I'm sure the Cuban-American community has a lot to do with it, but that's not the whole picture. The other huge variable is that countries like China and Vietnam did change leaders before they reached some sort of reconciliation with the US. Countries like North Korea and Cuba, which are still not reconciled, did not. (And I don't think passing power to a son or brother in these cases can be seen as "new leadership".) I doubt the US would have reconciled with Mao Zedong or with Ho Chi Min, but it was much easier to reach some kind of arrangement with their successors. New leadership -even if the system was still in place- made it much easier for both sides. I expect that the US will be much more likely to reconcile with Cuba as soon as the Castro family is out of the picture, and with North Korea when the Kim family is out of the picture.
A lot of ignorance on the part of Ozzie and on the part of many posters on this thread too. Castro and the beloved Che had a lot of political dissidents imprisoned and murdered. They weren't murdered because they were part of the Batista regime. Anybody that had an idea counter to the revolution was imprisioned. Yeah, Castro is no Hitler, but he is a totalitarian dictator who had people murdered and also instituted a systematic surveillance program including the reporting of anitgovernment activities and comments by one's children.
yeah, in other words, he was a typical dictator. nothing unique there. millions of people have lived, suffered under, fled from, and died under such regimes. that's pretty much standard operating procedures for dictators. however, I would put people like Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot - dudes who've killed upwards of several million people in a separate category.
Castro is just another two bit dictator, not even worthy to untie the sandals of one of these hall-of-famers:
here are the top 10: of course, some of these guys had more material to work with. perhaps a per-capita comparison would yield more accurate results.
That's my biggest gripe with the ranking. Plus, as far as I can see, most of those on the list were killing foreigners - a true measure of a dictator's horribleness is how many of his own people he kills.
yeah, that would be democide (sorry Demosthenes, it's not my word), and I agree with you. a true measure of a dictator's evilness is how many of their own people they kill.
Why am I suddenly reminded of this [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFtkJd8w5UQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFtkJd8w5UQ[/ame]
thus my conclusion earlier, that in life, sex and money are both undefeated. the US reconciled with the greatest mass murderer (by any definition you may choose to define that) because China was a huge country with almost limitless money-making potential for US corporations. Cuba, not so much.
which is why it bothers me when people ignorantly denigrate my name's sake, the great Hun and put him up there with Hitler. the saying "to the right of Attila the Hun" is especially ignorant.
Right. I forgot about the handshake. I kept thinking that the opening of China happened later, but yeah, it did of course all begin with Mao still in power and his meeting with Nixon. So, maybe there's hope yet for Castro.
I'm sorry Alberto, but that's a straw man post. The only person up to the time of your post who mentioned Batista was me. And in my post I made no sort of claim that the only people that Castro had imprisoned were those who were a part of the Batista regime. I simply pointed out the truth that Batista was killing his own citizens at a faster clip than Castro. And that if Castro had agreed to be in the US' pocket as Bastista had, US administrations would be singing a much different tune about him. I still find it amazing that the people who are so wide-eyed about Castro act as though he took over a paradise and bastion of justice and equality. Castro took over from a murderous kleptomaniac that had no problem putting Cubans down like dogs and lining his pockets with the blood money. Acting as if Cuban history begins/ends with Castro is part of the problem here.
Great, attitudes like this diminish the human condition. Oh he's only the run of the mill dictator he only killed 100,000 of his own people. Anyone that murders political dissidents, spy's on his own people, limits freedoms and squashes free speech is a tyrant. He diminishes us all regardless of the small number of lives he takes or stifles.
Dude you like to jump to conclusions and are really irritating. Batista was a dictator, he also had people killed, including my grand uncle who was an opposing politician, but the reality is that your facts are screwy. Castro had a lot more people killed than Batista. As my dad told me, if he had to choose between a lesser of two evils, you could live a normal life if you stayed out of politics. Castro adversely impacted the Cuban people much more systemically than Batista did for what it's worth.
I think part of the measure of an evil dictator is not just how many people they kill but also how much their regime interferes in the lives of every single citizen under their power.
This is such an important point. I believe that only people that have lived under a government that scrutinized, interfered and spied on their citizens to such an extent can fully understand the degree of horror and the degree of psychological damage such a system can inflict on people. Just think of 1984. Children turned against their parents. Indoctrinated in school to report any incident any comment and with that the real threat of arrest, trial and possible long term imprisonment or execution.
this really I dont get why many Cubans down there bash Castro while pinning for the days when that Batista let the US use Cuba as a wank sock. That doesnt mean Castro was a saint, far from it, but Castro was just as harsh, especially on the poor. Also, Selig should stay out of this. He made MLB look hypocritical yesterday.
That's because it doesn't deserve any attention. Guillen said something stupid. The Cuban community reaction is even more stupid. The Marlins won 2 World Series and still can't draw fans (we'll see if the new stadium with a roof makes a difference), so I'm sure they thought they had to do something -- since they didn't do what they should have done which is move the team to a better market.