First of all, the Dude is not dead yet. He has outlasted 10 American Presidents and don't be surprised if he outlasts this chump. Secondly I read a story today where a dissident said Fidel had "up to" 300 political prisoners. Then I thought about Gitmo and it struck me. We are worse than Fidel and we don't even face the overwhelming treat he faces. I think the human debris in Miami will be smiling out of the other sides of their mouths in a couple of months when he makes a full recovery.

Pedro

"Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation" by Alexei Yurchak.

It's about how people repeated Marxist-Leninist propaganda in form but then carried out a rather different agenda in practice, until one day the divergence between ideology and reality became so wide, the Marxist-Leninist system suffered a catastrophic implosion.

I don't know much about Cuba, but my impression has always been that if Washington just told the Miami Cubans (I picture that hideous Ileana Ros-Lehtan (sp?) and Elian's screeching drama queen cousin) to go pound sand and pursued a Glastnost like policy--tourism and trade-- that would be best for Cuba and for Cuban-American relations in the long run. If the Limbaugh's and Krauthammer's had to accept the fact that Fidel was in charge of a healthier, freer Cuba, and if they choked on that, so much the better.

...has always been ridiculous. But that doesn't change the fact that Castro puts reporters in jail for being critical of his regime. It doesn't change the fact that he and Che executed lots of harmless people when they took power. It doesn't change the fact that he's a dictator in charge of a totalitarian regime.

With all the terrible things our country did and still does, you're able to criticize it and you're free to leave it without fear of persecution. American liberals (of which I am one) should have the courage to call a spade a spade (or in this case a totalitarian dictator a totalitarian dictator). Those liberals who have anything but disdain for Castro make their criticisms of this administration empty and impotent.

I grew up hearing about how horrible Fidel was, how terrible Communism was, what a travesty it was that the Cuban exiles in Miami had lost everything. As I got a little older I began to wonder why these Cuban exiles could all come to the US but the Haitians (the nation next to it with a severely repressive and murderous regime) couldn't. I also wondered why the ethnic mix in Cuba (meaning many people of obvious African descent) was so different from the largely "white" Cubans who left.

Most importantly, it was very difficult (this was very much the pre-internet era) to get an idea of whar Cuba was REALLY like in the pre-Fidel era.

I have traveled to the island twice since 2002, and despite the fact that it is led by the same head of state since 1959 I found the people as a whole very willing to talk openly about what they do and don't like about their country (I speak Spanish, so I wasn't getting an interpreter's whitewash). Many want to leave the island, but most want to take their political system to the next level. Under the Fidel regime, a country where the majority were illiterate and without health care has been lifted to a country where education is free and mandatory to age 16, where literacy is above 95%, and where EVERYONE has basic healthcare. There is also not the segregation against the Afro-Cubans that was rampant before 1959. In short, this is a country where the basic educational and healthcare needs are available to all, where it will be very easy to become more democratized after the leadership changes.

Most Americans really do not understand that many of the shortages of food and medicines in Cuba occur not because of the political system, but because of the US sanctions against trade since the revolution. You see no US brands in the markets, tourist or local. I truly believe that if the US had lifted the embargo early on, Fidel would have been replaced long ago (and not with the fossils in Miami). As it is, any problem the country has is always blamed on US sanctions, and not on Fidel's regime.

You also don't see Fidel's face plastered eveywhere like you do in many other dictatorships. As dictators go, he is one of the more benevolent, meaning overall the total standard of living and quality of life has improved for the MAJORITY of Cubans. The exiles in the initial exodus were the elites who in conjuction with the Mafia controlled what was essentially a plantation system. They didn't give a damn about the common people in Cuba and still don't. Because of their political lobbying in the US Congress over the years sanctions have been maintained through ten US presidents, Democratic as well as Republican, causing hardships for the Cuban people. It is now a stupid dick-wagging contest rather than any kind of political statement.

In all, Cuba is not perfect, and I don't want to live there, but if I had to choose between it and many of the other so-called democratic countries in the Carribbean (where poverty and disease and great disparities between the elites and the masses are scandalous) I'd choose Cuba.

What a sight for sore eyes your post was.

I’m no big fan of Fidel, and his passing won’t upset me that much when he’s gone. After all, he locks people up without benefit of trial, let alone accusations, he intimidates the press, in the past he’s exported young Cuban soldiers to wars that they had no business fighting in, he’s lied to and manipulated his people, often against their best interests and betrayed many of the ideals he once espoused, and as his star wanes he seems bent on installing his brother as the new leader. Ok, Ok… we here in 2006 America don’t have a lot of room to talk about other country’s leadership, but still an end to the Castro stalemate is inevitable and I for one sadly, am not optimistic. A Cuba that could keep the best parts of the revolution, the highest literacy in the western hemisphere, the high number of doctors and professionals and the relative lack of racism amongst other things, while opening up to America would be a triumph. A strong Cuba, a worker’s Cuba that survived and prospered and kept its identity and remembered its past, good and bad would be a beacon in Central America and the Caribbean, a balance and a counterweight against the US and the drug cartels and the big corporations. But it won’t happen. The Cubans that come after Castro will try to carry on, they may dream of a Chinese soft landing with economic growth and the remnants of one party rule, but they don’t have the economic heft to stand alone and it will collapse quickly, and once the money from the US starts to flow into this wonderful and very poor country it will be “welcome to the wild, wild west, 90 miles from Miami”. Drugs, crime, casinos and a poor but highly educated population that will work for cable TV and IPods, what a great new “market” eh? They’ll sell the cool old cars and “renovate “and “gentrify” the old quarters of Havana and the money will pour in and the new masters will do their best to eradicate everything that was good about the revolution. Many Cubans will fight to keep the hard victories they’ve won, they’re smart and they’re proud and they may not succumb immediately, but in the end they’ll be buried under the torrent of “culture” and “free trade” and before long the block leader and the female doctor will be happy enough to have their jobs at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, and when the shift is over they can always go home and watch “Cuban Idol” on TV. “Revolution or death” my ass! What a shame.