulations and lower taxes, would the USSR ever have collapsed?

voltOhm: Doesn't matter who makes whatever flavor of Marxist shiat sandwich, it's still a shiat sandwich and it's always wrong

Hitler was a marxist ?!?

wow, can you godwin a godwin ?

MaskedBandit: Here's the thing: what do we do with Cuba?

nothing ?

leave them the fark alone ?
quit doing anything ?
open normal trade ?
treat them like any other country ?
why the fark does the US have to do anything ?

Timdesuyo: voltOhm: Hitler, Stalin, Chavez, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Franco, Mao, and yes, Castro.

Doesn't matter who makes whatever flavor of Marxist shiat sandwich, it's still a shiat sandwich and it's always wrong.

I'm thinking you need to go back and reread your history books.

Franco was a marxist ?!?

katerbug72: I went there back in '93. It was very eye opening. Those people are seriously poor. It was so sad to see. We went to San Antonio de Los Banos and went into one of their 'grocery stores'. There was almost nothing in it. It was heartbreaking. The tourist industry is the only real money these poor people seem to make. I'm all for supporting it.
Our tour bus hit a vulture and killed it. We had to go to the police (read: military) station to report it. We were there for an hour and I took a picture of a guy sitting in a chair and got in shiat for doing so. I guess you can't take pictures of the military there. It was an interesting trip and I'd go back in a heartbeat.

You went there during the worst of the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent withdrawal of its financial aid to Cuba. I went there in 2009 and had a very different experience. Yes, like most of South and Central America, Cuba is a much poorer country than Canada or the US or most Western countries, but their grocery stores are certainly not empty ! If you take the time to talk with them (did you ?) Cubans will openly talk about the terrible times they endured in the '90s. That is now mostly in the past, though as I said, they remain much poorer than Westen countries. Btw, they do like to blame the US embargo for all their still-numerous woes, but when pressed will usually admit that perhaps not all their troubles come form that; in fact, one even went so far as to complain about the constitutionally-guaranteed food and lodging (nobody starves or goes homeless) encouraging those who choose not to work.

One more thing: what makes you think that you can just photograph anyone like they are some kind of artifact ? that's just rude and you certainly deserved shiat for it. As a photographer, I always ask people's permission before photographing them, it's just common courtesy and in some places it is the law. If they say no, then I don't take the picture. Additionally, can you name any country where you could photograph someone at a police station ?