Fidel Castro dead

[Brian37]

That's your defense? People close to him liked him? People close to him were loyal to him? Yeah, surely you couldn't say that about any other brutal dictator figure in history...

Do you know how many innocent deaths are attributed to the Castro regime? Or what sort of human rights atrocities went on in Castro's UMAP labor camps? Or how stifled the Cuban population's rights were? Even if you attempt to excuse those things, he was still an awful leader. Cuba's communist economy simply did not function. It was awful and the only way it kept itself afloat was because the USSR was funneling millions into the regime. When the Soviets fell, a significant portion of the population was starved or malnourished. 

Am I supposed to ignore all that and respect him because he stuck it to the U.S.?

QFT - those that respect Castro are deluded in equal measures if anything else:

Just to remove any misguided admiration people have for Cuba's dearly departed:

"'According to Castro’s own estimates, at one point there were as many as 15,000 political prisoners in Cuba. One of the darkest periods of the repression occurred in 1963 when Castro approved “Operation P,” named because of a black “P” (for pimps, prostitutes, pederasts) emblazoned on the uniforms of those arrested. The operation saw Castro’s newly formed secret police sweep through Havana targeting homosexuals, religious believers, and “deviants”—often no more than men with long hair and blue jeans. Those rounded up were placed in UMAPs (Military Units to Help Production), a euphemism for concentration camps, and forced to do hard labor. According to the poet Armando Valladares, imprisoned by Castro in 1960, “there have been few examples of repression of homosexuals in history as virulent as in Cuba.”'

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...at-90.html

Lets be careful when talking about CASTRO and religion, while he DID go after the religious he DID NOT go after his religious supporters, BIG DIFF. But, like Castro and Putin they don't like gays either just like Pence doesn't. Castro, like Stalin had a religious education, so they both learned from biblical authoritarianism, even if one wants to claim they were atheists.

[account_inactive]

[cont from page 8]

Not to mention, a certain MSP was caught posting pro-IRA messages on his social media.

[Autumnlicious]

Fidel Castro is dead.

My world has not changed.

Burma Shave.

[abaris]

He is about 32 years old now.  If CIA set about assassinating him right away, we can expect he would die in as little as 58 years.

What many people fail to realize is that Kim's realm isn't even communist in the sense of the old regimes. It's a classic absolutistic hereditary monarchy, drawing heavily from Korean mythology to justify it's existence. The Juche-System, which is at the base of the Kim's rule, doesn't even have ties to Marxism. It's something entirely different and - if anything - remotely comparable to our feudal systems of old. Probably a bit closer to ancient asian kingdoms.

[Brian37]

And that stupid fuck went on twitter and cheered his death. That stupid fuck doesn't get it. A western leader DOES NOT have to like a despot, but they DO have to understand global diplomacy. Trump is now conducting global diplomacy on twitter? Holy fuck he is treating the planet like a fucking XBox game.

WHAT A STUPID FUCK.

[account_inactive]

He is about 32 years old now.  If CIA set about assassinating him right away, we can expect he would die in as little as 58 years.

What many people fail to realize is that Kim's realm isn't even communist in the sense of the old regimes. It's a classic absolutistic hereditary monarchy, drawing heavily from Korean mythology to justify it's existence. The Juche-System, which is at the base of the Kim's rule, doesn't even have ties to Marxism. It's something entirely different and - if anything - remotely comparable to our feudal systems of old. Probably a bit closer to ancient asian kingdoms.

Most of us know North Korea isn't really communist.

But Kim Jong-un, his family and all the higher-ups working with him are still assholes.

[Pat Mustard]

Who is this Corbyn?

A man too left-wing even for me.

A man so far to the left he's to the right of such exremists as John Maynard Keynes and Aneurin Bevan.

[Brian37]

What many people fail to realize is that Kim's realm isn't even communist in the sense of the old regimes. It's a classic absolutistic hereditary monarchy, drawing heavily from Korean mythology to justify it's existence. The Juche-System, which is at the base of the Kim's rule, doesn't even have ties to Marxism. It's something entirely different and - if anything - remotely comparable to our feudal systems of old. Probably a bit closer to ancient asian kingdoms.

Most of us know North Korea isn't really communist.

But Kim Jong-un, his family and all the higher-ups working with him are still assholes.

Yea that is like arguing who was worse, Hitler or Stalin. Yea, China doesn't really like North Korea as much as they used to but NK acts as a buffer to South Korea so they put up with them. But the other reason the put up with NK is that they don't want a North Korean refugee problem if there were a war. North Korea is not communist, it is it's own brand of totalitarian state. 

As with Stalin and Castro, North Korea, even with their different styles are still authoritarian states, but Hitchens did rightfully point out that the god character of the bible was a "celestial dictator'. So when western theists claim atheists love these monsters, that is simply absurd. Stalin and Castro and North Korea are simply different worships of a state, their own religions, of party and or family.

[Rev. Rye]

You know, I remember reading that Conservapedia decided he had died sometime between July 2006 and December 2009 and decided to fake his still being alive for some reason. Surprisingly, the news that he actually did die didn't make it to the front page.

They are some of the dumbest 'tards in existence.  Drumpfucks all, I'm sure!

Andrew Schlafly certainly is. And even when there were other candidates, he preferred Trump to everyone else in the clown car.

[Full Circle]

WILL YA' LL STOP!!

Answer me this: If Castro had been so evil, why after half century of trying to kill him couldn't the US find one person in Cuba who would betray him?

Yes he threw the racketeers out of Cuba, and I'm sure they didn't go voluntarily.  Do you believe all the bullcrap about spreading democracy the uS puts out? You don't think they maybe have a reason to vilify a socialist guy with the balls to say hell no we not paying no debt and to tell other third world countries they don't have to pay the west for being independent. I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that you think such a man is evil.

Cuba doesn’t really have anything that the US wants, white sandy beaches =/= oil reserves. No real need to invade or to assassinate. The only ones suffering are the 8 million Cubans that are still on the island. 

Castro is, or was, a tyrant. Here is a biography http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-w...86483.html that may change your mind. 

Excerpts:

"He also was a ruthless dictator, the Maximum Leader who reneged on his promise of free elections, executed thousands of opponents, imprisoned tens of thousands, installed a Communist regime and made his island a pawn in the Cold War. His alliance with the Soviet Union brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.”


"Roundups of dissidents continued regularly through the final years of Castro’s rule. He might ease the pressure occasionally for public-relations purposes — several hundred prisoners were released in advance of Pope John Paul II’s visit to the island in January 1998 — but inevitably resume when the spotlight moved elsewhere.


“Cuba remains a Latin American anomaly: an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent,” the independent group Human Rights Watch observed in 2008. “Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law.”

Some recent images of the “wonderful” life Cubans now lead. Photos not mine. 
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=...nref=story