It's called Objective History. Try it some time. Kinda like how The Entire Planet felt that a little boy should be reunited with his father upon the death of the mother, but somehow in Miami, ppl felt that families should be separated b/c the family in question lived in a country with which they disagreed.
Taking into account overall number of deaths caused by the regime, overall level of government intrusion in the lives and privacy of all citizens over the long term, and overall length of time being in power, which six Latin American dictatorships would you rank as worse than Castro's regime? Lets say since the 60s, when Castro took over. And by "level of irrationality" in Miami, do you mean that the Cubans are not following the party line and voting Democratic, like all good Latinos should? Or do you mean that they should not continue to try to oppose from exile the regime from which they fled?
Learn to read and improve your reading comprehension. I stated contrary to some that believe Fidel was a more benevolent dictator. Are you familiar with the phrase dripping with sarcasm. Some of you seem to think Castro was not as bad as Batista. Your buddy on this thread tried to buoy his beliefs by asserting that Batista killed Cubans at a faster rate than Castro did so that made him worse. He and you completely fail to respond to the level of the invasion of privacy and the culture of vigilance that the Cuban people have suffered since 1959. Fear of reprisal for saying the wrong thing because of the pervasiveness of the institutions reminds me of 1984. I'm not a Miami Cuban. I am a perfectly rational person. You are the one that reacts like Pavlov's dog when someone asserts that many aspects of life were better pre-revolution, than post. Secondly, get something through your thick skull, I think you would find that the majority of the first generation Cuban Americans have no delusion of going back to Cuba to reclaim land or homes. It would be nice to help rebuild Cuba's infrastructure assuming there was a change in the government from a dictatorship to a democracy, but I don't hold much hope for that happening.
How does Guillen's backlash compare to Marge Schott's "Hitler wasn't that bad of a guy" episode in the early 90s? I was too young to remember much about that.
Didn't she have to give up ownership of her team for some time? As I recall she eventually was forced to sell it. But if I remember correctly, in terms of her offensive behavior, saying something nice about Hitler was just the tip of the iceberg.
Wow. This from a guy who invents strawmen left and right. There have been 4 revolutions in Lat. Am in the last 100 years, and Batista sparked one of them. Maybe b/c we don't dispute it. At all. It's called a Military Dictatorship. Dictator being the operative word. It's called "par for the course". Welcome to military dictatorships. Join the club. Meh. Es la misma vaina, brodda. Rational ppl don't invoke non-existent conversations, or previous conversations. Nobody on this thread called Fidel a benevolent dictator. Nobody on this thread insists that Cubans in Miami or New Jersey or wherever are waiting to reclaim their homes. And yet you introduce those "arguments" to shake your stick at Fidel's windmill. Like infrastructure. Again. I know nuance is a bitch, but just so we're clear: dictatorship = bad. Now. That doesn't mean that 100% of Cuban life is awful. There's nothing wrong w/ recognizing the good and the bad in things. I'm not going to hell b/c I point out that Cuba's infant mortality rate is formidable compared to the rest of Latin America. Or if I point out that medical training in Cuba is seriously deficient. (And I'm not talking about the lack of medicine. I'm talking about the poor medical training standards.) Nuance really is a goddamn bitch, ain't it? Before you drill, doctor, please make sure you have the right patient. Um. I thought you said you were a "rational person". So why on earth are you inventing fake, non-existent debates? Seriously. Where in this thread has anybody asserted that Cubans want to go back and claim their land/cars or whatever? Talk about "delusion"...
Oooookkkkk... Kinda random date there, especially considering the history of dictatorship in Latin America. Whaddayathink Fidel is Persian and invented Latin American dictatorship? But I'll take the bait: Trujillo (DR), Samosa (Nicaragua), Pinochet, Argentina's Junta. Before Fidel, Batista and maybe Machado (previous to Batista). The Guays -- both Para and Uru -- had brutal dictatorships that compete w/ Fidelismo, as did Brazil. Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador... shit... Latin American Military dictatorships are like boob jobs in Miami: they're everywhere. Extend it to the Spanish speaking world and you've got Franco. And then there's always the motherload: Hitler. Stop being disingenuous. Tough... I know. What's "irrational" about Miami is their obsession w/ Fidel. One of my cousins wears a Cuba futbol jersey just for shits and giggles. It's hysterical b/c ppl react so negatively... to their own goddamn country!!!, until they realize... "Oh shit... I'm dissing my own country." Irrational. I couldn't give a rat's ass about which way Miami votes. I see Cuban's conservativism as a function of the fact that they fled a repressive left-wing regime, so the natural response is to swing right. The rest of us in general either fled right-wing dictatorships or are 2nd class citizens, or worse yet... both. The natural reaction is to veer towards the left politically.
