Fidel Castro Resigns

Monte Smith · February-19th-2008, 08:51 AM

Party in Miami.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7252109.stm

Uli · February-19th-2008, 09:02 AM

Gary Sisco · February-19th-2008, 09:26 AM

There's an end to every road.

You'll see.

Brian Olewnick · February-19th-2008, 09:30 AM

So I guess it wouldn't be a good time for, like, an election or something.

Chazro · February-19th-2008, 09:38 AM

Finally...now if someone would just put one behind Raul's ear, Justice will finally be served. Unfortunately, I've always felt that with the Castros out of the way Cuba would fall into Civil War, I hope and pray I'm wrong. Regardless...

QUE VIVA CUBA LIBRE!!!

larrycohen · February-19th-2008, 09:40 AM

Maybe this will mean an end to the pointless embargo.

steve(thelil) · February-19th-2008, 09:44 AM

Has he handed power over to his wife Hilario?

Gentle Giant · February-19th-2008, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrycohen

Maybe this will mean an end to the pointless embargo.

Yeah, bring on the cigars!

Castro may have been a dick, but so was the guy he knocked off. The US policy of isolating people we don't like caused more harm than good.

Gary Sisco · February-19th-2008, 10:09 AM

Esp since "we" aren't isolated from the others.

Americans are making huge money in Vietnam, for example.

I've always expected relations to normalize once the revolution/Bay of Pigs generation faded into history. The younger generations have a more reasonable take on things. It won't be all that long before American yuppies are sunbathing on Cuban beaches.

Scott Dolan · February-19th-2008, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrycohen

Maybe this will mean an end to the pointless embargo.

Nah, not with Raul in power.

Why is this in the Alley?

Uli · February-19th-2008, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Why is this in the Alley?

Monte's humor.

Al in NYC · February-19th-2008, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrycohen

Maybe this will mean an end to the pointless embargo.

That should have been ended decades ago, and has done much more harm than good...

...but it won't.

groover · February-19th-2008, 10:31 AM

Then the dictatorship of the proletariat in Cuba is finally over?

Monte Smith · February-19th-2008, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uli

Monte's humor.

His error, rather.

Gary Sisco · February-19th-2008, 11:12 AM

Raul's not exactly young.

On the US side of things, it's that generation of Cuban immigrants, for the most part, holding up normalization. Like Fidel and Raul, too, their day is nearly over. Their kids are less like them, their grandkids still less, and so on. The hating fades with the years.

steve(thelil) · February-19th-2008, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

Has he handed power over to his wife Hilario?

Sorry for the thoughtless joke. Fidel's wife's name is Hilaria.

Jazzzoline · February-19th-2008, 02:36 PM

Tourists were asked "the real Castro situation" by the cubans. They would answer "don't you know". "We want the real story".
Sad.

Monte Smith · February-19th-2008, 04:53 PM

Who would have thought 50 years ago that Castro would one day doff his trademark olive drab for swank Adidas athletic gear?

Nice.

Great.

jesus marion joseph · February-19th-2008, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Who would have thought 50 years ago that Castro would one day doff his trademark olive drab for swank Adidas athletic gear?

That's from their Swanky Despot line.

GoodSpeak · February-19th-2008, 06:41 PM

Fidel maybe gone, but his influence isn't.

Monte Smith · February-19th-2008, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Fidel maybe gone, but his influence isn't.

Oh please. We have sad new revolutionistas to deal with.

Crapper and verse.

Fidel Castro is like the feelgood station on my FM dial: the best of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. Meaning the oldies.

crawjo · February-19th-2008, 07:30 PM

He was a great revolutionary, a man whose sins have been amplified while his accomplishments have been ignored.

Anyone who wishes to take stock of Castro's legacy should be required to look at what he did in Angola in the 1970s and 1980s, where he helped to defeat P.W. Botha and his despicable Total Strategy, dealing a crippling blow to South African apartheid rule (while the U.S. was still supporting it, of course), and effectively creating the conditions that allowed for the emergence of an independent Namibia. There are a lot of people in this world who owe Castro a debt of gratitude, and rightly so.

GoodSpeak · February-19th-2008, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Oh please. We have sad new revolutionistas to deal with.

Crapper and verse.

Fidel Castro is like the feelgood station on my FM dial: the best of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. Meaning the oldies.

