Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Saturday November 26 2016, @12:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the west-triumphs dept.

Fidel Castro's death has been announced by Cuban state television:

Cuba's former president Fidel Castro, one of the world's longest-serving and most iconic leaders, has died aged 90. His younger brother and successor as president Raul Castro announced the news on state television.

Castro toppled the government in 1959, introducing a Communist revolution. He defied the US for decades, surviving many assassination plots. His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. Critics saw him as a dictator.

Ashen and grave, President Castro told the nation in an unexpected late night broadcast on state television that Fidel Castro had died and would be cremated later on Saturday. "The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (03:29 GMT Saturday)," he said. "Towards victory, always!" he added, using a revolutionary slogan. A period of official mourning has been declared on the island until 4 December, when his ashes will be laid to rest in the south-eastern city of Santiago.

Also at Bloomberg (world leaders react), Washington Post, NYT, The Guardian, CNN, NPR, WSJ, PBS, and Reuters. Editorials at the Miami Herald and Daily Beast.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:18PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:18PM (#433197)

    I have never heard anything bad about his regime, but it seems pretty stupid that he did not hand the reigns off to someone else before he died of old age (how much work was he able to do as a 89 year old man?). And it seems fairly stupid to hand the reigns over to someone who could die of old age tomorrow.

    It paints a picture of a dictator who cares more about his personal power than of the people he is supposed to be leading.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by damnbunni on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:26PM

    by damnbunni (704) on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:26PM (#433198) Journal

    Fidel handed the country to Raul Castro temporarily in 2006, and permanently in 2008.

    I'm sure Fidel served as an advisor as he was able, but his health wouldn't let him do much even if Raul wanted to consult with him about things.

    If Raul kicks the bucket the presidency will go to his VP, who I know nothing about, but is in his mid-50s (Miguel Díaz-Canel).

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 26 2016, @03:29PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday November 26 2016, @03:29PM (#433239) Journal

    Never heard anything bad?? Cuban-Americans vehemently disagree. They're the ones who had everything stripped from them in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. They were the ones hogging up all of Cuba's wealth and impoverishing the rest of the country, and deserved losing what they had stolen themselves, but to be stripped of everything and invited to leave is possibly going too far. But then, that's what often happens in a revolution, and they played a large part in bringing it upon themselves.

    The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was very bad. Damn near started Nuclear War. Castro was a young, hotblooded fool when he led Cuba into that mess. He didn't change his basic attitude of course, but he learned that was way too confrontational and the wrong way to fight his war against capitalism, and thereafter was more circumspect.

    Then there was the late 1970s Mariel Boatlift. Cuba dumped their economic troubles on the US, encouraged over 100,000 economic refugees to cross the sea to Florida. That was bad enough, but Cuba also turned loose their very worst, most violent prisoners and mental basket cases and mixed them in with the refugees. An episode like that casts doubt on the government's economic policies. If Castro's goal was to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism, that boatlift was a huge fail.

    Getting all friendly with enemies of the US needs to be done with delicacy and discrimination. Perhaps Iran was undeservedly slandered with that Axis of Evil label, but North Korea probably should not have been friended. If anyone should know the perils of Nuclear gamesmanship, it ought to be Castro.

    It's pretty hard for any regime not to make any major blunders over a half century.

    As to Castro's goal of championing Socialism or Communism over Capitalism, that is at best a draw. Yes, he has a point about crony capitalism. It is bad and unfair. His answer was to overthrow it, rather than reform it. Was there a better answer? How have the Socialists handled the problems with their system? They seem to have made their version of Socialism work well enough for it to survive. The disagreement will continue, for now.

    • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday November 26 2016, @04:21PM

      by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday November 26 2016, @04:21PM (#433273)

      We have some very different opinions, I guess. I see no possible way to allow the ex-ruling elite stay in the country. It would cost way to much financially, and in good will, to keep them safe. And protecting them from the masses would be paramount to imprisoning them.

      As for the Missile Crisis, it really did not seem like America was going to allow an independent communist country to exist so close to their borders.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:33PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:33PM (#433363) Journal

        The ruling elites have to start reform well before revolution breaks out. If they instead quash reform, go so far as to use force to end strikes and demonstrations and the like, they're stoking the hate and trapping themselves. Once mass violence breaks out, then exile or death may indeed be the only options, as you say.

        But things don't always turn violent. Gorbachev didn't have to leave when the Soviet Union fell, as he didn't try resorting to force to hang on, and he was one of the victims of the putsch, and had been trying to reform. Even the perps, the Gang of Eight, didn't have to leave, though many did spend 18 months in prison when their putsch collapsed.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:54PM (#433369)

        Yes. It was clear to Castro that disempowering the Aristocrats was essential to disassemble the existing Oligarchy.
        Those folks were what was propped up the murderous monster Fulgencio Batista.

        In your previous post, you said
        I have never heard anything bad about his regime

        Cuba is a pretty impressive place on several levels. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
        Under the Castro brothers, homelessness in Cuba is essentially zero.

        Cuba has a very high literacy rate.
        They have gratis education--as far as your abilities can take that.
        Cuba is especially great when it come to producing doctors.

        They have very effective gratis healthcare which concentrates on prevention and early intervention via high availability.
        They export medical personnel in order to generate cash.
        N.B. Cuba has repeatedly offered medical personnel to USA e.g. after Hurricane Katrina.
        USA.gov has consistently rejected those offers of help and instead lets its (most impoverished) people suffer.

        When you look at the participation rates in Cuban elections and compare that to the huge number of USAians who think "Why bother?", you realize how much more democratic Cubans think their system is than do USAians.

        Some Soylentils have used the term "dictator".
        I see Castro as being like Tito in Yugoslavia:
        He -could- intervene any time he thought his vision of the country was being threatened, but mostly he let things play out.

        .
        All of that said, Cuba has really fallen down in its promise of "socialism".
        While I commend them for not allowing megacorporations or even chain store operations, they -do- allow an exploitation of workers via Capitalist ownership of (small, single location) businesses.
        They have NOT made a significant effort to promote the notion of worker-owned cooperatives the way that e.g. Italy has using Italy's Maracora law. [google.com]
        (I have this same critique of Chavista Venezuela.)

        Cuban political prisons have also been mentioned in this (meta)thread.
        ...though, if it would be interesting to look at the number among USA's prison population of 2.4 million who didn't take other people's property nor pose a physical threat to someone else and compare that to the number in Cuban prisons for thoughtcrime.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Sunday November 27 2016, @12:15AM

      by gawdonblue (412) on Sunday November 27 2016, @12:15AM (#433460)

      The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (when Cuba installed Soviet missiles for its mutually-assured defence) - was that before or after the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion (when the CIA trained and funded a counter-revolutionary invasion of Cuba)?

      I doubt the mangy buzzard will ever learn from its foreign-interfering mistakes.

      But who knows, maybe Trump will be a positive influence. Most of the world lives in hope.