I don't think most of those you mention compare to Castro in terms of overall deaths, overall length of time in power and overall intrusiveness in citizens lives. In terms of viciousness yes, some are much worse, but I don't think that's one of the most relevant ways to measure the impact of a particular dictator. I'd say Trujillo definitely is the worst, and trumps Castro. Probably the Somoza and the Duvalier dynasties can be put at a similar level as Castro in terms of overall long term impact in their country and control of its citizens and not that far back in terms of deaths. In terms of pervasiveness and long term influence maybe also Stroessner in Paraguay. (obviously a lot less actual deaths, but he was working on a smaller scale due to a smaller population). But most other Latin American dictators since the 60s or so don't measure up to Castro, because they didn't have the same impact that Castro had on its people. Having grown up under Videla, let me single him out as an example. I can speak better about comparisons to that particular regime, based on my own experience. As bad as we had it, I don't think Videla's regime is in any way comparable to Castro's Cuba. (I single out Videla because he was the main force behind the dirty war and the hardliners from the Junta). As evil and vicious as he was during the dirty war, and even with the disapearances and tortures and the Malvinas war and all the wounds that are still healing, he really wasn't around nearly long enough to be anywhere near as much of an overall negative influence on the country as Castro was in Cuba. For one thing, he never had as much of a grip on power, and that's why most of the murders were done secretly and the full extent of them only came to light later for the most part. And while the civil liberties were compromised, there was never the same pervasive level of intrusion into people's privacy or in terms of stealing our property, in the case of most citizens. Obviously there were victims who lost everything, but nowhere near in numbers or to the extent that you hear from Cuba. In fact many would say that there was more of an intrusion into our privacy during the Peronist era than at the time of the military junta. And of course, even if we had it bad, even if you wanted to make the argument that Argentina was as bad as Cuba -which it wasn't- your second part of the argument is still faulty, because there was really no reason whatsoever for Argentines to get the kind of "preferential treatment" that Cubans got as refugees. That's because at the time most Argentines were free to leave the country -as I eventually did myself- without having to escape and leave everything behind. And at the time it was actually easy for Argentines to get a visa to come to the US, or to go to Western Europe -the preferred location for Argentine exiles. So there really was no need for refugee status or any sort of "preferential treatment". And the number of exiles was much less than for Cubans, for some of the reasons mentioned above. Plus, most exiles returned to Argentina after the regime gave up power in 1983. You can't possibly compare us to Cuban refugees, because our experiences are not really comparable.
Not sure if that was the tip of the iceberg - that was prooooobably the worst of it. I mean, she was racist, homophobic and an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia, but unless my memory is super clouded, but other than that, her biggest problems were that she was kinda mean to anyone other than her dog and she was a woman in the boys' club of baseball club ownership.
I think you're missing the overall point: Fidel is a military dictator and he pretty much follows the trajectory of that phenomenon, except he's been in power so much longer than the average tyrant, which in a way is kinda admirable. Whoa. This thread just went meta. Anywho... Like others have said, it's pretty pointless to be measuring dictatorial penises b/c it obfuscates the fact that Miami Cubans need to chill the **** out, bro.
I thought your point was about "...the preferential treatment Cubans received upon entry into the US, and given the fact that objectively, there were at least a half dozen Latin American dictatorships that were far worse than Castro". (To quote you verbatim). I explained to you why there is no valid comparison in the case of Argentina, and probably that applies to most other cases involving Latin American dictators. Maybe Dominicans or Haitians might have a complaint, as far as not having gotten the same "preferential treatment" while Trujillo and the Duvaliers were in power. Maybe you could add Nicaraguans during the Somoza dynasty as well, but that's probably about it. And Trujillo obviously was in power mostly during an earlier era, it barely intersects with Castro time-wise, so it's not really comparable either.
Wasn't she also the one who pissed off the umpire union because she got all upset that a game was suspended after one of the umpires died on the field?
