Two wrongs don’t make a right. Evil U.S policy does not excuse Evil Soviet policy. Establishment support of Right Wing Dictators does not justify outsider support of “Left Wing” Dictators.
I have always despised this trendy, intellectually vacuous, knee-jerk reactionary apologism and admiration for Fidel Castro in the American Left.
It’s stupid. It’s NOT Reality Based.
Cuban Health Care is great? Oh wowww, slowwwclap. What a low bar. Newsflash: ANYBODY’S health care system looks great compared to America’s. Healthcare under Stalin? FANTASTIC…..compared to us. Same with North Korea, when your doctor isn’t starving I guess. Christ, I’m pretty sure the fucking Dark Eldar of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have better health care than us. That doesn’t impress me, and it shouldn’t impress you. Our system has sucked for 100 years, we know this. It shouldn’t lead good progressive minded people who would never tolerate a dictator ruling over them for five fucking seconds to hug tyrannical totalitarian jerkoffs like Fidel Castro, mmmkayyyy?
I don’t care what a cool freedom fighter he was against previous totalitarian jerkoff Batista. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. You know who else was a badass guerilla freedom fighter? Kim il Sung. That’s why many ethnic Koreans still suffering discrimination in Japan genuinely admired dude, you know. I’m sure Kim il Sung did wonders for Korean literacy rates too.
The internet is still illegal in Cuban homes for crying out loud.
"Cuba is, of course, an authoritarian, undemocratic country and I hope very much, as soon as possible, it becomes a democratic country," Sanders said.
ZOMG was that so fucking hard? Was it? Because Bernie sure made it seem hard by the time he finally begrudgingly spit that out. Oh no i forgot, you can’t LEAD with that part of the answer because then you suddenly lose your Left Wing membership ID card. “Oh no, Bernie didn’t stroke Fidel, I guess he’s a fascist we can’t trust to fight for a living wage after all!” Oh no, you HAVE to DEFEND Castro because that’s totally your job to defend Castro because Castro totally needs Vermont senators defending him. Oh yes, let’s immediately start reciting the long sad litany of U.S sins in Latin America because that totally excuses Castro’s obvious Leninist Soviet bloc bullshit.
Well screw it, at least he finally got around to saying something unkind about Castro’s regime…..
"But on the other hand it would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in healthcare, they are sending doctors all over the world.”
……..until he felt the need to defend it again immediately after JESUS CHRIST BERNIE C’MON MANNNN
and sending doctors all over the world? So the hell what? What country in the history of mankind has been so screwed up that they can’t produce DOCTORS? ISIS has doctors and they’d probably be willing to send some overseas if they weren’t busy getting their asses kicked by the entire world. FFS.
And no, this is not a Hillary diary so keep me out of your goddamn Jihad, people. Unlike some, I’m not actually gullible enough to believe her hilariously half-assed attempts to outflank him from the Left. I’m sure she’ll find some weak-ass pretext to accuse him of supporting the Iraq War next lol. OH YEAH, FOTS SHIRED, I’M PISSING OFF EVVVVVVERYBODY ON DKOS TONIGHT!
This is a Castro-is-a-asshat-dictator-get-off-his-dizznick-plz diary because this has been a pet peeve of mine for a long, long time. For the record.
Here, have an excerpt from Nikita Khrushchev’s letter to Castro, turning down his brilliant progressive policy proposal for GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR:
Dear Comrade Fidel Castro, I find your proposal to be wrong, even though I understand your reasons.
We have lived through a very grave moment, a global thermonuclear war could have broken out. Of course the United States would have suffered enormous losses, but the Soviet Union and the whole socialist bloc would have also suffered greatly. It is even difficult to say how things would have ended for the Cuban people. First of all, Cuba would have burned in the fires of war. Without a doubt the Cuban people would have fought courageously but, also without a doubt, the Cuban people would have perished heroically. We struggle against imperialism, not in order to die, but to draw on all of our potential, to lose as little as possible, and later to win more, so as to be a victor and make communism triumph.
Alternate History Nerd moment: Did you know that America had 27,000 warheads during the Cuban Missile Crisis vs the USSR’s 3,000+? Vast majority of those on short range rockets btw. Yep, you don’t really get into Mutually Assured Destruction Mad Max territory until the 70s. America would lose oh…...50 or 100 million people……but Russian would most assuredly be a dead language from a land that looks like the Glowing Sea from Fallout 4. Curtis LeMay would have fun. Fidel would not.
Yeah, I know Castro has explained this away as “I was young!” but he was still doing this into the 1980s until the USSR was finally like “Dude, shut up” —
In the early 1980s, according to newly released documents, Fidel Castro was suggesting a Soviet nuclear strike against the United States, until Moscow dissuaded him by patiently explaining how the radioactive cloud resulting from such a strike would also devastate Cuba.
www.nytimes.com/...
So yeah. I don’t like Castro and neither should you.
(BTW, irony of ironys, I’m actually wearing a Che shirt while wearing this. HA! What a world. Not exactly a fan of Che either — he’s a cautionary tale about poverty radicalizing people into extremism imho — but it’s a good looking shirt lol. My dad said it was either that or a Biggie shirt. I was pissed I didn’t get a Biggie shirt but this thing has lasted ten years. Che was more hardcore about launching the nukes btw, unlike Castro he was willing to enthusiastically sacrifice the Cuban people on a altar of nuclear fire for “Communism”. IIRC the Soviets refusal to launch was one of the major reasons he finally started criticizing them. Idiot.)