Um...huh?

You going somewhere with this Monte or are you just browsing, you know, for those big bad evil Liberals?

They're everywhere, Monte...look out! One is right behind you!

Pedantic Wretch · February-19th-2008, 11:34 PM

At the risk of 'pulling a Wozniak' (although I would like to think that Steve Bell is a wittier cartoonist than anything he can dredge up):

gonzo · February-20th-2008, 04:07 AM

i tend to agree with crawjo's point of view. the masses live at a much higher standard of living than they did under the bautista/mafia regime.they eat they are educated they receive government funded health care. these simply did not exist under the previous regime.

Lois Gilbert · February-20th-2008, 06:10 AM

Cuban jazz great says Castro's resignation won't lead to change
13 hours ago

NEW YORK - Cuban jazz musician Paquito D'Rivera expressed skepticism at Fidel Castro's resignation Thursday, calling the man who ruled the island for a half-century an "international buffoon" and saying he expects it will have no effect on opening up Cuba's communist system.

"Castro's resignation is absurd," D'Rivera said, likening it to the awarding of the Noble Peace Prize in 1994 to Yasser Arafat. "I find it tremendously funny, and I don't think it will make absolutely any difference.

"I'm not being pessimistic but fixing things with (Castro's allies) inside is hypocrisy," said the legendary saxophonist and clarinet player, who left Cuba in 1981. "Swapping him for his brother is the same thing."

Castro's younger brother Raul has been acting president since Fidel stepped aside provisionally in July 2006 after emergency intestinal surgery.

Prize-winning Cuban writer Mayra Montero, who lives in Puerto Rico, said she thinks Cuba began changing long before Castro's announcement, when Raul took over.

Fidel "has retired from the day-to-day operations but his opinions will continue to have influence as the country's continuing undisputed leader, be it actively or in the shadows," said the 55-year-old author, whose novel "Almendra" ("Almond") was chosen by The New York Times as one of the best books of 2007.

"He carries so much weight in the country that his retirement won't be possible until he's dead."

http://canadianpress.google.com/arti...g0u8493KxE9FpQ

Monte Smith · February-20th-2008, 08:21 AM

Just think what Castro could have accomplished if he had more time.

Brian Olewnick · February-20th-2008, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonzo

i tend to agree with crawjo's point of view. the masses live at a much higher standard of living than they did under the bautista/mafia regime.

Well, yeah, at least that portion of the "masses" he didn't have murdered or imprisoned.

But those are minor matters....

Uli · February-20th-2008, 09:29 AM

I have some awareness of his dictatorial imprisonments and other methods to neutralize opposition. I am drawing a relative blank on the murdered part. Can you expand a bit, Ollie.

Brian Olewnick · February-20th-2008, 09:46 AM

Sources are going to vary widely depending largely on their political slant. The execution figures I've seen range from 14,000 to 102,000. In many ways, not dissimilar to arguments about numbers of Iraqis murdered by US forces. It's annoying to argue numbers when it comes to murder, though. One is enough for me to have nothing but contempt for a person.

Anyway, this from wiki:

Thousands of political opponents to the Castro regime have been killed, primarily during the first decade of his leadership.^[132]^[133] Some Cubans labeled "counterrevolutionaries", "fascists", or "CIA operatives" were also imprisoned in poor conditions without trial.^[134]^[135] Military Units to Aid Production, or UMAPs, were labor camps established in 1965 to confine "social deviants" including homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses to work "counter-revolutionary" influences out of certain segments of the population.^[136] The camps were closed in 1967 in response to international outcries.^[137] Professor Marifeli Pérez Stable, a Cuban immigrant and former Castro supporter has said that "There were thousands of executions, forty, fifty thousand political prisoners. The treatment of political prisoners, with what we today know about human rights and the international norms governing human rights ... it is legitimate to raise questions about possible crimes against humanity in Cuba."^[138]
Castro acknowledges that Cuba holds political prisoners, but argues that Cuba is justified because these prisoners are not jailed because of their political beliefs, but have been convicted of "counter-revolutionary" crimes, including bombings. Castro portrays opposition to the Cuban government as illegitimate, and the result of an ongoing conspiracy fostered by Cuban exiles with ties to the United States or the CIA. .