I think regardless of which dictator has a bigger ... whatever it is you all are arguing ... there's a huge disconnect between Miami Cubans and the rest of the world as it observes US - Cuba relations. This one group talks about Castro so much and makes him out to be a big villain. They are not wrong, but the way they've gone about it has probably resulted in Castro being around for far longer than he would have been otherwise. Now, that certainly can't be proven but I think it's a common perception among other groups who only look in on this whole thing when something like this gets national coverage and it's a view that's supported by the normalization of US relations with several countries that were once just as taboo to Americans. That disconnect between what Cuban-Americans say they want and the perceived effect that their actions and attention have on Castro's longevity are what make them so hard to understand and even empathize with for so many people.
You're cherry picking. The main point that everybody has been making is that Cubans need to chill the **** out. Totally disagree. You're completely forgetting Pinochet and all the strongmen in Central America. And the dictators of the Guays. And Brazil. "Persians invented Dictatorship. Fidel Castro is Persian." Dude. Fidel. Did. Not. Invent. Dictatorship. Add both Batista and Machado to the list, bro. With regards to Trujillo, Castro was the next step in the whole phenomenon of Latin American dictatorship. Why do you think Fidel and Che have such pegue in Latin America? B/c they were a direct middle finger to the US-backed right wing henchmen that made life miserable all over Latin America.
Surely under Castro-Fidel- already in power a few more thousands also perished in Cuba.... can someone provide an estimate? I fail to find it anywhere via "the google..." With all this talk of Latin American dictators... i just remembered that i have to read "La fiesta del chivo" from Vargas Llosa.... BTW, not Latin AMerica, but i remember plenty of Haitians tall me of the brutality of Duvalier (father) about 30k Haitian killed directly as a result of his rule in a short 7 years...that was another true son of a bitch...Just saying....
In Nicaragua's case, the elder Somoza died before Castro rose to power. The Americans dealt with the son's in that countries case, even as the brothers were the puppet-masters in the country. Castro is different in that he was more of a unique case of a dictator in that he came from the system that he fought to destroy. If he was a normal, run-of-the-mill dictator, he wouldn't have lasted as long as he did. He needed the patronage to survive (hence his eventual move to the Soviets) because his supporters were not really supporters of Communism, but of existing Cuban political identities. If he couldn't persuade them, he would have no qualms about getting rid of them. Mortality ran high amongst his revolutionary colleagues. In most parts of Cuba, you would see two flags hanging side by side. One is the Cuban national flag while the other is of the 26 July Movement. Cuba is more Castroian than it would be considered Marxist, since the whole idea is that he now ruled the land with an iron fist.
How would that compare, to say, with the Vietnamese-American community, many of whom had fled the Communist regime as well.
Right - I hesitate to join the dictator penis measuring game the kids are playing here, but if we had some sort of metric for the overall horribleness, I'm thinking the Papa Doc and Baby Doc team would come out ahead of Castro - the Duvaliers were, IMHO, no less oppressive than Castro, and for all of Cuba's ills, it is a semi-functional country (with a healthcare system comparable to ours!) while Haiti is, to this day, a shithole.
In his mind, Papa Doc was riding the country of what he considered those gens de couleur (what the class of freed blacks and mixed race were called in colonial Haiti) that had subjected Haiti to all its ills. You can find that interesting when you see the history that is written about Haiti. Baby Doc wasn't the great butcher, but the boy who grew up with a silver spoon up the arse.
Just to set the record straight, I noted that Ozzie spoke from ignorance and from a lack of understanding of the fan base in Miami. I also believe that once he apologized for his misstatement the issue was settled. You and others have been going on and on about Miami Cubans being lacking in perspective and being myopic about Fidel. I bet a lot of second generation Cuban Americans don't object towards normalizing relations and getting rid of the embargo than you believe. Sure, there are diehards, but I for one do not believe the embargo did anything to help the plight of the Cuban people. Furthermore, normalization of relations will bring greater change by exposing people to information and the truth, but again, with conditions being so poor in Cuba for so long, one would have thought the country ripe for revolution based on the treatment of it's population, but Cubans in Cuba lack will and backbone. Fidel has done an excellent job of always framing the revolution as us alone against the Yanquis Imperialists. His three hour long speeches always focused on how the US was mere hours away from mounting an invasion of the island and people believed him. As for you, you have a hard on for Cuban Americans that doesn't mesh with the facts. A certain element in Miami uses Fidel for political purposes and is as you have described, but not all Cubans in exile believe the embargo had positive results or that normalization of relations is a bad thing. Most see the benefit to the movement towards democracy on the island by normalizing relations and getting rid of the embargo. Cuba is an extremely isolated country where government control of information has helped maintain the status quo. I saw no overreaction on the part of Cubans in Miami. They voiced their displeasure with Guillen. He has served his suspension and returns to the team tomorrow to manage. Since the incident, attendance has not been affected. Time will tell, but this issue with Guillen has played out except for a few die hards. I doubt there will be thousands protesting Tuesday's game. Hundreds perhaps, but not thousands.
Let's just say that somebody in this thread provided inspiration and ample proof. Don't worry, I won't mention you by name. Bullshit. Bullshit in that I've made it abundantly clear that there are different waves of Cuban exiles and that most don't agree w/ the reactionary hard-liners who constantly whine whine whine about everything. In other words, stop propping up fictitious arguments that I've never made. Over-simplification. For starters, they have no problem recognizing the ills of the system, and they have no problem recognizing the advances made in education, health, and especially race relations. And they have no problems recognizing that none of these areas are any where near perfect. It's not for a lack of backbone and will. It's for a lack of necessary tools to get it done. Cuba is a totalitarian regime, and as such controls the weapons of the people's voice as well as the weapons of war. And if the people were to insist on a violent overthrow, in general they recognize that with that would come a ton of negatives: gusanos, retrograde race relations, the super wealthy controlling everything, etc. Well then maybe you can point out where I said something ... anything remotely similar???? Stop. Inserting. Conversations. You've. Had. Since. 1962. Into. This. Thread. Or at the very least, can ya' cite them so that we can kinda sorta follow??? Have you ever been to one of those protests? They're actually quite comical. And they are constant. Dozens a year. For everything. Reuters mentions a bumper avocado crop in Cuba in a year in which competing producers had bad years, and there's a protest in Little Havana about how Reuters supports murderers. "Asesinos!" And I'll state it again: these reactionary voices get tempered out by much more rational voices as any debate rages.
Really. As I said, I grew up with Videla, I marched in Plaza de Mayo for freedom when I was seventeen, and if Videla was still in power in Argentina today, you better believe that I would still be active trying do do something about it. And if somebody on the interet had the nerve to tell me to chill the ******** out I would be very upset. Even with the Junta out of power for many years, there are still wounds, and I can tell you that if the manager of the local MLS team came out saying he loves Videla it would greatly upset me. It might cause me to boycott the team. And Castro was much more of a powerful negative force in Cuba than Videla ever could have hoped to be in Argentina. So I'd be cautious before telling the victims of a regime to "chill the ******** out".
I think the Vietnamese-American community is the closest thing to the Cuban-American community in terms of shared experience. Most of them also had the experience of having to flee the country and leave everything behind. And their attitude seems to have been similar, except that the youngest generation of Vietnamese seems to have mellowed out more than seems to be the case for the Cubans, for the most part. I think the fact that Ho Chi Min is long gone also helps. If Castro was gone, I think the Cubans would mellow more as well. But there is no doubt that the relative warming of relations also has helped, and I think with Vietnamese now able now to go back home and visit relatives it becomes easier to get over their past. But there are still strong feelings within the Vietnamese community, particularly the older generations. I think also a factor is that with concentration primarily in California they've been less powerful politically than the Cubans, who can make more of a difference due to the makeup of Florida. BTW, my wife is Chinese-Vietnamese (born in Vietnam) so I'm quite familiar with the Vietnamese community in California.
Fair enough. And a very valid point. What if that person was a fellow countryman? What if that person was joined in chorus by fellow countrymen who say the same thing 30 times a year for 50 years straight? What if that person was NOT a fellow countryman but somebody who has family there? And your reactionary politics directly affected his/her family? What if b/c of your lack of chill outed-ness affected his/her ability to visit elderly family one last time before they die? What if their incessant whining distracts from the very real pain that unfortunately never gets expressed b/c ppl the world over are sick and tired of their irrationality?
OTTOMH, the "Million-dollar n****r" comments about some of her players stood out even among the Hitler garbage. There may be more in that vein, but I haven't Googled. Being a woman didn't make her an asshole, and it (probably) didn't cause her to think she'd be any more acceptable to her owner peers by being an asshole.